A Palestinian mansion in Jerusalem seized during the Nakba
My first day in Jerusalem, I discovered that my roommate in the institute where I stay is a Palestinian-American scholar I'd met 5 years ago in New York. He made me tea and we sat outside in the sun, and he described the explosive feelings of finding his great-grandfather’s grave that day and about filming his father’s former house in West Jerusalem so as to share it with his father overseas.
That night I went to dinner at a good friend’s house here in East Jerusalem. His mother told me a story about visiting the house she had grown up in a few miles away in West Jerusalem with an Australian film crew, and being scolded by the house’s present owner—no Palestinians ever lived there. She pressed the address on me, and asked me to visit for her.
Her son had got out cognac, and he wanted to show me a video. He grabbed the remote and put on a youtube of Marlon Brando’s 1973 Oscar for the Godfather—when Sacheen Littlefeather in Apache dress declined the award on Brando’s behalf because of Hollywood’s portrayal of Native Americans. (You can watch it here.) "Isn't that cool?" he said.
I always find Nakba consciousness shocking. Though I’ve written about the conflict for several years, I still have little sense of the Nakba in all its emotional and spiritual weight. Then I come here and I’m reminded that it is a living memory and huge historical burden-- made more burdensome by the fact that no one in the official west recognizes it. While for Palestinians, it is the event that defines their experience.
Yesterday, reflecting that I know little about Palestinian history, I picked up the late Shafiq Al-Hout’s book My Life in the PLO, published last year, and had only gotten to the second paragraph when the Nakba entered: “There is no precedent in history for what Zionism inflicted on Palestine and the Palestinians… Any group of human beings which experiences a crime on this scale, and lives to tell the tale, is left with marks and scars which are hard to ignore and impossible to forget.”
Or as Ali Abunimah said at the Penn BDS Conference 2 weeks back, he feels urgency about the conflict because his parents’ generation, the generation that experienced the Nakba, is beginning to die out without seeing even a shadow of justice.
I’m not talking about the politics of the conflict, I’m talking about the spiritual truth of it. When I hear these stories, I always think about how I would have responded, or my parents, to being thrown out of our town. And even if the next generation in our family achieved high education in the States--well that experience would still define our lives, we would want to go back. And our community would embrace a policy of resistance to whatever state now existed there.
You can say, well that is the Palestinian narrative, and of course it is. You can say that 1948 has been made more resonant because of the failure of the 1967-based peace process. I guess that is true, too. But until the Nakba is widely acknowledged there will be no way forward in this conflict.
The United States is thoroughly engaged in the business of Nakba denial. When Robert Kaplan writes in The Arabists that the formation of Israel was a great liberal achievement, he demonstrates blindness to non-Jewish suffering. This view-- or non-view-- is widely shared in the United States establishment, It guaranteed that the United States would do nothing about the refugee issue in the 50s and 60s when the world said they must return. And today the blind insist on describing all forms of violent resistance to occupation as terrorism when god only knows what Americans would do if they were forced out of their homes and into the hills. We saw the same blindness about Israel’s righteous birth when Walt and Mearsheimer wrote that the foundation of the state of Israel involved questionable moral undertakings. The statement was landed on as proof of the authors' alleged anti-semitism.
Overcoming these attitudes in the States is a Jewish assignment. Before the Penn BDS conference earlier this month, the Jewish Federations held an anti-boycott meeting, at which Alan Dershowitz reportedly told a young Jew who asked, But didn’t we throw them out of their houses, that this was not true. The land was barren, and the displacement of the peasants was only what any other country has done to get itself up on its feet.
Dershowitz is involved in Nakba denial, and the youth is involved in Nakba inquiry.
It took Americans 30 years to begin to come to terms with the Holocaust. It is taking more than 60 to grapple with the Nakba. But things are changing, and before long we will study the Nakba's connection to the Holocaust and colonialism, and to pogroms and Jewish landlessness. Nakba studies will become a field of Jewish inquiry, in Hebrew schools, in synagogues and in universities. There is no other way. Some memories are ineradicable.
“Overcoming these attitudes in the States is a Jewish assignment. Before the Penn BDS conference earlier this month, the Jewish Federations held an anti-boycott meeting, at which Alan Dershowitz reportedly told a young Jew who asked, But didn’t we throw them out of their houses, that this was not true. The land was barren, and the displacement of the peasants was only what any other country has done to get itself up on its feet.”
Phil, it’s not simply a Jewish assignment, it’s the assignment of all US citizens. The only special duty of Jewish Americans is to stop being “Jewish” in a political (Zionist) sense, stop practicing identity politics, and join the rest of us. That “young Jew” at the Federation will forever remain isolated within “the community”. The only hope is a public movement against the power of AIPAC, the Federation, the Conf of Presidents et al. Liberal citizenship, not Jewish identity, as I keep saying.
Liberal Citizenship, not ‘Jewish Identity’
I must say, my gut reaction was the same as CitizenC’s–if the Nakba is not an assignment for all Americans, that is, an assignment also for the 98% of us Americans who were not born Jewish and have not converted to Judaism, then why is the Shoah an American assignment, which it clearly is in every school in America, beginning with The Diary Of Anne Frank and To Kill A Mockingbird? Further, does it not mean anything that tiny Israel is the number one beneficiary of US foreign aid in all US history? Don’t we have a stake in this fight for Palestinians’ basic human rights? How many non-Jewish Americans died so that accountability could be had at Nuremberg and Tokyo? What’s all that, chopped liver? Count the crosses in the military cemetery fields. The crimes tried at Nuremberg were not merely those directed against the USA, but those directed at humanity itself–and everyone in the West at least meant mainly “the Jewish people” at the time, as foremost victim.
an assignment also for the 98% of us Americans
i totally agree citizen.
I agree also Citizen. I don’t think the Jews alone can do it. One problem is numbers, and in that they are up against decades of conditioning and propagandizing the Jewish collective and everything the Israel firsters will hurl at them as betrayers of the tribe. Americans have been conditioned the same way but don’t have the personal emotional attachment and identity hurdles to get over, just the anti semite smear that comes with opposing I/P or Israel. And I think the power of that accusation has lost a lot of ground since the discussions on Israel-US and I/P have opened up considerably.
Practically speaking though, Jews should be the ones to lead the advance on the Jewish community simply because they will have more effect on other Jews. I see a lot of irrationally among Jews regarding Israel because of the holocaust and victim hood. So a Jew such as Phil and others, challenging or shaming them on their Jewish moral values wrt I/P would probably have more effect in reality than a logical rights-interest of Jews vr rights- interest of others argument by outsiders.
I’ve used that argument a lot with liberal zionist without much success, I run into their emotional firewall almost every time.
@ Citizen,
Would building Nakba Museums in the US be a solution? All this has to be a combined effort. The time for toeing [tribal] lines has long since past.
Maybe one, next to the biggie on the National Mall, in Wash DC?
There are an awful lot of Holocaust Museums in the USA: link to en.wikipedia.org
Not as many museums dedicated to Native Americans: link to dir.yahoo.com
There is a National Museum for Native Americans in Wash DC.
I don’t think others qualify for government tax dollars, e.g., Armenians.
The US National Holocaust Museum in DC was established in 1993. The US National Museum of Native Americans, also in DC, was established in 2004.
According to Wiki: The National Holocaust Museum has an operating budget of just under $78.7 million ($47.3 million from Federal sources and $31.4 million from private donations). It has a on-going educational reach-out arm that is very busy.
