NYT Profiles Israeli Religious Peacemaker, Rabbi Menachem Froman
"Among his close friends, the rabbi counts not only Mr. Arafat, who was reviled by most Israelis by the time of his death in 2004, but also a wide array of Muslim sheiks. He believes in making peace with his Palestinian neighbors and has engaged in “thousands of hours” of dialogue, he said, with Palestinian leaders, including Mr. Arafat’s rivals in the militant Islamist group Hamas. Rabbi Froman used to travel to Gaza for talks with Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas who was killed in an Israeli missile strike in 2004 after his group spearheaded a years-long suicide bombing campaign that killed scores of Israelis."
It's interesting when remarkable figures emerge from the darkness, proclaiming peace from unlikely quarters. Rabbi Froman certainly succeeds in being a unique voice. Question: doesn't highlighting him as a "man bites dog story" merely underscore the way in which he is a lonely voice crying out in the desert?
Froman represents hope of a sort, but he doesn't represent any kind of slice of the Jewish settler public, or of the Israeli public. He's an interesting phenomenon; is it anything else?
"It would be easy to dismiss Rabbi Froman, who peppers his speech with talk of miracles and references to mystical texts, as a maverick, an eccentric and a kook.
"But the letter he sent to several of Mr. Obama’s policy advisers in late November outlining his proposal was co-signed by Gershon Baskin and Hanna Siniora, the Israeli and Palestinian executive officers of Ipcri, the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, one of the most established nongovernmental peace institutes in the land."
I want to believe that Forman's letter is so strengthened by the signatures of the IPCRI leaders that it will successfully leap from desk to desk at Team Obama HQ that at some point Aaron Miller and Samantha Power end up discussing it with Obama and Clinton as a planning breakfast. "Let's do this!" argues Miller. "You're on crack!" retorts Clinton, and complains to Obama that Martin Indyk should be sitting with them, not Miller. That feels more likely. Imagine Power jumping in with "but look, Gershon and Hanna signed it too!"
Can someone explain to me how these letters actually impact likely US foriegn policy? I'm thinking of a post on the multiple petitions being set up by Brit Tzedek, J Street, Americans for Peace Now and others calling for Obama to do this, that, and the other thing. If online petitions are so useful, should I be sure and to sign all three? I worry that I'll only end up getting similar emails three times as often....
But I digress. The main point is - what do bizarre outliers really say about reality and the likely methods for changing it? For every Rabbi Forman (and there are equivelants on the Palestinian side) there are polls and surveys suggesting that they have no power whatsoever.
For my part, I refuse to trust prophets, outliers and exceptions. You seek to fool me, but it won't work. My faith is reserved for hard work by institutions, moblizations of people, committee meetings that run late and grassroots phenomena that arise in mulitple locations at the same time.
Dear readers: are there any other prophets we should be taking a closer look at?
COMMENTS (7)