A few impressions from my first couple days in Israel:
–After a week in an Arab country, the sudden shift when you cross the Egyptian border at Taba is cinematic, like the Wizard of Oz. You might be in Switzerland. Everything is clean and orderly in Eilat. The streets are orderly. Too orderly after the madness of Cairo and the Sinai. And it all seems very white. Where are the rest of the people? Where is the Arab milieu?
–A cab driver recognizes me as Jewish, and I like it. Being ethnocentric, I instantly recognize a Jewish type of interaction that I have with people of my generation– ironical, longsuffering, no boundaries. I think of all the Jews back in the States who say, at forums on Israel, I loved being in a Jewish country where there were Jewish truck drivers and garbagemen. I see what they mean, but it is a mixed pleasure. I miss diversity. My feelings reflect the divide in Jewish life that is growing by the second between the likes of Jeffrey Goldberg and of Anna Baltzer. Goldberg is a race man, Baltzer is interested in other people. Baltzer is winning.
–In the Negev along the highway are historical markers of battles. There are as many battle markers as in the south in the U.S. A howitzer is pointed west, toward the Sinai, with a giant heart hanging from its barrel. Outside a complex of greenhouses, someone has set up a huge replica of a toilet with the lid open and a red seat like a target. At first it strikes me as a sign of the famously crapulous Israeli sense of humor. Then I wonder if it is about the Qassam rockets. Here you are, throw your shit here, is the joke.
–The bus reststops feel as smart and healthy as reststops in Italy. Again, a sense of whiteness, relieved by the black basketball player on our bus who wears a Michael Jordan jersey and the cashier who seems to be Ethiopian in origin and is smiling and helpful. Still it all feels like an ad. My cabdriver moved here from Brooklyn 22 years ago and says it was the biggest mistake of his life. Nothing changes, he said. The “matsav” or situation never changes. “It is static. And meanwhile the world moves forward.” This is the actual contradiction of the articles in the New York Times and Newsweek saying that Israel is accepting a time of no peace and managed containment. I wonder if they’re really accepting it, or if they know it’s draining their souls.
–Everyone speaks English. It makes sense. They are completely dependent on America and encourage American Jewish tourism, so they accommodate them however they can. Even the greenhouse industry is dependent. You see big structures with names painted on the side and the words USA, to indicate a patron in the US. Lazar, USA. Schwartzman, USA. I remember that a Schwartzman is now the benefactor of the NY Public Library, and wants his name on the outside of it.
–A handsome soldier is on our bus as security, his big gun dangling. He comes back to sort out a seating problem, his forefinger right by the trigger. He ignores the only problem on the bus: a kid in the back row with me is infantile. He is 14 or 15, wears a sweatsuit, and listens to rap music and sexually harasses two young women in adjoining seats, who ignore him or flip their sunglasses down. When the kid stretches, he extends his pimply saplike face into my face and doesn’t care. An older woman starts screaming at him when he opens the window too far, but the astonishing thing is that his juvenile antics are otherwise tolerated. An older guy named Shlomo– Chico Marx version 2.01– in a dark suit and fedora, comes back to hang out with the rapscallion. Later my friends tell me there is a name for this entitled prick type: the arsim. Or arse. They’re everywhere.
–Tel Aviv is great. I like it immediately, it is everything I’ve heard about it. Outside the bus station I go down a few blocks of a mall filled with men of Ethiopian background and various grifters and hippies and bohemians. Several men have set up shell games, either the three-card monte version or three cups and a ball, and bark at the passersby. Any country with an active con culture can’t be all bad.
–Most of Tel Aviv is very Jewish. Or very Israeli, as I’m reminded. You see another type: the man of 25-40 shaped by militarism. He is about 5-10 to 6 feet tall. His hair is shaved. He has wide shoulders and narrow hips, and is muscular and wears a tight shirt. He seems incredibly insensitive/indifferent to anything but physical culture. I see many of them jogging. These warrior types seem to be a beau ideal of the culture and recall the title of Chris Hedges book, War is a force that gives us meaning. Often they are with their women, who are also physically incredibly striking. Tall, sometimes taller than the male, slender, and fit. Many of them are blonde. So: We are forever compensating for our abuse by the Nazis, and we have exalted a variant of the aryan ideal who dispenses violence without thinking about it. So much for the nebbish, the schmuck, the schmendrick, the schlemiel, the gonif. Welcome ubermensch.
