It’s late, I just got home from a Nakba commemoration at Columbia University, a panel of four professors in a classroom with about 250 people in it. It seems important to relate the following before I go to bed.
I saw half a dozen or more students in the crowd wearing yarmulkes. They were quiet throughout the presentation and during the Q-and-A, one of them, a small athletic kid in a blue sweatshirt, questioned the panelists about the significance of Hamas’s policy calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. The panelists, Arab-Americans, sought to assure him that no one wanted to kill Israelis, they wanted to live with Jews; and even the fiery Joseph Massad said that he disapproved of Hamas’s language.
No one heckled the panel, all the questions were respectful. Saif Ammous, one of the organizers, marveled to me that the ardent Zionists seem to have gone away over the last couple years, just as Norman Finkelstein has observed. Saif had gotten up early that morning to paper the campus with dramatic red posters naming Palestinian villages erased in the Nakba, DAYR YASSIN, for instance. And that surprisingly, they hadn’t been torn down.
After the panel, I stood at the side of the room listening to the kid in the blue sweatshirt and another Jewish kid in a yarmulke who had lived in an Israeli settlement for 2 years, a tall thoughtful kid, and a Serbian woman and a big mischievous Arab as they discussed the situation. The conversation was intense, respectful, and earnest. "So because you worry that we will drive you out, you need to drive the Arabs out, that is the justification–" the Arab said. Or when the Serbian woman spoke of Palestinians as second-class citizens, or the terrible conditions in the West Bank, the Jewish kid would say, "100 percent," "100 percent," meaning I agree with you 100 percent. While the tall thoughtful kid said that he was disturbed by the denial of rights in Israel, but Jewish villages had been erased, in the West Bank, under Jordanian rule ‘48-’67. The Jewish kids acknowledged the Nakba.
I haven’t seen a spontaneous conversation of this sort in all my reporting on this issue. I believe that it reflects a lowering of fears among Jews in the next generation, and a new space opening up in the discourse. I want to believe it’s a Red Sea moment, a little miracle, and this space will only grow. Readers of this blog know I’m an optimist, tonight I feel full of wonder, that people may actually be listening to one another here in America, which is even more important than their listening to one another over there….
P.S. Two people who speak Arabic better than me (a category roughly equal to the world’s population) inform me that my earlier headline, Imshallah, was misspelled. Apologies!
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Obviously, I wasn't there.
Any effort that can lend civility to the treatment of the other, is helpful. Thank you for your work (especially if it is informative more than propagandistic).
"The panelists, Arab-Americans, sought to assure him that no one wanted to kill Israelis, they wanted to live with Jews; and even the fiery Joseph Massad said that he disapproved of Hamas's language."
Important statements. Thank you for asserting them.
It would be of added importance if they were similarly made in Palestine though, say in communities where there is the prospect hatred of Jews. (Is there some more profound danger in doing so though?)
The dissenting Israeli military that witnessed and objected to the persecution of Palestinians in Hebron, expressed courage in speaking on behalf of the other, even with the danger of prison and alienation from their own community.
In the light of continuing terror, aren't the statements though somewhat parallel to me assuring Palestinians that Zionists don't really want to drive Palestinians from their land.
We both need some changes in fact, beyond rationalizing words.
"which is even more important than their listening to one another over there."
Why is that Phil?
I think the oppossite. I think that we should be of help to work that Palestinians and Israelis are doing, moreso than agitating from outside.
My sense of the critical links are:
1. Ecological (If they really love the land, then DO it, which requires working with the other for what they state to mutually love)
Loving the land is DIFFERENT than loving control over the land.
2. Medical – The Hippocratic oath (the primary statement of what it means to be a physician, a healer) is a means to cut across racialisms, nationalisms.
3. Cultural – Learn each other's language, have Palestinians teach Israelis Arabic, and Israelis teach Palestinians Hebrew.
4. Academic – Science is not national (in spite of the nazis rejection of "Jewish science"). Even study of history can cross bridges, magically.
5. Infrastructure – Collaborate when there is a basis to. Now, empower Palestine using solar to form a new grid. Don't rely on nuclear (like the Iranians) when the sun is free and will remain so. (The photovoltaics aren't though.)
6. Economy – Encourage trade. Form the institutions that can mediate and adjudicate inter-communal trade.
7. Polity – Support civil political parties that participate in both states, or at least have links to similar in the other community.
8. Oppose terror as a means.
On the academic.
Where academic LINKS are the basis for forming real cultural connections and breaking down the prejudices that result from ignorance of the other and separation from the other, the attempt to boycott against those institutions is COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE.
Two steps back to take one step forward.
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"I haven't seen a spontaneous conversation of this sort in all my reporting on this issue."
It seems that some students who were taught during childhood to reflexively support Israel are questioning that conventional wisdom. As they should.
A deeply unpopular war (Vietnam in our youth; Iraq, Afghanistan and the Second Intifada now) provides a provocative backdrop for the young to question EVERYTHING their parents' generation stands for — the ones who engineered the bloody catastrophe.
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Maybe Nadine Gordimer will have some conversations like those Phil witnessed. From Haaretz:
————
Nadine Gordimer has confirmed she will participate in the International Writer's Festival in Jerusalem next month, allaying concerns that she would cancel due to political pressure. The 84-year-old South African Nobel laureate had warned festival organizers last week that she would cancel unless they arranged meetings for her with Palestinians.
