Avrum Burg has a colloquium in Haaretz about the spiritual work necessary after the assault on Gaza. Much as I love Burg, and his brilliant, questioning spirit, this colloquium feels to me to be too Talmudic, too Israeli. Too Burgian, in its detachment. In this case, detached from the fact that Israel just slaughtered 400 children and dropped white phosphorus on them. I don't know that you can have highminded dialogue at this time. You must have shame and grief and rage. It's why in the end a solution will have to be imposed on both sides. They're too self-regarding, think they can arrive at answers without the Other involved. They can't.
Still, the sense that the Israeli soul is dislocated is here:
Burg: "So for you, the Gaza war is a crude example of
unilateral action and excessive force. What would you like to see when
you look in the mirror?"
Yehouda Shenhav [sociologist]: "We have to free ourselves from this Crusader fantasy. You
can't come to the Middle East, ignore everything that exists here and
wipe out everyone who happens your way so you can establish a Jewish
state."
from fear and partly from defining the enemy as evil incarnate, someone
you can't talk to. But my perspective is theological, rather than
socio-political, like that of Shenhav. The Israelites in Egypt were
bonded slaves, and God told Moses: Go to Pharaoh. Speak to him, again
and again. Why? After all, Pharaoh really was the symbol of human evil
at its worst. Because that is the Jewish way of dealing with evil…
another language we haven't tried yet. What we are missing is the
cultured, profoundly religious language we share with the Muslims in
whose midst we live. Our whole identity here is based on Western
identity. We are a local branch of European Christianity. But in terms
of religious values, we are really much closer to Islam than to
Christianity. We need to adopt a Jewish-Muslim language and take
advantage of these understandings in order to develop a language for
talking to Hamas. Not for talking about technocratic issues like
tunnels or passageways – our fight is not about tunnels – but for
talking about identity and missions in life that spring from serious
questions of faith, which is something I respect them for. As a person
who believes in divine providence to some degree, I think we have been
led to our current reality in order to probe fundamental truths – and
not just ours."
Burg: "Salvation through the sewers?"
Elboim: "I see it happening every day – how all our options are
collapsing. Western political language, the language of force: They are
over. Gaza is not conquerable, and we have Hamas, an enemy with a clear
mission and religious agenda, as our mirror. There is something very
important we have to learn from Hamas, and that is how to speak this
language."
–Phil Weiss, with thanks to Sky Redoubt.
During that hiatus between the election of Ehud Barak and the announcement of his government–one of the most hopeful times in recent Jewish-Palestinian history–I met a guy at Yad Vashem. I was marveling at all the photos taken inside the barracks in Auschwitz–photos all blown up way beyond lifesize. The guy pointed at one of the emaciated figures and said, "That's me." He then pulled up his sleeve and showed me the number tatooed on his forearm. And for a second–just for a second–I experienced the utter insufficiency of knowing the holocaust from an academic perspective. I also knew in that moment that there would be no end to Palestinian suffering. Not until survivors and their descendants have let go of this obsession with Jewish suffering will the Palestinians be released from theirs. I haven't read Avram Burg's book yet, but I guess it's time I did.
Its actually not dismissable as "high-minded", with the implication of "irrelevant".
I expect that Burg regards changing attitudes as practical, as do I, and as is implied by your using words to make changes, rather than picking up a rocket launcher.
"Not until survivors and their descendants have let go of this obsession with Jewish suffering will the Palestinians be released from theirs."
You might be right, but if so, that's a depressing thought. It might be a very long time. Jewish culture seems obsessed with the Holocaust. Every few months, a new movie, a new Holocaust museum. I'm sure it's emphasized in the curriculum in Israeli schools. It seems like the Jewish religion has gone from the worship of God to the worship of the Holocaust. So I'm not sure we can wait until the 2nd and 3rd generation Holocaust survivors get over their obsession; we'll have to prod them along to join the rest of the human race.
