Last night the Center for Jewish History had its Hannah Arendt event. The big surprise about the evening for me was the extent to which the panel, which consisted of two Arendt-adorers in Jerome Kohn and Richard Bernstein, ennobled Arendt's anti-Zionist views as prophetic. On the left, we knew these views to be prophetic (indeed, an Arendt essay is included in the wonderful book Prophets Outcast, published by the Nation). But the significance of the event was that on the same stage where Marty Peretz and Michael Walzer lately erased the Palestinians, anti-Zionist views were being espoused. At one point in the evening, Jerome Kohn spoke feelingly of the murder by right wing Israelis of Folke Bernadotte in 1948, the U.N. negotiator who wanted to bring about a binational state in which Palestinian refugees were repatriated.
Haltingly, Kohn said that over 700,000 Palestinians had been "expelled" in 1948. Expelled. Nothing about, the Arabs ordered them to leave. No: The expulsion of the Palestinians. At the Center for Jewish History. That's progress.
In the Q-and-A, Eric Alterman of the Nation said that Arendt was a political nudnik because a binational state was impossible in the 40s. Yes, liberal Jews were for it, but there was no one on the Arab side to negotiate with, he said, sounding the realist.
Alterman's question gets at the larger issue of Why Hannah Arendt now. Forget about the Eichmann controversy and European antisemitism, why should we read Arendt now? The reason is that she was right. Everything she said about the Jewish state has come to pass: it is militaristic, at endless war with its neighbors, has sacrificed culture and progress to military innovation, is dependent on a superpower and contemptuous of the other, has transformed Jewish identity in other places, etc. This is no way to have a country. Young people don't want to embrace a vision of the future that is endless war.
By acknowledging that rightness, we rehabilitate her vision for Palestine, a Jewish liberal pluralist solution, and use her eminence to transform our discourse. I.e., this famous Jew said this stuff, we can too. Maybe she was a nudnik then. Not now.
Now came from then.
Revisionism is opportunist.
My wife had an encounter with Howard Zinn about two years ago. I produced an audiobook of "A People's History of the United States" in 1992 (narrated by a lead in a play that Howard wrote about Emma Goldman).
Howard was a hero of mine.
At a presentation, Howard stated (not the first time) that he regretted his service in World War 2, that he felt that his service as a bombardier was a cruelty, and that likely there were non-violent methods of dealing with Hitler.
That no one threw pies at him at that point was a testimony to the civility or perhaps imbecility of the audience.
After the talk, my wife spoke with him privately and thanked him FOR his service as a bombardier, that by his actions, she or someone else like her came to have the opportunity of life.
We are most human when we are thankful, and least human when we are resentful.
I thank those that fought so that my wife's parents could have a home a in Israel, rather than be harrassed in Hungary.
I thank those that chose to not be cruel to civilian Palestinians in that fight, so that Palestinians have a right to the opportunity of life.
I thank those that work for the betterment of Palestinians and Jews and Israelis so that each may live full lives.
I thank the transformation that Israel has had on my life.
Arendt – Popper
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Arendt is somewhat similar in her German-Jewish universalism to Karl Popper, the Vienna born philosopher. (Karl's parents had converted to Protestantism and he was baptised and brought up Protestant.)
In 1984 he strongly criticised Israeli politics against the Arabs and said: "It makes me ashamed of my origin. The notion of a chosen people is evil. Racial pride is stupid even when it was provoked by race-hatred. Every nationalism and racism is evil and Jewish nationalism is no exception."
I hope all those who share Richard's commitment to the Palestinian cause will be attending the big rally against the occupation scheduled for June 10-11 in Washington DC. It will mark the 40th anniversary of this, the longest-running military occupation in the world.
“>link to files.tikkun.org
Here's the campaign's response to Lerner–
I, too, attended the Arendt event at the Center for Jewish History. What surprised me was how much of Arendt's formative years were spent doing Jewish communal work. She was first arrested by the Gestapo in Germany in 1933 because she was collecting examples of official anti-Semitism for Zionist organizations. She then worked for Youth Aliyah in France, sending young Jews to Palestine, and she directed Jewish Cultural Reconstruction after the war.
Phil, what I got from last night was that Hannah Arendt was not so hostile to Zionism. She pressed for a Jewish Army to fight the Nazis under a Jewish flag and only broke with official mainstream Zionism over its maximalist stand. But she remained committed to a Jewish homeland in Palestine. After May 1948, she worked closely with Judah Magnes to try to arrange a confederation between a Jewish and Arab state in Palestine. Magnes was what was then known as a "cultural Zionist." He opposed a Jewish state but was committed to a permanent Jewish presence in Palestine.
Perhaps I am quibbling over definitions here but I think calling Arendt an "anti-Zionist" today misrepresents her position. Maybe what needs to be promoted more today is the idea that a confederation or a binational state is not "anti-Zionist" but a different flavor of Zionism favored by a noted Zionist and pacifist like Judah Magnes way back in 1948.
Re the Banality of evil, I think Berstein did a good job of explaining that Arendt's point was that anyone, under the wrong circumstances, can perform great evils. This is how our "good soldiers" in Iraq could participate in the torture of Abu Ghraib and other atrocities. It is why the authorities who create the circumstances in which this evil can flourish — Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Bush — need to be punished as severely as the perpetrators.
I like both Uri Avneri's and Rabbi Lerner's reasoning.
How is dissent to be simultaneously effective and compassionate, rather than egoism and habit?
By LISTENING to the needs of the other.
Phil says:
"Israel has sacrificed culture and progress to military innovation"
Today's paper says:
"Microsoft declares Israel as it's third strategic development center outside U.S. Microsoft is massively expanding its software development activity in Israel. The global company's Israel R&D center says its budget hundreds of millions of dollars over five years."
"Eric Alterman of the Nation said that Arendt was a political nudnik because a binational state was impossible in the 40s."
He may be right. But it's a damn shame that the Brit Shalom movement essentially died out in the 1930s due to the tit for tat Arab-Jewish pogroms of that era (much like how Shimon Peres lost the 1998 Israeli election through Hamas terror bombings which caused Israelis to turn away fr. him & toward Netanyahu).
If Ben Gurion had had a bit more vision & courage & the Arabs hadn't turned rejectionist (very big ifs I know), a binational state might've been a more practicable idea.
But essentially & unfortunately, Alterman is right.
The above post "Phil says …"
was not written by me. It's maybe my friend Bill Pearlman who impersonated myself, since Bill and I both value Israel's scientific and technological contributions to mankind (besides the problems Israel has to offer.)
Klaus
Frankfurt, Germany
An oppressor is a universal enemy.
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Lerner and Avnery do not help the people who are oppressed by the Arafats, Saddams, Mullahs, and Rabbis.
Arendt was not too clear on oppression. Or was she?
Oppressors are in a class for themselves, and often executed at the end.
I think this essay is brilliant and deals with much of the attitudes and interactions regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict.
http://kurtnimmo.com/perlman/01.html