Posts
Happy Belated 61st, Israel
By Asher Weiss / April 30, 2009
Yesterday, Israel celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut, Independence Day. Across the country, people gathered in celebration. There was singing, dancing, drinking (this may very well have preceded the singing and dancing), fire-works, and everyone’s favorite Israeli musicians. It was a time to let loose and for a short 24 hours, ignore reality. But when the smoke cleared and the cacophony subsided one couldn’t help but acknowledge that even now, 61 years after the birth of the modern state of Israel, it’s not easy being Israeli.
People often comment that the average Israeli looks about 10 years older than the average American of the same age. Granted the anti-smoking campaign hasn’t caught on in Israel and people drive as if they’re annoyed that the government would dare to inconvenience them with traffic laws, but these can’t be the only reasons for the disparity. Israelis look so much older than they should because their country is surrounded by governments and terror-organizations-in the case of Hamas and Hizbollah these are one and the same-hell bent on, "driving the Jews into the sea" or to quote the current president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "wiping Israel off the map." To the south west and north, respectively, are Hamas and Hizbollah, both trained and funded by Iran. To the North-East is hostile Syria, which also backs Hizbollah and hosts Hamas’ current leader, the exiled Khaled Meshal. The West Bank, on Israel’s eastern front, is run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, whose leader Mahmoud Abbas made a speech on Tuesday expressly refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state: "A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean?" asked Abbas. "…I don’t accept it and I say so publicly." Abbas, who at one point denied the existence of the Holocaust, is considered "a moderate." No, it doesn’t take a pessimistic outlook on life to conclude that for Israel-the one Jewish country in the world-the prospect of peace is pretty bleak.
And yet given where Israel was 61 years ago, we might also conclude that things could be a whole lot bleaker. It had just emerged victorious from a War of Independence, but was (and is) vastly outnumbered by its enemies, and was not, in these early days, backed by any major powers. Many felt Israel would not be able to withstand the odds against it. Four high impact wars and countless skirmishes later, Israel is not only still standing, but remains the most powerful country in the Middle East. For Jews, this alone should be reason to celebrate. But for some reason, many Jews across the world did not feel the need to celebrate. A short article entitled, Independence Day Around the World, in yesterday’s Israeli daily Ha’aretz notes that, "Yom Ha’atzmaut must be the only holiday that the Jewish World doesn’t feel the need to celebrate together." This observation, which is troubling, is not surprising when we consider that the Jews of the diaspora are as indifferent as ever to the plight of Israel according to recent poles conducted by the American Jewish Committee and other Jewish organizations. I can’t speak for Jews of other nationalities, but perhaps it’s difficult for the average American Jew, who grows up uninhibited by anti-Semitism in a relatively secular and prosperous community, to fully appreciate what an independent Jewish state means to the Jewish people. How can we American Jews wrap our minds around the fact less than 70 years ago, the Jews of Europe were almost completely annihilated by a genocidal maniac? The violence and harassment that is regularly perpetrated against the Jews of Israel, Venezuela, France, Britain, and Denmark – where a public school principal recently told Jewish parents to keep their kids home because he and his staff could not guarantee their safety- is so foreign that it’s difficult for us to accept. How can it be that the anti-Semitism that our grandparents and great-grandparents worked so hard to outrun is alive and well and threatens even the world’s one Jewish state? Consider the following, a brief biography of my Israeli friend: Maayan Gutfeld is almost 23 years old. Her warm and upbeat manner belie the fact that in her short time on this earth, she has endured plenty of tragedy. Four of her childhood friends have died of unnatural causes. Her father suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder thanks to time spent in Egypt as a P.O.W. during the Yom Kippur War. Many of her closest friends, including her boyfriend and roommate, also show signs of PTSD. War, terror attacks, and military service have taken their tole on her life and the lives of those around her. She is a typical Israeli. It’s hard to imagine how different American Jewish attitudes towards Israel would be if a significant percentage of American Jews were living something resembling Maayan’s life. We can only be grateful that we don’t have to, and appreciative of those who live that life on our behalf.