Because when you really think about it, the Holocaust is not really unique (but we spell it with a capital? – strange!) Probably the greatest holocaust of all time happened to the natives of North and South America: 25 – 100 million are some estimates. In the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas, 9 million Africans are thought to have perished, and this is not counting the countless others who died at the hands of their slave-masters. Their descendants have carried on without demanding special treatment, without hating the rest of the human race for what happened to them, without creating a nuclear-armed fortress-nation, without doing to others what was done to them. The greatest miracle in South Africa was not that apartheid was dismantled, but that the blacks didn't slaughter their white oppressors once they had their freedom.
It seems to me that it's the exceptionalism that is at the root of Judaism that makes the current situation so difficult. Because if you are raised to believe that you are different and better than all the other people on Earth, that God wants you to remain separate and be his favorite tribe, then your suffering is greater, your needs are greater, and you deserve better than everyone else. People with this mindset are very difficult to negotiate peace with; they're even difficult to argue with on a blog!
Does anyone have any ideas on what we can do to help our Jewish brothers and sisters fully join the family of man?
Weiss: "too Talmudic, too Israeli."
In other words, to self-absorbed Jewish. Good for Weiss. It's time for moralist to get serious and intervene to whatever extent necessary within moral reason to restore order to this intolerable situation.
Also, what's up with this?:
Yehouda Shenhav [sociologist]: "We have to free ourselves from this Crusader fantasy. You can't come to the Middle East, ignore everything that exists here and wipe out everyone who happens your way so you can establish a Jewish state."
"Crusader fantasy"? It sounds like he's trying to scapegoat Christians for the actions of Jewish and gentile Zionists to me.
Let's get something strait, Herr "Sociologist" Shenhave: it's Zionists perpetrating these atrocities, not Christians, you weasel.
I defy any Christian to morally justify the actions of the Zionists and their neo-imperialist partners. Anyone who does is a collaborator and poseur.
Ana and Ed raise interesting points. Why are some Jews so fascinated/enthralled/morbidly obsessed with their Jewishness. I sometimes wonder about Alan Dershowitz. How long does it take after he wakes up in the morning that he remember's he's jewish–5 seconds? 15 seconds? Surely under a minute.
Even Phil, despite all his other great attributes (courage, the willingness to think forbidden thoughts) still wrestles everyday with his Jewishness. Why is this such a big issue? I'm part Italian, part English. I assure you I've never once struggled with my Italianness or Englishness.
I was born here. I'm American. That's good enough for me. I'm not obsessed with my ancestor's genes. Or the insults inflicted on my ancestors ten generations back.
Yet with some Jews one has the sense that they all take literally those folk tales about some poor kid who grows up knowing somehow he's different from the people around him till one day he discovers he's actually a prince with royal blood running through his veins.
That's what I think a lot of the obsessed Jews think. That they are princes (or princeses) with royal Jewish blood, which is to say smarter, braver, more moral blood. They can't give it up and be ordinary Americans because to them it would be surrendering their birthrights for the dubious benefits of eating corndogs and going to NASCAR events.
Why on earth would you think that Dershowitz needs to remember that he is jewish when he wakes in the morning.
How long does it take for you to remember that you were once human?
I've just been surfing around for stuff by Avraham Burg before ordering up his latest book on Amazon. I found a Ha'aretz article from a coupla years ago in which he says that the working title of his book *Defeating Hitler* was "Hitler Won." That really impresses me since, as I've said here before, in my experience of Israel there are no Jews there–at least, no Jews as I know Jews. The Nazis could never have achieved annihilation on that scale; only Jews can do that. Self-annihilation, it turns out, is much more efficient than even Hitler's ueber-rational, industrial killing machine.
chris berel has started capitalizing his name. I'll stick with the more transparent original hasbara-assignment name.
Dershowitz needs to remember that he is Jewish because the entirety of his existence is a fraudulent act. Think about the Zionist identity as you would a Hollywood actor playing a role. Dershowitz and his Ashkenazi “Jewish” Zionist ilk are merely European actors playing a role of the Old Testament Jews, for fun and profit. They’re so far gone, they actually now believe their act.
"This whole conversation is nothing but a fringe discourse of bleeding hearts sitting on the sidelines and indulging in wishful thinking."
