My friend Dan Swanson wrote a book about South Africa called Freedom Rising. It came out in the mid-80s, and ten years later, apartheid ended in South Africa, in good part because of U.S. sanctions, which leftists and blacks here had agitated for.
Here is an important story about South Africa. In 1963, a black South African poet and activist named Dennis Brutus was imprisoned by the government on political charges, for 18 months. My friend Dan interviewed Brutus, and he tells me that a guard who became friendly to Brutus took him aside one day. "You’re a smart, well-spoken educated guy," the guard said. "Why don’t you give up this protest and do something productive." Or words to that effect. And Brutus said he was committed to a just cause, one he believed in. "But you will never win," the guard said. "The United States is on our side."
That was in 1965, Swanson says; and the guard was right. It took nearly 30 years for American attitudes to shift. A lot of the tumult in the intellectual community over Israel/Palestine over the last year–from The New Republic decrying the delegitimization of Israel, to the effort to smear Walt and Mearsheimer and Jimmy Carter, to Bill Kristol blurting at Yivo that "Israel needs" the Christian right–a lot of the tumult reflects the anxiety in the pro-Israel community that a 30-year South Africa clock is ticking away. The bloc is being attacked, it is showing cracks. As Kristol said, wisely, at Yivo, constituencies and demographics change. The coalition that Israel has depended upon in the States may loosen. Why, even the left wing of the Israel lobby may finally break loose, and flap a little, and even call for sanctions (as Dan Fleshler hints, here)…
IBM claims that IT was instrumental in the breaking of apartheid as well.
That is that educated blacks (a minority) and educated whites worked side by side on tangible projects that required collaboration and trust for a "higher good" (services towards profit). The working people on the ground (the blacks and whites working side by side) were not the owners. They made the service. The owners made the profit.
Israel is NOT South Africa. There was a viable path in South Africa and a CLEAR black majority. A civil democratic one-person one-vote society resulted in clear majority and authority.
In Israel/Palestine the demographics are equal. A single state would result in a 50/50 split. While in civilized US, that didn't result in civil war when Bush ran against Gore, even though the two were VERY different in policy, network, debts.
It would in Israel/Palestine, as it has in Palestine, only deferred by the equivalent of partition currently.
"a lot of the tumult reflects the anxiety in the pro-Israel community that a 30-year South Africa clock is ticking away."
This is false. It represents the escalating "permission" to demonize Israel and Jews in association, particularly among the ideological left.
One characteristic of the ideological left, rather than the humanist left, is that it adopts positions and disregards that there are TWO (or more) valid and rational perspectives on the conflict.
The left ignores that the unraveling of the knot is dangerous to real people, and urges imprecise vindictive "remedies". Functionally an imprecise dissent (a boycott or divestiture for example) illustrates EXACTLY the criticism that is validly levied against excessive bombing or sanctions or isolation.
That is that it is collectively punitive (and usually not even at all to the individuals or groups that offend), and vindictive.
A humanist would NOT suggest it. An ideologue might.
A humanist would ask to lay the issues out clearly on the table and sort them out, as issues, not as parties to the issues.
Ah, Richard, I see the code word "civilized" here. Because of course in your view the Arabs are uncivilized.
Hey man, if you don't like the neighborhood, why don't you leave? And don't let the door hit your *** on the way out.
Never mind. The Crusaders ruled the "uncivilized" Arabs for 200 years from their forts, but they had to leave eventually. Many of them didn't leave – they stayed and became part of the great uncivilized Arab masses. Check out all the red-heads with green eyes up and down the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon/Palestine. Converted Irish and German Crusader offspring.
Philip, your post reminds me of a joke I heard from a Palestinian in Lebanon in 1978, when I was a teenager. I'm sure you know it:
"Carter, Brezhnev and Arafat went to God to ask about the future of their countries. Carter, being the American president, went first.
"God," he asked. "When will America completely dominate the world?"
God said, "In fifty years." Carter cried huge tears, saying he would never live to see this glory.
Brezhnev asks next. "God," said the Soviet leader, "When will the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics rule the world completely?" and God answered, "In two hundred years." So Brezhnev began to cry copious floods of salt tears. He would not live to see it.
Arafat steps up. "God, when will the Palestinians have a free and independent sovereign state?"
And God cried.
Richard, why would anyone want to emulate your brand of "humanism"–the kind that values the residents of Sderot (the new, Jewish Zionist ones I mean) over those of Gaza City, because of tribal affiliation?
What is "humanist" about that? You make it abundantly clear that only fully "human" population of the Middle East are the Jewish Zionists, because you see them as your blood relatives.
I don't want any part of Witty Humanism, thank you.
Leila – Obviously Mr. Witty can answer for himself, but are you sure he is implying that Arabs are not civilized? From his other readings I've gotten the impression that he is a humanist who sees all people as Gods creatures, and does not posit "civilized" as being special to any one particular group.
