Guest post: A bit of firsthand experience in the region
Originally a comment by Helene on Rhetoric and imagery which is pure and simple Jew hatred.
I hold no brief for the Israeli government, especially not Netanyahu and his rightwing coalition. In particular, I loathe the meddling by ultra-orthodox rabbis and the haredi community in many civil matters (e.g. marriage, divorce). But there is little doubt that Israel is by far the most liberal (full women’s rights, gays rights — gays serve openly in the military and the only gay pride parade that I’ve seen bigger than Tel Aviv’s is the one in Berlin — press freedom, general civil rights, etc.) and democratic country in the Middle East, with a better record on many of these issues than many European countries.
The “apartheid” epithet is nonsense. If you mean it to apply to Israeli Arabs, you’re utterly wrong. Their main disadvantage is that they are exempt from military conscription and therefore do not enjoy the special government benefits extended to ex-servicemen/women. Nevertheless, some Arabs (mainly Christian Arabs), many Bedouin – and most Druze – (altogether Muslims constitute about 20% of the Israeli population) do volunteer for military or public service and then do qualify for the government benefits. In all other respects, Arabs are full citizens. All religions are fully acknowledged. The Islamic WAPF controls the Muslim religious sites and various Christian denominations control their churches and religious sites. Arabic is an official language and Arab schools have their own curriculum in Arabic. Arabs are elected to the Knesset, head scientific, medical, educational, artistic and political institutions: ambassadorships, government agencies, even seats on the Israeli supreme court.
If you mean to apply the “apartheid” epithet to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, you’d be closer to the mark. Israel controls the borders militarily but civil and domestic matters, including police, are under Palestinian Authority or (in Gaza) de facto Hamas control. Many of the Jewish “settlers” in the West Bank enclaves are vile bible-thumpers but, as the various Israeli peace proposals over the years (in particular the one brokered by Clinton in 2000 and the even more generous one made in 2008 by Olmert) showed, many of these settlements would have been closed and with border adjustments the Palestinians would have received 95- 97% of their territory, plus compensation, upon ratification. But Abbas, and even Arafat before him (about whom Clinton said: “I regret that in 2000 Arafat missed the opportunity to bring that nation into being and pray for the day when the dreams of the Palestinian people for a state and a better life will be realized in a just and lasting peace”), perhaps remembering what happened to Sadat, who was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood when he signed the first Egyptian peace treaty with Israel, declined to ratify any sort of real peace with Israel. After Israel fully withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it didn’t take long for Hamas to throw Fatah members off rooftops and begin sending rockets into Israel.
If you mean “apartheid” in a strictly racial sense, there are about 125,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel, not to mention smaller groups from other African countries and, being brown myself, I could not help noticing many more dark faces in Tel Aviv than in Ramallah … or, for that matter, Beirut.
If you mean to apply the “apartheid” epithet to the separation wall/fence that Israel built along some sections of the border with the West Bank, it is undeniably repugnant, but (from the Israeli point of view) it helped put a stop to the attacks and bombings that claimed the lives of over a thousand Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada.
I gave two lectures in Birzeit University (my mother’s family is from Lebanon so I have a bit of Arabic) and I attended a conference at the Technion in Haifa… just to indicate to you that I have a bit of firsthand experience in the region.
By comparison, Lebanon, which comes closest to Israel in being multi-ethnic and multi-religious, used to have a precarious political balance between various religious and ethnic groups (Maronites, Orthodox, Sunni, Shia, Druze, &c), but it is now utterly under the sway of Hezbollah, next to ISIS the worst bunch of theocratic tyrants in the entire region (along with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, they are the ones supporting Assad’s murderous campaign against his own people). Though most left years ago, my mother still has some relatives in Lebanon, but they are Sunni (Iran and Hezbollah are Shia, Assad is Alawaite, generally subsumed under Shia, but the majority of Syrians are Sunni, including the Kurds in the north) and they see the writing on the wall. Half a million Syrians have died in this civil war, most, horrendously, at Assad’s hands, and several million more have been driven from their homes. But for some people, if it can’t be blamed on the West (or on Israel, which has quietly been treating Syrian wounded in its hospitals), it isn’t worth protesting.
Hear hear!
Very nice propaganda piece, Helene. Clever “it’s Arafat’s fault!” and “blame Hamas” for the suffering of the people being starved and robbed by Israel’s sanctions and bans. For someone with no brief for Bibi, you have done a great job.
