Ilana Diamond, a student at University of Texas writes in the Jerusalem Post about the challenges facing students who support Israel.
This is something we have covered many times on Jewlicious. Campuses across the US are dominated by the pro-Palestinian advocacy groups, sometimes as a part of some Muslim student association or other larger enterprise. We’ve discussed the challenge of being a Jewish student on some of these campuses and especially of being supportive of Israel. Nobody wants to be disliked or to be on the side of evil. These organizations have made Israel out to be the new Nazi Germany and they continue to push their agenda aggressively and continuously. As Ilana points out and as we’ve reported in the past, these groups are also smart and effective.
The average person, even one who has a smattering of knowledge on the topic, is simply unequipped to debate with Mearsheimer or Finkelstein, or even with a well educated pro-Palestinian activist. The result is that those who would debate are left silent and those who want to be supportive of Israel find themselves confused and those who were neutral are far less likely to see Israel favorably.
Make no mistake, while Israel is the topic and these pro-Palestinian groups use the word “Zionists” carefully, as we’ve shown with clips from UC Irvine, the attack is on the Jewish mainstream and upon many Jews. To avoid attack, you have to be on the anti-Israel side.
The result of all this should scare everybody. First, it means that a generation of students is growing up not just with sympathy for the Palestinians but more important, with derision if not outright hatred of Israel. These are the future politicians, businesspeople, artists, voters, etc. of the US. Second, a generation of Jewish students is growing up cowed by the idea of showing or even feeling any kinship to Israel. Third, that often translates to rejection of Jewish groups on campus because the campus groups do often act supportively of Israel. Fourth, these are students, they want to have fun and to be liked. Imagine if you’re constantly confronted with the supposed evils of people affiliated with you. If you weren’t too affiliated to begin with, you’re going to reject your connection and even if you are affiliated, there’s a very good chance you will turn in a direction the rejects a part of your Jewish identity. Of course, the so-called “progressives” get around this by siding with the Pro-Palestinians and claiming that it’s their Jewish values that provide the logic for their actions.
On the University of Texas at Austin campus, where I am a student, it’s a daily problem. There are some five pro-Palestinian student groups currently active on campus. Guess how many pro-Israel student-run groups there are. One.
Well, maybe two. There is also the Union of Progressive Zionism, but I am not yet convinced that their main battle won’t be fighting the “occupation.”
Meanwhile, one could say there are about seven institutionalized forces working against Israel on the UT campus.
This year alone, these groups have brought in speakers such as John Mearsheimer, author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, a book denouncing AIPAC; Alison Weir, journalist and the founder of If Americans Knew, a group that argues the US is sending too much money to Israel and that the Palestinian plight is underrepresented in American media; Neturei Karta Rabbi Dovid Weiss, who attended Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial conference and is a member of Jews United Against Zionism; and Anna Baltzer, a pro-Palestinian American Jew.
Needless to say, the Palestinian sympathizers at UT know how to make their events look credible, and the events are usually well attended. This is the part where putting too much faith in college students starts to go wrong.
STUDENTS ATTEND these lectures and hear how AIPAC is supposedly wasting taxpayer’s money, how Israel is supposedly brutalizing and killing innocent Palestinian children, and so on. The organizers of these events know these issues are compelling, and that any Joe-shmoe is going to sympathize with their cause.
The average college student attending is likely to be hearing about the Arab-Israel conflict for the first time, and can end up believing that what they’ve just learned is the whole story, thus creating a large problem for pro-Israel activists.
It is especially undermining when some of these anti-Israel speakers are of Jewish heritage. Students interpret that to mean that if a Jew doesn’t like Israel, then Israel must be really bad – so it’s ok if I don’t like Israel either.
Is there a solution? Not one that comes up easily. The brutal truth is that we’re outnumbered. Not only is the Jewish community divided into numerous sub-groups and levels of affiliation, but the other side can count on the Muslim and far-Left students almost automatically. It’s also much easier to be active for a cause where there’s an underdog than for the supposed victor, which is how Israel is perceived. The faculty on many campuses reflects a trend to the Left and especially with respect to Israel, as we’ve previously discussed with respect to MESA.
I do have words of encouragement for Ilana, though. Don’t be afraid of the truth, because it happens to be on our side. Even with all of Israel’s faults, as well as mistakes – some unintentional and some intentional – that it has made over these many decades, after all this time it remains the side that has justice on its side. The attempt to harm the Jewish community of Mandatory Palestine, followed by the attempt to destroy Israel and “send the Jews into the ocean,” and subsequently by hostile nations that maintained a posture of war or hostility for decades has dictated the terms of this conflict to a far greater degree than anything Israel has done. Even the presence of Israel in the Territories is far from a black and white story and this was true before and is shown againt to be true now that Israel has left Gaza. It sounds trite, but Israelis grow up singing songs about peace and the pain of war. That is not what the other side is teaching their kids.
I’m surprised at the comment that pro-Israeli students are outnumbered. Surely at places like U of T, there are plenty of evangelical and other Christian students who’d favorably receive a pro-Israel message. For every Jewish student who goes pro-Pali as a form of adolescent rebellion, there’ve got to be 20 evangelical kids who could take his/her place in shaping the campus environment.
You may also fail here to give the average student enough credit. Plenty of kids recognize kooky, far-left politics when they see it. It’s ever been thus, right? Campuses tend to attract this sort of thing. And, as for the professoriate’s lefty inclinations: the same was true ten, twenty years ago, and the country’s been governed by conservatives and moderate Democrats throughout the period.
