Boris Gorbis: The Bag of Flower Seeds or The Sad Disorder of Moral Blindness

Here is the latest offering by Boris Gorbis, a leader of the Russian community of Los Angeles, who published here last month his dialogue with an unnamed American Jewish leader. In his new piece, Boris takes me on directly; responding to my recent postings on the Jewish Russian Telegraph and explaining why he thinks I am a nice guy but a victim of the sad disorder of moral blindness. I think Boris is a nice guy too--we spent a fun hour together, but didnt get a chance yet to do some serious vodka drinking, no nadeus skora budit chance ili ve New York, L.A., Tel Avivi, ili mojen byit v'Krimu. For all that, I think Boris has a "sad disorder" also, as do other Russian Jewish siloviki; an overdose of self-righteousness, a tendency to see the world in the starkest black and white terms and a willingness to declare Middle East wars from Los Angeles and Boston that Israeli boys and girls will have to fight. But let me share Boris' piece here and I'll respond at greater length in next 24 hours or so. By the way, I saw Avigdor Lieberman today--a not very informative meeting he had with the Russian media and leadership--and will post a short piece on that later tonight.


THE BAG OF FLOWER SEEDS OR THE SAD DISORDER OF MORAL BLINDNESS


When I came home this evening I had plans other than responding to Walter Ruby’s yet another installment on the issue of Russian Jews and their position on the Arab/Palestinian-Jewish/Israeli conflict. But his piece left me so puzzled that I could not resist and put all things aside.


First, I think Walter, a decent fellow; a skilled and emotional journalist suffers greatly. He knows the Middle East; he is Jewish and he loves Israel. Not the Israel that exists but the one built on romantic biblical notions of the lamb peacefully co-existing with the lion. Since this is a mental construct, an emotional mirage, Walter’s despair is apparent. In our brief encounter this year in Tel Aviv he shared with me his dream - that of a people’s diplomacy where peace is established one on one, peace between men and women of similar or different backgrounds with only one common bond – desire to end hostilities and live in peace, side by side. A peace that gives all children a bomb free lunch time and one that lasts forever.


I barely resisted from telling him what association his narrative brought up. Now is the time.


When I settled in San Francisco in 1975, a leading Russian newspaper there published a front page article under this heading: “The Bold Plan to End the Cold War”. A woman with a White Russian background offered this comprehensive idea: (quoting and condensing from memory) “Cold War is a terrible thing leading to much unnecessary suffering. Russian children are dying in droves from hunger and American farmers overproduce wheat. Russian women are forced to work hard and know no leisure but American women’s spare time is filled with fear of a nuclear attack. It is all a result of the absence of contacts between people. Now, I have a plan. Let every American family buy a bag of flower seeds and send it to a Russian family. When spring comes and flowers begin to bloom the Russian family sitting on a porch would look at the dazzling flower cover and tell its government: “Americans are nice people. We do not need to fight them. Let us make peace”


Unlike the utopian lady with her bag of seeds, Walter Ruby is contagious. His views are shared by many who genuinely profess love of Israel which often hides their disgust and hatred of the way things are there. For some (not for Walter, I hope) this follows the Gorbis’ Law of Hatred which states that: “The intensity of hatred is in direct relationship to the degree of closeness: the closer the identification, the stronger the rejection.” For many, (and I hope not for Walter) it plays out like this: “See those ugly Israelis? I am better! To prove it to myself, I shall spare no one, not even my closest relatives and friends to point out how bad they are, how wrong are their deeds and I shall spare no effort in criticizing and exposing them, for as a Jew I have the right, indeed an obligation, to do so.”

Unlike Walter and his generation of American Jews (and non-Jews) we have seen a large number of these “good Jews” pander to the Party, to the KGB, even to the school officials. Yes, Walter, we, ex-Soviet Jews, “geniuses of JRT” have seen and learned more in our schools than you did. We learned that the desire to be a “good Jew” is not at the expense of being a Jew; it is at the expense of being a moral human.


I know that as a reviewer of Israel, Walter Ruby has a very different view of morality than I do. My morality encompasses three simple principles. First, I believe that it is amoral to think of others before you attend to the needs of those closest to you. Second, I believe that we judge people by what they do, not by what they say. And finally, I believe that not all cultures and their moralities are created equal. The culture of cannibals in Tasmania may be a fascinating study (some tribes only eat strangers and some only eat their own) but it is a repugnant culture and I could easily call it evil. As a Westerner, Walter Ruby, is a relativist, an intended carrier of the ideas of “multiculturalism” an ideology that pronounces all cultures, all morals, and all national aspirations equally valid and thus equally moral.


