One of the pleasures of going camping is hanging out with my friend Bill (pseudonym), a writer who's as critical of Israel as I am. Years ago he told me about his visits to Israel/Palestine and his disgust over the second-class citizenship of Arabs, and he challenged me to write about these things because I'm Jewish. I trust Bill's judgment; he's one reason this site exists. When we go camping, our other friends indulge us the Palestinian conversation, but they mock us too.
Bill and another friend picked me up in East Fishkill to drive upstate the other day and over five hours, the issue came up a little. For Bill, Palestine is a litmus test of political values. But when he told me about various discussions he'd had over since Gaza with New York associates, not many people are passing the litmus test. I asked him specifically about three of his friends whom I know, A, who's prominent, B, who's well-connected, and C, our friend "Jim," a stylish writer who we'd be seeing in the woods. I said, What do they say on the issue?
Well, A said to him, Gosh, I'm surprised you're so passionate about this question, but what's the point, it's a waste of time, all the powers are against you! It's unrealistic. You won't get anywhere in this country on Israel. B was slightly more encouraging. A few years ago he used to say to Bill, Hey, it's just like the Indians, what are you going to do about it? But lately B seems to have gotten educated. He likes Tony Karon's blog! As for C, Jim, who we'd soon be seeing, Bill said, "You know he isn't that well-informed. He just says, 'Arafat should have taken that deal, at Camp David.'"
We stopped for lunch at a nice place in Albany--Jack's--and over clam chowder we talked about the two-state solution. Bill challenged me: How can you believe in that? The inherent problem here is the Zionist idea of democracy. It's no democracy. 20 percent of Israel is Arab, and what if you get two states and in 20 years that 20 percent becomes 40 percent? "Then what? It'll just be the same situation as the occupied territories all over again. They have to accept the idea of democracy."
I put up a little bit of a fight. I said the idea is if you give Palestinians a state then it ends the violence and the hatred, and maybe Israel reforms itself. It learns to treat Arabs with respect. In '67 and in '93 there were real moods of Israeli acceptance of the other. You want to try and find that mood again. Then partition doesn't mean as much and people begin to cooperate with one another. Just end the violence.
Bill shrugged, unconvinced. "I'm an American. I'm not going to be for a Jewish democracy. It's not democracy. Why should we be for that? Let's have one state of its citizens. I know, I don't know all the history. I just know what I saw when I went over there. And it's wrong. Do I have to know all the history?"
"No," I said. "You know enough. It is wrong." I reflected that Ali Abunimah has said that a former South African leader said, The two-state solution is really apartheid, it's what we tried to get!
Bill talked about a new plan for a tunnel between the West Bank and Gaza. So the Palestinians can whoosh the 30 miles in darkness. It sounds awful. Yes, and who will control the gates at either end, in Israeli territory?And imagine the Israelis knocking off 5000 of them in an eyeblink.
Later we were hiking through the woods in the dusk and then in the hut, and I found that I was demoralized about the conversation. I've hurt my journalism career over this issue-- a lot of people who used to give me work won't touch it-- and I'm a lot more outspoken than my friend. He's more worldly and engaged with New York life than I am, and I recognized from his three interactions that Sane people don't go near this issue. I reflected that John Mearsheimer is a realist, but he wasn't realistic about doing this issue; he was moral. If he was realistic he would have shut up. Bill's wife tells him to be quiet about the issue at dinner parties where there are Jewish guests. Most of them get uncomfortable over challenges to the legitimacy of Israel. I guess we all learn that lesson. Or should.
The issue only came up once in the group. We'd come back from a long hike and were cleaning the hut on Thursday afternoon and having a drink when Bill had a one-state/two-state conversation with another writer, and Jim piped up, who thinks Arafat should have taken the deal. Jim's very amusing.
"You guys soft of have a little anti-Zionist club here, don't you. Have you come up with a salute?"
I said, "Why don't you think of one for us, Dave?"
"You ought to have a salute. And a uniform. What about an armband? I think you need a patch. Like a patch with a little lightning bolt on it?"
