The last couple weeks I spent a lot of time inside the Jewish fear. I mean the understanding that exists broadly within the American Jewish community that Yes, we know that we have our boot on the Palestinians’ neck; but if we lift our boot they are going to slit our throat.
This fear transcends political point of view. Hardcore Zionists have it, and so do liberal Zionists. And even non-Zionists have it. They are all afraid of what will happen when an order of Jewish control gives way to a different order. And even if they are for that change, they are fearful of what will befall the Jews.
And so you have hard-core Zionists saying that to support a one-state solution is to call for genocide… or Yossi Klein Halevi pleading with Peter Beinart to respect our fear that even setting up a Palestinian state is going to mean horrors for Jews... and Beinart insisting that he believes in the fear because the friend who was supposed to be the rabbi at his wedding was blown up in Jerusalem… and I went to a Jewish Voice for Peace event in Manhattan and there too you were several speakers talking about the fear. Mandy Patinkin saying we must walk into the nerve center of the fear.
That is the pervasive fear. That Jews in their meetings address.
And I'd say that fear was perfectly reflected in the disgraceful New York Times editorial yesterday ruing the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation because Hamas doesn't accept Israel. They are going to throw us into the sea.
Now I want to shift the scene completely. I want to pull the fear backdrop away entirely and tell you about something that happened Friday night.
That night I went to the International House at Berkeley for a presentation of actor Kahled Abol Naga’s films of Tahrir Square. The room was jammed with people, There must have been 150 in the space. And many of them were Muslim or Arab, including the organizer Mohammad Talat, who has written for our site, who has a lovely smile and was carrying in boxes of soft drinks.
And at the start of the presentation they showed a film about an American ophthalmologist named Amr el Desouky who went over to Egypt to treat the eye injuries of people hurt in the revolution. You can see the video here. One after another, we were introduced to young people who had been in Tahrir to fight for their freedom, and many of them had gotten shot in the head with rubber bullets, or even real bullets, and had lost eyes. Or they had rubber bullets lodged inside their eye cavities, or one woman had had her retina shot through. And the well-spoken American doctor met with them and tried to treat them.
And one after another these young people said that they would have lost two eyes for their freedom, theirs was a small sacrifice. And the doctor himself said that he revered these youth because they had taken the plunge past the fear to do something that Egyptians had been dreaming of for generations. And so he flew over to help them. And a young woman who had lost her vision in her left eye said that they had only defended their rights and their country, and the martyrs were the real defenders-- the ones who had given their lives for freedom.
I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room as we watched these noble young people, who conquered their fears of the unknown and of the dark violent forces and who took the greatest risk for freedom.
Because all the Arabs in the room and also their friends were united in hope: that 84 million people in Egypt will at last have freedom.
I hope you see where I am going with this. I don’t think that a greater contrast exists between a privileged group that is fearful and a rightless group that goes past the fears to fill itself with hope. I don't think there is a greater spiritual contrast.
I spend a lot of my time in that fearful privileged group. I do so because I think Jews are powerful in political and cultural affairs in the U.S., and because I want to help save my community from the misbegotten cult that is nationalism.
But when I was in International House, I understood what my real community is. It is the community of people who dream of freedom and struggle for freedom. Millions of Palestinians are in that community, because they have few rights. And yes there are great Jews in that struggle, like Jonathan Pollak being smashed into the ground at Nabi Saleh, Pollak would give an eye for freedom; but so many other Jews are on the wrong side of this struggle and operating out of pure fear, worrying about what they will lose.
I can’t valorize these fears. I know that Jews in Israel will lose something, they should lose something. And of course I also fear the bloodshed. But the selfishness of worrying about our community--well it is the selfishness that tolerated the oppression of the Egyptians for 30 years in the name of a cold peace and the selfishness that today countenances the rightslessness of the Palestinians in the name of Jewish fears.
It is not anywhere I want to be. I want to be in that large wide community of hope as the Middle East surges forward through history.
incredible post
Thank you.
Thanks indeed for the honesty and intelligent analysis.
Tell the fearful ones that it’s not the Palestinians (or the other Arabs around them, for that matter) who have over a hundred nuclear bombs, and the most powerful army and the region, AND (so far) the unquestioning support of the mighty US of A.
The Third Reich is no more, accept it.
Oh and one more thing, if the fearful ones want a Jewish-controlled country so badly, then get the fuck out of Palestinian territory, and rule what can justly be called Israel (eg pre 1967 borders) however you want. Which means letting go if an exclusive right to Jerusalem.
