War is a brutal and horrific thing, but when one’s nation or civilization is under attack, one simply has to take sides.

War is a brutal and horrific thing, but when one’s nation or civilization is under attack, one simply has to take sides.

I have now lost count of the number of emails I’ve received this summer from committed, involved Jews, that began, “Hope you’re having a good summer,” or “Hope all’s well with you.” But I will confess that these notes, more of which I got this week, continue to stun me.

Summer? Most people here won’t go to the beach – what if the siren went off and you were outside, with nowhere to hide? Many fewer people will go camping, for the same reason. Many people who had planned to travel have canceled – what if you’re in Scotland and your kid gets called into battle? What then? When, for that matter, did summer even begin? Ever since Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah were kidnapped on June 12, we have been a news-consumed nation – first praying for their return, then devastated by their murders, then horrified by the revenge killing of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, then stunned by the beginning of Hamas fire onto almost all parts of Israel, and then the war, the tunnels, the horrific number of IDF soldiers killed, the searingly painful funerals, the multiple cease-fires, US Secretary of State John Kerry’s utter ineptitude, the US Federal Aviation Administration’s reminder that we are surrounded and besieged, American “delays” in resupplying armaments, Britain’s threat of an arms embargo and the emergence of a Europe to which many Israelis are now too frightened to travel.

Summer? What summer? Of the entire above-mentioned list, it was the discovery of the tunnels (which the army and government had known about, but most Israelis had not) that changed everything.

We were used to rockets, even if not in these quantities, and we feel largely protected by a virtually miraculous Iron Dome system. But the images of tunnels so well-constructed that Hamas terrorists could ride motorcycles in them – that was something different.

When the IDF killed Hamas men who had come through the tunnels and found them equipped with weapons, handcuffs and injectable sedatives, it was clear that the movement’s intent was to kill as many Israelis as they could, then kidnap others and take them to Gaza. That, more than anything, struck horror so deep into the hearts of Israelis that, for the most part, internal politics have disappeared.

Yes, there is a left-wing fringe that wants to end the war, but most Israelis know that’s absurd. And there’s a right-wing fringe that wants to retake Gaza, but Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has made it clear he has no interest in that. But the fringes are small, and Israelis are united as almost never before. The petty fighting that often consumes us is now a luxury we simply cannot afford.

Far away from Israel, though, the infighting in Jewish circles continues. The New York Times recently published an op-ed, “The End of Liberal Zionism,” which opined that “the original tradition of combining Zionism and liberalism – which meant ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, supporting a Palestinian state as well as a Jewish state with a permanent Jewish majority, and standing behind Israel when it was threatened – was well-intentioned.” But Netanyahu’s “decision… to launch a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza” has ended all that, the author writes.

It would be funny, were it not so stunningly myopic. Who in their right mind believes that Israel started this war, that Hamas wasn’t just waiting for an excuse to fire so it could arrest its rapid decline into irrelevance? Who is still sufficiently naïve to believe that had Israel made a deal with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas would not have fired? Who imagines that a Palestinian state will stop Hezbollah from doing the same thing, when it gets the command from Tehran? Who is so divorced from reality as to suggest that a Palestinian state will do anything to stop the steady march of the Islamic State across the region? It is no accident that Israelis were so riveted by the photos of Hamas executing people on the streets of Gaza last Friday, for they were a reminder of what we’re fighting, a reminder of what they would have tried to do to us if we didn’t find all the tunnels, a reminder of the barbarism that surrounds us everywhere we look – in Gaza, in Syria, with IS. We are far from perfect, but make no mistake: Israel’s challenge is to stay alive in a sea of barbarians.

Meanwhile, back at the Diaspora ranch, however, the conversations continue as if it were business as usual. The New York Times dredges up the old Palestinian state issue, which significant though it is, is utterly irrelevant at the moment. And Tablet Magazine reports on bickering at a well-known New York synagogue over whether to read the names of dead Gazans at Friday night services, whether to collect money to buy potatoes for Gazans, and the subsequent resignation of at least one board member over what he perceived as the abandonment of Israel at this critical hour.

When those are the conversations unfolding in a synagogue, it’s clear the participants just don’t appreciate the existential nature of this conflict for Israel. Of course Gazans should have food, and of course the death of innocents is unfortunate. But did American churches read aloud the names of innocent dead Germans during World War II? War is a brutal and horrific thing, but when one’s nation or civilization is under attack, one simply has to take sides.

Israelis have done that because our houses are under fire. In London and New York, the spectator sport called Zionism continues unabated.

Let there be no mistake – this is a battle for Israel’s survival. Some people get that, many do not. We understand that our Diaspora counterparts have still headed for their beach homes this summer. Why not, after all? Staying glued to CNN in the city isn’t going to do us any good. And we don’t begrudge the Facebook postings of our friends’ and relatives’ trips to Barcelona or Berlin or Tuscany, or the #GreatWeekend hashtags we’re seeing everywhere. Life must go on, after all.

It will go on here, too. We’ll fight long enough and hard enough to make sure of that. But, for the record – no, we’re not having a good summer.

The writer is senior vice president, Koret Distinguished Fellow and chair of the core curriculum at Shalem College, Israel’s first liberal arts college, in Jerusalem. His latest book, Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul, was recently released by NextBook.

DANNY GORDIS: When the Guns Fall Silent

When the Guns Fall Silent A Jerusalem Post Column August 1, 2014   The tunnels are the ultimate image of our vulnerability,  the response of the world the perfect picture  of our aloneness.

