The Jerusalem lynching story is not getting anything like the attention that murderous mob violence directed against Arabs in a society that calls itself our democratic ally in the Middle East ought to receive in the U.S. A terrifying story like this ought to be awakening our media to the real danger of explosive violence in Israel/Palestine and the end of the two state solution. But our media and politicians ignore the sectarian attacks, kick the can down the road.
The Times ran its story on the attempted lynching of “Palestinian youths” three days after the incident (Rob’t Mackey’s ledeblog story ran the same day there). And rushing in to defend Israel was Jeffrey Goldberg, saying the victims are “Arabs” (not Palestinians) and: “This sort of thing isn’t actually that new.”
Oh, now you tell us. But Goldberg wants folks to move along…
I’m always perplexed, after an incident like this, to read emotional statements like the one from Kershner, who said that the attack “is leading many Israelis to question how their society could have come to this.” First of all, which Israelis? Name some. Name one. I’m not saying they don’t exist. I know they exist, I just want to know if this includes only people in Kershner’s liberal circles.
By the way, “liberal circles” ended slavery in this country, ended Jim Crow and helped to end apartheid. They also gave us Roe v Wade and gay rights and feminism, and Jewish emancipation in Europe in the 18th century.
Israeli attorney Daniel Seidemann does think it’s a big deal, and he wrote to Goldberg about the mob; and good for Goldberg, he published Seidemann’s statement about creeping fascism in Israeli politics. Here’s a substantial excerpt (including Seidemann’s foolish jab at “Arabists” in the US State Department, i.e., anyone who cares about human rights):
This has not ceased being the lead item in the printed and electronic press [in Israel]. With much of the editorial judgments commercially driven, and the IBA [broadcasting authority] subject to governmental pressure, this wouldn’t be happening if the editors did not believe this genuinely concerns a large chunk of the public. I think they are right.
A lot of Israeli denial is based on the fact that these things happen “there”, in the West Bank, not “here.” And stuff like this does happen in Hebron and East Jerusalem (not all the time, but not rarely), and receives little coverage outside the media of the ideological left. (Look at Youtube on the abuse of Palestinian kids by soldiers and plainclothesman in Hebron just over the last couple of months). But there is nowhere in Jerusalem that is more “here” than Kikar Tziyon (Zion Square), and the comfort zone is narrowing. We may be witnessing the Hebronization of Jerusalem
… I think that patience among many Israelis (who don’t need superfluous worries) about settler violence is wearing thin.
…Things might be best summed up by taking a hard look at the public pronouncements of three prominent figures on this: Nir Barkat, the mayor of Jerusalem, condemned “any expression of violence, both verbal or physical, by any party,” turning both victims and perps into faceless, odorless, colorless, tasteless entities. He’s got elections in a year, and will need the support even of the radical right.
…And then there was Deputy Prime Minister Bogie Yaalon. I never have had much admiration for Yaalon, the politician. Watching him, this secular former kibbutznik, pander much more than he would like to the settlers makes me squirm. And he condemned the attack in no uncertain terms, as “hate crime” and terror.
First, this is a game-changer in terms of the discourse. It’s not only the “Arabists” at State that call this terror, this is from our Deputy prime minister, who is not about to get a prize from B’Tselem (Israel’s most prominent human rights group).
Second, I don’t think he was putting his ear to ground and listening to public opinion. He will be standing in Likud primaries some time soon, and he probably caused himself electoral damage by this statement, and did it with open eyes. And he did it because in spite of his move to the right, because this violates his values, and worries him. My guess is he is not alone.
Finally – as to the backgrounds of the attackers: not clear yet. The reports from the courts were “kids with no prior criminal records”, but also haven’t heard the euphemistic “…from normative backgrounds”.
Also, while I am very grateful to Isabel Kershner for documenting facts about persecution of African migrants and the attempted lynching for NYT readers, it is dismaying that in both instances, her sympathies seem immediately to flow toward the population from which the perpetrators originated, rather than to the society the victims inhabit. A few weeks back Kershner wrote a piece titled “Crackdown on African Migrants Tugs at Israel’s Soul” and said that “the government clampdown is also ripping at Israel’s soul,” because it reminds some Israelis of the Holocaust, she wrote.
Well today the arrests for the attempted lynching in Jerusalem is also ripping at Israel’s soul, in Kershner’s view:
Hundreds of bystanders watched the mob beating, the police said — and no one intervened.
Two of the suspects were girls, the youngest 13, adding to the soul-searching and acknowledgment that the poisoned political environment around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has affected the moral compass of youths growing up within it..
The attacks, Kershner went on,
opened a stark national conversation about racism, violence, and how Israeli society could have come to this point.
Kershner chronicles Israel’s soul, I believe, because she has an attachment to the Jewish state’s ideal image of itself. When if you had asked the average Palestinian in 1949 or 1989 or 2009 what they thought about Israel’s soul, they might have been quite articulate about “racism, violence, and how Israeli society could have come to this point.” Maybe we need a little less soulful reporting from the Middle East.