Strenger, who said this, is right. This dialogue is poppycock. Recognize that your are living as part of a criminal enterprise, and get out. That's the only answer.
chris berel: "Why on earth would you think that Dershowitz needs to remember that he is jewish when he wakes in the morning."
If you are going to spend a significant part of every day actively betraying America on behalf of Israel you can't go about this haphazardly. You have to sit down and carefully plan. Otherwise you might accidentally benefit America first.
I went to a Talmud study group last night.
The one thing that struck me about it was that there was really one dominating theme.
"How can I do good?"
If that is self-absorption, so be it!!!
"How can I do good?"
You could try to stop being a sanctimonious, ignorant, brainwashed p(r)ig, for a start, Richard.
"It's hard to read a highminded colloquium after 400 kids are slaughtered"
Its hard to regard Hamas as seeking any reconciliation when it undertakes shelling of civilians.
Time to change methods.
Interesting how the comments turn from high mind to pure racist hatred. Weiss, thank you for exposing so many of your fellow travelers.
shelling of civilians
You recall how I explained the 'mirroring' tactic, as a form of the classical tu quoque (or 'you too') argument. This is a further refinement: pre-emptive mirroring. You accuse your opponent of doing to you what you yourself are doing to him, even though, in fact, he isn't doing it. Fairly takes your creath away, like all good chutzpah should!
Where is the Muslim Outrage over Darfur?
http://alirizvisblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/where-is-muslim-outrage-over-darfur.html
"In a part of the world not far from the Middle East, there is a war-ravaged country whose government is supporting a brutal military offensive against a population of Muslims living on territory under its control.
According to UN estimates, 300,000 people have died in the conflict so far; the Coalition for International Justice put this number at almost 400,000 – and that was in 2005.
The United States has officially termed it a "genocide".
In July 2008, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan – who has funded and supported the Janjaweed militia that has carried out the murder and systematic rape of non-Arab African Muslims in Darfur – charging him with war crimes, genocide, murder, and crimes against humanity.
For five years, the Arab League was functionally silent.
But last year, they finally spoke out – against the head of the ICC's prosecutorial team against al-Bashir, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, slamming him for having an "unbalanced stance".
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), made up of 57 Islamic countries, issued a statement declaring its solidarity with al-Bashir, calling the indictment "unwarranted and unacceptable".
Less than a year later, at the Arab Summit held in Kuwait City January 19, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria called on other Arab countries to brand Israel a "terrorist state". Millions of Muslims worldwide voiced their outrage against Israel's military offensive in Gaza. Massive protests were organized in most major cities across the world. Real-time casualty counts were posted on Facebook statuses. I was asked to sign more petitions in support of Gaza in three weeks than I have for Darfur in five years.
Where are the large-scale protests and outrage from the Muslim community over the senseless deaths and rape of hundreds of thousands of poverty-ridden African Muslims?
Why is there such a glaring discrepancy between the Muslim world's response to the atrocities in Gaza and the atrocities in Darfur?
If the Darfur genocide was being carried out by Jews or Christians instead of Arab Muslims, would we see a different response?"
yeah, what about darfur.
great riposte julian.
"Interesting how the comments turn from high mind to pure racist hatred."
Which was preceded by this:
"How long does it take for you to remember that you were once human?"
This behavior is a defense mechanism, as your psychiatrist has likely explained, called projection, where one attributes their personal defects to another.
You carry the stench of a ‘chicken hawk’, that infantile mixture of encopresis and the sticky scent of the giveaway lollipops your mother brings home from the bank when she deposits your social security check.
What an ass.
Funny, Marc. You go directly from high minded whine directly to poorly directed insult. Your lack of competence on each end is rather glaring.
But the bank should change brands.
Funny it's not intended to be. You moral authority (such as it is) to impugn others as racists is completely undermined when you then demean them as subhuman. Even you, despite the interminable mental loop of non sequiturs, agitprop, and juvenile insults that you seem condemned to regurgitate if you continue to ignore your doctor's advice, even you are human. That is my point. Being a mongrel myself, I have no use for supremacists of any species and their ‘boot on the neck’ philosophies, whether Aryan, Zionist, Noirist, etc., which inevitably dehumanize the 'Other'.
supremacists of any species and their ‘boot on the neck’ philosophies, whether Aryan, Zionist, Noirist…
You have a specimen of a Noirist Supremacist? This sounds good.
truth and executions commissions.
forget the truth commissions. we know the truth. straight to executions.
