Gadi Taub's NYT oped on the coming negotiations is so problematic, ahistorical, Israeli-centric, and rife with elisions, it reads like... well... a lot of other stuff cluttering the pages and electrons of said publication.
It leads off with the rhetorical question, "Will Israel remain a Zionist state?" - as if this is the most important issue to be tackled at the talks. Not "Will the systematic and willful oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people finally come to an end?" (Which all sane observers are doubtful will be the result.) Then he sets up the Zionist left's desperate, tiresome good guys vs. bad guys frame: the pious seculars vs. the evil religious nuts.
The secular Zionist dream was fundamentally democratic. Its proponents, from Theodor Herzl to David Ben-Gurion, sought to apply the universal right of self-determination to the Jews, to set them free individually and collectively as a nation within a democratic state.
David Ben-Gurion and his allies also orchestrated what can only be described as a "fundamentally democratic" ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians, which "set them free" from their home, their lands, their lives....
Taub contrasts his Ben-Gurion good guys with the loathsome bad guys:
This dream is now seriously threatened by the religious settlers’ movement, Orthodox Jews whose theological version of Zionism is radically different.... Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, later focused his father’s theological ideas around a single commandment: to settle all the land promised to the ancient Hebrews in the Bible.
Wait a second... The colonization of the West Bank has been a national project of every government of Israel for decades.
Whether Likud or Labor, so-called "left, "center," or "right," all Israeli governments have devoted massive financial, military, and human resources to the expulsion of Palestinians, confiscation of their farmlands, demolition of their homes, and construction of illegal settlements. But that's an inconvenient fact for Taub, who wants to blame the religious kooks. He then glorifies the secular Zionists some more:
Herzl never doubted that Israeli Arabs should have full and equal rights. For religious settlers, Arabs are an alien element in the organic unity of Jews and their land.
Notice he doesn't mention Ben-Gurion here. Ben-Gurion never doubted that his militias must expel the multitudes of indigenous Arabs in order to fulfill his dream (their nightmare) of an artificial Jewish majority.
Palestinians inside Israel have never had "full and equal rights." From day one Israel has treated Palestinians as second class citizens if that -- see, for example, the Association of 40 unrecognized Palestinian villages inside Israel that still, 60 years later, seek recognition and basic social services like garbage collection. Several Palestinian orgs inside Israel are trying to get the country to (finally) adopt a constitution to protect their rights.
On the subject of apartheid, Taub's op-ed rambles on about how there's no apartheid now, but there will be someday soon if the pernicious religious settlers get their way. What, I'd like to ask Taub, do you anticipate the settlers would do that they aren't doing already, that would get you to call it apartheid? No doubt, you will return to the NYT and write a new oped entitled "Now it's finally apartheid, and it's all the fault of the religious settlers -- but not the government of Israel of course." Taub also claims that if (?) Israel becomes an apartheid state, "Israel will betray the beliefs it was founded on." Maybe Martin Buber's beliefs, but certainly not Ben-Gurion's, who insisted on Israel as a de facto apartheid state from the very beginning - how else to describe the impact of ethnic cleansing on those who are not allowed to return to their homes, not recognizing Palestinian villages, differing social services, etc.?
Predictably, Taub busts out that time-worn line of hasbara about how Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza was an anti-settlement move, ignoring of course that it was a ploy to solidify Israel's hold on the West Bank, as Sharon's senior adviser Dov Weisglass proudly proclaimed.
But the most outrageous elision above all elisions is that Taub skips a chance to report some real news in his oped, about how far senior religious settler leaders have gone: calling for genocide of the Palestinians.
[Israel's former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of the Shas party], said during his weekly Shabbat sermon that the Palestinians, namely Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, should perish from the world. Yosef, a founder of the Shas Party, also described Palestinians as evil, bitter enemies of Israel.
"All these evil people should perish from this world ... God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians," Yosef said.
Taub wraps it all up with the desperate plea of liberal self-absorbed Zionism, which I translate as "Please, please stop the occupation and the settlements now that they appear to be a threat of my dream of a militarily-enforced Jewish majority state existing in perpetuity":
The religious settlement movement is not just secular Zionism’s ideological adversary, it is a danger to its very existence. Terrorism is a hazard, but it cannot destroy Herzl’s Zionist vision. More settlements and continued occupation can.
Never once in the entire piece does Taub mention the suffering of the Palestinian people. For shame!
From where I sit, the only Zionist vision that ever has been worth saving and ever will be is Martin Buber's. Humanists (non-tribal, post-tribal) should read Buber's book, and try to imagine how much different and better life would be today for Israelis and Palestinians alike if the Zionist project had followed Buber's humanistic path of equality and cooperation instead of Ben-Gurion's "secular" path of military conquest, ethnic cleansing, and domination.