I had to laugh. I don't care. New York culture is shot through with Zionism. It's a dominant influence. Everyone works with Jews, a lot of people have Jewish bosses. People get to make those jokes. I let them run off.
Bill and I drove back downstate together through the dark. I told him about being demoralized. He is for Boycott and divestment at the institution he works in but it's not like he's public the way I am. I urged him to be more public about it. He said he was going to be speaking out more, explaining to people that this is the principal injustice in which American society is now implicated.
I talked about history. I told him some of my thoughts about slavery and the formation of the Republican Party in opposition to it, and when we crossed the Hudson, I told him about a historic spot near me in the highlands, called Wiccopee Pass.
He said, "It's got to drive the Indians crazy that we have all their names on things, and they're ours now. Then we sing 'This land is my land.'"
I asked him what he would tell the Israeli who says, You did the same thing with the Indians.
"I'd say, you're right. But we wiped them out 150 years ago. You
didn't wipe out the Arabs. And you couldn't do that nowadays. Things
change. You could never get away with that, for a good reason. History
moves forward."
And I agreed.
(Phil Weiss)
Phil, please stop trying to add credibility to your anti-Israel screeds by saying you are Jewish. You are the one who said that the only reason you are still Jewish is because of anti-Israel Jews like Barbara Lubin. The blood libel spreading liar.
In what sense are you Jewish? You may have been born a Jew, but it is obvious that you have nothing but contempt for the Jewish people.
Pee or get off the pot, if you hate Jews so much that you are happy to post lies about Jews committing atrocities without even apologizing when they are proven to be lies then get lost. With Jews like you, who needs Hamas?
Thom, Phil wants all of the benefits of being Jewish with out having to be held up to the moral standards of judaism.
I tried to do that when I ran off to marry my Palestinian schiksa godess, then she went and converted so now I'm stuck.
Chris
Are you married to a Palestinian woman who converted?
You mentioned it a couple of times and I didn't know if if you were serious or not.
If so, congrats!
You may find these videos to be relevant to this discussion:
http://essentialdissent.blogspot.com/search/label/Middle%20East
Are you really still in favor of a two-state solution?
Apparently to be a Jew means to be a fanatical Zionist/ethnocentric/racist/etc.
If that's what being a Jew is, then antisemitism is a moral imperative.
Antisemites used to be people who hate Jews. Today, Antisemites are people Jews hate.
I'm proud to say, I'm raving antisemite! Fuck Israel and the Zionist pigs who manage to ruin life for everyone around the world.
Please be nice to Phil. He sacrificed his journalism career for Palestine! The man is a shaheed. Surely he will get 72 virgins, inshallah.
LD. Try to be original. You're just posting old canards.
Thank you for more personal anecdotes from your trip, Phil. I enjoy the perspective, and I'm glad to know that, while still much too muted, these conversations are nevertheless taking place with more frequency, and more people like Bill have come to realize the importance of speaking out publicly, and have become willing to do so.
I find it ironic to hear baby killers (or their supporters) talk about "moral standards" as they also question who is considered Jewish enough to meet their standards (only baby killing supporters need apply).
We are truly in Bizarro World.
~
Well, it's like this, there's truth, justice, and the American way–and then there's lies, injustice, and the Israeli way. Phil's affliction is that he has moral integrity and can spot hasbara BS. Not to mention his prime state loyalty is to the state of his birth.
The juvenile fabricators here on this thread so far today are chris berel, Joe Schick, Suzanne, Thom. All Israel-Firsters. They think their god is a real estate agent.
Phil, your friend's crack about the uniform and armband sounds pretty inanely belligerent: he must be scared if he's "joking" that your working and sacrificing for Palestinian self-determination needs a uniform. Who's showing the reflexive response here: Salute and Curtsy to zionism?
A lightning armband patch was one of the cues to Sir Roderick Spode's identity as a stand-in for Sir Oswald Mosley–leader of the British Union of Fascists–in the English TV series "Jeeves and Wooster."
Phil's no Roderick Spode, but what about those who so defensively taunt advocates of Palestinian self-determination? Sounds like they're trying to intimidate honest debate, if you ask me.
