I'm reading A Book That Was Lost, stories by S.Y. Agnon, the Israeli writer who died in 1970, a few years after winning the Nobel Prize for literature. Agnon's posthumous story "The Sign" begins with a paragraph relating news of his native city, Buczacz, in Poland. Agnon got the news at his home in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Talpiyot, during World War II. I pass this along because it is moving, because it frames the postwar Jewish experience, and because it helps explain some of Israel's conduct.
In the year when the news reached us that all the Jews in my town had been killed, I was living in a certain section of Jerusalem, in a house I had built for myself after the disturbances of 1929 (5629—which numerically is equal to “The Eternity of Israel”). On the night when the Arabs destroyed my home, I vowed that if God would save me from the hands of the enemy and I should live, I would build a house in this particular neighbourhood which the Arabs had tried to destroy. By the grace of God, I was saved from the hands of our despoilers and my wife and children and I remained alive in Jerusalem. Thus I fulfilled my vow and there built a house and made a garden. I planted a tree, and lived in that place with my wife and children, by the will of our Rock and Creator. Sometimes we dwelt in quiet and rest, and sometimes in fear and trembling because of the desert sword that waved in fuming anger over all the inhabitants of our holy land. And even though many troubles and evils passed over my head, I accepted all with good humor and without complaint. On the contrary, with every sorrow I used to say how much better it was to live in the Land of Israel than outside the land, for the Land of Israel has given us the strength to stand up for our lives, while outside the land we went to meet the enemy like sheep to the slaughter. Tens of thousands of Israel, none of whom the enemy was worthy even to touch, were killed and strangled and buried alive; among them my brothers and friends and family, who went through all kinds of great sufferings in their lives and in their deaths, by the wickedness of our blasphemers and our desecrators, a filthy people, blasphemers of God, whose wickedness had not been matched since man was placed upon the earth.
Question: How much, if any of this, is actual fact, and how much hyperbole? Without serious documentation, I wouldn’t believe for a second that the Arabs were burying Jews alive. Good literature, maybe, if a little Peretzlike for my taste. But fact? I dunno…
If he wants to stand up against his enemies, his enemies were in Poland. He was an able-bodied young man, why shouldn’t he have gone to fight them there? “The strength to stand up for our lives” doesn’t come from a patch of dirt on which you stand, it comes from within.
“Hey, God, if you save me from my enemies, because I’m not going to fight them, I’ll steal somebody else’s home in your name.”
Damn this software.
Gellian – he meant the Germans. The Germans killed the Jews, so he decides to take it out on the Arabs.
Freud called this projection.
their were polish crimes against the jewish population of that state though they were not entirely innocent them selves
If not innocent, what were they guilty about? Thinking naughty thoughts about their Polish/Russian persecutors, or overcharging them for gefilte fish? Does this hold for indigenous Americans too? If so, what were they guilty of? As for fighting back against the Nazis, do you really think that if stormtroopers came knocking at your door, you’d resist? Maybe in your dreams, but not in real life. Still think you would, then check the newsreels that depict U.S. troops barging into Afghan homes. Do Afghans look anything but scared to death? All the remarks about sheepies going to the slaughter are hateful and racist. Justice for Palestine does not depend upon slandering the victims of the Holocaust, but in explaining that since Palestinians had nothing to do with it, why should they have to pay?
Rabbi Bernstein’s report on Poles killing Jews in Nazi camps :
link to books.google.ca
Does this make Rabbi Bernstein a Holocaust denier?
“According to Professor Yisrael Gutman of the Yad Vashem Memorial Institute in Israel, the use of the term ‘Polish concentration camps’ is a form of Holocaust denial. It is a conscious or unconscious way of changing victims into perpetrators and an attempt to blur the question of responsibility for the crime.”
link to en.auschwitz.org.pl
Better he should have gone back to Poland instead to slay the wicked.
that’s a very moving passage. it is hard to fathom the range of emotion and suffering knowing ones people are the target of genocide. the holocaust does does frame this time period, it does explain some of Israel’s conduct. there’s no denying that.
i think it’s important to view genocide not as an encapsulated event but an open ongoing tragedy still active. the hunted becomes the hunter. we must break the chain, break the chain break the chain.
breaking the chain: crazy story from Poland
link to haaretz.com
Ethnic nationalism is pretty seductive to young bucks and their grrl pals?
So now what, now they will side with the young fanatical Israeli hill top kids? Churchill once said the Germans were either at your feet or at your neck.
