Op-ed: As Im Tirtzu's supporters saw last week, the fervent quest to implicate others as traitors can quickly go too far. Israel's witch hunters need to stop now, before it's too late.

"Let there be no hope for informers", says the Shemoneh Esrei prayer. That harsh saying has many different and interesting religious interpretations, but when I was young, me and the other kids at a secular school in Tel Aviv took it literally: Bad things are in order for people who inform on their buddies. We wrote the words on a large piece of cardboard paper, and hung it on the wall next to the principal's office.

Since his office was near the restrooms, one child made a slight change to the sign, switching the Hebrew words to mean "Let there be no hope for those who pee." It created a small controversy, one of many. The school itself closed down years ago. Its restrooms now service the coffee shop that has since opened nearby. Whenever I schedule a meeting there, I make sure to give that wall a respectful visit. Not because of the restroom: Because of the informers.

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APN & Peace Now on the NGO bill

7/12/16: APN condemns new anti-democratic Israeli law
1/21/16: APN Q&A: Israel’s new NGO Bill – what it is, what it means
12/27/15: APN Statement: Anti-NGO Bill - Hate Crime against Democracy
1/11/16: Lara Friedman for JTA: No comparison b/w NGO bill & US law   
1/10/2016: Peace Now's Anat Ben Nun for Newsweek: Israel's NGO Bill is an Attempt to Crush Critics of the Government
1/4/16: Peace Now report: Who is Funding Israeli Right-Wing NGOs?
12/31/15: Briefing Call: The threats facing Israeli democracy w/ Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer

By Lex Rofes

Two simple Hebrew words. I have heard them over and over again, from rabbis, Jewish educators, and lay-leaders. At my Jewish summer camp, we shouted it at the top of our lungs at the end of Bir’kat Hamazon every Shabbat. At a Reform congregation where I was a member, it was inscribed in huge letters on the synagogue’s ark.

Na’aseh V’nishma comes from this week’s Torah portion – Parashat Mishpatim. According to the most common interpretation of it (drawn from Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer among other sources), the sequence of the words is of the utmost importance. According to this school of thought, the best translation is really “We will accept [God’s commandments], and then we will understand.” The words indicate, in effect, that the Israelites will do whatever the Torah says – even though they don’t even know what that is yet. Many have lauded the Israelites’ behavior in this Mid’rash. That our ancestors were so willing to trust God, obeying a document they hadn’t even read yet, is, in their opinion, praiseworthy.

I can’t agree. The reason is that, in today’s world, injustice thrives. It runs rampant, in our own society and all around the world. That includes the West Bank and Gaza, under military occupation by the Israeli government for almost fifty years. Our relationship to this injustice – all injustice really – cannot be one of “we will accept it, and then we will understand.”

This week, Alpher discusses the flurry of high level discussions and agreements between Israel, Greece and Cyprus, with Egypt also mentioned as an economic and military partner, seemingly directed at isolating Turkey regionally; more Edward Snowden revelations of far-reaching electronic monitoring by the US and UK, and whether Israel is alarmed at its friends’ spying; if there is any chance of success trying to end the slaughter in Syria, via the convening of yet another high-level meeting in Geneva to try; how do Israelis react to more and more instances of regime-led siege warfare against Syrian civilian villages, leading to starvation; his reaction to French FM Fabius calling for an international peace conference and threatening that if it fails, France will recognize a Palestinian state.

Let’s take a moment for a thought experiment. I do this days after more Palestinian attacks on Israelis, including the horrific murder of a mother of six children; soon after Israel announced the expropriation of another 370 acres of land near Jericho; and after Majed Faraj, the Palestinian security chief, announced that Palestinian security forces had intercepted 200 potential terrorist attacks against Israel. The thought experiment focuses on whether the “Plan B” for the Israel-Palestine dispute should be Israel’s annexation of the territories it occupied in 1967 and the extension of full citizenship rights to the Palestinians in those areas.

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