A beautiful essay, with many truths, and maybe I should focus on what I liked, but there was one passage that stuck out like a sore thumb:
I always think about how I would have responded, or my parents, to being thrown out of our town. And even if the next generation in our family achieved high education in the States–well that experience would still define our lives, we would want to go back. And our community would embrace a policy of resistance to whatever state now existed there.
This raises a complex issue. I’m not sure if Phil is imagining how it would have been for his family to be exiled from his actual home town – I think he grew up in the Baltimore (or Philly?) area – or if his parents had been Jews in Europe forced to flee from the Nazis. If the latter, this thought actually intersects with a classic hasbara talking point, to the effect that the Jews who escaped Europe went on to lead new, productive lives elsewhere and never looked back; why couldn’t the Palestinians have done the same? The factual premise about Jewish refugees is mostly right. Almost all of my Dad’s family were refugees, and not a single one ever harbored the slightest thought of returning to Vienna – that part is true. There are of course many differences in the two situations, worthy of a longer essay. but if I had to put it much too briefly: the Holocaust, awful as it was, ended in 1945 with the bad guys being vanquished forever; moreover, anyone who denies it is immediately and almost universally marginalized as a crackpot or worse. The Nakba is ongoing, with the forcible displacement, discrimination, and other consequences still a part of daily life; and denial is mainstream, while those who remember and commemorate the Nakba have a much harder time. This hardly scratches the surface, but I think a Palestinian voice would be more appropriate than my own.
On the other hand, if Phil is talking about his own boyhood home, that too is not the same. In fact, Phil himself left that behind long ago, and I, of the same generation of Jewish Americans, who grew up in the NY area, have no special attachment (even though my parents still live in the same apartment). My wife, Jewish from suburban Boston, is the same (although she retains a lingering affection for the Red Sox and, yes, the Patriots – don’t ask).
I don’t think it’s possible to compare the attachment Palestinians had with their homes and communities in the 1940′s with anything that we feel in the US today. That passage from Phil struck me as inauthentic, although this response doesn’t really do justice to the issues it raises.
David Samel,
“… Jews who escaped Europe went on to lead new, productive lives elsewhere and never looked back; why couldn’t the Palestinians have done the same?”
And give up their ancestral heritage and cemeteries? Are you still so arrogant? So demanding of an occupied people? Have your checked your subconscious colonial inclinations lately? Seriously man! I’m a great admirer of your posts: they’re usually full of truths and humanitarianism, but every now and then you hark on about how the Palestinians should just forget about their ethnic cleansing injustices and ‘get on with it’.
Disappointing commentary, to say the least.
Aren’t Jews still chasing Nazi war criminals — to the point of hounding people like Demjanjuk who were probably little more than janitors and probably not involved in war crimes?
And trying to reclaim wrongfully seized properties?
Taxi, you misinterpret me entirely. I did not even remotely suggest that Palestinians get on with anything and forget. In fact, I was saying the opposite. The segment you quote was not my opinion but was, as I say, a “classic hasbara talking point.” Phil was speculating about how he would feel if the same thing happened to him and his family, and I was suggesting that that was problematic, that in fact it has been a standard hasbara talking point that other refugees, including the Jews of Europe, got on with their lives and so should the Palestinians. I pointed out that there were many differences between the two situations, and that people like Phil and myself could not truly compare our experiences and those of our families to the tragedy of the Palestinians. I thought I made that clear, but your misinterpretation suggests that I could have done a better job.
As for your suggestion that “every now and then you hark on about how the Palestinians should just forget about their ethnic cleansing injustices and ‘get on with it’,” I think you are confusing me with someone else. It’s not that you and I have never disagreed about anything, but I don’t think that is a fair characterization of anything I ever said.
I agree parallels don’t always work in this context. What’s different in the larger pogrom/Nazi context on the part of European Jewish emigrants to the States may well be, they don’t go there with the idea of founding a state of their own in someone else’s land, I guess. Non-Zionists did emigrate as individuals to the US, maybe that makes all the difference.
When did your family leave Vienna?
LeaNder, there are other supposed parallels that don’t work either. Probably the most-often “parallel” cited by hasbarists is the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Jews from many Arab countries to Israel. There are many answers to this argument, but it would not be reasonable to claim that those Jews still wish to return to the countries of their origin.
My father and his family left Vienna in early 1939. Although they all wanted to come to the US, they were mostly unable to obtain visas. He and a number of others went to Havana first and then came here, while one of his cousins went to Shanghai for an entire decade.
thanks, David,
My father and his family left Vienna in early 1939
high time it was. I am mentally much in Vienna slightly earlier, taking a closer look at the “self-hating” Austrian Jewish antijournalistKarl Kraus.
Your name always reminds me of a German actor, a member of a very famous and once my absolutely favorite theater company Peter Stein’s Schaubühne in Berlin. Udo Samel, bad German translation.
Taxi, I interpreted David Samel’s comment you object to entirely differently; I think he was asking the question, why don’t the Palestinians who escaped, got educated, found a new home elsewhere, just “move on, forget about it,” as a significant amount of Jews did after 1945, he claims?
They buried it–how often have I read about somebody talking about their parents or grandparents who “never talked about it (the Shoah)? I’m sure I am not alone. Raising that question, Samel says: because the horror of the Nakba is still going on, even if in relative slow-motion, yet daily. It’s a valid point to make regarding Phil’s post here.
PS: Speaking not about anyone who actually had family who suffered in the Shoah, when I married my Jewish wife a quarter century after the Shoah, in America, her whole extended family very definitely had not forgotten about the Shoah. They would not own a German car. They gave me a hard time, believe me. Cannot talk about Israel with any of them to this day.
Okay David Samel, could be my misinterpretation – falling off the context crest here – and yes I think I am confusing you with someone else (I can’t think of the other guy’s name, but it’s similar to yours) – sorry ’bout that.
But still, your question remains questionable. I mean, there ARE Palestinians who’ve made a clean and honorable success of themselves etc in the diaspora, and even under brutal occupation in occupied Palestine. Yes, granted it’s a minority, but it keeps progressing, despite the ongoing Nakba and crushing Apartheid.
And whereas some euro jews had israel to go to and ‘thrive’, and other euro jews settled and thrived some more in post-holocaust, sympathetic, USA and Canada, etc, the Palestinians en mass have not had such luxuries as either their own country, or the open arms of the world. Just imagine what it would be like if you were a Palestinian passport holder going through JFK Airport, or any western port-of-call for that matter. Yeah pretty scary humiliating shit!
Just because hollywood ain’t screening any Palestinian life successes and heroics, it don’t mean they don’t exist. In abundance.
Citizen,
Thanks pal for the cognitive interception – respectus to yooz! But to not be able to talk about israel to your jewish inlaws, why that’s a living tragedy. Bitter-sweet, as usual, Citizen dude.
Taxi, I cannot talk about Israel and/or the “special relationship” with non-Jews either in my extended family (except for 2 of my siblings), nor with my non-Jewish inlaws, nor with my neighbors–they don’t want to hear it, change the subject. MW may as well be on Newt’s colonized moon of the future for all any of them know or care.
“And our community would embrace a policy of resistance…”
As a child of European Jewish immigrants (some of whose siblings came out of Europe later as refugees), I also was struck by the quote you chose, for its irony. Jews WERE chased out of their homes in Europe (if not killed, of course) but it seems that the communal policy of resistance for a whole generation was that of refusing to acknowledge the crimes that would have to be committed against others for zionism to be successful.
Thanks a lot Phil for this very emotional piece. It brought tears to my eyes and sent shivers down my spine.