POST A COMMENT
Given the number of platitudes in your recent comment – which expound upon every topic from dikes to life preservers, and that are recycled in nearly every comment in which you perform the ritual ablutions to Western liberalism while conducting apologetics for Hamas in particular and Palestinian irredentism in general, it’s hard to understand where you see this historical process going. (And by the way, one of Western liberalism’s strongest beliefs is that of the inviolability of individual initiative in formulating one’s destiny. In your consistent portrayals of Palestinians as a mere social collective, as pawns in an oversimplified geopolitical game which you refer to as "imperialism", you reduce them to marionettes animated by obscure social forces conveniently larger than their own sense of agency or morality. Funny that Sari Nusseibeh or other original and not necessarily political or purely self-interested Palestinian thinkers ever receive your mention. Well, maybe not so funny given the way you seem intent to the point of fixation on structuring your arguments regarding these matters.)
All that being said, the way in which I understood Zeevico’s accusation of you as a "fanatic" is in the way I described (in my previous comment) someone so willfully selective with theory and reality as to make it difficult to defend against the accusation. As I’ve indicated in countless comments, and reiterated here, you are quite fond of whatever descriptions of the Palestinians and Israelis leave us with few options other than the labels of victim and aggressor, oppressed and powerful, or whatever other zero-sum games and false dichotomies are favorable to you. Does it ever occur to you that the Palestinians could actually choose to develop and cultivate a liberal political movement, rather than have it foisted upon them in some neoconservative fashion – the way Israel did to them with Hamas? It should, given your apparently theological belief that they will be the ones to deliver such a rosy scenario to both nations once they take over all the land from the river to the sea and establish the sanitized vision of Qaddafi’s "Israteen" – a belief to which you never tire of trying to proselytize your antagonists here.
The only alternative explanation is that you think that power ultimately controls or at least manipulates everything – including the ideas that the powerless rally to, the liberal democracy you claim to endorse for some unadulterated, reconstructed sliver of the Eastern Mediterranean included. It’s interesting that you do this, because by refusing to recognize the reality of Israel as a legitimate one, you put it in the unenviable position of playing an ever increasingly heavy-handed role in deciding every Palestinian’s fate than it would obviously prefer. If that is not a fanatical position, then I don’t know what is. But it certainly conforms to the logic you present us with.
The perspective illustrated by an unwillingness to separate power from destiny, as if power has an intelligence all its own, with which it controls the fate of the universe, is not only depressing, it’s one that no liberal democrat will ever embrace – former Hamasniks certainly included.
DELORTED.
ismail- you mentioned hezbollah as a "party" that has obstructed israeli colonialism.
israel’s occupation of southern lebanon was not colonialistic in the sense that its purpose was securing israel rather than annexing the land. although the israelis may have been met with "open arms" when they first arrived in 82, having replaced the plo despised by the southern lebanese, this naturally changed to armed struggle, which accomplished its purpose with barak’s decision to withdraw in 2000. at that point hezbollah’s "purpose" having been accomplished should have been disbanded. it was not and now it occupies lebanon itself as the foremost ally of the syrian occupiers and the vanguard of iranian hegemony.
you claim to be no fan of nasrallah but ultimately you advocate for israel to be replaced by a binational state that would result in something resembling lebanon, which is obviously not something that any sane person would aspire to live in.
your proposal that israel cede the west bank to hamas’s long term truce, because "what do they have to lose" is disingenous, (a euphemism for "full of it") for if this would happen, you would be sure to condemn israel’s actions at that time.
I could however ask you to hire an economist to explain to you why it doesn’t make sense to pay someone so that they can assist you with unpaid activities.
"Please, hire an editor."
Don’t have to. If there was no intelligible objection you could raise to any of what I wrote, then my comment has achieved its purpose.
I will try to make greater use of such trendy colloquialisms as "sucks worse", though. I hear that editors (the ones who remain employed) love that stuff.
Mr. Weiss- I hope you didn’t miss the irony of condemning a death cult and then trotting off to celebrate a couple of suicidal musicians.Isaac- If I remember correctly, you mentioned making a good living. Please, hire an editor.
Mr. Thacher- Not sure why you had to disparage intellectuals to support your point, but bear in mind that Rabin and Sharon were not intellectuals, but Netanyahu is.