Don’t get me started on Churchill on Germans. He called Stalin ‘Papa Joe’, and then suggested ‘We killed the wrong pig’. (i.e. the Germans). Churchill was a jerk and a warmonger. And, most of all, an ‘ethnic nationalist’, imperialist and racist.
He did some real nasty stuff in Sudan too as a young lad.
South Africa too.
Chesterton on the British (WW I perspective): “Sea-Germans”
Wow, I can’t believe that made it through the censors. You are advocated sending a Jew back to Poland during WWII, your true colors huh potsherd?
I may well be wrong but I didn’t read potsherd’s comments as you did.
Avrum Burg has spoken about how Israelis are as much killing nazis when they’re killing Palestinians. He said it in a much neater way than that, but you get the gist I hope. I’m reasonably sure he said it in his 2009 interview on Charlie Rose, watch online:
link to charlierose.com
That’s how I read it: take it out on the perpetrators, not the Palestinians.
Reply mis-posted as a reply to Gellian’s comment.
Of course Schwartz wasn’t misreading my comment. He knows exactly what I meant but likes to twist any remark to be antisemitic.
I feel your pain, Schawrtzman. Why fight those who have actually committed the atrocities against you when there’s a poor, politically and militarily backwards people so conveniently located in your Holy Land?
The very notion violates one of the inexorable natural laws of the universe: Kiss up, kick down!
Ah, but you are a whole lot smarter than me, Shwartzman, and know from your religious studies that the only reason God spared you from persecution and death was to continue the fight and perpetuate cycles of hatred and exploitation. Especially where you have a better shot at winning this particular cycle. Why, it would be heretical, and blasphemous, to believe otherwise.
“Wow, I can’t believe that made it through the censors.”
They are called “moderators” , Schwartzy. Why on earth would you call them “censors”? Well, there are two possibilities, one, you really don’t know what the two words mean, and have some nutty ideas about your “rights” to have your comments published, or two, it’s a calculated insult?
Maybe you could tell us which of the two apply?
Rabbi Nesenoff’s interpretation of potsherd’s comment?
thank you for this Phil.
I get so angry with many very comfortable American Jews who give voice to what I consider bigoted attitudes, and I apply their attitudes and my reaction to them to ALL Jews everywhere at every time.
Agnon was able to convey to me the immediacy of a moment in which he experienced genuine fear and peril and dispossession. The narrative serves as a counterpoint to what is, in my opinion, the self-induced and self-indulgent trauma that many, many Israeli and American Jews fling in the faces of gentiles.
Even so, it still must be stated that Agnon’s experience was and is not unique to Jews: war and hatred are destructive of all humans. Several years ago in a visit to the US to hammer out a peace agreement with Israel, a Palestinian representative whose name I do not recall repeated this concept: “There is no aristocracy of suffering.” Agnon endured suffering and, more importantly, he responded to suffering in a healthy way: by rebuilding his own life rather than by memorializing hate. My own parents suffered greatly and responded to their losses by building their own lives rather than by nurturing their losses and harboring hate. In my observation and opinion, some, large portion of organized Jewry — for example, the portion that organizes construction of numerous and ubiquitous museums to holocaust — memorialize hate and turn hate into a commodity. Even though suffering and hatred are inevitabilities in human interaction, hate is not a productive ‘commodity;’ it is destructive to the spirit and memorializing hate only results in producing more of it.
Agnon found in Israel “the strength for [Jews] to stand up for their lives.”
The UN Human Rights Council report on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla called on Israelis to “. . . find the strength to pluck from the memory rooted sorrows and to move on…”
Agnon found in Israel “the strength for [Jews] to stand up for their lives.”
Plenty of Jews stood up for their lives, and other’s lives, in Europe, and never went to Israel, but stayed in their homelands, survived in hiding, and in working in the resistance, together with Germans, Poles, French etc. They stayed after the war, with little or no support from Jewish/Zionist organizations, and rebuild their lives, together with all other victims of the madness that was WW II. Their narratives provide a counterpoint to both Nazism and Zionism.
Actually, a very high percentage of European Jewish refugees DID migrate to Israel.
There are very very few sustaining Jewish communities in Eastern Europe that bridged pre-holocaust to post-holocaust.
There are a few communities that have new immigrants, but Eastern Europe is largely absent of Jews.