I find his honesty about favoring his tribesmen refreshing and by no means special to him. ALL people will create categories upon which they favor in certain situations. If one had to donate a kidney to a family member or a stranger, all things being equal one would undoubtedly pick the family member. If you Leila had to choose between defending your Lebanese cousin or a member of Hezbollah, all things being equal you would probably choose to defend your cousin. Am I right? All things being equal. If you had to choose to defend a liberal humanitarian and a war mongering fascist, you would likely choose the former because you see yourself as in the same ideological tribe as that person. My guess is that if Richard Witty had only one liver to give and he had to chose between Sari Nussbieh and Avigdor Lieberman he would go with the former, because the former is closer than than the latter to Richard's humanitarian tribe, despite the latter being closer to his ethnic tribe. Perhaps I'm wrong. Richard, let me know if I'm incorrect.
I don't fault Richard for being interested in Israel and wanting it to thrive, just as I don't fault any Palestinian for wanting the Palestinians to thrive. To try and paint Mr. Witty as being a supremacist of some sorts as MM repeatedly attempts to, seems intellectually dishonest and in the service of demonizing Mr. Witty along with a group of people.
Leila – Wasn't it your father's people who put forth the proverb: my brother and me against my cousin, my cousin and me against the stranger?
Leila:
I happen to love the neighborhood! If it's a neighborhood where might makes right and no mercy to the weak (as you imply) then maybe Israel should start playing by those rules. How long do you think it would take the IDF to solve the Palestine question if they behaved like Syria did at Hama? I'd say by breakfast time Monday there'd be no more Palestinain question at all!
"ZZ", pretty hilarious of you to call me intellectually dishonest immediately after trying to sell us one of the most ridiculous metaphors this side of Thomas Friedman's moustache–
Let me see if I can get it right–
Giving the Palestinians human rights is … donating an organ?
But I mean, isn't it really more … selling a car?
Say you got a real beaut' on your hands, low miles, leather interior, new stereo, aren't you gonna try to sell it to someone of your OWN race, you know, before you go try to negotiate with that GREEK guy at the used car lot?
I mean, we all act on tribal prejudices all the time, right? And those decisions, they're all equally significant to the impact of a 60 year colonial project affecting several million people, in the city considered holy to the planet's three largest, monolithic religions.
Furthermore, we should use our tribal identification to inform us on the question of whether a people deserve human rights.
Otherwise, we're being dishonest.
MM seems to have completely misunderstood ZZ's post.
Not a big surprise.
I happen to love the neighborhood! If it's a neighborhood where might makes right and no mercy to the weak (as you imply) then maybe Israel should start playing by those rules. How long do you think it would take the IDF to solve the Palestine question if they behaved like Syria did at Hama? I'd say by breakfast time Monday there'd be no more Palestinain question at all!
Posted by: David | January 26, 2008 at 03:22 PM
Yes, it's not frequently pointed out or anything, but the IDF are considered (by the IDF) to be the most moral army in the world.
Poor Richard and his sock puppets ZZ and Forecaster (cool names!), always so misunderstood by MM!
The fact that there hasn't been wholesale slaughter of Palestinians ever by the IDF, in a neighborhood where that is common for militaries (Black September, Hama, Sabra Shtilla, Iraq-Kurds, Iraq-Shiites, Iraq Shiite death squard, Algeria massacres, etc) would actually give some credence to that claim that they are at least the most moral army in the region. May they continue to remain so for everyone's sake.
Sorry – No relation to ZZ or Richard. But nice try.
Let's not confuse the matter by comparisons with other people, Forecaster. This blog is about Jooooos and how bad they are.
My apologies David. I hadn't read the fine print about what is appropriate posting material.
I've been reading Stephen Coughlin's master's thesis, "'To Our Great Detriment': Ignoring What Extremists Say about Jihad," submitted to the National Defense Intelligence College, and I can see why it got him into trouble. He frankly declares that this administration has been wrong on the relation of Islam to jihadism and terrorism. While members of the administration sternly warn of the dire threats we face and how we must know our enemy, they themselves are lost in illusions about that enemy. The enemy is not Islamo-Fascism, but the jihadist elements of Islam itself. Coughlin points out that on the basis of very little, Bush, Rice, and other Administration people blithely declare Islam a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a few violent extremists for their own agenda, an agenda which they insist has nothing to do with Islam. They ignore all the evidence from Islamic sources that support violence in the name of spreading or defending the faith and bypass the professed and frequently stated aims of the jihadists.