Not only is the Nakba a fresh memory, not only does it define my existence, it defines my sense of survival. It is the lens through which I see the zionist occupier, the zionist colonialist, the zionist criminal regime. It is through the hard memory scorch of the Nakba etched in my being that I say “Never Again!”. Yes, that’s right, never again.
For peace to be realized, the zionist regime and the western world that supported it and gave it oxygen (regardless to their respective motives) since before 1948, must all recognize the Nakba and what it has inflicted on us. As Nelson Mandela saw before anyone else did, there could be no peace and democracy and prosperity in South Africa before recognizing the wrongs that were done. Not for retribution, but for reconciliation.
This feeling I have about the Nakba, I feel so strongly about not because of any politics, or peace deal that I love to see us reach, or whatever other reason may be but except for one fundamental reason: personal dignity.
How can one accept and celebrate israel without recognizing the Nakba? These are two sides of the same coin. These are two cause-and-effect events, irreversibly tied together for eternity.
So yes, the Nakba is seared into my conscious, my being, my who-I-am. The Nakba is my North Star. The Nakba is both my shame and my pride. The Nakba is my eternal flame that guides my inner Palestinian nationalist. The Nakba is me and I am the Nakba. It breathes, grows, frustrates, infuriates through me every day. I cannot shed the memory of the Nakba until my land is free, and yes, the mansions, houses, buildings, and lands in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Yafa (Jaffa) that my grandparents labored extremely hard to save towards and to build with their own blood, sweat, and tears are given back to my family… the rightful and wronged owners of these properties who, incidentally, happen to still have the keys and deeds for these properties.
But most important of all, we Palestinians cannot, would not, and do not want to shed the memory of the Nakba until we are a free people living in our free land with dignity and peace; and after the western world recognizes that they wronged us when they supported and advocated and lobbied for the establishment of israel on our land at our expense just to rinse their guilt and crimes of the Holocaust; and after israel owns up to its own crimes and acts of genocide and deliberate destruction and concerted efforts to eliminate any and all traces of Palestinian life, culture, and population centres and villages; and israel’s explicit recognition that the zionist principle is deeply and foundationally flawed and that “a land with no people for people with no land” was THE BIG LIE. Only then can the reconciliation process start… then peace will follow a few generations after that.
Until then, the Nakba lives on in me and in every Palestinian born in Palestine and in every person with an ounce of Palestinian blood born outside Palestine regardless to where they may be living today.
I cannot shed the memory of the Nakba until my land is free, and yes, the mansions, houses, buildings, and lands in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Yafa (Jaffa) that my grandparents labored extremely hard to save towards and to build with their own blood, sweat, and tears are given back to my family
Ramzi, I can see that the Israel and the West has to make some kind of amends for what happened to Palestinians and that the acceptance of the Nabka, or the Palestinian experience must necessarily modify Israel’s foundation myth in our minds in the future; but you have to help this recovering philosemite, or recovering hasbarat– a German coinage, I found on the web–to understand how this could work once we expand your scenario above.
I understand that several hundred villages inside Israel alone and I don’t know how many houses both there and in the WB and Gaza have been destroyed over the whole period. What should happen in these cases?
The way you phrase it gives me the impression the Nabka isn’t a historical event the West has to learn to deal with and somehow has to make amends for, but it is only a means to the end of Palestinians getting back their land with Israeli Jews moving back to wherever they came from.
If I misunderstand, what do I misunderstand/misread?
LeaNder uses a feminine construct form. Probably מאמינה (believer) would better capture her intended meaning.
The only thing I believe in, Joachim Martillo, is that I will die.
But you could point out to me what a “feminine construct form” is? Both theoretically and practically in my case.
Hah, I have the same single belief, LeaNder: that I will die. Of course all I know about that is my life as I know it will end.
Hebrew can use a special noun form to indicate a genitive relationship.
bayit — house
beit din — house of judgment, court
hasbarah — propaganda
hasberat talmidim — propaganda of students
hasberat hatalmidim — the propaganda of the students
In Modern Israeli Hebrew, the status constructus is vestigial.
Wikipedia has a reasonable discussion: link to en.wikipedia.org .
LeaNder is suffering from deep German guilt; she still does not see that what she emotionally affords the Jews, she does not afford the Palestinians. She reduces Ramzi Jaber’s admittedly emotional portrait of himself, his very identity, to the intellectual exercise of a Palestinian working to send back the Jews to where they come from–interesting, nicht wahr? She has never done anything remotely similar with any Jewish anguish registered on MW; indeed, she has bent over backward to embrace such. She has a problem. Is it a very subtle version of what Churchill said about the Germans? That they were either at your neck, or at your feet? What does LeaNder offer Jaber emotionally, to ask the least?
look, honey pie/citizen, I am hesitant about: “inner nationalists”. Why do you think I should fight them in my own country but embrace them in Palestine?
The Nakba is my eternal flame that guides my inner Palestinian nationalist.
LeaN
Nationalist, nationalism can have a dozen meanings. Whether it’s a good or bad or netural thing depends on whatever anyone claiming it or promoting it means by it.
If you’re an older German it might have bad connations for you because of Nazi nationalist era.
A younger German might be proud of certain aspects or devoted to the interest of Germany as one of it’s citizens today because he intends to stay there and will be affected by it’s welfare.
na·tion·al·ism (nsh-n-lzm, nshn-)
n.
1. Devotion to the interests or culture of one’s nation.
2. The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.
3. Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination.
4. The belief that one’s nation is superior and comes ahead of all other nations.
American, Pat Lang is an American too and highly sensitive to anyone who talks bad about it, so there surely is devotion. He makes precisely the difference I would make, he calls himself a patriot. Nationalism is the worst the 19th century brought about. They even had liberal nationalists, but don’t bother to look at their mindset, I’ll tell you.
On this topic, you won’t convince me. I have my firm positions in the larger debate.
It wasn’t an accident that immediately after Germany was united by Prussian force, some started to discuss who belonged and who didn’t: The Nation, the State and the Jews, Marcel Stoetzler
On this topic, you won’t convince me. I have my firm positions in the larger debate.
leaNder, in your view are nationalists always (or usually) ethnic nationalists?
LeaN,
Which of the definitions from the Oxford and Websters above would you like to use for nationalism?
I could be called a nationalist under 1.
Palestines could be called nationalist under 3.
Israelis have already been called nationalist under 1.,2. and 4.
I’m not trying to change to your mind, you can believe or use nationalism any way you want to. My point was and is, it’s a word with several different interpretations.
american, i’m thinking perhaps she’s made a broader distinction between nationalism and nationalist. perhaps.
“american, i’m thinking perhaps she’s made a broader distinction between nationalism and nationalist. perhaps”..annie
I think LeaN is more into, caught up in the “ethnic” nationalism.
I don’t know if in modern history all nationalism or ‘movements’ called nationalism have been about un-mixing or rejecting all or certain ethnics in a country or not as it was in Germany. It’s something I would have to research. May be.
American, I haven’t started reading English yesterday, but I wasn’t aware of this usage. “Exaggerated national pride” or “excessive sense of national identity”, is the German defintion. No big surprise here. So I am backed up both by a series of scholars on the subject, I respect, and the German definition. Obviously some talk about the necessity of national pride over here, but again that is not nationalist pride, and admittedly even that makes me shudder.
If Phil or Adam ever use it in the positive way, as an enlightened postion, as your definitions suggests, I am going to change my mind on American usage. And no, I am not talking about nation or national, I am talking about nationalism.
I have no access to the OED from here, and only a Webster World Dictionary Second Edition from 1980 at hand, it reads:
nationalism
1) a devotion to one’s nation; patriotism
b) excessive, narrow, or jingoist patriotism; chauvinism
2) the doctrine of national interest, security etc are more important than international considerations
3) the desire for or advocacy of national independence.