Richard — most Eastern European Jews who felt compelled to leave their homelands went to Israel if alternatives were unavailable. Zionists clearly interfered with their choice of destinations. European Jews, for the most part, were urban with no particular interest to move to the ME and make the desert bloom as farmers in a Kibbutz. Most of them preferred New York to the hardships of either Israel or post-war Europe. A considerable number of those who did go to Israel did not stay there, but migrated back, or moved on. Like the rest of Europe, European Jews were not eager to transplant themselves from one war zone to another. And you do remember that the Arabs attacked in 48, right?
The hatred of Jews in Eastern Europe was far more profound. It wrenched the concept of “this is our “homeland”" from their consciousness.
The wars in Israel were traumatic. I would never have met my wife if her family had stayed in Israel.
The hatred… …It wrenched the concept of “this is our “homeland”” from their consciousness.
The exact aim of those who seek to deny Palestinians their right of return, and condescend those refugees should be more “future orientated.”
Look what you’ve become Richard.
You imagine my sentiments, and proposals Sumud.
What I’ve become is an advocate for mutual health, literally, rule of law applied in a color blind manner, and self-determination.
But, I regard Zionism as a good, a necessary, not disappearing or diminishing in sentiment except by consent. I am a liberal Zionist, a humanist in a body.
What I desire is that Israel be Israel, healthily, happily, but do so in a humane way.
So, I oppose the state settlement expansion effort and rationalization. But, I support the rights and life of settlers (human beings).
If you regard consent as an actual feature of democracy, and not only as window dressing, then you will be concerned with what Israelis perceive relative to dissent.
Its not disempowering to a dissident. Its in fact enormously empowering.
It leads to more effective strategy. It actually can change relationships and conditions knowing one’s opponents and potential allies’ perspective.
And, it can prevent subsequent wars.
We don’t “imagine” anything, Witty. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you believe Jews have a privileged right to safety and land in the Middle East over the native population. You boast about your son’s privileged right to go to Jerusalem, in the same breath you deny the rights of people like Seham here.
“You boast about your son’s privileged right to go to Jerusalem”
Chaos,
There are three ways that I resent your posts:
1. You attack persons rather than understand and criticize arguments
2. You lie (where I did “boast” of my son’s privileged right to go to Jerusalem? Expressing appreciation of birthright programs is “boasting of privilege”?)
3. You attack my son personally, who has never posted here (as if attack on a person is “support of human rights” in any respect)
>> But, I regard Zionism as a good, a necessary … I am a liberal Zionist, a humanist in a body.
You not a humanist, but a “humanist”:
- You are a Zionist/Jewish supremacist, not an egalitarian.
- You have approved of the overthrow of at least one democratically-elected government.
- You prefer to absolve the criminal of his crime rather than apply justice, enforce accountability and defend the victim.
- You constantly accuse Palestinians of “destabilization” and “maximalism” while hypocritically defending or glossing over Israel’s equal or greater acts of D&M, including assaults on peaceful protesters and civilians in general.
There is no way that I am any kind of supremacist.
You don’t have a clue.
The only way we are able to judge your attitudes is by your comments here. Your comments here reek of supremacism, couched in pseudo-intellectual mumbo-jumbo. You have double standards that are apparent to everyone here but you.
Yes, yes. WW II was traumatic too. I would never have been born if my grandparents hadn’t been kicked out of Bohemia together with a few million other Germans, and sent on death March towards the Reich. My father would have found himself a nice Bohemian girl and never set eyes on my mother. The Czechs’ hatred of the Germans was profound, quite regardless of whether they had been pro-Nazi or not. They wrenched the concept of ‘this is our homeland’ from their consciousness. There is nothing left of the villages where my grandparents and their ancestors had lived for centuries.
“….because it helps explain some of Israel’s conduct.”
It doesn’t explain a goddam thing, and you know it. It’s propaganda, and its like can be found in every victim culture.
It’s part of an on-going attempt to poison the minds of the next generation, on behalf of those already dead.
You know what? Screw “the Jewish experience” screw it right up the keister. The human experience has been one of, (even before population pressure provided excuses for it) horrible cruelty and exploitation of each other, an equation I can only assume we Jews have lived and participated in on both sides.
Also, you figure it’s kosher to overlook the blessings that God has endowed your (and mine) completely undeserving ass with, to take up hatreds on behalf of those already dead?
I call that being a sucker, and a chump, and as a Jew, of course, I’m too smart for that.
Unpleasant opinions, aren’t they, my opinions that those who would poison us with hatred and revenge and supremacist feelings are not excused, in fact are more clearly indicted when they are co-coreligionists.