As for the idea that Israeli Arabs are treated perfectly fine: no.
Here in Australia for years, Jewish schoolchildren are encouraged to raise money for tree planting, to make Israel green. The trees planted are pine trees. They are planted in lands the Bedouins used to graze. Nothing grows under a pine tree.
Israeli Arab communities can’t get permits for water.
Google.
I don’t know how to reconcile my support for a Jewish state, with my abhorrence for what is being done to the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs by the government of Israel. Maybe the word “apartheid” doesn’t apply to the Palestinian people: but what word does?
And I’m sure Israel is a great country. So is Australia. Our government is still a bunch of arseholes and our actions towards refugees, Indigenous Australians and poor people are completely reprehensible.
Agreed, propaganda.
Israel is a colonial enterprise and Zionism is a racist ideology. The ‘disappearance’ of the Palestinians was an assumption by some elements in the Zionist movement long before Israel was created. The claim that the plight of the Palestinians is the result of their leaders’ corruption or incompetence is a standard propaganda ploy, ethnic cleansing was on the agenda from the start. The Palestinians are year by year, dispossessed by the ‘settlers’, it is the usual plantation method of land theft, and has been widely employed by invaders for thousands of years. Most indigenous people in democracies are at least recovering part of their patrimony, but not in Israel.
The claim that Israel is a democracy is irrelevant, the oppressive nature of other ME regimes is irrelevant, the fact that Palestinians are mainly Muslim is irrelevant. Israel is not on the front line protecting the West from the Islamic hordes as is so often claimed, the Zionists are fighting their own war for their own reasons. They only want the land on their borders and they will continue with this policy as long as they are supported by the moral imbeciles in the US political elite.
Well yeah, the West Bank and especially the Gaza Strip are precisely what is being referred to when people call Israel an apartheid state. Because they are areas in which the native population has been corralled, which is the hallmark of an apartheid regime. And your claim “If you mean it to apply to Israeli Arabs, you’re utterly wrong.” is absurd given that Palestinians are Israeli Arabs, being that they are predominantly Arabic, and are imprisoned within Israel. In fact, all of your defense of the claimed freedoms enjoyed by Israeli Arabs is belied by imprisonment of so many.
Israel was only in the moral right back in the long-gone days when the Zionist movement proceeded by peaceful and fair purchase of lands in the region. Those days are long gone.
P.S.
Your last paragraph is essentially ‘but other (muslim) places are worse!’ and can be ignored.
Gee what about the ‘Palestinian’ West Bank when it was annexed to Jordan? Right up until 1967. The ‘West Bank’ is not defined by any border established for the Mandate. It is the limit of the Jordanian army’s advance into Israel before the cease-fire.
The ant-Israel crowd has a gift for amnesia that makes Trump look like an historian. ‘Black September? la la la la.’ The governments of Egypt and Jordan have waged war against Palestinians with far more bloodshed than Israel ever has.
I have no patience with wars and quarrels rooted in history or religion or based on the ownership of land. Yes, it is unfortunate that people have been driven from their homes in various countries and at various times and by various invaders. But that is no good reason to continue fighting, to make the lives of entirely different people a misery, and to attempt to regain something that earlier generations may have lost or may have claimed.
From where I am sitting, in a peaceful Western country, Israel looks like a good place to live while every other country in the area looks – in every imaginable way – perfectly dreadful. That says to me that the Israelis are doing something right, and everybody else is doing something wrong.
Guys, my comment was not meant as a standalone editorial. The context was a limited response to someone’s else’s comment, which was a short, violent dissent to a Guardian editorial on Ken Livingstone. The word in the comment that set me off was “apartheid”, a term that I had been hearing at my university recently and which I felt was grossly misused, indeed belittling what black South Africans truly endured for half a century. C’est tout.
But since I’m already here – and Trump is in the White House – let me simply point out that the word “indigenous” is another grossly misused word, especially in the middle eastern context. I live in Montreal and my own family is scarcely indigenous, mother born in Lebanon and father in Guyana. (“Hochelaga” anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochelaga_(village) But their respective families were hardly “indigenous” to their countries of origin either, my mother’s possibly arriving from the Caucasus in the middle ages (the Maronites were certainly in Lebanon long before them) and converted to Islam either before or after their arrival. My father’s ancestors likely arrived from elsewhere in South America and before that Africa, and became Christian only on arrival (actually I don’t ever recall him going to church; religion was my mother’s domain!).