She reportedly said her attendance was perceived at home as support for apartheid in Israel. "She will meet with Sari Nusseibeh, with students from Al-Quds University, travel to Ramallah with [Meretz MK] Haim Oron, and meet with Robi Damelin of the Parents Circle organization of bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families," festival director Yael Nahari said. (Shiri Lev-Ari)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/978737.html
go jimmy go…
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3537078,00.html
Carter: Israel rejected Hamas truce offer
Ex-US president blames Israel for denying Gazans food, water; says Hamas won elections 'fair and square'
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON – Blaming Israel, again: Former US President Jimmy Carter says that following his meetings with Hamas leaders the group offered a truce in Gaza but Israel rejected the offer. During an interview with NBC, Carter also blamed Israel for denying the citizens of Gaza basic supplies such as water and food.
Phil wrote: "people may actually be listening to one another here in America, "
and I say – from your lips to God's ear.
Carter's got it wrong. The day after his visit, two officials from Hamas stated that they did not accept a cease fire limited to Gaza.
A less than stable floor.
The last time there was a hudna, Hamas allowed Islamic Jihad to shell Sderot at approximately the same rate as Hamas was doing prior.
Some said that Hamas personnel gave Islamic Jihad materials and people to conduct the shelling.
It led to Olmert's rational response of "We will not abide by a truce in which Hamas merely subcontracts its terror out."
Also, the negotiations for a cease fire were orchestrated to be mediated by Egypt. The cease fire proposal from Egypt is still pending, in Hamas' offices.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/979049.html
30 members of Hamas and other Palestinian factions meet in Egypt to discuss ceasefire
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent and Agencies
Tags: Egypt, Israel, Tzipi Livni
A Palestinian official says 30 members of various factions are gathering in Cairo to hold talks with Egyptian mediators over finding a comprehensive truce with Israel and a measure of unity among the divided factions.
The "hard-core Zionists” (with the notable exception of me) know better than to attend glorified anti-Israel pep rallies masquerading as academic discourse. We don't need to watch people mindlessly swallow Massad-like rhetoric about how "the Nakba began in 1881" (which is pretty perverse and even a shade anti-Semitic, considering that the first Jewish settlers to Palestine were fleeing pogroms in the Russian Pale of Settlement, and were settled with the cooperation of Palestine‘s Ottoman authorities…but I digress)–it's a waste of our time. And because most anti-Zionists are so dead-set in their beliefs, it's a waste of their time as well.
In retrospect, my assessment of things a week ago was pretty dead-on:
http://commentariat.specblogs.com/index.php/2008/04/22/so-about-those-sensible-discussions-of-the-middle-east-i-was-once-so-excited-about/
Great to see you last night, though.
"the Nakba began in 1881" (which is pretty perverse and even a shade anti-Semitic, considering that the first Jewish settlers to Palestine were fleeing pogroms in the Russian Pale of Settlement," — amin rosen
the nakba did begin in the 19th century. pogroms or retaliations? the causes? give us the whole story. why didnt the russian jews go to a country next door? why so far?
funny that the aggressor, the victimizer has to be reassured re the victim. reassured about what? justice.
the disease has bored deep and goes from generation to generation.
Gee, I am feeling a lot better now that the Arab-Americans have assured me that they don't all want to kill us Israelis. Even the "fiery Massad" disapproved of HAMAS' language. Of course, HAMAS is the one in power, not Massad, and not these Arab-Americans you are quoting.
Tell me, what would a unitary state these Arabs are advocating look like? Lebanon (couple of hundred thousand dead in their civil war)? Iraq (tens of thousands of dead in their civil war? Algeria (100,000 dead in their civil war)? Egypt (bread riots, decay and rot)?
Meanwhile four more babies are murdered by the IDF in the Palestinian ethnic cleansing campaign.
Israeli Mongeloids/Huns Murder Four More Babies
http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2008/04/israeli-mongeloidshuns-murder-four-more.html
bar_kochba132 | April 29, 2008 at 06:24 AM
the disease has bored deep and goes from generation to generation.
Good news on Nadine Gordimer.
It's pathetic how little history people know.
In short, there were no neighboring countries willing to accept Jewish escapees from Russia, since–for reasons practical, economic, and anti-Semitic–none of them wanted to be known as a free haven for the millions of Russian Jews itching to get out of the Pale of Settlement. A Jew's only choice was to trek across western Europe in the hope of somehow getting to America, or following the Biluim's existing support structure and resettle in Palestine.
Either way, it's mindblowing to me that an alleged acaddmic like Massad is able to conveniently forget some of the very real existential threats that many Jewish communities faced during the late 19th and mid-20th century. His ability to dehistoricize Zionism–and to ignore a pretty rich literature of Zionist theory and thought–is pretty astonishing, and it's slightly terrifying that so many people take him seriously.
P.S.: The statement "the Nakba did begin in the 19th century" does not in fact prove that the Nakba began in the 19th century. Just getting that out of the way.
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"It's mindblowing to me that an alleged acaddmic like Massad is able to conveniently forget some of the very real existential threats that many Jewish communities faced during the late 19th and mid-20th century."
In the 1970s, Sen. Henry Jackson raised a big hue and cry about the alleged existential threat to Soviet Jewry, and won special provisions for them to emigrate to the U.S. and Israel. But the pogroms never materialized. Some of the Soviet Jews who stayed went on to become billionaires today. I felt that the alleged "existential threat" was just a sham used to justify an economic migration.
I agree with Rosen that the plight of the Jews in the Pale Of Settlement was so. but I don't agree that the Nakba did not commence in 1880. Dispossesion of Arabs who would one day be known as Palestinians was started then, ironically,
to give Jews a safe haven from Eastern European pogroms.
You should read Herzl's books.
They're not as you imagine.
Is the nakba more of a tragedy?
or
more of an intentional persecution?
Is the Holocaust more of a tragedy?
or
more of an intentional persecution?
How about the Armenian history?
The American Indians?
The dispossession of the ethnic Germans after WW2?
The potato famine?
Will Herzl's books show me the light?
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