As the Middle East horrors continue, JAN CORBETT tests the mood of Jews and Palestinians who watch events unfolding half a world away.
When Jeremy Lawrence went to leave his inner-city house on Wednesday morning he saw a sight that would sicken most people. The back window of his car was smashed in, leaving a frame of shattered glass around a gaping hole. It wasn't enough for Lawrence to phone the police. He wanted its specialist threat assessment unit. This was Israeli independence day and Jeremy Lawrence is Auckland's rabbi.
Around the world, as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon comes under intense international pressure to withdraw his troops from Palestinian towns and villages, Jews are feeling more defensive than ever. Missiles, tanks, heavily armed troops and bulldozers turned on Palestinian civilians in refugee camps which might harbour terrorist cells, just isn't a good look. They know that. But do they justify it?
Some feel uncomfortable with Sharon's tactics, but fear that to criticise him publicly is to let the team down. They also don't want to be labelled self-haters by their Jewish peers. This is a race, a religion and a culture, remember, that has been persecuted since history began.
But according to Britain's Guardian newspaper, Jews there and in America are increasingly uneasy with Israel's hard-line military action. One rabbi was quoted as saying, "Somewhere inside us we feel uncomfortable with the events that are taking place".
Veteran Jewish Labour MP Gerald Kaufman denounced Sharon as a war criminal, adding "It is time to remind Sharon that the Star of David belongs to all Jews and not his repulsive Government. His actions are staining the Star of David with blood."
At the same time, Britain and the Commonwealth's chief rabbi complained of a rise in anti-semitism allied to Israel's actions on the West Bank, which he defends.
To treat Jews as a generic group with shared opinions is ridiculous. Israel is a democracy. Asking Jews what they think of Sharon, says Mike Regan, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, would be like asking New Zealanders what they thought of Rob Muldoon.
Superficially, Jews who are willing to criticise the Israeli Government are less likely to be involved in a Jewish congregation. Except, that is, for the New York-based Naturei Karta, who are orthodox Jews bitterly opposed to an Israeli state and abuses against the Palestinians, declaring that Jews are a people in exile by divine decree.
This week an email that originated in Sweden among relatives of Holocaust victims began circulating among Jews in this country. Titled the "Jewish Manifesto" it declares that "Sharon is Israel's worst enemy". The signatories, who at the time it arrived here included academic and professional Jews living in Sweden and the United States - among them acclaimed liberal intellectual Noam Chomsky - "totally repudiate Ariel Sharon's claim to speak in the name of world Jewry".
At least one local signatory, Jeremy Rose of Wellington, is "happy to be counted among the descendants of Holocaust survivors opposed to Sharon".
The manifesto blames Sharon's declaration of war on Palestine for bringing the Middle East to the brink of nuclear war. "Israel has nuclear weapons and there is little doubt that Sharon is fully prepared to use them." It describes Sharon as "the biggest threat to the Israeli people and Jews around the world".
Apart from listing Sharon's alleged war crimes dating back as far as 1952, it accuses him of torpedoing the peace process and counts him among "the world's cruelest and most despicable dictators".
It calls for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and for a peacekeeping force to be sent in.
Rabbi Lawrence, whose aunt was killed by a Palestinian bomb in 1984, doubts the manifesto represents most Jewish opinion.
Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, might have been divided in its views of Sharon when he was elected but Lawrence thinks terror has united most Israelis behind him, in the way America united behind Bush post-September 11.
Lawrence says his congregation "supports the need for strong action to defend Israel and its civilian population".
He realises they are in no position to judge the military strategy and that "no one feels comfortable with the images we see". But, he adds, "no one feels comfortable with images of people being blown up in restaurants".
A representative government has a duty to defend its citizens, he believes. He says no one here can justify whether the Israeli Army needed to knock down a particular building to prevent an ambush.
"But do I want to make sure my best friend and my cousin-in-law are safe? Yes. Do I believe the failure of the Palestinian Authority to uphold its side of the Oslo accords and take steps to prevent terrorism requires Israel to root out those terrorists? Yes."
It might be half a world away, but the links between New Zealand Jews and Israel are close - most have friends or relatives living there who, after each explosion, send emails home to say they are safe. They report how they no longer go out unnecessarily, and never go to a supermarket or restaurant.
Lawrence has studied in Israel and has seen the terrible conditions in the Palestinian refugee camps. He understands the Palestinian frustration and agrees that it is no way to live.
But he is also seeing and reading graphic material allegedly from Palestinians, urging people to secure eternal salvation by killing a Jew.
Among Auckland's progressive Jewish congregation, feelings are similar to those of Orthodox Jews, as espoused by Lawrence. Its president, David Robinson, argues for a peaceful and secure Jewish homeland - "the Holocaust is still fresh in people's minds" - but realises the question is how to go about it. "Both sides have to get off their high horses," he says.
In the debates that he has been part of, Stephen Goodman, president of the Auckland Jewish Council, says there is tacit understanding of what Sharon is doing, but concern about its long-term implications. "Going into Palestinian areas even for the best motive may make it more difficult to negotiate a solution.
"There's a huge sadness about the situation. I haven't heard anyone who's happy with Arafat or Sharon's response. But what other choice did the Israeli Government have but to go in and remove the threat?"
What particularly frustrates the Jewish community is that the world supports the US going into Afghanistan to root out terrorists yet condemns Israel for doing the same thing, even when the terrorists are living a 15-minute drive away.
One Jew, who is not aligned to any congregation, insists you cannot ask Jews what they think of Sharon's military invasion without asking Palestinians what they think of suicide bombers.
David Wakim, spokesman for the local Palestine Human Rights Campaign, has a position remarkably similar to how the Jews here feel about Sharon's actions: we don't like it, but we understand it.
Yet he is disappointed to hear Auckland's Jews are giving qualified approval to Sharon, and complains that they never publicly criticise what the Israeli Government does. Wellington Jews are "more enlightened", he says.
"Palestinians don't want their kids dying," he says, describing the suicide bombers as "loose cannons who are psychologically disturbed" by their desperate situation and hopelessness for the future.
But Wakim says "resistance should be against soldiers and settlers occupying their land. It's not valid to go and kill civilians."
But unless Israel gets back behind the 1967 borders and stops killing Palestinian civilians, there will always be Palestinians who see the stories about Israeli civilians being killed by suicide bombers and who cannot help feeling Israel deserves it.
These are the sorts of entrenched positions honed from generations of religious and racial antagonism that mean whenever Jeremy Lawrence has a car window smashed he will never simply believe that some lowlife just wanted to steal his car, as happens routinely in the city. He will always suspect something far more sinister.
Feature: Middle East
Map
History of conflict
UN: Information on the Question of Palestine
Israel's Permanent Mission to the UN
Palestine's Permanent Observer Mission to the UN
Middle East Daily
Arabic News
Arabic Media Internet Network
Jerusalem Post
Haaretz Daily
US Department of State - Middle East Peace Process
Middle East war atrocities split loyalties
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