As a young girl in Lebanon my mother never heard of “Palestinians”. If anything the term in her childhood referred to Jewish immigrants; Muslim Arabs in “Palestine” (the British mandate territory), were generally considered Syrians and modern “Syria” itself was carved out as a French mandated territory after the whole region was conquered from the Ottoman Empire in WWI. (“There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible… Our country was for centuries part of Syria.” — Auni Abd al-Hadi, Syrian Arab leader to the British Peel Commission, 1937. On the other hand he made similar claims regarding Lebanon and Jordan.)
The people I encountered in Israel and the Palestinian territories during my two visits were remarkably diverse, in the first case deriving from all around the world — the Ashkenazim from Europe, the Sephardim mainly from North African countries like Morocco, Tunisia or Egypt (including a man who calls himself a “Jewish Arab”), the Mizrahim from Iraq or Syria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews), as well as individuals from Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan (!) and India. In one particular case I met an Israeli (Jew) who (says he) can trace his ancestry in the Tiberias region back to the time of Maimonides. In Ramallah (the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, traditionally an Arab Christian town, now mostly Muslim) I met people whose families had lived in the area for as long back as their family trees can be traced, but others whose families hail more recently from Egypt or the gulf regions of the Arabian peninsula. Empires have come and gone in the neighbourhood and so have populations. So I am loathe to use the word “indigenous”, merely to note that it seems a little perverse to claim that descendants of Muslim invaders from Arabia are more indigenous to “Judea” and Jerusalem, where Solomon and Herod’s temples stood and Jesus prayed (please forgive all the religious balderdash), than Jews.
Here ends today’s sermon.
“Least shitty country in the Middle East” is a pretty low bar to clear…
“There is no Palestine in the Bible” is not technically true, since Palestine comes from the Hebrew Pelesheth “Philistia, land of the Philistines.” but this is a technicality only.
http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=Palestine&allowed_in_frame=0
The precedent for the name Palestine goes back to the ancient egyptians of about 500-1000BC. An interesting note on the naming process at the time of the British Mandate:
“M. Palacios [Spanish representative], returning to the concrete questions of a general character of which the Arabs complained, recalled those concerning the national title, the national hymn and the flag…. As regards the first point, the Arabs claimed that it was not in conformity with Article 22 of the Mandate to print the initials and even the words “Eretz Israel” after the name “Palestine” while refusing the Arabs the title “Surial Janonbiah” (“Southern Syria”). The British Government had not accepted the use of this Arab title, but gave the place of honour to the Hebrew word used for 2,000 years and decided that the official name in Hebrew was “Palestina” followed by the initials signifying “Aleph Jod”, the regular Hebrew name. Was the question still under discussion and could the accredited representative give the Commission any further information?
Colonel Symes explained that the country was described as “Palestine” by Europeans and as “Falestin” by the Arabs. The Hebrew name for the country was the designation “Land of Israel”, and the Government, to meet Jewish wishes, had agreed that the word “Palestine” in Hebrew characters should be followed in all official documents by the initials which stood for that designation. As a set-off to this, certain of the Arab politicians suggested that the country should be called “Southern Syria” in order to emphasise its close relation with another Arab State.”
That is, the Brits used the name Palestine in keeping with common European and Middle Eastern use, which they note was used in that form for 2000 years. As you note in your #7, the zionists themselves did indeed use Palestine, but they assuredly did not invent it, despite what your quoted source claims.
Anyway, this may be a bit on the lengthy side for a side point, but it mirrors a conversation I have had several times, and the meme that there was no such term as Palestine / Palestinian until modern politics is an irritating one.
Helene,
It doesn’t matter what the inhabitants of the ‘region’ were called before the Zionist invasion, it was their land, they lived there, farmed it, and raised families. If they don’t have a collective identity they don’t exist? The designation of Palestinians as ‘Palestinians’ is a nasty Zionist propaganda line and is morally repugnant.
As to your comment, ‘descendants of Muslim invaders’, it’s irrelevant for two reasons.
(1) Populations are not necessarily entirely replaced by invaders, there are probably people in the ghettos of Gaza for example, who are descendants of the Bronze Age inhabitants of the area. Cultural assimilation is the usual phenomenon.
