BY JOSEPH KELLARD
"He was just very upset," the rabbi said of his 25-year-old son, about the death of Michael Levine of Philadelphia, whom he befriended when they were kids at Camp Ramah in the Poconos.
A paratrooper, Levine was fulfilling his dream by moving to Israel and joining its military. "It's the tragedy of this that the young people die," Rabbi Greenspan added.
The rabbi is among Jewish and Muslim community leaders who spoke with the Herald last week about the war that broke out after the Hezbollah terrorist organization kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and fired rockets into Israel on July 12. For retaliating and invading Lebanon, Israel was condemned by the United Nations for its attacks, which killed civilians, and for its "disproportionate" response. As of last week, an estimated 68 Israelis ‹ 41 soldiers and 27 civilians ‹ had been killed since the fighting began in mid-July, while 525 Lebanese, including 25 Lebanese soldiers and 50 Hezbollah fighters, had been killed.
Habeeb Ahmed, president of the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury, is among those criticizing Israel for its "disproportionate" response. "Just because someone has done something wrong, with those two soldiers, doesn't mean you are going to kill hundreds of thousands of people and [cause] billions and trillions of dollars in damage," Ahmed said.
Greenspan called this charge "a great ploy" from Hezbollah. "I feel terrible about the suffering, and most Israelis do, but I think they have to do what they need to do to weed out those rockets," said Greenspan, who became a volunteer with the Oceanside Fire Department in the wake of 9/11.
Rabbi Avi Kasten, spiritual leader of Congregation Shaar Hasha Mayim on Skillman Avenue in Oceanside, said, "What is proportionate is removing Hezbollah's 1,300 missiles so that Israel is not continually facing this kind of barrage."
Kasten blamed Lebanese civilian casualties on Hezbollah. "They were in large part due to Hezbollah's war tactics of using human shields," he said. "They can fire at us, but we can't return fire?"
Rabbi Daniel Zucker of Congregation Beth Sholom in Long Beach, noting that Hezbollah sets itself up deliberately in civilian areas, pointed out that Israel dropped leaflets warning the Lebanese to leave areas it planned to attack. "Israel is deliberately trying to avoid loss of life and allow innocents to escape; Hezbollah is deliberately targeting non-military," he said.
Zucker, who is also chairman of a pro-Iranian resistance organization called Americans for Democracy in the Middle East, believes Hezbollah, a terrorist organization sponsored by Iran, initiated the fighting because Tehran wanted to divert attention away from the U.N. Security Council's focus on its development of nuclear weapons. Hezbollah was also looking to swap the kidnapped Israeli soldiers for prisoners held in Israel.
"Probably there came requests from Tehran that this was a good time to do it, and Hezbollah was only too happy to oblige," Zucker said.
Ahmed believes the root cause of the fighting between Israel and its Arab neighbors is Israel's "occupation" of surrounding lands. "By and large, most of the people in the Islamic world and community feel that if things go back to 1967 boards, quite many problems will disappear in the Middle East," he said. Hezbollah's attacks came after Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000 and evacuated Gaza in 2005. But Ahmed believes Israel left Gaza "because they were having problems," and vacated Lebanon "because they felt this was someone else's sovereign territory Š and they left after 18 years because it was very costly for them to occupy the territory." Israel has since reentered Gaza after Hamas, another terrorist organization, captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid on June 25, and Israel returned "without informing anyone. This is like an illegal occupation," Ahmed said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department annually lists Iran as the chief sponsor of global terrorism, and established and funds Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that occupies positions in the Lebanese government. "I do think there is much credence to that," Ahmed said about the Iran-Hezbollah connection, "but I don't think it's that much." Ahmed followed up by stating that, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter Š Definitely, Hezbollah is doing terrorist activities ... But at the same time many people have said Israel is involved in state terrorism [by] terrorizing many people on the ground right now."
Asked how he could equate Israel, which employs a multi-party system that upholds freedom of speech and religion, property rights and the rights of women, with terrorist-sponsoring countries such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, which uphold none of these, Ahmed said, "That is true. It's not exactly comparing apples to apple or apples to oranges, but you're still comparing a fruit to a fruit."
Kasten, who speaks each year at post-parade ceremonies on Memorial Day in Oceanside, said that Israel's wars with Hezbollah and the Palestinians should be regarded as the same as America's war with al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists. "Certainly in the last five or six years, the Palestinians and Hezbollah and al Qaeda are all closely affiliated with Iran, which is the number one perpetrator of world terror," Kasten said. "They've all bought into the extremist, terrorist philosophies. You didn't hear the Palestinians [in the past] talk about the martyrdom that is so popular today."
Kasten added that he sees significant similarities between 1930s fascism and present-day Islamic extremist ideologies. "I fear that it may result ultimately to a similar confrontation," he said. "I think the most prominent political figures who have spoken as if we are on the brink of World War III are largely correct." Kasten said that he thought the world will have to remove the threats from Iran. "How best to do that remains to be seen," he said. "But the people have to have the nerve to do what has to be done."
Zucker believes it is ultimately futile, as some have suggested, to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, since this will leave the terrorist-sponsoring regime in power to rebuild. "I wish the U.S. government would get this clear," he said. "The only thing that's going to solve the problem of Iraq, is to get a regime change in Iran, so that you don't have a government that is continually fomenting rebellion and insurgency in Iraq."
In the meantime, Ahmed echoes Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and the United Nations in calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Despite calls for a ceasefire last week, Israel continued its military penetration deeper into Lebanon to create a zone to deploy an international force or Lebanese army to patrol the area in hopes of preventing further Hezbollah attacks on Israel. "I think the rest of the world has said they want an immediate ceasefire because many innocent people on both sides, but mostly on the Lebanese side, are paying a very heavy price, most of the times with their lives," Ahmed said.
Asked what should follow if a ceasefire materializes, he said, "There should be a serious sit-down to really address the problems for lasting peace in the area. People have been suffering for 50-60 years on both sides, Jews and Arabs of the area."
Ahmed, who has been with the Islamic Center for 12 years and helped organize interfaith events with Long Island's Muslims, Jews and Christians, said he believes there will be peace "as long as we respect each other and let everybody perform their own thing. But politicians and others with agendas prevent this. We don't have to agree and be on the page at the same time, but respect you must have."
Meanwhile, congregants of Oceanside Jewish Center have approached Greenspan on ways to help Israel. The rabbi would like to complete a fundraiser his congregation began a few years ago to raise $75,000 for a new ambulance for the Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. "I suspect that this is something that people are going to want to finish now," he said, "because they feel a sense of urgency."
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
