A just Israel

Martin Buber's great-granddaughter, Tirzah Agassi, writes about the current situation in the Middle East.

We can’t turn back the clock and undo mistakes that have already been made. But we can note the wisdom of Buber’s warnings, understanding our own people’s contribution to the chronic mistrust between ourselves and the Arab world.

It is easy to point to Arab provocations that have contributed to the current horror. But how about our own part in its creation? What could we have done differently? And what can we still do differently? How does Israel, the Jewish state, live up to Buber’s vision of “prophetic politics” which, like our prophets, charges us “to remain ever cognizant of the effects of our community’s actions on others and, accordingly, to ‘sin’ no more than is absolutely necessary”?