*********************************************
I can accept the idea behind 3 in post-colonial struggles, thus for Palestinians too. They may not have a better word to use but the one historically deeply loaded not only for me but also for my Webster edition.
and at least theoretically Phil could have used nationalism instead of “national interest”.
I have to finish my taxes till tomorrow, now I’ll shut up for good.
LeaNder says:
February 19, 2012 at 11:19 pm
I think the difference in our view of term nationalism or nationalist is your average American doesn’t associate it with the same definition a German or someone from another country might.
Annie ‘s comment was really excellent in explaining what a American would typically think of nationalism being. They wouldn’t necessarily associate it with ethnic nationalism you’re talking about. They might and most non neos do think of US neos and the right wing as being’ excessively’ nationalist about US Supremacy in their our way or the highway attitude about the world.
LeaNder, honey pie, what gave you the impression I expected you to embrace “inner nationalists” in Palestine? And think about this: “The Shoah is my eternal flame that guides my inner Jewish nationalist.”
“The way you phrase it gives me the impression the Nabka isn’t a historical event the West has to learn to deal with and somehow has to make amends for, but it is only a means to the end of Palestinians getting back their land with Israeli Jews moving back to wherever they came from.”
LeaN, operating in a left brain world , consider a few things.
First, read UN Res. 181 (and the subsequent resolutions) to see exactly what the creation of Israel ‘allowed’ the Jews to do and “restricted” them from doing in the portion of Palestine they were awarded. Res. 181 had protections for the rights and property of Palestines ‘within’ the new Israel. We all know the zioinist violated “the agreements” in 181 and used violence to run Palestines out of the new Israel and seize their property. There are 259+ resolutions UN against Israel and most of them are based on Israel violating the agreement in 181 for the establishment of Israel.
If this were any other legal matter all Israel’s violations of the 181 agreement would void the agreement or subject it to punitive measures to force compliance.
Second, what moral grounds would you have to object if Israel had to assume responsibility for what it did in 1948 to present even if it meant Jews had to leave or at minimum give up property considering everything that was done to correct the Jewish injustice and punish the Germans? After WWII, the US and allies occupying Germany carried out a huge program to return property of Jews, throwing out any Germans that were occupying Jewish homes or property….restitution of property continues to this day, 63 years later. Also the largest ‘transfer’ of people ever was 3 million Germans deported from the territories the Soviets transferred to Poland after WWII.
“If” Israel was judged as a country by the’ same standards’ the hasbara brigade is always asking us to judge Israel by, then it could be subjected to everything above that Germany and other countries have been subjected to.
I don’t see it as practical to ‘dissolve’ Israel and created 7 million emigrees to other countries and don’t think it will ever happen. I do see it as imperative to do away with the “Exception” to all law Israel claims and correct everything they have done, including the return of Palestines that were expelled from Israel, that doesn’t comply with the agreement and conditions made when the UN established Israel and make them, not anyone else, financially responsible for reparations to Palestine and all affected Palestines the same way Germany had to be responsible for it’s crimes against Jews and others.
Do you see any reason why the same standards, laws and remedies for the injured shouldn’t be applied to Israel?
Looking at it with your right brain, if you were a Palestine or Arab would you want the zionist sent back to where ever they came from based on what they’ve done and –most importantly –refuse to stop doing?
I would if I were a Palestine.
Annie, American, I guess it’s only certain slogans phrases that that make me feel discomfortable. Why should I at the ripe age of 61 embrace nationalism as something to like? Only since it is a Palestinian preaching it with religious fervor? It’s not theoretical either, since if I do, I have to join the mindset over here that still thinks “non-Germans”, e.g. Palestinian Germans, should return to where they come from, should be pushed out.
the zionist occupier, the zionist colonialist, the zionist criminal regime
`my eternal flame that guides my inner Palestinian nationalist … my land.
the slogans somehow drench the positive feeling passages like this trigger:
How can one accept and celebrate israel without recognizing the Nakba? These are two sides of the same coin. These are two cause-and-effect events, irreversibly tied together for eternity.
I absolutely agree with this, I also agree with much of the rest, but the slogans and the “inner nationalist” of “his land” somehow put me off.
thanks for your response LeaNder. i’ve never been very good at understanding the nationalist thing. i suppose because to be an american nationalist, to me, means embracing the multi culturalism we are and then i find out ‘nations’ are ‘peoples’ like ethnicities..like ‘jews being a nation’ (all of them not just israelis) as opposed to a country. and it is his people’s land. if something is stolen from you it doesn’t mean it’s not yours anymore, as far as you are concerned. that’s sort of normal. either way, i guess i didn’t read that as ‘jews get out’ although i can’t speak for ramzi. also, i guess i missed the religious fervor. i thought it was beautiful.
You should differentiate between love of your country: patriotism and nationalism, Annie. There is a huge difference. “Nationalists” in Europe and the US are always on the extreme right. Love of ones country everybody understands quite differently. Democratic or left nationalist is an oxymoron.
I have a basic understanding for the use of nationalism on the Palestinian side, they want to counter the Zionist idea which is nationalist. They want to counter the hasbara line that they aren’t a nation at all. But I still think it’s a very, very bad idea.
Patriotism versus Nationalism. Besides it’s always worth rereading George Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism.
hi leaNder, i do not think i am confusing patriotism for nationalism. i think i am using it wrt the way we identify ourselves as americans. iow, what we identify as our strength as americans (for me, it is the idea of ‘melting pot’)
the opening paragraph of your nationalism link:
that is exactly the difference i am talking about when i wrote to be an american nationalist, to me, means embracing the multi culturalism we are. (and i mean multi cultures blending) as members of a nation we can partake in defining who we are, we don’t have to let that definition be ‘owned’ by white nationalists. and i disagree that nationalists always means right wing here, i don’t think of ‘the cherokee nation’ as rightwing. but maybe they are. this conversation reminds me of noura erakat’s excellent article about what it means to be an american national. imo, there is a cultural war going on over our definition of what it means to be a national and that is very much influenced by zionism. erakat states “While there is no legal difference between the American citizen and the national, in social practice there exists a hierarchy of citizenship that affords the perceived American national”. i recommend reading the whole thing. note her use of the term “perceived american national” vs who really is an american national (all citizens), legally. so i am going to choose to identify myself as a member of a multicultural nation. that’s my ‘american nation’, my people, if i recognize one at all as well as self identifying as a global citizen.
from your orwell link:
iow, it’s not set in stone. the opening of wiki’s american nationalism link says this:
iow, in its truest sense, american nationalism embraces many ethnicities and cultures within our nation culminating in one nation and is defined by our citizenship, not our patriotism. and it is in direct contradiction to the idea of an ethnic nationalist state, iow we do not share those values with israel.
that’s my understanding of who we are as a people anyway.
annie, I searched “noura erakat’s excellent article” for the term nationalist, no hit, there is only one for nationalism:
Nation and national isn’t interchangeable with nationalism. Nationalism has it’s own distinct history and mythical, emotional baggage; let’s leave it at that. Concerning the Wikipedia article count me among the critics. The idea of the European Union may be ultimately utopian, but I prefer it to Europe’s earlier nationalist nightmares.
ok, perhaps i am more confused than i thought i was.