“I’m always perplexed, after an incident like this, to read emotional statements like the one from Kershner, who said that the attack “is leading many Israelis to question how their society could have come to this.” First of all, which Israelis? Name some”.
Right on Jeff baby, finally some truth… I also thought what slop, I mean a nation built by self-righteous psycho killers and thieves must have had a good laugh watching a lynching.
“the attack “is leading many Israelis to question how their society could have come to this.”
FFS. They send their kids to Zionist schools where they are indoctrinated.They send their kids to the occupation army.They serve at the checkpoints. Their taxes are spent on settlers. What did they expect ? Some form of national Zen calm ?
SEAFOID- “What did they expect ? Some form of national Zen calm ?”
That is exactly correct, and it applies to the US too. A warfare state requires the cultivation of a warrior culture by the doctrinal system. In the US it is significantly the entertainment media, including violent video games. Israel also includes the educational system and compulsory military indoctrination. In both cases, the desired outcome is that violence is normalized. Both the US and Israel are relatively violent societies, an inevitable consequence of militarism.
I agree. The US has a high murder rate and almost 3 million people in prison. I think it’s also linked with the nature of the colonisation of Turtle Island. The lynchings and random violence of the pre 20th century era still echo in US society. However the US has evolved over time and there are many other currents within that society. The US will be able to make the transition away from global hegemon when the time comes.
Israel is in much deeper. There is no effective counterweight in Israel to the cult of the military.
And violence has not worked for Israel. It has led to the development of an IDF state within a state where all political decisions are made on the basis of what is good for the IDF. There is no accountability for the IDF or settler budgets.
And the indoctrinisation is no longer fit for purpose. The most moral army in the world from a country where right wingers are following the Nazi doctrine of Rassenschande?
It’s also very interesting to note how Jeff Goldberg lashed out at her for stating mere facts. He’s afraid. Liberals like her(and I’m talking about real liberals not Liberal In Name Only or Liberal Within The Borders Only kind of people) are less and less capable of being emotionally blackmailed.
Yet, as you note, her sympathies automatically flies to the Jewish population time after time, despite the increasing acts of violence against the minority population.
This is why you shouldn’t have correspondents who are emotionally attached. Her husband works for Jewish institutions on Zionism(and he seems really right-wing too, how did he end up with her? Did she do it out of loyalty to her family? I’m guessing there are quite big strains there since he called for an attack on Iran just a year ago or so).
Israel is the only place where the major journalists from the publishing houses are almost always in a clear position to violate the ethics standards. But it’s obvious: if the journalists were actually independent then Israel would instantly lose the media war (now it’s merely losing it very slowly).
And a lot of us remember the total shitstorm that occured after Rudoren(the NYT Jerusalem chief) asked Abuminah on Twitter for a meeting – Jeff Goldberg(of course), Marc Tracy(then at Tablet), the Commentary crowd and many others all lashing out – in fear because of the very things I’ve pointed out above.
Nonetheless, if Kershner keeps this up she’ll be out. In fact, I’m guessing her time is coming to an end shortly and she’s letting the feelings inside come out before another dedicated Zionist – highly biased – replaces her.
The mainstream journos are quite capable of their own “lynchings”. At least Glenn Greenwald thinks so, speaking of USA’s “respectable” journos “lynching” Julian Assange. See Craig Murray: link to craigmurray.org.uk
and see GG himself, at length: link to guardian.co.uk
IN SHORT, USA’s journos both [1] lynch those they understand they are required to treat as their own victims and [2] refuse to tell the truth about those they understand they must protect.
Check out Paul Pillar’s article in The National Interest breaking news blog. The headline pulls no punches: “A Culture of Hatred in Israel”
link to nationalinterest.org
BTW, The National Interest’s roots are from the Nixon Foundation. Who knew?
Nixon was an old-school WASP Republican. His kind of foreign policy isn’t exactly the vulgar, idiotic neocon brand. It’s the smart realist cup of tea.
Of course, Nixon as a person was highly flawed, but his foreign policy was far better than the total mess Bush left and Obama has merely continued upon.
So I’m not surprised at that. In fact it’s long been an annoyance to me, as a non-Repulican, how easy the realists have allowed themselves to be rolled. The resources are there but I guess they’re so afraid because the discussion would inevitably center about the neocons and their Jewishness is hard to ignore, and how it relates to the increasingly strident Likudnik/pro-war policies they’ve been pushing on behalf of Israel.
And since that discussion, if it was conducted truthfully, would inevitably have to settle that account, then the neocons would use the anti-Semitic card and the old-school WASPs fold. After all, they’re 50 or older. Their generation was brought up with different manners. You see it with Romney. Gifted, polite but also weak. He doesn’t know how to fight back. He seems to think it’s all a dinner party and then gets upset when dirty tricks are used.