Hasbara talking point on Essentials Regarding The Recent Spanking Of Gaza:
Instruction:
All the conscientious hasbarist need to do is cut and paste the following slice from a key article we found. By replacing the
word "German" with "Israeli" and cut and pasting the slice into the rebel's blog comment dialogue box you deliver a neat summary of our goals. Enjoy!
(PS: Don't forget to delete the attribution before hitting the Post button.)
"The deeper significance of the war is to bring about a new arrangement in the fundamentals of existence of the peoples. All its actions must be guided by this fact, if it is not to lose its foundations and its goals.
One cannot accuse the German government of ever violating this principle in the course of the war. It has carefully avoided laying out broad theoretical war goals, always limiting itself to fighting for the freedom, independence, and vital living space of its people. Most of its military actions were forced upon it. Its offensives always had their origins in a desire to defend the nation. After defeating an enemy, it made reasonable demands that were both practical and absolutely necessary.–from
What is at Stake
by Joseph Goebbels
Thom: "You (Weiss) may have been born a Jew, but it is obvious that you have nothing but contempt for the Jewish people."
Not true. Phil has just evolved to the point where he doesn't treat other Jews any better than anyone else.
I'm with Dan, these personal interludes inform the more full-on political pieces, and vice versa.
'He just says, 'Arafat should have taken that deal, at Camp David.'"'
I had a few beers with a friend on Friday night and he mentioned Gaza. The guy is 62 and non-political, not really informed, just reads the paper (and not the broadsheet). He knew I was involved to a degree, but said 'what I can't understand is why the silly buggers keep lobbing bombs into Israel'. I gave him the short version of the Nakba and 67 and the daily violence of the occupation. He was genuinely unaware of any of it, and shocked by the litany of war crimes in Gaza that I listed.
There's not racist bone in his body, but he like millions of others, just laps up the spin, and not being interested, doesn't notice the omissions. I hope I left him a little more able to decipher the truth.
'Bill's wife tells him to be quiet about the issue at dinner parties where there are Jewish guests. Most of them get uncomfortable over challenges to the legitimacy of Israel.'
Those qualms have got to go.
Who treats Jews better than anyone else?
Like Madoff–only Phil wants justice, and he doesn't like hypocritical and immoral stuff done in his name. Madoff, of course had simple greed as his motive.
berel: "Who treats Jews better than anyone else?"
Zionists
Checking into your propaganda during WWII, it appears that you don't believe that.
The element of the issue of democracy in a two-state solution, implying that there was no democracy for Arabs in a Jewish Israel, ignores the more intense fact that there would likely be no democracy for Jews in an Arab Palestine.
If the settlers were allowed to remain, they would comprise a 20% minority, similar to the Arab minority.
Unless the overwhelming majority prefer universal civil governance, then those that prefer either Zionist, halachic, Palestinian nationalist, or sharia would feel excluded, oppressed.
Arab minorities in Israel would get to choose whether to remain, or move to Palestine. Jewish minorities in Palestine would similarly.
The US as imposed norm (as odd and inconsistent as it is) is equally an imposition, as is seen in Iraq.
"Arab minorities in Israel would get to choose whether to remain, or move to Palestine. Jewish minorities in Palestine would similarly."
When you move into someone's land and forcibly take their hilltops, you don't thereafter get to "choose" to stay when the rule of law is finally restored.
I can't even begin to imagine settlers voluntarily living under Sharia law.
Duscany,
YOU do. Why shouldn't settlers.
Democracy that is only democracy for who WAS there, and not who is there, is an odd form of "democracy".
Duscany, good point about the hilltops.. "settlers" bulldoze and claim all the high ground, they should be imprisoned whether one or two states.
A lightning armband patch was one of the cues to Sir Roderick Spode's identity as a stand-in for Sir Oswald Mosley–leader of the British Union of Fascists–in the English TV series "Jeeves and Wooster."
Yes, and a lightning flash was also the symbol of Throbbing Gristle, a band so avant garde that you would doubtless call them aesthetic nihilists anyway.