http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2009/2009-06/200906-Ask_Rabbis.html
Independent
Although we need to take every precaution against fanatical Muslim Arab terrorism in and outside our homeland, we need to cease forcibly displacing peaceful Arabs like Bedouins, destroying their homes (even their mosques!) for the crime of not filling out forms. We were told that we were to apportion land to those living among us, whether Arab or Martian:
Independent
Although we need to take every precaution against fanatical Muslim Arab terrorism in and outside our homeland, we need to cease forcibly displacing peaceful Arabs like Bedouins, destroying their homes (even their mosques!) for the crime of not filling out forms. We were told that we were to apportion land to those living among us, whether Arab or Martian:
Renewal
The question is not about Israelis’ obligations to Arabs—that is clear. Under its Basic Laws, Israel is obliged to treat its citizens fairly—which it valiantly tries to do under extraordinary circumstances.
Reconstructionist
Judaism’s key teaching is that all are created in God’s image. Everyone, not “everyone whose nationality includes no extremists.” Israel’s leading human rights group is, significantly, called B’Tselem, “in the image.”
Then there’s tshuvah, the stance of critical self-reflection before we examine others. We Jews have our own extremists, terrorists and demagogues; our side has fanned the flames, too. Even after discerning the few among “them” who are “enemies,” some obligations continue?we should constructively seek the end of their evil ways, not the end of them.
Reform
The sages recall that redemption comes only for “He who walks righteously, speaks uprightly, and who despises the gain of oppression…”(Isa. 33). For “what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6). I do not know of any more fundamental imperative than this, especially as Israeli Jews consider the Palestinian “other.”
Conservative
When the Jewish nation finally resumed the status of a sovereign state in Israel, there was a 2,000-year-old gap between our Biblical texts that deal with this status and present-day reality. Those millennia of Diaspora and longing replaced literal readings of the text with a firmly established practice of using them for exercises in moral reasoning. This Jewish posture toward moral self-examination has preserved in us a reverence for life and a culture that retains a hopeful, responsible stance toward the future of our community and the larger world, no matter how trying and lasting the struggle.
Sephardi
For Israel to present itself as somehow intrinsically superior to its Arab neighbors, by virtue of its Jewishness alone is theologically disingenuous as well as practically counterproductive.
Modern Orthodox
Israeli Arabs’ equal rights are enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence and Basic Laws. Although in practice there is not full equality, Israel is working on this. Constant terrorism requires security actions that make life difficult for Palestinians. But there’s no choice. Israel has resisted giving in to legitimate anger and has acted better toward the Arabs than any other power in the world would have under these circumstances.
Chabad - saving the "best" for last:
I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.
The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).
The first Israeli prime minister who declares that he will follow the Old Testament will finally bring peace to the Middle East. First, the Arabs will stop using children as shields. Second, they will stop taking hostages knowing that we will not be intimidated. Third, with their holy sites destroyed, they will stop believing that G-d is on their side. Result: no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.
Zero tolerance for stone throwing, for rockets, for kidnapping will mean that the state has achieved sovereignty. Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention.
Rabbi Manis Friedman
Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies
St. Paul, MN
