Below you will find a painful exchange of emails over Gaza between two Kansas City friends who disagree. You can skip my homily and go to them right now!
Here's my homily. As I keep emphasizing, it is essential right now for the Jewish family to break apart over Gaza, and for friends to break with one another over Gaza. Otherwise there won't be a debate, there won't be political movement. The two large signals of this new process were 1, Rabbi Marc Gopin's statement a few weeks back that antiwar Jews should stop arguing with their neoconservative cousins and start talking to Arabs instead; and 2, The American Conservative's amazing issue with Dan Levy, Glenn Greenwald, Avi Shlaim and John Mearsheimer writing about Gaza.
We've reached a Which-side-are-you-on moment in American life, and people should form their alliances on the simple basis of Do you think the Gaza slaughter was good for American foreign policy? Jeffrey Goldberg answered, Yes. (Which reminds me that Bill Kristol praised Goldberg at Yivo 2 years ago. So, they can have one another now, and AIPAC and the Republican right, too.) J Street and Dan Levy said No. They are building their own coalition, on the left. Who will speak to Obama?
No doubt, this division is a painful process. It's happened in my own extended family. Below are two emails received by Andrea Whitmore, an outspoken activist in Kansas City, from a former close friend and neighbor, a Jewish woman who read Whitmore's statements about Gaza. Andy Whitmore and the former neighbor have given me permission to quote them, because they both think they're right. I'm leaving the neighbor's name out just because I disagree with her so much, and I think this is intimate stuff, and don't wish to expose her to harsh criticism on this site. For I believe that harsh criticism of her position is merited. (Phil Weiss)
1. The former neighbor writes:
Andy,
been a long time since we've communicated and I've refrained from
responding to your many postings regarding the situation in the Middle East. Sadly,
I've come to the realization and one that I would have never expected
to have concluded about you, that you apparently harbor anti-semitic
feelings. How else could any rational person explain the position
you've taken? I wonder what you would do to protect your children and
grandchildren if rockets were continuously fired at you/them on a daily
basis; in total disregard of a cease
fire agreement?
have returned the territories that they did to the
Palestinians…The English learned years ago that you can't
negotiate with these people. They're not honorable. They fight
amongst themselves and Israel has been their scapegoat for the past 60
years. Personally, and I know my feelings are harsh, Israel needs to
extricate and deport them. When you have a cancer, the only hope is to
treat it with radical means.
Israel's survival… They're in an impossible situation. There will
never be a negotiated settlement. The only thing these people respect
is brute force. If someone attacked my children, I would go after them
with whatever means I needed to protect them.
their actions. It's discouraging to learn that the concept you've had
of someone is totally mistaken. I definitely had different
expectations of you. I'm terribly disappointed. How pathetic. You're
not the person I thought you were.
[signed]
2. Andy Whitmore writes back to the neighbor. She paraphrased this to me: "After a few attempts at reason (and
getting responses from her relatives accusing me not only of
anti-semitism but of being shallow), I wrote back that further
correspondence would be counterproductive, and wished her well. I bet
that sad scenario is happening over and over among friends and
families. It's really depressing."
3. Response from the former neighbor:
I was trying to decide how I would respond to what you wrote and
realized that perhaps I needed to explain why I feel the way I do.
Yiddish was my 1st language.
one. I remember hearing stories of my Grandparents' families being
murdered during the Holocaust.
I remember "Greenhorns", who successfully survived the Nazi's, who came
to stay with us as they established themselves in America. I remember
my Grandmothers filling little blue boxes (pishkas) with coins, and holding fundraisers to help establish the State of Israel. I
also remember my ear being pulled by the older sister of a girl, who I
considered a friend, and being called "a dirty Jew". Dottie's parents
and older sister were German immigrants.
I'm afraid you're mistaken. Apparently, you've never understood the
story of Passover or Chanukah. The lesson is one of survival, as is the lesson the Jewish people learned from the tragedy of the Holocaust: to survive.
thought to be an extremely sweet person. I guess, I never really knew
you. In your note, you implied that I was using the "race card" by accusing you of being an anti-semite. Your argument wasn't surprising since it is a rather predictable cliche…. Since you have such strong convictions, I would like to ask you a few questions:
democracy, no women's rights. Nothing has changed. Their leaders
could not tolerate the seeds of democracy growing in the Middle East.