Nation and national isn’t interchangeable with nationalism
ok, well, what about nationalism and nationalist? how are they related? you linked to wiki’s nationalism (i assumed as an example for me)and i blockquoted the first paragraph and related how it applied to what i was saying, as well as the opening for american nationalism. so maybe nationalism and nationalist are not related either. like i said at the beginning, i find it all a little odd anyway. but the point being, if it doesn’t mean one clear thing to me, perhaps it doesn’t mean one clear thing to ramzi either. i will concede it sounds like you are more familiar with nationalisms than i am so perhaps i am confusing the definitions vs applications.
“that’s my understanding of who we are as a people anyway.”..annie
Mine too, Excellent reply. Explains it perfectly.
thnx! such a cool username American.
;)
Annie, LeaNder pointed to German nationalism, specifically to the time the Prussians were uniting the various areas to become the German state represented in the world by Bismarck. The notion of the Volk was developed in the years prior thereto, with the issue of What Is A German? Hitler of course raised it in lurid detail, recounting his days as a young artist wannabe, when he first came upon Jews in the Vienna street (from the East in their orthodox dress, hair style, manners).
Melting pot? That metaphor has died; America’s children today are taught to value “diversity” and “multiculturalism.” The metaphor “tossed salad” is common; the newest I know of is “chunky stew.” (The Food Channel shows the differences–just joking).
Anyway, since the term “nationalism” is a pejorative in liberal circles generally, and is known as “patriotism” in contrary circles, I figure it might not be such a long sin to copy and paste this in here:
“Although nationalism is unique to the modern world, some of its elements can be traced throughout history. The first roots of nationalism are probably to be found in the ancient Hebrews, who conceived of themselves as both a chosen people, that is, a people as a whole superior to all other peoples, and a people with a common cultural history. The ancient Greeks also felt superior to all other peoples and moreover felt a sense of great loyalty to the political community. These feelings of cultural superiority (ethnocentrism), which are similar to nationalism, gave way to much more universal identifications under the Roman Empire and with the Christian Church through its teaching of the oneness of humanity.
As strong centralized monarchies were built from petty feudal states, as regional languages and art forms were evolved, and as local economies widened, popular identification with these developments became increasingly strong. In areas such as Italy, which were not yet single nations, recurring invasions led such thinkers as Niccolò Machiavelli to advocate national political federation. The religious wars of the Reformation set nation against nation, though the strongest loyalty continued to adhere to the sovereign. In the 16th and 17th cent. the nationalistic economic doctrine of mercantilism appeared.
The growth of the middle classes, their desire for political power, and the consequent development of democratic political theory were closely connected with the emergence of modern nationalism. The theorists of the French Revolution held that people should establish governments of equality and liberty for everyone. To them the nation was inseparable from the people, and for the first time in history a people could create a government in accordance with the nation’s general will. Although their aims were universal, they glorified the nation that would establish their aims, and nationalism found its first political expression.
It was in the 19th cent. that nationalism became a widespread and powerful force. During this time nationalism expressed itself in many areas as a drive for national unification or independence. The spirit of nationalism took an especially strong hold in Germany, where thinkers such as Johann Gottfried von Herder and Johann Gottlieb Fichte had developed the idea of Volk. However, the nationalism that inspired the German people to rise against the empire of Napoleon I was conservative, tradition-bound, and narrow rather than liberal, progressive, and universal. And when the fragmented Germany was finally unified as the German Empire in 1871, it was a highly authoritarian and militarist state. After many years of fighting, Italy also achieved national unification and freedom from foreign domination, but certain areas inhabited by Italians (e.g., Trieste) were not included in the new state, and this gave rise to the problem of irredentism. In the United States, where nationalism had evinced itself in the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, national unity was maintained at the cost of the Civil War.
In the latter half of the 19th cent., there were strong nationalist movements among the peoples subject to the supranational Austrian and Ottoman empires, as there were in Ireland under British rule, and in Poland under Russian rule. At the same time, however, with the emergence in Europe of strong, integrated nation-states, nationalism became increasingly a sentiment of conservatives. It was turned against such international movements as socialism, and it found outlet in pursuit of glory and empire (see imperialism). Nationalist conflicts had much to do with bringing on World War I.
The early 20th cent., with the breakup of Austria-Hungary and of the Ottoman Empire, saw the establishment of many independent nations, especially through the peace treaties ending World War I. The Paris Peace Conference established the principle of national self-determination, upheld by the League of Nations and later by the United Nations. While self-determination is a nationalist principle, it also recognizes the basic equality of all nations, large or small, and therefore transcends a narrow nationalism that claims superiority for itself.
It was exactly this latter type of nationalism, however, that arose in Nazi Germany, preaching the superiority of the so-called Aryan race and the need for the extermination of the Jews and the enslavement of Slavic peoples in their “living space” (see National Socialism). Italian fascism was in a similar manner based on extreme nationalist sentiments. At the same time, Asian and African colonial territories, seeking to cast off imperial bonds, were developing nationalist movements. Perhaps the most famous of these was the Indian National Congress, which struggled for Indian independence for over 60 years. After World War II nationalism in Asia and Africa spread at such a fast pace that dozens of new “nations” were created from former colonial territorial holdings.
Although interdependence and global communications interconnected all nations by the 1990s, nationalism appears to have grown more extreme with the breakup of the Soviet empire, the growth of Muslim fundamentalism, and the collapse of Yugoslavia. Xenophobic, separatist movements are not necessarily confined to newly independent states; they appear in many European nations and Canada, as well as India, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and many others. International organizations, such as the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the Organization for African Unity, represent attempts to curb extreme nationalism, stressing cooperation among nations.”
link to factmonster.com
LeaNder,
What the heck dude?! YOU try avoiding the use of the word ‘nationalism’ after 64 years of brutal occupation!
Go read Mahmood Darwish to really ‘get’ the meaning of Palestinian ‘nationalism’.
And you wanna censor what ‘words’ an occupied people ‘should’ be using? You’re being prissy and ridiculous now!
Annie, re “common culture” aspect of nationalism. In Charles Murray’s book Coming Apart, there is a simple 20 question test all Americans can take to see if they live within a culture bubble, that is, to find out if they even have one friend who is an average or normal American–here it is: link to proprofs.com
Here is the full test of 25 questions, with commentary on how to score your points and what they each mean:
link to scribd.com
Annie, with respect, in all the words quoted from the wiki articles I do not see anything to hold onto; the definitions are circular — “American nationalism is the nationalism of Americans . . .and American culture. . . .and classical liberal individualistic principles . . .as established by the founders? ” That says nothing. It’s a word salad.
What is your understanding of what American culture is?
What ARE “ethnic nationalist principles” in contrast to “classical liberal individualistic principles?”
How do YOU define “classical liberal individualistic principles?”
I notice that the definition is sourced to Hans Kohn. Might be a Jewish name/person. It has to be recognized that the Jewish experience and therefore the “movies that play across the inside of the forehead” of Jewish people — scholars or not — is far different from the “movies in the heads” of America’s founding fathers. By 1776 Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin had travelled to Italy, communicated with the finest Italian (Filangieri), English and French political thinkers perhaps in history; were readily conversant in the principles of the Enlightenment, having read Cicero, Erasmus, Francis Bacon, Voltaire, while Jewish people were still under the control of their rabbis a majority of whom enforced only Torah as the appropriate reading material. Jews were not emancipated until the French revolution, ~1789 — America’s founders were an entire era ahead of them. Non-Jewish Americans have not learned or defended their heritage, and have allowed themselves to be put into a similar emotional as well as intellectual straitjacket.
citizen, did you notice that is promoted by the neocon AEI? what they have done is tried to push the idea what we were (primarily white america) is who we are today and the loss of that signifies we are coming apart. but notice the questions that were asked, generally the america of nascar, working in factories, stuffing your fridge with a certain kind of beer. it was the fifties and nostalgia. i’m not sure that is my experience of america or where i want it to go. the video offered at the end this video:
link to youtube.com
The guy who wrote it wrote the Bell Curve, Annie. If you noticed, he was mostly discussing the great divide between the majority working class of the 1950s, which was, yes, the white majority of Americans back then–and what we have now in America, what’s left of that ethos. The larger context is his book in toto, Coming Apart, and what’s coming apart, as he sees it, is America’s “founding virtues,” that is, thrift, industriousness, fidelity, and parental responsibility, piety, and civic engagement–within America’s working class, and the personal and communal wreckage of all that now.
teta, i noticed Hans Kohn was jewish. without knowing anything else about him it was his definition, and i would emphasize the bolded: US government institutionalized a civic nationalism based on legal and rational concepts of citizenship, and based on a common language and cultural traditions, rather than ethnic nationalism
“definitions are circular “, yes they are. what it means (my understanding of civic nationalism) is it is the citizenry that defines the nation.