Coughlin's thesis suggests that there are not two schools of thought on Islamic terror, those who think it is simply a criminal problem and those who think it is a war we will be fighting for a long time, but three. First, there is the view that largely comes from the liberal-left, that thinks there really is no Islamic threat, that it's really America and its actions that have called forth violence from Muslims, that if there is violence, it is from a tiny few and can be managed by the world community like an international criminal problem. Then there is the conservative-right view, that there is indeed a terrible threat, a virtual World War Four, and the threat is from Islamo-Fascism, not from Islam itself, but from the aberrations of radicals who are creating some distorted blending of Islamic beliefs with 20th century fascist concepts. This is only a recent development, according to this view, not centuries old, and therefore we can be very hopeful about stomping it out. About ten percent of the world's Muslims do believe in Islamo-Fascist jihad, and that is a serious number, but ninety percent of Muslims don't believe in it and want what we all want, material security and prosperity. In fact, the underlying causes of terrorism arise from the material deprivation and lack of freedom and opportunity in the Muslim world. There is thus no conflict between Islam and liberal democracy and modernity in general, and certainly no clash of civilizations. The Islamic world will not be able to resist the march of liberal democracy and the irresistible call of freedom. This view is largely that of President Bush.
The third view says that there is indeed a problem with Islam itself, that even if only a minority of Muslims will ever take up jihad, most Muslims know that that is mandated by their religion and they do support it in belief and sometimes financially. The term Islamo-Fascism is really a euphemism for those who wish to deny or ignore the violence inherent in Islam. This view sees that jihad has been a feature of Islam from its beginnings and that martyrdom is honored and rewarded in Islam. This view also finds that Islam may well be in conflict with liberal democracy. Muslims are told that they are meant to Islamicize the countries they live in, through "peaceful" means if they can, and violent means when necessary, and we already see signs of this in Europe and America.
So, to return more strictly to Coughlin's thesis, he says that we are hampered in dealing with the enemy and in producing good intelligence for our strategic plans because instead of listening to what the enemy is saying, we impose our own hopeful, optimistic kind of view on the Islamic world, that everyone is really like us at heart and that we will see this in the end.
Those of us without tribal blinders are certainly shown the morality of the IDF on an almost daily basis. That thing about calling for the folks to come out before they demolish the house of someone related to somebody who did something, that is really going above and beyond the call of duty.
Will the Nobel committee finally take a serious look at the commanders of the IDF for a Peace Prize this year?
You're not looking at it critically. How would the other militaries in the Middle East have handled these same problems?
The use of the term "civilized" when referring to the US, was in humor.
It was a comment of humility, that even "civilized" US, is in fact human and flawed.
Human, Humble, Humor.
Phil,
What history on the region have you read?
Have you read the work of Benny Morris, or Baruch Kimmerling?
I'm sure that you've read Pappe. I haven't yet, except in magazine articles.
Its NECESSARY for you to be informed sufficiently, as your words DO affect others.
I find that too many apply an ideological approach that leads to insentivity and cruelty.
BOTH Israelis and Palestinians are human beings, and to treat either as expendible or not worthy of voice, is the oppossite of justice.
But the humor only makes sense to someone who imagines the Arab world is taken to be less civilized, Richard.
You need to get out more. Expose yourself to some non-Jewish voices. You might be amazed.
from Al Jazeera:
"There's no people on earth who have done what the Jews have done."
"My father's people" – do you mean Melchite Catholics? The house of Abu-Saba? Arabs? Lebanese? Lebanese Christians who are not Protestants or Armenians? Lebanese Christians in association with Rome? Those who use Aramaic in the liturgy? Who exactly?
My apologies to Mr. Witty if I have mistaken him for a smug Arab-hater hiding in the robe of a high-minded humanist. I probably wasn't reading carefully enough, and haven't paid enough attention to the whole of his commentary. Mea culpa. Perhaps one day we can all meet for tea.
Where did I say that I think might makes right? Has the commenter read my blog? I'm pretty mad at the State of Israel for all the death and destruction she has wrought upon my home town of Sidon over the years, and I allow myself room to make snide remarks about that state, its policies and some of its more rabid supporters. But why don't you read what I wrote about George Habash today and see if you still think I believe that might makes right.
If you're talking about my reference to the Crusades – well I see the end of that project as demographics and climate overtaking an outside occupier – it may take two centuries but eventually the occupiers will assimilate or go home. The Levant after the Crusades was still multi-cultural – no paradise of course – I am not longing for the return of the Ottomans or the Caliphate either for that matter. But there was no pushing of anybody into the sea. I just see that the State of Israel as currently constituted is unsustainable and cannot last as is. It will inevitably change. Its children will figure out a way to live as equals with the other people of the area (as did the Afrikaaners in South Africa) or they will leave and go someplace else.
