Excellent interview of the late Tony Judt by Merav Michaeli of Haaretz, at the Atlantic site. Notice Meravi's desire that we see ethnocentrism as regnant everywhere-- the first resort of Zionists who questioned Judt when he published his Israel-is-anachronism piece in 2003. Note the description of the Netanyahu gov't as "neo-fascist." Notice Judt's slam-dunk (not excerpted) of Jeffrey Goldberg's statement in the Atlantic the other day that We gave them Gaza and we got rockets. Also check out the full interview for Judt's comments on Obama's capitulation and why he left Israel after 2 years there (parochial, militaristic, open up the window and let me breathe).
If it could look so good [a binational state], why would it be "hell"?
Because it would start from a very bad place. It would begin with Jews running the place in the name of a Jewish state, defined by Orthodox Rabbis and controlled by an army whose officer core is increasingly permeated by religious and settler communities. No Arab would feel remotely safe, much less equal or a citizen in such a "single state". The Arabs' lack of property, rights, status and prospects would either make them a sullen and potentially violent underclass or else the best of them would try to leave. This is no good basis for integration, though it is of course what some of Israel's present leaders privately desire. And then there would be Gaza...
And if Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also recognize that Israel is on its way to a single state with an Arab majority, why do you think they aren't doing what needs to be done?
Of Barak I will not speak. He is now a senior minister in what I regard as close to a neo-fascist government. If he has chosen that direction, then obviously he has no interesting or ethically defensible plans of his own. He is an object of contempt in my eyes.
Olmert, who seems to have reached my conclusions by his own path, suffers from being a typical tactician, and lacking strategic vision or political courage. He is not as bad as Shimon Peres in this and other respects -- Peres seems to me the most disappointing and in some ways damaging politician in Israel's history -- but he will not stand up to the soldiers or the settlers or the rabbis and therefore he is not interesting as a candidate for real change.
In such a state, Jews would soon be a minority. Doesn't that frighten you?
Not as much as it seems to frighten others. Why is it ok for a Jewish minority to dominate an Arab majority, its leaders to call for expulsions of majority members, etc., but not ok for a democracy to have a majority and minority both protected under law? At least Israel could then call itself a democracy with a clear conscience.
What you are really asking is whether I think the Palestinians would immediately set out to rape, pillage and murder the Jews? I don't see why they would want to -- there is no historical record suggesting that this is what Palestinians do for fun, whereas we have all too much evidence that Israelis persecute Palestinians for no good reason. If I were an Arab, I would be more afraid of living in a state with Jews just now.
Can you see or understand why Israelis are afraid?
Yes, but only in the sense that someone who has been brought up to fear and hate his neighbors will have good reason to be frightened at the thought of living in the same house with them. Israelis have created a generation of young Palestinians who hate them and will never forgive them and that does make a real problem for any future agreement, single- or two-state.
But Israel should be much, much more afraid of the Israel it's creating for itself: a semi-democratic, demagogic, far-right warrior state dominated by racist Russians and crazed rabbis. In this perspective, an internationally policed and guaranteed federal state of Israel, with the same rights and resources for Jews and Arabs, looks a lot less frightening to me.
Can you see why American Jews are fearful as well of that?
No. This is the fear of the paranoid hysteric - like the man at the dinner table in the story I wrote in the New York Review who had never been to Israel but thought I should stop criticizing it because "We Jews might need it sometime." American Jews -- most of whom know nothing of Jewish history, Jewish languages or Jewish religion -- feel "Jewish" by identifying unthinkingly with Auschwitz as the source of their special victim status and "Israel" as their insurance policy and macho other. I find this contemptible -- they are quite happy to see Arabs killed in their name, so long as other Jews do it. That's not fear, that is something between surrogate nationalism and moral indifference.
In your 2003 essay "Israel: the Alternative" you wrote that Israel was an anachronism. Writers in Israel were asking why you didn't offer France and Germany to give up this anachronistic model first?