– In my internet salon, I hear an American idiot renting a car. He declares to his friend, “Now let’s go out and pick up hitchhikers and kill them. What do you say!” In a loud voice, the twerp, then tries the joke a second time. I look over the divider. He’s surprisingly old, 28, in a Polo shirt, could be an investment banker. Gaza has rotted the Jewish soul. His weird explosion touches on the psychic dynamic of the Israel lobby: the Israeli culture of militarism makes the pencil-necked American Jew feel inadequate. I feel inadequate myself next to the militants. And just think what Malcolm Hoenlein and Mort Klein feel like around Israeli warriors. Thus the passivity of the American Jewish community in the face of glorious Jewish violence.
–I go for a walk into Jaffa at night. The buildings are incredibly beautiful. I vaguely remember the locations in the Palestinian narratives of the Nakba. It is not hard to imagine this downtown teeming with Arab life. But it’s cleansed. The Israelis have set up art galleries and theaters and studios in the old Palestinian spaces. Vaguely horrifying. A large billboard giving the history of Jaffa says that it has been a city for 4000 years and that in 1960 the Old Jaffa Development Corp was given power to rehabilitate the neighborhood, which was teeming with prostitution, drugs and crime. That would have been 12 years after the Nakba, before they discovered terrorism. More ethnic cleansing; and it continues; many Palestinians who wish to develop businesses are blocked with bureaucratic hurdles.
–I find my friends. It doesn’t take long. They have a deeper sense of irony than my American friends, they are wiser, they have lived here with the Israeli militarism so long. Look at the Apaches, one says, pointing at the sky, they are back from bombing Gaza. I buy beers and one of them makes a mock toast, “To the next war!” Down the table another, bearded, says, “May it end Zionism.” A woman next to me cries out, “Stop, stop. That could destroy the world.” The bearded one nods Talmudically. “Look with everything you have to take the bad with the good.”
–Before I left my father gave me a blessing. He said that he thought I was on a good path. Now I can’t help myself, and in spite of all my political stance-taking back home– to be credible as a journalist, and realistic, so as to participate in the American conversation– I feel a gut level sympathy with the idea of the right of return of the refugees. That is something that might help this place– it would end the idea of the encircled enemy, and bring on the modern struggle with diversity, for both peoples.
Yes but why would they want to come here?
Good musings, Phil. By the way, arsim actually comes from the Arabic ‘ars – pimp – and has racist anti-mizrahi undertones. I think there’s more to your “white” experience in Israel than the architecture.
I’m glad that you are enjoying your trip. Every intelligent liberal Jew that goes there experiences some of the same confusions and dichotomies that you have noted.
I detect something that I’d call a prejudice in your comments, especially in your description of Jaffa. You speak of it as intentional ethnic cleansing but I think that the way that Jaffa became Jewish really does resemble the patterns of gentrification and urban renewal that occurs in the states.
In Jaffa in particular. I first visited Jaffa in 1968 (13). At the time, Jaffa was still mostly Arab, with the beautiful architecture (not all) and a slightly tense but also accepting interraction between the Arab residents and new bohemians, not unlike a place like Sausolito in the late 70′s.
Like Brooklyn brownstone neighborhoods, some of which had already become gentrified, they were all appealing to those with that architectural and neighborhood sensitivity, and relatively cheap. That was Jaffa. First the artists discovered it, then the hip moderately affluent, then more common gentrification.
That is a neighborhood change. In White Plains, near the railroad station (I know you’ve been there?), the neighborhood used to be very poor, too crime-riddled to gentrify. The city undertook urban renewal, first in small steps (also in 1968 I think), then they razed the whole neighborhood. I don’t know what the neighborhood is like now, but in a two year period it went from ghetto, to leveled, to yuppie apartments.
Everyone was forced to move. When I worked in Ossining in 1979, many of the people that I met there, used to live in White Plains but were moved out. The urban neighborhood of Ossining that I worked was also starting to gentrify, the first phases. In our case, the house where I watered a couple tons of alfalfa sprouts daily, was also a recording studio upstairs, attracting a San Francisco type neighborhood scene. Integrated. “My soul has been psychydelicized” type neighborhood.
Jaffa.
Out of curiosity, Witty, how many people in White Plains or Ossining were run out by davidkas, land mines, automatic weapons and surplus German military equipment?
Witty’s just sitting on Step Four of How to make the case for Israel: Everything Sucks. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to make sense. You just have to feel cowed and bludgeoned. If you don’t, um… what’s step five again?
Methinks the well is running a bit dry.
link to jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com
I thought you were better than that Pamela. Does anyone have some original stuff on here? The well has run dry on that same link. Do you honestly know how many times its been posted on here? And its so childish.