“What is your understanding of what American culture is?”
aside from war which we can’t seem to escape i’d say its a hodgepodge, a collaboration of who we are merged with the law and the structure of government treats all citizens equally. (although i know it doesn’t work out like that)
“What ARE “ethnic nationalist principles” in contrast to “classical liberal individualistic principles?””
don’t you mean ethnic nationalism vs civic nationalism?
link to msu.edu
I’d say that ‘patriotism’ is wanting the best for one’s country. Many claim to be patriotic but critical – the best service they can render their country is challenge the mistakes of its people.
‘Nationalism’ is the belief that nations, however defined, should be sovereign by themselves, ie not expected to pool their decision making with others. The definition can be cultural, religious, ethnic. Nationalism is often opposed to imperialism.
Anyone can define words as they like but I’d say that I’m covering most of the ways people use these words.
MHughes, yet I’d add, unfortunately, often “patriotism” is defined ultimately by politicians as “You’re either with me, or against me.”
Bush Jr is a comparatively recent example of such a user.
This phenomena is ridiculed by the phrase “wrapped in the flag.”
In personal relations, the analogy is to the difference between a parent who always says, “I love you just the way you are, unconditionally,” and one who says, “I love you unconditionally, but I don’t like what you are doing (in some
named respect[s]), and I won’t stand for it.”
The latter is the reason the American First Amendment to its Constitution exists.
The measure of a real democracy is a fully-informed citizenry. In the USA today, another Pentagon Papers is not possible, or at least not reasonably probable. The measure of Mondoweiss is its contribution to more fully informing Americans than the mainstream media does in regards to its subject matter.
The way you phrase it gives me the impression the Nabka isn’t a historical event the West has to learn to deal with and somehow has to make amends for, but it is only a means to the end of Palestinians getting back their land with Israeli Jews moving back to wherever they came from.
LeaNder , could you be more specific about which part of ramzi’s comment gave you the impression he was suggesting ‘Jews moving back to wherever they came from’? i heard this:
does that say Jews moving back to wherever they came from?
also, the Nabka isn’t a historical event in the sense it isn’t solely in the past tense. it’s still very alive and we’re documenting it as it is taking place today. so the west has to do more than make amends, they have to stop what they are doing too. stop the ethnic cleansing.
the nakba is ongoing.
before long we will study the Nakba’s connection to the Holocaust and colonialism, and to pogroms and Jewish landlessness
god speed
thank you for this phil.
Tracing those connections will require some courage and some tact. Every statement made will outrage somebody, probably somebody quite powerful.
That the primary victims should die out along with the vanishing of evidence and memory of the 1947-8 ethnic cleansing was a goal expressed by the primary Zionist planners and orchestrators of the crimes against Palestinians.
a goal expressed by the primary Zionist planners and orchestrators of the crimes against Palestinians.
cultural genocide. it’s not working tho, the next generation has sprung roots and multiplied.
Very fine piece, Mr. Weiss. M Love
Phil, about that Penn BDS conference–
I wonder how Palestinians feel about no actual BDS resolutions being presented now at any university (or anywhere else) in North America.
I hope the Palestinians you meet can issue some kind of call to actually push for divestment resolutions, boycott resolutions, specifically against Israel!
Otherwise, what is BDS, anyway?
the nakba and the holocaust
each an example of dehumanization carried to the max
german nazis oppressing jews in the holocaust
jews oppressing palestinians in the nakba
yet with some surviving jews responding to having escaped the furnaces of naziism
not by standing up against all forms of likeminded terror
but by doing unto palestinians what was done unto them
to them never again apparently meaning except when carried out by us settler jews purportedly in the name of all jews
oh no you don’t, jewish settler land thieves and ethnic cleansers
at least not in my name
a jewish palestinian by virtue of having put my life on the line for justice in palestine
that there be no more holocausts or nakbas
nowhere
against any people
but is this a jewish responsibility only?
is it not everyone’s?
What’s really depressing, yourstruly, to me as an American, is that so many of the illegal Israeli settlers were born and bred in America. Obviously, America is breaking up in terms of best humane values. In the near future, when the whiles are a minority, not only in various urban areas, but nationally in terms of total demography, will my whole country be like these, e.g., Brooklyn jews who fly off to Israel to play Cowboys and Indians? Is that what I and my family fought in so many wars for since I was born?
Citizen, the frenzy with which anti-immigrants are pushing for tighter enforcement of existing immigration laws (as well as new laws for the deportation of so-called anchor babies) suggests that the scenario you project is not far-fetched. unless, that is, whites, despite losing their majority status, somehow come to their senses and learn to live in and maybe even appreciate the more diversified and multicultural society. if not, though, where will they “escape” to? europe’s out because for them that’ll be like going from the frying pan into the fire. but what if the only nations willing to take in these “escapees” turn out to be in the arab/islamic world? would the “escapees” accept such offers and if so how’s that for irony?
Is there Zionists who use the Holocaust to justify the actions of the Nakba? Ones who acknowledge Nakba I mean. I’ve read my fair share of “they left of their own free will” and related Zionist feedback on the subject.
Zionist double standards are not a secret but an expectation. An expectation Zionists might think we share with them. So for example, the collective mistreatment of Palestinians for over six decades and Zionist militarism in general is often compared with 1930s-1940s Germany. People do not like the comparison for obvious reasons but that does not make the behavior any less comparable.
On one hand I could say that some major lessons have ironically not been learned and now they are the bad guy in Israel using similar methods. All that’s missing is a ‘final solution for Palestinians’ and I fear that Likudites are capable of just that. Looking at it from the Zionist POV, they use the Holocaust to justify their actions. According to the narrative, they returned to their ancient homeland and the Arabs tried to push them to the sea, then all the neighboring Arab armies invaded. Little Israel won. Their neighbors said they didn’t want peace and plotted every which way to push them to the sea, but Israel always won and to be more defensible conquered the Sinai, Gaza, Golan, and WB. Then the Arabs around their became Palestinians (according to Newt).
The double standards, the over-brutality, the occupation, the mistreatment, ethnic cleansing, the wall, the Gaza blockade, etc. is justified in their minds because of the Holocaust and the perceived hostility towards a Jewish presence in the region. Never again meaning never again, and the Zionists are expecting the world to agree. I should’ve seen this earlier, but it wasn’t until the Holocaust got brought up as justification for striking Iran and in the fine print I finally realized this.
Which is a problem because of the Zionist revision of Palestinian history. They were colonists, they were not nice neighbors, they did steal land, they did ethnically cleanse the area, they did resort to terrorism (allegedly for the British occupiers, but more Palestinians were killed), and they did declare independence without having any right to do so and owning 5% of the land.
