The Nation has a Gaza piece by Wallace Shawn that is pure intuitive genius. This is the Shawn we came to love with Aunt Dan and Lemon, political writing of majesty and writerly authority to match Doris Lessing's. Thank god for the Nation. (I still have to get to the great Siegman's piece in the Nation, which echoes Shawn's intuition with breathtaking analysis):
If a
Palestinian killed a hundred Jews to retaliate for the killing of one
Palestinian–for that matter, if a Thai killed a hundred Cambodians to
retaliate for the killing of one Thai–which, from the point of view of
the Israeli leaders, would of course be unjust, that would be racist, as
if one Palestinian or one Thai were worth a hundred Israelis or a
hundred Cambodians. But if a Jew does it, it's not unjust and it's not
racist, because it's part of an eternal struggle in which the Jews have
lost and lost and lost–they've already lost more people than there are
Palestinians. Well, it's not surprising that certain Jews would feel
this way, but no Palestinian will ever share that feeling…
As poor and oppressed people around the world are very well aware of the
events in the occupied territories, and as they strongly identify with
the Palestinian struggle and point of view, the future of the Jews looks
increasingly dim.
Consequently it is disgraceful and vile and no favor to the Jews for
American politicians–for narrow, short-term political advantage, for
narrow, short-term global-strategic reasons and, yes, also in expiation
of the residual guilt they feel over what happened to the Jews in the
past–to pander to the irrationality of the most irrational Jews.
Actions based on irrational premises inevitably fail in their
purposes–they fail, and if the premises don't change, then the actions
are inevitably repeated, in forms which are more and more grotesque. It
is unbearable to think that the new American administration would begin
with more American dollars being poured into what is unjustifiable. It
is also unbearable to think that among the first words we would hear
from our new, clearly rational president would be preposterous sentences
trying to persuade us that Israeli policies which seem to be appalling
are actually quite normal and acceptable. Certainly nothing our new
president could do would be of greater value to the world–and greater
value to the Jews–than to abruptly end the sickeningly patronizing
habit of supporting an irrationality which was born in tragedy and will
end in more tragedy.
Touché.
Makes 'The Audacity of Hope' sound like money for dope, money for rope, as John Lennon used to say –
I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is da troof
Just gimme some troof
No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son-of-tricky dick
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of soap …
http://www.rizkyonline.com/John-Lennon/John-Lennon-Give-Me-Some-Truth-Lyrics.html
My Dinner With André was probbly the worst movie I've ever seen, but I can't disagree with Shawn on this issue.
"It's not surprising that the irrationality which surrounded them for so long, the fire of irrationality in which they were almost extinguished, has jumped across and taken hold of the soul of many Jews."
This strange irrational thing called "antisemitism" sure gets a workout in Shawn's piece. But his explanation (excuse) only makes sense if you assume that Jews have never acted in the past as we are witnessing them act today.