Oh, come on! I did not say that nation-states were past their use-by date. I said that ethnically driven versions were. There is nothing in the constitutions of France or Germany that creates second-class citizens defined by religion, ethnicity or parenthood. There is nothing there defining who can and who cannot have certain jobs, live in certain places or marry certain people. If Israel looked like France or Germany in these respects, it would be a better place. By the way, until Germany gave up its 1913 law regarding citizenship defined by descent, I wrote very critically about it. But Israeli commentators would not know that -- they are fixated on their own obsessions.
Merav Michaeli thinks god is a women
And you think that god is a man?
Incidentally, if god is what you religious types claim he/she/it is, then how can he/she/it have a gender?
No, wait. I take that back. YOU think that women are inferior, that’s what actually bothers you.
I doubt that Merav Michaeli believes in the existence of any God – let alone a gendered one. Her use of the feminine form in referring to God is meant to challenge the patriarchal conventions that permeate Hebrew/Israeli language and culture, and certainly makes no less sense than referring to God in the masculine.
And your point with regard to the substance of the interview would be?
i was thinking just last night after watching “some of my best friends are zionists” (great movie, wonderful, watch it) , thinking once again as i always do whenever i read or hear phyllis bennis, of how many moral giants there are in the jewsih community. judt was like that and i think a leader, and he will be recognized more as a leader every year. a huge problem with the jewish left, as i see it, is somehow the rightwing is the one who identifies the leaders or gets to call the shots on who is or is not on the ‘fringe’. and the people in the movie, there’s just so much wealth there..real wealth of moral character. and somehow these people are relegated to this understanding they are not right in the center of things. they are the pillars, judt is such a pillar. it’s astounding really, that wealth of brilliance and talent.
sorry, ot
one more thing. it is long past do to empower the ascension of these moral giants to their rightful place within our culture and recognize who reigns within the jewish community. i’m sick of these people being marginalized with seems to be the first course of action for those who fear these voices. and we empower that by pretending that people who have money or political power are somehow the real ‘leaders’. the real leaders are those who’s views and words and arguments withstand the test of time. one can relegate them to this position after they are dead which is so often the case, or rally around them in life. but this is the answer to solving this problem, is empowering these voices so the children hear them and follow them out of choice. this is how you change cultures thru generations, is empowering the moral giants.
I’m not quite sure why you call the people in the video “moral giants”. To me they seemed, on the most part, like people who have only just discovered basic decency and humanity.
Could you elaborate?
this phyllis bennis? just discovered basic decency and humanity? here’s a little more of her bio. it’s hard for me to even think of a woman i admire more than phyllis bennis. she should be very famous as far as i am concerned. i first became familiar with her when i purchased Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer which is a very essential thorough little handbook which is why it is promoted at jvp Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 101 page along with just 3 other books. it’s really the hand book for beginners.
from their ‘about author’ section.
she was also one of the founders the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation and is on their steering committee.
there’s no question of her status, she’s a giant. seriously, the idea you don’t already know who she is i find stunning. this is exactly what i am talking about. everyone and their brother knows elliot abrams and martin indyk and dershowitz and david horowitz and why isn’t phyliss bennis a household name? hello, when i think jewish and woman… i start w/bennis. she’s at the top.
that’s just for starters.
That’s Phyllis Bennis. But the general message I recieved from most of the people on the video was that they had been content with smug “Jewishness” for a long time, and never troubled themselves about the realities of Israel. And then they suddenly discovered that there were other people in the world, and they mattered nearly as much.
i don’t know what you mean about smug. this is the way they were raised to think about israel. judith butler is an amazingly courageous woman. i could go on and on about her. and tony too. i think you might take for granted that this generation of kids were raised in the shadow of the holocaust, the first generation. so their relatives, many of them, lived thru a trauma and that trauma was passed onto their children. i didn’t think they were smug. it takes a lot of courage to break out of what you’ve been raised to believe and examine life on the other side. and then, for those who have careers ..(which they all do) make a decision to go public. there are many people who are not jewish who are too cowardly to risk their careers over taking a stand on an issue they don’t have to. there is no moral obligation of americans who are born jewish to even be political more than the rest of us. it’s unfair to expect them to be anymore than i would resent my own mother for not being political. most people are not, they just want to pay their bills and smell the roses and that is ok i guess. but as peoples stars start to rise, like musicians or movie stars or journalists or professors or anyone, when you take a political stand that brings risks (and going up against an issue with a powerful lobby behind it, a lobby with a well greased hit machine) especially risks to people within their own community, it takes guts. and sometimes even people who are not inclined to being flamboyant or speaking out..when your morals tell you do do something, especially when your relationship with your own family and friends can be put at risk and you do it anyway. that’s courage. so making this movie is very courageous. that’s just what i think. and that’s what i think of phil and adam who have this blog too.
what do you mean by ‘smug’. i didn’t see any smugness in the video. and most people don’t ‘troubled themselves about the realities of Israel’. i didn’t, why would i? most people didn’t really know what was going on over there.