Rather than take the responsibility and improve the living conditions
of their people, with the wealth they had gained from their oil
interest, it was easier to teach their people that it was Israel and
the Jews that were preventing them from having a better life. Arafat
and the PLO leadership stole millions that were given to their people,
to better their lives, and instead hid the monies in their Swiss Bank
accounts. What is it about them that makes you such a rabid supporter?
[Signed]
The intentionally ignorant neighbor must be related to Richard Witty. BTW, here is Walt's response to criticism of his and M's book; it applies to Witty's comments over the years on this blog since the book came out:
"As I keep emphasizing, it is essential right now for the Jewish family to break apart over Gaza, and for friends to break with one another over Gaza."
This is an utterly fucked attitude Phil.
You don't know how far out this is, and I feel frankly very sorry for you.
The only thing that I can assume is that this a low blood-sugar moment for you.
no, citizen, this is a serious problem. very serious. it is a radical division in our society. yet, "they" have the power.
Amazing how the neighbor actually writes this: "I never believed that Israel should have returned the territories that they did to the Palestinians……The English learned years ago that you can't negotiate with these people. They're not honorable."
…while accusing Andy of being anti-Semitic. If only there were an equally stinging label for the kind of anti-Palestinian bigotry this neighbor embraces.
The neighbor also defends Israel by noting that some "Muslims" (he/she seems to assume all Arabs are automatically Muslims, which of course is not true) live there in peace and asking how an Israeli would be treated in Gaza.
What a dumb comparison. First, he/she overstates the freedom Arabs in Israel enjoy. Arab parties were banned from Israeli elections just two weeks ago (although the high cort overturned it — but still, this sends a pretty clear message of how Arabs in Israel are regarded by their neighbors). And how about the way the "settlers" treat Palestinians in the West Bank?
Gaza is an open air prison. It really shouldn't be surprising that the local population wouldn't be too happy if someone from the warden's family showed up.
yeah lets accuse Palestinians of mental disorders, then accuse phil of physical disorder. Everybody is sick except the friends of Israel.
minds diseased. the disease passed from generation to generation.
Witty, you are a clown. I have yet to see you post ONE substantiated argument. Facts/analysis/etc.
You just invent and twist rhetoric. You're shallow.
peters, what are you driving at? how does my comment indicate I don't think this is a serious problem?
witty, Phil's attitude is perceptive. all you do is reveal your intentional blindness. the christians have to also directly
confront the evangelical zionists. That you think Phil's take
is far out indicates how far gone you are–has all the oxygen left your brain?
she/he says that people in that region have went to war with each other for centuries and i'm guess she/he says because of that they are irrational, then i gues french, english, german and other are irrational as well beacuse they went to war with each other for centuries too.
Also she/ he keeps talking about what holocaust for her/ his reason for israel to kill arabs . althoug hofocaust was a tradey and evil i don't see how that has anything to do with palistinians .
…while accusing Andy of being anti-Semitic. If only there were an equally stinging label for the kind of anti-Palestinian bigotry this neighbor embraces.
I've come to call it the perception of the "the Arab mind" based on the Israeli/Jewish academic discussion of the Arab Mind
That there is lot of mirroring going on feels pretty obvious.
I am very hesitant about Avner's psychology of suicide bombers. But from a German perspective his suggestion that Israel missed a period of mourning for the Holocaust victims, after a while rings true. At least I think Germany missed it analogously, instead it carefully spread the cloak of silence over the issue. Goal-oriented and bravely active it moved on into the brave new world of the German Wirtschaftswunderland.
I highly recommend the "Arab Mind" chapter it feels like the Janus face of the Iron Wall strategy that should have ended long ago, as Avi Shlaim shows.
Yeah, there does need to be a word for the neighbor's attitude. "Bigotry" doesn't carry enough of a sting and "racism" isn't quite it either–in fact, it lets people of her sort off the hook, because they'll go on about how Israel allows Jews of all races to come to Israel, so they aren't racist, etc …
It's something just as bad as racism, but it needs a new name. "Anti-semitism" is the same sort of evil, since Jews aren't a race, but a group defined by a connection to a religion (though not necessarily practitioners of the religion). But if you called this woman an anti-Arabist, it would probably just make her proud.
Someone is going to point out that Arabs are semites, and that anti-semitism should include anti-Arabism, but unfortunately that's just not what the word means in common useage, whether or not that is logical.