My hope is to see multi-ethnic, multi-religious states all around the Eastern Mediterranean. I am from a religious minority in Lebanon, after all. (Melchite Catholics are 5% of the population) And I am also, more fundamentally, an American who believes in freedom of religious belief – or unbelief – and a secular state divorced from particular religious tenets. I think it's really the only workable solution in a world full of competing religious and cultural values. It may not work for every state, but in LEbanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, and even Egypt, where numerous minorities must live side by side, secularism and freedom of religion are the best ways to achieve stable societies.
So maybe Mr. Witty and I are actually soul mates. Who knows?
"But the humor only makes sense to someone who imagines the Arab world is taken to be less civilized, Richard."
You didn't read what I wrote. You read, and repeated what you made up based on your prejudice of me and what you think I "represent".
Think a little more.
MM,
You do indeed miss my point. Having a bushy moustache myself very much like Friedman's, like him I am actually a supporter of the Palestinian's right to there own country and their "human rights", and as I wrote earlier, I understand Palestinians and Arabs prioritizing Palestinian needs above another group's needs, all things being equal. While you may make NO priorities based on ethnicity or religious identification, you likely do so on other basis. Perhaps you prioritize anti-zionists above all else and would choose someone in that "tribe" over someone in another "tribe" to give your organ to. My point is that everyone is priveliging some "tribe" or another, Witty is just up front and honest about it. You'll notice that I also hypothesized that he maintains a flexible priveliging system and that other categories that he feels connected with can trump his ethnic category.
I don't doubt that Leila can be fair and humanistic with Israelis, despite her likely priveliging Melchite Catholics somewhat. Assuming she does, I don't begrudge her for wanting to look out for the Melchite Catholics and make sure they don't get a raw deal. I would also expect her to criticize them the same way Witty criticizes Israel.
I personally have little tolerance for people who only love their own tribe and hate others. That is a very twisted and limited individual. As much as you attempt to smear Mr. Witty to be such a person, that is not the impression I get at all. It is OK to care for your own tribe and want what's best for them, but also want what is best for other tribes. Life is rarely a zero sum game, unless you make it that way.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when? Famous Jewish quote from Rabbi Hillel. All the rest is commentary.
Leila – I meant Arabs when I referred to your father's people, as that is where that proverb comes from. I appreciate the fact that this is the equivalent of saying European, and a Frenchman may not want to take credit for a position held in Hungary.
"You didn't read what I wrote. You read, and repeated what you made up based on your prejudice of me and what you think I "represent"."
Exactly.
You get the Job award this year Richard.
Leila,
My Zionism is for haven, not for dominance.
While for most of us, the holocaust is just a story, for my family, my wife's in fact but now mine, it is reality.
What that changes is the need for safety for Jews.
The experience is imprinted. It is best not forgotten.
The next question is now that you don't forget, what do you do with that?
You live (individually and collectively) and you let live (individually and collectively).
Living is affirming your right to safety, community, self-determination. Let living is adopting policies and relationships that accept, even enhance the rights of others to live well.
The question of what policies and relationships accomplish that for Israel is a genuine big struggle among Israelis and Jews in the world.
So long as more than an incidental number within the Arab and Muslim and activist world employs lethal approaches to Jews (as Jews) and Israelis (civilian ones), then Israel remains at war with those individuals and groups that actively endeavor to harm, in the short and long-term.
In that effort at defense, it is appropriate to only fight those that are harming.
How do you do that when militias control?
How does a state sworn to defend its civilians respond to shelling of civilians, whether from Gaza or from Lebanon. (Both a 2006 phenomena, that is the identifiable cause of both 2006 conflicts/wars, and this one.)
A common thread.
By the way, my wife's name is Liila. Born in Jaffa, raised in England and the US. We met at a yoga center in Calcutta. She lived in multi-cultural Haifa for a year as a yoga missionary.
Her mother, a survivor, tends towards being a peacenik within Israeli and Jewish discussion. NOT a reactionary. She left Israel in 1957, when my wife was 1. The warzone was too traumatic, too reminiscent of 1933 – 1948 for her husband. (NOT 1945, as the persecutions in Hungary from 1945 – 1948 were only slightly less than they experienced from 33 – 44, under fascist Hungary. 44-45 was occupied by Germany, and Jews weren't just ghettoized but executed in mass or sent to slave labor).
I don't hold the South African experience as parallel in objective circumstances, nor in appropriate focus for positive change.
I believe a peace is possible, that is simultaneously just and consented, that can avoid the chaos of more aggressive agitation.
Who disrupts the prospects for peace is good place to look?
It happens in many areas, among many groups, each of which opportunistic in some way.
They each USE civilians on the ground for cover for their ambitions, and each include some truth in their positions, but ultimately diverge from that.
They make for odd bedfellows when safety becomes the primary issue.
For example, Iran and Hezbollah seek power in their respective ponds. They are each opposed to the prospect of acceptance of Israel even within 67 borders. They will do what they can to preserve the prospect of their accomplishing more power in their respective ponds (big fish in a finite pond). Including propaganda, including arming for offensive purposes, including opportunistic "small" military efforts.
