June 21, 2017
27 Sivan 5777
Dear Friends,
What's in a name? A lot, obviously. A name can bring comfort. (Think what it feels like when you learn that a child has been named for a beloved friend or relative.) A name can also inspire disgust or hatred. (Think what names like Kim Jong-un or Osama bin Laden evoke within us.) Clearly, a name can embody values and qualities, both good and bad.
During the past few decades, more and more American institutions have been re-thinking their names.
For example, many sports teams with Native American names have been reconsidering them. The Seattle Chieftains became the Redhawks. The Eastern Michigan Hurons are now the Eagles. One day, perhaps the Washington Redskins will be renamed as well.
In the South, references to the Confederacy are similarly being rethought. For example, on the campus of Vanderbilt University, the "Confederate Memorial Hall" is now simply called, "Memorial Hall."
And not only in the South. Earlier this year, Yale University announced that it was changing the name of a residential college commemorating John C. Calhoun. In the 19th century, it was apparently not objectionable to the faculty, students or trustees of Yale to name a residential college after a white supremacist, but it is today. Yale's president, Peter Salovey, said that while he was "concerned about erasing history," he made the decision to remove Calhoun (who happened to have been the seventh Vice President of the United States) from the college's name, "because I think it is the right thing to do on principle.... John C. Calhoun's principles, his legacy as an ardent supporter of slavery as a positive good, are at odds with this university." (Go here for the full story.)
The recent spate of name changes over the past few years reflects an important trend around the world, a trend of increasing sensitivity to "the other" and an increasing desire to bridge traditional divides.
But not everyone is sensitive to this trend.
A few months ago, a young woman's center in the West Bank town of Burqa was named by the Palestinian Authority in honor of Dalal Mughrabi.
Dalal Mughrabi
This is not the first Palestinian institution named after Ms. Mughrabi. According to The New York Times, in a period of only two years, two girls high schools, a computer center, a soccer championship and two summer camps were named for her.
Who was Dalal Mughrabi? Why have so many Palestinian institutions been named for her?
Dalal Mughrabi was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon in 1959 to parents who had fled Jaffa, in what was then Palestine, in 1948. She studied to become a nurse. She then joined Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization. When she was 19 years old, she participated in a daring, sophisticated guerrilla attack in March of 1978. She was part of a group of thirteen that departed from Lebanon in a small boat and headed south. They managed to elude Israeli radar and land their craft on the coast adjoining Kibbutz Ma'agan Micha'el, about 40 miles north of Tel Aviv. The group came ashore not knowing where they were. They had hoped to land in Tel Aviv and commandeer a hotel; instead, they had arrived on what seemed at first to be a deserted beach. But they soon caught sight of someone photographing nature in the early morning light. It was a 39-year old American photographer named Gail Rubin.
Gail Rubin
They asked Ms. Rubin where they were. After she told them, they shot her to death. According to the two terrorists who survived the assault that day, Dalal Mughrabi was the one who killed Ms. Rubin, the first victim on a day of carnage.
The group then walked over to the coastal road, hailed a taxi, killed its passengers and then proceeded to commandeer a bus and order its driver to drive south toward Tel Aviv. Eventually, they commandeered a second bus, brought all the hostages together and headed south at high speed. They smashed their way through one roadblock, but eventually, the bus was halted at a more substantial roadblock at the northernmost edge of Tel Aviv by the police, who feared hundreds of casualties if the bus were permitted to enter the city limits. In the ensuing battle, 38 Israeli civilians, 13 of them children, were killed. Over 70 were wounded. All but two of the terrorists, including Dalal Mughrabi, were killed.
(
The bus commandeered by terrorists on the Coastal Road on March 11, 1978)
I remember that attack well, for I was living in Israel at the time. I was a student at the Hebrew University and the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. I remember sitting in my rented room in Beit HaKerem, a Jerusalem neighborhood not far from the university, listening to my transistor radio and trying to figure out what was happening.
The attack was ghastly. At the time it was the most lethal terrorist attack in Israel's history, even more lethal than the attack at the Ben Gurion airport in 1972, when 26 were killed and 80 injured by three terrorists.
