By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM–It’s being said that Facebook and its siblings are changing the world by giving vox populi a new meaning. The Arab Spring, the calls for social reforms in Israel last year, the Occupy Movement soon thereafter are cited as examples.
The latest is an initiative by an Israeli couple that put out this message to Iranians: “We will never bomb your country: we love you.” The response has been phenomenal. Both Israelis and Iranians have reacted in kind so that the initiators have now involved other volunteers to watch the site day and night to deal with the countless supportive messages that are coming in from both countries, indeed from around the world.
Perhaps even more significantly, the media have taken up the cause. From CNN to Al Jazeera, in publications and on sites everywhere the initiative has become a main news item. The couple who started it has been interviewed at length.
That ordinary Israelis would support the plea for peace and express their opposition to bombing Iran seems obvious to those who follow events here. But the fact that so many Iranians have responded, perhaps even taking serious risks of reprisals from the authorities for doing so, is remarkable and heart warming. We seem to be witnessing the beginning of a new movement.
I’d have liked to finish the piece here, but, alas, that would be contrary to my nature and probably misleading. For we also know that previous initiatives mentioned above appear to have come to naught. The Arab Spring is turning into a very cold winter: seasoned politicians with sinister agendas of their own have taken over.
The Israeli protests in Tel Aviv’sRothschild Boulevard bent on compelling the Government of Israel to act to reduce the yawning gap between rich and poor have so far produced tepid proposals that don’t seem likely to go very far. And the Occupy Movement around the world has fizzled out with little to show for it.
Therefore, as enthusiastic as we must be about the Israeli outreach to the Iranian people, we are also compelled to remain skeptical because of suspicions that the government has a different, perhaps more sinister, agenda of its own. Whether or not Israel will – with or without American help – bomb Iran remains unclear, but there’s little doubt that the government will keep up the pressure.
This may be its way to persuade the free world to continue to impose ever more punishing sanctions to compel Iran to change course, perhaps even encourage the opposition within the country to bring about a change of regime. Or, which to me seems more likely, by talking tough on Iran the Government of Israel doesn’t have to say much about other pressing issues, notably the now virtually dead peace process and the plight of the ever growing number of its citizens, including many children, who live in abject poverty and that the Rothschild Boulevard protests were supposed to address.
The only way in which I can stop myself from ending this column on a bitter note is to refer to Canadian-born Jerusalem-based journalist Jim Lederman from whom I always learn and whose views I invariably find fresh and interesting. Though I haven’t heard him on this particular subject, I know from his general attitude that he believes that, in Israel, if the vox populi reflects a consensus, the politicians take note and act on it. I hope and pray that the outpouring of love currently on Facebook will result in such a consensus.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. Now dividing his time between Canada and Israel, he may be contacted at dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com The Facebook campaign may be found at http://www.facebook.com/israellovesiran?ref=ts