(2) Even if your claim were true, So what? History is a record of invasions and occupations. Some gibberish in a ‘sacred text’ or the observation that there was a Jewish population in the ares centuries ago don’t provide any ethical support for Zionism.
Probably one of my ancestral lines leads to Eurasian nomads who lived north of the Black Sea and another from the ME, perhaps I could stake a claim to Israel as well.
RJW @ 11,
You don’t seem to get my point. Some people bashing Israel justify their attacks by claiming the Palestinians are the region’s “indigenous” inhabitants while the Jews are not. A favourite argument of theirs is that the Jews (sometimes in scare quotes, ostensibly Khazar imposters) in Israel are simply European invaders… disregarding the fact that a majority of Israeli Jews are, in fact, from the Middle East. My argument – which you seemed to have misread – is that it shouldn’t really matter and that “indigenous” is a word Humpty Dumpty would be proud of.
The real problem is that while most Israelis still favour a 2-state solution to the conflict, most Palestinians – incited by Hamas and Fatah propaganda and religious sermons invoking Allah’s help in finishing Hitler’s mission (chilling examples available on the web) – still dream of erasing Israel entirely from the map.
Helene,
I have to say that you don’t get my point. You’re arguing from a premise that has no ethical justification.
“A majority of Israeli Jews are, in fact, from the Middle East”. You are still claiming that because Jews left the ME centuries ago they have a right to ‘return’, they don’t. Essentially the Zionist claim is that Jews have some kind of genetic claim to what is now Israel. I thought that the world was finished with that kind of religio-ethnic chauvinism. I’m familiar with the theory of Khazar conversion, again it is irrelevant because of the previous argument.
As to the claim that a majority of Israelis favour a two state solution, my reply is ‘bullshit’. The settlements continue to expand day by day, the real agenda is written in bricks and mortar and land theft.
I’m a descendant of European invaders, and I live in the state that they created, as with Israel, what’s done is done. If I claimed that I have a right to ‘return’ to the UK because my ancestors once lived there, it would be correctly, ridiculed
RJW @ 13,
Can I make it more simple than this?
A majority of Israelis – this very generation or their parents – are from the Middle East. They never left. Not centuries ago; today. From Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon (I met a woman from my mother’s own village!), Iran, Iraq (see the “Farhud” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud – the 1941 massacre which marked the beginning of the end of an illustrious Jewish community dating back to the Babylonian era. Pogroms were not just a European phenomenon.), etc. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_and_Muslim_countries There was a Jewish “Naqba” as well.
The Palestinians claim a “right of return” as well. To the Palestinian Territories (the West Bank and Gaza), following a peace treaty, this might work, though I imagine that most Palestinians around the Middle East or abroad have put down roots elsewhere. Being mostly Sunni, the Palestinians in Syria are in an unfortunate position: traditionally they supported Assad but they are now caught in the crossfire. Israel has also offered to accept a limited number of Palestinians (descendants of those who left in 1948) into Israel proper. But the Hamas charter http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp heralds the day when all of Israel will revert to dar al-Islam, a Muslim territory cleansed of unbelievers. It didn’t happen in 1948 (or 1967, 1973, etc.) and it will hardly be happening today.
For all its faults, and many faults it has, Israel is still the most tolerant nation in the entire region. For example, name one other country in the Mid-East that hosts Pride Parades.
And for those who view ALL Palestinian violence as a mere reaction to Israeli policies and all, they should remember the pogroms taking in place in…say… Hebron back in the 1920s, years before the ‘Zionist Entity’ had even came into being.
Today is Palm Sunday. How many church-bombings in Israel on this day compared to, say, neighboring Egypt? Of the 30-some Copts killed this morning, how many (over the age of 4) could be considered neo-colonialist invaders?
(Helene @ 14 – sorry that was held for a bit – must have been the links.)
Ophelia @16,
Yes, that generally does it. Thanks.
An excellent article, so rare on this subject online. Even better responses to the antisemites it has inevitably drawn out of the woodwork.
Antisemitism according to Pinkeen (and far too many others): any criticism of any aspect of Israel ever.
Balls. I am highly critical of Israel all the time. The claim that complaints about antisemitism are always unfounded, dishonest attempts to distract attention from the crimes Israel is known as the Livingstone Formulation in the UK, for reasons you can probably guess. It is a pretty good indicator that you are talking to an antisemite.
