Here is an editorial from my favorite newspaper decrying the disruption of the Palestinian olive harvest by violent settlers during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Thus spake Haaretz:
They have been stealing the land of powerless farmers for decades [my emphasis] and do not recoil from stealing the fruit of these farmers' humble land. A society that declares its longing for peace cannot accept such malicious Jewish terror against innocent Palestinian civilians.
I agree; and I have a strong reaction to this. These Jewish guys have been "stealing the land of powerless farmers for decades" and Haaretz says that the society they're from, Israel, does nothing about it really. Nothing. And Diaspora Jewry encourages the theft and abuse. Diaspora Jewry explains away these pogroms and racisms again and again, and will not permit them to be argued in the media or our political campaigns, even as we give more money to Israel than all of sub-Saharan Africa combined.
I'm back to American Jewry, and our great negative achievement, which I mentioned days ago: "In a country that is so tuned to human rights abuses in other places, politicians are simply not allowed to talk about Palestinian suffering. Never. And this is our achievement." It's really astonishing. And my former professor Michael Walzer has himself said something of the same thing, at Yivo, here, a quote I am going to keep quoting unto the last day:
"It may be that the talents honed by exile don't fit the circumstances of statehood." Jews were trained in the circumstances of "kehal," he said (as I heard it), their own legal/religious community. "We governed only ourselves, as best we could… Sometimes [we were] semi-autonomous… responsible only for ourselves. In the state of Israel, we have accepted responsibility for other people. That is something we have never had in all the years of exile, and we have not done terribly well."
No we sure haven't. Let's go back to the noble Haaretz editorial:
The security forces know the identity
of the leaders of the rioters and know where the clashes take place -
in the southern Hebron Hills, Tel Rumeida and central Samaria. The
timing of the harvest isn't exactly a military secret, either.
Nonetheless, this year, too – as every year – fairly small groups
manage to reach the olive groves, where they beat, steal and then
return home safely. There's no need to guess how the security forces
would have dealt with Palestinians or peace activists who dared raise a
hand against a settler; just visit the anti-fence protests in Bil'in or
Na'alin.
So what we have is a society that has licensed the abuse of a minority's human and property rights for decades (I am not even going back to the Nakba). And then good liberals like Gershom Gorenberg try to rationalize this business as an "accidental empire," when the degree of human agency in it is considerable and farreaching. It has gone on for decades, and is tolerated not just by the self-styled European society that sends these people out, but by the great body of Jewry in the U.S., so that when Jimmy Carter speaks out against it, he is smeared. This really is a Jewish thing; I don't understand why this is not a crisis for Jewishness itself. And the fact that it's not provoking a crisis in Jewry will provoke a crisis in Jewry in the next generation, I'm sure of it, when ethnocentrism will come under keen scrutiny in a modern, postracial age, when people like David Bloom and Anna Baltzer will be revered for shouting down the question, Is it good for the Jews? Because Jewish ethnocentrism is what both the late Israel Shahak, an anti-Zionist, and Michael Walzer, a Zionist, are coming at from very different points. That's the problem.
P.S. Here is a piece from Dana Ammous in Palestine about a woman who used to have 8 acres, now she only has 4, and on every side: the wall. “Here my children uttered their first words and made their first steps to the world.” Would we ever let that happen to us, here? To see our property rights trashed, for one second, let alone decades?
Related posts:
- I Think My Concern With Ethnocentrism Reflects a Basic Love of My Jewishness
- Sometimes It’s Stupid Not to Ask Conspiratorial Questions…
- Ethnocentrism, Inc: Jewish leader in ‘Forward’ calls for beheading ‘J Street’’s Ben-Ami for noble Gaza stand
- Israeli Rabbis Act as Human Shields to Protect Palestinian Olives From Jihad-Jews (Yes We Can!)
- Sternhell: ‘Colonial Zionism’ Has Brought ‘Apartheid’
{ 32 comments }
The US should defend the Palestinians as vigorously and generously as it defends Israelis.
Phil, I feel your outrage.
I am outraged too. Both of us as Americans pay for this literally, both in tax terms and in foreign hostility, ending up in American lives both as tax-drained Americans and GI boots on the ground (you know who these impoverished Americans are)…
So, what to do?
The vote is coming up. I will vote for Obama.
The reason its not an issue for Israelis or for American Jews is that the injustice is balanced by the fear/prospect of terror from Palestinians and other sympathizers.
Is it rational? Partially.
Is it changeable? Likely, to an extent.
Identifying a wrong is a first step. The next step is to actually solve it, in ways that it can be solved.
Witty is always on about Holocaust II.
It's always just around the bend, just over the horizon, just beyond the (expanding) borders.
