Daniel Gordis' "Gordonian Not"

Daniel Gordis and I got to know each other three years ago when he asked me, on behalf of the Wexner Foundation to participate in its summer program here in Israel.

One of the major themes was "the settlements". Daniel wanted a different type of tour than the previous time the subject was on the agenda a few years back and I was asked to do the job. I think it went well. I introduced him to some friends and now and then, I comment on his thinking as expressed in his send-outs.

We haven't kept up a proper ongoing correspondence but I do receive his postings and the latest, "Gentlemen, Bow Your Heads", brought a big smile. It deals with the four recent documents [I, II, III and IV Gordis' links] in which the Arab minority community in Israel is in the process of declaring itself, in one way or another, independent of Israel. Well, that's how I see it.

Gordis is quite well aware of what these documents mean. And he is surprised:-

Amazingly, though, very few people with whom I work, or socialize, said very much about these documents. The critique sounded vaguely legitimate to many of them, I know. And even though most of my colleagues viscerally didn't want to give up on the idea of a Jewish State, they didn't really know how to respond. How do we balance the Jewish and the democratic? Is the Israeli-Arab population really a fifth column bent on the end of the Jewish State? As bright and intellectually sophisticated as they are, nothing about the educations that many of my colleagues received in Israel prepared them to have this conversation. So they read the documents, and said nothing, to anyone.

Well, Gordis has his work cut out for him. If he wants to dialogue with Arab counterparts, that's fine. But it's with the Jews that the problem lies. And Gordis will find out that they don't really want to know about this rumbling undercurrent of Arab opposition to a Jewish state, no matter who runs it - Peace Now, Gideon Levy or Danny ("Apartheid") Rubinstein. They deny it; pretend that the problem doesn't exist; make excuses; blame their fellow Jews. For them, this new Arab resurgence of taking back the state from the Jews is not to be debated the way it should.

And as for Daniel, he'll be facing a Gordonian Not.