There is plenty to bash in Israel, in particular the rightwing government’s political pandering to the religious/messianic bloc (to their credit, as I learned firsthand, some rightwingers reject this alliance and are strongly secular), but there is also a strong western leftwing antipathy to Israel that extends far beyond mere criticism of its relationship to the Palestinians. This is in some part a heritage of the old communist (both Stalinist and Leninist) campaigns against Jewish nationalism, but more recently it is a product of the perverse variety of “intersectionality” where even such vicious theocratic institutions as the Muslim Brotherhood are seen as revolutionary models (i.e. during the short-lived “Arab Spring”), or where, today, ignorant young women will don hijabs – or, worse, shout down Maryam Namazie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali – as a gesture of “solidarity”. In the early years of Israel, when Jews were still people to be pitied, there was a wave of naïve western leftwingers who made pilgrimages to Israeli kibbutzim, but in 1967, when Jews finally refused to be helpless political pets of the Left, they lost their place in the hierarchy of victimhood to the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular, notwithstanding the latter’s alliance with Islamists (today Hamas, Hezbollah et al). In the past it was the Right that saw the Jews as instigators of vast global conspiracies. Now for a certain “Left” (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/01/radicalism-fools-rise-new-anti-semitism), viz Ken Livingstone and his ilk, it is once again the Jews – oops, I meant to say Zionists – and their “lobbies”, and their “control” of Hollywood and the media, etc., who are behind so many of the world’s ills.
Corection to #21: Second sentence should read “… both Stalinist and Trotskyist” (not “Leninist”).
#20
It is your assertion that this post has drawn anti-semites out of the woodwork, presumably referring to the comments here. So. Which of the above comments is anti-semitic?
I’ve found the writing of Shlomo Sand illuminating on this topic. Below is a link to a review of one of his books that I’ve read. Sand is a professor of history at an Israeli university; he is a Jew according to Israeli law, but he now rejects that label personally. He is very critical of the Israeli government and of aspects of Israeli society.
What I found particularly compelling were his arguments against the concept of a “people” in general, and the Jewish people in particular. He makes the case that Judaism grew via conquest and assimilation, like many other religions, and that the narrative of a group of people with long time shared origin and shared ancestry is a fiction. (He also makes a powerful case that a “people” or a “nation” in a pre-literate society is an invention of aristocrats and not the reality. Brilliant argument, I’d say.)
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/shlomo-sand-is-not-jewish-anymore-812
@24,
I read Sand’s “The Invention of the Jewish People” (in Ramallah!). Were it just a far-left (Sand is an ex-member of the Israeli Communist party, Rakah) critique of ethnic or religious chauvinism, I might have found it flawed but interesting. But it isn’t, finally, much more than an extended Jewish version of Trumpian “birtherism”.
Here’s a (too?) sober review of it by a renowned historian:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:G2amZGelGiwJ:https://www.ft.com/content/b74fdfd2-cfe1-11de-a36d-00144feabdc0+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
And here’s a leftwing critique of his later book:
http://forward.com/culture/206656/how-i-stopped-reading-shlomo-sands-crackpot-memoir/
Of course, Sand comes highly recommended by Electronic Intifada on one side and David Duke and Stormfront on the other. Here’s a typical Stormfront comment on “Invention of the Jewish People”: “Read it and weep Jewboys, commies, liberals, and mainstream ‘historians’!!!!!”
I read both of Sand’s books mentioned in the links you posted. I would probably rate them something like “flawed but interesting” myself, but apparently far more on the interesting side than you. I think he doesn’t understand secular or moderate Jews in the US, for instance, and his criticisms, while understandable, I think are inaccurate.
I think the reviews you posted make some valid points, but overall miss the mark. I’ll address the first one. The historian in the first link makes the same error seen in countless debates between atheists and Christians: “nobody really believes that.” Sorry, but lots of people believe that, including Christians and Jews, and Sand was perfectly justified in criticizing such views. The reviewer’s claim of a “longing” that formed in the past and continues to this day is simply ridiculous.
I am not sure I agree that Sand is arguing for a Jewish identity based solely on religious practice, but it’s been a while since I read the book. If accurate, then yes, I would agree with the reviewer on that point. But it’s an argument with a long history, and it still goes on. That argument, and the constant conflation between ethnicity/culture and religion, is the reason I stopped calling myself Jewish.