This neighbor's appeal to be understood — this evocation of "what would you do if someone were shooting rockets at you" — goes way back to that desire to be accepted as "normal." She thinks it's "normal" for a state to respond to Hamas aggression. But Israel is not a “normal” state. It has no settled borders. It receives a vast amount of foreign aid, even though it is a fabulously wealthy country. Unlike other countries, it is not subject to International Law and can break those laws with impunity. It is free to ignore United Nations resolutions without fear of consequences. It can occupy the territory of another nation, imprison its population, assassinate its leaders, torture its citizens, and steal their land. It is free to slaughter hundreds of defenceless people in the name of “self-defense.” It can do all of these things — and more — with the blessing of virtually all of our governments in the Western world. In sum, Israel is an ABNORMAL state; its foreign policy is dysfunctional, and much of its population delusional in the belief that antisemitism is the only reason why anyone would question Israel’s special privileges. It's this abnormality that the neighbour doesn't get. So it's no wonder that Andrea declines to engage her: you can't reason with the irrational.
Notice the extreme personalisation of the critique. Although it largely avoids amateur psychoanalysis a la Witty, it homes in again and again on pure emotional subjectivisms, such as "It's discouraging to learn that the concept you've had of someone is totally mistaken. I definitely had different expectations of you. I'm terribly disappointed. How pathetic. You're not the person I thought you were," and "I judged you through your daughter who I always thought to be an extremely sweet person. I guess, I never really knew you."
Andy, you have no need to defend yourself. International law and the conscience of billions of human beings are all on your side.
If we imposed Israel's system in America, we would all be killing each other, too. It creates an in-group and an out-group out of mixed populations, then makes them fight like animals.
Arabs and Jews don't fight in America, because they have equal rights before the law. No one can take away your home and lock you away for being the wrong religion.
This is not only gratuitous and unjust, it is a failed pre-Enlightenment state model from the middle ages. And it doesnt make anyone safer.
The future belongs to you. We will look back on this time and these events as we look back on slavery.
A quibble:
These people have fought each other for centuries. They have no democracy, no women's rights. Nothing has changed.
As Israel Shahak pointed out in his book Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (1994), it was the Jews who were the closed society from 200 A.D. to 1835 A.D. They produced no scholarship beyond rabbinical texts. They invented nothing. The rabbis would not allow Jews to read anything they hadn’t approved. The only time Jews got a break was when they were assimilated into Muslim or Christian societies, like those of Spain or the Netherlands.
As for the stupidity of the neighbor’s comment I cite above, read this on Moorish Science:
link to newdawnmagazine.com
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The Orientalist Stanley Lane-Poole acknowledged the great impact Moorish civilisation had on Europe when he wrote:
Muslim countries had great universities where the closed Jewish culture had none. Jews could only attend places of higher learning when they were outside Jewish enclaves.
Look what the sheik of the UAE has done with a patch of sand in Dubai in one half the time that Israel has existed. Great architecture. A commercial behemoth. A wonderment by comparison.
Phil: "As I keep emphasizing, it is essential right now for the Jewish family to break apart over Gaza, and for friends to break with one another over Gaza."
Reply to Mr. Witty re: "This is an utterly fucked attitude Phil. You don't know how far out this is,…"
Colin: The issue is actually very simple. You American extremist Zionists (hereafter abbreviated AeZ) are going to lose the struggle to maintain enough of a grip on American foreign policy to maintain the political, economic, and military subsidy that sustains the Israeli campaign of occupation, ethnic cleansing and colonization. It may happen in 5 years, and it may happen in 50 years, but it will happen. AeZ's have done tremendous damage to America, and it will eventually come out.
AeZ institutions like AIPAC have been claiming for decades to represent all Jews, and in my opinion with no small success amongst gentiles, and those who Jews who disagree with them have largely remained silent. If moderate Jews do not separate themselves from their extremist kin, it is likely that all will be blamed. The separation must be sharp, and probably of necessity bitter because the perception of the rest of America of the relationship between Judaism and Zionism must change.
I am now of the opinion that the AeZ's will 'play chicken' with the well-being of all Americans, including fellow Jews with whom they do not see eye-to-eye, in the hope of squeezing out as much support for Israeli colonization as possible before America cuts of the spigot. If they are allowed to push things through to the end, it cannot but be ugly. This must not be allowed to happen. Moderate Jews have an absolutely vital role to play to ensure that it does not, and it starts with fracture and confrontation.
Colin.