This doesn’t explain anything to me except that Jews have the same failings, human failings, as other people. Can’t win on the swing, (Europe) so we’ll come back and get them on the round-about(Arabs).
Shall we now compare the fates of Jews with the fates of others? With the fates of Africans, South American natives, Asians, European cultures not among the fortunate? Well, we better make one Jewish death equal to 240 Gentile deaths, otherwise our suffering as Jews will be completely numerically insignificant.
I’m really sorry, but I believe as a Jew I owe God much more than I owe any other Jew. He has spared me from persecution, and asked me not to murder, commit adultery, or bear false witness against my neighbor.
I’ll take my chances with that, not with manipulative tales of Jewish suffering.
Sorry. Print or don’t
And as far as the adultery thing goes, there’s also the eleventh commandment: “Keep your mouth shut, confession is for Catholics”
“confession is for Catholics.”
and now you know why the Hail Mary pass has worked its way into the lexicon of the US’s second most popular sport (immediately after wenching).
“Tens of thousands of Israel, none of whom the enemy was worthy even to touch,”
Then why did God let them do it to us? Or are you saying that these blasphemers, idolators, etc,etc, overpowered our God?
Or caught Him napping? Or was God just ignoring us?
Anyway, it confuses the hell out of me, but I’m sure you know the answer.
What is the day of Atonement, if not confession & communion?
“What is the day of Atonement, if not confession & communion?”
If there’s such commonality, how come you guys get all the spectacular cathedrals, frescoes and pipe organs? Sure, some schuls are pretty good, but Michealangelo would have to deliver pizzas on the side if he depending on interior decorating contracts from synagogue congregations.
Ah well, so many contradictions in religion. For instance, why on earth do we fast on a High Holy day called Yum, Kippers?
Ah well, if it was up to me I’d repent over lox vobiscum on an open sesame bagel.
It’s too many for me.
Catholics fast before Communion; they also fast on at least four holdiays; some fast all during Lent. I hadda do it when I was a kid; of course that’s ancient history now–there’s some bennies to being a default agnostic. More than one rabbi attributes less visual art to the tribe to the ban on craven images. Didn’t seem to bother Chagall, though. Yeah, those soaring spires are imaginative.
Citizen, you are alarming me! Catholics fast? I thought they had feast days! Another comforting illusion, shot to hell!
Please God, send me a religion which doesn’t make me get up and down all the time, and won’t make me miss a meal. With lots of singing and music, lively stuff, with a good beat.
I was born, I’m pretty sure, to be A. M. E. or COGIC.
“…I owe God much more…” than any sense of tribal belonging.
I wish I could say that out loud about my community without being called brainwashed or a heretic by many co-religionists where I live.
The Moose washes his own brain; he’s got excellent hygiene, eh?
I don’t think so, Citizen, although I don’t have the resources to know for sure. I am pretty sure that all the “eternal” and “ancient” truths and traditions of Judaism have been completely changed in the past 50 years.
As far as I know, my viewpoint is a traditional Jewish viewpoint. Maybe not (to quote Iceberg, that cool Jewish surfer), “frum, frum, frum, til Daddy takes the T-bird away” but within bounds.
Things have gotten very triumphalist since ’67 or so. I couldn’t imagine why.
You make a good point, Moose. And maybe the only true Christian was JC himself, and he never said he was not a Jew. Moneychangers, out; selling indulgences, out; playing with little boys, out. Out, Out, damn spot(s)! Instead, we got Hagee and his neofeudal Crusaders. Jeez, were the Barbarians really worse?
Lots of cultures have stories of persecution and suffering. The “pilgrims” who came to the U.S. to escape religious persecution in Europe is one of the U.S.’s foundational myths. The “huddled masses, longing to breath free.” Maybe such persecution stories are more prevalent in emigrant cultures, I don’t know.
An explanation isn’t an excuse.
“Maybe such persecution stories are more prevalent in emigrant cultures”
Not really. Just look at the long list of epic poems and folk epics. They are all invariably about: Look (or rather hear) how we suffered!
“It’s propaganda, and its like can be found in every victim culture.
It’s part of an on-going attempt to poison the minds of the next generation, on behalf of those already dead.”
Indeed.
