One of my mentors in Israel/Palestine issues is Boston-area activist Hilda Silverman. She is at once very Jewish (which gives me great comfort) and very concerned with Palestinian human rights. The other day she sent out the following note to friends after seeing a tourism ad in The New Yorker:
To my horror, the Israeli government tourist people have revived their ads claiming, "Israel: No one belongs here more than you," which drove me up the wall years ago. Only now the tag line at the bottom is, "Come celebrate our 60th anniversary in 2008." I think we need to find a sugar mommy or sugar daddy to help fund some counter ads to this one, maybe playing on the idea of who "belongs" and using great photos of Palestinian refugees in camps–especially, perhaps, including older people who might once actually have *lived* in what is now Israel. And another ad could tell the story of the internally displaced. I think the chutzpah of this series needed to be challenged a long time ago. Maybe the 60th anniversary is the time? I’ve been looking for years for an appropriate project to approach the Paul Newman Foundation about funding (because of his contribution to the problem by playing the romantic Israeli hero, Ari Ben Canaan, in Exodus), and I’m wondering if this is it. Hmmm. . .
I told Hilda that I had lately been reading Exodus, and was surprised by the Ari Ben Canaan figure. He’s so macho and tall and tough and nonverbal, a shadow image of the shtetl Jews of Eastern Europe who were thought to have been way too sensitive and passive. Hilda wrote back:
As recently as 1993, when I taught a course in the Experimental College at Tufts about the conflict using primarily first person accounts on both sides, several of my students told me how much they had been influenced by the film. My argument to get funds from Newman is that having contributed (albeit unwittingly) to the cause of Nakba denial and glorification of the founding of Israel, he should help support efforts to tell “the other side of the story.” (My secondary argument is that I’ve purchased enough Newman oil and vinegar salad dressing over the years that some of that Foundation money is *my* money…). Anyway, I always assumed that the appropriate project would be something like a feature film, but maybe it wouldn’t have to be so ambitious. Lately I’ve had a fantasy of a series of TV ads, where Paul Newman comes on screen and starts out, “This is Ari Ben Canaan” and then goes on to describe some incident that is indicative of the real story of what happened—and is still happening–to Palestinians. Ideally, he would also in some way allude to the almost-60-year cover-up, in which, however innocently, he played a significant part.
Now she’s got me Hmmmm’ing.
Related posts:
- Hilda Silverman’s Finally Getting Her ‘Nakba’ Meeting With Paul Newman
- Hilda Silverman, Human Rights Leader, Passes On
- Blacklisted at Goucher, rabbi declares, ‘Treatment of Palestinians is most critical spiritual/moral issue facing Jews’
- ‘The spiritual/cultural gulf between Poles and Jews was chosen by both sides’
- Dual Loyalty Charges Portend Spiritual Crisis in American Jewish Community
{ 23 comments }
Opening line:
"What we have here is a failure to communicate…"
Exodus meets Cool Hand Luke. A chain gang working on the Wall. Boss Man with an uzi.
Keep dreaming.
Sounds plausible.
One wonders if the Palestinians wouldn't prefer said debt paid in shipments of popcorn, tomato sauce and lemonade.
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/10/zionist-film-exodus-terrorism-is-good.html discusses Exodus.
Schindler's List is more evil than Exodus.
After a discussion of Ghada Karmi's new book and The Heartbreak Kid remake, http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/10/married-to-another-man-married-to.html addresses Subliminal Zionist Propaganda and Genocide Incitement in Schindler's List .
Anti-zionism is racism in a way.
It is the assertion that Jews are not a people, and therefore do not have the right to self-govern.
Anti-zionism is DIFFERENT from criticism of the methods and policies.
Phil,
Do you think it is possible to be assertive and ethical at the same time, or is it your belief that Jews should be passive (and abused)?
I expect that you admire Jews who were not passive in the slightest, but active and assertive social activists.
Perhaps those Jews, active and assertive but for social causes, were part of the transformation from passive and abused with assimilation and/or isolation as virtue, to backbone and self-identity as virtue.