I brought up Sand in part because of his criticisms of Israel from his first person perspective. I think it is worth noting that viewpoints vary. Yes, his views get picked up by people on the far right. We see that all the time; extremists grab onto moderate views they think will make them sound more palatable. Anti-abortion zealots suddenly become concerned about the health of women. Christian zealots suddenly support separation of church and state when Muslims want to do something. This is part of what makes it difficult to criticize gender, or religion, or specific groups, in any kind of nuanced way. Criticism of a group does not mean hatred of the group, but extremists latch onto the criticism, and supporters hurl accusations at the critics.
The view that Jewish nationalism is uniquely evil and racist among all the world’s nationalisms is antisemitic. There is no other plausible motive for it but hostility to Jews.
Where in the previous comments is the view expressed that Jewish nationalism is ‘uniquely evil and racist’? I certainly didn’t make that statement, although I’ve heard and read the claim that Jews have a unique right to ‘return’ many times.
Rather than using ad hominem attacks you could attempt to defend your proposition or indeed, defend Zionism.
I’d like to see you try.
Where in the previous comments is the view expressed that Jewish nationalism is ‘uniquely evil and racist’?
I’m sorry, which are the other states you think are racist by definition and should be eradicated?
And, as was pointed out, you argue for a Palestinian ‘right to return’ so it’s odd you think it unique to Israel. Ireland has one too, by the way.
I will defend ‘Zionism’ when you justify Belgium’s right to exist.
This is a dishonest mischaracterisation fo the comments here. No one has said Israel is racist by definition, people have instead pointed to specific policies and actions. And yes if you institute a policy of displacing original inhabitants involuntarily, forcing them to flee or locking them them in an open air prison, then yes, that policy is horrifically racist.
Oh, and apartheid is a pretty apt designation.
Pinkeen,
Drivel, I don’t argue for a Palestinian ‘right to return’ or that Israel should be ‘irradicated’. I’m arguing for the Palestinians’ right to stay on their land.
More ad hom attacks and straw man arguments. Rather than using drive-by comments, stand your ground and defend Zionism. Helene, at least, presents arguments in favor of Zionism, you don’t.
Cheap and nasty shot, Pinkeen. The only reason anyone in the world would have to criticise the actions of the government of Israel is because they are an anti-Semite?
I do appreciate the irony of being called that here, though.
I don’t need to defend Israel any more than I need to defend Canada. Or Lebanon. I’ve done so here because I’ve seen it firsthand and because it is a favourite target of both rightwing and leftwing racists. No, not all critics of Israel are racists… that’s a blatant strawman. In fact, in my experience, nearly everyone in Israel was some sort of critic. But Pinkeen’s test (in which Israel – uniquely – is labelled “racist by definition and should be eradicated”) is a useful predictor.
OK, then, which other states do you characterise as racist and consequently not having a right to exist? Or is it just the world’s only Jewish majority state?
Arguing against who? Who is saying Palestinians should be driven off their land? Interesting that you don’t support the right of Palestinian refugees to return to what is now Israel though.
#34
Did you read my full comment, or just the bit you quoted? Repeating my #30, with emphasis:
The distinction lies in the difference between calling someone a racist versus calling someone’s actions racist. I made it obvious in that post, but you appear to be wilfully ignoring all such nuance. I’m thinking you don’t have honest intent in this conversation.
Pinkeen, I’ve noted this before about you also, which is why I don’t engage with you generally. There is no meaningful discussion (in stark contrast to Helene, whether one agrees with her or not). I suspect you do have valid and interesting points to make and I would appreciate it if you did not distort others arguments, throw up straw men and generally just try to ‘win’ by appearing to score cheap gotchas. Say what you believe, provide facts that back that up, provide your own or others analysis for us to consider. Above all rely on the intelligence of this audience to reach a valid conclusion based on comparing the various comments.
Distortions, straw men and veiled (or outright) accusations of unacceptable positions (such as anti-Semitism) which are not demonstrably correct simply poisons the well of discussion, killing the value of a thread. the animosity spills into other threads as well.
Anyway, my opinion and I’m the boss of no one, especially not on someone else’s blog. I’m also not perfect, so take the comments above as applying to me as much as Pinkeen or anyone else here.