What is fear-mongering, and if truth isn't an antidote to it, what is?
Richard, poor soul:
There is no 8-story-high, 2-mile-wide broom in Palestine, designed to sweep all of Tel Aviv into the sea.
As far as you and your tribal nationalists are concerned, in Palestine there is only the better part of a century of land-theft and aggression to make amends for.
Bravo, Mr. Weiss!
Powerful stuff, indeed.
I wish Witty would move to Israel. I hope he takes his family with him.
I am tired of supporting the likes of him.
Its descriptive.
Do you think the description is accurate?
What is your first person?
What is "we"?
What is "I"?
How do you relate to a person or a group that relates as a "we", rather than only an "I", or "it"?
You ALL are lying if you claim that you are only objective, that there is no "we" that you defend in word.
The hooligans are a sorry sight, but they are just a symptom of the body politic of zionism. At All levels there is an active need to wallow in racialism. Many are powerful and being even more destructive. The arrogance of the Wall St. bonuses is just another sorry symptom. And many of the powerful practice such humility. Given that zionism appears at a tipping point, it's time to examine everything, all the myths, contemporary and in the last century and, to stop this humble faced violence, whether physical, economic or media. My 2 cents.
Witty's "we" is a call to exclaim Jewishness, as in: all together….. And off topic: Typepad requires 3 extra screens to leave a comment, slow on a gprs phone.
Phil's headline is again offensive.
To agree with Phil is a set of theses.
1. Israel oppresses Palestine, and the US policy enables that, and the neo-conservative ideologs constructed the basis that the US policy enables Israel.
2. IF one identifies with Jews or feels sympathy with Israel, that one is ethnocentric (code for "bad").
The two play in EACH post. You can't agree with an element of Phil's thesis, and name that as "agreement". For his smile, requires adopting his combination.
I think it is a good to know who you are, who you feel kindred with, why, and to what extent.
Even if that acknowledgement limits objectivity or univeralism (that I don't in fact detect very frequently here).
You're right, Richard.
Most of us are half-breeds, or worse, mutts. Got more tribes in us than a regional pow-wow.
How could we possibly relate to the racially or tribally pure?
Most of us don't belong to any collective other than family or business, much less a very successful tribal-based one.
I could never understand exploitative social networking–I can hardly exploit people by myself.
It's so much easier to respond to individuals and their actions as though they're collective agencies. Big blocks of Us and Them.
Anything done by one is done by all. No tedious picking through each event, each actor. No need to bring situational moral instruments, just weapons, the bigger and more final the better.
This also gets positively reinforced when it's time to distribute the cooperatively gained rewards of collective activity. All for one, one for all. Our land, our people.
But real people aren't simply one thing or the other, neither solely individuals nor solely collective drones buzzing in a hive.
We're evolving, it's how we got here.
We can evolve toward the hive, and lose everything that's beautiful and fine about being human, in exchange for a place in the insect palace; or we can evolve toward the fullest expression of what we've always been, loosely conjoined affiliations of individuals, with the push and pull and tension of the need to be free and the need to be safe always with us.
10,000 cowards all joined up together can create something horrifyingly powerful and fearless.
As we move toward that kind of living formerly marginal weaklings become powerful, arrogant, and sadistic; as we move away from it they get scared and desperate, craven and duplicitous.
Nothing in the Jewish character, anymore than anything in the overall human character, is one way or the other.
We can choose, or let the choice be made for us.
Phil Weiss is choosing to redefine American Jewish identity, which becomes a redefining of Jewish identity itself.
No small task, and a dangerous one, because the cowards who benefit from the way things are now won't retire from the field willingly.
As it is they've managed to define contemporary Jewish identity from a template that's simply a reflection of their own flawed characters, so that condemning their heinous actions becomes an attack on all Jews everywhere.
Phil goes deep into that, with his mighty pen slashing left and right.
Insulting Richard Witty, with the threat that's always behind any insult, especially as here when what he's said is neither deceptive nor arrogant but straightforward and heartfelt, isn't backing Weiss, and it isn't a defense of the innocent, it's just adding to the noise and negativity.
Jews have more reason to be fearful of bigotry than WASP's, at least here and now in the US, and most definitely in parts of the world where their brethren have created terrible and unnecessary suffering.
Rational fear can be excited into paranoid irrationality pretty easily.
We need to be calm with each other, and we need to pay attention to the other guy's state of mind.
What is being done in whose name? Who wants to put their name on what is being done? Even if thems the rules. What is going on is extreme. There is a consciousness in everyone, and that transcends conditioning. Or does someone think its in the blood? It is just too long winded to say i am a jew who is totally opposed to all the inhuman activety of the Neocon Jews and the … Jews etcetera.
