Israel had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
If there was one point that Avraham Infeld wanted to get across at his recent appearance at the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation building, it was that: It was neither U.S. support of Israel nor Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians that fueled Osama bin Laden’s rage.
Rather, the attacks — which happened on his wife’s birthday, an occasion he’ll never forget again, he promised then and there — were a declaration of war by one value system against another.
The perpetrators believe “their side is the one, true way,” he said, and if you disagree, “you don’t have the right to exist.”
Infeld, the founder of Melitz, a progressive educational institution in Israel, was here as scholar-in-residence at the JCF. He also sits on the Amuta, the board of Israelis that advises the federation about which projects to fund in the Jewish state.
A kippah-wearing Orthodox Jew who identifies with Israel’s left wing, Infeld is a highly animated speaker. While optimistic about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he is pessimistic about America vs. bin Laden.
In regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “I’m optimistic because there’s no other choice” than the establishment of a Palestinian state, he said.
Describing the conflict as two peoples fighting to claim their national identity on all of the same land, Infeld said that neither side is able to do away with the other, so sharing it is the only way out.
Meanwhile, the conflict America is engaged in against terrorism has no such nationalist roots.
“It’s a battle against evil, and you don’t negotiate with evil,” he said.
Much of Infeld’s talk revolved around Sept. 11, as he described the Israeli reaction to the events of that tragic day.
Israelis had several responses, he said. Shock was the first. Second, was, “Wow, now Americans will understand.” And third was, “America has been very good to Israel; now we can repay this debt because we know how to deal with it.”
And America’s response?
“Our hands were slapped. We were told to stay out of it. You’re not part of this coalition,” he said, referring to the anti-terrorism coalition the United States has formed in the wake of Sept. 11.
Regarding the Palestinians, Infeld stressed that those who danced in the streets in celebration were a small minority.
Nonetheless, he said, Israelis have not been sensing American support right now, nor have they been sensing it from American Jews.
That support should be a given, he said, as we are one people.
“Sometimes we Jews forget that we are a people, and not only a religion,” he said. “Israel has no right to exist if Judaism is only a religion.”
Then, he quipped, “What religion has a state except the Vatican?”
Contending that “in the world we live in today, it is impossible to remain a people without a state in which you are not sovereign,” he said that was why the Palestinians needed a state of their own as well.
“Israeli Arabs will only sing ‘Hatikvah’ when they know that somewhere their anthem is sung as well,” he said.
When Israeli Arabs began to identify themselves as Palestinians — after 13 of them were killed by Israeli police last October — the typical Israeli reaction was shock. Infeld said he was thrilled.
“Israeli Arab citizens have been as loyal as any minority anywhere in the world, but they are part of a people,” he said.
When asked how he could still belong to the left in Israel — at a time when the left has been all but pronounced dead — Infeld said, “The left is the same left, but a very disappointed one.
“The reaction of the Palestinians frightens them, but all of them would tomorrow sign a peace agreement and be supportive of it.”
Infeld said that the left has always been an uncomfortable place for those few who are also Orthodox Jews. “The people I pray with don’t want to talk to me.”
While minuscule in numbers, he said, those who constitute the religious left haven’t wavered in their beliefs. “Our rootedness is in our Jewishness.”