Ismail- You seem to be advancing the view that Israel sucks worse than Hamas, but the direness of the Palestinians’ situation does not make this true. Just because Hamas lacks the man- and firepower to follow through on their Final Solution rhetoric does not mean that Israel shouldn’t take it seriously. Hamas’s purity of government movement doesn’t happen in a theoretical vaccum where we can be selective in what to notice and what not to. Again, the hegemony in the region, who gained superiority through industry as much as through the viciousness which you sometimes assign as the cornerstone of their "success," has a right to exert this power in the form of reaction to the espousal of anti-semitism. It is not incumbent upon Israel to parse the red meat rhetoric from the "facts on the ground," as if they are cleanly separable. Take umbrage if you must, but by virtue of the vast imbalance of power, Israel needn’t be as tolerant of the "duly elected government" in Gaza than they are. I’m familiar with the list of crimes that Israel has committed against the Palestinians, but I’m also aware of all the things they could have done but have not. Put plainly, the Palestinian body count since 2000 could be a lot higher without much intensification of penalty or condemnation against Israel. It’s the exact opposite of Hamas, who really would like to kill all of the Jews, but just can’t. I’m not asking you to sing Hatikvah (though doing so would probably raise a good deal of $ for the charity of your choice), but Israel is a lot more judicious and restrained than you seem willing acknowledge.
Methinks someone’s optometrist might want to test for the perception of quotation marks.
I am not blind. I am not deaf. I am not dumb. There are many governments throughout the world who have experienced corruption at one time or another, and I don’t mean purely economic corruption (i.e. Richard Nixon’s presidency). My point was that there are means to fight against corruption other than those that dismiss democratic solutions completely. Such drastic measures that derail democratic solutions completely are certainly chosen by those who are very short sighted.
The fault in my argument, as I see it , is in not stressing that giving up freedoms for immediate benefits never provides the most needed life enhancing and secure protection for a society. Ask Iranians if they are now more secure, or if their society is now more stable under Khomeini than it was under the Shah. Were Il Duce’s fascists in the final outcome of any benefit to Italy? You can vote people into office and you can oust them from office in a democracy. You can investigate corruption and take action, as Israel has had to do in Olmert’s case. The Palestinian people in choosing Hamas are going from a rut to a ditch and they are trying to take Israel with them by making the ditch into a mass grave. My eyes have been tested recently, perhaps you should book an appointment with an optometrist
.
"What I was referring to was that, as a matter of simple empirical fact, and by the testimony of many who are otherwise disposed to condemn Hamas, those guys are by and large unfettered by a history of self-serving, pocket-lining corruption. They deliver services to their constituents. Whatever their many faults, they are not thieves like Arafat and his Fatah cronies. Clear enough?"
As a simple matter of empirical fact, they are corrupt. They are thieves. They have stolen a UN aid shipment from their "own" people, for goodness sake, and nothing has been done about it. Are you blind?
No comment. Originally posted in reference to (now corrected) edit in comment above.
Palestinian’s fate. What is the Palestinian’s fate? Going back to the latter part of the 70′s and the early 80′s, so many attempts were made to include the Gazans in the economic boom of the period. Jobs were offered outside of Gaza on Moshavim and Kibbutzim and in the nearby cities. Entrepreneurs began enterprises in Gaza for woman in agricultural laboratories and in factories. Admittedly there were always delays and discomforts in early morning border crossings and the situation was never ideal, but I for one am so bewildered by the escalation of fanaticism in the area.
Hamas, I ask myself, why Hamas? Why choose such a fanatical and limiting movement? What has been gained? Why choose leaders who are so belligerent and pedantic? I know the usual answer is the failure of the Palestinian Authority to offer the necessary goods and services without corruption. But surely if democracy was understood then a more moderate route could be found. Where is it shown that Hamas is providing a better or higher standard of living?
And why follow anyone who sports such an ugly, ugly, horrid beard as those which Hamas leaders choose to adorn their chins. It’s so ugly, ugly and horrid.
By the way, on an entirely unrelated matter, and assuming that anyone in a Jewcy seat of power even reads this stuff, why have the "featured quote" and "featured Jewcer" items which run on the left side of the home page remained unchanged for months? I mean, Bek’s and Socol’s remarks are fine, but maybe an update wouldn’t be awful…?
Zeevico makes the stunning and world-shaking observation that humans are fallible, a thought that had never crossed my mind. How could I have been so blind?
Look, when I said that Hamas is "incorruptible", I wasn’t saying anything about their essential purity, or ascribing to them some suprahuman ethical organ which makes them immune to temptation. I really didn’t think that I would need to spell that out, but live and learn.