There are zionist groups that are expansionistic, from a variety of motivations. And, many of those agitate (and worse) to oppose any proposal of acceptance of Palestinian sovereignty or Palestinian civil rights (both in the West Bank and in Israel).
The common thread among those groups is that they've let their fear overshadow their recognition of the other as human.
It is odd that the left adopts solidarity with Hamas instead of solidarity and support of those arguing for a genuine live and let live peace.
The path to your vision of a relaxed mutual acceptance is not by force. Israelis have nowhere else to go, and will not accept exposure to a blood bath.
The path to that messianic acceptance is one, by accepting, helping the other (turning the other cheek, even literally, if you really believe the vision).
Politically, that path is personal, in urging that the other be regarded as human, not demon, not nothing. And, political, in working towards safety for all civilians, thereby fulfilling the relevant function of a state. Including safety for Israeli civilians.
The population exchange
The idea of exchanging the Greeks of Asia Minor against Muslims living in Greece was first broached by the Norwegian Fritjof Nansen (1861-1930), who had been the League of Nations’ High Commissioner for refugees since 1919. It was quickly taken up by the Greek government. The inflow of three quarters of a million refugees posed almost insurmountable housing problems in Greece and the removal of the 600.000 Muslims in Greece would go some way towards alleviating the problem, as the vacated homes of the Muslims could be used to re-house the immigrants. Greece had some experience with population exchanges by now. A clause allowing the exchange (on a voluntary basis) of 92.000 Bulgarians against 46.000 Greeks had already been inserted into the peace agreement of Neully with Bulgaria, concluded in August 1920.
Nansen was given the green light by the League of Nations to explore the possibilities of an exchange on 14 November 1922, one week before the start of the peace negotiations between Great Britain, France, Italy and Greece on the one hand and Turkey on the other in Lausanne. Turkey agreed in principle, on condition that the Turkish-Muslim population of Western Thrace (for which the Turkish delegation in Lausanne demanded a plebiscite on inclusion in Turkey or Greece) would be exempt. In return, the Greeks then demanded an exemption for the Greek-Orthodox inhabitants of Constantinople. During the protracted peace negotiations in Lausanne a convention was concluded between the two countries on 30 January 1923. It covered those “Turkish nationals of Greek Orthodox religion and Greek nationals of the Moslem religion” who had emigrated voluntarily or had been forced to emigrate since 18 October 1912 (the date of Greece’s declaration of war at the start of the Balkan War). This of course included those groups who had remained in their place but would now be forced to emigrate for the first time. The convention came into force when it was included in the peace treaty of Lausanne concluded on 24 July 1923.
Three things are remarkable about the convention. In the first place the criterion was exclusively religious. There was no reference to linguistic categories or to ethnic ones. The majority of the Muslims from Macedonia were Greek speaking and a considerable proportion of the Greek Orthodox of Central Anatolia spoke Turkish. Nevertheless, these groups were earmarked for migration on the grounds of their religion. In the second place, there was the retroactive character of the convention: it was not limited to the migrations which had started in 1922, but legitimised all of the – largely forced – migrations caused by the wars, which had taken place since 1912. In the third place, there was the involuntary nature of the migration. This was the first time that compulsory migration, or – to give it a more honest name – deportation, was legalised under international law.
As almost all Greeks from Western Asia Minor had already left the country, the population exchange mainly involved the transfer of the Central Anatolian Greek Orthodox (Greek and Turkish speaking) and the Pontic Greeks. Of the latter community, it was primarily the inhabitants of the towns on the Black Sea littoral who were moved, as the Greeks of the mountainous inland areas, some 80.000 people in all, had largely moved East instead of West, into Georgia and Russia, when they had lost the armed struggle against the Turkish nationalists.
Resettlement and integration
The resettlement of the refugees posed tremendous problems in Greece. The country, which had a population of only 5.5 millions was faced with an influx of about 1.2 million people (the actual numbers are surrounded by a lot of uncertainty). The immigrants were settled first in camps, then in townships on the outskirts of the towns and cities, especially in the two big cities Athens and Salonica. These cities, which each of them had less than 200.000 inhabitants before the exchange, now doubled in size and huge new tracts of land were developed on their outskirts. In the countryside, the properties of the Muslims of Macedonia and Crete now became available, but as those communities had been only about 400.000 strong, it is clear that there was not enough land to house the immigrants and give them a living. State land and church land was therefore also made available.