If a bi-national state were consented by the overwhelming majority of its citizens, then it would be a democratic solution.
Currently, the MAJORITY of Israelis and of Palestinians hold nationalist orientations and elect nationalist parties.
The proposals by civilists like Avram Burg for the development of civilist non-nationalist party in Israel are lambasted here and elsewhere by untrusting (and divesting) Palestinian solidarity.
The assertions of support for bi-national civilist orientation as stated by proponents, without conducting the political work to persuade compelling majorities to adopt civilist approaches, is just laziness.
It takes dropping the anger to persuade, and that is something that most solidarity are just unwilling to do.
I think you’re confused.
Whatever Avraham Burg’s proposals might be, he lacks the political capital/power to implement them, let alone get the time of day from the decision-makers in power.
So, supporting his proposals is as viable as engaging in a 20 year no-peace process.
Incidentally, why are you lambasting the Palestine solidarity movement? What happened to live-and-let-live and all that harmonious rhetoric you frequently espouse when poor little Israel with its 400 nuclear warheads is criticized? Don’t you think your attack on said group is too maximalist?
Avi,
You reject every political effort that requires you to persuade (requiring respect of the people that you are seeking to persuade).
I’m daring you to walk your talk. I don’t see it.
I’m critical of the Palestinian solidarity movement as being too negative, and rejectionist. You prove my criticism in your tone and the range of content that you are willing to engage.
I find the Palestinian solidarity movement to be vague (inherent in a criticalist approach), and in that vagueness to be irresponsible (both to Israel and to their own community, in only conceiving that leadership includes resistance, and not also community and institution building).
I get that many say that institution-building is impossible until oppression ends, but that strikes me as utterly self-defeating.
The successful model of Zionist institutions, was OF institution-building until it was undeniable that Israel constituted a state, as difficult as the political relations were. (The just ones – support for Jewish self-determination, and the pandering ones – jockeying for favored oil contracts over European competitors.)
The successful model of Zionist institutions, was OF institution-building until it was undeniable that Israel constituted a state
So you admit that the foundation of Israel was not through mutual consent or even gaining the permission of the “Other,” but the violent assertion of might and building “facts on the ground” (very much like the settlements are proclaimed to be in the OT today).
In light of these implications, should one consider the settlements in the OT to be as “legitimate” as Israel itself, or is Israel itself as legitimate as the settlements it constructs in the OT?
“I’m daring you to walk your talk. I don’t see it.”
This comming from someone who insists that change will come so long as we keep doing what we’ve been doing for 43 years.
“I’m critical of the Palestinian solidarity movement as being too negative, and rejectionist.”
It’s not the Palestinian solidarity movement that is stealing land, occupying Palestinians territory, destroying homes, ethnically cleansing Palestinians and evicting them, and building illegal settlements.
“You prove my criticism in your tone and the range of content that you are willing to engage.”
Translation: You’re saying mean things about Israel and that will convince Israel to contiue it’s apartheid policies.
“I find the Palestinian solidarity movement to be vague (inherent in a criticalist approach), and in that vagueness to be irresponsible”
This comming from someone who’s posts are incoherent and require a babblefish translation.
You mean successful institutions like the Stern Gang?
Why witty is allowed to post here? His malfeasance
brings this site a few notches down.
He’s the only one to continually sell rubbish on this site,
and when he is called on it he slithers away to
another post?
“Don’t you think your attack on said group is too maximalist?”
Apparently, making the “better argument” is only reserved towards Israel. When it comes to the Palestinians, Witty goes all out on the attacks, distrust and demonization.
I keep promising myself I will not post anything here until I actually have a good idea (which strikes me as highly unlikely, so I am breaking that promise).
On the other hand, why, Richard, do you insist on using words (civilist???) for which I cannot even find definitions on the web. Not, at least, that make any sense in the context you have written. Here is what wiktionary says that “civilist” means…
civilist (plural civilists)
1. (obsolete) One who studies or works with the civil law.
2. (obsolete, theology) One who rejects the moral authority of Christ but who nevertheless adheres to a moral code in line with “civil righteousness” and “good citizenship”.
3. (obsolete) A statesman, politician, or student of the political sciences.
I realize this is trivial; but if you actually want to communicate with people…would it not make a little sense to…take the time to use “real words”??
I don’t think Aristotle could make sense out of this sentence…
“The proposals by civilists (those who rejects the moral authority of Christ) like Avram Burg for the development of civilist (those who study or work with the civil law) non-nationalist party in Israel are lambasted here and elsewhere by untrusting (and divesting) Palestinian solidarity.”