They’ve lied, they’ve made excuses, they’ve used stalling tactics on peace obligations, they’ve ignored UN resolutions and international law, they’ve committed false flags, and they continue to demean the Palestinians. That’s why there is resistance. Not because Arabs want to push Jews to the sea. And the infamous grand mufti being buds with Hitler or whatever does not make them proxy responsible for the Holocaust. And the people who know the truth do not agree with the double standard. The Israelis themselves, they don’t know the truth. When they are told the truth, it hurts and they deny it. So they expect us to agree with their double standards for various reasons and when we don’t, that makes us the bad guy. Or something like that.
I don’t believe the Israeli spinning of the numbers on younger generations of American Jews which says that they are pro-Israel and it is the anti-Zionists doing the spinning. I don’t believe that. Their stats selectively do not included recent history. Like cast lead. The young do not stay young. Will Israelis consider themselves separate and create a divide, or will the right start listening to reason regarding the actual truth of what has been going on?
Perceptions are nearly impossible to change. Many Zionists on the right deny the history or say ‘so what? it’s our land, the ‘pals’ can go to Jordan’
Excellent Philip! Dealing with Nakba denial gets to the heart of the change that must be made.
I am reposting for anyone who missed it a comment I made to Norman Finkelstein’s calling BDS a “cult”. I think it shows the historical roots of this denial of the Nakba:
Dr. Finkelstein’s attempt to withdraw this video from You Tube shows the deep conflict going on within liberal Zionism. This conflict has existed since the establishment of Israel.
In December 4, 1948, Albert Einstein and 25 leading intellectuals of his day wrote a letter to the New York Times protesting the visit of Menachen Begin to New York to promote his Freedom Party in the newly established state of Israel. The Freedom Party was the predecessor of the Likud which now controls Israeli society. In the letter, fresh from the experiences of World War II, they compare Begin’s party to the Fascist parties of Europe. It is a powerful condemnation of the terrorism such as Dier Yassin which were part of the establishment of Israel.
The letter is at link to link to globalwebpost.com
However, within the letter is the contradiction of liberal Zionism. Surrounded by a forceful condemnation of fascist tactics employed by the Freedom Party, the signatories to the letter say this:
“The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.”
For all their outrage at the tactics of the New Freedom party, the signatories of the letter deny the Nakba. What else can, “They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity.” mean? Who is the “Jewish defense activity” directed at?
So Finkelstein and liberal Zionists have a choice. Either they are in support of an ethnically cleansed theocratic state of Israel or they are for a state which honors separation of church and state where all are equal regardless of religion, origin or ethnicity.
Israel is not really a theocratic state. It is an ethnic fundamentalist or ethnic monist state.
It may look like a religious state because Zionism has managed to co-opt at least 90% of religious, but Judaism today with the exception of Neturei Karta has few points of common with Judaism before the 1950s.
(Heretical) Orthodox leaders like Joseph Soloveitchik led this transformation, but it is simply hard to view him as practicing anything that evolved out of traditional E. European Judaism.
We see a similar evolution of Serbian Orthodoxy in that by the 1990s Serbian Orthodox Christianity became the handmaiden of a particularly murderous and extremist form of Serb nationalism.
Nevertheless under Slobodan Milošević Serbia could not be considered in any way, shape, or form a theocratic state.
“Dr. Finkelstein’s attempt to withdraw this video from You Tube shows the deep conflict going on within liberal Zionism. This conflict has existed since the establishment of Israel.”
What video are you talking about (no link?) and what was the evidence that Finkelstein attempted to withdraw it?
As to the letter from Einstein et al, (and liberal Zionism) there was/is resistance to understanding that in Jewish nationalism, as for all other nationalisms, are the seeds for fascism. Nationalism as a way out of your problems is just no good.
I am referring to Adam Horowitz’s updated article of February 14th which is what I was responding to.
link to mondoweiss.net
Can somebody explain me something that puzzles me about the image above?
Why is it that I perceive the metal pole with crossbar both standing before the house but also reaching behind one of the top front pillars? What I seem to see, can’t be true.
There is more about the mansion that puzzles me, I hope one day Phil tells more about it.
I think I understand. It’s some kind of supportive structure, preventing collapse? The pole bends towards the building?
Equally weird, the windows of the upper floors on the right & left seem to be partially bricked up, with just wide ‘slots’ – some wider than the original opening – left. It’s a bit decrepit. Maybe somebody fancied himself a diy expert? Hopefully Phil will bring back the (bound to be) crazy story behind it!
“Equally weird, the windows of the upper floors on the right & left seem to be partially bricked up, with just wide ‘slots’ – some wider than the original opening – left. It’s a bit decrepit. Maybe somebody fancied himself a diy expert?”
It was a military position on the Mandelbaum Gate until 1967. The DIY was adjustments for gun slits and the like.
Bumblebye- The building was located on the Israeli side of the 1949 cease fire line between Israeli troops and Jordanian troops when Jerusalem was divided in 1949. The cease fire line was not literally a cease fire line, meaning there was still firing of weapons from the Jordanian side towards the Israeli side and visa versa. Therefore windows were turned into turrets with small slits for rifles.
thanks for the additional notes kamanja.
Wondering we are talking about the famous ‘border skirmishes”, right?
Right, Turgeman House has a nice line in pockmarks to show for it. The Mandelbaum Gate was the only crossing between West and East Jerusalem – for tourists and diplomats rather than residents. Turgeman means translator/interpreter, in Aramaic originally. But it’s also used in Arabic and Hebrew. Neat name, I always think, for a house that served as a Jerusalem border crossing.
Can somebody explain me something that puzzles me about the image above?
The building in question used to be called “Turgeman House” or “Turgeman Post House”, and is now called “Museum on the Seam” (established with funding from a German Foundation). It was built in 1932 by a Christian Palestinian architect by the name of Anton Baramki.
There is a post in front, with the name of the museum, and a banner on top – behind the damaged arch – usually with the names of temporary exhibits I think.
Either the picture was taken from a weird angle, and there is no banner on top at the moment (just some sort of semi-transparent backing), or someone did some photoshopping to show just the Palestinian house, without its Israeli trappings.
Edit: It’s not a banner, but this neon sign: link to maddiefireman.typepad.com
The whole project is as cynical as they come.
thanks Shmuel, I guess one has to know Hebrew to find more images on the net.
But Museum of the Seam helped, slightly catering to West-Jerusalem taste? Current exhibition: Westend. A dialog between Islam and The (sic) West or a clash of civilizations? An existential struggle for power and domination in the world of tomorrow. (can I dedicate the title to Danaa?)
since europe’s whites are not reproducing themselves, whereas, its islamic immigrants are (+ some), these white folks should be grateful for the timely increase in the number of their muslim compatriots, since it’s the latter who’ll do the work (and pay the taxes) that’ll enable the former to enjoy the health care and pensions of the continent’s safety nets.
I guess one has to know Hebrew to find more images on the net
I know the building well. I grew up not far from there, and have passed by it hundreds of times.
You grew up in Jerusalem? I didn’t know. But thanks again, and I hope you’ll understand my irritation about the show’s subject. ;)
yourstruly, I guess one could say the same for America as for Europe? Former minorities will be the workers paying for the retired whites? Whites are no longer the majority of babies born in the USA each year. And the younger generations today have become increasingly “diverse.” OTOH, what’s to stop the new majority from changing the safety net rules? For example, Obamacare puts a lot more of the young on Medicaid (pure entitlement), and it reduces Medicare benefits for the elderly (who pay monthly premiums). Somewhat similarly with changes coming to Social Security.