Born in Poland/Ukraine (Galacia) to a Hasidic rabbi, Agnon moved to Palestine in 1907, where, from age 19 to 25, in Jaffa, he became first secretary to the Jewish Court and of the National Jewish Council. He moved to Berlin in 1913 where he observed the stark contrast between
Jewish immigrants from rural eastern europe and cosmopolitan German Jews & Zionists; that specific struggle with modernism became one of his folksy literary themes. He must have also felt, or at least glimpsed the impact of WW1 & its immediate horrible aftermath on Germany as a whole. Is any of that in his stories? I don’t know. After a decade plus, he moved back to Palestine in 1924 (Leftover WW1 Freikorps rowdies roaming around in the streets?), settling down permanently just outside Jerusalem at age 35 or 36. The Sign implicitly describes his response to the news of the destruction of Buczacz, his hometown, by the Germans (who had battled back and forth with the Soviets for it) on the eve of Shavuot in 1943. What did he memorialize? Buczacz in the late 1930s was one-third Jewish and there was lots of zionist activity there. (After WW1, the town suffered major destruction also, and Poles, Russians, and Ukranians killed each each other with gusto. A few jews were also murdered.) In the wake of the German invasion of ’41 soviet officials in Buczacz fled to the east, among them jewish officials. Subsequently, the Germans sent Hungarian jews there, and other jews, and the jewish ghetto natives were all murdered along with the imported jews. “On the contrary, with every sorrow I used to say how much better it was to live in the Land of Israel than outside the land, for the Land of Israel has given us the strength to stand up for our lives, while outside the land we went to meet the enemy like sheep to the slaughter. Tens of thousands of Israel, none of whom the enemy was worthy even to touch, were killed and strangled and buried alive; among them my brothers and friends and family.” Moving, yes. Frames the Jewish experience back then, yes. Helps explain some of Israel’s conduct? Yes, mostly on an emotional level. The problem is this:
“because of the desert sword.” Nothing about the Arab locals as actual human beings. No suggestion the non-Jewish dwellers in his hometown were either–did they exist for him at all, did the average German during the Weimar period he spent in Berlin? How can a nuclear armed modern state function if such conjured memories lie are its core?
Oops, I mean “if only such conjured memories lie, are, at its core.”
“How can a nuclear armed modern state function if such conjured memories lie are its core?”
Nothing like nuclear arms to get those conjured memories accepted, or else! Works for the good ol’ USA, donnit?
Yeah, the Greatest Generation is being reinlisted in their dotage for photo ops–videos gone viral showing the old guys sitting with their grand kids and grand grand kids, watching old WW2 war footage; “I did it for you,” says the old guy to the adoring little tyke–see? That’s why we fight “over there!” Rah, rah, war on Terrah!” Eyes tearing up across the internet. Not to worry, we be in Iran b4 U knowit.
…and because it helps explain some of Israel’s conduct.
I think better to draw a distinction between a government and it’s citizens:
“…and because it helps explain the conduct of some Israelis.” -> AGREE
“…and because it helps explain some of Israel’s conduct.” -> DISAGREE
Zionism obviously predates the jewish holocaust, as does the desire to control all of mandate Palestine.
The timeline would be different but I believe Israel/Palestine would still have been an extended territorial dispute sans holocaust – at least the first 4 decades would be similar. Perhaps not having the ‘holocaust card’ would mean less support from The US and there actually might be a Palestinian state.
Governments have a habit of exploiting their citizenry (and their fears) for political ends. It certainly doesn’t take a holocaust to mobilise a population. See: the 2003 and the leadup to the invasion of Iraq. See now, vis-a-vis Iran.
I don’t mean to pi$$ on Agnon’s personal story of liberation. I just wish it hadn’t involved going to a far away land and crushing the locals.
This guy got Noble prize!
I had intended to post this experience…I must add it as a comment to the suffering Agnon wrote of…
A few nights ago here in Cairo I began a conversation with a young man, a new resident. When I asked where he was from his reply…I was born in Sweden, I am Palestinian from Gaza. Immediately I began my sad tale of trying to enter Gaza.
He listened with patiences. He then told me he was here, with his parents, trying to have his wife released from Gaza, she has a Swedish Visa, so she may return to Sweden with them. “We love each other, we just want to be together.” This was their third try…the first they were here three months, the second one month. It’s been more than a year they’ve tried. “My parents are here, they would love to meet you”
The next evening he takes me to their room….coffee, tea, Palestinian cookies appear from no where. They have lived in Sweden for more than 40 years…they left Gaza because of fear…it was dangerous, no place to be…We discussed the I/P problem, what’s happening, not happening…”It will only be ended by the US…the US has to do it, no one else, no one else can.” I talk about my trip to the West Bank, my surprise that there were many Jewish groups in the US and Israel opposed to what the Israeli government, is doing. The father says, “It’s not the Jews, it’s the Zionistas,,,the settlers now. In the US, do the Jews know? Know what’s being done?” I learn conditions in Sweden are becoming threatening for Palestinians, Muslims ….it was not that way before.
