I struggle to understand the righteousness of Israelis when it comes to international criticism, and so I've typed up a fascinating passage about the colonial mindset from Doris Lessing's novel A Proper Marriage, which is set in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, during World War II.
In one episode in the book, liberal colonial women stage a performance by "colored" children for a white audience in the capital, Salisbury (now Harare). The organizer of the show, Mrs. Maynard, is upset that she is not getting much help from young lefties, including the heroine of the book, Martha Quest (who like her creator leaves the colony for England in 1949).
The passage below explains Mr. and Mrs. Maynard's colonial mindset. The Maynards are liberals. Mrs. Maynard had grown up thinking of herself as a "rebel." And at the very end of the passage, the reference to young people is to Martha's set, the young lefties.
For it is by no means an accident that people find themselves in the colonies. Mrs. Maynard, as a girl [in England], had infuriated her family by refusing to get married at the right time. Instead, she had become a crusader for better housing in Whitechapel. She had been prevented from marrying a penniless clergyman who was similarly devoted only by the greatest effort on the part of her relations. As a revenge she had married Mr. Maynard: Africa had seemed to her both romantic and suitably exasperating to her family. She had seen herself ministering to grateful savages. And Mr. Maynard had left England because he found it insular. They had both been rebels, of a kind. Perhaps the strongest strand in their relationship was the feeling that they were rebels against tradition--even now, when their first concern was to uphold it.
For that matter, there is no white person in the colonies who has not arrived there for some similar reason: they are crusaders against tyranny to a man. Which accounts for that shrill note of protest when the world suggests that it is both stupid and old-fashioned to suppress native populations: for when these same colonials are passionately engaged in fighting against a minimum wage of one pound a month, or advocating the sjambok [whip] as a means of guidance for the uncivilized, they are always, in the bottom of their hearts, quite convinced that this too is part of their character as rebels against the tyranny and conservatism of the mother country which they left as adventurers into a free world.
Mrs. Maynard was quite genuine in her cry that these young people must feel with her in helping the unfortunate half-castes; that they should not must kill her idea of herself as a fearless and progressive person.
Phil, you write: “I struggle to understand the righteousness of Israelis when it comes to international criticism”.
I do not so struggle. To me it is plain. When Americans (or English, etc.,) came to these shores as colonists, they felt they had a right to live here. That implied to them a right to displace the savages. “Savages”? Well, if you have a right to displace someone else, you identify them by names that sound like “bad names” to you. “Indigenes” is not “bad” enough. The longer you live there, the longer you pursue your project of colonization, the more secure you feel (the more secure you MUST feel, to preserve your sanity) in your “right” to displace the “other”.
The intending-to-be-Israelis arrived in a colonial mood. The need to displace the “other” was clear and become clearer, especially when the “other” fought back. You said, “I want a Jewish state, nothing wrong with that, noble — and indeed necessary desire”. So when the “other” said, “not in my backyard”, you decided that you had all the rights to that “backyard.”
Now there is a very slight, very muted, international criticism of the extremely ugly face of Israeli colonialism — generated, I suppose, because Israel was not satisfied to take what it took in 1948 and said, with Oliver, “Please, sir, I want MORE”. This business of taking MORE has become very ugly. International criticism is indeed justified.
The Israeli, however, never identified the territorial extent of her beloved “Israel” and thus never felt the need to say, “I have a right to this much, but no right to any more.” The Israeli territorial ambition was always boundless. The idea of necessity (of taking land from the other) justified anything and everything. If 1948 was not a crime, then 1967-2011 is also not a crime.
So, Phil, I have no trouble understanding “the righteousness of Israelis when it comes to international criticism”, but I’ve got to fight it tooth and nail.
Great post, pablemont.
Nice and clear explanation. Thumbs up for you, sir.
I’m not sure what specifically you are referring to “the righteousness of Israelis when it comes to international criticism”.
There are many things that phrase could mean.
A simple jazz riff with lots of room to interpret, just two notes, no chords, revealing all of our mental and political habits out on paper.