What I was referring to was that, as a matter of simple empirical fact, and by the testimony of many who are otherwise disposed to condemn Hamas, those guys are by and large unfettered by a history of self-serving, pocket-lining corruption. They deliver services to their constituents. Whatever their many faults, they are not thieves like Arafat and his Fatah cronies. Clear enough?
I’ve been called many things, but "fanatic" isn’t one of them. Thanks for your attempt at novelty. Sadly, novelty is the only virtue your remark may claim, since fanaticism isn’t my game. I think you mean that you really, really disagree with me and you can’t understand how anyone could hold my views. That’s fine. But "fanatic" has a specific meaning, and it’s best to use words accurately. Unless, of course, you can share with us how "fanatic" correctly describes my views, in which case please take the floor.
Isaac, I’m not a "supporter" of Hamas, as I’ve tried to indicate on what seems like an hourly basis. Nor do I see the long-term goals of Palestinian society being best served by them. At the moment, there are two main poles in Pali society (although a substantial number is sick of both). Fatah is corrupt, useless, plays the "peace process" game while it has gotten them exactly zero from Israel and watches impotently as more and more of the West Bank is gobbled up and Gaza is besieged. Israel loves Fatah, and what occupier wouldn’t?
Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, has actually presented a serious impediment to Israel’s colonial desires. Do I like them? Nope. Is there a picture of Nasrallah or Haniyeh on my wall? Nah. But, as I’ve said before, when you’re drowning and someone throws you a life preserver, you don’t ask if he’s nice to his wife before you take hold.
Nothing would make me happier than for both Islamic forces to fade away. But in the current condition, when Israel does what it wants uncorrected by anyone but these guys, well, the perfect may well be the enemy of the good, and maybe one tolerates them until such time as Israel decides to negotiate in good faith.
So again, I have no overarching belief in the essential desirability of Hamas, no conviction that they can do no wrong. In entirely practical terms, under the conditions that exist in Palestine today, they represent a better choice than the other game in town. Silly denunciations of their stupidities are beside the point-Israel has itself conducted secret negotiations with them, for the simple reason that they must-they’re not going away.
Now, on that basis, you may disagree with me-Hamas is making things worse for the Palis, you might say, or have no hope of developing as many extremist parties have done in the past, and so on. These are all legitimate rejoinders, and at least respond to the specifics of what I’ve said.
After Meslier, I believe that the man will be truly free only when the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest-and, I would add, the last rabbi and last imam. But that’s me. And so Hamas’ theocraticism is not for me, nor is much of its politics.
But when the kid’s got his finger in the dike, you don’t point out that he kicks his dog.
Having been through the wringer on the last thread makes me a bit reluctant to attempt to facilitate the flow of differing, if potentially constructive perspectives on this thread.
That said, it seems the problem here is one of making the perfect the enemy of the good. I should add that that I’m not a fan of platitudes, but I’m even less impressed by platitudinous thinking.
The problem most people here have with Ismail’s support of Hamas is that it’s not much closer to being instrumental in advancing what he sees as "justice" and what others see as "peace" than any of its predecessors were. It’s all fine and well for Ismail to point out that they might be less corrupt when it comes to delivering on a basic domestic agenda. But it is an unproven assumption to believe that they are therefore in a better position to deliver on what he sees as a just resolution with Israel. And if I’ve got your views wrong, Ismail, by all means feel free to let me know. Same courtesy is extended to you regarding any efforts to clarify your political views as you’ve extended to me regarding your efforts to understand my challenging syntax.
My point is that it’s naive to think that even one’s cause is so incorruptible as to obviate the practical. Zeevico has done the best job out of anyone here so far of hitting upon this point and those related to it, and the words of Lord Acton come to mind. But those cautions relate to the practice of power in human hands – no matter how small those hands might be.
Neither cause alone nor clarity of purpose create a sanitized, morally hygenic arena from which to project the perfect exercise of power, though. The whole point is the human impact of one’s cause once put into action according to the ideas it has layed out. On this score, Hamas might be judged a success or a failure – or something in between, depending on how one defines those things. But there is obviously a disconnect between Ismail and the other participants in this conversation when it comes to whether or not such a definition has even been conveyed.
