editorials
Progress Blooms in the Desert
T he visuals from last week’s Negev
Summit were impressive. They
were also historic. Leaders from Israel,
Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the United
Arab Emirates and the United States
met at Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev
desert, where Israel’s founding prime
minister, David Ben-Gurion, lived
and is buried. Such a meeting would
have been inconceivable two short
years ago.

And yet, following entry into the
Abraham Accords and the rap-
id-paced progress toward normaliza-
tion of relationships between Israel
and her treaty partners, such steps
in continued cooperative activities
between Accords partners have
begun to seem natural — maybe
even routine.

But the Negev Summit was much
more than a cooperative photo
opportunity or symbolic meeting.

For Israel, in particular, the sum-
mit had two key objectives. One
was the meeting between Foreign
Minister Yair Lapid and Secretary of
State Antony Blinken that focused
on the Iran nuclear talks. Reports
indicate that the meeting involved
We applaud the Negev Summit.

It was refreshing to see Israel and
Arab countries addressing issues
other than security.

some interesting exchanges, includ-
ing a request from Blinken that Prime
Minister Naftali Bennett explain the
details of his alternative approach.

The other was the foreign minis-
ters meeting of Lapid, Blinken, the
UAE’s Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed
al-Nahyan, Bahrain’s Abdullatif bin
Rashid al-Zayani, Morocco’s Nasser
Bourita and Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry,
in which discussions included the
threat from Iran, the COVID-19 pan-
demic and the impact of the war in
Ukraine on the oil and food supply
chains, among other issues.

In the words of Bennett, the Negev
Summit moved the Abraham Accords
from “ceremony to substance.” And
progress was made. Among other
things, participants established six
working groups designed to deal
with issues of security and counter-
terrorism, food and water, health,
energy, education and tourism.

Summit participants also agreed
to make the gathering a recurring
event. Over the past two years, we have
seen impressive steps toward the
normalization of security and polit-
ical relations between Israel and
Abraham Accords partners and the
establishment of a number of very
promising economic and technologi-
cal engagements. The Negev Summit
sought to expand those efforts by
fostering cooperation on a number
of issues that go beyond Iran and
trade. That further engagement by
the regional partners is another pos-
itive sign for the stability of Accords
relationships going forward.

The fate of the Palestinians was
only barely addressed during the
summit. Although several speakers
made statements about the Israeli-
Palestinian peace process and
Palestinian statehood, very little of
substance was addressed, and the
spoken words appeared to be noth-
ing more than lip service. Perhaps
new opportunities to address the
issue will come up in the context of
other cooperative consultations.

Nonetheless, we applaud the
Negev Summit. It was refreshing
to see Israel and Arab countries
addressing issues other than secu-
rity, and we are optimistic about
the multi-tiered possibilities for the
planned regional efforts and partner-
ships. Finally, we hope that the suc-
cess of the summit will help attract
others to join in the growth oppor-
tunities offered by the Abraham
Accords. JE
The Extremes Against the Center
I n last week’s heart-wrenching
reminder of Middle East volatility,
11 people were killed in Israel in three
separate terror attacks. As a frightened
civilian population grieves for the
senseless loss of life, they worry about
personal safety.

At the same time, politicians and
security personnel grapple with the
proper response to the orchestrated
bursts of violence that appear to be
motivated by movements of concil-
iation between Israel and its Arab
neighbors. The issue is made even more com-
plicated by the fact that the Muslim
month of Ramadan began over the
weekend, and Easter and Passover
are approaching. Israel’s government
knows that in this month of symbol-
ism it needs to maintain order both to
present a stable face to the world in a
16 APRIL 7, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
time of global volatility and in order to
maintain sufficient public support to
stay in power. All the while, the oppo-
sition led by former Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud
party is watching closely, as they use
last week’s killings to support the
narrative that Israel’s terror concern
is uniquely an Arab threat and one
which can only be controlled by more
security-minded leadership.