The Egyptians were facing their personal fear to do some good for themselves and their people. The Israelis (and USA Jews) have fear (you tell me and I must believe you) but they seem to wrap themselves in it as a reason for NOT doing anything. If the Palestinians are a fearful enemy, how does denying them their state improve mattes? does it weaken them, this perpetual imprisonment of 5 million people? If they lived in Jordan (after another 1948-style purge), would they be less to be feared? If Israeli military power is sufficient to frighten Egypt and Lebanon and Jordan into not attacking Israel, how is it not frightening enough to prevent Palestinians (in WB&G) from attacking?
I guess I’m missing something, but this fear (and this fear-talk, this justification, this concentration on fear) seems to me to be used (yes used) as justification for increasingly horrible lawlessness by Israel, rather as if Israelis (and USA Jews) are saying, we are fearful so we cannot do anything FOR the Palestinians, but whilst we wrestle with our own fear, we are content to let the government of Israel and the settlers (as a new and super-lawless force) make the Palestinians hate us even more than they already did.
Something does not add up here.
Phil wrote:
“Because all the Arabs in the room and also their friends were united in hope: that 84 million people in Egypt will at last have freedom.”
The jury is still out on that one because at this point, it’s looking like Mubarak is going to be replaced either by the military or by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists poised to take control of the legislature this fall. With either party, freedom is going to be hard to get.
As to his Jewish question, the Jews have reason to fear an eventual one state because of what they did to the Palestinians during all these years and they won’t forget as easily as you are hoping. It’s been over 70 years that the Nazis did to the Jews what they are themselves now more or less doing to the Palestinians and if Jews are not allowed to forgive and forget, why should the Palestinians? Israel’s survival as a majority Jewish state is dependent on its willingness to move back to the 67 line that most Palestinians have accepted as their borders and to work out the compensation that is due to those that were dispossessed. If they don’t, they would be living as third class citizens as the Palestinians are now living.
Walid, using your logic, the apartheid S Afrikkaners had reason to fear an eventual one state too, right–one where the majority would be black–with equal vote? We all know what the world did with that fear–ignored it, for the greater good. Did the world do this because they were anti-white? Because the Jews (your term) haven’t forgot what the Nazis did to them, and indeed are chasing down Germans in their 90′s for what they did as teen-agers, we should, what, not allow the Palestinians to seek justice too? I don’t get your point. It makes no sense except under the assumption that all, or at least most free Palestinians would opt for being hard core ethnic racists given the chance.
Citizen, I’m not a Palestinian but a 2 of them came into the family through marriage and so I have nephews and nieces that are half Palestinian so I sort of get what they feel. I don’t believe Palestinians are or would be racist given the opportunity of being the majority in a one state but I ‘m saying that they can’t be expected to forgive and forget, as Phil is hoping, simply because of the misery they have been enduring all these years. I don’t think Palestinians would go out of their way to herd Jews into ghettos as is being done to them today, because it’s not in their nature. But I’m also sure they wouldn’t go out of their way to make them comfortable either because they would still remember the pain and humiliation they suffered at their hands all these years. The Palestinians just want to be left alone and I’m also sure that if this were to happen, they wouldn’t waste any time going about looking for revenge as I may have led you to believe.
I may have conflated two fears. I addressed Jewish-Israeli fear of reprisal from Palestinians — as a reason for further torturing and dispossessing them, it did not add up. But there is also a fear of being forced (but by whom?) to give back what was stolen and to make reparation for harm done since 1948 and since 1967. Again, although one understands this, the fear of the guilty criminal of punishment, how do the Israeli-Jews imagine that thie feared comeupance, if there is a power in the world sufficient to exact it, will be any the less if they continue and make more severe their depredations?
My guess is the fear-talk is just that, talk, and not part of a rational anything. They hate the Nazis, but do not act on it. They fear another Holocaust, but do not act on it (except by intensifying the hatred of the Palestinians and other Arabs and thus increasing, if anything, the likelihood of it occurring). They fear being forced to make reparations and act on this fear by increasing the reparations they may someday be forced to pay.
Perhaps they merely feel invincible — or doomed — in either case, see no reason to act rationally.
Lovely post, Phil.
I don’t think fear matters that much. We feared the Russians but we did not know go “Israelis” on them. Israelis do not crush Palestinians because they’re afraid of them. They do it because they can (justification given by Tom Friedman for going into Iraq “because we could”).
Invocating fear to justify the miserable life of the Palestinians is like a voodoo incantations. It is the 101 of Israeli hypocrisy: “Oh we need to grab all this land because we’re so scareeeeeed!”.