Richard's we:
we: lovers of the land of Israel
we: liberals with a strong ethnic loyalty
we: liberals who would like to be fair and kind to Palestinians, but must first be fair and kind to our family, obeying the settlers and their will.
Richard's neighbor: Palestine
Richard's enlarged family: the settlers
*****************************************
Its [insulting manners]played out here, in the assaults on liberals for not being "pure" in their denunciations. For actually loving Israel, while we only want to be fair and kind to Palestine (whom are only our neighbors, and not also our family).
Posted by: Richard Witty | October 21, 2008 at 12:59 PM
To harp on about being a part of a jewish movement, is to aspire towards a base nationalism / racialism. If that is the main identity in a person, they are likely dangerous. We have all met them. Sewing divisions per se is not good. But for an hierachy bent on power, to insist on coopting individuals with no imperial quest in them, to swim with the same flag can only be done by coersion. IMHO the best hope for the Jews is a big shake up in what is required, and resulting in a sameness with other humans and life. Why is Monsanto a Jewish run company? I read today, Iraqi farmers are legally forced to use Monsanto seeds.
Insulting Richard Witty, with the threat that's always behind any insult, especially as here when what he's said is neither deceptive nor arrogant but straightforward and heartfelt, isn't backing Weiss, and it isn't a defense of the innocent, it's just adding to the noise and negativity.
Gosh. Sorry I let you down, Roy.
I just hope that one day the noise and negativity will stop their blindered genocide of the Palestinians.
The inference that I or any Jew should feel guilty about loving our family or family of families, is ludicrous, the oppossite of liberty, unjust.
And, those of us that sympathize intimately or from what ever reason with Israel and Israelis are doing a good thing by that.
To mature that sympathy to humane, we would have to extend it to all, including to Palestinians, which is rationally difficult to swallow, and takes courage to suggest and do.
That those that attempt that courageous dual effort are ridiculed and insulted here for that effort, is idiotic and counterproductive to ANY reasonable goal.
Anyone who thinks RW is posting in good faith hasn't been here very long.
the injustice is balanced by the fear/prospect of terror
This kind of reasoning is why Holocausts and Reigns of Terror occur.
I bear no good faith to those that resent Jews peaceably associating as Jews.
I bear no good faith to those that generalize that because there are asshole Zionists that Zionism is evil.
I bear good faith to those that respect the courage and decency of those Jews that self-identify as Jews, and seek to do so in a kind and benevolent manner, including AS Zionists.
If you regard that math as complicit, or bad faith, then it is you who are full of shit, whomever you are, and we are opponents.
Richard Witty, there is no balance for injustice.
Lex talionis is a cul-de-sac.
All those rationalizations fall away eventually. The idea is to have something strong underneath you when it happens.
-
Substitute "Palestinians" for "Zionists", and "all Palestinians are" for "Zionism is" in this sentence:
"I bear no good faith to those that generalize that because there are asshole Zionists that Zionism is evil."
Now substitute "dangerous" for "evil".
It's the same position.
With the crucial difference that evil is inherent, and danger only conditional.
Witty's job is to obscure any evil being done by Jews and for Jews. It's a way to sink the boat. An obsession with ethnic difference. Clinging to an identity to such an extent that there is no other function. This ripens into conquest.
If you substitute Palestinian nationalism conducted with an eye to be a good neighbor to a good neighbor (which neither are yet), I support that.
Only those that regard the self-association of Jews at all as an evil, characterize my world-view and expression as "to obscure evil".
I stated that the only relevant way to honorably criticize is specifically and clearly.
The blind promotion of jewish identity, without judgement or discernment, while there is full knowledge of the criminal activities that carry it, is an association with doom……….To co~opt those who are less in the know, to associate with inhuman activities, is evil……….How much crime and conspiracy does this Judaism require? ………..
Within ANY society, any community, there are good and bad.
One modern crime is guilt by association.
It is a crime committed by Israel, by Palestine, by the US, by activists (left and right).
To achieve maturity of a community, requires identification, self-scrutiny.
The path of focusing only on other communities, is the path of rationalization, rather than improvement.
Crime, Murder, Deviance, Conspiracy is all there is.
You must live painfully.
I experience pleasure, rest, coherence, lyric, as well as cognitive dissonance, condemnation, aches and pains.
When in trouble with the jews, then one has sh*t shovelled at them daily, denied all decency, only allowed to see the criminals and deviants. Heil J_______
Not exactly communication Morris.
Are you aware of how Jews have been treated historically?
Palestinians and Jews share a victim's narrative, and often at the hands of common assailants.