It's already happened. In Obama's Citizen Book, one issue of stopping all aid to Israel had over 32,000 votes. It was the eighth most popular foreign policy issue. And that was only one of the 20 times the same point was raised.
Zionist rhetoric always increases the respect I have for my Dutch Calvinist cousins.
They also learned the lesson of survival the hard way, eking out a living on marginal polders, at risk of mortal catastrophe. Then they fled to Africa and got it even worse, fighting 'untrustworthy, uncivilized Zulu spear-chuckers' and the mighty British empire.
The only thing missing from their story is a full-fledged Holocaust.
And yet…they also were racist, and historically wrong.
I suppose I have to award Phil one point for getting Witty frothing with "it is essential right now for the Jewish family to break apart over Gaza." That is pure blasphemy, to a supposedly secular, pop-psychology-oriented jewish supremacist like him.
I agree with Colin…
' If moderate Jews do not separate themselves from their extremist kin, it is likely that all will be blamed. The separation must be sharp, and probably of necessity bitter because the perception of the rest of America of the relationship between Judaism and Zionism must change.'
And all the anti semite slur means to the public any longer is being anti genocide of the Palestines.
Phil knows his idiocy in this post.
He is close to his family, and if he is sincere in this, he will sever relationships with most of them.
I can't imagine doing that over a vaguely stated question.
"As I keep emphasizing, it is essential right now for the Jewish family to break apart over Gaza, and for friends to break with one another over Gaza."
"Over Gaza".
What fucking question.
Whether it was rational for Hamas to shell Israeli civilians at a time when Israel was NOT engaging militarily in Gaza?
I'm on your shit list for that one, old friend.
Whether it was rational for Israel to regard the continued shelling of civilians as an initiation of a state of war?
I'm on your shit list for that one, old friend.
Whether the manner and targets selected were excessive?
I'm now on the "right" side of that one.
Are we friends? Or, are we enemies?
I was especially disturbed by her description of Jewish religious holidays…
"You wrote that Israel's actions have nothing to do with Judaism. I'm afraid you're mistaken. Apparently, you've never understood the story of Passover or Chanukah. The lesson is one of survival, as is the lesson the Jewish people learned from the tragedy of the Holocaust: to survive."
How do Jewish children move on from the horrors of the past? Or are they consigned to cary this yoke forever?
Now I wonder, do any here feel my saying that is anti-Semitic?
I think Phil's predictions are at long last coming true…the dam has broken.
It was either here or at Glen Greenwald's site that I read that DKos management stated it stayed away from the I-P fray becuase "there was no political upside to it for them".
Evidently things have changed….the Gaza attack got Front Paged at DKos..first time ever..and it was not pro Israel.
I think this came about because every dairy written about Gaza got recommended with most daires running a comment count well over a 1000. And zionist vr. disgusted anti Israel Americans was about 20 to 1020. The rabid zionist commenters at DKos who use to run the boards with slurs of anti semite have been routed and laughed out and are now whining that all the jews are being blamed.
Then today this was front paged:
"Ezra Klein explains how TNR's constant allegations of anti-semitism in the Israel/Palestine debate have debased the accusation to the point where it no longer has much impact (in that context at least):
The first time I got called an anti-Semite by Marty Peretz and friends, I was pretty distressed. By last month, when Peretz was pitying "pipsqueaks" like me for my "hatred" of both my Jewish and American inheritances, I was just happy to indulge the daily routine of an aging eccentric (and hey, at least I didn't come in for the nasty treatment he gave his longtime writer John Judis). And then he started calling me and my friends "the Juicebox Mafia," which has, frankly, been a delightful turn of events. I want a logo, and shirts. (I'm serious about this. Any graphic designers with time on their hands?)
So Chait and I agree. Criticizing Israel is not an act of courage because it's not actually dangerous for your career. This is despite the best efforts of Chait and his magazine, and, I'd submit, arguably because of them."
There has obviously been a huge sea change.
"As I keep emphasizing, it is essential right now for the Jewish family to break apart over Gaza, and for friends to break with one another over Gaza."
My interpretation of this sentence is that Phil is not being strictly literal. I understood "break apart" in the sense of adult children with kids of their own telling their parents "If you spew that racist claptrap before your grandchildren, you will not be allowed to see them", as opposed to "Thanks for raising me, don't bother to call or write". Families don't literally have to break apart. The point is for the new generation to take a stand and not allow their parent's racism to be handed down to their children. I have seen exactly this process taking place among friends in the South, so I know the 'it will be the end of the world argument' is nonsense. The 'old guard' will adapt, when they have no other choice.