And for anyone who wants to see the utterly disgusting conditions of the WB under occupation please look at the pictures Pamela posted on your her blog.
link to fasttimesinpalestine.wordpress.com
Looking forward to reading your research article on Abbas.
I have a good idea how many times it’s been posted. And it’s nowhere near as many times as the argument style it’s parodying keeps being used. Witty here isn’t trying to advance any kind of debate about what’s happening now. He’s simply saying, “Everything sucks.” If the shoe fits…
As for you implying that because there are many beautiful places left in the West Bank that haven’t yet been stolen or destroyed by Israel, it somehow means the occupation isn’t all that bad… Well, I really have no words. It’s as if someone posted a photo essay of nice places in Israel, and someone else pointed to it and said, “See! Suicide bombings and Qassam rockets are no big deal at all!” Just bizarre.
There are many heartbreakingly beautiful places left in Gaza as well. That doesn’t mean huge areas of it haven’t been turned to desolation. It doesn’t mean kids aren’t dying for lack of medicine and clean drinking water. It doesn’t bring back the 1,400 killed last December/January. If your threshold of being outraged is everything being destroyed and everyone being killed, we live in very different moral universes.
yonira, do you remember when Israel’s PR people came to NYC and built a mini-beach? And CodePink crashed the party kind of?
Yea, they too were presenting an inaccurate picture of Israel. Fun, sun, beach, no Arabs, no Occupation/colonization, etc.
Remind me again how you in no way resemble a Holocaust denier in your abuse of photographic evidence, yonira. “Look a dress shop! Obviously Israelis aren’t burning down olive farms or demolishing homes with bulldozers.”
I don’t disagree with you. But when I tried to post a similar set of pictures on here showing a Gaza market place, I was called a liar and some people denied it was Gaza all together. Showing a little bit of truth on here will actually help to show the resilience of the Palestinian people. Its taboo around here to show their resilience and their ability to thrive under occupation.
I can attest to this as I spent time in the WB(albeit as a tourist) with some of the most hospitable people I have come across. I can not wait until the day when there can be a free Palestine, next to a free Israel, and everyone can be happy.
And for the record Pamela I hate the occupation w/ a passion and I pray every day that it will end.
People were calling you a liar because you posted a video that showed Gaza a month prior to Operation Cast Lead, and tried to pass it off as if it was Gaza right now after Operation Cast Lead.
Furthermore, if you care so much about peace, pray tell me what you plan on doing to bring that about? What do you plan on doing to convince the occupying power (Israel) to end the occupation and finally bring justice to Palestine?
bullshit James, I was talking about the Paltoday website w/ pictures taken during the Christmas holiday and the corresponding Muslim holiday which was being celebrated.
i did post a youtube video, which was obviously dated. I guess I didn’t put a disclaimer in the post saying “be sure to check out the date on here, I don’t want ppl like James Bradley to accuse me of trying to pull a fast one over.”
You’ve never actually been to college, have you, yonira? It’s just… the lack of academic integrity, and really just plain awareness of how transparently bad your argument strategies are is… well… pretty blatant.
You’ll have to forgive for not citing the huffington post on here enough Chaos or haven’t I posted links to the 4 steps enough to be Monolies worthy? Because that is academic integrity at its best. you are such a hypocrite its funny.
Oh. Apparently I touched a nerve.
Chaos,
“Look a dress shop! Obviously Israelis aren’t burning down olive farms or demolishing homes with bulldozers.”
Please remember that example, the logic of it, not necessarily the content.
Points that don’t touch. Logic that is not causal.
Witty, if you are trying to sound profound… you are falling flat on your face.
Seriously. You sound like an obscure perfume commercial.
Yeah, Witty “you blend”as in the movie. Your points always touch. You should look into how long it takes to make grits, southern style.
I just find that you abuse that logic incessantly.
I’m glad that you proposed it.
Dick Witty and Zionist yonira are so angry because IDF didn’t finish all the destruction work, they are so thirty to blood.
What an absurd comment, Parisian.
Dick Witty, forgive me if you find this absurd, but can you tell me how would you qualify your reactions to Paemela photos? You are constantly denying the sufferance of Palestinians which is intolerable, and insupportable. How many times Jackass yonira mocked Palestinians because of the coloured donkeys with Zebra colors? and you Witty can you tell me how many times you considered Pals as humans? you are so blinded by your religious myths and colonial ideologies.
