By
\nnow we’ve all heard the criticisms of President Obama receiving the
\nNobel Peace Prize just a little too early. But Judaism and Jewish
\nvalues offer a unique perspective on the controversy that others have
\nmissed. Let me explain by first prefacing with my own grave
\ndisappointment in the steady decline of a once mighty prize.<\/p>\n
I
\ngrew up in awe of the Nobel peace prize and its noble recipients. This
\naward was simply amazing, an acknowledgement on the part of our
\ncivilization that peace is life’s highest end, fraternity humanity’s
\ngreatest goal. I read books on the prize and its recipients. I gave my
\nkids quizzes on the winners and the year in which they received the
\nprize. I went so far as to establish at Oxford University an annual
\nlecture that could only be delivered by winners of the prize. Endowed
\nduring the 1990’s by philanthropist Edmund Safra, the lecture was
\ndelivered to capacity audiences by such luminaries as Elie Wiesel,
\nwinner in 1986, Joseph Rotblat, winner in 1995, Shimon Peres &
\nYitzhak Rabin, winners in 1994, and most significantly Mikhail
\nGorbachev, winner in 1990. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I used to wait expectantly for the annual Friday morning in October
\nwhen the Peace Prize was announced as the culmination of a week-long
\nseries of Nobel announcements. And as a young teenager when I dreamed
\nof what significant achievements my life might one day bring, the Nobel
\nPeace Prize was at the top of the list, even ahead of the presidency of
\nthe United States (yes, back then I dreamed big).<\/p>\n
But what a drag the last few years have been. For me it began when
\nthe prize was awarded in 1994 to Yasser Arafat, the godfather of modern
\nterrorism, whose lasting legacy is not lasting peace with Israel but
\nthe army of suicide bombers he launched against the Jewish state to
\ndismember pregnant women and disembowel helpless children. That a
\ncold-blooded killer could win the world’s highest award for peace made
\nthe prize into a farce. At Oxford I hosted Kaare Kristiansen who
\nbravely resigned from the Nobel Peace committee after it disgraced
\nitself with the award to Arafat. But one bad apple, I said to myself,
\ncould not ruin a prize so majestic in its ambition and scope. But then
\nmore strange choices followed. Strange, not because its recipients
\nlacked virtue but because their achievements seemed to have little
\nconnection to peace. The whole purpose of the prize is to promote
\nharmony as humanity’s most noble objective. So what did the prize have
\nto do with Al Gore and climate change, important as the issue is? And
\nwhy award the prize to Jimmy Carter whose legacy is not peace between
\nnations but an almost irrational penchant for championiong strong-arm
\ndictators at the expense of their oppressed people, including praise he
\noffered for such international criminals as Kim Il Sung, Marshal Joseph
\nTito, Nicolas Ceausescu, and Raul C\u00e9dras. Indeed, after the prize was
\nawarded to Muhammad ElBaradei in 2005 it seemed it had simply become a
\npolitical tool by which to bash the Bush administration, bringing the
\nprize into further discredit.<\/p>\n
In light of these developments last Thursday, the night before the
\nprize’s announcement, I told a friend that I bet President Obama would
\nreceive it. My friend was incredulous. ‘But he hasn’t done anything.’
\n‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but he’s not President Bush.’ To be honest, even as I
\nsaid it I did not completely believe it. Surely the members of the
\nNobel Peace Committee would not cause Alfred Nobel to turn in his grave
\nby destroying his prize just because they loathed George Bush.<\/p>\n
But the next morning the unthinkable happened. A man in office only
\neight months who has not resolved a single global conflict and who has
\nyet to disarm the Iranian nuclear menace or confront North Korea’s
\nsaber rattling won the prize.<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong. I am not an Obama basher. Our President is a man
\nor rare eloquence and oratorical gifts. I have supported him strongly
\nthrough the good he has done and criticized him for the missteps he has
\ntaken. But come on. Peace is not simply a great speech and universal
\nharmony is not merely a collection of words.<\/p>\n
And here is where Jewish values comes into play. Because perhaps the
\ngreatest teaching Judaism has to offer the world is that action is
\nalways more important than even the most noble intention. Words can
\nnever be a substitute for deed.<\/p>\n
Martin Luther King was arguably the finest American orator of the
\ntwentieth century. But he won the 1964 prize for his marches rather
\nthan his speeches. It was his courageous action throughout the south,
\ndefying attack dogs, powerful water hoses, and determined assassins,
\nthat earned him the prize. It was the change he brought in ending
\nsegregation and Jim Crow that made him a global hero of peace. Indeed,
\nthe speech King gave in accepting the prize in Oslo is considered to
\nhave been of his most lackluster addresses, appropriate perhaps in
\nhighlighting that it was what he did rather than what he said that
\nreally mattered.<\/p>\n
And this is where the real guilt of the Nobel Committee lies. They
\nhave mistakenly and destructively conveyed the message that what a man
\nor woman says is as important as what they do. And while we need
\neloquent words to motivate us and make us march, until those feet start
\nastompin’ the speech remains empty rhetoric.<\/p>\n
No doubt had our President been given some time he might have earned
\nthe prize outright based on real achievements confronting Iran, shoring
\nup Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy, and perhaps even disarming North
\nKorea. He might have earned the prize by bringing an end to some of the
\nthirty-odd civil wars in Africa where so much of his family still
\nlives. But this Prize will now be seen for what it has sadly become, a
\npolitical statement against Republican governments of the United States.<\/p>\n
I am not a Republican and I am not a Democrat, preferring to utilize
\nmy G-d-given intelligence to choose my position on the issues. But my
\nvalue system comes from Judaism which has always promoted peace as
\nlife’s supreme goal and positive action as the very barometer by which
\ncharacter is built. Indeed our religion says that G-d’s very name is
\nShalom, peace.<\/p>\n
The President should of course accept the prize. It is not his fault
\nthat the committee awarded him something he has not yet earned. But it
\nwould be noble and worthy if he utilized his speech in Oslo to tell the
\nworld that when it comes to people dying and cities being pulverized
\nwords are never enough. Condemning the darkness will never supplant
\nsaving the dying and repudiating the aggressors will never replace
\nprotecting the innocent. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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