When the Guns Fall Silent

Last Sunday night, my wife and I decided to go to dinner with friends. We made reservations for 8 p.m., when the restaurant should have been packed. But when we arrived, not another soul was there. As we were shown to our places, I kiddingly said to the waitress, "It's good we made reservations." "It's wartime," she said, not smiling back. "This is what happens." She was young, probably in her late 20s, professional enough but undeniably sullen. Yet who could blame her? Who was in Gaza? A boyfriend? A brother? Both? More? It was hard to watch her try to do her work while being so upset, so I said to her a short while later, "You know, these are impossible days. But this won't last forever. There'll be an end." She stopped, put my plate of food down in front of me, and said, "No doubt. The only question is - an end to what?" She's not alone. Not nearly. Behind all the chatter - the politicians' proclamations, the tweets of links to "watchus- blow-this-up" videos, and all the organizations correctly trumpeting the legitimacy of Israel's cause and the necessity of this horrific war - there's another Israel. There's a hurting Israel. There's a sadness here among the "kids" in their 20s, a quiet desperation. It's not that we can't "win" - they know we can. It's just that they believe there will never be an end to this. And that changes everything. This is not a new operation, or a new war. This is the latest battle in the War of Independence, the ongoing struggle of the Jewish people to create a new home in their ancestral homeland. Our neighbors have never accepted us, and increasingly, the world does not, either. In the middle of a class I was teaching, a student struggled not to weep. She, too, had a boyfriend "in." She, too, had been awake all night worrying. She, too, was trying desperately to hold it together. The student next to her mumbled aloud, "If my kids are going to have to live this way, is it fair to raise them here?" Another student got a 24-hour leave from the front a few days later. Other students, who hadn't heard from him in days, gathered around. "How are you?" He forced a smile. And then they asked, "How bad is it out there?" His eyes went vacant. "Gaza is just rubble," he said. It looked like he was going to cry - the costs of staying alive here, no matter how justified, are horrific. Then he headed home for a few hours, and from there, back to the front. Long, dark days lie ahead of us, but it's not too early to know that when this is over, nothing is going to be the same. The tunnels are the ultimate image of our vulnerability, the response of the world the perfect picture of our aloneness. "Death to the Jews," they chant in Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam. Storefront signs in Belgium read: "Dogs welcome, Zionists absolutely never." A shocked young Israeli generation, which has more than proved its mettle, is going to need to hear from us what this is all about. Why live this way? Why have to stand against the world? There are Israelis for whom theology is enough of an answer. God gave us this land, they say, so we're here to stay. They're the Israelis we saw in the aftermath of the kidnapping of the three yeshiva students and who are, to many, an inspiration. But they are not most of us. There are secular Israelis for whom their history with this land, like an old married couple who can't imagine life any other way, is sufficient. They are the Israelis of Nahal Oz when it was attacked in the 1950s, the same ones who were there this week when disaster was narrowly averted. Shaken but unmovable, they are part of our landscape - but they, too, are not most of us. There are Israelis who want out, who are done. They'll move to the States, Europe, Australia. But they, too, are not most of us. Who are the "most of us"? The most of us are the young men and women who are proving day and night that their generation, too, has what it takes. But the most of us are also a generation that is going to need to hear from their leaders why we're here, why what we're building is so important. Israel's hi-tech boom is dazzling, but it's not a reason for a Jewish state. Worldclass Israeli wines are fun to drink, but they, too, are not the reason we're here. So why are we here? That's the question which is going to hang heavily over this country when the uniforms return to the closets and the guns get put away. It's the question these kids will want to hear their society discussing. They will want to know that this is a fight for our homes, but also for a vision. They want to believe that this fight is worth the lives of the children they haven't yet had. Are we listening? In 1956, the utterly secular Moshe Dayan delivered a eulogy for Nahal Oz's Roy Rotenberg laced with biblical imagery and language. Menachem Begin was constitutionally unable to say anything without reference to the Jews' majestic history, without quoting the Jewish canon. For David Ben-Gurion, what we were building here was to have been a direct reflection of the vision of the Prophets. All three of them, different though they were, had a sense of where we had come from, and where we were heading. They heard the chords of a uniquely Jewish music for the world. The younger generation of "most of us" is thirsting to hear some of that again. When the dust settles, will we be honest? The tens of thousands who gathered in Tel Aviv in late June to pray for the three boys - whom we almost never mention anymore - were almost entirely religious. Unless we're under fire, we never discuss the chasms between us. Unless we're under attack, we no longer ask who is going to live here, and how we're going to live together. When we're not at war, there's no national conversation about how Jewish Israel should be, and how Israel should be Jewish. When the guns go silent, are we really going to abide a Haredi sector that, for the most part, did nothing to protect this home? When the dust settles, what are we going to do about the Jewish thugs who beat up Israeli Arabs? When the dust settles, will we know how to pick up where Herzl, Jabotinsky, Kook and Berdichevsky left off? This is an earthquake, let there be no doubt. When the guns go silent, we're going need to renew a vision that blends resolve with tolerance, strength with utter decency, individual freedom coupled with a sense of serving something greater than ourselves. Can we pull it off? The ground is shaking here, and it's not only because of the rockets. When the guns fall silent, this society had better be prepared to start talking. The original Jerusalem Post column can be read here: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/A-DOSE-OF-NUANCE-369577 Comments and reactions can be posted here: http://danielgordis.org/2014/08/03/guns-fall-silent/

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