Brian takes a more naturalistic and often more historically sound approach, which appeals to Ismail when they are discussing the perceived victim(s), but not when they are discussing the perceived aggressor. To make use of similar phraseology, I don’t think Ismail has the luxury of selectively deciding when power matters according to the equations set out by some abstract sociological philosophy and when it doesn’t. Nor is the decision of when to be so selective as to declare that justice matters while declaring that rights don’t to be made so capriciously either, I would think. But I suspect that’s a luxury afforded by the purity of purpose derived from divorcing it of practical application.
Oh, and I also think you’re a fanatic.
"Re Hamas, I agree that the Palestinian people deserve better, and I deplore and condemn those elements who traffic in the shameful tropes you mention. But it is incorruptible and it delivers services to its constituencies, neither of which virtues we may ascribe to Fatah"
No one and nothing is incorruptible. Palestinian society is rife with the corruption that comes with unchecked power in the hands of its political leadership–both Hamas and Fatah.
Hamas members are motivated by both ideology and self-iinterest. That happens in every society. To assert that Hamas differs in this respect is to assert that they are Gods above the rest of humanity.
The difference in a liberal democratic society is that it has multiple centres of power, each distinct and competing with the other. The corrupt are caught because every power group has an interest in ‘checking’ the other. Thus corruption remains low, and belief in the system strong.
Hamas is corrupt, but it is not at the stage where its ideology has become meaningless. It may move to that stage if it continues to remain in power in Gaza, but that is a process that could take years or decades.
I am not surprised that you have made this assessment of Hamas. One of the underlying underlying assumptions of the pro-Palestinian political movement is that Palestininians are innocents and that their elected representatives are by implication innocents themselves. As to the source of this mistaken assumption, I do not know. Perhaps it is simply a matter of mistaking one’s own self righteousness with that of others.
Brian, when I fired off that point about Hamas, I knew I had something wrong. Thanks for correcting me. That said, I think it is irresponsible to equate a death-cult terrorist organization such as Hamas with one of the strongest democracies the world. No country is above reproach, but nothing Israel has ever done to Palestinian justifies Hamas’ "martyrdom operations." More on this later. I’m off to hear Christopher O’Riley play Elliott Smith paired with Schumann. Have a good night.
Asher-
I wouldn’t say that I support Hamas. I’m a big fan of secularism, especially when it comes to governance, and I’ve already expressed my feelings about the preposterous calumnies uttered by some Hamas elements. As you know, Israel has its parallels to some of the more unhinged mullahs MEMRI et al are happy to quote-in fact, if I recall correctly, one former chief rabbi was no slacker in the unfortunate racist opinions department, and countless lesser representatives of the Deity have embarrassed themselves as well.
Hamas has not "regularly" sent suicide bombers anywhere. Since 2005, there have been no such attacks perpetrated by that organization. Israel, of course, has observed no such compunctions regarding the slaughter of innocents during this period.
The "human shields" slander finds no corroboration by any independent source save the IOF. Israeli use of Palestinians as human shields, on the other hand, is well documented, even by Israeli sources.
Your claim that, by sending no rockets into Israel for many months prior to Israel’s latest putsch despite being harrased, barricaded, strafed, starved, and imprisoned, and by offering a longer truce if Israel would cease its aggression, Hamas is somehow responsible for the withering possibility of peace-well, this claim is so wildly at odds with reality as to stimulate more clinical than political interest.
Other than getting every salient point exactly wrong, a very fine post.
Brian-
"And the disparity of power that you cite actual does accord the powerful the luxury of abrogation of responsibility. Alright. That’s a damn shame."
See, this is the sort of thing that drives me nuts. Just a bit insouciant, don’t you think, to write off Israel’s absolute and utter disregard for each and every one of its promises as "a damn shame"? And just how much responsibility for Pali displacement is OK with you? Of course Pappe doesn’t attribute 100% responsibility to Israel, but he did call his book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine", which should give you an idea of his general idea re who’s done what to whom.
One grimly funny technical point, Asher- Hamas does not claim that Jews are descendants of apes and pigs, they claim that Allah turned certain Jews into these creatures, so it is fair to say that Jews’ ancestors are porcine or simian, but not that Jews descended from the actual animals. And now that I’ve righted this minor distortion, I’m cool with Hamas, right?