Jeeezus K Rist…get thee to a library and check out a book on grammar.
A silly criticism.
A “civilist” is a person that advocates for civil law and administration in contrast to nationalist or religious.
You could derive my meaning from my usage. It was clear and explained.
This coming from the clown he forcefully injects ambiguity into phrases like “international law” and “social justice.”
You didn’t respond to any of the other criticisms, Richard, only the one about your bizarre linguistic practices.
You ought to respond to them. Make the better argument, as you’re always recommending. Yes, the Palestinians should build institutions, but they shouldn’t accept leadership imposed on them from the US and the Israelis. Hamas, for better or worse won the elections in 2006 and rather than allow the Palestinians to come to some sort of peaceful political solution, a unity government, the US chose to push for a civil war. And now people like you (and people much more important than you) pretend this never happened. Ethan Bronner today praised the security improvements in the West Bank–some of that is real, but some of it is political repression. What the US is teaching Palestinians is quite clear–might makes right, and the way to win praise from liberal Americans is to do what America says. Democracy and democratic processes don’t matter–what matters is that people do what America and Israel say, and this is dressed up as something positive in the US.
Frankly, it’s very depressing. That’s what is underneath the anger that you see here–the way people put a pretty face on policies which are very ugly and are likely to end in disaster. And as always, the Palestinians will probably get the blame,unless Netanyahu is exceptionally maladroit, which one can’t rule out. And even if he is, the US press will still find a way to blame Palestinians as well.
I have a solution for this. The US should designate who it wants to rule Israel–pick the appropriate people, praise them to the skies, and treat them as the legitimate government. Really, one can’t imagine how this could go wrong, as it seems to be the way the Palestinian side has been handled.
That dichotomy is 43 years old.
The Israeli media tends to sell the Israeli public the illusion that there are secular Jews, religious Jews and radical colonists in the occupied territories. It’s as if each group has equal political and economic strategic value. Hence, the competing narratives illusion.
But, in effect, there is no difference. There is no difference between Likud, Labor or Kadima, either.
State institutions, including the military and security apparatus — collectively known as The Establishment — are those that decide the policies. And the policies of occupation and land theft have been in effect since 1967 (If we limit this discussion to the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza).
Blaming one group or another is an effective diversionary tactic. “It’s the settlers’ fault”, goes the story. Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues funding them, busing them, protecting them, arming them, feeding them, shielding them, and spoiling them with financial incentives.
Tzipi Livni used that tactic when she was interviewed by Bob Simon last year on 60 Minutes. Bob asked her if Israel was prepared to remove the settlers and evacuate the settlements should negotiations warrant such a move. Her reply was in the affirmative. She went a step further and claimed, “We are a nation of laws” (paraphrased), as though the settlers are hooligans that the government loathes and will stop at nothing in containing them — It doesn’t. They are useful pawns, much in the way the Gaza colonists were. They were “evacuated” from the Strip, but a greater number of colonists was resettled in the occupied West Bank. Out through the front door, back in through the back door. Sharon’s government merely used them for a public relations stunt.
Matthew, I found it interesting to learn about the historical dimension of the term hasbara, since it make sense, and in a way it is still around:
“The meaning of the term has changed over the years. When Israelis speak about hasbara today, they usually mean a polemical discourse representing Israel’s position on the world stage, though sometimes they also use the term to refer to internal education campaigns, such as smoking or or to promote AIDS awareness. In the prestate period, however, the term hasbara was principally used to denote educational efforts among the Jewish public (and secondarily and by extension among Arabs, explaining to them the purpose and peaceful nature of Zionism).”
The disenchantment of the Orient: expertise in Arab affairs and the Israeli, Gil Eyal, since I can’t link directly, I think: page 66
It’s better to think of all the jews who moved to Palestine since 1917 (or even before in some circumstances) and their descendants as ‘settlers’. Just as you would with the French in Algeria, or whites in South Africa.
Regardless of what we call them, I assert that Jews born in any part of Palestine have a right to live there.
As further example of the fractured and stilted nature of overly moderated discussions at HuffPo, one poster replied to my call to more closely examine the words of the founders of Zionism, that what was said by the founders is not relevant to what Zionism is today. Aside from being total bollocks, I would have asked why then the fixation on an outdated Hamas charter .
This is what is missing because of agenda-driven gatekeeping; the chance to put a lie to rest.
‘In Israel proper, the Arab minority represents about a fifth of its 7.2 million citizens, and they have full legal equality.’ — Gadi Taub
That’s hilarious. Under Jim Crow, black citizens were ‘separate but equal’ legally. The reality was anything but.