The best part of Tony Judt, to me, is his total unwillingness to play into the “victimhood” and “tell us how great we are before you criticize us” dynamic that exists. In fact, most of the time he shows utter contempt for the “feelings” of Israeli’s and in this interview, American Jews. And in doing so, he makes a very important point – what is the worth of your sensibilities if words offend them, but aggressive violence doesnt?
Thats an important question, not just for Jews – but also for “9/11 Americans” – the people who think a Paul Krugman article is “repugnant” but have nothing to say about the hundreds of thousands killed the last decade.
That’s a good point. It should apply to anyone and everyone, anywhere and everywhere.
That was an amazingly good piece. Is this article in a prominent spot on the Atlantic website? (Obviously I haven’t checked, but I doubt it. It would be a pleasant shock if it were.)
Zionism’s roots are its ethnocentrism. In spite of the passage of time, that ethocentricism is as critical as ever to the defenders of Zionism.
This is powerful. Some of our most prolific commenters might pay attention to the late Professor Judt.
>> American Jews … feel “Jewish” by identifying unthinkingly with Auschwitz as the source of their special victim status and “Israel” as their insurance policy and macho other. I find this contemptible — they are quite happy to see Arabs killed in their name, so long as other Jews do it. That’s not fear, that is something between surrogate nationalism and moral indifference.
When you “Remember(s) the Holocaust!”, you realize that the creation of a “Jewish state” was “necessary”, a “required” evil. And if couldn’t do “whatever it took”, you just “held your nose” while your more-robust co-collectivists did the dirty work.
Sure, people were ethnically cleansed and killed by Jewish terrorists, but “currently its not necessary” so we can all “primarily celebrate”. After all, “the question of moral consequences is secondary.”
So…why does Mr. Judt hate Jews / Zionists / Israel? Is he a self-loathing Jew or something?
a secular Jew telling other Jews they don’t know enough about Judaism, priceless.
Your prejudice is showing, DBG. Judaism has an ancient tradition of erudite secularism/atheism – from the apikorsim (“Epicureans”) of the Talmudic period to the maskilim and beyond. Tony Judt was a very learned Jew.
As an American Jew, something neither Jundt or you are, I can tell you what he said was prejudice against us. To say that the majority of American Jews are happy to see Arabs killed is racist, nothing more, nothing less.
Too bad it’s true, dbg. We can simply read your own apologetics as proof.
boo-hoo
Actually, Judt was an American Jew – a naturalised U.S. citizen, who lived and worked in the States for many years.
What Judt in fact said is that American Jews “most of whom know nothing of Jewish history, Jewish languages or Jewish religion — feel ‘Jewish’ by identifying unthinkingly with Auschwitz as the source of their special victim status and “Israel” as their insurance policy and macho other.”
That they “are quite happy to see Arabs killed in their name, so long as other Jews do it” is merely a necessary conclusion from this observation. That they refuse to face up to the consequences of their positions and actions vis-à-vis Israel is indeed “something between surrogate nationalism and moral indifference.”
But DBG we all saw those scenes of Israelis with their picnic baskets watching white phosphorus rain down on Gaza and cheering like crazed sports fans. So yes, we have seen the evidence that Israeli Jews are happy to see Arabs killed. Surely, their many supporters in the US must share that happiness. It is not racist to point this out.
“What Judt in fact said is that American Jews “most of whom know nothing of Jewish history, Jewish languages or Jewish religion — feel ‘Jewish’ by identifying unthinkingly with Auschwitz as the source of their special victim status and “Israel” as their insurance policy and macho other.””
