Every once in a while I do a great post! And I did one last night, exposing the truly weird religious- nationalist rhetoric of Michael Oren, the new Israeli ambassador to the US, in Commentary this month.
James North points out that Oren is from New Jersey and therefore in a long tradition of nationalists who are not from the heart of a place. Napoleon was from Corsica, but became the embodiment of French nationalism. Eamon de Valera was a half-Cuban, born in New York, but became a leading figure in Irish nationalism. Hitler was of course from Austria, but associated himself with German nationalism. North says that when Francophone Caribbean poets started a movement called "Negritude," a black African poet mocked them, saying that a real tiger doesn't have to study "tigritude."
"People whose sense of identity is contingent or possibly fragile often become more nationalistic than the people who live in a place," North says– then he wonders why Oren doesn't just write about New Jersey politics.
This is of course the problem built into the Law of Return. Any Jew with an active fantasy life about the bible and Jewish identity gets to go over there and play it out. The West Bank is filled with crazies from Brooklyn. Meanwhile the normal (and yes often secular) types are all dying to come over here and live in a diverse society.
Another reader landed on Oren's comments about Jerusalem. He speaks in his piece about the "loss of Jerusalem" and says that secular Jews are abandoning it. My friend concurs.
Given that Jerusalem is touted as the jewel in the crown of the unltranationalist Israeli agenda (Undivided Jerusalem the Eternal Capital of Only One Country), it is shocking to watch the decline of the city. It is dirty, broken down, unmaintained. They invest nothing in it (that is, in West Jerusalem), especially in the Arab neighborhoods (barely paved roads, no playgrounds, etc.). Culturally the city is dying for want of funds, and the drain of secular young Jerusalemites continues unabated. Within West Jerusalem, the primary housing that is being built is high-end stuff for foreigners. And of course there's plenty of subsidized new housing for younger families in the settlements/"neighborhoods" of East Jerusalem. So if you're interested in remaining in the city but need decent housing and have limited means, the message is clear: move to the settlements. Credit for this dismal situation goes to Ehud Olmert, beginning when he was mayor of the city, and to Benjamin Netanyahu, who was PM at the same time–and to all who have come on board since.
Myself, I remember meeting a Muslim shopkeeper in the Old City who said, If only this was an international city I'd have tons of business. Millions of Muslims making pilgrimages there, Christians too. Jerusalem is a great city of the Middle East. It is now supposed to be part of a western outpost, per Israel lobbyists in Washington, and Oren wants to force Jewish Israeli kids to visit it once every two years. What if they don't want to? When people project nationalist religious ideas onto places, they shrivel.
I cannot begin to tell you how enlightening this blog is in giving the American people a fuller picture of what is going on with respect to Israel and the Middle East, hard as it is to bear.
This is a very insightful post. Religious minorities and peripheral Arabs are at the heart of many Arab nationalist movements, too.
This blog is a true breath of fresh air. It will be hearing from the pigeon.
Excellent post. The question, "who do you represent" is omnipresent across figures of the Israel lobby. The founder of AIPAC, Isaiah Kenen, was Canadian. He was lobbying the US Congress before even becoming a US citizen, and working as an agent of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs shortly after nationalization.
Absolutely spot-on. The fact that it gets picked up on Google News is fantastic.
Zionist Mendacity About Jerusalem
"The West Bank is filled with crazies from Brooklyn." Why is everybody always pickin' on the Zionists from Brooklyn, huh? ;-)
You can not tell because it isn't true.
"Any Jew with an active fantasy life about the bible and Jewish identity gets to go over there and play it out." The psychological seductions of Zionism-at-a-distance is something that Finkelstein is also interested in. He speaks of Israel as "a stage on which North American Jews have played out their perverse fantasies," and I assume will be developing this theme in his next book, on "the coming breakup of American Zionism." Commenter "Mooser" on this site also seems to be sensitive to this aspect of Zionism, and I've enjoyed his insights. (All, alas, completely lost on our poor Richard Witty.)
So, is it true that you can't tell a fart from fresh air?
Actually, the west bank is full of crazies from Arabia.
True, though Witty is far from the worst of them. Unlike some, he is not actually a moron, and he makes a sincere effort to communicate his views in a civil manner. His worst weakness, as I see it, is that he seems competely incapable of questioning Zionist propaganda and passionately wants to believe it.
Actually, Michael Oren is in favor of "unilaterally withdrawing from the West Bank and evacuating most of the settlements." That's a direct quote. So he might not fit everyone's stereotype of a right-wing American Zionist.
Right, why don't you buy some of that new real estate going up in the suburbs of Jerusalem? Be 4 gentrification in land that Israel has stolen, subsidized by the Israeli government, itself subsidized by US goy taxpayers. REMAX!
No. We all smell you. No problem.
Ah, we need a new Larry David to curb zionist enthusiasm. I mean Mel could do it, but we need a jew so all he has to deal with is "self-hatred" rather than official mental disease aka "anti-semitism."
"Most" settlements. Now there's a word of legal art. Why not all? After all, the Balfour Declaration did guarantee the arabs in the Mandate full equal rights; I won't even mention the giant Pan-Arab nation the Brits promised the arabs for dying in defense of Brit Power back in the day. The events up to today show Lord Rothschild knew the score, tons of cannonfodder is not worth tons of money. Uncle Sam learned that lesson too. Wanna go back to why we sent our doughboys over there? What has changed? Look at the same names on the largest campaign donors to both Obama & McCain…. Gee, so what's new?
Hitler to Napoleon to New Jersey politics to Michael Oren. Another inane post by one of the looniest writers in the blogosphere.