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Arendt: Born in conflict, Israel will degenerate into Sparta, and American Jews will need to back away

For the new year, here are some prophetic excerpts from two essays of Hannah Arendt’s, collected in The Jewish Writings (2007). Please note her predictions of the Nakba, of unending conflict, of Zionist dependence on the American Jewish community, of ultimate conflict with that American Jewish community, and the contribution of political Zionism to world anti-semitism. Just what Howard Gutman said recently. For which he was denounced by– Zionists.

Zionism Reconsidered, 1944:

Nationalism is bad enough when it trusts in nothing but the rude force of the nation. A nationalism that necessarily and admittedly depends upon the force of a foreign nation is certainly worse. This is the threatened state of Jewish nationalism and of the proposed Jewish state, surrounded inevitably by Arab states and Arab people. Even a Jewish majority in Palestine–nay even a transfer of all Palestine’s Arabs, which is openly demanded by the revisionists–would not substantially change a situation in which Jews must either ask protection from an outside power against their neighbors or come to a working agreement with their neighbors…

[T]he Zionists, if they continue to ignore the Mediterranean people and watch out only for the big faraway powers, will appear only as their tools, the agents of foreign and hostile interests. Jews who know their own history should be aware that such a state of affairs will inevitably lead to a new wave of Jew-hatred; the antisemitism of tomorrow will assert that Jews not only profiteered from the presence of foreign big powers in that region but had actually plotted it and hence are guilty of the consequences…

[T]he sole new piece of historical philosophy which the Zionists contributed out of their own new experiences [was] “A nation is a group of people…  held together by a common enemy” (Herzl)–an absurd doctrine…

To such [political] independence, it was believed, the Jewish nation could arrive under the protecting wings of any great power strong enough to shelter its growth…. the Zionists ended by making the Jewish national emancipation entirely dependent upon the material intersts of another nation.

The actual result was a return of the new movement to the traditional methods of shtadlonus [court Jews], which the Zionists once had so bitterly despised and violently denounced. Now Zionists too knew no better place politically than the lobbies of the powerful, and no sounder basis for agreements than their good services as agents of foreign interests…

[O]nly folly could dictate a policy which trusts a distant imperial power for protection, while alienating the goodwill of neighbors. What then, one is prompted to ask, will be the future policy of Zionism with respect to big powers, and what program will Zionists have to offer for a solution of the Arab-Jewish conflict?…

If a Jewish commonwealth is obtained in the near future–with or without partition–it will be due to the political influence of American Jews…. But if the Jewish commonwealth is proclaimed against the will of the Arabs and without the support of the Mediterranean peoples, not only financial help but political support will be necessary for a long time to come. And that may turn out to be very troublesome indeed for Jews in this country [the U.S.], who after all have no power to direct the political destinies of the Near East. It may eventually be far more of a responsibility than today they imagine or tomorrow can make good.

To Save the Jewish Homeland, 1948 [on the occasion of war in Palestine]

And even if the Jews were to win the war, its end would find the unique possibilities and the unique achievements of Zionism in Palestine destroyed. The land that would come into being would be something quite other than the dream of world Jewry, Zionist and non-Zionist. The ‘victorious’ Jews would live surrounded by an entirely hostile Arab population, secluded into ever-threatened borders, absorbed with physical self-defense to a degree that would submerge all other interests and acitvities. The growth of a Jewish culture would cease to be the concern of the whole people; social experiments would have to be discarded as impractical luxuries; political thought would center around military strategy…. And all this would be the fate of a nation that — no matter how many immigrants it could still absorb and how far it extended its boundaries (the whole of Palestine and Transjordan is the insane Revisionist demand)–would still remain a very small people greatly outnumbered by hostile neighbors.

Under such circumstances… the Palestinian Jews would degenerate into one of those small warrior tribes about whose possibilities and importance history has amply informed us since the days of Sparta. Their relations with world Jewry would become problematical, since their defense interests might clash at any moment with those of other countries where large number of Jews lived. Palestine Jewry would eventually separate itself from the larger body of world Jewry and in its isolation develop into an entirely new people. Thus it becomes plain that at this moment and under present circumstances a Jewish state can only be erected at the price of the Jewish homeland…

One grim addendum. In the heyday of the special relationship between the US and Israel, American Jewry felt itself to be one with the Israeli people. We Are One! declared Melvin Urofsky’s book of 1978. That unity is today being dissolved. The haredi-secular conflict in Israel that is getting so much attention here is one means of that dissolution. And the aim, unconsciously, may be a desire by American Jews to distance themselves from Israeli Jews so that when the Arab Spring at last brings a democratic movement to Israel and Palestine, and bloody conflict ensues, and the Israeli gov’t is cast as the bad guys, American Jews are emotionally prepared to regard the bloodshed as inevitable and not their problem.