I bring up my passion…the children in Gaza…the art exhibit my friend Joyce and I are developing…”A Child’s View from Gaza” drawings created my the children; art therapy; experiences during “Operation Cast Lead”
The father’s appearance…especially his facial expression…he looks fearful, sad, in excruciating pain….his voice trembled…
and he began his story…”the children”…he repeated a number of times..I was a child, just a child six years, six years and they came….long pause…they came and they, they burned everything…..flames all around even the ground….we ran and ran…my parents were somewhere, I was left running by myself….my parents were gone. My feet were burned, look, look here, here and here, I was only six years old…a child…no one take care of me, no clothes, no bath, on the street only a child. He said he was alone for six weeks I wonder if it was that long, don’t question. How did you find your parents? My father found a man with a very strong voice…he called for me, house to house, on the street. They found me.
When I am older they come again, take the men, boys, boys over…(I can’t remember the age) I was big for my age…I wore short pants so they would not take me with the older boys…my father hid…others his…many were shot….It was, not a good time. We cannot go to Gaza, it is our home, my father’s home, my grandfather’s home our home for hundreds of years…and we cannot go home.
I think….Susan, these people…what they’ve gone through, what they continue to go through…suffering, suffering, suffering…..please, let their daughter in law…their son’s wife come to them…They are so hopeful…so full of love for this girl…..please god, if you are there let this girl come to them. And Susan, your hopes of going to Gaza….your hopes….Having heard their story I realize how insignificant I am.
And Agnon.? Argnon was a writer!…not an old man spilling his story as he sat on his bed in a hotel… suffering by people, individuals, even those from a tribe… does not give a government the right to be evil…it doesn’t explain their “suffering” Individuals suffered…not the Israeli government. And most of the suffering narrative is a story handed down from another generation.
The stories I heard were told by those suffering…trying to live….their suffering caused by a government that represents people who should know better.
Having heard their story I realize how insignificant I am.
I don’t understand why you say this Susan. You’re bearing witness, it’s no small task. Will you look at what you’re doing? You’re in a little hotel in Cairo fighting to get into Gaza (against the wishes of the US, Egyptian and Israeli governments) because of a deeply held conviction people in Gaza should be treated like human beings, not trash. This is not the behaviour of an insignificant person. I don’t know your life but maybe you just mean it has been easy in comparison. That, I get.
Immediately on reading your post I thought of Joe Sacco’s most recent graphic novel, “Footnotes in Gaza”, about the 1956 massacres in Khan Younis and Rafah. Phil and Adam had an ad for the book in their sidebar for months earlier in the year. Do you know it? Since you’re into the arts and drawing I think you probably do.
Actually, from the chronology you relate I wondered if the father had first-hand experience of those events in 1956. I’m guessing when he was 6 the conflict was the 1948/49 wars. The second, when he was an adolescent was possibly Israel’s 1956 Suez Canal invasion and temporary occupation of Gaza. Sacco relates men of fighting age in Khan Younis and Rafah were rounded up and shot. Many hid in fear, as this man’s father did.
I’ll paste a link below to a Jan 2010 radio interview* with Joe Sacco on his book, simultaneously inspiring and heartbreaking. He explains how many people he interviewed in Gaza couldn’t understand why he was interested in 1956, when the current situation was so bad. But there is a ‘secret history’ of Palestine, lost under the dominance of the Israeli narrative. Sacco’s book, and even your writing about the conversation with the father is part of the restoration of that history. Bearing witness.
*I don’t know if you have a computer with you (or are using internet cafes) but you can listen online or download the mp3 & listen at your leisure. If you haven’t already you might mention Sacco’s book/interview to your new friends.
The radio interview:
link to 7thavenueproject.com
The book:
link to amazon.com
—–
I read your recent post about still being stuck in Cairo. Excruciating. I haven’t been there but have dealt w/ Egyptian bureaucracy on a visa issue, and it was mind numbing. And this (trying to get into Gaza) is more than just Egyptian bureaucracy.
Your experience makes a mockery of the supposed “easing” of the blockade. The economy in Gaza remains destroyed, only now the markets are full of produce people can’t afford to buy. It remains a prison camp. People can’t get out (your new friend’s wife), and people can’t get in (you) and Mr. President does nothing about it.
