As Jews celebrate Sukkot, we focus on the sukkah. Its crucial characteristic is that its roof is not only leafy but also leaky: open enough to see the stars, open enough for rain or a robber to enter. If it is built to be invulnerable, it is no longer kosher.
Yet in the evening prayers, we ask God to “spread over us the sukkah of Your shalom, Your peace.” Why is this vulnerable house the home of peace? Because only when we all know and publicly acknowledge how vulnerable we are — all of us — and only when we respect that vulnerability in others as well as acknowledge it in ourselves, can we make peace with each other.
But during the week before Sukkot, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government violated this basic wisdom. Pretending to be invulnerable itself, it took advantage of the Palestinians’ vulnerability. Now Palestinian and Israeli families alike are paying in the coin of death the price of that violation.
Some have argued that opening the tunnel alongside the ancient Temple site was no big deal. In an atmosphere of cooperation and negotiation, it might not have been. But lighting a match among friends in the open air is very different from lighting a match in a room where you have poured gasoline in every corner.
And in a region already reeking of gasoline — some of which was poured by Palestinians who chose terrorism — the Netanyahu government has spent the last three months sloshing more of it everywhere. Announcing that many more settlers would be installed in the West Bank, the government refused to proceed with the withdrawal from Hebron mandated in the Oslo agreement. The government has demolished homes and community centers in Arab eastern Jerusalem.
The government should have known that to open the tunnel was to toss a burning match into the gasoline-soaked room.
The tunnel has a long history. A worker who spent 17 years as a tourist guide there when the tunnel still had only one entrance recalls: “In digging this tunnel several decades ago, a 2,000-year-old gate to the Temple Mount was discovered. In medieval times, the entrance ramp beyond the gate had been converted into a water cistern. Moslems on the Mount heard the shovels of the Jews breaking through the ancient doorway into the water cistern. I was told that Rav Getz [the rabbi of the Wall] personally held off a mass of Moslem youths who rallied to the site. With his personal stature, he averted a riot — he was from North Africa. The Moslems then cemented up the doorway, which is how it’s remained ever since.
“Every time I guided folks in this tunnel I would point out the ancient gate to them. Because the tunnel is so narrow, very few people could enter, and each group needed to walk to the end and then return. It made sense to open the other end. But several years ago a riot ensued when Israel tried to do just that, so the opening was postponed.”
The guide went on to say, “In a peaceful Jerusalem, it would make all the sense in the world to have the tunnel open at both ends.”
Probably true. In a peaceful marriage, it makes sense for the spouses to make love. But when the spouses are angry or distrustful of each other and one insists on sex while the other is unwilling does not make sense. It makes rape.
Small wonder the gasoline-filled room exploded.
What to do now? The Israeli government must perform two crucial actions, and the Palestinian Authority must perform one. Netanyahu must close the tunnel and withdraw Israeli troops from most of Hebron, as required by the Oslo agreement. That will douse the flames and wash away some of the gasoline. Arafat must restore his police force to the status of police — not soldiers — by making sure they do not have machine guns.
Whether they are for use on Palestinian crowds or Israeli soldiers, these guns seem more than what a normal police force needs.
Most basic of all, both Israelis and Palestinians must recall the profound wisdom of the sukkah: Both peoples are vulnerable. The fate of each is intertwined with the fate of the other. The leaders of both peoples must say this in public and judge every act by that standard.
Only then will the stink of gasoline be washed out of the two houses that stand side by side. Only then will both become the homes of peace.