In my mind, the libertarian elements of the Republican party ought to ally with the realists and bash the neocons. It isn’t really that hard, you have a sea of mistakes lying around. What it requires is some fire in the belly and coordination/persistence. So far the left is doing the heavy lifting but I’m not yet seeing an independent and intelligent stream out of the Republican party save for the Ron Paul fans but they seem to be pretty uninterested in foreign policy to the extent that they are talking about it, even if they have a lot of good ideas there.
Good piece. Here is an extract:
Nimrod Aloni of the Institute for Educational Thought in Tel Aviv notes that a teenager acting as a member of a lynch mob “cannot just be an expression of something he has heard at home.” Aloni continues, “This is directly tied to national fundamentalism that is the same as the rhetoric of neo-Nazis, Taliban and K.K.K. This comes from an entire culture that has been escalating toward an open and blunt language based on us being the chosen people who are allowed to do whatever we like.”
justice, i recognized that quote because i copied pasted it from kershner’s nyt article from aug 20th (pillar’s was from the 21st) : link to mondoweiss.net
that’s not the only similarity
pillar:
kershner:
A terrifying story like this ought to be awakening our media to the real danger of explosive violence in Israel/Palestine and the end of the two state solution.
The media is perfectly aware of what’s going-on, but they are reluctant to admit they’ve had their heads buried in the sand. It’s apartheid and the incident ought to illustrate how the one state solution and the demand for equal rights will inevitably be received.
The Obama Administration can’t move to block the recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state in the UN without risking the outright adoption by the PLO of a platform based on the single state solution and equal rights. So it’s still reciting the mantra about the need for more delays and negotiations.
How Israel came to this? Same way that colonization of the western hemisphere led to genocide, that’s how. It’s in the “DNA” of colonization.
that, plus the bs about being a chosen people
Heart broken.
Crash.
Boogie is the former head of the IDF. another Likud psychopath.
But there is great solace listening to Stereolab
I thought IBM was born with the world,
The US flag would float forever,
The cold opponent did pack away,
The capital will have to follow,
It’s not eternal, imperishable,
Oh yes it will go,
It’s not eternal, imperishable,
The dinosaur law,
Look at the symbols, they are alive,
They move evolve and then they die.
link to youtube.com
I think the whole reporting on the motif of the ‘lynching’ is wrong.
- The incident is probably not about racism – it’s about territorial defense.
—————————————————————————————————————-
I remember a Palestinian terrorist attack on a night club on the beach in Tel Aviv. It was in 2001 or 02. This club was frequented mostly by young Russian immigrants. The reason given for the attack was: ‘Russian Jews should think twice now to immigrate to Israel, it’s none of their business to come here (to our land).’
Likewise the Jewish teenagers probably thought they had to defend their West Jerusalem territory from the Palestinian youth. ‘The Arabs have no right to be in our ancestral Jewish land anyway (that’s what we are taught in school) and that they even come to West Jerusalem is a provocation on top of that’.
When I was in Hebron in December 2002 I talked to a group of young Israeli soldiers.
They told me: “They (the Arabs) say it’s their land, we say it’s our land – NOW WE CONTROL IT”. Their point was control of territory, not racism toward the Palestinians.
Territorial? Of “their” women? (Do they also urinate to mark their territory?)
And I’m curious… Did the reason for the attack in Tel Aviv include claims that Russian Jews had no soul (but that Palestinians did)?
And how does that fit into the ‘territorial’ defense argument?
It would be interesting to do a “Laramie Project” style documentary on the situation. Jerusalem isn’t as small as Laramie Wyoming but I think it would be very revealing for a lot of people- as in that small town mentality won’t be there.
Phil: I am very grateful to Isabel Kershner for documenting facts
Well, that’s her job sir. Better: warn us when she does not so.
Phil: the arrests for the attempted lynching in Jerusalem is also ripping at Israel’s soul
Read this again. Not the lynching itself, but the arrests.
Richard Silverstein summarizes an article (evidently published only in Hebrew) by Roni Shaked, a former Shin Bet guy who’s now Yediot Aharonot’s “Palestinian affairs correspondent.” No surprises to anyone who’s observed Israel without blinkers, but interesting that someone like Shaked is saying this stuff in a publication like Yediot:
Note the contradiction in his logic: if it’s job of the cops to look the other way, then they’re not failing when they do just that – they’re doing exactly what they’re paid and instructed to do.
Israel itself can handle dissent as long as it has the unconditional support of the u.s.a., something (the support, not the u.s.a.) that would dry up overnight once the public here is on to the fact that Israel’s brutality towards Palestinians is why “they” (the Arab/Islamic world) hate us. Without such support, kaput, Israel (not its people) would face delegitimization. Then all the IDF’s dual citizen volunteers from Brooklyn and all the davening Israeli draft dodgers at the Wailing Wall won’t be able to put the settler entity together again. And that’s why the Israel firster controlled msm’s firewall still holds.