Rob,
Agreed, generally. However I’m not convinced that Pinkeen has “valid and interesting points to make”, otherwise he/she wouldn’t need to resort to straw man arguments and ad hom attacks.
Btw, thanks for John Clarke, the Shaky Isles’ great gift to Oz.
John Clarke was a great laconic comic. Outrageous and understated at the same time. Gentle but cutting sharp. We were watching a tribute show last night. Glad we could share him with you.
For a long time Pinkeen was in permanent moderation, so that comments that were just too provocative-and-nothing-else would simply not appear. But a few weeks or months ago it seemed to me there was more of an effort being made so I removed P. from moderation. But I can always revert!
Holms, you keep insisting that I am mischaracterising arguments, but RJW above does not simply criticise actions of the Israeli government , he says ‘Zionism [Jewish nationalism] is a racist ideology’. He does not believe, as far as I can tell, that any another nationalism is intrinsically racist, so what is the difference? Why is the world’s only Jewish state racist by definition but no other? The answer seems obvious to me, and might seem more obvious to you if you had met this version of antisemitism as often as I have in far left politics and Palestinian activism.
Even the use of the word ‘Zionism’ is a red flag. Why do we need a special word to describe the Israeli state but no other? I think it is because it allows dishonest commentators to smuggle in antisemitic arguments because their hostility is not really aimed at the Israeli government (why not say so?) but at Jews.
I did not know this! If I offend against the rules or decorum, just tell me. I’ll either change or shut up.
Pinkeen, you’re at it again. Zionism is not a red flag and is not an imposed word that describes the State of Israel. Zionism is the movement that has sought to establish and maintain a Jewish homeland in the historic home of the Jews. More recently, the last hundred years or so I understand, that has been increasingly a religious/political/military movement. Not all Jews are zionists or supporters of this militant Zionism, even if they are supporters of Israel.
In many respects militant zionists are the opposite side of the same coin that represents radical Islamists who seek to restablish a caliphate. Such movements are nothing new. There have been Christian equivalents and I would argue that Saudi Arabia is an ISIS that succeeded in many respects.
This twisting, distortion and exaggeration of people’s criticism of the policy of right-wing Israeli political and religious leaders does no one justice. There is much to criticise, just as there is of the conduct of other parties in the dispute.
As for your criticism of RJW, I’m not going to speak for him. However, I can unequivocally state that I have never met an extreme nationalist from any country or want-to-be country that I did not consider to be absolutely racist. It goes with the territory be they New Zealanders, Australian, American, Russian, English, Serbian, Maori, or, yes, Israeli. It’s possibly because nationalists are invariably xenophobic. Xenophobia tends to lead to racism.
Rob, you are right, Zionism did have a clear meaning during the struggle to establish a national homeland for the Jews, but that fight has been fought and won,so what does it describe now? If it just means ‘Israel’, say it. If it means ‘agreeing with Israel’s’ right to exist’, say it. Then we can be clear what we mean, and I can know what you are talking about when you say ‘militant Zionists’. Who are these people? This slipperiness is why the word has become so disreputable, it is constantly used as code for something else, often for ‘Jews’.
And you do not answer my question about which other nationalism movements are considered intrinsically racist by talking about extreme nationalists. That’s a very different thing. Of course we can agree that extreme nationalists of every stripe tend to be racist. But I was talking about nationalisms. Which apart from Jewish are considered ‘racist ideologies’? Kurdish nationalism? Tibetan? Catalan, Irish, French, American? Which?
I won’t discuss your absurd comparison of Israel with ISIS, only to say, you know where that particular slight is most often met, don’t you?
This is surprisingly uninformed. Zionism isn’t just ‘let’s make a jewish nation’ – if it were that simple, then yes it has indeed been completed – it is so much more, and it continues to inform Israeli policy to this day.
It is the idea that the lands of that region are somehow owed to jews, not only as repayment for awful treatment that peaked in WWII (but was by no means limited to just that period), but also as the culmination of the religious belief in the land being promised to them by God. It started as a peaceful buying up of land through monies donated by jews and non-jews alike in the 1800s, but for decades now has been a military annexation of lands and forced ‘settlement’ against the wishes of those that already live there.
So no, zionism is not simply a synonym for “Israel” nor “agreeing with Israel’s right to exist.” Nor it is simply ‘nationalism, but with jews.’ It is a social and political idea that fuels much of the worst of Israel’s behaviour.