As a rule the Greek immigrants from Turkey moved and were resettled as communities. The names of their new townships often recalled the places they came form, e.g. “New Smyrna”. They brought their own clubs and organisations with them and founded a great number of migrant organisations. AEK Athens, founded in 1924 and famous for its football and basketball teams, is among the best-known. AEK stands for Athletic Club of Constantinople. The social and cultural traditions of the immigrants were different in many ways from those of the inhabitants of Greece, but also from each other: Pontic Greeks, Greeks from Thrace, Central-Anatolian Greek Orthodox and former inhabitants of the West Coast and Smyrna could not be regarded as a single community. For many the first years were a time of extreme hardship and large numbers of immigrants re-emigrated to France, Britain and the United States. On the other hand, the integration and indeed survival of the immigrant groups was helped by the fact that they contained a relatively high proportion of skilled professionals, from shippers to bankers, from hazelnut, tobacco and raisin traders to railway engineers and hotel and restaurant owners. This allowed them to become a dynamic element in the economy. To give only the most famous example: Aristotle Onassis was one of those born and bred in Smyrna, where his father ran a tobacco-exporting business. After the 1922 defeat he rebuilt his family’s tobacco business from Argentina, after which he returned and, through his connection with the Livanos shipping family from Chios, built a shipping empire of his own and reputedly became the world’s richest man.
The pattern of resettlement of Macedonian Muslims in Turkey was quite different. The migrants from Macedonia formed a much smaller group than those who had left Turkey. They also overwhelmingly came from a rural background, so it was logical that they should be assigned farmland. The Turkish authorities dealt with individual families rather than with whole communities and in assigning land they classified the immigrants according to their agricultural specialisation: tobacco growers, olive growers and growers of grapes. They were resettled in areas which were considered suitable for their kind of produce. Tobacco growers for example, who had produced the famous Macedonian tobacco which went into Egyptian cigarettes, were resettled in the Samsun area on the Black coast, where they grew tobacco for the state monopoly of the Turkish republic.
In Turkish society, the immigrants, like those who had come to the country as the result of earlier waves of immigration (1878, 1913), remained a recognisably different group, collectively known as ‘muhacir’s. They lived in separate villages or neighbourhoods and on the whole kept up their traditions. The use of minority languages was actively discouraged by the government of the republic, but the first and second generation migrants still often spoke Greek or Albanian amongst themselves. A common characteristic of the Greek and the Muslim migrants is that they had to rebuild their lives from scratch. The Lausanne convention included the establishment of a mixed commission on the pattern of the earlier agreements with Bulgaria, but in the event the task of assessing the value of the property left behind and disposing of it in an equitable manner proved simply too complicated. The mixed commission continued its work until October 1934, but the bulk of the migrants never saw any money.
As will be remembered, two groups had been exempted from the exchange: the Muslims of Western Thrace and the Greek Orthodox of Constantinople. The first community was about 200.000 strong and the Turks did their utmost to reduce the second one to a similar number by demanding proof of each individual that he or she was actually resident within the Constantinople municipality in October 1912. These were the so-called ‘établis’ and assessing their status was the major occupation of the mixed commission. The fate of the two communities in the rest of the Twentieth Century was very different. The Muslims of Western Thrace were certainly mistrusted by the Greek state. Expressions of their Turkish (as opposed to Muslim) identity were – and are – strictly forbidden and there has been constant pressure to Hellenize the community. Nevertheless it has survived more or less intact as a separate community living in a clearly circumscribed area with a strong feeling of separate identity. The same cannot be said for the Greek Orthodox of Constantinople, or – as it was known after 1923 – Istanbul. In the interbellum the community diminished in size, but it held on to its socio-economic position in spite of the nationalist economic policies of the state, which still had as its goal the creation of a native Turkish bourgeoisie at the expense of non-Muslims. The skills possessed by the community were simply indispensable. The community’s trust in the impartiality and the secular character of the state was fatally weakened, however, by two events. First, the imposition of a hugely discriminatory Wealth Tax in 1942, which ruined many Greek businesses and then a large-scale, and politically inspired, pogrom in September 1955. The result was that the large majority of Istanbul Greeks decided to emigrate to Greece or the United States and at the end of the Twentieth Century the community had shrunk to about 2000 souls, or about one percent of its former size.
Perceptions
The perception of the population exchange has differed widely between Greece and Turkey. The Greek mainland had no previous experience of large-scale immigration. It was suddenly faced in 1922-24 with a mass immigration amounting to over 20 percent of its autochthonous population. In addition, this wave of immigration was part of a huge military and political crisis. The Greek army had been humiliated and the whole political system discredited. No wonder, then, that in the Greek vision of the events the negatives dominate. It is the major national catastrophe par excellence and as time has gone by, it has been blamed less on the follies of the Greek government and its occupation of Asia Minor and more on the ‘injustice’ and ‘barbarism’ of the Turks. In addition there came into existence a strong sense of nostalgia for the lost world of Anatolian Hellenism, a nostalgia which was fostered by countless immigrant organisations. The magnitude of the problem and of the migrant population has meant that Greek society as a whole has identified strongly with the fate of the migrants. This is reflected in the number of archives, research institutes and publications devoted to the Greek communities of Asia Minor and to the population exchange. As early as 1930 a large-scale survey of the social and cultural heritage of the Anatolian Greeks was started.
