Exile and the prophetic: VIPs

This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.

Storm time at the Cape.  An off-shore hurricane is passing by heading for the northern climes.  Surf’s up, winds are howling.  Overcast sky, rain coming in gusts.   

The Chomsky era is coming to close yet he certainly continues to raise the tenor of the debate.  At least, he provides almost everyone with something to gripe about.  What is Chomsky doing in Gaza and how can he be so insistent that only a two-state solution is politically viable?  How in God’s name is Chomsky’s ‘absent’ Jewishness relevant?

Where there’s smoke there’s fire.  Red lines beget other red lines.  ‘No’ to state policies that impose hunger.   ‘No’ to anti-Semitism.  Both must be fought.  In Israel/Palestine they have to be fought together.

I have been thinking that we should start an organization similar to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).  Call it the Veterans of the Israeli-Palestinian Wars (VIPW).  If we shorten it to VIP, the cadence is improved, don’t you think?  Now the eligibility arguments begin.  Should there be a Jewish chapter – JVIP?  A Palestinian chapter – PVIP?  Or a Jewish-Palestinian membership with the resulting name JPVIP? 

I’m leaning toward VIP.  It ups the status of us veterans – and our self-esteem.  It might serve as a cushion when we get criticized by the newcomers on the block who think they’ll solve the Israel/Palestine issue with enough elbow grease.  You see, the newcomers don’t think they’ll ever become VIPs.  They think it will all be over before they’re pushed aside.

This is what some current VIPs thought after the Lebanon war in the 1980s.  Still others thought this during the Palestinian Uprising in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Those who remained thought it would be over after Israel’s invasions of Lebanon and Gaza in 2006 and 2008.

It isn’t that things don’t change. Attitudes have changed quite bit on the positive side, even as the politics of the situation devolves. On the attitude change front, I recently received an email from a Jewish VIP. He’s one of the stalwarts, indefatigable, always right there.

It seems he just came across a book on progressive Zionism dating back many years. The text is progressive but the illustrations leave much to be desired. Jews are depicted as pioneers; Arabs as shady characters. In the American context, Arabs are depicted as Samboesque figures, which he was also subjected to in his youth. My email friend refers to himself as a “conscious Senior citizen.” Looking back on the illustrations that he had little objection to then, he feels ashamed. 

How refreshing it is to have an email companion that doesn’t call me a Kapo or a Jihadist! Our VIP has something to say to our somewhat younger VIPs. Does his email have something to say to those who are so young they don’t think they’ll ever reach elder status? 

I think it does. In the first place, he recognizes that time periods contain time sensitive material. Even progressive Zionists of that time period often had racialist views of Arabs. This didn’t mean they were rotten thugs. Looking back, my email companion finds the illustrations shocking. They’re shocking only because he has evolved into a conscious senior citizen.

Shocking to look at it as a conscious senior citizen – much like little Black Sambo that was also part of the culture of my childhood.

How refreshing it is to have an email companion that doesn’t call me a Kapo or a Jihadist!   Our VIP has something to say to our somewhat younger VIPs.  Does his email have something to say to those who are so young they don’t think they’ll ever reach elder status?

I think it does.  In the first place, he recognizes that time periods contain time sensitive material.  Even progressive Zionists of that time period often had racialist views of Arabs.  This didn’t mean they were rotten thugs.  As is their son, Chomsky’s parents were thoroughly decent.  Looking back, my email companion finds the illustrations shocking.  They’re shocking only because he has evolved into a conscious senior citizen. 

How did he become conscious?  He became conscious because he is decent and because he became engaged in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  As importantly, he remains engaged.  Unlike the VFW, whose membership rules demand foreign combat service but whose service is typically limited to young people, VIPs have to be engaged for life.  Serving in foreign wars is no picnic.  Serving in the Israel/Palestine verbal wars is no picnic either.

Here’s another VIP issue that is worth our consideration.  Not only does serving for life have its own difficulties, observing the consciousness divide which remains is almost traumatic.  As VIPs have undergone their transformations, learning more about the history of Israel/Palestine and how to critically evaluate their own primary loyalties, the opposition to these changes continues. 

Think of Jewish caricatures of Arabs.  If, at a certain juncture, even progressive Jews had an unquestioned Samboesque view of Arabs, such views are no longer acceptable.  Whether it should have been there in the first place or has taken too long to eradicate is beside the point.  The struggle has been hard fought.  In some Jewish quarters, the struggle has largely been successful. 

Anti-Semitism is another case in point.  It is troubling to realize that some of one’s comrades haven’t made the leap beyond anti-Semitism.  Recently Palestinians VIPs have made statements that sideline anti-Semitism.   As veterans they’ve had to think through the issues regarding Israel on a variety of levels relating to Jews.  In fact, Jewish and Palestinian VIPs may be closer to one another on some issues than they are to members of their respective communities. 

That is why war veterans often gather together to knock down a beer or two.  Their experience in combat separates them from the general population that has been on the sidelines.  Is it time for VIPs to establish our own lodges?     

But then the news in from Israel, as reported by a youthful Alex Kane, is that Netanyahu is set to announce his electoral partnership with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The unification of the Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu parties seems assured of an election victory.  Kane writes that with Lieberman’s party about to join with Israel’s most potent political party it should “puncture the notion that Lieberman’s ethnocentric, right-wing politics that push for the ‘transfer’ of Palestinian citizens of Israel is somehow an outlier in Israeli politics.”

Indeed, Alex, welcome aboard.   Your VIP membership awaits you.