I hope among the drudgery of this wait there are at least some precious moments.
Susan,
Please comment on the link below. What is your gut reaction when you see children manipulated by Hamas? What is stronger, your hatred of Israel or your concern for the Gazan children. How can you protest one without protesting the other, if your main concern is the children of Gaza?
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
These children of Gaza would be the same children that you and yours peppered with air strikes and white phosphorous, yes?
Well, how would you save them from that nasty Hamas manipulation, Chaos?
When I figure out how to save my country from manipulation by foreign-aligned lobbying powerhouses, I will surely pass that advice along to the Palestinians.
Susan, I agree with Sumud. You are doing a hell of a lot more than most of the posters in this forum, and certainly more than me. All I do is mock Witty, and that is hardly a challenge.
You may feel you are beating your head against a brick wall, but you are at least trying to do something useful. Feel good about your efforts, even if they seem to be going nowhere right now.
To be fair, dogging Witty is an exercise in endurance. I should know. The guy is a walking spam server.
I’ll say.
I don’t know if you saw Chaos, but RW inadvertently admitted he’s here to troll:
link to mondoweiss.net
“Admitted I was a troll”??
Why on earth is that statement in quote marks?
Insofar as you’re making comments out of shear self aggrandizement.
He does that all the time. It’s because he can read our thoughts, and knows what we really said.
Let’s quote him: Richard Witty said “My son went to Israel because I raped him every night”
That’s a quote, by the way. See the quote marks?
I think I pulled a “muscle”.
Is “mocking” me an appropriate mode of commentary?
What about content?
Is “mocking” me an appropriate mode of commentary?
How ’bout trolling Richard? Is that appropriate behaviour? You have the rightf to try and control discussion on one blog only and that’s your own.
“Is “mocking” me an appropriate mode of commentary?”
Yes. You employ double standards on human rights and sincere efforts to point this out never get through to you. Mockery is the entirely appropriate option in such cases.
Donald,
Mocking is an effort at censorship.
I support a color-blind approach to human rights, based on law.
It is different from what Israel currently practices (in ways yes, in ways no), and different from what dissent in the varying forms here propose (denying civil and human rights to settlers for example, no day in court for them).
“Mocking is an effort at censorship.”
No. No, it isn’t. The fact that you can never come up with something suitably intelligent or witty (Ha!) to respond to your deriders with, and so are silenced, does not mean you were censored.
Dude, seriously. Take a remedial English class. Either you have a serious deficiency when it comes to understanding the actual established definition of words, or your attempts at metaphorical poetic discourse are falling flat on their faces.
I’ve tried engaging you intellectually regarding your weird ideas about self-determination and Jewish self-government, but you do not seem to have even attempted a coherent response.
Thus, mockery is the appropriate mode of commentary.
Try again, and remain determined to speak to others respectfully, rather than in the self-gratifying mockery.
The liberal world, that is invited to read here, also sees the mockery, rather than the discussion.
I support a color-blind approach to human rights, based on law.
A bald-faced lie.
A few days before the raid on the flotilla you stated you supported an emaciated form of right of return, now that most of those who would be allowed to return in your RoR fantasy were dead.
After I questioned you if you would have supported that interpretation of RoR if it were 1950. You said: No, as Israel wasn’t a strong nation at the time.
This is neither colour-blind nor rule-of-law advocacy. It is precisely the opposite, in both cases. It is jewish supremacism.
Sumud,
It was honest, clear, real.
There are times when peace is impossible and you have to go to the mattresses. 1947-8 was one of those times in Israel.
1950 institutionalized the prohibition against right of return. At the time, it was necessary for Israel to remain Israel, and it was necessary for Israel to remain Israel.
Now, those laws should be repealed (will only happen after a confident peace), and adjudicated in a form consistent with color-blind law.
I personally acknowledge the right of return (to reside in Israel, to be citizens on the basis of their birth) to all individuals that were dispossessed of land/homes within sovereign Israel in 1948. In addition, I acknowledge the right to assertions of relative or perfected title for compensation.
In addition, I personally acknowledge the right of at least one direct generation to assert title claims and repatriation to Israel.
After that, I don’t acknowledge a right of return to residence. Title claims should be assertable.
I distinguish that form of right of return from the generalized maximalist view that any Palestinian regardless of what part he/she or their family lived, has the “right to return” to any part of historic Palestine.
So, what specific form of “right of return” do you advocate for?
Or, is it intentionally vague?
The liberal world, that is invited to read here, also sees the mockery, rather than the discussion.