No! You grab land because you want land. If you really “fear”, you don’t grab the land of the people that you fear (see “cold war”).
This permanent existential struggle is staged for grabbing land. It all plays in “we’re the real victims” line. I don’t buy it.
“Israelis do not crush Palestinians because they’re afraid of them. They do it because they can.”
Excellent point, jewishgoyim.
* This is a comparison between a group that had nothing to lose and a group that stands to lose a lot (of privilege). It reminds me of the fear that grips monarchs in Saudi Arabia or Jordan when their citizens speak of freedom and equality.
* And although I am familiar with the fear that the Jewish community marinates itself in, I’m still not sure if it’s true fear or if it’s mere rationalization to maintain that privilege.
* I have a cousin who dreads entering Palestinian towns in Israel, yet his sister of similar age has no problem whatsoever. The difference is that she is more politically and intellectually sophisticated, and emotionally mature. So, perhaps one can extrapolate from that about the wider Jewish community, especially in the US.
“”And I’d say that fear was perfectly reflected in the disgraceful New York Times editorial yesterday ruing the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation because Hamas doesn’t accept Israel.”"
++++ Gandhi in time, opposed creation of Pakistan. He didnt admit legitimacy of Pakistan state, but he understood a need to create her.
“Gandhi in time, opposed creation of Pakistan. He didnt admit legitimacy of Pakistan state, but he understood a need to create her.”
Mig, Gandhi said a lot of things about the Jews, their persecution and about the wrong of their covetting Palestine under a Biblical pretext. It’s regrettable that all those that keep asking where is the Palestinian Gandhi are dropping his name without knowing much about him and what he thought of the Jews. In a long 1938 letter addressed to the Jews that was published in Harijan, Gandhi started with:
““Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and in-human to impose the Jews on the Arabs… Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and the persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question.”
and after advice to the Jews of Europe and how to act with Hitler, he gets to the part about Paletine:
“… And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.
I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.
Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine not by aggression but by loving service. A Jewish friend has sent me a book called The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation by Cecil Roth. It gives a record of what the Jews have done to enrich the world? literature, art, music, drama, science, medicine, agriculture, etc. Given the will, the Jew can refuse to be treated as the outcaste of the West, to be despised or patronised. He can command the attention and respect of the world by being man, the chosen creation of God, instead of being man who is fast sinking to the brute and forsaken by God. They can add to their many contributions the surpassing contribution of non-violent action.
November 20, 1938
For full article by Gandhi:
link to hartford-hwp.com
Walid, thank you so much for the Gandhi excerpts. I’m the hugest fan of Gandhi but in this case he really hit the nail on the head, and I’m suprised not to have come across his statements on Zionism before.
My grandfather, who came to Palestine from Poland, believed that Jews arriving in that land should be integrating with and assimilating to Arab culture. He believed that assimilation in Europe had “bastardized” Judaism, and that “true” Jewish culture looked more like Mizrachi and Arab culture, that in order to leave behind the nightmare of the European Jewish experience one had to learn Arabic, to understand and respect Islam, to become a member of that society (a society that many Zionists at the time denied even existed, as we know). He made it his mission to teach Arabic to newly arriving Jews.
I think he was also trying to do as Gandhi says here, to “convert the Arab heart,” to come not as a haughty and demanding aggressor, but as a refugee, the way that immigrants to the US are forced to prove their love for this country and intention to properly assimilate in order to gain entry – I have found myself in certain situations reciting the Shahada as a kind of Pledge of Allegiance. He came as a guest. He hoped not to expel or dominate the Arabs in Palestine, but to humbly receive some of their world-famous hospitality. Our own Pirkei Avot tells us; avoid mastery over others, avoid close relationship with government. Zionist collaboration with Britain flouted both of these.
You quote Gandhi saying; “every country is their home including Palestine not by aggression but by loving service”. For someone like me, with a very flimsy sense of home (the stolen Palestinian land on which I was born…? the stolen Ohlone land on which I live now…?) this is a truly meaningful sentiment.
“but if we lift our boot they are going to slit our throat.
This fear transcends political point of view. Hardcore Zionists have it, and so do liberal Zionists. And even non-Zionists have it.”
And like so many things the I lobby, Israel, hard core Zionist repeat the opposite is the truth. Israel keeps their boot on the neck of the Palestinians and “slit their throats” slowly but surely
I have heard far more Jews in the US. say violent and radical things about Palestinians than I have heard Palestinians (have attended several large Palestinian rallies in D.C.) say about Jews in the U.S. Israeli’s
In fact at both Palestinian rallies I attended I did not hear one radical or violent thing said by a Palestinian and I talked with many.
