Yesterday I went to an event at the University of Pennsylvania, featuring Max Blumenthal discussing his book Goliath, with Ian Lustick, Penn political scientist and author of the recent groundbreaking piece in the New York Times on the end of the two-state paradigm.
My video excerpt (which you can also watch by going to 34:00 in the complete video here) is one of the more interesting exchanges, in which Lustick challenged Blumenthal to say what he believes Israel/Palestine should look like.
There is some anxiety in Lustick’s question. He took care during the discussion to dissociate himself from the one-state movement. He comes from a religious Zionist background and has long supported the two-state solution. But because two-states is such magical thinking, and he wants to have an intellectual engagement with real ideas, he said, he has abandoned the paradigm. And acknowledges that violence is inevitable in Israel and Palestine.
But leftwing ideas about the conflict obviously frighten him. I can see your facts, Lustick says to Blumenthal, but “I don’t know what your conclusions are.” So he asks Blumenthal to play God, and refers to the Genesis story in which God says he would save Sodom if he could find just 10 righteous men living there.
“You do say there are good people in Israel,” Lustick says. But your last chapter is the Exodus, and one can infer that you endorse the idea that the only logical course for the colonizer “is to leave. Which is a form of the end of the country, the end of Jewish collective life in the land of Israel. I’m asking you is that your conclusion?”
Because, Lustick goes on, the impression your book leaves is that “Israel is not just a little bit fascist, Israel is a lot fascist–” a word “that’s being increasingly used” in the discourse. And fascist is the ultimate delegitimizer. Because we all know that in the post World War II landscape, a state cannot be fascist and be allowed to survive. “It must be ended?”
Blumenthal responds at some length. Here is part of his answer.
“Zionism as a philosophy that has animated the facts on the ground… is an absolutely failed project.” His book exposes failure after failure after failure. Such a statement might hurt the feelings of some Zionists, but Zionism has “hurt the bodies of a lot of Palestinians, and that’s really what matters.”
So his concern is first is to find a scenario that relieves the sufferings of the indigenous people.
“As for the Jewish Israelis… These are Israelis who are attracted to Europe, who do not feel that they are part of the Arab world. And it’s that attraction to Europe, that manifestation of Herzl’s famous quote, that the Jewish state will be a rampart of civilization against barbarism which has led to the present crisis and the failure of Zionism. Because there is absolutely no way for Jewish people in Israel/Palestine to become indigenized under the present order, and that’s really what has to happen. You have to be willing to be a part of the Arab world, because you’re living in the Arab world. If you don’t, then you have to maintain this system and continue to harden the present system.”
Here Blumenthal refers to the separation wall running along the West Bank, aimed at preventing “demographic spillover,” per Netanyahu. And he refers to Israel fencing off Jordan, the Golan Heights, and other borders (or claimed borders), to protect its ethnocracy.
All this reflects a “dystopian future inaugurated by Herzl in his desire to create” Europe in the Middle East. So Blumenthal says: “There should be a choice placed to the settler colonial population.” They must become indigenized, which he says a lot of Israeli Jews would be happy doing. Many of his Israeli friends have become attracted to the Arab world, they go to Cairo and Amman. And many Mizrahi Jews identify as Arabs. But:
“If you think that you can maintain a kind of Berlin reality, you’ve created a recipe for the current dystopia and the environment that many describe as fascist. So this choice needs to be placed to the Israeli Jewish population, and it can only be placed to them by external pressure, the kind of pressure that the BDS movement is exerting.
“The maintenance and engineering of a non indigenous demographic majority is non-negotiable, and that’s a conclusion I will freely come to and make. And so what you see between the two covers of my book is the outcome of a system of demographic manipulation and settler colonialism in a very terminal phase but without any real external pressure.”