Your reactions show how indifferent you are to the Palestinians struggle for freedom and self determination. Only Jews/Israelis count for you, you never showed any sympathy for their cause, you deny their sufferance, you blame others for innocents killings and the destruction of their homes, you are so DISGUSTING guys!
I thought Pamela’s link was brilliant! Well chosen. Those four little basic axioms (if “axioms” is the word I want) have never failed to come slithering up from the bottom of any fecal pile of hasbara arguments. For improved exegesis (something we all crave) of Dick Wittington, Lord Mayven of Mondoweiss’s comments:
1. Israel Rocks!
2. Arabs Suck!
3. You Suck!
4. Well, the Whole World Sucks!
That well will never run dry.
Since 1968, are you aware of any prior Jaffa residents that were kicked out in the way that you describe?
So world history started in 1968? When did you become a creationist, Witty?
What an absurd question. Why push people out at gunpoint when you can shuffle some papers and bulldoze their houses “legally”? At its core, the treatment of Palestinians in Jaffa is no different today than it was in 1948. Palestinian houses are still being arbitrarily bulldozed, the municipality starts and abandons construction projects leaving the work half done and sewage running in the street, there isn’t even basic public health enforcement to remove asbestos. And the municipal budget constantly discriminates against Palestinian communities in every way shape and form. Read some first hand reports if you’d like: link to yuditilany.blogspot.com
And yes, Witty, some of these events happen in racist neighborhoods in the United States too. That doesn’t make them any less racist or any less wrong.
But Chaos, they are run out by firearms, public housing demolitions, and police jeeps.
Witty ignores might ignore Al-Nakba, but that’s no reason to gloss over the the expulsions, evictions, and demolitions going on right here in the good ol’ U S of A. The racist logic behind them is remarkably similar–one reason why it’s so hard to get our government to stop funding these crimes elsewhere is that we seem so comfortable with them happening here.
Please read “Jaffa: From Eminence to Ethnic Cleansing,” a history of Jaffa from the time of the Nakba to the present.
link to palestineremembered.com
A brief excerpt from the introduction of this detailed study:
“Jaffa was also the cultural capital of Palestine, being home to tens of the most important newspapers and publication houses in the country, including the dailies Filastin and al-Difa’. The most important and ornate cinemas were in Jaffa, as were tens of athletics clubs and cultural societies. The headquarters of some of these societies, like the Orthodox Club and the Islamic Club, have themselves become historic sites still testifying to the city’s cultural history. During the Second World War, the British Mandate authorities moved the headquarters of the Near East Radio broadcast studios to Jaffa, the studios becoming a cultural hub in the city from 1941 to 1948. With the growing cultural importance of Jaffa came increasing cultural exchange and interconnection with the main cultural centers in the region such as Cairo and Beirut, which further established the city as a cultural minaret in the region ؟ lovingly dubbed the Bride of the Sea.
“The story of Jaffa’s Ongoing Nakba is the story of the transformation of this thriving modern urban center into a marginalized neighborhood suffering from poverty, discrimination, gentrification, crime and demolition since the initial wave of mass expulsion in 1948 to the present day.”
And now the signs call it “Yafo.”
Yuck. Modern Hebrew is so ugly!
Hey, the Israeli’s and people believe in reverse gentrification and Israeli eminent domain for the purpose of the public good, which does not include Palestinians.
After reading the above link by umkahlil, if you want to know how much Palestinian culture has influenced the Arab world you need to listen to As’ad Abukhalil in an interview with EI at the Palestinian film festival. Many people do not understand the devastation visited upon the Palestinians, because they do not know how much they have been admired for hundreds of years. How many families from other countries spoke of the Palestinians and their cultural achievements. If you want to shift you understanding of who the Palestinians are, and what they stood for in the region, listen to this (you might have to turn the sound up a bit, but afterwards you can hear it clearly) -
THE CONTRIBUTION OF PALESTINIAN CULTURE
Actually, if you ignore Witty ignoring the history of 1948, I think this raises a very good point.
One of the things that my time in Palestine and Israel did for me was make me much more aware of trends in my own neighborhoods and communities back in the States. The type of crimes that we bankroll and abet in Pal/Isr are not out of place in the neighborhoods I see here in Washington, DC.
Listen to the language. “Clean this place up.” “Urban renewal.”
“Ethnic cleansing” “Redeem the land”
Check out this video from Detroit artists Invincible and Finale. See the parallels (down to the CAT bulldozers demolishing houses). If we’re committed to human rights, we need to care about this too: link to current.com
(Invincible, btw, is Israeli, a supporter of BDS, and calls Israel out for its crimes as well: link to hoseyblog.blog.com)
I actually pay close attention to the history of 1948, before and after.