Israel’s delicately balanced coa-
lition government led by Prime
Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign
Minister Yair Lapid — which includes
the Ra’am Islamist party — has man-
aged to survive by cooperating
where possible, and avoiding con-
troversial decisions. An example of
the cooperation came in response
to last week’s killings. Ra’am’s leader
Mansour Abbas forcefully con-
demned the attacks, calling them “a
heinous and indecent terrorist crime
… against innocent civilians,” and
pledged that ”we all stand together
in the face of a murderous wave of
terror, all of us with no differences.”
In return, the government changed
the phrase “wave of murderous Arab
terror” to “wave of terror,” as part of
an effort to stop pointing an accu-
satory terror finger at every Arab in
Israel and the territories.

Nonetheless, safety and security
remain top concerns for Israeli vot-
ers. And if the attacks continue, a
rattled public could embrace what
is touted as Netanyahu and Likud’s
more security-conscious approach
— which would also bring greater
intolerance, and a more accepting
attitude toward the aggression of the
settler population’s militant side.

It is for this reason, among oth-
ers, that the Bennett government’s
decisions and actions in response to
the terror attacks are so important.

Under the current coalition regime,
the cooperative and collaborative
efforts between Jews and Arabs in
Israel are perceived as a threat to
those Arabs and Israelis for whom
ideological purity is more important
than amity. And terror feeds that
narrative. There is speculation that the
recent violence was orchestrated in
response to last week’s appearance
of the foreign ministers of Egypt,
UAE, Bahrain and Morocco at an
Abraham Accords summit in Israel.

Fortunately, the violence didn’t stop
the summit. We hope it will not be
allowed to jeopardize other coopera-
tive progress that has been made. JE



opinions \ letters
The Holocaust Is
Not a Metaphor
BY SOLOMON D. STEVENS
A s Jews we are often told that
the world must not be allowed
to forget the Holocaust. We often
say “Never Forget” as a way of
emphasizing its importance for Jews
and for the whole world. I certainly
agree with that, but keeping the
memory of the Holocaust alive isn’t
enough. The problem is not just that the
memory of the Holocaust might fade
with time; the real issue is that the
Holocaust itself might be hijacked
for political purposes and that its
meaning and significance could be
lost forever.

Consider the deplorable use of the
Holocaust by right-wing politicians
during the pandemic, who often
framed their frustration with mask
and vaccination requirements as a
struggle against Nazism. Marjorie
Taylor Greene, a Republican rep-
resentative from Georgia, said that
people “don’t need your medical
brownshirts showing up at their door
ordering vaccinations. You can’t
force people to be part of the human
experiment.” She is clearly trying to steal the
Holocaust to elevate her personal
concerns about vaccines and masks,
and this leads her to claim that U.S.

officials are as oppressive as the
Nazi brownshirts, and reasonable
health measures are just as violent
as the medical experiments of Nazi
doctors like Josef Mengele.

This is, of course, insulting to all
the Jews who suffered during the
Holocaust. The insensitivity of it is
staggering. But what I am focus-
ing on here is the way it confuses
ignorant people about the meaning
of the Holocaust. Our health care
workers are not Josef Mengele. The
Holocaust should not be used to
score cheap political points. This is
insulting, but it is also dangerous.

The Dallas Human Rights and
Holocaust Museum reports that one
elected official in Idaho, complain-
ing that the governor was requir-
ing non-essential workers to stay
at home, claimed that during the
Holocaust, “nonessential workers got
put on a train.” But Jews were not
“put on a train” because they were
nonessential workers. This would be
laughable if it were not so serious.

They were put on a train because
they were Jews, and they were being
sent to forced labor and extermina-
tion camps because they were Jews.

They were not just being asked to
stay at home briefly to keep a virus
from spreading. This is a truly con-
temptible use of the Holocaust, and
it also represents a crude attempt
to capitalize on the respected place
that the Holocaust has in history for
selfish purposes. Not only was this
an insult to all the Jews who were
slaughtered by the Nazis, it misses
the point.