The Turkish situation is very different. In Turkish eyes, those who came in 1924-25 constituted only one among many groups of Muslim refugees who had had to be resettled ever since the Eighteen Twenties. At the time the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, over twenty percent of its population had a ‘muhacir’ background. In line with the policies of their predecessors, the rulers of the Committee of Union and Progress, the leaders of the republic saw the homogenisation of Anatolia (which was now a 98 percent Muslim country as opposed to 80 percent in 1912) as a positive development. In other words: the population exchange was seen as an integral part of the nation-building process and the fact that the homogenisation of Anatolia also meant that the precious skills of an entire commercial and industrial middle class had been lost, was seen as a price that had to be paid for full independence. This historical interpretation still prevails, both in Turkey itself and in the literature on Turkey in Europe and America.
The fact that the Macedonian deportees were only one among many groups of immigrants and that it concerned a relatively small community (3 percent of the population) in a very large and very empty country, has meant that there has been little interest, either scholarly or popular, in the population exchange. Where in Greece there is a whole library of publications and rich resources for further study are available, in Turkey only one fairly small monograph has been published on the exchange. Nostalgia and resentment have been limited to the migrant groups themselves and have not become national issues. It is only very recently that social historians have started to be interested in the human aspects of the population exchange. This new interest expresses itself in a few television documentaries and in plans for oral history projects, which have not so far materialised.
Here is a theme for an interesting thread:
From the Forward front page
Case of Informant Reverberates Through L.A.’s Orthodox Community
Witty still doesn't get that "self-determination" is not an intrinsic human right, and it does not entitle a people to confiscate the land of others. He also doesn't get that the right of return, on the other hand, is a human right. Of course he's kept himself willfully ignorant of what international law says, to his own tribalist advantage. Suckers like ZZ are easily convinced by the "humanist" jargon. I doubt any Palestinians would be. Just as 1939 wasn't that long ago, neither was 1948.
Why don't we substitute the word "family" for "tribe" for a moment. When the brouhaha was going on about recognizing the Armenian genocide as, indeed, a genocide… semantics aside, it gave me pause: if someone broke into your home and viciously murdered most of your family, the reaction, quite naturally, would be to circle the wagons, purchase the best security and weaponry money could buy, and protect the remaining members with everything you had.
The comparison game is ridiculous at that point: "hey that family down the street got murdered, too, so how dare you think your family is more precious…" A silly argument: you protect your own, there's no mystery there.
It's like the LaBianca family arguing with the Tate family over who was more wronged.
The cycle just has to stop at some point, somehow.
Israel was formed with the assent of the United Nations.
There are issues of international law relative to the occupation that are in a state of confusion, with opportunists on both (more than both) taking advantage of.
I, as I've stated multiple times, favor allowing Palestinians to assert land claims before mutually consented courts (hopefully that is possible. It is with a peace agreement with the PA.), and revision if not outright repeal of the 1950 – 52 laws restricting return, annexing vacated lands, and prohibiting return even to appeal the land claims.
I would object if the form of the resolution of the claims were to forcefully remove the current residents from their homes in favor of placing a distant relative of someone that had never been there, especially if the Palestinian claimant only had the extent of rights of a resident not a title holder.
It would be useful if you studied some history MM. You make generalized assertions that don't fit the reality.
The law of title was a moving target and has been for 150 years.
I'd recommend the Kimmerling history of post 1800 Palestine.
Actually, Kimmerling cited that the first use of the term Nakba was in 1920, at the time of Macdonald's clarification that the British promise in the Balfour Declaration was the policy of Great Britain (not as Ben Gurian and other Zionists understood it though).
Rhetoric ends up inevitably fascistic. It takes a more specific study to actually untangle the knots of injustice.
Ilan Pappe is NOT enough or not reliable enough a source.
One thing that you would discover if you studied, is that the region (all regions in the world in fact) has been in a state of rapid social and institutional change, including conquering by multiple parties in a couple hundred years, each employing radically different standards of title and ownership.
READ already.
President Hillary
By Paul Craig Roberts
24/01/08 "ICH" — – If polls are reliable, Hillary will win the Democratic nomination. The Democratic groups that prefer Obama are not sufficiently numerous to give him the nomination.
Of course, anything can happen in a political campaign, but the latest Field Poll of likely California Democrats and independent voters gives Hillary a 39 to 27 percent lead over Obama. This is bad news for Obama, because California is a progressive state where race is less likely to be a handicap.
