Second in a Series (Part I)
The tiny state of Israel is one of today’s most remarkable albeit most controversial nations. Its resurrection from the dust of history is without parallel. Whether Israel’s sovereignty is an act of political ingenuity, one of divine providence, or a strange mixture of both, neither Jewish nor Gentile historians seem able to decide.
Unlike those who recently won independence in places like India, Burma, and Ceylon, the Israelites, after surviving 19 centuries of dispersion, were “restored” to a land inhabited mainly by Arabs for 13 centuries. The country’s long-neglected natural resources were quickly harnessed by modern scientific techniques to serve a million immigrants and refugees since 1948, mostly from Eastern and Central Europe, from Arab countries like Yemen and Iraq, and from North Africa. Students of Bible prophecy quickly recalled ancient predictions about the regathering of the Jews in Palestine and about a future prosperity when even the desert would blossom like the rose.
For the first time’ in 2000 years the Hebrews now have at hand all necessary conditions for shaping their own culture. In this transition process the Hebrew language, so long confined to the margins of life, has
once again become a vigorous living language; it gives contemporary force to the ancient medium of the Old Testament. At the same time the Near East’s long-slumbering powers that reach back to early biblical times are participating once again in the lively dialogue of the nations and are asserting their places on the. front pages of the world press. The whole of Palestinian history almost seems to have revived for some awesome end-time drama.
To the younger generation (two-fifths of the population is now Israeli-born) it seems incredible that European Jews faced genocide instead of “taking care” of Eichmann. Colossal self-assurance and gratification over military prowess is a discernible feature of Hebrew nationalism, and especially of the dedication of Israeli youth to the new state. Israeli men and unmarried women, who at 18 begin two years of military service, place unbounded confidence in the Israeli army. This force, after all, repulsed the Arabs in 1948.
Recently I spent 10 days in Israel, having arrived in Tel Aviv by El A1 jet from New York. I traveled 1000 miles by car, constantly interviewing Jewish leaders and people as well as many workers in the small Christian community. Through the courtesy of the Israeli Embassy, I had unhurried access to leaders m government, education, religious affairs, natural resources, and community planning. One fact is obvious: while many large powers today are fearful about even holding their places on the map, tiny Israel-about the size of New Jersey and having a population of 1,931,000 Hebrews encompassed by 30 million Arabs in bordering states—buoyantly anticipates the future. The American Jewess who asked us “Do you think they’ll make it?” had her eye on the soft comfort and luxury of the United States, not on the determination of countless
Jews regathered from lands of persecution in the post-Eichmann era.
FROM DAN TO BEERSHEBA
We drove north to the Syrian frontier, south to Beersheba and the Negev. We saw the ruins of Acre (Akko) and Megiddo, Ashkelon, and Sodom (lowest spot on earth), and the remnants of Caesarea, the Roman capital of Palestine. We glimpsed the huge prestressed concrete pipes of the spectacular Jordan-Negev water diversion scheme which, with the Western Galilee-Kishon and Yarkon-Negev projects, within three years will provide an abundance of one of the Near East’s most precious commodities. This irrigation system will compensate for the dry season of April to November, and once more turn the desert (which in biblical times was fruitful and supported up to 100,000 persons) into an area of fertility. We preached during the 50th anniversary festivities of the Baptist Church of Nazareth (through an Arab interpreter); took a cruiser across the Sea of Galilee; touched the outskirts of Dimona, in the central Negev desert area east of Beersheba, where new housing in the next three years will multiply the population from 5,000 to 30,000. We visited the Lachish resettlement in the northern Negev area that integrates Jews from many lands through a bold venture in civic planning. We noted the correlation of crops relatively new to Israel, such as peanuts, sugar cane, cotton (its fiber yield per acre the highest in the world), with nearby transportation-saving industrial establishments such as cotton, sisal and nylon fiber plants, sugar and peanut oil processing centers. The nation, we learned, already meets 50 per cent of her own cotton requirements; in fact, unless exports are increased Israel may actually face overinvestment in the textile industry. The value of overall exports already registers $350 million a year. After citrus fruits and industrial diamonds (a field opened when Hitler drove the Jewish diamond cutters out of Holland), tourism is expected to be the nation’s third biggest “export” by 1965. We observed light planes dusting the fields and learned that the Weizmann Institute of Science had eliminated the Mediterranean fruit fly and had developed chemicals to combat invading clouds of locusts. Agriculturally, Israel is now one of the three exporters of bananas to Europe. She also exports 300 million eggs a year. In the next few years $60 million will be invested in Dead Sea development, where the potash works alone export 98 per cent of their chemical products. In World War II these Palestinian operations provided most of the potash for British explosives and repair service for Allied war equipment. Today Israel exports arms, since she produces 11 times her own needs in submachine guns, mortar, and cannon. This same Dead Sea area supplies entire nations with salt and supports a thriving pharmaceutical industry. Already the film industry shows some strength, and before the end of 1962 television will be a reality unless Ben-Gurion’s opposition prevails. We glimpsed one of Israel’s two atomic reactors—the one in the Negev will be ready in two years, the one near Rehovot scientists use for training younger specialists. Since inquisitive strangers first misidentified them as mills, the atomic plants are joshingly referred to by Israeli scientists as “textile industries” run by expert “tailors.”