At several Palestinian Solidarity gatherings in Columbus and in Denver Colorado I heard Jewish students, Rabbi’s and other Jews in attendance scream out very violent and threatening statements. Heard this with my own ears
“Heard this with my own ears”
Yup, when I was scared, scaredf for my life, that’s what I always do! I stand up and curse at and threaten the people I’m afraid of. Works every time!
Phil, you usually display wisdom, decency and common sense, but here, you add brilliant observations and connections and exceptionally beautiful writing. Great post.
Out of the park. Thank you Phil.
I’ll present a contrasting view.
The denial of a person’s or community’s fear is not progressive. Exageration of the fear also isn’t progressive.
Fear presents information. If the information is ignored, bad results occur. If the information is exagerated, bad results occur.
The important effort is to put the fear into perspective, NOT to dismiss or condemn it.
You seem to think you know what isn’t progressive but it’s been painfully apparent you have no idea what actually is progressive.
Keep dealing in negatives though. It’s your strong suit!
“The important effort is to put the fear into perspective”
Gee, and I thought that is exactly what Phil Weiss is doing. Of course, for a guy who pimps fear, that would be hard to see, but keep trying, Witty. And for God’s sake, cover yourself! A Speedo, flipflops, and a Long Live Israel T-shirt is a very undignified way for a man of your advanced age to dess.
I find myself morbidly amused.
Witty, if you put your own fear into perspective you’d be Phil Weiss, not Dick Witty. Watch out! I think I saw a David Duke kid waiting for you behind that tree. See it? Way back in the dim mist? Just like Chris’s monkey in the closet on Family Guy. And now–who’s that? That clean-cut young adult just strolling up your sidewalk like he owned it… Ah, a pedophile, he must think your son is still in the USA, that dirty rotten US Army recruiter…
My impression was that he was denying the relevance of the fear.
I just watched the clip of Tony Kushner on Democracy Now that Phil referred to in another post, in which he described the fear of anti-semitism in the world as real and significant.
“If the information is ignored, bad results occur. If the information is exagerated, bad results occur.”
The Fear must be Measured!
Quantitative Fear…that is the answer!
Thanks, Phil.
Yesterday, I had a long conversation on the phone with a lefty relative who lives in Jerusalem. It was Israel Independence Day so the conversation drifted towards these issues. She makes a point of driving out to a nearby West Bank village to buy produce and they are as progressive as you can get in Israel without being active politically. In other words, she lives in a bubble. She says so herself.
She said: “I have a right to live the way I do and I will not give that up to become like the rest of the Middle East.”
I told her that I was struck by her lack of hope in the future. Living in Israel is harder than living in the U.S. Israel’s appeal has always been that it gives back something extra. The Israeli anthem is called “The Hope.” And now they are failing their own mission statement. Instead of being the hope that lifts the fear, Israel has become the place that generates fear. Why should anybody give a damn about that.
You can live in a bubble if the bubble is expanding. A bubble of activists. A Mondoweiss bubble. But if your bubble is an escape and a place where you run to to be passive and fearful, then how long will that last?
Israel cannot escape into its own bubble. It just won’t work.
Right, Elliot, it didn’t always work in the diaspora, when they had not even a pistol, and won’t always work now that they have the bomb and a mighty army. Waving those things about actually frightens “the other.” In that case, fear breeds fear.
“You can live in a bubble if the bubble is expanding. A bubble of activists. A Mondoweiss bubble.”
Very nice. Elliot.
“….The denial of a person’s or community’s fear is not progressive. Exageration of the fear also isn’t progressive…”
Over the odd 7 years being an observer of the pro-zionist, pro-Israel agenda/plan, fear often seems to be the base emotion. Fear primarily being used to rationalize the absolute necessity of a Jewish (religious mascot) State. So, when anyone tries to argue against the utter futility of trying to setup effectively a 21stC colonial state — the fear kicks in and they are unable to see the forest for the trees. Fear has locked you into a rigid plan, an ideal of a Jewish state that was maybe planted in your head as child, as fantasy quest — that in reality has long long passed you by.
Any supposed Jewish “survival plan” that requires a concrete wall, and racist legislation to keep the ants (non-Jews) out — to me, just defies logic. The fact that Israel whether it wants to expand terrority in anticipation for the hords of Jews around the world that need safety, or are looking for a larger (military) buffer zone — again defies logic.
In addition, the constant, I mean constant stream of money to prop up this “safe haven” (as well as the questionable long-term plan of paying off the neighbors) again should be sending a clear and mighty message — that the plan is not going to work.