Obama is favored by those who rank the Iraq war and foreign policy as the most important issues, by blacks, college graduates, and those with higher incomes.
Hillary is favored two to one by women, two to one by lower income groups and three to one among Latinos. Hillary has a further advantage. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention approximately 50 percent of the delegates were women. As Democratic delegates are invariably feminists, they are not going to miss the chance of putting a woman in the presidency.
Are the Democrats choosing Hillary because she has the moral integrity to stop an unjust war and to hold war criminals responsible for leading America into war based on lies and deception? Are they choosing Hillary because she defends the US Constitution from usurpation by executive power? Are they choosing her because she is public-spirited instead of personally ambitious?
No. The Democrats are choosing Hillary because of gender and race. Despite all the efforts of Democratic activist groups, the majority of Democratic voters are more concerned with race and gender issues than with their country’s reputation and their civil liberties.
If elected president, Hillary will bring no more change than did the Democratic congressional majority elected in 2006.
Obama might not bring any change either. But he is the only candidate in the running who has expressed concern over Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians and who voted against the Iraq invasion. Clearly, he is a better bet for change than Hillary. However, Democrats are more attuned to race and gender issues than to war crimes and loss of civil liberties.
This is not to argue that Republicans are an improvement. Their likely nominee is McCain, who has recently said that he is OK with a hundred-year war in Iraq. McCain is as willing to attack Iran as Bush and Cheney, and he would not be adverse to conspiring with Israel and the neoconservatives to pull off an attack. Republicans don’t even have a “change” candidate in the running. They have worked to marginalize Ron Paul precisely because he would be an instrument of change.
Even if Obama were elected and was sincere about change, what could he do? Probably very little. The pool of candidates from which he could staff an administration is not that much different from that of any other candidate. He can pass over a neocon architect of the Iraq invasion and settle on an architect of President Clinton’s bombing of Serbia.
Moreover, Congress will still be controlled by the same interest groups. If Obama were to appoint people opposed by the military-security lobby, the Israel Lobby or the offshoring lobby, the Senate would be unlikely to confirm them. No president wants to nominate people who cannot be confirmed. Presidents have to staff their administrations according to who can get the approval of powerful interest groups.
This makes if difficult to change the status quo. It only takes one senator to put a hold on an appointment. Change in Washington requires breaking many iron grips.
In the presidential race, Hillary would defeat McCain, who without any doubt is the war candidate. Hillary will get the women’s vote, the minorities’ vote, and the anti-war vote. McCain will get the vote of angry macho white males.
What Hillary has to worry about is a major terrorist attack, whether real or orchestrated, that would revive the 9/11 fears and send voters scurrying to put the presidency into the hands of a war hero. As Hillary is not regarded as a threat to Israel’s territorial expansion or to the interests of the military-security complex, the only wild card is some terrorist action that would require the failure of US security in order to succeed.
"A lot of the tumult reflects the anxiety in the pro-Israel community that a 30-year South Africa clock is ticking away." – Philip Weiss
Phil has nailed it. I grew up in the Jim Crow South, and watched it slip away. Why? Because its hypocritical segregation laws were inconsistent with its professed religious beliefs, and with simple justice.
I visited South Africa, and its bantustans, during apartheid days … and then watched it slip away. Why? Because apartheid was inconsistent with the professed religious beliefs of the Dutch Reformed Church (as church authorities eventually admitted), and with simple justice.
I firmly believe that in our lifetimes, we will watch the apartheid state of Israel, with special privileges for Jews only, slip away. Why? Because its hypocritical laws are inconsistent with the ancient and honorable religious principles of Judaism, and with simple justice. One day, I promise you, a major branch of Judaism — not just fringe orthodox sects — will denounce zionism as a secular heresy. And zionism's manifestation as an anachronistic, colonial apartheid state will be chucked onto the ashheap of history.
Perhaps the only thing that all commenters here will agree on, is the fervent hope that this inevitable transition will occur peacefully, without bloodshed.
Most jews don't want special priveliges for jews. They simply want there to be one territory in the entire world where Jews constitute a majority. Please name me one group on this planet that doesn't want the exact same thing. Wherever you look, groups that aren't allowed to rule over themselves in at least one place on this earth, are fighting for that right. Tibetan, Kurds, the Basque, formerly Israelis and now Palestinians. Previously Slovenian, Croatian, Kosovars, etc.
Expansionist Israeli policies are rejected by a vast number of jews. Israeli Jews want to live in a country where the majority are Jews and where minorities are equal. To continuinally demonize Jews for desiring this, rather than appropriately critiquing expansionist Likudnik policies, is wrong.
It's not the desiring that people criticize, Steve. It's the willingness to have others suffer in order to have it.
(BTW, if all the tribes in the history of humanity had insisted on having their own country, there wouldn't be room for them all.)