David Shulman reviewing both Sari Nusseibeh's What Is a Palestinian State Worth and Occupation of the Territories: Israeli Soldier Testimonies 2000–2010 by Breaking the Silence offers readers what might best be described as a 'Hold onto your Hat' experience at New York Review of Books.
Shulman opens with an inviting description of the Palestinian non violent movement by way of a visit to the village of al-Nabi Salih, introducing us to the eloquent Ali Abu Awwad.
The article's political trajectory picks up thru the introduction of Sari Nusseibeh, Palestinian philosopher, author and President of al-Quds University in Jerusalem. A "moral optimist" once so dedicated to forging a two state solution he joined with Ami Ayalon, former Shin Bet director, to forge a way--tho Nusseibeh no longer has certainty two states is worth the effort. Shulman journeys us thru Nusseibeh's illuminating prescience, in viewing history as an evolving “moral trajectory”.
Essentially one comes to believe this might be Shulman's own story. Initially tempered, his even pacing quickly builds as question upon question merge Israel's actions and responses. He'd earlier described the Israeli academic establishment's "stony and impassive silence." A transformation takes place as he lashes away with distress at those convinced of the inevitability of one state, but has no qualms about naming those who he feels are responsible:
I don’t agree [with those who seek one state], but I think we are rapidly approaching such a result, and I think the cause is, on one level, entirely clear. It lies in the steadfast reluctance of the Israeli establishment to make a real peace, under any circumstances. What the present government and the Israeli security services clearly want is to continue the occupation under one form or another, maintaining near-total control over the entire Palestinian population.
He scathes after Breaking the Silence's testimonials with an insistence that persists thru his infuriation:
This particular system could not continue to exist without a profound and willful blindness that we Israelis have cultivated for decades, and whose roots undoubtedly predate the existence of the State of Israel itself. I am speaking of blindness not to the existence of millions of Palestinian people—they are there for all to see—but to the full humanity of these people, their natural equality to us, and the parity (at least that, if one can measure such things) between their collective claim to the land and ours. There is also, again, a studied blindness to the cumulative trauma that we Israelis have inflicted upon the Palestinians in the course of realizing our own national goals (and later, in going far beyond any rational conception of such goals)....
This is no ordinary blindness; it is a sickness of the soul that takes many forms, from a dull but superficial apathy to the silence and passivity of ordinary, decent people, to the malignant forms of racism and protofascist nationalism that are becoming more and more evident and powerful in today’s Israel, including segments of the present government. I suppose that to acknowledge these facts is too demoralizing, and too laden with potential guilt, for most of us. Often it seems that we will do anything—even risk catastrophic war—to avoid having to look our immediate neighbors in the face, to peel away the mythic mask. Palestinian violence over many years has made it easier for Israelis to make this choice, but it is important to bear in mind that it is, indeed, exactly that, a choice. There is a clear alternative—clearer today than ever before. In the history of this conflict, Israelis have by no means had a monopoly on blindness, but they are the party with by far the largest freedom of action and the greatest potential to bring about serious change.
The article culminates in a promising challenge of will, exactly what Shulman describes as Nusseibeh 's intentions. "He wants [Israelis] to step back from prejudice and an obsession with brute force and to open their eyes. He wants them to find in themselves the generosity of spirit needed in order to take a chance on peace, whether in the form of two states or a single binational entity or, perhaps, some kind of confederation." Ultimately one can't help but notice Shulman is a moral optimist himself. He's both courageous and convincing. To NYRB's Zionist readers, beware, a wave is upon you.
Why is it only Jews who are allowed to give the anti Zionist view in the NYRoB?
maybe because that’s the only people diehard zionists might trust to tell them the truth about israel seafoid.
The NYRoB is reference grade on lots of topics. But it goes all tabloid on Israel. I never learn anything reading it on Israel. Malley and Agha ? Freedland on Lieberman ? Why not give the space to Haydar abdel Shafi or that therapist from Gaza?
Here is a video of a Zionist problem that needs to be addressed in the NYRoB
link to youtube.com
shoot and cry
Great perspectives. Thanks for posting.
The appearance of this article is clearly progress and itself an example of silence breaking. Still, I can’t help feeling that the author’s painstaking equivocations will one day seem shameful. For example, consider his closing reference to “the tortured peoples of Israel and Palestine”. No doubt there is a moral sense in which the torturer is himself tortured; but this is hardly the same thing. I don’t understand how anyone can read those heartbreaking stories from Breaking the Silence and then write like this. Perhaps, though, it is simply the price of admission into the NYRB.
true, it is a completely different kind of torture, one being self inflicted. how can people live with themselves knowing they have caused so much suffering of others. this reminds me of ben’s thread from the other day.
“Parity of claims on the land”?
Is that a joke?
There ain’t no parity whatsoever.
No parity Gellian?
Why, because the Bible says so?
Well, according to some. Oh and by the way, Shingo, God just told me that he promised me your house. Now clear the fuck out before I bring in a tank and some white phosphorus to make you leave.
well he is right that their is not a parity but the balence favors the palestinians
Jews are disproportionately represented in the upper echelons of the US media. It is among these power brokers where we need to look to understand how these self-denominated gatekeepers determine the range of permitted debate when Israel/Palestine is discussed. NPR and the New York Times are obvious examples of mainstream gatekeepers that have narrow limits to the range of debate allowed. The New York Review of Books and Nation Magazine are more liberal gatekeepers, but active gatekeepers nonetheless.
Still too much of a shoot $ cry whiff as Annie says. I’ve never heard anyone talk about the trauma of indigenous Australians AND the rest of us as if it were some kind of shared trauma. Same with the experience of the native population of USA. Who puts liberal guilt on par with dispossession & murder?