Fear maybe the base emotion in many Jews, but I also think there’s a fair bit of narcissism involved as well, especially when it comes to the public gloating by many of the Jewish elite who like to inform us how much power they can weld (e.g. Foxman, Rosen, Saban etc.) — especially in political circles.
In all seriousness, I’m not sure if therapy is going to get over this fear – because in many cases how much its ingrained, but I hope something clicks in the minds of those that think we can maintain this ‘forced’ ritual of saving Israel’s arse time and time again.
The “fear” is, the majority of the time, a pretense. Ask yourself if these Zionists are acting like people who are really afraid, who people who have found a pretense of fear to be a successful moral and political bargaining chip.
Of course, to people who have never experienced fear, it might be a pretty convincing schtick, especially when the people you are afraid of can be simultaneously attributed with the aspects of supermen and barbarous sub-humans.
Let me see, a guy has a choice of two countries in which to live, military obligations in neither of them, and complete freedom to come and go as he pleases, but he’s afraid? I get a whiff of something, but it’s not fear.
“The ‘fear’ is, the majority of the time, a pretense. ”
Outstandingly perceptive comment, Mooser. I won’t try to add a thing.
“…The “fear” is, the majority of the time, a pretense. Ask yourself if these Zionists are acting like people who are really afraid, who people who have found a pretense of fear to be a successful moral and political bargaining chip…”
OK, but being charitable and having read about the group-hugging and hand-wringing at J-Street pro-Zionist meetings, and my own experience being confronted with some really (IMO) cognitive dissident liberal/progressive Zionists — the venom coming out of their mouths might make you pause to consider something else is going on other than fear — but the eyes (just maybe) might be revealing some fear – the fear that they don’t want to go to a place where they’d have to justify their Zionist feelings because they’d have to confront the fact they could be Wrong… Very Wrong… (just maybe).
American Jews do have something to be afraid of, and that is the possibility of an anti-Semitic backlash for the effects their support of Israel has had on the USA.
The remedy is simple. Stop supporting Israel.
Israeli Jews do have something to be afraid of, and that is that the evil they have done will be returned to them.
The remedy is not so simple, but it certainly includes committing no more evil, and attempting recompense for the evil they have done.
Insanely, they seem to think that the remedy is to commit yet more evil.
>> Insanely, they seem to think that the remedy is to commit yet more evil.
That’s Zio-supremacist “common sense” at work. Even the more moderate ones – the ones who would “hold their noses” while their hardier co-collectivists do all the dirty work – can’t seem to break free of its spell.
“Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens” is a cold way to be but, hey, sometimes it’s just “necessary”.
that think we can maintain this ‘forced’ ritual of saving Israel’s arse time and time again.
The basic problem is that we can’t save them backwards in time.
I will look closer into the psychological issue, and see if it helps me to understand Richard’s Witty’s: “ethnic cleansing” is “not necessary now”, as he wrote. Was this a backward rationalization, or was it really a potential future scenario to him? Maybe I can find out why he doesn’t worry that there aren’t any Germans in his scenario, but as it feels, whatever kind of new Amalek ad infinitum.
>> I will look closer into the psychological issue, and see if it helps me to understand Richard’s Witty’s: “ethnic cleansing” is “not necessary now”, as he wrote. Was this a backward rationalization, or was it really a potential future scenario to him?
Referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as “currently not necessary” was RW’s weasel way out of condemning a clearly immoral and unjust act, because he considers it to have been “necessary”.
At least as disturbing is the fact that although he does not currently consider it to be necessary, he has not ruled out the possibility that, in the future, it may be “necessary” once again: “I cannot consistently say that ‘ethnic cleansing is never necessary’.”
In his words, “To rationalize terror in any way is to ‘invest’ in it.” RW has rationalized the terror of ethnic cleansing and, so, he has “invested” in it.
He’s a real “humanist”, that guy is.
“That is the pervasive fear. That Jews in their meetings address.”
When they get scared enough to stop having meetings and publicly declaring how scared they are, I’ll get concerned.
Besides: “I’m so scared of you, I have to kill you” somehow just doesn’t wash for me. If you are capable of killing them, what are you so scared about?
Of course, if it’s impossible to think that one type of Jew is scaring the other for their own purposes…. Oh, what am I talking about, one Jew would never, ever do anything to mislead another.
Da’ Moose,
Brilliant. LoL.
And before we get some absurd and tendentious comparisoms, ( “why don’t you let the Mexicans take over California?”) as I remember the civil rights era, people had meetings to show they were not scared.