About the Israeli presence in Darfur, Israel wishes to milk the resources:
http://www.sudanvisiondaily.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7407
PS: Israel rejected refugees from Darfur. Israel's reasoning: They came through Egypt as political refugees, but Egypt was too poor for them to stay, so they came to Israel, therefore they are no longer political refugees, but economic refugees. So, they can't come to Israel. Further, we, the Israeli's liken them to terrorists Arabs trying to go through the USA-Mexican border, disguised as Mexicans.
chris berel equates Palestinians with chickens, not humans, as he said on this blog recently. They are there to eat. Chicken soup for the chris berelesqe soul.
Well, yes, I do. The Noirist movement in post-WWII Haiti was based in large measure on black superiority to the mulatto population.
Citizen, Alf considered them to be chickens. I merely improved upon his work.
And as Alf is of your ilk, you've no one to whine about but yourself.
Have fun with your new whine. I'm sure its very christian.
To the extent that Arabs ignore Darfur, it's the same psychology that makes Israel defenders ignore Israeli crimes. All humans are alike in that way, or anyway, most groups of humans (Arabs, Americans, Christians, Jews, Muslims, whatever label you choose to use) contain people who feel threatened if their own group is accused of doing something wrong.
Haiti, fair enough, I wondered what you had in mind. It had to be francophone.
It seems that all Arabs are ignoring Darfur and only a minute number of Jews are defending all Israeli crimes, or what, in some antisemitic eyes, pass for crimes.
Witty: "I went to a Talmud study group last night. The one thing that struck me about it was that there was really one dominating theme. "How can I do good?" If that is self-absorption, so be it!!!"
That's a nice story and good to hear. On the other hand, I suspect, if you went to a Alan Dershowitzian study group they'd only want to know one thing: "Is it good for the Jews?"
You can suspect on one hand, and shit in the other.
Was the seminar how can I do good, or how can I do well?
"Citizen, Alf considered them to be chickens. I merely improved upon his work.
And as Alf is of your ilk, you've no one to whine about but yourself.
Have fun with your new whine. I'm sure its very christian.
Posted by: chris berel"
No, anyone who takes the time to look at the comments in question above can see that in the original analogy Palestinians were humans who were forced to live in chicken coops by the Israelis. Chris
has conflated that to Pals=chickens, suitable for chicken soup, good for the Hebrew soul.
Alf is no ilk of mine. He appears to be related to Rowan, Martin, Eva, Citizen, and Joachim.
No one forces humans to live in chicken coops. Only chickens are forced to live in chicken coops, so Alf obviously meant chickens.
I just followed his lead and made the story better.
..
chris berel: "I just made the story better."
By dehumanizing the Palestinians. Equating them with chickens literally. Then eating them.
A modest proposal.
Hardly. Your friend, Alf, equated them to chickens. I merely followed his lead.
We don't expect the objectivity or basic elementary-school-level logic from a people that can say of their defenseless victims that they are too "self-regarding," but it's worth pointing up the self-serving dishonesty in pretending that the Exodus myth made up by racist militarist high priests to shock and scare Jews into becoming bitterly xenophobic nationalist soldiers has anything to do with dialog. Moses came to tell Pharaoh to obey his commands or suffer various definitive monstrosities. We touch the beginning of the realization of what inhuman slime and simple evil is possible in the xenophobic mind when we read this astonishing hatred, these blood-dripping fantasies, and recall that this was a nationalist fraud made up later by people who were never enslaved by Egypt. It is as though you are in a diner and a Canadian who had been working steadily on pea soup stands up and begins describing how Canadians have always been persecuted and enslaved by the Mexicans, but now the Mexican government will obey demands because Pierre Elliot Trudeau will roam the night eating Mexican babies.