Today when we are reading universalist Jewish voices like Avnery and Levy to lift ourselves from despair at the grim scenes in the Middle East, a friend sent along this passage from A Passage to India, the 1924 classic of politicized race relations, by E.M. Forster. Set in India during the British colonialist era, the book involves a false accusation against an Indian man, Dr. Aziz, for an assault on a young English woman. The charge splits the communities of Brits and Indians. This passage is about an encounter between a reasonable Englishman who has taken Aziz's side, and a racist official, the British collector.
"The Collector looked at him sternly, because he was keeping his head. He had not gone mad at the phrase 'an English girl fresh from England,' he had not rallied to the banner of race. He was still after facts, though the herd had decided on emotion. Nothing enrages Anglo-India more than the lantern of reason if it is exhibited for one moment after its extinction is decreed. All over Chandrapore that day the Europeans were putting aside their normal personalities and sinking themselves in their community. Pity, wrath, heroism, filled them, but the power of putting two and two together was annihilated."
The rage that was there in the British heart in India arose from fear of losing control amid a hostile majority. It is the same fear that is within the Israeli heart, that was in the Afrikaaner heart. May Obama be our Mandela and our Gandhi. We need one for our time.
And the cause isn't advanced by further demonizing each others' sides. None of these abusive regimes saw themselves as other than more advanced, more noble, more righteous than the "other."
Hmmn. Memories. My mother read this book to my brother and me before we went to bed. I still see the dark green hardcover and a splash of red and Forster's name stamped in black with a stamped image of an Indian in a turban with others on the front. [I dont think it was higher education that my mother was thinking of. She seemed to read us what she wanted to read. :-) ]
Too bad Obama's mothel, who got her only child up each day at 5AM to read him in African-America history as written by blacks, hadn't been
a tad more balanced. Still, that was better than reading him only
white racist material, yet now, he has to be objective. My, my–that's like asking Richard Witty to be objective 'neath the Mr Reason fascade…
How will Obama be in three months, and if objective, will it already be way too late?
'Fraid so, said my own son, a mischling.
In Levy's first article about the conflict in Haaretz a couple weeks ago, he described Hamas' behavior as irrational and suicidal, and exposing Palestinians to harm unnecessarily.
In his letter to Yehoshua, his comments ommitted that common understanding.
Among Israelis, the question is "how can we humanely respond to Hamas?" where moderation doesn't succeed, ignoring them doesn't succeed, and military excesses partially succeed (but with real costs).
NOONE here that I've read has answered that question in the slightest.
There is a lot of vanity of dissent, "Its our duty to fight injustice", but NO DUTY to propose.
I still very sadly remember a post of Phil's in which he stated that "its not my responsibility to propose. I'm not that good at it anyway." (That is a paraphrase, so forgive me if I misrepresented.)
"Your wrong is worse than my wrong".
Such idiotic vanity, and utter impracticality.
We propose all the time that Israel stop its colonialism, separatism, militarism, expansionism. Israel is in the driver's seat, which is what you constantly ignore, Richard.
The Nakba continues and Richard still you think Israel is the greater victim. Every post you slip back into being the victim, because your Holocaust trauma is more meaningful to you than the Nakba reality.
Every post you want condemnation of Hamas because you refuse to face the demon within (which has to do with ideology that you refuse to question).
We propose that Israel end the air, sea, land blockade of Gaza and end all Israeli settlements in the current OT. Also. we want our own
government to end its annual welfare dole to Israel and Egypt until Israel has so ended its overreach, and any subsequent dole be totally conditional on Israel so curbing its enthusiasm. We propose too an economic boycott of Israel as was done with apartheid S Africa, and
let's tear up those memorandums of understanding that apply only
to Israel–put them to a national referendum so average Americans
know they exist. Now, what do YOU propose, Richard Witty?
Uri Avnery is not a 'universalist'. He is a zionist pragmatist, which gets him branded as a 'leftist' by people who know fuck all about political theory or philosophy. And you, Phil, don't give a damn what he really is, because you are a word salesman, with no interest in truth whatever. You just want to sell your own verbiage, so you tart it up with cant, cliche, and gibberish, to catch the feckless eye. You are a political fraud, and you will never be trusted, Phil, never, I promise you that.
I trust Phil. But yeah, being a Jew and being a universalist do not exactly go hand in hand. What happened to the "people who shall stand apart" stuff?