Patriotism, whether American or Zionist or Palestinian, can go too far. But, that is DIFFERENT than passivity as a virtue, and assertiveness as a curse.
You know, NOW is the time to be writing Congress and President to urge participation in the peace conference that is respectful for the Palestinians, that urges genuine mutual consent in negotiation.
There is the view that the PA is not authorized to negotiate with Israel, that it does not have sufficient consent of Palestinians. If that is the case though, then probably Palestine will remain subordinated for another 20 years or so, at least.
What do you recommend? Act now, or wait.
RW
I would recommend that Israel gets the fuck out of all the occupied territories (including) Gaza. Now.
That would make the Israeli leadership both assertive and ethical.
Can one be assertive without being criminal? certainly.
Is the Israeli leadership being criminally assertive just because it can?
Taking out revenge for past abuse against Jews on a people who had nothing to do with it?
But of course the Israeli leadership is not going to get out of the occupied territories. Ever.
So that makes it assertive and unethical.
RW's conundrum doesn't exist in practice.
I recommend Joachim's pieces on Zionist media. (And he's got a clip of a scene from the movie.)
By the way, do I remember correctly that Leon Uris was encouraged by the Israeli government to write the novel?
MondoMan
Your decision to look at Uris’ Exodus from a different point on the moral compass reminds me somewhat of Julius Epstein when he decided to write the screenplay for Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron. Epstein was one of the more courageous artists in the US, at least in my view. And his artistic courage lead to a storyline that had a unique moral equilibrium.
Because of Epstein’s adaptation, Sgt. Steiner became a remarkable character in the film. And the character Stransky? Is he a metaphor for the neoconservatives — both Jewish and Christian — in today’s “war on terror”? Perhaps so! Warmongers with soft hands — it is a universal phenomenon.
Another example of artistic courage: Conrad Veidt was anti-Nazi and married to a Jewish woman, yet he played Major Strasser in Casablanca.
There is nothing “passive” about artistic courage. Even Sun Tzu would agree that to win, you have to know how the “other” thinks and feels
Anti-racism is racism in a way.
It asserts that whites are not a separate people, and do not have the right to self-govern and subjugate or segregate all others.
Anti-racism is DIFFERENT from criticism of methods and policies.
Richard Witty expresses some of the standard justifications for ethnic Ashkenazi genocidalism in Stolen and Occupied Palestine.
Ethnic Ashkenazim in historic Poland were an ethnic group or were developing ethnic consciousness in the late 19th century, but Jews in historic Commonwealth Poland certainly were not an ethnonational or even ethnic group for, people of Lithuanian Polish Tatar Jewish ethnic heritage and people of Ashkenazi Jewish ethnic heritage had only a subset of religious principles in common and practically nothing else.
Outside of historic Poland Jews belonged to many more ethnic groups.
The origin of ethnic Ashkenazim lies in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Southern Russia. One could discuss a dispersion or Diaspora of ethnic Ashkenazim among the other peoples of historic Poland and neighboring regions by they were not in exile from historic Palestine although religiously they could consider themselves in exile from a spiritual conceptualized Biblical Israel as a metaphor for alienation from God.
The idea that ethnic Ashkenazim have the right on the basis of the etymological relationship of the word Jew to the word Judea to steal Palestine from the native Palestinians, who are for the most part descended from ancient Judeans, Samarians and Galilians and whose ancestors are the actual composers and redactors of the Hebrew Bible and of the Palestinian Talmud, is so extreme it is psychotic. (It is also rather tragicomic that so many ethnic Ashkenazim are so ashamed of their own history that they feel they must steal the heritage of Palestinians in addition to Palestine.)
By the logic of Zionism, the Roman Catholic Irish would have the right to steal and ethnically cleanse Rome because "Roman" is morphologically derived from the word "Rome."
Ethnic Ashkenazim in Stolen and Occupied Palestine are murderous genocidal thieves and interlopers.
Richard Witty is a genocide supporter that all decent human beings should hate and despise.