We could empathize with each other, convey that clearly and confidently, and help each other.
Or opportunists could attempt to drive a wedge between us as people and minimize the commonness, replacing it with resentment.
For example, the Zionists that are empathetic, support (more than accept) the idea of a healthy Palestinian state.
The problem is with over-simplification.
Even the issues around the settlers are NOT simple. For example, the Gush Ennumim settlements predated the second world war.
Jews purchased that land, and their descendants should have title to it, even as the regions were ethnically cleansed of Jews at three times (1920's, late 1930's, post- 1948).
If Palestine is capable of functioning with minorities safe and accepted, then there is a lawful path to transfer sovereignty over all of the west bank to Palestine.
If not, then there remains quagmire.
No solution that insists on ethnic cleansing of Jews from the region is just, as no solution that insisted on ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 48, 67 or currently, is just.
If you are interested in justice, you have to address the reality, not only the rhetoric.
"[edit] First Attempts
The first modern Jewish attempt to settle the area known today as Gush Etzion took place in 1927 by a group of Yemenite Jews who founded an agricultural village called Migdal Eder (Hebrew: מגדל עדר), in reference to a biblical location (Genesis 35:21)[1]. The location was purchased because it was roughly equidistant from Bethlehem and Hebron, and thus fell between the zones of influence of the local Arab clans. This early community did not flourish, mainly due to economic hardships and escalating tension with neighboring Arab communities.[4] Two years later, the 1929 Palestine riots and recurring hostilities forced the group to flee. The inhabitants of Migdal Eder were saved by the villagers of the neighboring Palestinian village of Beit Umar but were not able to return to the land they left behind.[5]
In 1935, Jewish businessman Shmuel Holtzmann provided backing for another attempt at settling the area. The initial kibbutz was named Kfar Etzion, in his honor ("Etzion" being a Hebraization of "Holtzmann"). The 1936-1939 Arab revolt made life intolerable for the residents, so they returned to Jerusalem in 1937.
The Jewish National Fund organized a third attempt at settlement in 1943 with the refounding of Kfar Etzion by members of the religious Mizrachi movement.[2] Despite the tough soil, shortage of potable water, harsh winters, and constant threat of fatal attacks, this group managed to succeed. Their isolation was somewhat relieved by the establishment in 1945 of Masu'ot Yitzhak and Ein Tzurim, also populated by young members of the Mizrachi. Against the backdrop of an impending struggle for Israeli independence and as a show of solidarity, the secular Hashomer Hatzair founded a fourth kibbutz, Revadim.
[edit] The Siege
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations approved the Partition Plan. The bloc fell within the area allotted to the Arab state, but the Haganah command decided not to evacuate the bloc. The Arab hostilities began almost immediately, and travel to Jerusalem became exceedingly difficult. For five months the bloc was besieged, first by Arab irregulars, and then by the Jordanian Arab Legion. Throughout the winter hostilities intensified and several relief convoys from the Haganah in Jerusalem were decimated by Arab ambushes. In January, the women and children were evacuated with British assistance. An emergency reinforcement convoy attempting to march to Gush Etzion under cover of darkness were discovered and killed. Despite some emergency flights by Piper Cubs out of Tel Aviv onto an improvised airfield, adequate supplies were not getting in.
On March 27, land communication with the Yishuv was severed completely when the Neve Daniel Convoy was forced to retreat back to Jerusalem. In the following months, Arab irregular forces continued small-scale attacks against the bloc, which the Haganah was able to effectively withstand. At times, the Jewish forces even ambushed Arab military convoys, (and, according to Morris, also Arab civilian traffic and British military convoys[3]) on the road between Jerusalem and Hebron. The defenders of Gush Etzion and the central command in Jerusalem mulled evacuation, but although they had very few arms, a decision was made to hold out due to their strategic location as the only Jewish-held position on Jerusalem's southern approach from Hebron.[4]
On 12 May, the commander of Kfar Etzion requested from the Central Command in Jerusalem a permission to evacuate the kibbutz, but was told to stay. Later in the day, the Arabs captured the Russian Orthodox monastery, which the Haganah used as a perimeter fortress for the Kfar Etzion area, killing twenty-four of its thirty-two defenders. On May 13, a massive attack involving parts of two Arab Legion infantry companies, light artillery[3] and local irregular support commenced from four directions. The kibbutz fell within a day, and the Arab forces massacred the entire population of Kfar Etzion, soldiers and civilians alike, the total number of victims of the final assault and following massacre reaching 250. Only three men and one girl managed to escape.[4] The next day, the three other kibbutzim surrendered, the same day as the declaration of independence, their defenders imprisoned by the Arab Legion."
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