One possible objection to this is that maybe (note the qualification) the majority of American Jews don’t identify with Israel or think that way regarding their victim status. Clearly some do–we see it here and other places and the loudest American Jewish voices on the subject of Israel seem to fit Judt’s description. But I don’t know what percentage of the community they represent. Hopefully it’s small, but I don’t have data.
And, as a professor at New York University, Judt undoubtedly taught many American Jewish students. So he had plenty of opportunity to observe their thinking.
Most Americans cheered the raids on Japan that killed countless civilians. Cheering during war is a natural phenomena. And I hope it is not racist to point out all the Arabs and Muslims that cheered 9/11.
Not to forget the Israelis dancing with glee in New York City.
Or the Israeli politicians rubbing their hands with glee, expecting it to be good for them.
eee thanks for supporting our point — it is not racist to say that Jews cheer while Israel butchers Arabs. That is the nature of the conflict as you so well personify.
“Cheering during war is a natural phenomena”
“I think it would be a good idea” said Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization.
Phenomenon, please.
To defend DBG, I did not see those scenes, and from what I have read, picnic baskets were not described, plus, even in Israel only minority celebrated in that manner.
Actually, the majority in Israel was unhappy about the attack on Gaza. Too few important Hamasniks were killed, there was no surrender, no zazz. As a result, the government promptly lost elections.
The crux of the matter: “That they refuse to face up to the consequences of their positions and actions vis-à-vis Israel is indeed ‘something between surrogate nationalism and moral indifference.’”
Eee,
“And I hope it is not racist to point out all the Arabs and Muslims that cheered 9/11.”
You got links? There is no way you can prove any of this at all. You’re lying and you’re irresponsible. Shame on you. The only people who celebrated were Israelis, including Netanyahu.
I traveled the Muslim world for six weeks after 9/11 happened, and you are 110% wrong. Including Iran, whose citizens took to the streets in candlelight vigils.
The shots of Palestinians supposedly celebrating released by MEMRI or CAMERA were later proven to be fakes from 5 or 10 years before. They were shots from a demonstration for something.
This is the kind of garbage statement that provokes Holocaust denial because it is perceived that if you can BS about this, then what are you hiding about the Holocaust, and why did you work to make it illegal to discuss it throughout Europe.
piotr ~ this clip gives you at least some idea of the “war tourism” that took place while 1400 Palestinian were being killed by the IDF:
Gaza war tourism – Keren Levy: I’m a little bit fascist
There are no picnic baskets that I see, but there is on-site catering and at least one portable chair that I see on the hill-top. Great, relax over a coffee while witnessing the IDF commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.
And then, there’s the repulsive woman interviewed (in English) who says it’s all Palestinian’s fault and that all of Gaza should be flattened.
There are maybe a few dozen Israelis there to enjoy the fun, granted. But 90% of Israeli jews supported the attack on Gaza. Finkelstein quotes an approval rating of 80-90% in a very important article he wrote at the time of the attack:
Foiling Another Palestinian “Peace Offensive”: Behind the bloodbath in Gaza
…and two other polls conducted at the time indicated +90% support among Israeli jews, with disapproval in single figures.
Those figures seem to indicate the opposite of what say you about a majority being unhappy about it.
“until Germany gave up its 1913 law regarding citizenship defined by descent, I wrote very critically about it. But Israeli commentators would not know that — they are fixated on their own obsessions”
I don’t know what criticism TJ had voiced against the FRG retaining the 1913 citizenship law. That it was retained after WW II because the German refugee crisis was much worse after WW II than it had already been after WW I is, however, not in dispute:
“some ethnic-priority policies restrict eligibility according to the time and place in which ethnic claims are raised, while others do not. On this dimension the German and Israeli cases finally take opposite positions. The German Law of Return was designed as a temporary remedy for
the consequences of war and expellation, covering only ethnic Germans caught in the Soviet Empire. By contrast, Israel’s Law of Return is a permanent, state-constituting provision, applying to every Jew in the world. In its expansiveness and state-defining quality the Israeli ethnic-priority immigration is unique in the world. ”
link to ccis-ucsd.org
Unlike Israel wrt expelled Palestinians, the Federal Republic also granted the RoR to all German Jews, who had been expelled from Nazi Germany, as well as their descendants.