The Israeli government effectively and possibly contractually commissioned Exodus. My copy of Exodus thanks Ilan Hartuv of the Israeli Foreign Office for all his assistance.
From a google search:
"Rachel Weissbrod – Exodus as a Zionist Melodrama – Israel Studies 4:1From the start, Exodus had the backing of the Israeli Foreign Office. Ilan Hartuv, acting for the Foreign Office, accompanied Uris around Israel and taught …
muse.jhu.edu/journals/israel_studies/v004/4.1weissbrod.html – Similar pages"
The film funding came from American Zionist and Israeli government sources.
The employment of Dalton Trumbo screenwriter was a clear statement that film people blacklisted for pro-Soviet sympathies could get work on Zionist projects and was an important early step in the (Jabotinskian) Zionization of Hollywood.
A little bit of a stretch of truth guys.
Thanking an individual for their assistance is a FAR CRY from Israeli authorization or sponsorship of a novel.
My recollection of the film and book (from about a year ago), was that the film did present the reality there largely accurately, to the extent that a single film can capture the political dynamics.
The Palestinians were presented alternately respectfully and trivially. The Irgun was presented alternately with emulation but also disdain.
For a film and book written 50 years ago, it was quite candid and actually informative.
It definitely was the story of Zionism, a good story, a good assertion.
This past weekend, I visited a holocaust survivor from Hungary, a friend of my wife's parents. He described his condition in Vienna in 1949, at the time that he migrated to Israel.
He sited that he had applied for visa to Great Britain, US, Australia and was denied. His professional expertise was in an area that was under quota, and that neither of those states would accept him.
Similar to Palestinians from the West Bank, or Lebanon, he had no passport. Hungary denied him one, even though born there. The Austrian refugee camps did not afford him Austrian citizenship. He had identity papers.
Israel was the only state that offered him full citizenship, and he took it thankfully.
His is the same story as a million others.
Thankfully there was Israel.
There should be Palestine (West Bank and Gaza if they determine to join).
But, it won't happen by loudness on the part of either Palestinians or American "solidarity". Maybe an increment of help will be offered by loudness, but as much detriment will occur as a result as well.
Whether typical or not, the assertion that Jews are a people is the basis of political Zionism.
To my mind, and to the vast majority of the world, that logic stands. Its compelling, true.
What part of the sentences
"From the start, Exodus had the backing of the Israeli Foreign Office. Ilan Hartuv, acting for the Foreign Office, accompanied Uris around Israel"
is unclear?
I would expect that a film about the founding of a nation would have its backing.
Thats a good thing.
The Jewish people are a single people. Whether there were tensions (still are) between different groups is irrelevant to the reality that Jews identify as Jews largely.
That Jews can be Jews but not reside in Israel is also a good thing. It is constructed on acceptance of the other, civility.
The contrast is militancy, which is both loud and uniquely coercive. You want to test the question of loyalty, ask an ideolog to what extent they will accept others.
Ask yourself Joaquin.
Do you accept a people's self-associating, or do you have a personal litmus test that accepts some, but excludes others?
No doubt, at least in my mind, the pain from the Holocaust is simply immeasurable. In other words, the pain stretches deep into a psychological infinity. How could it not? I think that explains why Americans — including the ones that Milbank now describes as “"goyische kop” — became supporters of Zionism, and I include myself in that group. Truman was too, apparently.
So were the Screaming Eagles when they landed on Normandy, now that I think about it. Nobody seems to care about the Screaming Eagles now that they are in Iraq. Goyische kop?
But even though I still cling to Martin Van Creveld as well as some others, I admittedly am in the uncharted waters of “ideological disarray and realignment”. I do believe that various Jews responded differently to the Holocaust, all driven by the spirit of “Never Again”. On the secular side, Murray Rothbard created an economic theory that basically destroyed the notion of the State (and with it, state sponsored pogroms). Herzl and his followers, of course, took another approach and used the Holocaust to develop further the creation of a secular Jewish State (arguably based on an outdated Western neo-colonial model, so much for Martin Buber!).