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I admit to recently having sat down and read Gilad Atzmon’s screed, blurbed by Mearsheimer (and he was condemned for it). I was ambivalent, because Gilad Atzmon is an uberradical, but I never felt any hostility towards Jews or Judaism. He is more of a ‘world citizen’, but prone to extreme statements.

After I read a book, I watched a video interview with him. In the same interview he at once described himself as a ‘self-hater’ and ‘indestructible’ as well as ‘the world’s foremost expert on Jewish identity’. A man with tons of contradictions, which is why I read his book with an open mind.

He mixes pure crazyness and statements that can easily fall into anti-Semitic territory with flashes of pure brilliance. His take on Zionism is intertwined with his views of Judaism.

He views Zionism as the opposite of it, for reasons too long to delve into here, and if you look at hardcore ‘Torah Jews’ many are opposed to Zionism. Indeed, many haredim view it as an illegitimate state.

He also analyzes Judaism as an ‘exiled religion’, it’s setup as to set yourself apart, which is why religious Jews do just that. See Eliot Abrams’ comment on the need of Jews to be ‘seperate in the socities that they live in’.

Everything from kosher food to holidays, if you follow a Jewish lifestyle it ensures that you remain a part of the fabric of the society but still retain the outsider status, Gilad credits this as a key reason for why Jews have been so successful; we have the sociological knowledge of the society but because of our (historical) detachment we see things others cannot see. This is not only related to issues of social justice but also cultural traits that can be clearly seen by us(and exploited by us) among many other factors.

But this exiled state, when put into practice and becomming Israel creates this inherent tension. Atzmon writes that Israel has grappled with this and found a solution. In the diaspora, it’s easy for religious Jews to come up with a plethora of reasons to resist assimilation, because Judaism is in many ways tailormade to avoid melting away into the society you live in, to become part of it, get the sweet fruits but retain the outsider status to both have the edge of the outsider but not at an extent to ailenate yourself from the structures of that community.

In Israel, it’s much harder, and therefore it has created a ghetto for itself. It has walled off itself from it’s neighbours, to keep the exiled balance needed. It has created it’s own shtetl, but on a massive scale but within Israel(further segregation with Arabs) but also with it’s neighbours. See the West Bank wall. The wall to Egypt has just been completed. They’ve just begun on a third wall to Jordan.

Because Judaism is in so many ways created and upheld as a Diaspora religion, Israel has to create conditions remniscient of the Diaspora within and outside of the nation in order for Zionism to work.

It’s an interesting take. There are many other thoughts I found remarkable, but the price of this creativity is the pure crazyness and borderline anti-Semitism always under the surface. He said in his interview that one of his mentors, a Jew by the way, told him that he should write like he makes his music; never plan and never think, just letting it flow out. That way, even if some thoughts come out which may be uncalibrated, that is the price you pay for the insights needed that can only flow out without forcing. Gilad then made the comparison why so many Jazz musicians take drugs, because they want to reach that subconscious state of mind, just having it all flow out without mitigation, because that is where the best music is made.

He has a similar style when writing. He is highly gifted but again, I view some of his thoughts as utter crazyness and even dangerous, and other thoughts as quite remarkable, even highly perceptive. I wouldn’t go as far as to recommend the book outright, but if you’re feeling bored and want a new perspective, even one you at times radically disagree with(at least I did), it can be worthwhile for the simple reason of intellectual development, to meet his arguments and think about them, even if you end up disagreeing, without preconditions.

I’ll look into Arendt’s writings too. And just for balance, I’m going to read Jabotinsky again, it’s been a long time since I’ve devoured his writings and that of his followers. i remember I was blown away by his talent, and disturbed by his right-wing radicalism, bordering on fascism. But an agile mind is an agile mind, whether we talk about the far-left like Atzmon or the far-right like Jabotinsky.

Middle of the road fence-sitters bore me.

Do not know much about Hannah Arendt. Sounds like a brilliant and honest lady. “agents of a foreign interest” She nails it.

Let’s hope and pray that there is not more and more bloodshed. That Israeli officials and the I lobby in this country will see how much harm Israel is doing to themselves by extending their internationally recognized borders through outright thievery.

Race for Iran has a great piece up as well as Micheal Scheuer over at Non Intervention

over at Press TV
“Two former CIA analysts have advised US President Barack Obama to immediately put an end to the “torrent of war propaganda against Iran” as this will lead to the destruction of Israel and devastation of world economy.”

“The actual result was a return of the new movement to the traditional methods of shtadlonus [court Jews], which the Zionists once had so bitterly despised and violently denounced. Now Zionists too knew no better place politically than the lobbies of the powerful, and no sounder basis for agreements than their good services as agents of foreign interests…”

Why does this sound so familiar?