On any other subject but Israel, a Times article or editorial which stated obvious falsehoods would be subject to correction. Apparently on behalf of the zionist cause, one can just scribble preposterous fictions.
What was that silly Martin Luther King on about, anyway? His people had ‘full legal equality,’ from Taub’s point of view! *sigh* Some folks just can’t be pleased …
This shit would probably fly pre-internet days. As I noted in another thread, official and historical documents are available now that show clearly what was intended, mandated, and what the Zionists did to countermand it.
From the Avalon Papers at Yale: (annie located some as well)
But what the Zionists did, instead, was undermine all this goodwill and fair play. The classified documents Sir Richard Catling stored in a library at Oxford came to light two years ago.
Catling’s documents — he was the deputy head of the special branch of the British Mandate’s Criminal Investigation division in Jerusalem in 1944 and then Assistant Inspector General — show that the Jewish Agency created a secret government operating separately with the following six divisions itemized as its activities:
The myths don’t cut it anymore. The truth is getting out.
The basic problem is surely that it’s not possible, as a matter of logic rather than of personal intentions, to combine ‘this land is for the self-determination of Xs’ and ‘there is full equality in this land for Xs and Ys’: the Ys have to accept that their self-determination in that land is not on the agenda, and the laws of the land will have to express that fact. So no equality, a fact that the Palestinians must have appreciated clearly from the very beginning.
Herzl and the non-exclusive Zionists generally must have envisaged that the Palestinians would accept a secondary role with gratitude for the modernity bestowed on them, but this vision could never have been more than self-deception.
Whether the claim that ‘this land is for the self-determination of Xs’ is based on religion or on some other kind of thinking makes very little difference. It really doesn’t make much sense to say that some Zionists were good simply because they didn’t appeal to religion.
hmmm, no mention of Jabotinsky in that chain of worthies.
Jabotinsky is on Israeli currency, so somebody out there likes him.
And to discuss the history of Israel, the Zionist dream, without mention of Jabotinsky — according to the Jewish Defense Organization, the Osama bin Laden of Israel — is like discussing the past decade of US history without Cheney.
I’d recommend Peter Rodgers’ ‘Herzl’s Nightmare’ , which quotes the early Zionist Moshe Smilansky’s remark that ‘it is not possible for one country to serve as the homeland of two peoples’ (p.11). Very true, at least unless there is the sort of strict equality that makes the two peoples in some sense into one, with rights of immigration and return absolutely the same.
Herzl himself had confided to his diary, acccording to Rodgers (p.18), that it might be best to ‘spirit the penniless population’ of Palestine across the border. This was his realist self outside the utopianism of Altneuland. Der Judenstaat simply exemplifies the perennial tendency to treat the Palestinians as if they did not exist.
Rodgers’ choicest quote (p.12) is from Moshe Sharett in 1914: ‘If we cease to look on Eretz Israel as ours alone all content and meaning will be lost to our enterprise’. That was what early Zionism was like: much ferocious logic, no religion at heart of the argument.
I have often wondered about the proper meaning of the adjective “Jewish” in that phrase, “The Jewish State.” To my ears, Zionists often use it to mean “Jewish-ruled”, sometimes “Jewish-majority”, and sometimes both. It is clear that for Gadi Taub, a “Jewish” state means a Jewish-ruled state.
I think it means more grass-roots self-governance, self-determination, rather than your meaning of top-down.
So, you’re insisting that the Nakba was not, in fact, led by a few fanatical leaders, but that it was a pervasive, “democratic” component of the Zionist movement? That the majority of immigrant Jews in Palestine decided to move as one to erase hundreds of Arab villages that had been existing for generations before the ever arrived?
Truman crossed out that adjective before signing the letter given to him by the zionists to recognize Israel.
He should have crossed out the whole document, crumpled it up and tossed it in the garbage. He was signing the death warrant of American democracy, and it was sentenced to die by foreign special interest.
“sought to apply the universal right of self-determination to the Jews”
If the “right of self-determination” means the right of a group to set up a state in a particular territory, that right is only a right of the residents of that territory, and not of any others. Jews as a group are not residents of a single territory, so the right cannot be applied to Jews as a whole.
(It is, of course, a heavily restricted right.)
Also, claiming such a right for Jews leads to bizarre consequences. If Australian citizens have the right of self-determination, and exercise it to maintain the Commonwealth of Australia, then Australian Jews will have that right. But Australian Jews, born in Australia, and holding no other citizenship, will also have the right of self-determination as Jews. Yet other Australians will not have an extra right of self-determination.
“to set them free individually”
Australian Jews are as free as most other Australians, and always have been.