And what was the purpose of the attack? To derail the peace talks then underway between Israel and Egypt. (This was confirmed within a few hours by leaders of the P.L.O.) Only a few months earlier, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had
traveled
to Israel to break the long-standing hostility between the two countries. Because of that dramatic and paradigm-shifting visit, the two sides were now talking about reaching an agreement on a peaceful resolution of their differences and an eventual Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory. The Coastal Road attack was designed to halt that. Ultimately, fortunately, the attack did not achieve this goal, and the two sides signed an historic -- and enduring -- peace agreement just over a year later.
Back to the present. Several months ago, a Norwegian Christian organization in Jerusalem learned that that new young women's center in Burqa was being named for Dalal Mughrabi. This organization complained to the Norwegian government, for the Norwegians had helped fund that center. In response, Borge Brende, t
he Norwegian Foreign Minister, demanded that the Palestinian Authority either change the name of the center, or remove the Norwegian logo from the building and return the money allocated for the project.
I don't know whether or for how long the Palestinian Authority debated what to do. In the end, the Authority
decided to return the money to Norway rather than change the name of the center.
Why? Why not rename the center? Burqa council head Sami Daghlas responded by asserting that Mughrabi was not a terrorist. Rather, he said, she was a "hero" and a "role model" for young women. He said that his council's goal in choosing to honor Mughrabi was "to commemorate a Palestinian hero who sacrificed herself for her country." The Palestinian Authority therefore had "no intention of changing the name, regardless of the price."
I am sure that many Israelis, many Jews -- indeed, many decent men and women of various faiths and nationalities around the world -- find such a stance deeply disturbing. I certainly do. From my perspective, based on what her comrades later said, it's hard not to think of Dahlia Mughrabi as a cold-blooded murderer. To me, she behaved with a "depraved indifference to human life." That a West Bank center devoted to empowering young women has been named for her demonstrates just how challenging it is to pursue peace across the Israeli/Palestinian divide.
For Palestinians, apparently, do not see Mughrabi the way I do. To them, she is a "martyr" who was killed in the course of serving her nation. To them, Mughrabi's death at the hands of the Israeli police is no more justified than that of Gail Rubin at Mughrabi's hands is to us.
Thinking about the death of Gail Rubin brings back sad memories for me. I was deeply impacted when I learned of her death. I bought her book, Psalmist With a Camera (to order the book, click here),
and have looked through her photos on many occasions. I recall reading about the memorial service held in her honor. I recall learning that the late distinguished Senator Abraham Ribicoff was her uncle, and the great American Jewish writer, Cynthia Ozick, was her cousin.
What a painful loss of an innocent human being!
It is hard to me to fathom how Palestinian society hopes to gain support and achieve legitimacy through valorizing the killing of civilians and demonizing innocent victims.
Now, it is easy to see this as a sign of just how hopeless the quest for peace is. It's easy to say that if this is the kind of society with which Israel must come to terms, it is a waste of time to exert any effort in building bridges with the Palestinians.
And yet, that isn't the end of the matter. At least, it shouldn't be. For Palestinians need real heroes as much as anyone else. It isn't enough to decry the way in which Palestinian leaders encourage youngsters to emulate the murderers of civilians. Rather, it's worth the effort to help them acquire new heroes:
Palestinian men and women who are willing to defy their society's expectations by seeking and pursuing peaceful reconciliation with Israel.
It's easy to assume that such people must not exist, since they are so few and far between. But they do. They certainly do. And it is important to support them and their work, if this centuries-old conflict is ever going to end.
How will we know that such efforts have succeeded?
I'm not suggesting that one day there will be a young women's center in the West Bank named in memory of Gail Rubin.
But perhaps one day new buildings and squares will be named after Palestinian peace activists and other leaders who recognize that the best way to achieve a Palestinian state is not through terror, but by sitting down and negotiating with their adversaries. That's a realistic goal.
Is there anything we might do to encourage that? Is there anything we can do to
support those Palestinians who are trying to carve another, more peaceful way forward? Is there anything we can do to support their efforts and the efforts of those within Israel who are trying to support them?
Kein yehi ratzon
. So may it come to pass!
Sincerely,
Rabbi Carl M. Perkins