I don’t exagerate is all. I don’t exagerate to claim “ethnic cleansing”, and I don’t exagerate to claim “innocence”.
Truth lies in between, but further to the legal than to the conspiratorial.
“I actually pay close attention to the history of 1948, before and after.
I don’t exagerate is all. I don’t exagerate to claim “ethnic cleansing”, and I don’t exagerate to claim “innocence”.”
You are a liar.
Even a vile racist like Benny Morris is more honest than Witty on this subject–
link
Your thinking is black/white, not on a continuum.
“Liar”. In what respect are you speaking?
“Vile racist like Bennie Morris?”
The November 1947 UN partition plan granted the Jews 56.47% of Mandatory Palestine – at a time when they owned less than 7% of the land – with a population of 498,000 Jews and 325,000 Arabs, and the Palestinians 43.53% of Palestine, with 807,000 Arab inhabitants and 10,000 Jewish inhabitants. For Jerusalem, where the population was 100,000 Jews and 105,000 Arabs, an international trusteeship and free access to the Holy Places was foreseen.
Under Master Plan Dalet, launched by the Zionist military forces in various operations in April 1948 either to capture as much Palestinian/Arab territory as possible before the end of the British Mandate, or to assure
the Zionist forces they had militarily strategic segments of the land sufficient to counter the expected Arab attack points and prevent the Palestinians of being an effective third column in their midst (take your pick–I don’t see much practical inconsistency when it came to impact on the Palestinians by the time of the armistice. I’d speculate that some of the
Jewish military commanders were more Zionist than others; that is, some
just took all the land they could from the Palestinians, while others may have only taken, e.g., a few key villages or roads they felt were vitally needed
to avoid an Arab army victory.
.
The 1948 war broke out after the declaration of the State of Israel on May 14th–by the end of that war, the Jewish forces had “captured 54% of the territory assigned to the Arab state in UN Res. 181( the partition) and Israel controlled 77.4% of the land. Palestine was fragmented, its society dismantled and its people rendered a nation of displaced refugees (UN estimates: 726,000 Palestinian refugees located outside the armistice lines and some 32,000 inside). 418 Palestinian villages had been depopulated and erased from the map as a result of Jewish military activities, massacres and expulsion orders.”
See link to weekly.ahram.org.eg
The link I provided was partially broken–page 2 of the interview is no longer there. But even that part had enough to show Morris is a racist. Here is a link with the complete interview. Notice that Morris also thinks the ethnic cleansing of the Native Americans was justified. He’s a racist by normal standards, though probably not by yours Richard, since you think the way he does.
link
I called you a liar because you either aren’t aware of what the Zionists did in 1948 or you just lie about what you do know. No one who was as aware as you claim to be could have missed the Shavit interview with Morris that I linked to, and it clearly shows Morris to be a racist justifier of ethnic cleansing.
As for black and white thinking vs. continuum, that’s just more of your compulsive bullshit. You have no problem condemning Hamas suicide bombing as the deliberate immoral killing of innocent people and on this you are right. Of course it’s easy for you–that’s your own tribe being killed by members of the other tribe. But when people point out atrocities where the moral blame is reversed, and where you can’t scapegoat the far right, you start lying. You can’t face the fact that the side you identify with is tainted–mainstream Zionism represented by Ben Gurion and others is linked inextricably with crimes against humanity. It didn’t have to be, but that’s how it turned out. Continuum thinking is fine where appropriate and there are cases on both sides where Palestinians and/or Zionists have committed violent acts that fell short of being war crimes. But 1948 was ethnic cleansing, accompanied by massacres. And you keep lying about it.
48 was clearly on a continuum. There was ethnic cleansing both ways. The majority of locations where ethnic cleansing was said to have occurred were in militarily strategic locations, resulting in a large portion of the migration out to be escape from a war zone, moreso than escape from intentional ethnic cleansing.
The change occurred in the early 50′s, with the laws that prohibited return and authorized expropriation of abandoned lands.
You are in error of my “ignorance”. We interpret events differently. The quotation of Plan Dalet is similarly out of proportion to what occurred in fact.
There is also the reality that NONE of the Arab states were willing to recognize any Israel in 48, 49, 50, anytime until the late 70′s. That is a different status than a one-dimensional evil.