In the religious universe, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum wrote “Vayoel Moshe”. At the other end of the spectrum, Rabbi Teichtal wrote “Eim HaBanim Semeicha“. Rabbi Sonnenfeld or Rabbi Kook…only one is right. And one may have assumed a prophetic office. Which one is right? I don‘t have a clue but, in any event, I’d certainly keep my distance from the Rapturists.
Rabbi Wasserman wrote a book that was translated into the title, “The Unheeded Cry”. I probably should try to read it at some point.
Trust me, Uris’ Exodus flows/flowed through my veins — it was the book of my youth. I am not sure Uris is to blame here for the problems of today, but I dunno’ for sure. Maybe Zionism has not lived up to the Uris ideal, particularly since 1967. Here’s an analogy perhaps to the change from pre to post 67 Zionism: from Julius Epstein to Michael Ovitz. I’ll take Epstein…so much for living on Broad Beach!
I think it's an interesting question as to whether Schindler's List did more harm than Exodus, but the timing of the two is relevant here. Edward Tivnan writes in "The Lobby: Jewish Political Power and American Foreign Policy" (1987) that prior to 1958, "Most Americans. . .knew virtually nothing about Zionism, and less about events in Israel. In 1958, that changed with the publication of what The New York Times called 'a passionate summary of the inhuman treatment of the Jewish people in Europe, of the exodus of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to Palestine and the triumphant founding of the new Israel.' Leon Uris's Exodus became an instant best seller, and the primary source of knowledge about the Jews and Israel that most Americans had. It was hardly an unbiased picture; as the Times reviewer noted, 'the Arabs come off badly in this book.' The heroes were fighting Jews, including the Irgun, which, though criticized for its terrorism, took on, according to the Times, 'quite a hint of glory.'"
"Exodus was great public relations for Israel, priceless in fact. And when Otto Preminger's movie of the book came out two years later starring Paul Newman as a Sabra hero–a member of what one character in the book calls 'a race of Jewish Tarzans'–Israel's reputation seemed secure in the U.S. Suddenly, Jews were glamorous. When the moment came in the film for 'Ha-Tikvah,' the national anthem of Israel, to be played, people danced in the aisles of movie theaters. Since publication, Exodus has sold more than twenty million copies. The Israel of most Americans, including Jews, is still the Exodus version."
When I was writing to Phil about Paul Newman and Exodus I vaguely remembered that I'd once read that the book had been *commissioned* to give good P.R. to Israel, but I couldn't remember the source and didn't at the time try to look it up. I've since done a google search and, while I can't independently vouch that this is accurate, I turned up the information that the P.R. firm of Edward Gottlieb had commissioned the book from Uris "to create a more sympathetic attitude toward Israel."
This fits with what I know of the experience of I.F. Stone several years previously. In 1946, Izzie Stone was the first international journalist to accompany one of the boats of Jewish refugees trying to break the British blockade of Palestine, and he wrote about the experience for the New York publication, PM. He ultimately published a book, "Underground to Palestine and Reflections Thirty Years Later," but you've probably never heard of it (although it is still available today via on-line used book stores). There is a reason why. In "Confessions of a Jewish Dissident," (included in the book's "Reflections" section) Stone writes, "When publication in book form was planned, I was taken to lunch by friends in the Zionist movement, including a partner in one of the topmost advertising firms in America. They outlined a $25,000 advertising campaign [a huge amount of money in those days. H.S.] to put the book across. But then came the awkward moment."
"There was one sentence, I was told, just a sentence or so, that had to come out. It was the sentence in which I suggested a bi-national solution, a state whose constitution would recognize, irrespective of shifting majorities, the presence of two peoples, two nations, Arab and Jewish within Palestine. . ."
Stone refused to take the passage out and wrote, "That ended the luncheon, and in a way, the book. It was in effect boycotted."
Hilda Silverman
One prospective publisher not taking on a project does not kill it.
Zionism was regarded as heroic long before the book, maybe not as popularly in the general public, but certainly among Jews.