Ismail, re: capitulation- what about 65-35? Not to invite anything long, muddled and angry to this thread, but someone recently pointed out that the problems and intransigences that afflict both sides of this conflict might best be tackled separately. Israel bears a large burden of the injustice done to the Palestinians. That suggestion offends a lot of Jews, and, as a Jew with my own inculcated passions, I don’t really like it either. And the disparity of power that you cite actual does accord the powerful the luxury of abrogation of responsibility. Alright. That’s a damn shame. But in the competition between the dream of building a Jewish state on land once ruled by King David and the dream of repulsing the Zionists, the victor did not emerge by committing greater transgressions than the victim. But suggesting that this Israel exists because it is simply eviler or more brutal than the Palestinians, just strikes me as trafficking in denial without having the luxury to do so. Any serious historian, even Pappe, notes that ethnic cleansing did not account for all Palestinian displacement. Doesn’t make any of it less tragic, but it does undermine assignment of 100% of the blame on Israel.
As to your point about Hamas’s call for a truce, I fear you’re correct that my point was not entirely adequate. I just really hate Hamas.
Unfortunately, your passion seems to be an obstacle to your ability to forumulate arguments that are based on any kind of fact or reason. Congratulations for supporting an organization that claims that Jews are descended from pigs and apes, that regularly sends suicide bombers (often the mentally ill or women who’ve been caught fornicating out of wedlock) to murder Israel’s defenseless civilians, that uses the Palestinian civilians it claims to protect as human sheilds, and that has essentially destroyed any chance of peace for Israelis and Gazans for the forseeable future. Give yourself a big pat on the back.
Brian-
I confess to being passionate and am happy if some find Morris or Pappe (who probably wouldn’t agree much with one another these days) more persuasive.
Re Hamas, I agree that the Palestinian people deserve better, and I deplore and condemn those elements who traffic in the shameful tropes you mention. But it is incorruptible and it delivers services to its constituencies, neither of which virtues we may ascribe to Fatah. Would I prefer that these things be done by modern secularists? You bet. But I think it unseemly to foreground Farfur the Mouse as representative of Hamas when it alone seems to be able to hold off the rapacious Israeli hordes (passion!) and it alone seems serious about addressing the needs of its people, who are immiserated, jailed and brutalized by Israel.
In any event, I don’t think you adequately addressed my bringing up the Hamas call for a truce. As I’ve declared before, even if one were unconvinced of Hamas’ sincerity, what would there be to lose by agreeing? Hamas isn’t going to develop an air force or nuclear weaponry anytime soon, and Israel has by far the greater military advantage. If Hamas broke its word, nothing would stop Israel from retreating to the status quo ante. I’m afraid that weeping over the misery of the people of Sderot while spurning the offer to relieve them of that misery speaks volumes about Israel’s actual intentions.
I must also disagree with your call for capitulation on both sides. To my way of thinking, Israel owns the overwhelming share of the blame. It is not up to the disenfranchised and aggrieved to go 50-50 with the aggressor.
Unlike Brian’s thoughtful remarks, Z Thacher’s post is little more than brainless cheerleading and so requires no comment.
I love Israel, pure and simple. I’m thrilled that it’s a powerful democratic Jewish state in a region of pre-modern hostiles with crappy economies that have nothing going for them other than an addiction to carbon-spewing oil, to say nothing of the abysmal human rights records in the Arab world for gays, women, religious minorities, children, etc. Israel truly is a beacon of light in a dark region. Don’t believe me? Try going to the relatively nice countries like Jordan or Egypt sometime. Not so great.
If it wasn’t for a powerful Israel, Jews would have it pretty rough across the world. Jews in America suffered from second-class citizen status until after the 1940s. Coincidence?
Left-wing Jewish and Arab intellectuals love to look at the story of a state’s creation as a "he said, she said" dialectic. Same practice could be made for the US. On July 4th we celebrate our independence, and yes, the indigenous populations paid a horrendous price for our country’s creation, but it’s not the main point in the many voices we hear each 4th. Instead we talk about celebrating our nation and making it a better place for all.
I hope the same for Israel. It’s there, deal with it. Intellectuals don’t get much accomplished anyway, so I’m not really threatened by Ismail’s criticisms. I hope Israel continues to become a better place, eventually have internationally recognized borders, and defeats the enemies at its gates, literally and intellectually.
While there are several tenured Israeli scholars like Morris and Pappe who could refute some of the mythologies expounded in Mr. Weiss’s dispatch more effectively (read- dispassionately) Ismail, some of the counter-mythologies embedded in his response are worth addressing as well.
