I have to react to Steve Gevinson’s One-View [We agree on the need for discourse, Viewpoints, June 5]. What else can I do? He called me (and Caren Van Slyke) “deceptive and otherwise unscrupulous.” I have to unleash self-defense, don’t I? Like Israel, I have to re-establish dominance over (journalistic) real estate. I must remorselessly pound rivals into oblivion. Right?
So, to commence the responsive barrage … Steve again warns the Oak Park Village Board not to risk the slippery slope of public engagement outside its jurisdiction, even helpfully identifying over three dozen unrelated subjects he deems beyond the board’s ken.
Actually, the board has already addressed the very first issue on Steve’s list — guns, as recently as last year [1]. Then there was the Welcoming Village ordinance in 2017, responding to the national immigration debate [2]. A pedant might object that those were ordinances, not resolutions, but I would deceptively reply that ordinances, being enforceable, are even stronger statements of community commitment. The more meaningful principle here is that the board can and should act, using mechanisms appropriate to the circumstances, when the public demands it.
Steve would seem to agree. He says our government entities provide “ways to resolve conflicts fairly and without violence.” (If only the Israeli government, which Steve aptly describes as “by far the worst government in Israel’s history,” also agreed.) Isn’t our disagreement about a cease-fire resolution, exactly a call to proceed without violence? But instead of the resolution, Steve recommends “education and civil discourse.” OK, I’ll take those disingenuous recommendations disingenuously. The resolution’s proponents, and the overwhelming majority in our progressive village, have been educating themselves since last autumn and now want the mass slaughter (and starvation and utter destruction) in Gaza stopped. As for civil discourse, aren’t we — Steve and I and Caren Van Slyke and many others — civilly discoursing on paper? Haven’t the pro-ceasefire demonstrations been entirely peaceful, with virtually no police presence? And why should any of this postpone a call to ceasefire?
Because, lacking substantial community support, delay is the point of Steve’s recommendations. Because if more of the “89,004 local governments in the U.S.” (Steve’s research) were to insist on a ceasefire, there would be more pressure on federal decision-makers to halt weapons deliveries to Israel. Delay is Israel’s enabler, so it can finish its maximalist job. And even more disingenuous is the “education” ploy. Education is Steve’s euphemism for expanding support for Israel. But while that support flows from the one-sided tribal teachings we both received as Jewish youth, the actual history of Palestine-Israel disgraces Israel.
Steve also incorrectly says I attribute “Israel’s actions to one motive: vengeance.” Nope again. I also attribute Israel’s actions to a determination to seize land and resources in Gaza and the West Bank [3], to a drive to restore its regional dominance [4], to an intention to minimize and enclose the Arab population [5], to an embedded fear of Jewish annihilation, to a post-Holocaust expectation of unique status, and to the political and messianic ambitions of Netanyahu and his cronies [6]. Israel promotes only itself. As Steve himself puts it, “people are competitive by nature and will always have conflicts.” Israelis are people. What I don’t attribute Israel’s actions to is the noble mythology that virtually every group ascribes to itself.
Finally, Steve claims I intended a “slur” when noting he’s a former educator. Nope. Didn’t. Wouldn’t. Our son’s a third grade teacher on the West Side. I was a teacher in my much younger years. The “slur” I did intend (and I suspect Steve actually knows this) is that he fails to meet the standard of unbiased analysis I expect from a competent educator. On this particular subject, that is. More generally, I respect Steve’s history as an educator.
But let’s not lose sight of what we’re discussing. A ceasefire. Gaza is pulverized. Its people are hungry and homeless, sick and wounded. Or dead. Its remaining fighters survive through underground bunkers. The only Israelis now at risk from Gaza are in Gaza, making war on everyone and everything. And presumably no Israelis will again allow their arrogant, self-serving leadership to ignore clear warnings [7].
There’s no justification for more killing. Period. So I urge my co-villagers, as deceptively and unscrupulously as I can, to add Oak Park’s voice to the ceasefire chorus.
[1] www.oak-park.us/newsletters/novemberdecember-2023/safe-storage-firearms-required.
[2] www.oak-park.us/our-community/community-relations/welcoming-village
[4] www.israelhayom.com/2024/01/23/winning-is-incomplete-without-deterrence/
[5] cnn.com/2024/01/17/middleeast/israel-far-right-gaza-settler-movement-cmd-intl/index.html
[6] www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/22/benjamin-netanyahu-israel-gaza-hamas-war-hostages
[7] www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