Also, the long-standing conflict between really three + groups, the socialist labor Zionists building utopia among their idealistic brethren, the fascistic Jabotinskyites who adopted the military discipline as culture, and the middle of the road civilists.
Palestinians were NOT identified with, certainly.
Did you Hilda, Phil?
The reality for the Palestinians still does not dismiss the also reality for the Jewish refugees and history, misused or not.
Never again was a moving forward. Including, "never again will we be without a home, without a nation".
The current question is what is it to be? Is it to be of the nature of expansion, or the nature of enough?
The nature of passivity is rejected though, thoroughly, permanently.
. . .just for clarification, I was *not* describing the rejection by one particular publisher of Stone's book. I was describing a conditional offer (which was rescinded because Stone would not agree to the condition) to launch a PR campaign in support of the book which in today's dollars would probably be the equivalent of close to a million dollars.
And over the years I have read and re-read Stone's book and have recommended it to many others. I am personally deeply moved by the story of the desperate attempts by remnants of the Shoah to reach the shores of Palestine. But I think the price for another people–who surely didn't have major responsibility for the Holocaust–was simply too high. The Leon Uris version would serve to deny (or possibly in some instances justify) that hideous price.
When I first read and saw Exodus, I was not aware of the anti-Arab racism embedded in it (and I *certainly* didn't identify with the Palestinians!). But decades later, when I read Uris's "The Haj," I had learned enough to recognize a deeply malevolent work, one steeped in hatred of and disrespect for Arabs, and especially Palestinians.
We bring different knowledge and experience to the books and movies we encounter at different stages of our own lives and political development.
Hilda Silverman
"We bring different knowledge and experience to the books and movies we encounter at different stages of our own lives and political development."
This is definitely true.
I had a different experience from largely the same exercise. I read Exodus again a little over a year ago, partially to inquire if it was biased/propaganda and how that effected me.
There certainly were invocations that seemed petty in both the book and the movie. I found the movie (like most movies – 2 1/2 hour condensation of lives) more trivial.
I didn't though find either the book, nor the movie, devoid of sympathy nor of some insight into Palestinian consciousness and history. It informed me.
To infer that it was just a propaganda piece, I think misleads.
I've NEVER encountered any material that solely informs, nor any material that informs so sufficiently that I don't need to read further.
"But I think the price for another people–who surely didn't have major responsibility for the Holocaust–was simply too high. "
My belief is that the corollary, that to expect Zionism to have ignored its own need for life and home was also too high a price.
Now married into a family of holocaust survivors, who made that trip (different particular story, but very similar themes), I know that the formation of Israel was necessary.
We are all beneficiaries and even causes of such interventions. Its the dilemma of the Bhagavad Gita. "I'm a sensitive person. I see that the action that I must do will effect others harmfully, people that I do (or not) have sympathy for. If I don't act, my own people suffer and/or die (in the case of the refugees) and harms will come either way. I WON'T FIGHT".
According to Krishna – "Wrong answer from laudable sentiment. Action is the nature of the universe. The things that you CAN do is control the nature of your action and the consciousness and sensitivity with which you undertake your action. Even in war, which is by definition the unleashing of harmful action without sensitivity."
So, for me the question is not of apology, as in "I am guilty that I even exist", (including as a self-governing state, but also in the way that many of those that are "not" anti-semitic insist that Jews live lives of existential apology).
The question is of ethics, HOW and with what consciousness do I act, so that I may harm least (not none, but also not cavalierly).
Its good that there is a prospective dance partner now, whereas for a very long time, the dance was a dance of those only warring.
"When I first read and saw Exodus, I was not aware of the anti-Arab racism embedded in it "
When I first read it at 14, in Israel, I was aware that the book presented only a sliver of Palestinian experience, under-representative of the reality.
I was aware that I was not aware.
14 is a particularly insightful time in one's life, for those interested in reading, thinking, exploring.
The time, 1968, was amazing, a revelation (as in seeing much).
But also a confusing time.
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