Which of course raises the question of why the Israeli Law of Return has to be perpetual. If it was a response to the Holocaust, that event is now some 70 years in the past. Why does a policy which was a response to a particular historical event have to be continued forever?
Because every country in the world has the right to determine its own immigration policy and the majority of Israelis support keeping the law in place.
there you go: only real democracy in the ME
Except the bulk of the Palestinian refugee population are Israelis who have been denied their legal right of return and are stuck in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – and I don’t recall them ever being asked for their opinions or votes on the Law of Return. I don’t know whether they would constitute a majority but they’d have to come close.
And you personally might not like it, but Israelis they are.
Well, if they are Israelis, let’s see their Israel passports. There is nothing to like or not to like, they are just not Israeli citizens. You can call them whatever you like but they are not citizens of Israel.
eee would say: Jews never presented Germany with a ‘demographic problem’, which is perfectly true. But if you defend the right of a minority to expel and resettle a majority, and kill a great many of them in the process because they ‘resist’, you are defending Hitler’s Generalplan Ost. What the former minority has suffered in the past from the former majority, or elsewhere, provides no excuse whatsoever. It was, in fact Hitler’s excuse that the ethnic Germans who were left in the newly created Czechoslovakia and Poland had to be protected from suffering further grievances and ethnic cleansing.
“Don’t do unto others” is easy to grasp intellectually and practically, but people have proven time and again that they just don’t get it. I suspect it is a common human mental defect, detected by all world religions: A simple command apparently impossible to follow.
I’m quoting from Wiki (Discourse on Colonialism – page):
“In Discourse on Colonialism, Césaire implicates the Europeans for constructing the negative relationship between colonizer and colonized. He criticizes Europe for constructing these colonies only to exploit them for their own benefit. According to Césaire, by establishing these colonies and then exploiting them, the European colonial powers have created two main problems: the problem of the proletariat and the colonial problem.[2] In describing the colonial problem that European civilization has created, he remarks that “Europe is indefensible,” contending that the actions of the colonizers cannot be misconstrued as positive. He centralizes his argument around the claim that, “no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.” [3] He labels the colonizers as barbaric for their treatment of those in the colonies. He defines the relationship as one based on “forced labor, intimidation, pressure, the police, taxation, theft, rape, compulsory crops, contempt, mistrust, arrogance, self-complacency, swinishness, brainless elites, degraded masses.” [4] Although his text has several main points, it primarily focuses on this negative relationship between colonizers and colonized. He proposes that colonization, while claiming to civilize the colonies, actually produces the opposite effect, refuting the claims of positive aspects of colonialism.
In addition to recognizing how Europe exploits its colonies for resources and materials, Césaire also acknowledges the racial construction of the relationship. By identifying the colonial relationship as one based on race, he draws comparisons between his home of Martinique with the colonies in Africa. By equating racism, barbarism and colonialism, he claims colonization to be a form of dehumanization; he believes this dehumanization occurs because of Europe’s racism against the black populations in Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. In Discourse on Colonialism, Césaire builds on what he wrote in his book, Notebook on Returning Home, which he wrote in response to leaving France and returning to Martinique. In Notebook on Returning Home, Césaire noted the relationship between his home of Martinique and the heritage of Africa, confirming this bond between colonies in Africa and colonies elsewhere as one based on race. In identifying the racism problem associated with the colonial relationship, he claims that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party’s persecution of Jews during World War II and the Holocaust was not an aberration, but rather the norm in Europe. He spends a great deal of his text referring to Hitler and the Nazis, writing that Hitler differed in the eyes of the Europeans because he “applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the ‘coolies’ of India and the ‘niggers’ of Africa” ,[5] meaning that, by persecuting white Europeans, Hitler produced violence most commonly reserved for non-white populations.”
With both Zionism and Nazis, the customary European race divisions become blurry, hence the major efforts to prove racial/ethnic and religious divisions where there aren’t any. Much ado about nothing. Even top Nazi ideologues admitted they had plenty of Slavic and other blood flowing in their veins. And some Semites are more equal than others? For heaven’s sake. And the old and new colonialists and imperialists are still involved as well. Not a good situation.