Noone is proud, maybe a couple fools are. They are all choosing politically among less bad options.
The compensating life comes in intimacy, family, friendships, not in realized ideals. Among liberals. They don’t have a refreshing path currently, only a gauntlet.
Is the comment on Lessing a comment about others, or a comment about your own attitudes.
>> There are many things that phrase could mean.
>> A simple jazz riff with lots of room to interpret, just two notes, no chords, revealing all of our mental and political habits out on paper.
…
>> The compensating life comes in intimacy, family, friendships, not in realized ideals. Among liberals. They don’t have a refreshing path currently, only a gauntlet.
Dude must be smoking some awesome weed… %-)
No. Just running on the ambiguity of the original. Lots of room.
Do you play music Eljay? Improvisational? Rock n roll? Jazz?
Oh yeah Richard, I can just hear you “riffing” on the rhthym changes, or maybe a I-IV-iii-vi-ii-V. Naturally you can turn “Giant Steps” inside out.
Give me a break.
Witty Abriged:
“I’m making shit up again because I didn’t actually bother to read the article.”
Thanks Mooser. Is that the Giant Steps changes?
Phil’s phrase was more 1m7 – 5m7 – 1m7.
“Phil’s phrase was more 1m7 – 5m7 – 1m7.”
Gosh, Witty, you have an equal expertise in many subjects.
The compensating life comes in intimacy, family, friendships, not in realized ideals.
The blindness.
“The compensating life comes in intimacy, family, friendships, not in realized ideals.”
Don’t you understand? He is saying that it doesn’t matter what the Isrealis do to anybody else, as long as they feel good about themselves, families and friendships. As is typical of Witty, of course he doesn’t know that’s what he is saying.
Its “get a life”. Respected.
What is a life? Family, community, responsibility, health.
Important things.
Richard Witty said, ‘Look at this.
’1400 dead Palestinians in the attack on Gaza. 300 of them children. All justified by me.
that they should not must kill her idea of herself as a fearless and progressive person.
did she really write that?
yes. she is saying that if the young people do not go along with her liberal idea, then that would kill her idea of herself.
i know, i read it two or three times…
So what do you think of that?
Do you see it as a projection, an example of using the “other” for personal compensation for less than a full life otherwise?
And, is it not likely a common feeling for all that are on the cusp of “old and in the way”, but also desiring to be useful, putting our life experience to use.
Do you see yourself in that at all, or is it only a way to demean a type?
i think people are often crushed when they lose the ideal they maintain of themselves.
and zionists are struggling to maintain an ideal of themselves as good liberals many of whom moved halfway around the world out of a liberation movement ideology. (they’re all wet)
“(they’re all wet)”
Ah, but do you consider Costanza’s Dictum?
I think people’s continued commitment to their family, neighbors, and distant neighbors, in whatever form they apply that is what constructs the realization of the ideal, good in the world, and good self-definition.
The flow of tribal to universalistic to tribal to universalistic is a tide. It flows in and out, all the time.
You asked a good question early when I started posting, which was in some paraphrase, “Now that we’ve accomplished equality and power, what happens next, what do we do with it?”
Do we only seek to retain power and dominance, or relax with enough so that we can have an enjoyable peer life, or do we adopt a servant leader attitude (meaning to use power for good, to the extent that central power can do that), or do we grovel in guilt, or do we grovel in suppressive shaming?
You know my position is enough Zionism, meaning that we live to enjoy a secure peer life, a fulfilling and helpful one.
And yet you oppose relief aid convoys to Gaza. Why?
“Do you see it as a projection, an example of using the “other” for personal compensation for less than a full life otherwise?”
Luckily, Witty, you know nothing of that contemptible condition! Why over at the drum circle they call you “Chief Self-Actualisation”.
Phil,
Did you see the March and April interviews with Judge Goldstone that I linked to?
You had characterized him as weakened, conforming, beaten.
Most of the themes he alluded to in the April op-ed, he articulated in the interview and a speech accepting a Tikkun award.