The right-wing commentator
Glenn Beck has compared the deci-
sion of Facebook and Twitter to ban
hate speech on their platforms with
Nazis putting Jews in the Warsaw
ghetto. Beck said, “This is like the
Germans with the Jews behind the
wall. They would put them in the
ghetto. Well, this is the digital ghetto.

You can talk all you want, Jews. You
do whatever you want behind the
wall. Well, that’s not meaningful and
that’s where we are.”
This makes me so angry, I can
barely contain myself. Beck implies
that the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto
had complete freedom within the
ghetto. Everything was fine there.

The only problem is that their speech
was not allowed beyond the walls.

But the Warsaw ghetto was hellish.

And in the end, those who did not die
of starvation or illness in the ghetto
were killed or sent to concentration
camps. This rant of Beck’s is a trav-
esty and a false analogy. The Jews
of the Warsaw ghetto were being
systematically prepared for extermi-
nation. They weren’t just losing their
privileges on some social media
sites because they were spreading
hatred and lies. They were the victim
of hatred and lies.

We have every right to be
offended by this political use of the
Holocaust. But, more than anything,
we should be concerned that over
time the Holocaust could become a
meaningless metaphor for anything
unpleasant. We must not allow the
Holocaust to be transformed into
a metaphor to be thrown around
whenever it suits someone’s polit-
ical purposes. We should continue
to say “Never Again,” but we have
a new challenge: We need to work
tirelessly to clarify what it is that we
must not forget. The Holocaust is
not a metaphor. It is history, and we
have to fight to keep its historical
significance. JE
Solomon D. Stevens has a Ph.D.

from Boston College. His publica-
tions include “Religion, Politics, and
the Law” (co-authored with Peter
Schotten) and “Challenges to Peace
in the Middle East.”
Op-ed Mischaracterized LGBTQ Bill
Temple Sinai Deserves the Praise
I must respond to the March 24 op-ed “Bills Attacking LGBTQ Rights Are an
Assault on Jewish Values” by Idit Klein and Is Perlman. I am dismayed by the
egregious mischaracterization of the FL Bill 1557, which is called “Parental
Rights in Education.” This bill has been irresponsibly dubbed the “Don’t Say
Gay Bill” in a false narrative perpetuated by a left-wing media. Have the
authors of this piece even read the bill? Or is their opinion predicated on
taking media talking points at face value?
Nowhere in the bill does it say that the word gay is not to be spoken. The
authors assert that somehow this bill marginalizes and attacks a group of
people. The bill specifically bans teachers of K-3 students from discussing
or teaching about sexuality or gender identity.

As a teacher and parent, I (along with a majority of people polled) have a prob-
lem with the idea of teaching about anything related to sexuality to children in third
grade or younger, no matter what the context of the sexuality or gender involved.

Why is that appropriate in the classroom? That’s a parent’s domain. In no way is
supporting this legislation synonymous with attacking any group of people.

It was so lovely to see the article about Temple Sinai (“Temple Sinai Remains
Steady and Reliable,” March 24). I read it about an hour after returning from
my husband’s and my first time in our sanctuary in more than two years.

I have lauded Temple Sinai so often in these past two years. From the time
we went into isolation, Temple Sinai rose to the challenge of keeping our
community connected.

Every time I attended an event, in person outside the synagogue building
or via Zoom, I felt so good about being a part of this community.

This past Shabbat, I listened in person to the sermon from our assistant rabbi,
witnessed his and his fiancée’s auf ruf, and celebrated the couple at Temple
Sinai’s first kiddush luncheon since the pandemic. I again thought about how
fortunate we are to be members of this warm, homey community. JE
Gail Marshall | Yardley
Tali Segal | Fort Washington
Letters should be related to articles that have run in the print or online editions of the JE, and may
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