Sunday, July 16, 2006

This, too, is vanity

Don't get me wrong, I want the captured Israeli soldiers to be returned home safely. But all the prayers for these three soldiers that have been circulating this Shabbat and over the Internet might have made sense a few days ago, but now that the shit has hit the fan, I feel like we're in August 1914 and offering our most sincere condolences to the family of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on their tragic loss. It's so much bigger than the three soldiers now.

As for these rallies and other ways to show "support" for Israel: Elf recently posted about 17 Tammuz and quoted Zechariah:

When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months all these seventy years, did you fast for my [God's] benefit? And when you eat and drink, who but you does the eating, and who but you does the drinking (7:5-6)?


In other words, go ahead and fast if it's going to help you (and I did on Thursday), but don't fool yourself into thinking that your fast in itself has any effect.

Likewise, people can go to rallies if it's going to make them feel better, but it's not going to help the situation in Israel any more than going to a Red Sox rally will help the Red Sox win more games. At best, it's an opportunity to gather and commiserate with other Red Sox fans, I mean Israel "supporters", and at worst, it's an opportunity to yell "Nazi" at the New Israel Fund delegation (this happened at the DC rally in April 2002). But that's it.

Some say that the purpose is to sway US public opinion and/or policy. Suppose for the sake of argument that this is accomplished (in whatever direction you want, without loss of generality). Then what? The US doesn't have the ability to get Israel out of this mess. If it did, then it would have done so a long time ago.

The only way out of this mess is to follow this plan (and I don't know or care what order these things should happen in):
  • Hezbollah and Hamas should stop firing rockets into Israel.
  • The IDF should stop bombing Lebanon and Gaza.
  • The three captive Israeli soldiers should be returned safely.
Unless that's going to happen, then everything else is a striving after wind.

Fuck this.
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3 comments:

  1. elfJuly 16, 2006 2:21 AM

    people can go to rallies if it's going to make them feel better, but it's not going to help the situation in Israel any more than going to a Red Sox rally will help the Red Sox win more games.

    I know. But it sucks be so powerless under these circumstances.

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  2. Abacaxi MamaoJuly 16, 2006 4:59 AM

    I didn't know that "raut ruach" meant "striving after wind." I guess I always thought "raut" was from the root meaning "bad," not from the same root as the word meaning "shepherd." Striving after wind is much cooler, though.

    As far as rallies go, I'm hoping to go tomorrow, although being that it's nearly 5 am (i.e., 6 hours before the rally), I'm not sure it's happening. I mostly want to go for the memorial service part. Also, I guess, it feels better to be with other people who are concerned about the current state of affairs in Israel than to be, say, sleeping or reading about Tour de France participants with bad hips.

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  3. the_invisible_handJuly 16, 2006 7:33 PM

    alg: in that vein, "reut ruach" could mean "bad wind"... like flatulence?
    bz is right: it does mean to chase after, or strive for.
    michael fox, who has written two superlative commentaries on kohelet fascinatingly translates "hevel" as "futility," which seems like an appropriate sentiment for the tone of your post.

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