Da’ Moose ;)
Phil,
Aren’t you doing exactly what extremists do, painting a world of black and white, without nuance?
Hey Americans, why are you afraid of immigration from Mexico? Isn’t it time that millions of Mexicans had an opportunity to live like you in the US? Open the borders completely, why are you living in fear? Make the choice of hope. How about letting any Iraqi that wishes to immigrate to the US do so? Don’t you owe that to the Iraqis after what you have done to their country?
The irresponsible rhetoric above does not make sense, just as yours doesn’t.
I continue to be amused by the fact that you think the best way you have of persuading Jewish American youths is to berate them and insult their nationality.
Maybe if we were talking about Saudi Arabians or Egyptians resettling in Israel, that argument would make sense. As it stands, we’re not. Palestinians live there, on that land you are stealing from them. You are the “Mexican immigrant,” eee — only unlike our Mexican immigrants, you aren’t looking for an honest chance and a future for your children, but dreams of avarice and empire. And whereas Mexican immigrants just wanted to be treated fairly, you’re wresting privilege at the expense of others from the barrel of your Uzi.
Chaos, exactly.
In addition, Israelis love having a “cold peace” with Egypt. Somebody else has already observed that Israelis would freak out if thousands of Egyptian men suddenly decided to take their vacation on Tel Aviv’s beaches.
The U.S. actually does bring in millions of immigrants. It is a flawed system but nothing compared to the Israeli one where a goy remains a goy.
Powerful stuff, Phil. You’ve captured the zeitgeist perfectly.
Phil- “Save my community from the misbegotten cult that is nationalism.” Is it the cult aspects of nationalism that you object to? If it is a misbegotten cult in 2011, was it also a misbegotten cult in 1939? And if it wasn’t a misbegotten cult in 1939 then it’s not its cultishness that you object to it’s that the crisis for which zionism was a valid response ended in 1945.
(The “conflict” between the Arab countries and their Jewish populations that resulted in the overwhelming hawkishness of the Mizrachi Jews as a voting bloc in Israel has never been dealt with in a serious way on this blog and can’t be given justice by someone like me.)
So cult or not, zionism had its moment but that moment has passed and in its place is the present tense, in which you feel that Jewish/Israeli nationalism is oppressive to Palestinians in its very essence and thus it is misbegotten.
It is up to Jewish nationalism to prove that its very essence is not incompatible with Palestinian freedom and this proof must consist in actions rather than in logical rhetoric and the actions have been proving the lack of concern with Palestinian freedom.
People who are willing to die, so that their children will be free is a different proposal than people condemning their children to death for a nice sounding ideal that “will not work” on the ground. when the Egyptian revolution will be 17 years old and not younger than 17 weeks old, then the proof of the accomplishment of the martyrs of the Egyptian revolution (street disorder that led the military to dismiss Mubarak, a military that wants to move the country in the direction of Turkey, democratic and Islamic, without the Ataturk separation of mosque and state.)
It is true that freedom is expensive, but you are comparing people who are willing to die so their children will have freedom and the Israelis are being asked to sacrifice their children for something that is more dream than reality.
Thanks for admitting that Zionists and Israelis use their children as human shields. Very honest of you.
“If it is a misbegotten cult in 2011, was it also a misbegotten cult in 1939?”
Yes.
” the crisis for which zionism was a valid response ended in 1945. ”
Zionism was never a valid response.
“Zionism was never a valid response.”
Saying that does not deny that the Jews have problems, does not deny that the Jews were persecuted, does not deny that the Jews have suffered great tragedies. It simply says what the past sixty years have shown.
It was a perfectly, given the times, understandable response. And given the times, it’s hard to completely condemn the men who carried it out.
But it was the wrong answer.
“It was a perfectly, given the times, understandable response. And given the times, it’s hard to completely condemn the men who carried it out.
But it was the wrong answer.”
Understandable, yes. But the immorality of Zionism was discernable at the time, even if no-one noticed it.
Weiss: “But when I was in International House, I understood what my real community is. It is the community of people who dream of freedom and struggle for freedom. Millions of Palestinians are in that community ….”
Great piece. Glad to see you state the above explicitly. So much for ethnocentrism?
There is another kind of fear squeezing the amygdalas of many Jews at these Angst-baths: fear and loathing over possible loss of political clout. What is ethnocentricity for if it can’t preserve power when you’ve already got it.
Phil,
Well written, you captured that event well. Perfect.
And I’m glad you’re using the boot on the neck analogy, it’s so apt to describe the situation of Israeli/international Jewry in relation to the Palestinians.
thanks matthew, yes you were there and you also said boot on the neck to me. and micha kurz told me about it last year. thank you thank you
The healing of fears come from clear acceptance. Israel has not experienced that yet.