Not weakened, not distracted, not conforming; but principled, consistent, clear, backbone.
He spoke eloquently about his experience of being distraught at seeing the destruction in Gaza, but without polemic, moving, not dismissable.
And utterly without compassion for the victims, because all of his sympathy rests with the butchers who killed those Gazans. Why else would he condemn the Gazans for rockets which kill fewer Israelis than drunk Israeli drivers, and exonerate Israel for being so vicious as to attack the UN presence itself in Gaza?
The opposite is true Chaos, that Goldstone expressed compassion for the Gazan victims very effectively, whereas the description of primarily angry rhetoric is easily dismissed, almost begging to be dismissed.
PHIL- Let me begin by noting that your post seems to me more of a Freudian slip than an appraisal of the Israeli mindset. The situation you quote seems more appropriate to liberal thinking than to the views of the militant Zionists. That is, the type of thinking motivating much of the Israeli peace movement, and American liberals as well. I would describe liberalism as a concern over instances of systemic injustice combined with loyalty to the system which creates the injustice. A way of suppressing feelings of guilt by pointing out the crimes of others (never ourselves) while continuing to enjoy the fruits of personal privilege based upon systemic exploitation. Psychologically finessing the difference between self-image and reality.
I like it Keith.
I wouldn’t mind if you did elaborate more on this.
fair enough, Keith, but I was actually thinking of the folks who went out there, breaking away from american society, to be ISraelis. Like idealistic young Gershom Gorenberg,who found American Vietnam-era society materialistic. Or Jerry Haber. or Jeff Halper. All idealists. But some of them came to understand the system they were caught up in. Others seem to stick with their original feeling: I’m idealistic, which is why I left, while Americans are materialist imperialists. Who are they to lecture me?
Doris Lessing wrote ‘A Proper Marriage’ during her Communist phase. She eventually grew out of that when she realized the Soviet Union had failed the communist ideal.
Its hard to know what your positions, opinions are, why.
Your journalistic action of selection of material does not use the word I.
And this post is arcane, except to express your disdain for liberal sensitivity.
There’s a lot more of liberal Zionists that you should mention. Larry Derfner, Bradley Burston, Akiva Eldar, Gershon Baskin, Bernard Avishai, Avram Burg, Ralph Seliger, many others.
They differ about many things. They don’t hold the view that zionism is a “caine”, to be purged.
They respect it, even if they disagree with policies, practices. Some forms of Zionist application they hate even.
Are you sure you want to leave up “Americans are materialist imperialists”, without some qualification?
Excuse me, Witty? You’re the one who disapproves of nonviolent protest acts and free speech and racial diversity in communities. Projecting your own apparent hostilities for liberal sensitivity onto Phil Weiss is just clownish.
You’d label him an anti-Semite if you thought it would stick, wouldn’t you?
PHIL- My point was that although your post was nominally about Israel, your focus was mostly on the liberal mindset which manifests itself mostly among certain specific groups in Israel and the US. That is, I would hardly describe Israeli society as liberal in outlook, therefore, you are questioning the thought processes of a certain group of people who exist in Israel and the US. Certainly the passage quoted pertains as much to US liberals as to Israeli liberals. As for the people you mention, I am only familiar with Jeff Halper. There is no hard line of demarcation between a liberal and a radical. I suspect that Halper may be more radical than liberal. To me, the difference is the degree to which the individual is able to see the systemic causes of injustice, rather than focusing mostly on the specific problems which are merely symptomatic of the larger problem. Of course, one must correct problems one at a time, to focus on everything is to focus on nothing. However, the solution must always take into account the big picture and be consistent with overall social improvement. As to Jewish idealists going to Israel to escape the US empire, it is easy to substitute a new myth for an old one that fell apart. Once confronted with the new reality, some were able to see through the myth, others not. Human psychology is complex. Rationality is not pervasive, most are seduced by the logic of the mythology. And when reality is glaringly different from self-serving mythology, one either abandons the mythology or develops numerous defense mechanisms to cope.