The reality now is polarization, and a great tragedy for Palestinians, that can be remedied by acceptance of Israel primarily, including negotiation for defined sovereign borders, compensation for imperfect title, and reconciliation.
To declare that the nature of the history in 1948 is ethnic cleansing, and not war, is to self-delude.
And, sadly, that definition, and the rage that it engenders, makes the reconciliation process that much more of a maze.
There was ethnic cleansing both ways.
No.
Almost a million Palestinians were forced to flee their homes. Very few Jews living in Palestine suffered the same abuse. The ethnic cleansing was one way Richard.
The majority of locations where ethnic cleansing was said to have occurred were in militarily strategic locations
I didn’t know that 400 towns, villages, and major cities were also strategically located military locations.
The change occurred in the early 50’s, with the laws that prohibited return and authorized expropriation of abandoned lands.
Israel is in violation UN resolutions and Geneva convention protocols which grant the Palestinians the right of return to their homes. They are still entitled to this right. The Israelis purposefully cleansed the Palestinians from their homes through the use of force and intimidation. However, even if they had not done so, the refugee’s living in various countries today would still have the right to return.
The quotation of Plan Dalet is similarly out of proportion to what occurred in fact.
The ethnic cleansing of 90% of the indigenous population of what came to be known as the 1948 borders sounds quite proportional to what has been quoted.
The reality now is polarization, and a great tragedy for Palestinians, that can be remedied by acceptance of Israel primarily, including negotiation for defined sovereign borders, compensation for imperfect title, and reconciliation.
This is the most retarded accusation you have made in your post. First of all, active negotiations have been ongoing for almost 20 years now. The PLO recognizes Israel, Egypt recognizes Israel, Jordan recognizes Israel. The only direct neighbor of Israel that does not recognize Israel is Lebanon (a country with no real military).
Furthermore, the Arabs have presented Israel with the Arab Peace Initiative several times in the past decade alone and have left the offer on the table (they even ran full page ads in Israeli newspapers highlighting the proposal). The offer states that all governments in the region including Iran will recognize and open normal relations with the State of Israel IF Israel allows for the formation of a VIABLE Palestinian state BASED on the 2 state solution. Even Hamas agreed to this proposal. EVERYONE agreed to this proposal except for Israel.
To declare that the nature of the history in 1948 is ethnic cleansing, and not war, is to self-delude.
I hope you realize that your now on the record as a Nakba denier.
Your actually admitting that there never was an ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine in 1948.
I hope you don’t actually believe that the Palestinians decided to take a vacation to the refugee camps of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
And, sadly, that definition, and the rage that it engenders, makes the reconciliation process that much more of a maze.
No Richard, what makes the reconciliation process so difficult is that people like you refuse to accept the fact that Israel is to blame for the current situation.
Its Israel that is occupying the Palestinians, subjecting them to a brutal siege, inflicting Apartheid, killing thousands, destroying homes, destroying vital infrastructure, denying Palestinians water, and more importantly denying Palestinians the right to return to their homes while simultaneously allowing people with no connection to the land of Palestine to immigrate from places as diverse as Brooklyn and Russia.
The Palestinians merely respond vainly to these huge crimes against humanity committed against them every day.
There is reporting and there is characterization.
In describing continuum, that is reporting. In describing nakba and not war, is characterization.
Reporting is accurate in this and really all cases.
Wrongs happen during wars. Wrongs are rationalized after wars. Wrongs are institutionalized after wars. Wrongs can be corrected after wars.
Demonization happens after wars. Demonization is rationalized after wars. Demonization is institutionalized after wars.Demonization is less likely to be corrected.
Israel can correct its wrongs. By its actions it cannot correct the prejudices that are imprinted by people willing to form prejudices (imprinted characterizations).
What do you want James? Do you want change, including acknowledgement of wrongs, or do you want the vanity of imprinted judgementalism, that can not be reformed?
The reason that I am here is to attempt to keep the content of dissent on the continuum, on a measure of reality rather than a one-dimensional cowboys/Indians judgement of reality.
Tom Segev is more insightful on 1948 than Ilan Pappe, both critics of Israeli policies and actions, but in very very different ways.
“Later my friends tell me there is a name for this entitled prick type: the arsim. Or arse. They’re everywhere.”
Why?
“A woman next to me cries out, “Stop, stop. That could destroy the world.” The bearded one nods Talmudically. “Look with everything you have to take the bad with the good.””
Why not?
Citizen, I think the “Stop, stop. That could destroy the world.” was meant ironically. I think. It sounds, to me, like they were having an intentional, if improvised, surrealist conversational exchange.
