The other night in Jordan my wife and I ate at a fancy place and when the bill came, I had to walk off to the cash machine to get more money.
When I got back my wife was sitting with the restaurateur and two of his friends drinking tea and having a political conversation. The men were complaining about King Abdullah of Jordan. The night before the king’s brother had had a wedding in the desert. 15 million dinar ($22 million). Earlier this year the queen had had a birthday. 10 million dinar. Then the queen was off to Italy to help the poor children of Italy. There are no poor children here?
I was excited to hear Jordanians complaining about their king. They spoke English well, they were thoughtful men. I sat on a plastic chair that a boy brought over.
The king doesn’t care about his people. There is a layer of rich people and then nothing– and then there are the common people. Many make 3-500 dinar a month. But it takes 1000 dinar a month to live in this country.
I said, What will it take to change that? The restaurateur said, “Obama can change it, maybe.”
In that moment, the conversation made a sudden turn.
I felt he was saying that the U.S. is propping the king up to support Israel and that only when American support for Israel changed would the corrupt dictatorships of the Arab world begin to loosen.
I said, “Do you think Obama can bring middle east peace?”
The man made a face. “No. He cannot. No one can do that.”
Why not? “When someone takes your land and your house, and makes you flee, and they rape your mother and kill your sister, do you think that you can forget that? No. No one can forget that.”
Besides, he went on, there was a difference between the Palestinians in the 67 territories and the ones in the 48 territories. In the 48, they are relatively comfortable, they can make money. But in the 67 it is a prison. You know, he went on, Netanyahu is more powerful than Obama. “Because what is the most powerful thing in the world, money. And who has the most money? The Jews. So Netanyahu doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want.”
I said, “But Abdullah and ‘Asad just met in Damascus and said that they would accept Israel on the 67 lines. The Arab League has said the same. Why isn’t that possible?”
My wife stood up. “Phil I’m going back to the hotel.” She finds political conversations boring. I told her to wait a minute.
He said, “No one can make a peace. God can’t make a peace. Besides, there are too many people making money off the situation.”
And after that we shook hands and left.
A few comments: I went to Jordan to learn more about the Arab context of the problem. And it is interesting that this man has a more sophisticated understanding of the root of the problem than most people in the United States, when he speaks so feelingly of the Arab dispossession and persecution of the Palestinians. Few people in the U.S. are aware of these things. Even though Brown scholar Glenn Loury talks about the Nakba on bloggingheads.tv, this is a minority understanding. If you read Michael Beschloss’s book on great presidential decisions or Robert Kaplan’s book on The Arabists, you will find that the creation of Israel is described as a great liberal advance. But it wasn’t a liberal advance. It was solving a European problem with a colonial enterprise that resolved itself with ethnic cleansing. The ethnic cleansing is remembered and resented across the Arab world. The Israelis thought that they could merely push the problem away, and they still think that, but it has haunted them.
The conversation reminds me of why I am for the right of return. Because it is way overdue, because as Gideon Levy says in his column that Adam quoted here the other day, it is the soul of the issue, because it is right, because it is about respect, because the U.N. demanded it again and again and again, and because it would heal more than anything else would heal. These old grievances must be dealt with. There is only one way to put them aside, acknowledgment, apology, compensation. And yes, restoration of villages and homes when people wish to return (without eviction).
The description of Jewish power will strike many people as anti-Semitic. And I guess it is; certainly it is imprecise and makes gross generalizations about a group of people. Some years ago Tom Friedman (who is rich as Croesus) spluttered that the Arab world is filled with conspiracy theories; surely he meant talk like this. While it is true that I should have said to the man that I am Jewish, (my wife was impatient, I wanted to ask him if he was Palestinian and didn’t), I would just point out that his statement is consistent with, a, Seymour Hersh saying on Amy Goodman that the Iran bombing push is about “Jewish money” in the political system, b, MJ Rosenberg saying recently that Netanyahu has more power in Congress than Obama does, again because of election contributions/the lobby, c, Juan Cole saying that neoconservative ideas persist because half of the Fortune 400 billionaires are neocons (which yes is shorthand for rightwing Jews), d, Netanyahu saying, in a recently discovered video from ten years back, that the U.S. is “something that can be easily moved” (or similar words; lousy internet connection here). I have always said that an honest descripton of how much money Jews bring into the political process is necessary if we are going to straighten this issue out. Denying Jewish power is an intellectual dodge–yes, one widely undertaken to prevent another Holocaust. Well sorry it’s not helping.
The conversation gave me a sense of purpose. Zionism created this thoughtful man’s rage. Which, yes, is shared across the Arab world. This grievance must be answered. Only madmen want to strip Jews of power in western societies. Jewish power is just the flavor of the elite these days, the meritocratic culture of the west. The idea is to change Jews. Young Jews, liberal Jews, aware Jews, empowered Jews, universalist Jews, led by people like Lynn Gottlieb and Rebecca Vilkomerson, freely acknowledge the man’s grievance and are working to change the Jewish adherence to Zionism. That is the most productive work I can do.