Richard Witty.
Whether it was rational for Hamas to shell Israeli civilians at a time when Israel was NOT engaging militarily in Gaza?
[...]
Whether it was rational for Israel to regard the continued shelling of civilians as an initiation of a state of war?
Suggest you read Henry Siegman's Israel's Lies in the 1/29/09 London Review of Books. You're on the wrong side of history. Are you willfully ignorant, or do you refuse to read anything that doesn't comport with your world view?
link to lrb.co.uk
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Witty won't read anything that isn't supportive of Zionism. He made up his mind long ago, and to hell with any new information.
He isn't here to learn anything. He's here to lambaste Phil for insufficient tribal fealty and to offer his uniquely substanceless, new-agey apologia for a transnational colonization increasingly at odds with all religious teachings, Jewish or otherwise, as well as the global values of peace, justice, and human rights.
He's not just on the wrong side of history due to navigational error. He has what you might call a ZPS (Zionist Positioning System), and he goes wherever it directs him.
"In Obama's Citizen Book, one issue of stopping all aid to Israel had over 32,000 votes."
MRW, that's awesome, thanks for the tip. I missed that completely. I wonder how many other people who would have signed missed too?
"My interpretation of this sentence is that Phil is not being strictly literal. I understood "break apart" in the sense of adult children with kids of their own telling their parents "If you spew that racist claptrap before your grandchildren, you will not be allowed to see them", as opposed to "Thanks for raising me, don't bother to call or write". "
Phil would have to clarify what he "means".
Siegman presents a strawman.
His first paragraph is different than reality.
"Western governments and most of the Western media have accepted a number of Israeli claims justifying the military assault on Gaza: that Hamas consistently violated the six-month truce that Israel observed and then refused to extend it"
Most Israelis that I've talked to and most press reports that I've read (a lot), refer to respect for Hamas for primarily sticking to the cease-fire for the six months.
What they express criticism of is the determination and rapidity of Hamas' returning to assaults on civilians in the last couple days of the cease-fire and most importantly, in the week following.
You can believe the strawman that Seigman presents, but strawmen arguments are usually innaccurate.
Wow, Richard! Did you read the entire first paragraph before trashing the piece?
In case you want to be able to dismiss the piece with a little more credibility, maybe you could critique this passage–
In other words, when Jews target and kill innocent civilians to advance their national struggle, they are patriots. When their adversaries do so, they are terrorists.
It is too easy to describe Hamas simply as a ‘terror organisation’. It is a religious nationalist movement that resorts to terrorism, as the Zionist movement did during its struggle for statehood, in the mistaken belief that it is the only way to end an oppressive occupation and bring about a Palestinian state. While Hamas’s ideology formally calls for that state to be established on the ruins of the state of Israel, this doesn’t determine Hamas’s actual policies today any more than the same declaration in the PLO charter determined Fatah’s actions.
These are not the conclusions of an apologist for Hamas but the opinions of the former head of Mossad and Sharon’s national security adviser, Ephraim Halevy.
Its possible to construct your arguments based on facts, and not only on mis-representations of history.
I agree with you that every community wants to present their efforts as heroically violent, while the other is cynically violent.
The antidote to that is self-reflection which most likely Seigman was suggesting.
I DOUBT that he was suggesting blaming the other for one's own woes. I doubt that he was suggesting bashing Israel from without for a process that EVERYONE does (Israel, Hamas, left).
For example, when you encourage boycott of Israel, do you consider that the majority of the effect of that boycott is on civilians, and that they only leverage that you might have on officials is because it effects civilians?
That stratagem seems ok to you? It passes your political morality test of your own actions?
Kathy,
You wrote "How do Jewish children move on from the horrors of the past? Or are they consigned to cary this yoke forever?"
There are differing opinions about whether or not one need move on. History teaches us that we must change certain behavior to avoid similar circumstance. In this instance, Jews should have learned that regardless of their individual place in society, as a group, they will be treated differently then others. To that end, they must devise a stratagy and behavior so as to disallow any of the pagan/christian/islamic solutions of the past. And if that stratagy requires the maintenance of a strong national Jewish homeland, then that is what will be.
In that regard, the Jews can never get past the latest holocaust, as that will just lead them to the next.