Obviously, Mooser, Citizen is taken in by his prejudice thus he has to ignoe this:
–I find my friends. It doesn’t take long. They have a deeper sense of irony than my American friends, they are wiser, they have lived here with the Israeli militarism so long.
“I feel a gut level sympathy with the idea of the right of return of the refugees. That is something that might help this place– it would end the idea of the encircled enemy, and bring on the modern struggle with diversity, for both peoples.”
The right of return of Palestinian refugees is one of merit, a universal right. If it should be encouraged so as to bring diversity and calm to the nation that is responsible for expelling the refugees, that idea should come second to the one about dignity and rights to the refugees themselves.
Felt like I was walking beside you while you talked out loud about what you were seeing, experiencing. This goes in your book…like a course sorbet.
Southern hospitality was practically legendary in the US. Of course it was backed by antebellum slavery.
Great post, as always, Phil. Mondo at its very best — immediate, poignant, compelling and intelligent.
On a different note, and contemplating who is this Obama guy who many voted for as he talked change; presumably this meant regarding foreign policy too. So far nothing but
his paper Cairo rhetoric, which came after his silence during the Gaza turkey shoot and after, and his voiced empathy for Israeli children asleep in their beds. Does he know any math? Does he really believe his continuation of Shrub’s war on terror is a net gain: does he ever suspect it may instead result in a net loss, that is the continued creation of more terrorists? Take what he’s been doing in Afghanistan–you do the math:
link to jnoubiyeh.blogspot.com
I can’t understand it either, not at all. Does Obama thenk the military, intelligence and all the rest were witholding some kind of victory or even good result from Bush? A victory or good result they will now give him, Obama? It is very hard to understand what Obama thinks he has to gain by continuing the Bush era policies and practices.
I was most struck by Phil’s description of the men “shaped by militarism.” In a country of universal conscription, where the vast majority of its citizens have wielded weapons while having personal contact with “subjects” of a different ethnicity, there must develop widespread conviction that in Israel, Jews naturally rule over non-Jews. A few months ago, I asked a young Israeli man who had recently finished his tour of duty if he knew any Arabic. He replied that he knew some, but would like to forget it, because he knew only how to order Arabs around. Some complain that Palestinians “incite” their people, especially their children, to hatred, a hollow complaint since the occupation is obviously the original source of that hatred. And just as importantly, don’t the Israelis “incite” their population to a feeling of superiority, and the necessity to use military force against those who refuse to obey? Isn’t it difficult to imagine the men Phil describes agreeing to “concessions,” such as equality and freedom for all, as a basis for resolving the conflict? My guess is that there are many more of them than there are Israelis who want to forget how to order Arabs around. And this is in Tel Aviv, the liberal “bubble”; the rest of the country is far more extreme.
A prison environment is just that, no more, no less. It’s not the Mayberry jail with the local cheerie drunk in it, Barnie the deputy issued only one bullet for a day, and the
even-tempered Sheriff.
David, those are good points. I’m in Jerusalem right now and just got back from the weekly protest march from the downtown of the Jewish part of Jerusalem to Sheikh Jarrah in Arab East Jerusalem. Ezra Nawi, Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah and various internations attended along with many Israelis.
Some observations:
-One of the participants was a young man who opted out of military service. Instead, he volunteered for “National Service” as a math teacher at a Jerusalem high school. He said there are other teachers at the school who are military conscripts but he works 50-60 hours a week compared to their 40. He also said that his friends (who are in the military) respect – and even envy – his choice.
-The signs and chants were provocative, several, large Palestinian flags led the way, yet there was very little verbal abuse from Jewish pedestrians and drivers (on the Jewish side of town). I was surprised at the limited reaction. Acceptance? Apathy?
-The chanted slogans included: Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies (also the central banner). Bibi, we’ll see you in the Hague; end the occupation – end the evictions; you don’t build democracy with theft and evictions. (These rhyme in Hebrew).
The experience was exhilirating. Jews and Arabs speaking the truth in the heart of Jerusalem. There was a great atmosphere.
Elliot – I was unaware that National Service was an alternative to military service. I know that a significant minority manage to avoid service altogether, either by being “misfits” or ultra-ortho or, like the shiminstim, refuseniks who go to jail. But this National Service seems like a great option as well.
Your report of meeting like-minded people in Jerusalem is encouraging, but cannot overcome the public opinion polls showing 90% Israeli Jewish support for the Gaza horror and that Lieberman is very popular among HS students.