Chiefly, juxtaposing Hamas’s calls for hudna with Israeli "misrepresentation" of their position as pro-Jew-murdering is kind of a cheap trick. Yes, there are moderate elements of Hamas, and yes, it does serve Israeli interest to characterize the entire Islamic Resistence Movement as villainous to the core, but neither of these facts legitimates Hamas’ brand of "resistence" in an honest, effective manner. Is resistence a right of people living under military occupation? Yes. But there’s resistence aimed at military targets and then there’s teaching children that modern Jews had pigs and donkeys for ancestors and that more recent Jews were responsible for the French Revolution, the Civil War, the Kennedy assassination and 9/11 and therefore peace will not come until they all are dead. This ain’t no canard. And to justify it as a legitimate response to brutal occupation, or to cast it in paler light than Israeli distoritions of history is what’s known as the tyranny of the weak.
It’s understandable that an article soliciting sympathy for Israelis would be met with a sharp rejoinder pointing out all of the ways in which Israel has brought its tsuris on itself ("to the victor go the headaches?"). I certainly find it galling everytime I hear that Golda Meier quote about Arabs not loving their own children as much as they hate ours, as if both sides claim to be cornered animals committing heartbreaking acts out of a necessity that’s either 5700, 1500 or 61 years in the making. Much suffering has come out of Israel’s establishment and, while apologizing for winning is too much to ask, acknowledgement of this suffering is vital. But if Ismail’s problem with Mr. Weiss’s post is that it’s too one-sided, the caveats in his own response that surely there are many fine Israelis who deserve a nice day once in a while are hardly sufficient to restore balance to Mr. Weiss’s rhetorical slant. If peace is the true goal, then capitulation from both sides is essential.
Why in the name of heaven does Jewcy publish such jejune and banal rubbish?
There is no doubt that Israel’s "Independence" Day (to many of us, the day commemorates granting Palestinian land independence from its rightful owners, but never mind…) carries multiple meanings for multiple observers. I understand the warm feeling of national pride that the day provides to many Jews, that there are good and decent people whose patriotic and ideological inclinations distract them from what their "independence" meant to those they displaced, and embedded in these contradictory tendencies there are compelling stories to be told.
But this collection of Sunday school fictions and boilerplate nonsense doesn’t count as one of them.
Diaspora interest in making aliyah is about on par with poking one’s eyes with a sharp stick at the moment. The world is getting increasingly intolerant of Israel’s foot-dragging, prevarication and aggression. The expansionism that Zionism requires is there for all to see. Under these conditions, the hasbara industry must run on overtime; hence, A. Weiss’ collection of fables.
Once again, we hear that Ahmadinejad, guilty of more than enough foolishness on the basis of his actual record, called for "wiping Israel off the map", despite this mistranslation having been debunked repeatedly over the years. Once again, calls from 1948 re "driving Jews into the sea" are dredged up, while Hamas’ repeated calls for a truce and its absolute ban on firing rockets in the months before Operation Cast Lead (the very few which were fired came from outlying groups) are ignored, etc.
Re Abbas, of course the duplicitous little quisling talks out of both sides of his mouth. Believe me, his lies and dishonesty bode infinitely more poorly for his own people than for the Israelis, in whose pocket he has comfortably nestled for these many years.
I’m not sure what The Ballad of Maayan Gutfeld is meant to demonstrate. Yes, occupying another people’s land for decades coarsens the character and takes its toll-numberless Israelis have written about their fears for their country’s soul in this regard. If you want to avoid the stress associated with maintaining a brutal military occupation, here’s a thought-end the brutal military occupation. Couldn’t hurt.
I’m sorry for Gutfeld’s misfortunes, but asking me to commiserate with the personal toll that occupation takes on the occupier is really too much. You have displaced the storied kid who murders his family and pleads mercy on account of being an orphan as the exemplary case of chutzpah.
Finally, the suggestion that people like Maayan are "living that life" on behalf of diaspora Jews is just a big ol’ bowl of desperate hasbara fakery. Jews outside of Israel (and those within, as well) profit not a bit from the extension of military dominance to which that country is addicted.
There are undoubtedly poignant, thoughtful, challenging things to be said about the meanings of Al-Nakba to both Arabs and Jews, from both perspectives. This silly and coarsely-drawn hunk of propaganda doesn’t even come close.
Wanna post your own comments? Gotta log in first!