Your blog has not offered that, the opposite in fact.
In ways, your blog is a stimulus to fear, rather than a means to relax it. You have adopted the “oppose it” approach. But, ironically, that approach confirms that the fears are real.
And, to add salt on the wounds, you add to that, the “dismiss it” approach. If you were successful at building a mass movement of those two themes, you would construct a fascism.
Norman Finkelstein has stated on occassion, and is the theme of “The Holocaust Industry”, that the fear is ONLY a means to power (as implied in your statement that the fear is primarily a pretense). Rather than sensitively heal, only confronting.
I find it interesting that your cause celebre of the hour, Tony Kushner, stated the opposite, that the fear of anti-semitism was plausible, real, still present, with gross expressions of it (changing ones) still nascient.
There are ways to honor the actual and plausible fears, and by deriving information, distinguish from the manipulation of the fears by more cynical.
By “deriving information” I mean that when someone indicates the presence of some fear, a mediator will probe for the cause and invoking stimulus of the fear (the two are different, the cause is the plausible, the invoking stimulus is the “button” – as in pressing someone’s buttons).
Things like dissing (more than “reporting”) Fatah for compromising in the effort to remove obstacles to peace, are examples of what I mean.
Intent is so important. In both Israeli, Palestinian and solidarity communities, the Pavlovian invocation of fears is observable. If the intent of learning is to heal, to reconcile, to mediate, then learning of what stimulates fear allows that. If the intent of learning is to manipulate more effectively, whether by Israel or by Palestinian solidarity, that is something more sinister (even if not intended to be).
“…I find it interesting that your cause celebre of the hour, Tony Kushner, stated the opposite, that the fear of anti-semitism was plausible, real, still present, with gross expressions of it (changing ones) still nascient.…”
And this surprises you? Especially, when Kusher has just experienced anti-semitism first-hand. Did this important fact fly over your head because of “fear”? — because the anti-semistim that Kusher has just experienced happened in the US, in New York, and was inflicted by a prominent, powerful, political Jew?
I hope your “fear” lets you chew on that thought for a moment.
RW
Who wants to coddle, cosset and caress the fears of the brutal thug lashing out at those around him? First we need to put him out of action, stop his endless violence, THEN we can deal with his “fears”.
I was going to add ” anti-semistim” by your standards.
Witty, if somebody had a boot on your neck, should your neck accept its position?
Boot: Accept me as I am!
Neck: Owww!
Boot: Accept me as I am, or else I’ll–
Neck: OWWWWW!
Boot: You’re not foolin’ me! If I let you up, you’ll attack me when I’m
not lookin’! I know the score, buddy boy. Besides, you ain’t felt
nuthin’ yet–I could use my steel toe you know! Here’s a taste!
Neck: Mmmm, eerghoooOWooooo….
Boot: There’s more where that came from. What’s yer intent? I
learned my lesson long time ago–never forget that!
Neck: I wasn’t there.
Rubbish.
The Arab League’s Arab Peace Initiative has been collecting dust for 9 bloody years now. It is an extraordinarily reasonable offer, asking only that Israel follow international law (which Israel agreed to do when joining the UN) – and even goes so far as to effectively agree to sell out millions of Palestinian refugees by saying the Arab League will accept whatever settlement is negotiated between Israel and Palestine vis-a-vis the refugees. The API is also supported by every member of the OIC, including Iran.
And then there’s the basically similar Fahd Plan and Fez Initiative from circa 1982. Also ignored.
That Israel hasn’t experienced acceptance is not because it hasn’t been offered, it is because Israel wants Palestinian land, but not the Palestinian people, and nothing else matters. Norman Finkelstein wrote eloquently during the last IDF bloodbath in Gaza about Israel finding the prospect of peace more threatening than any military action.
“Neck: I wasn’t there.”
Boot: That’s no excuse!
link to haaretz.com
The Hamas part of the Arab League plan.
Well now you’re just spamming that article as a distraction.
Call us when Israel recognizes Palestine, Witty. Palestine was there before Israel.
As I’ve written in my blog, the Fatah has demonstrated mature leadership in the development of responsible social and state institutions. Because of their efforts, and the manner of their efforts, they control history, they make history.
A unity government that is described by their principles of pursuit of peace constructed of two healthy good neighbors, is one that Israel would be embarrassed to not participate in.
The plausible obstacles to peace would be eliminated. With Hamas making statements like “we will never recognize Israel”, they stop reconciliation. They make reconciliation into a gamble, something TO fear.