Thanks Phil.
That was a cool trip.
Why would the Palestinians want to come home? It’s a question that answers itself. It would also give them a chance to remake it, to revitalize it. To bring in people who actually love and cherish the land and the sea, who have deep and unbreakable connections with it, who will turn Jaffa back to a center of commerce and culture instead of the sad little tourist trap it is now. So it might, as you say, “end the idea of the encircled enemy, and bring on the modern struggle with diversity, for both peoples.”
I was surprised you didn’t note the other cognitive dissonance when you go from the Arab world to Israel: The warmth and hospitality of the Arabs vs. the wary suspicion of the Israelis. But since you’re Jewish and just came back from being clubbed by the Egyptian police state, this might be understandable.
As for the racists vs. the Baltzers, if you look at history, the racists are always on the wrong side of it. Racism requires you to be rigid, it requires you to ignore large areas of reality, it requires pyramid schemes of cruelty that always collapse on themselves. It has no staying power in an evolutionary sense.
I consider this a very heartening fact, and a good reason to get on the “liberty and justice for all” train. It’s not lofty idealism. It’s simply a rare ability to learn from history and get yer arse on the right side of it.
http://fasttimesinpalestine.wordpress.com
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Jaffa before “gentrification” i.e. when it was part of a land without people:
link to palestineremembered.com
Huge archive of pictures:
link to palestineremembered.com
PRE-NAKBA
How hard must it be for Palestinians, to see their homes and their land occupied by foreigners, while they can only see it from afar, if at all. To be a Stranger in your own Home. So sad.
To me, one of the Zionists greatest crimes is their concerted action to destroy the image, reputation and even the humanity of the Palestinian peoples. My personal opinion is that any Jew who would do this has a screw loose, or maybe a couple.
Did you see this video I put up in the post Zionist thread?
link to youtube.com
Phil,
Beautiful post. You’ve caught time for a moment and held it still.
Everything – complex, deep, compassionate – that Witty’s writing isn’t.
But he still comes to incessantly wipe his moral feces on your wall.
High time for the ignore commenter addition to the software.
I look forward to hearing more about your trip.
Re: Witty’s comments about gentrification, some notes on the “cleansing” of a neighborhood in Baltimore, ironically enough called Middle East:
link to faithinactiononline.com
Here in the States, communities have to fight hard to be legally compensated when they are “renewed” out from under the people living their. Many communities don’t manage this.
In Palestine, people get charged for having their house demolished.
Both are a tragedy. Neither should be used as a reason for ignoring or justifying the other.
David – I agree. The demise of the Israeli Left is underscored by this small, fringe group. The leadership of the march were young (20s) and struck me as theater/alternative types.
I took a couple of taxi rides with East Jerusalem Palestinians. They both said they miss the pre-Oslo days and pre-Intifada days, when Arafat was still in Tunis. They weren’t impressed by the protest either. Zero confidence that anything would change as a result.
Still, I was surprised at how easy it has become to wave Palestinian flags in Jerusalem and how little resistance we encountered. Can’t imagine getting away with that in Jewish America.
Some of this stuff is unbelievable. Because Jews in Israel don’t look like the broken down hunchbacked Jew of the Shtetel, you use the term Ubermencsch? Sick
–Most of Tel Aviv is very Jewish. Or very Israeli, as I’m reminded. You see another type: the man of 25-40 shaped by militarism. He is about 5-10 to 6 feet tall. His hair is shaved. He has wide shoulders and narrow hips, and is muscular and wears a tight shirt. He seems incredibly insensitive/indifferent to anything but physical culture. I see many of them jogging. These warrior types seem to be a beau ideal of the culture and recall the title of Chris Hedges book, War is a force that gives us meaning. Often they are with their women, who are also physically incredibly striking. Tall, sometimes taller than the male, slender, and fit. Many of them are blonde. So: We are forever compensating for our abuse by the Nazis, and we have exalted a variant of the aryan ideal who dispenses violence without thinking about it. So much for the nebbish, the schmuck, the schmendrick, the schlemiel, the gonif. Welcome ubermensch.
“So much for the nebbish, the schmuck, the schmendrick, the schlemiel, the gonif.”
Wow, it’s like you know all the guys in The Litvaks, my all- Jewish sport-bike posse! (Open to all Jewish males they’ve been circumcised, Bar Mitzvah’ed, and own and operate a sport-bike 600cc and over. Our Motto: Eat, Pray and Ride, Already!)
Anyway, the Zionists will go away some day, but we’ll be around forever.