Lustick doesn’t answer Blumenthal, opens the discussion up to the floor. I think he was somewhat taken aback, and intimidated by Blumenthal’s forceful presentation. I differ with Blumenthal here. I think we live in a multicultural world, with many people crossing borders, and similar attitudes about indigenous culture have been used in intolerant ways in our society. I see some intolerance in that answer. Many Arabs have also been “attracted” to European culture, even if it’s a non-indigenous culture. The issue in the end involves the choice between an Algerian and a South African outcome; I’m for the South African outcome.
“Zionism as a philosophy that has animated the facts on the ground… is an absolutely failed project.”
I’m sorry. That’s back asswards; it’s ridiculous. Especially in the context of the Middle East. It’s certainly possible to conclude that Zionism is a flawed project, and that Israel is a flawed state. But not a failed one. Because today, Israel is without question the region’s most stable state, and it is, for better or worse, a state with a Jewish majority, and will remain so in the future.
“Because there is absolutely no way for Jewish people in Israel/Palestine to become indigenized under the present order, and that’s really what has to happen. You have to be willing to be a part of the Arab world, because you’re living in the Arab world. ”
That’s also ridiculous. In the first analysis, this is a two way street. The Arab world has done less than nothing to welcome the Jewish people into the Arab world. And no, providing them with dhimmi status, or welcoming a few court Jews into the ranks of the leadership, is not acceptance. Arabs have never signaled acceptance of an empowered Jew.
There is no “Arab world.” No people has a responsibility to live according to the norms of others in their region. Especially when those norms are problematic and leave a lot to be desired.
“And he refers to Israel fencing off Jordan, the Golan Heights, and other borders, to protect its ethnocracy.”
You know, until a few years ago, there was no wall, no fence. Why did it happen? To protect an “ethnocracy” or to protect a citizenry of Jews, Arabs, Druze, Christians, and visiting tourists?
“All this reflects a ‘dystopian future inaugurated by Herzl in his desire to create’ Europe in the Middle East.”
When I read things like this, I am reminded again that what really bothers people like Max is not so much the human rights situation. Because there are many other human rights situations that Max Blumenthal could not give a rats’ patootie about. It’s Europe’s colonial sins. And in an act of egregious projection, the victims of European Christian exclusivism are being asked to pay for them, while the Europeans themselves are immune.
“They must become indigenized, which he says a lot of Israeli Jews would be happy doing. Many of his friends have become attracted to the Arab world, and many Mizrahi Jews identify as Arabs.”
They ARE indigenized. They LIVE THERE. And have for generations. What a racist notion; one can’t be indigenized unless what? What is indigenized? Speaking Arabic? Wearing a kheffiyeh? Converting to Islam, maybe?
You know what’s fascist? Telling people that they have no right to exist in a space unless they become “indigenized.”
Master Max Blumenthal
We Israeli Jews will do everything you ask Master Max, but we want to be digenous first.
Please Mater Max.
I’ve been reading Max Blumenthal’s book these past few days. I can only take about 1-2 hours a day, because it is filled to the brim with information and I need to reflect on what I read and I also frantically google for more information on names, places, events and so on.
Even reading a site like Mondoweiss isn’t enough. Books really do give you a view that is impossible to gather through blogs, even a high-quality site like this one.
So far, most of the book has been a lot about inside the 67-lines Israel.
You realize just how vile the state has been from the beginning. We’re talking about yearly and in some years monthly pogroms.
Systematic ethnic cleansing. Inside Israel. And not just during ’48 and ’67. One of the more harrowing chapters was about two middle-class secular Arabs inside Israel. They say that even how you pronounce the r’s in Hebrew is a struggle, because there are two ways, a Jewish way and an Arabic way. People notice and judge you if you do it the Arabic way, even if you’re perfectly fluent.
One guy who was an Arab and worked in nanotechnology casually noted that when he was studying at Technion, their MIT, his professor had changed his username to ‘terrorist’ as a ‘joke’.
Think about this. These are secular, educated Arabs who are on the verge of leaving the country because they can’t take the constant and open racism. We’re not talking about being snubbed for a job, we’re talking about in-your-face racism from the top down.
And then we have Shin Bet agents barging in at 3 am in the morning, pulling out fathers out of their bed to the terror of their families – in Haifa, not in the settlements. His crime? He was merely advocating democratic rights.
