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| Former British PM, Tony Blair |
I know you may find this incredible, but I as an American do follow
the political scene in other countries!
In particular, I have long followed British politics. As you know, the two countries, the UK and
the USA, have always had a very special relationship. As you may remember, back in the 1980’s when
the US President was the Republican Ronald Reagan, Britain was ruled by the
Tories under Margaret Thatcher.
I always liked “the
Iron Lady.” I thought she was a formidable force and of course had a very
strong friendship with President Reagan which brought the UK and the US even
closer during those years.
During most of the
first decade of the new century, George W. Bush served as the US President.
Tony Blair was the British PM. It would
have been counterintuitive to expect an especially warm working relationship
between the Labourite Blair and the Republican Bush. But the two were, by all accounts, best of
friends and close confidants. This,
despite that Blair had also been close to the previous US President, Bill
Clinton, and remains a good friend of the Clintons to this day.
Whether because of
or despite this – okay, it’s because! – I’ve long liked Tony Blair. It’s hard not to respect a political leader
who can form strong friendships with those of his own, as well as other,
political philosophies. Who takes a
principled stand that, in effect, ruins his standing in his own party as Blair
did with his support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. So Tony Blair is a British politician I’ve
admired and followed over the years.
As the political
leaders we most admire tend to do, Tony Blair after retiring from politics has
spent his years in public service. He
has been serving as Special Envoy of the Middle East Quartet, a loose
consortium consisting of the UN, the EU, the Russian Republic and the USA. He has spent the last seven years travelling
in the Middle East and talking to other world leaders about the Middle
East. His is a voice which is deeply
respected by most of the principals to the Middle East Conflict, as well as by
leaders around the world.
Last week in London,
Tony Blair addressed the Elephant in the Room that makes it so difficult for
the West to come to terms with the Middle East.
And that Elephant is the fact that Radical Islam, or Islamism as it’s
often called, is a warped and aggressive ideology on the order of what were
arguably the most injurious such ideologies on the planet during the twentieth
century: Nazi fascism and Soviet communism.
And while he of course offered the
caveat that not all Muslims are Islamists, he sounded a very direct and serious
warning: “The
threat of radical Islam is not abating. It
is growing. It is spreading across the world. It is de-stabilizing communities
and even nations. It is undermining the possibility of peaceful co-existence in
an era of globalisation.”
Strong
words. But much of the world’s press has
ignored them. Zev Chafets did not. He’s an American-born Israeli, a former
president of the Reform Jewish youth group NFTY and author of several good
books who appears on FOX News. Chafets
points out that Blair was excoriated and called an ‘Islamophobe’ by “Islamist
propagandists and their British fellow travellers.”
Understand
what it would mean to be an ‘Islamophobe.’
A phobia is a baseless, irrational fear. So an ‘Islamophobe’ would be someone who has a
baseless, irrational fear of Islam. The
problem is that there are very real, rational reasons to have concerns about
Islamism. And if anybody has the
first-hand knowledge to understand those concerns in a rational way, it is Tony
Blair.
But
why mention this on a Friday evening, in shule of all places?
I
mention it because, first, it’s important to have honest conversations about
the effect of religion in general, and of specific religions, on society. We talk about our own religion, and those of
our neighbours. That talk should be
honest and frank.
As
you know, I am very much a veteran of interfaith dialogue. I think it is important that people of
various religions talk to one another. But
one frustration I have about it, is that very little is said that is
substantive. Interfaith ‘conferences’
generally take the form of love-fests, where participants representing various
religious faiths stand up and tell how much their religion loves all others. Then everybody walks away, feeling good. Or at least, feeling as if they are supposed
to feel good.
What
Tony Blair has done, is the antithesis of these interfaith conferences. Knowing that he would be excoriated, he stood
at the podium and told the truth. But
Blair has a history of doing just that.
And that’s why he is well-respected, and listened to, around the world. This, despite that some have raked him over
the coals for the Iraq War, and now for sounding an alarm about Islamism.
Which
brings me to the second reason I mention this tonight. It is important to tell what you understand to
be the truth. That is self-evident. But equally important is how you tell
it. The truth shouldn’t be used as a
weapon. It should serve to enlighten,
and to help others to contextualise facts.
And to translate those facts into action. That’s why gossip is so injurious. Gossip, or rechilut in Hebrew, is
information about another person. It may
very well be true. But it is repeated
not for the purpose of allowing the hearer to make informed decisions. Rather, its purpose is often to discredit
another person. In that case it is also
Evilspeak, or lashon hara. The
Torah forbids it, even if it is true. In Australian law it is called Defamation,
and it is illegal…even if it is true.
Gossip
is the antithesis of directness. The
latter might hurt someone’s feelings now and then, especially if they are unused
to it. But it is a constructive way to
tell people what you really think and mean. To let them know where they stand with
you. It is a good idea to temper
directness with a dose of diplomacy. But
we should nevertheless prize directness, and work to apply it in our
communications, instead of gossiping.
None
of us in this room is a professional diplomat. None of us is qualified to speak
authoritatively about the causes of Middle East conflict. But each of us can learn
an important lesson from Tony Blair. In
particular, from his words last week. Each
of us regularly communicates ideas and facts to others: in conversation and in writing. Nobody is factually right all the time. But we all have a responsibility to
communicate what we believe to be right, and to qualify such communication when
we don’t know. This is a skill to
use 24/7/365. As Tony Blair has learned,
there is a danger in telling the truth. But it is important to do so. Shabbat shalom.
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