We visited the teeming campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—finest in the Middle East—whose enrollment of 5,000 will double before very long. In Haifa we toured the Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology) that offers almost 2,500 students academic degrees through the doctorate in modern science and technology. We stopped at the Weizmann Institute, now the largest supplier to the world of 98–99 per cent concentrate heavy oxygen for research tracing. In addition to meeting her own needs we discovered that Israel is already exporting tires. She also has a petrochemical industry. We drove to Ashdod where a whole seaport city as well as the biggest power station south of Tel Aviv is being planted in the sand. With vastly expanded farming in view as water shortages are overcome, and as agriculture responds to scientific direction, the Kibbutz, or communal settlement, is probably on its way out in Israel except for strategic or military purposes in border areas. All in all in contrast with other ancient lands whose museums and ruins speak only of past glory, the heartbeat of Israel pulses expectantly with what is yet to be.
LAND WITHOUT PROBLEMS?
Israel is not, however, without its problems. Some of the difficulties are surface deep, others chronic and ingrained.
As already noted, striking progress has been made with respect to natural resources. And diversion of water from the Jordan Valley helps moderate the sobering fact that 58 per cent of the land (from Beersheba south) is desert. Cattle raising has not yet proved successful in Israel’s climate, however, and beef (imported frozen from Argentina and Ethiopia) is expensive. Pork is not, of course, in great demand. Drillings for oil have proved generally disappointing except at Heletz which supplies one tenth of the national needs. Although several new tries are under way on Mount Carmel, those in the Negev and Dead Sea Valley are now valued mainly for their production of natural gases. Railroads especially south of Beersheba need much improvement. National projects deal with the housing problem; 100,000 co-operative apartments (three rooms, no central heating) are priced comparatively high, with a down payment of one third and involving many immigrants in substantial indebtedness. Because of government rent controls, home ownership for investment purposes offers little opportunity for profit. Such a situation among people with an average income of only $147 per month (even considering two wage earners in quite a number of families) would hardly attract to Israel American Jews skilled in successful business operations.
Labor as such is a powerful political force in Israel; in fact, Ben-Gurion’s Mapei party has dominated government policy. Nonetheless this work force poses serious problems. For one thing, some of the immigrants from Europe have virtually stepped from the Middle Ages into a twentieth century setting. And laborers from North Africa and other Arab lands lack the Western Puritan work morale that has contributed so largely to Jewish success in business. On the premise that labor supplies the main support of a sound national life, many Jews, long homeless, have been given work that undergirds their “sense of belonging” and also assists the new state’s fight for self-sufficiency. A mass return to the soil, for example, so necessary for economic survival, is a case in point. Because its society is essentially classless with little wage difference between professional and nonprofessional workers, Israel seldom attracts immigrants of professional stature. From America, therefore, where many Jews are professionally skilled in law, medicine, and the sciences, immigrants have been few. In fact, there are still more Jews in New York City alone (2,500,000) than in all of Israel (1,931,000).
MORAL ASPECTS OF LIFE
More important than socio-economic problems, however, is the question of moral strength. Although a land of wine Israel is not beset by drunkenness, and the sexual vices so common in many Western lands do not seem to have gripped Israeli youth. Prostitution is forbidden throughout the state. Compulsory service in the Army for both men and women develops self-reliance, physical fitness, and a certain sense of social and national responsibility. Many newlyweds establish their own homes in co-operative apartments instead of returning to communal life in the Kibbutzim. Divorces unfortunately are as common in Israel as in America. While Israel continues to develop its own movie industry, the worst as well as the best American films may be seen in the city theaters. Leisure time activities are often a family affair, with abundant opportunity for conversation; someone has said “there are two million people in Israel and four million opinions.” Soccer is the major national sport, and amateur archaeology almost equally popular. Of the state’s monthly lottery income of $250,000, 80 per cent goes for building schools and hospitals. Apart from Tel Aviv, Israel’s gayest night spot, Beersheba (where the patriarchs once wandered with their sheep) is now the liveliest town, probably because of its concentration of young married couples. In a city like Tel Aviv, with its bright lights and gaudy as well as commercial side, leisure becomes for many of the younger generation merely a distraction rather than a cultural opportunity; the seashore is thronged during holidays, and interest in cultural affairs is less characteristic of Tel Aviv than of Jerusalem.
The moral predicament of the Israeli is not so much a matter of external wickedness as of internal vacuum. Conformity to sabbatical and other restrictions is for multitudes a matter of routine and not of ethical decision. To what extent the growing interest in culture—in the fine arts especially—can really grip the lives of many immigrants, for whom mere residence and work in Israel are sufficient reward, is an important if debatable question. Immigrants forced to Israel in order to escape persecution seem to lack the cultural idealism of those who come voluntarily for other reasons.
PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
With respect to social justice, the Israeli mind functions with a strange duality illustrated by the trial of Eichmann on the one hand, and by the Arab problem on the other. The Hebrew conscience seems to isolate these events in separate compartments. It condemns Hitler’s vicious persecution of the Jews, which he justified in part by the German need of Lebensraum; at the same time the Hebrew conscience seems un-pricked by long-standing failure to solve either the problem of the displaced Arabs, or that of the Israeli Arabs now settled but somewhat restricted as citizens of the Hebrew nation. There are, of course, staggering differences: the Nazis premeditated the savage destruction of helpless Jewry including a million children and babes, whereas the Israelis fought a war of life and death against Arab onslaught. Apart from the formal question of the Eichmann trial’s legality (passing judgment upon crimes committed before the nation existed) looms the moral necessity to present comprehensively and authoritatively this record of attempted Gentile extermination of the Jews. It besmirches human history with an almost ineradicable stain. Not in 2,000 years has a trial—in both cases in Jerusalem—linked the destinies of so many human beings to the life and work of one man. But even as the Eichmann trial quickens conscience concerning blatant disregard of Jewish minority rights, and bitter hostility toward Jews in general, so Israel’s lack of creative earnestness to resolve the plight of a million displaced Arab refugees ought also to stir an uneasy conscience. The moment Israel proclaims her international messianic mission she must reckon at her own borders with the Arab refugee.
But an even deeper spiritual aspect surrounds both the Eichmann trial and the Arab refugee problem. Failure to discuss in depth this factor of God’s sovereign purpose in history and redemption is significant: “Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated” pinpoints the Old Testament index of destiny for both Jew and Arab. Scripture illustrates, too, that privilege involves responsibility, a thesis of which exile and dispersion are poignant reminders. But what does the Old Testament imply about Israel’s treatment not simply of the neighboring Arab nations but of the Arab refugees as persons? How much more will the Israeli value the Arab in cold war than the Nazis valued the Jews in their barbarian aggressions? Ben-Gurion has said that Israel’s survival and security require at least two million more Jewish immigrants (2.5 million Jews are still in Russia). Ultimately, according to some estimates, the land should be able to sustain 7.5 million inhabitants (in contrast with the present 2.5 million). After 13 years of statehood, this prospect gives the demands of Israeli leaders a peculiar hollow sound, for they condition return of any of the one million Arab refugees on full settlement of political tensions. In the U. S., which has supplied 75 per cent of the material aid to these refugees, is a growing conviction that Israel is long overdue in a prompt token resettlement of 100,000 refugees.
On the other hand, there is little doubt that the Arab states have done little to encourage a peaceful settlement of tensions. No point in Israel is less than a few hours from a hostile border, and she is outnumbered 15 to 1 by Arab inhabitants of bordering states. Propaganda broadcasts from Arab League nations call not for a resettlement of the refugees in Israel, but for annihilation of the state of Israel. The Arab nations have not joined in a declaration of peaceful intentions which the U. N. Palestinian Conciliation Commission considers a reasonable prerequisite for a resettlement of refugees in Israel. Many displaced Arabs in view of their link to Moslem rather than to Hebrew culture, moreover, no doubt prefer reparations to return to Israel, and the Arab League ought to consider this fact constructively.
Until the plight of the Arab refugee is resolved, however, the Israeli stress on individual dignity slumps at the nation’s borders, where the personal worth of the Arab is implicitly subordinated to that of the Jew.
In the next essay Dr. Henry discusses spiritual and moral trends in Israel. Focusing attention on the problem of social justice, he has an eye both on the judgment of Eichmann and on the Arab refugee. He reflects on the latent implications of scientific concentration and the unbridged gulf between science and religion for Israel’s claim to a providential world mission.
The question of human nature is raised even more profoundly by the Eichmann trial. The prevailing tendency in Israel is to view Eichmann not as a mirror of human nature but only as an isolated being. “Eichmann is not a man but a beast; he does not deserve justice though he will get it” is a common sentiment. Israeli leaders do not wish Eichmann’s judgment to deterioriate into mere crude revenge, but they seek negation of evil through a process of justice. Yet the real truth about human nature is evaded. Eichmann and the Nazis (whom the Germans too hesitate to identify with themselves) are viewed apart from any context of a fallen race which encompasses also the modern Israeli, and in fact all mankind. The long view of history demonstrates this truth, as fully and even more so than in 1961, by what happened in Jerusalem in A.D. 30. Failure to see in the Eichmann trial (its legality curiously is also disputed) the larger meaning of human nature in its totality—and which therefore must also raise the question of the Christ—follows from a readiness to level accusation against only Eichmann. However great may be the guilt of this one persecutor of the many, the truth about all human beings is revealed by the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth (“Now is the hour of judgment for this world.…” John 12:31, NEB). The cross of Christ is still the supreme moral indictment of human nature, for here the righteous one was put to death by the many. By directing its force against the very Christ of very God, human wickedness revealed the character of Jew and Gentile alike.
Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.