Mondoweiss is doing pretty well that I see. The support of hardcore “liberal” zionists like yourself isn’t required for MW to flourish.
“At the time, it was necessary for Israel to remain Israel, and it was necessary for Israel to remain Israel.”
It makes sense if you speak it. Restricting the right of return was necessary if Israel was going to stay Israel.
And, objectively, it was necessary for the Jewish refugees to not assimilate into an Arab world that organized pogroms against them, that regarded it as just to sniper fire at kibbutzniks, in a word, to remain Israel.
After all that justification, you’re still opportunistically anti-law and jewish supremacist.
So, what specific form of “right of return” do you advocate for?
The eight of returned legally sanctioned by the UN.
Get it?
That’s what the rule of law actually means, not pushing some frankenstein formulation designed to exclude as many Palestinians as possible (and reward as many Israeli jews as possible) and then tarting it up with “I support the rule of law!”
Your lipsticked pig is still a pig Richard.
If you can empathise with this, then you should have no difficulty in empathising and understanding the feelings of Palestinians, who have suffered as badly, if not worse. Palestinians, however, tend not to categorise themselves as superior beings, as this writer does towards the end. Victimhood and supremacism are a toxic mix.
“I planted a tree, and lived in that place with my wife and children, by the will of our Rock and Creator. ”
Agnon was good at conjuring up surreal stuff; too bad he never had the imagination to conjure up The Lemon Tree. Rock? Creator? Gott mit uns.
I don’t see how this can explain Israel’s actions. It seems to me Phil Weiss regretted — extremely regretted — posting the article yesterday about his conversation with Europeans whom he met in Jordan. So, this article was in a sense a way to backtrack, or more accurately, to provide “balance”.
That’s my sense of what is happening here. If anyone wants to use this to “explain” Israel’s actions in 1948 and today, then that person still has a lot of work to do.
But, hey, what do I know.
Agnon writes from religious/messianic perspective, refers to ‘disturbances of 1929 (5629—which numerically is equal to “The Eternity of Israel”)’. There are no enemies, but The Enemy, force of darkness.
By the way, it is worth to recall another “Chosen People” who settled a new land and made farms and vineyards where there was only a desolation, then they were conquered, so they trekked across the desert and built a new homeland, were conquered again and rebelled, so the Enemy sent the entire people to concentration camps (invented for the occasion) but they prevailed, and vowed to preserve the purity of their nation forever, and thus enacted Apartheid. (Calvinist notion of being elected can be pretty close to “Chosen”.) Apartheid was born of Afrikaner suffering, and Ku-Klux-Klan and Jim Crow, from Yankee occupation (a.k.a. Reconstruction).
Susan: sometimes “government” is the extra force that magnifies suffering by dint of superior organization, but sometimes a whirlwind of war can destroy the governments and people have to seek the scant safety in tribal bonds. Agnon’s hometown, Buczacz, was in the middle of such terrible war around 1650, as Ukrainian peasants and Kossacks rebelled against Polish lords and their Jewish agents. Buczacz was a fortress built and expanded by a succession of Polish lords, and Poles and Jews survived a siege by Ukrainians, but many towns did not, and many Poles and Jews did not reach safety. In the open areas between the fortified towns the Crown troops were defeated, the only defenses were by individuals (who were not hopeless, as every noble was a warrior, and Jews, well, could be armed for the occasion). When the lords had the upper hand, the retribution was terrible, rebels were impaled. 300 years later mutual hatreds were still strong, in spite of long reigns of distant empires.
I must admit that I was rather ignorant about S. Y. Agnon, born as Halevy Czaczkes/Tchatchkes. Apparently, he was a good writer and surely not a one-dimensional ranter. He was well versed in Messianism and Kaballah, and in rationalist Mitnagdim tradition, and in German culture, and not given to unambiguous morality. I found a link to his version ofHad Gadya. Note the theme of hope for peace, however ironically introduced.
“….because it helps explain some of Israel’s conduct.”…..
Bullshit.
“Tens of thousands of Israel, none of whom the enemy was worthy even to touch,”…..
Obviously your enemies thought you needed an ‘attitude’ adjustment.
Agnon wrote it shortly after learning what happened to his hometown, and you should check Wiki page “Buczacz”.
>> – There was no “Land of Israel” before or during WWII.
Clarification: There was no “Land of Israel” during WWII or for centuries prior to it.
So Richard is all in favor of respectful discussion, but he can make up quotes? Sure, Okay, whatever…