Balaq: We cannot negotiate for peace on the one hand and violate Human Rights on the other

By Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman on July 14, 2005 - ז' תמוז תשס"ה

The Parasha deals with blessings and curses. Bala’am, allegedly, is a person who was brought to curse the people of Israel. He claims to fulfill only the word of God, and instead of cursing he blesses. So why do we traditionally accuse him of being evil and that he has sent the women of Midian to tempt the Israelites to Avoda Zara (idol worship)? Since his motives are impure even though his words are pleasant and beautiful - words of blessing, when the intention is evil, the deed is evil.

Among us, today, everyone wants to see and be shown as one doing good for others. Israelis and Palestinians only want peace, and the government only wants to help the poor. But our Parasha is an example that a view beyond our statements is needed. For example, in Nazareth, where the Israeli Wiscounsin Plan has already begun being implemented, we are already receiving information that in spite of the declared intention to help the people to return to the employment circles, in fact there are people included in the plan who stand no chance of getting a job due to objective limitations. In this way these people are eliminated from the list of welfare receivers, they lose, and the state gains and even claims “we tried to help”! We have always to see beyond the statements and declarations and try and see the true intentions.

Today Thursday, I had a long journey in Chirbat Ta’ana, Imatin and El-Asweya. Last week when I returned to the Israel, I got reports on how an entire village in Chirbat Ta’ana was demolished and how settlers of Itzhar burned about 130 dunums of olive trees of the residents of Ein Abos, before I even managed to go home (also today on my way from Beit Forik to Chirbat Ta’ana we saw burned olive trees from a month and a half appraently it has turned to a norm). What struck me in both incidents is that how almost noone knew of their occurrence. Also in El-Asweya and in the rest of the way to Jerusalem we saw a number of demolished houses. A week ago we visited another house whose demolition was delayed for a month.

In recent years, the main threat of demolitions due to the non-issuance of construction permits was in Jerusalem (in this sense the threat over Jerusalem is very real) because we are used to ask ourselves why they chose to demolish these places? Apparently demolistions, burning trees, are part of the plan to create a territorial stretch between Bika’at Ha-yarden and the settlement of Itamar. And Imatin, Bala’in and other additional places that are struggling for preserving their lands point out that while the eyes of the world are directed towards Gaza, settlemets are being expanded and territories in the West Bank are being annexed (which is totally unnecessary for our legitimate security needs, a thing which we understood in the clearest way during the events of this week).

The common denominator for all these things is that we present to the world our readiness to move forward towards a peace process, but away from attention violations of human rights are resumed. As we said, when the Second Intifada erupted, we cannot negotiate for peace on the one hand and violate human rights on the other. This led the Palestinians to stop believing that this is a peace process and made them mature for an Intifada. Today too we are likely to prepare the ground for a third Intifada.

Here too we have to see the intentions beyond the statements.

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