I’ll grant that some people use it as a synonym for jews or Israelis, and match the simplistic terms you use, but I see no evidence that anyone here is one of that sort.
You mean the idea that Jews have the right to live in Israel, because I can’t see that you arr saying anything more than that. We know that the state of Israel doesn’t talk in those terms, so who do we mean when we say ‘zionist’? If your objection is to the illegal settlements, why not just say that, why the constant smokescreen of this word which you admit is used in many and various ways and often dishonestly. Or are you suggesting that the expressed intentions of Israeli must in some way be interpreted as being motivated by a sinister hidden ideology?
Why not just be clear, when you personally say ‘zionist’ which individuals are you referring to?
Wow. You are definitely being highly selective in how you read what I write, because I plainly said that there is more to it than zionism = “the idea that Jews have the right to live in Israel”. I’ve no interest in conversing with someone so disingenuous that they elide the bulk of what I say.
Pinkeen, nationalist movements are made up of nationalists. In any practical terms I’ve answered your question.
Funny, I don’t see the word Israel in that sentence. What’s more I don’t mean it to include Israel, Jew, Jewish, unicorns or anything other than what I said.
I’ll give you one thing, you don’t change your spots. Again, stop with the petty point scoring and try to exchange actual ideas.
Holms, I can’t see any sense in how you are defining zionism, that it what I am saying to you. If it is ‘the idea that the lands of the region are somehow owed to the Jews’ as you say, and this is more than the simple idea that Jews are entitled to live in Israel, how is that a useful definition, who holds that view? It was certainly not a view behind the pre-Israel Zionist movement, it is not the position of the current Israeli government or the opposition any of the opposition parties, so who are these zionists and why do they loom so large in discussions of Israel? How does this rather nasty sounding idea ‘inform Israeli policy to this day’ when no party shares it? That is what I am asking you. If this is a useful term and not a blind for smuggling in antisemitic ideas, as I suspect, just say which people are zionists by your definition and why it is a necessary term. Or just drop it and use clear language that we can all understand. As I say, in discussions of any other nationalist movement there is no similar confusion, no special vocabulary. Why can’t we hold discussions on Israel to the same standard?
No, you are dodging it. For a start you referred to ‘extreme nationalist’ earlier and not merely ‘nationalists’ and secondly the accusation is that Jewish nationalism is intrinsically racist so I think you need to be clear whether this is unique to IIsrael or if it includes other nations. Are you saying that Irish nationalism,say, the movement to free Irealand from British rule was inherently racist, or all Irish nationalists are racists or what? Why the wriggling, just say what you mean.
Well no, you talk about ‘militant zionists’, but I have no idea who they are. I assumed you meant the Israeli army and it is a fair assumption that is the only military movement that is pro-Israel as far as I know, and ‘zionist’ is often used as code for Israeli or Jew as I am sure you know. But who do you mean if not them? Why is this so cloudy? Just say what or who you mean and we can all get off this merry-go-round.
Nationalism: asked and answered.
Zionists: are settlers in occupied territories not zionists? Are their supporters, civilian, military, religious or secular not zionists, pretty much by definition? BTW, don’t confuse militant with military. To do so knowingly is disingenuous, to do so unknowingly is merely ignorant, I suppose.
I’m off this merry go around. You built it. You keep refurbishing it. We shan’t speak again.
So ‘zionist’ means an Israeli settler in an occupied territory or the people who promote that activity? Let’s call them that then and avoid these confusions.
You continue to refuse to answer the point about nationalism and I guess everyone can draw their own conclusions as why. Mine will be similar to Helen’s I think.
I know this thread has been dormant for nearly two months, but I just read an excellent summary of what happened in 1967 and the half century since in the Middle East, with particular attention to Egypt, Israel and Lebanon (where, as I indicated above, my mother was born and we still have some family), and I thought it useful to add it to the record. I disagree with a few of the author’s conclusions – I am more optimistic about some key issues than he is, and more pessimistic about the role of religion – but his main points about “corrupt regimes and perverse religiosity” are well taken. This is a good primer for anyone who wants to educate themself on the region and its current situation.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/05/the-arab-world-has-never-recovered-from-the-loss-of-1967/
Thank you Helene. I’ll read it.