In Tikkun, Peter Beinart struggles to make Israel both Jewish and democratic without affecting Palestinians:
Lerner: Would it be acceptable in your mind to have a democratic Israel if through demographic changes a majority of Israelis were Palestinians? Or would you say that to preserve its Jewish character it would be permissible to infringe on its democratic character?
Beinart: It would be wrong for Israel to take any coercive measure to reduce its Arab population… We are a long way away from the time when an Israeli state would have an Arab majority, but if Israelis thought that was about to happen, I would oppose any measures (such as expulsion of Arabs) designed to coercively impose a Jewish majority.
But Israel has done this continuously for the past 64 years, both in Israel “proper” and in the occupied territories. Israel’s Jewish majority is solely due to premeditated ethnic cleansing. If Beinart acknowledges it “would” be wrong for Israel to do this (in an imagined future), was it wrong to do it in the past? Is it wrong to do it now? He thinks it’s wrong in the West Bank, but what about Israel’s current routine ethnic cleansing of Bedouin villages within the green line? Beinart calls inside-the-green-line Israel “democratic Israel”; what about ethnic cleansing is democratic? (Because the majority — who is only a majority due to prior ethnic cleansing — voted for it?)
On the right of return of Palestinian refugees that Israel expelled in order to impose a Jewish majority, Beinart says approvingly:
The formula will most likely [be] a relatively small return by original refugees who are now getting relatively elderly now to pre-1967 Israel—perhaps 20,000 or 50,000 or 100,000, but a number that would not seriously threaten Israel’s demographics….
Is Beinart’s opposition to “expulsion of Arabs” lip service?
Or more hopefully, is there a part of Peter Beinart’s moral unconscious that is fighting with his tribal ideology, resulting in the cognitive dissonance we see in this interview?
And when will the morality defeat the tribalism, finally, and lead Peter to support genuine Israeli-Palestinian equality from the river to the sea?
P.S. – Changing the hot seat, which is Rabbi Lerner more concerned with: an act of atonement, or the appearance of one?
Lerner: We at Tikkun have suggested that Israel take in twenty to thirty thousand refugees each year for the next thirty years, because at the expectable growth rate of populations that number would not undermine the demographic balance and yet would appear to be a rather significant act of atonement.
Surely this would be a huge concession on Israel’s part relative to its current stance. But if more than thirty thousand refugees per year want to return to lands that were stolen from them and live in peace with their neighbors, does Israel have the moral or legal right to say no, while continuing to provide an unlimited right of “return” to Jews who live comfortably in the U.S.? What does that have to do with the so-called “complete equality” promised in the Israeli founding documents these two men revere?
Question to Lerner and Beinart: Can you watch this video and not be for the right of return of refugees who wish to live peaceably with their neighbors? Can you walk up to these children and tell them “No you cannot return, but any Jew anywhere in the world can move tomorrow to live on top of the rubble of your grandparents’ destroyed homes?”
Psychiatrists will perhaps have a name for mental states of people clinging to dreams which are out of touch with history and present reality.
In ancient times, people were honest with themselves and others: they said, “I seized this place by violence and I will keep it, and keep the original owners away, also by violence, until such time as the others, my victims and enemies, can eject me by greater violence.” No claim to “rights”. No demand for “pity”. None of this crying about “holocausts” and “pogroms”. No, certainly not. These ancient people were DOING holocausts and pogroms and saw nothing wrong with it. It was the way of the world. If BDS could eject Israel, it would be perfectly proper. Of course!
Beinart and his pals presumably flinch at Israel’s use of primitive violence, its use of holocausts and pogroms. They don’t like the Israeli treatment of the Gazans, in time of military trouncing or in times of mere siege. Soft-hearted, they are, like me.
But, unlike me, they are also soft or twisted minded. Ask the psychiatrists.
This isn’t so hard. Most liberal Zionists, along with post- and anti-Zionists recognize the Nakba and see the birth of the modern state of Israel as a process that involved many crimes, human rights abuses and violations of international law. This is of course true for for other modern states, including Poland, to name just one post WWII example, but also India and Pakistan.
The question is what kind of solution involves the right measure of realism, maturity, mercy and justice. It might be ‘just’ to allow the relatives of a murder victim the right to murder the perpetrator – but most societies have moved past that. It might be ‘just’ to return vast portions of North America to First Nations. But few organizations call for that. It might be ‘just’ to physically expel Jewish Israelis from homes, villages and cities that were stolen from Palestinians. And yet…. this isn’t part of the current political program of very many Palestinian groups, though it was before 1967. (Though it is a widely accepted position for the post-67 settlements in the West Bank.)
The right of return exists, but its future implementation will involve a balancing act, a historic compromise between the two major groups living in historic Palestine. Both sides recognize this. Both sides are haggling over the details.
When the Palestinian side is strong enough to get a deal worth taking, we’ll hear about it. And I for one will support it. Looks like Rabbi Lerner and Beinart might as well. Will you?
I’m hearing you suggest that any number, any ‘process’ whatsoever is inherently wrong because it doesn’t grant absolute justice right away. That doesn’t feel very helpful.
I don’t get the impression Zionism is ready to face up to the full awfulness
of what it has become
This wiki entry on the Shin Bet, Israel’s torture and murder service, has obviously been tended to by a committed group of hasbaradim and the organisation comes across as no different to an English garden party. The Shin Bet is the organisation that blackmails gay Palestinians into collaborating. No mention of this on wiki. no mention of those tortured to death. No mention of what torture means to Tikkun olam and all the old religious BS about morality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Bet
“But Israel has done this continuously for the past 64 years, both in Israel “proper” and in the occupied territories. Israel’s Jewish majority is solely due to premeditated ethnic cleansing. If Beinart acknowledges it “would” be wrong for Israel to do this (in an imagined future), was it wrong to do it in the past? Is it wrong to do it now? He thinks it’s wrong in the West Bank, but what about Israel’s current routine ethnic cleansing of Bedouin villages within the green line? Beinart calls inside-the-green-line Israel “democratic Israel”; what about ethnic cleansing is democratic? (Because the majority — who is only a majority due to prior ethnic cleansing — voted for it?)”
You nailed it
“If Beinart acknowledges it “would” be wrong for Israel to do this (in an imagined future), was it wrong to do it in the past?”
In the past it was ‘good for the Jews’, in the future it wouldn’t. This has nothing to do with universal and eternal morality.