I abhor this nonsense. I believe in the existence of “good” and “bad”. In fact, I believe in the existence of educated and loquacious people who cannot accept the “evil” among strangers but could easily identify it among their own. In my world view, it is amoral not to demand the victory of a superior morality over the evil one. I have thus the right, indeed an obligation, to claim that Israel’s moral right to exist is superior to that of the Arab world’s moral duty to extinguish Jewish presence in the Middle East (for starters). Therefore, I conclude that it is moral to use every means at our disposal to assure that the Jewish good triumphs and the evil is defeated.


Let me make it clear. I do not compare the death tolls or the sufferings on both sides. To me, they are different for they come from different causes. I do not wish the death and destruction of buildings but to me a destruction of an ancestral Arab home that nurtured a suicide murderer is acceptable and moral whereas the Katyusha rocket hit of an apartment building in Israel is not. This is the initial asymmetry that caused Walter Ruby to give me an unearned (but now treasured) sobriquet of a self-appointed “chacham”. Walter thought that he was asking me a caustically rhetorical question when he wrote: “Again, I ask Boris what makes him such a great chacham, such an authority on the desires, hopes and morals of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims?” I and most of those who read this must regrettably declare that we are.


We are indeed unwilling experts on Palestinian, Arab and Muslim actions and thus of their hopes, desires and aspirations. We witnessed the mad crowd prying out the body of a Russian Jewish soldier from the Joseph’s tomb and tearing it apart, piece by piece. We saw the ten (and some) odd pieces of bodies of two young Jewish men who missed their turn and wound up disembodies by a crowd in an Arab town some 10 miles from Jerusalem. Have anyone ever seen a Jewish mob tearing up a human? Anyplace? Anywhere? We did not see Jewish kindergartens and schools teaching children how to be martyrs (shahids) to drive the Jews from Palestine. The Arabs have them. We do not have a charter calling for the destruction of a single Arab state, as the Arab world has for the “Zionist entity.” Our invisible world does not order us to either convert or destroy the infidels after they reject conversion thrice. The Muslim world hears and follows these instructions. We do not declare our shrines and sacred cities off-limits to the infidels, but I challenge any non-Muslim to try to enter Mecca or Medina. Our Hasidim do not use explosive laden automobiles to blow up crowds at a market only because it is frequented by the Reform. The Sunnis do it to the Shiites and the Shiites obligingly reciprocate. We do not destroy Arab shrines or for that matter cultural monument of other religions. It is the Koran-thumping Talibs (future Muslim scholars) that blew up the 2,000 year-old colossal Buddhas in Afghanistan.


Jews do not kill European cinematographers for the documentary about Jewish women. The Euro-Arabs do. We do not firebomb buildings or kill nuns in retribution for publishing cartoons of Moses. This belongs to the Muslim realm of aspirations. Our culture does not bestow sainthood on those who blow themselves up in pizzerias or restaurants to kill Arab teens. We do not blow up Arab buses aiming at the early working crowd for maximum effect. Jews do not dig tunnels to smuggle weapons to our Jewish comrades shooting from behind the security of children’s housing in Gaza. We did not see Israeli vehicles painted in UN colors to abduct Arab soldiers. We did not see Israeli college graduates overthrow a wheel-chair bound invalid overboard, nor did we ever commandeer an ocean liner to demand the release of Jewish guerrillas. We are the experts on airline highjackings because we were the victims of Arab morality and remain the targets today.


How easy it is to forget the past and pretend that only the future holds correct answers. How easy it is to argue with Walter Ruby whose criteria of correctness is having an epiphany of “seriously dialoguing” or “considerable amount of interaction with ‘the enemy’. “ Contrary to Walter’s assertion I do not believe that the other side is a “demonic species”. I just cannot help but notice that very often they have behaved like one. Thus our ‘considerable amount of interaction’ is a public record and contrary to another Walter’s admonition, that “no side has a monopoly on truth” we shall hold tight on to the knowledge of what is. When the rest of the world, and my friend Walter Ruby, remembers what it conveniently ignores, it will be the day of peace. Until then we must fight. That is the only hope for our survival. Everything else is flower seeds for the morally blind.


Boris Gorbis

Los Angeles

December 11, 2006