By NEAL GOSMAN
When I returned from the American war in Vietnam, it took me several years to actually come back. This was before I met and married your mom.
For years before my deployment in that combat zone, I had been an informed and principled opponent of the American intervention in that foreign war. I had also involved myself in the Civil Rights movement and the war on poverty here at home to “repair the world.”
Both on my flight to Vietnam and the flight home, I had time to contemplate the multiple failures of my efforts so far.
I was a soldier fighting for my country, for an America that had given refuge to my ancestors and opportunity to my parents and me; but it was for a war that was criminally wrongheaded and for a homeland of deep internal injustices.
In my later years, after a career of raising you girls and working jobs that I hoped made a positive change, I began a retirement job with Homeland Security following the events of 9/11. I remember that the youngest of you was in New York City at the time and saw parts of the attack with your own eyes. I was recently awarded a pin in recognition of 25 years of service to the United States.
This is a U.S. that has been a beacon of liberty, democracy and enlightenment to many peoples of the world. This is also a country that was founded on conquest of Native land, human slavery, racist supremacy, class injustice and military excess. The U.S. defends freedom and at the same time suppresses democracy. It offers economic opportunity while it fosters homelessness, mass incarceration, income inequality and public health care deficits.
The U.S. was the first of now many new nations, founded by enlightened men on principles of human equality and civil rights guaranteed by a mutually agreed upon written Constitution. Its origins were noble but flawed. We fought a Civil War to amend constitutional protections to all men, and took another century to allow women, Native Americans and African Americans to vote. Racist immigration policies ended only 50 years ago. Women are still not granted equal rights in our Constitution.
And still I serve my country.
As Rabbi Tarfon said, “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it” (Pirke Avot 2:15).
There is a lesson I have learned: Nations, though founded on principles and defended by patriots, are built on blood, conquest and exploitation. It is a defining aspect of nationhood. Without war and governmental coercion, peoples would be dispersed and landless.
Wait. Did I just describe the Jewish people?
Not quite. Though dispersed and landless, Jews remained a people through their Torah.
So, we come to this: Are Israelis Jews? Or are they the nation of Israel?
Nearly 25,000 Israelis have died fighting for and defending their homeland in the past century of struggle. Many more have been injured and maimed. It is a heroic sacrifice made for home and nation. Israeli defenders have earned their place in the ranks of history.
But how do we remember and honor the hundreds of thousands of Jewish fighters who died in modern times for their homelands not in Israel — 150,000 in the Soviet Red Army, 30,000 for Poland, 22,000 for the Austria-Hungary Empire, 17,000 for the U.S., 16,000 for France, 6,000 for Great Britain, even 11,000 for Germany?
Clearly, Jews in Eastern Europe were betrayed for their patriotism and sacrifices. The Shoah is a crime that reverberates through history. Elsewhere, Jews have earned their rightful place in the nations that they served and where they now live.
We can take pride and claim equal rights in our homelands. And we must take our share of the responsibility for the crimes and excesses of our nations.
We Jews have done our share in the destruction of the peoples of other nations with whom we have warred. Injustices done to us may explain, but do not absolve us from, crimes of national wars.
We American have done our share in the destruction of the peoples of other nations with whom we have warred. Injustices done to us may explain, but do not absolve us from, crimes of our national wars.
In the 9/11 attacks, nearly 3,000 American were killed. In retaliation, more than 4,000 American soldiers died and unleashed the deaths of somewhere between 200,000 to 600,000 civilian casualties in Iraq. And, of course, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
In further retaliation in Afghanistan, more than 2,000 American soldiers died and unleashed the deaths of around 200,000 civilians there. The Taliban government in Afghanistan had marginally something to do with 9/11. They have returned to power.
Let’s not talk about Korea, World War II or the 50 other military interventions by American troops in other people’s countries in the 20th century, including Iran, Cuba, Haiti and El Salvador.
In August, 1964, the U.S. government lied about an attack on U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin and used that excuse to invade Vietnam. We lost over 50,000 troops and killed perhaps one million people. The U.S.-led war also triggered the events that led to the Cambodian genocide.
And I did my part there — fighting for and defending America. People thank me for that now.
Which brings me back to Israel and the Palestinians.
Stop. Look. Listen. Fix this.
“It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
Beginning a century and a quarter ago, Zionists searched for a solution to the European “Jewish problem.” They found it in a land where other people were already living. In a good European pattern of nationality, the Zionists determined that Jews, too, are a nation and therefore entitled to assert their own patriotic right to build a nation on blood, conquest and exploitation.
Two of you have married into Mizrachi Jewish families. Four of the grandparents of your children are Jews who speak Arabic. Only two of their grandparents speak English.
As your dad, I will give you more unsolicited advice: ask your in-laws to teach Arabic to your Israeli children. Although your kids are Israelis, they are also U.S. citizens. If they choose to come to America, they can — and English would be helpful. If your kids intend to remain in the Middle East as Israelis, they need to be able to speak and live with their neighbors and compatriots in Israel.
From 1942 to 1945, the Third Reich killed six million Jews in Europe. Yet within 10 years, the State of Israel had strong economic and cultural relations with the government of Germany. Today, more than 120,000 Jews live by choice in Germany — protected, peaceful and productive. Short wars can end.
For more than 400 years, The Troubles between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland raged on in battlefields and in the streets. It ended on Good Friday 1998. Long wars can end.
The land where you live is now home to Jews and to Arabs.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has lasted as long as my lifetime. Unlike the French in Algeria, the conflict is not a settler-colonialist occupation because there is no place that Israelis can go back to. It is a civil war that needs to end in coexistence.
Israel is now the most unsafe place in the world for a Jew to be. This is not heading in the right direction and is not sustainable.
Do now what you can to keep the unsettled conflict from lasting as much longer as the lifetime of your children.
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Neal Gosman works as a TSA (Transportation Security Administration) officer at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. His three American-born daughters are Israeli citizens. He has 31 Israeli-born grandchildren and two Israeli-born great-grandchildren.
(American Jewish World, March 2024)