Yuval Diskin, who tried to paint himself as a left-leaning liberal in ‘The Gatekeepers’ complained to journalists that ‘Arabs take their rights too far’. Because they dare to ask for equal treatment.
Blumenthal shows that even if we had a 2SS tomorrow, Israel proper is at best a Jim Crow state. It’s Alabama in the 1940s and possibly even worse.
The South African freedom champions who have visited the territories have said that the West Bank occupation is worse than the Apartheid they faced.
I’ve read a lot of books on Israel, but Blumenthal goes to the very pulse of that society. He goes into Israel proper and what he finds is a state with is, in Lustick’s words, a fascistic country. It’s Jim Crow. It’s a venomous poison and a blot and a cancer on the body politic.
How can one take this person Blumenthal seriously. He is just an overgrown teenager and behaves like a teenager with laughable primitive comparisons, total lack of understanding of the big picture, grasping at obvious notions and pushing them in a most grotesque direction.
He found this style of annoying the adults when he probably was 13 or 14, saw that it is good and continues with this. But not in a rigorous world of say technology or medicine or even serious literature. No, he is not that talented. He is good in outraging. So he is doing this in this ephemeral world of journalistic where there never were good criteria of quality. Being “yellow” (even in the anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli cult) brings him popularity and attention which he needs so much.
I can still recall his live report from Ramallah market where he was drawing hilarious conclusions from economic facts that Israel having better agriculture products. So extraordinarily primitive.
And you, tovarisch Weiss – as I said, you will be swept by the muddy wave of extremism which you are raising here like Norman Finkelstein was by the BDS denial of Israel.
WORD-PAINTING, CONCEPT: “the end of the country, the end of Jewish collective life in the land of Israel”. Well, I live in NYC and I want to tell you that Jews have a WONDERFUL Jewish life here. If they like they can easily have none but Jewish friends. Some, I suppose, may even have none but Jewish companions at work. Of course there are a lot of non-Jews around, wonderful for people who like a non homogenized life. A non-ghetto life, if you will.
Could there be “Jewish collective life in the land of Israel” if Israel were smaller? sure! Much smaller? Sure again. Merely twice the size of NYC (all 5 boros)? sure. At that size there might even be PURELY Jewish life.
Could there be “Jewish collective life in the land of Israel” if Israel were to be democratic and include all of what I call Palestine? Again, sure. But not PURELY Jewish any more. A synagogue on every corner, like Starbucks in NYC? Sure, but maybe also a church here and there and a minaret on every corner, too.
The crunch now, as ever, has been Jewish (PRE-) DOMINANCE in a LARGE SPACE. These bozos want a ghetto so large that it can be called a state. But it makes them uncomfortable to have to share power (or culture). Makes them itch. So some of them call the Palestinians names like “bedbugs” and “cockroaches” so their meaning can be clear. “You disgust me and the sooner I get rid of you the better.”
And all the Jews who live in Israel who do NOT feel that way have caved-in (like the Republicans caved-in to the Tea Party in Congress 10/2013) and thrown out their humanity with the bath water. Easy to understand. Mob mentality. Don’t criticize the boss. Gotta live here, ya know. And Israel is getting away with it, anyhow, ya know, so why complain?
Jews of conscience? What blarney! Who needs it! what’s being Jewish got to do with conscience anyway? After all, when the Germans were having all their fun during the Holocaust, we didn’t complain that they had no consciences, no way! We complained that they were mistreating US. And so now, it’s the same, we’re mistreating the Palestinians, and they are lumping it, because what else can they do? And it is nothing to me. Conscience, pfui!
BACK TO TOPIC: “the end of Jewish collective life in the land of Israel” has already occurred, but only if you think BEING JEWISH means HAVING A CONSCIENCE, ETHICS, ETC. Otherwise, Jewish life in Israel is as good as it gets! You know, like German life in the 1930s and 1940s. How’s it goin’ ? Jez fine, jez fine.