LeaNder,
I lived in Jerusalem from 1981 to 2002. I share your irritation and your sensibilities. Were such an exhibition put on in Rome, you would find me picketing the museum. It is particularly irritating (although not surprising) to find this sanitised, intellectualised, liberalised version of contemporary European racism in the blatantly ethno-nationalist Israeli context.
In the ethnically-cleansed structure that houses the “Museum on the Seam”, this particular exhibition evokes so much irony and counter-irony that it makes my brain hurt.
One should, I would think, distinguish the Zionist cloak worn by American Jews whose entire existence from embryonic life to cantankerous old age is as American as apple pie…. as in the case of Dershowitz– one of the 70% of World Jewry for whom Israel is a nice place to visit but not to live– from that worn by a true Sabra or a self-directed olim. As a model lawyer Dershowitz practices shysterism, wherein the lawyer knows not the truth but finesses the facts as much as needed to get his client off. That’s a lawyer’s professional oath: EVERYTHING FOR THE CLIENT! This he has done over and over again for his client, the right wing of the Zionist movement, with dedication. Given someone for whom hasbara is a professional deformation, one should not make much of it when he applies it for Israel. Afterall, how little of a Zionist he is personally can be judged by how little of himself he has invested in Israel.
It is much the same with many older Diaspora Jews. The Zionists used the Holocaust to build a great guilt club of American Jews, hitting the “parasitic” Jews they can’t convince to join the Great Aliyah. They speak of Israel invoking guilt (of Palestine in deceptive hyperboles) asuaged by fulfillment of that gnawing obligation. Theyremind of the courageous “pilgrimages to the land of our forefathers”– something many of them know next to nothing about; but what wrong is there in distorting and disembling as “scholarship” on behalf of the true causeto: HASBARA!
Perhaps that is why Israelis so impatiently say to Diasporic Jews that question them: “you owe us, you chicken heart parasites, so go back to your country and send in the gelt to appease your guilt…..but don’t ever tell us what to do!
There were Zionist founding fathers for whom Israel was to be an enlightened land where Jews bring their Arab cousins into modernity, making Israel “a light onto the [Arab] nations.” But by now Israel has gotten fat, greedy, secular and with a sense of history that begins, not in God’s 7 days, but in 1948. Israelis are too used to the American dole, the German reparations and the Diasporic guilt gelt. These Sabras fought for Israel’s survival and expansion and they want royalties from Jews trying to use Zionism as elevator shoes.
At a Jewish dinner party in NY, where an Israeli figure of sorts was the honored guest, he flicked the long rod of lit ash from his cigarette on the floor, burning the white carpet a bit. Unflapped by the home owner running to put out the cigarette burn, he said: “What’s this you Americans don’t bring us ashtrays anymore?” The host tried to take it good stride. But clearly, the room filled with an air of discomfort as all those Jews who had come to honor this Sabra wondered: have we come to the point where they’re such holy can-do-no-wrong saints and we’re mere servants desperate to please?
Zionism is a threatened but, nevertheless, ongoing profession. And professional Zionists feel that in these times when real jobs are hard to find, a bit a hyperbolic genuflection is not too much to do to assure such a low stress job. And so, the hasbara blows up even bigger.
In politie Diasporic Jewish society all this is taken in stride. The college professors who author Judeo-Zionist books like diarrhea do so because they know that there are no standards; publication is a sure thing if you’re honing of that “line” is right. Every Diasporic writer is trying to outdo his/her follow such Ziophilic writers, knowing that there’s a shallow bottom to what you can say but, literally, the sky’s the limit for hasbara in favor of the Zionist project.
None of that is real, none of that is bound by intellectual or moral strictures. Yet, what really makes it possible is that everyone understands that no one will ever pay attention to it– many will buy, none will really read. Only Palestinian authors will quote these hyperboles….and then Zionists can always say that they’re quoting out of context or that, in the best of cases, “you just don’t understand,” as if we “dumb goyim” are too stupid to grasp the enormous complexity of Israel.
Zionism does not reflect a moral deterioration in Judiasm, however. To the contrary, Jews may be the moral pillars that hold up what’s left of Western Culture. But Zionism has tuned out to be AN INDUSTRY meant to fog up the reality that more Jews are leaving the “Promised Land” after graduating from Israel’s wonderful universities than are coming in. SO ISRAEL IS GROWING WHILE ISRAELIS IS SHRINKING! Diaspora Jews are basic to the fabric of the West where they were born rather than to the Mideast. Hence, anyone can say anything because it really doesn’t matter anymore. The truth is a bitter plant sweetened with gooey hasbara. The Iran issue just may bring everyone back face to face with reality (maybe not all those Israeli honchos with multiple passports in their pockets and bank accounts abroad). But then the Iranians nuclear soldiers are just as much an illusion as the Israeli ones, so we’ll get a lot of huffs and puffs but not much dealing with the real issue. That real issue is simply: for the Arab Spring to succeeds it needs Israel’s leadership and guidance in achieving modernity. Arabs know this as they watch how Palestinians prepare for a Palestinian state by making carbon copy cities and institutions to those of Israel. Only with a true drive to modernity can peace really be at hand.
Good piece Phil.
I agree, by the way.
There are some testimonies about the Nakba at the Zochrot website too, from individuals who were there in 1948 :
Hajja Rukayya al-Sana’a :
link to zochrot.org
Amnon Neumann, Palmach soldier :
link to zochrot.org
“This was the basis of our thinking. To inherit the land. And we have inherited the land, and whoever inherits the land ousts the others. This is the reason we did not return them.
…
The land was never empty.”
Ali Hamoudi :
link to zochrot.org
etc.
Amnon Neumann told us why he murdered innocent people and expelled them to Gaza and elsewhere: Basically, he says he was young, and filled with the ideology of Zionism. When asked why he was one of the few who have felt guilt enough to speak up in his old age, Neumann said he didn’t know, except when they murdered innocents at the time, they were treated as heros for it, and they got drunk on the notion they were heros.
Phil, a current photo and article on Orient House and its looted contents would be appreciated.
Great post Phil. I had the honor of talking with many older Palestinian individuals who had experienced the Nakba at a pro Palestinian march (pro peace) in Washington DC at least 10 or so years ago. Actually videotaped some of the folks I interviewed which were almost all older. The stories were horrifying. What was so noticable was that I did not hear one cruel anti Jewish comment. Even when the camera was off. Not one comment full of hatred. Lots of comments and stories filled with grief and shock. This was not the case when I talked with anti Palestinian young Jewish men attending Ohio State and who I encountered after a Palestinian solidarity conference at Ohio State many somewhere between 8-10 years ago. Those young men were full of hatred and anger towards the Palestinians.
I brought this up yesterday. On Sunday on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS news program. Big news on Iran. The new Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Dempsey really drew a clear line between US policy on Iran and Israel’s. He said that they have determined that Iran “regime is a rational actor” and that “a strike at this time would be destabilizing” It was an amazing interview. General Dempsey cultivated a sense of reason based on facts and sanity. He also basically said that the US and Israel’s national security issues are different. Important lines were drawn
Let’s see how long Dempsey lasts before he gets fired. Past being prologue.
Very moving post. Thanks so much for it.
I was at a banquet gathering with an employee of The Shoah Foundation. In addition to the Holocaust archives, they’ve also got audio-video first person testimonies of atrocities from Armenians, Rwandans, and Cambodians. I asked him if the foundation ever planned to include Palestinian testimonies from the Nakba.
He said they did not suffer genocide.
I said if the definition was limited to a people being eradicated from the earth, then neither did the Jews.