I appreciated reading David Suissa’s piece “Loving Israel, from Left to Right” (May 12, 2022), and in particular his pinpointing of the difference between how each side loves Israel: “A crucial difference is that the left tends to look inward when assigning responsibility, while the right tends to look at external forces.”

It appears to me that, in this, the left’s perspective is more in line with Jewish principles. The Rambam (in the beginning of the laws of fast days) tells us that the proper response to a crisis is indeed to look inward and identify what we need to improve, and that failure to do so is a form of cruelty, as it will result in things getting worse. While true of any situation that faces a Jewish community, this is particularly notable when it comes to the security of Israel…for, as we will read soon in Parshat Beha’alotcha, our ability to remain in the Land of Israel is entirely dependent on our actions.

Nevertheless, I believe it is important to add some important caveats. First and most importantly, when we follow Jewish principles to look inward and evaluate whether we are engaging in proper behavior, this evaluation needs to likewise be based on a Jewish perspective. Many, especially among “pro-Palestinian” activists, call on Israel to make its behavior more moral, but intend that it should act in a manner that better fits the moral sensibilities of the progressive left. Such an expectation is not something that Israel should even be attempting to fulfill; Israel should strive to act morally according to a Jewish view of morality, not a modern progressive one.

Second, care needs to be taken to avoid empowering our enemies with our criticism. Many outside our community are driven by hate or disregard for Jews or Judaism, and will take any opportunity to vilify Israel or other Jewish institutions. Thus, any attempt to use our constructive criticism for the purpose of such vilification must be met with immediate repudiation by the same party that presented the original criticism.

Third, it is important to recognize that acting morally will not, for the most part, cause our enemies to love us. While it will likely help in some specific cases, there will still be those who are unwilling to accept a Jewish state no matter how morally it acts, and who will present a threat until they are eliminated. Even so, turning Israel into the country that we know it should be will nevertheless cause even these stubborn enemies to be dealt with. As we say every Thursday, לו עמי שמע לי ישראל בדרכי יהלכו. כמעט אויביהם אכניע ועל צריהם אשיב ידי

It’s all up to us.