The other day James North did a post on the Ayatollah Khamenei’s call for an end of the “Zionist regime,” and two commenters, Elliot and DaBakr, had a dialogue about the threat posed to Israel by anti-Zionism in the Middle East. DaBakr repeatedly accused Elliot of misreading Israeli history. Elliot allowed us to publish his response as a post:
I assume you know that I am Israeli. I was indoctrinated with so many distortions of history that left me cold to Palestinian suffering. I would see the empty houses of Lifta every day at the western entrance to Jerusalem, I played in those houses yet I never made the human connection to the people who built those houses and lived there before I came along; in all my years in Israel I never befriended a Palestinian; it took me until just a few years ago to really own the simple fact that over 750,000 Palestinians had to leave Palestine to make way for me and my fellow Jewish Israelis; I had no sense that Palestinians had roots in the land, that it was their land that I was taking.
The best I could do was find overt anti-Arab racism distasteful, reject the occupation and generally try to be nice. I was the successful product of an education system that – to use your word – brainwashes as essential mental preparation for every Israeli’s first job as an adult, i.e. enforcing the Occupation and terrorizing other Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon. Because that is the main job of the Israeli Defense Forces.
I never understood that the Jewish National Fund’s forests are literally a coverup for the Nakba. These wonderful green forests (“look how brown and bare South Lebanon is next to the green Galilee”) were planted on the ruins of hundreds of Palestinian villages. I never questioned the fairness of bringing millions of non-residents from around the world into an already populated land.
I could go on and on. And I am still uncovering more of my prejudices born in ignorance. If I could lay my hands on even a small part of the supposed’ billion (dollars?) that you say the Palestinians have earmarked for PR as payment for the time I’ve spent undoing the damage of years of Israeli and American Zionist indoctrination, let me know who to go to for that. Much appreciated.
Good comment. I missed the initial exchange so I went into the thread and read it. I think Elliot wrote very movingly about the necessity of unmooring himself from a racist “education” system whose primary aim is to indoctrinate the kids with Apartheid justifications.
P.S. Man those forests sure look like they belong in the Middle East! Is it a coincidence that they look more like Switzerland or Canada than they do of Palestine?
And what does it say about the mentality – or cultural belonging if you will – of those who planted them there?
Thank you for your comment, Elliot…
” I would see the empty houses of Lifta every day at the western entrance to Jerusalem, I played in those houses yet I never made the human connection to the people who built those houses and lived there before I came along; in all my years in Israel I never befriended a Palestinian; it took me until just a few years ago to really own the simple fact that over 750,000 Palestinians had to leave Palestine to make way for me and my fellow Jewish Israelis; I had no sense that Palestinians had roots in the land, that it was their land that I was taking. “
Well said, Elliot.
FTR, just ONE of those mature pine trees uses as much or more water that Israel allows a Palestinian family of four to use (~100 gal/day; 400 l/day). And the trees get it cheaper.
I too missed the Elliot/DaBakr conversation, went back to read the former’s moving testimony of his enlightenment, in marked contrast to the latter’s shrill incoherence in defense of racism and supremacism.
I can only wonder that the cleavage between the Jewish population in the US which largely subscribes to universal humanist values, and the Zionists in Israel, minds closed and locked against the other, will continue to widen until the connection finally breaks. A crucial step forward for justice and peace in Palestine – it cannot happen too soon.
Elliot – good responses – and I too missed the exchange. Sometimes, great things happen in the comments section but are missed by many who do not necessarily read all the articles.
As you know I second your experience and then some. And you are right about the process of peeling off the brainwashing layers being a long and oftentimes a painful one. When great prejudices are implanted in young minds, they grow roots and the branches grow out to touch and intertwine with the building blocks of identity itself. One prejudice wraps itself around another in a seemingly seamless tapestry, becoming effectively one. Trying to undo them uncovers endless knots some laden with moth balls, others hardened into a tumor like shell that lodged itself in vital organs.
Perhaps the most obvious example is the way anti-palestinianism (which can start out as a relatively “simple” process of obliterating records of the indigenous people – at least the way this is taught to children), morphs in adulthood into general racism against people who are darker, and/or islam as a religion. Tackling one prejudice in an attempt to slap it down only leads to another popping up that one did not even realize was there.
To me this became quite obvious when vising israel before Obama got elected. The prejudice against him as a black man (even if mixed) went really deep. I heard some of the strangest and sometimes viciously racist comments offered, unsolicited, from the mouths of the most civilized and educated people in Israel at the time. Comments that the most conservative republican in the deepest of the deep south would be ashamed to make aloud. Comments that the vast majority of jewish Americans (at least the non-orthodox) would not be caught dead uttering. But in Israel those epithets and snide comments rolled off the tongue, with nary a thought given to the fact they might be offensive. Yet, these were all “nice” people, who would be horrified to learn they share commonalities with the Ku Klux Klan.
I may be further ahead of you, Elliot, in this process, but the place where I am now is kind of barren. De-programming cannot unfortunately be done successfully without nipping off some healthy tissue along with the diseased ones. Where there was a tumor once, there is now a scar, which refuses to heal. In rediscovering compassion for the Palestinians, I seem to have lost for example, some of my empathy for the jews of israel. I look for it sometimes, trying to feel a sense of spiritual “balance” but all I find is the cold surface of a hard shell. As I’ve written about before, the main casualties for me were my good memories of growing up in israel, and being happy enough much of the time. I lost almost all my original friendships and what’s left is a field of humpty-dumpties where one walks on egg shells trying not to stir up dust blowing in from dark attics.
Still, despite the losses there are gains, I should say. One discovers new people, new histories and makes new friends with fresh eyes, so the overall effect may be an enriching one. May be I just need to set up an appointment with Avigail Abarbanel. She might have a good apothecary for me to rummage through…..