That this blog has not consistently praised the work of Fatah and Fayyad in moving their society demonstrably forward, is a negligence, a bias.
They don’t need to affiliate with Fatah, but credit where credit is due is a demonstration of intellectual integrity.
Stop spamming Richard. If people want to read your blog, they will seek it out on their own. We don’t want your advice.
>> A unity government that is described by their principles of pursuit of peace constructed of two healthy good neighbors, is one that Israel would be embarrassed to not participate in.
An Israeli government that is described by principles of…
i) an immediate halt to all aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder
ii) willingness to engage in sincere negotiations for a just and mutually beneficial peace
…is one that the Palestinians would be embarrassed to not participate in.
C’mon, Israel, “humanize ‘the Other’” and make those “better wheels”!
“That this blog has not consistently praised the work of Fatah and Fayyad in moving their society demonstrably forward, is a negligence, a bias.”
That you’ve never once condemned the PA’s human rights violations against their own people isn’t a negligence on your part–it’s a clear pattern that indicates you don’t think those violations are important. Or perhaps you support them.
Phil,
People do not change out of fear, but only out of hope. I admire what you do, and I understand why you focus your attentions on American Jews, but I think the self-defined Jewish community is the constituency least likely to join in breaking the stranglehold of zionism over US politics. Only those who identify with the oppressed will be able to renounce their privileges and take part fully in the struggle for humanity–and that will never happen among those who regard themselves, above all, as Jews.
notatall ~ you sounded quite reasonable until your last sentence. I don’t recognise your handle but if you’ve been reading Mondoweiss for any amount of time you surely must have observed that support for Israel is not a fixed characteristic of “those who regard themselves, above all, as Jews”?
“Only those who identify with the oppressed will be able to renounce their privileges and take part fully in the struggle for humanity–and that will never happen among those who regard themselves, above all, as Jews.”
This is not a very ‘hopeful’ sounding sentiment, notatall.
The blinkers are beginning to fall from the eyes of both Jews and Christians. Don’t forget, we all have been lied to about Israel for decades.
Have you some particular group in mind who identify with the oppressed that mondo should be targeting?
notatall, you are just wrong. I went to three Passover Seders this year, each with about a dozen or so American Jews, and at each the struggle for freedom in Palestine was a focal point of the conversation. I should note also that one of these groups was made up of East-coasters in their 20s and 30s, one of people from all over the US in their 20s and 30s, and one of New Yorkers in their 60s and 70s.
Israel does not represent American Jewish values and experiences. Social justice has always been an important part of Jewish culture (Barbara Epstein has written some great history on the subject, or see Debra Schultz’s book on young Jewish women participating in the Civil Rights movement in the United States, etc.), which Israel has undermined.
Organizations like the IJAN and JVP increase their visibility and membership every year, as American Jews feel increasingly alienated form Israel and Zionism, and certainly from AIPAC which claims to be their voice (and an increasingly significant portion of AIPAC supporters are not in fact Jewish).
You said, “Only those who identify with the oppressed will be able to renounce their privileges and take part fully in the struggle for humanity–and that will never happen among those who regard themselves, above all, as Jews.”
I’m not sure what kind of evidence you feel you personally have for a sweeping claim like that, but it’s simply not true. What makes you think that American Jews can’t identify with the oppressed in this case?
“and that will never happen among those who regard themselves, above all, as Jews.”
Look, I will certainly give notatall this point: Jews will not, I am sure, be able to do it alone. That is, I’m pretty sure, out of the question. Besides, isn’t there a particular bunch of (mostly) non Jews who have a pretty existential interest in rectifying the situation?
Mooser, are you pussy footing around here? Who is this particular bunch of (mostly) non Jews? If you mean Christians, say so. We’re tough, we can take it. It’s the (mostly) that confuses me.
Thanks to those who replied. Please note, I said, “those who regard themselves, ABOVE ALL, as Jews”–which is, I take it, the rationale behind their identification with the “Jewish community” rather than the human community. Phil wrote, “I know that Jews in Israel will lose something, they should lose something.” He is right. For many in the “Jewish community,” support for Palestinian rights is conditional on the preservation of Jewish privileges, including the continued existence of the “Jewish state” in some form. It reminds me of the classic agenda of white liberalism: raise up black people without taking anything away from whites. Such people are gatekeepers, not solidarity activists.
“Mandy Patinkin saying we must walk into the nerve center of the fear.”
all the Torah on one foot.
The nerve center of the fear is at Dick Witty’s home. In great contrast, the nerve center of the hope is at Phil Weiss’s home.