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Anarchy in the West Bank: The Strange Metamorphosis of Israeli Punk
By Steven Lee Beeber / July 23, 2007
If recent developments within the Israeli punk scene are any indication, our rock brothers in the Holy Land have reached the “blank generation” stage. Remember the famous words of Richard (Meyers) Hell: “I belong to the blank generation and I can take it or leave it each time”? The nihilism of certain segments of punk, the “nevermind” that Kurt Cobain so eloquently expressed (“a mosquito, a libido … a denial”) during the “year that punk broke” has attained something like a messianic fervor in the Promised Land – and maybe that’s a good thing. Never a true force in a commercial radio sense, Israeli punk nonetheless has in recent years seemed to express the deepest yearnings of Israel’s cutting edge youth. Whether it was the mass of left-leaning political bands (Nikmat Olalim and Dir Yassin) or the skinhead-like fraction of right-wing groups (Retribution, Lehavoth), political engagement was at the heart of Israeli punk from its beginnings in the late 80s to its heyday a few years ago.
But, as Bob Dylan might have put it, they were so much older then, they’re younger than that now. Today, nearly a decade after peace seemed imminent at Oslo and nearly a year since Ariel “The Bulldozer” Sharon uprooted the settlers he’d helped become rooted in the first place, peace seems further away than ever, and Israel’s youthful brigade of punk activists feel fine. Like those Displaced Persons Formerly Known as Settlers, they’ve uprooted their metaphorical concerns and retreated from the political arena as it relates to Palestinians and a two-state solution.
For to say “fuck it” to the whole political process, to reclaim the personal over the political, is an act of political engagement itself. As they said during the Vietnam era, “What if they had a war and nobody came?” Israeli punks have taken this ironic and utopian vision for perpetual peace and turned it into a license for perpetual complacency. Israel has had several wars and the punks haven’t “come.” Rather than protesting the occupation, or marching for binational negotiations—let alone setting these as demands in their songwriting—they’ve decided to carve out their own piece of occupied territory at home. Large swaths of “leftist” punks have joined the growing Squatters Movement in Tel Aviv. This is as hardcore as the desert disciples of The Clash have allowed themselves to get.
“I think everyone has become so discouraged by the ongoing mess and the lack of movement regarding a solution to the occupation that they’ve decided to focus their energies elsewhere,” says an activist organizer who goes by the alias “Cat.”
Three years ago, while working on my book about the New York Jewish origins of punk, The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk, I interviewed Cat as he hid from the IDF in the Palestinian town of Nablus (“basically a big refugee camp,” he said). Suddenly, I heard what sounded like firecrackers in the background, some muffled sounds, and then my cell phone went silent. “Cat? Cat?! Are you alright?” There was a pause of about fifteen seconds, and I was just about to hang up, disturbed, when I heard Cat’s voice, much lower now. “Yes, I am ok. It is like this every night. They’re shooting.”
I didn’t have time to ask who was shooting. And looking back now, I realize that wasn’t really the issue in terms of how the music of anarchy has evolved in the holy land. Rather than going off to “fight for an end to the conflict,” Israeli punks have opted to conceive of a kind of mini-Zionism within Israel itself. In fact, the most “punk” thing about them might be how they have passively altered the definition of illegal residence in one region where this has been a perennial source of misery and bloodshed.
The casbah will no longer be rocked; it’ll be dragged into tenancy court.
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Great story, Gary. I can't believe that Venice, with its lire-generating Disney-World-like Ghetto, still has citizens trying to box in Jews like happy minstrels. All those "danceable" klezmer tunes! What joy we create out of our suffering!! And now here we come with our avant-garde "decadence." It gives me a deja vu feeling that reminds me why Rabbi Loew made that Golem voodoo in the first place. Also reminds me of the Rabbi Loew/Golem dynamic between Tommy Ramone (a child of Holocaust survivors) and Johnny Ramone (a "kike"-baiting tough guy who Tommy recruited for his band).
Sarah makes an extremely good point. Ideally, the thing to do is to withdraw from the empty bullshit and agitate against the dangerous bigger shit. I couldn't agree more, even if I do understand how that might be easier said than done in a situation that drags on decade after decade after decade. Still, kudos to Sarah for fighting the good fight. And kudos to those punks in Israel who still are doing that (such as "Cat"). Though, in closing, I am glad to see the squatter punks are at least make a statement of a sort.
Fascinating essay and discussion. I know it’s part of the point, but my activist shackles sure rise at the notion that we should all turn off our minds, relax, and float downstream. Sounds like Israeli punks are giving into despair, just like so many other progressive Israelis — and Americans, for that matter. Which is easy to do, I know. The problems feel so intractable. But how about not participating in the consumer culture AND demanding something different — a real culture in which we actually engage: talk to one another, through our music, our poetry, any way we can. That’s the best way to say Fuck you, seems to me.
Another fine and fascinating essay by Steve!
Having played in Tel Aviv, accompanying the silent film “The Golem” at the Next Festival in 1999 (an avant-garde music, theater, and film festival–sponsored by Haagen Dazs, go figure), I did meet some hardcore experimentalists working with the themes and issues Steve touched upon here. Not exactly punks, but on the avant cutting-edge…
Vis a vis my own Jewish punk sensibilities, I was able to play my Golem solo guitar score at the Noga Theater complete with a couple of quotations from Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” without being arrested (there was still an official ban on playing Wagner in Israel then)…the media powers that be there did however nix my appearance on early morning Israeli tv to plug my show, as I guess the material was deemed a bit too questionable/provocative (a charge I would deny vehemently, however– as Rabbi Loew is undoubtedly the hero of the film, and ultimately triumphs over the malevolent goyim, heading off a thretened pogrom)…predictably, because of the media black-out, the Noga Theater was only a quarter filled for my show.
Contrast this with the reception I received with “The Golem” a couple years later at the Venice Biennale, where the theater was packed, as there had been a spate of media coverage of my event…including an unforgettable press conference the day before where I was baited with questions–in Italian, necessitating sequential translation into English, my answers in English getting sequentially translated back into Italian–like “Why should we listen to the music of you avant-garde Jews from New York, when we can listen to good old-fashioned klezmer music?”
My reply: “Well, I didn’t realize I was part of any cabal…and if I am–then why aren’t I working more?”
Gary
I think Shaun makes a damn fine point. The artificial inclusion of consumerism can turn off the thinking among us enough that we turn on, tune in and drop out. What was it the Walrus said? "Drop out, drop out, everybody drop out." Or was it, "Got one, got one, everybody's got one"? Or wait, was it, "Oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumpah"? Whatever, one thing's clear. Like those heroic bohos of yore, maybe we should consider turning off our minds, relaxing and floating downstream. Then again if consumerism is to blame, what are we to do with the slackers at the convenience store in "Slackers"? Oh right, they were busier in the bathroom than at the cash register. Well done, slackers. Well done, Shaun.
If there is punk there is hope.
Reminds me of a Baudrillard essay, “The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media,” I read a few years ago: “…Against a system that excludes or represses the individual, the natural demand is one of inclussion…this however is not the world we live in. In the capitalist Democracies people are bombarded with appeals to their representation and participation: “This Bud’s for you,” “Vote!” “Speak you mind” yet still we realize that our choice, vote or voice matters little. Against such a system, which justifies its existance by the consent (or consumer purchaces) of those it governs Baudrillard’s solution is simple: withdraw your consent: cultivate disengagement, apathy, ironic detachment, and silence…celebrate slack.”
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