The answer to misleading speech is more speech. Take the high road, avoid shout-downs with the pro-Palestinians, and put out a positive message about Israel and its relationship with the US.
I think one of the most difficult situations for me as a student at a campus with many pro-palestinian groups was that, after being educated as a child to adopt a normative Zionist narrative that gave no legitimacy to the political and moral crimes that Zionism committed against innocent people, both Arab and Jewish, I realized that more often than not, I agreed politically with many pro-palestinian groups in their view of the conflict. Out of the fear of being disowned by the Jewish community for my opinions, and no particular affection for Arabs, I remained silent. That is why Jewish-Israeli activism is futile on campuses – because so many young Jews are beginning to understand how Zionism has failed our moral and intellectual dreams.
There definitely needs to be better education. It’s difficult to make heads or tails of all of the information out there, and student groups need help, IMHO, on educating students in clear concise manners with facts, not rhetoric.
Eli please to tell us about the “political and moral crimes” you believe were perpetrated on Jews by the Zionist movement.
We’re not outnumbered. We’re disaffected and we’re pu**ies. We raise children who think more about Juicy bags and the type of design of their Bar/Bat Mitzvahs than what being a Jew entails; and that is a commitment to World Jewry. We go to cute camps where we learn how to make tie-dies and not learn Krav Maga nor politics/recent history. On top of that, most American Jews are liberals who believe that everyone is a victim and has a legitimate gripe so rather than teach their children ethnocentrism (which IMO is concerned with our future) we teach them multiculturalism and tell them the scariest threat to us is global warming and NSA wiretaps. We tolerate other other people’s hatred out of fear of being unfair or ethnocentric and think that will make them like us more and treat us more fairly. I’ve stated a number of times that we have enough Jews who worry about Palestinians, now we need some Jews to actually care about themselves for once.
When I was in high school about to get jumped by a gang of Chaldeans (don’t worry, it wouldn’t have hurt anyway), who came to my defense? Only one Jew, my best friend. The rest were too concerned with what they wore and what they drove and being popular to give a shit that another fellow Jew meant anything to them. I had to outsource my protection to my black friends who actually knew how to fight like my parents and grandparents, who literally had to fight against anti-semites while growing up, and grouped together for protection. We’ve had it too good in this country that we let up our guard. The liberal American Jews have been so concerned about white Christian anti-semitism for so long that we allowed whole other minorities to attack us for years in the same vile manner. All the while, we were preaching tolerance and supporting these minorities because we were more scared of the majority. Meanwhile we have Hollywood Jews who’ve sold us out numerous times, won’t even admit they are Jewish until it’s time to defend anti-semites like Gibson and Carter, and still support people like Obama who has more anti-semitic friends than Adam Shapiro, and we’re thinking of backing him for POTUS. And we’re surprised where we’re at?
Eli wrote: “political and moral crimes that Zionism committed against innocent people, both Arab and Jewish”
I’m starting to think they missed at least one Jew. 🙂
Since I was once part of the left that supported the Palestinian cause, I can honestly say that the pro-Israel side is outnumbered. First, on the academic level since, in my experience, a lot more faculty is supportive of Palestinian causes than of the Israeli cause. Second, there are a lot more student groups that are dedicated to the Palestinian cause. It was not until I left school and started reading about the history about the region did I change my viewpoint. Unfortunately, there were not a lot of classes taught about the history of the middle east at my school that were not taught by biased teachers. What she is saying is an unfortunate truth.
I generally agree with what you’re saying here (see, I’m not always a contrarian). A couple thoughts, though:
1) How do we put in place safeguards to assure that when we counter anti-Israel sentiment on campus we do so without resorting to the deplorable smear tactics of Columbia Unbecoming and anti-Nadia Abu El Haj campaign? These kinds of campaigns do almost as much to turn otherwise-supportive Jews off to the Israel cause as the anti-Israel activists do (I know they disgust me, and I consider myself quite committed to Israel’s well-being).
2) Related, how do we instill a positive, pro-Israel feeling in youth without filling them with propagandist myths about Israel? I love Leon Uris and Operation Thunderbolt, but it took me a long time to learn they weren’t the whole story. I personally believe that the source of much of the Columbia Unbecoming-type trouble is not so much “biased” teaching, but students who grew up in an environment where the world revolved around Zionism and Judaism and can’t accept that anyone sees the world differently, so anyone who doesn’t speak or teach from a baseline of being supportive of Israel and focused on the Jewish historical narrative must be wrong. That attitude is part of the problem, not the solution. How do we keep people open-minded to valid critiques of Israel without allowing them to be twisted into believing Israel is altogether unjust?
A few things left Muffti a little bit bewildered:
Seriously, is the complaint that it’s hard to be pro-zionist and kind of ignorant? With all due respect, perhaps in a state of ignorance one ought not be pro-israel on a college campus or anywhere else for that matter. What kind of thinking for yourself are you encouraging by telling people
Maybe you should be telling them to get more educated if they care about the cause.
Next:
Muffti would like to see some proof of this, unless you are trying to call ‘the other side’ just any body who has any sympathy for the Palestinians. Muffti echoes Morrissey’s complaint on this. Muffti works on a campus and isn’t willing to generalize from his experiences, which don’t especially conform to the ‘left -> israel hater, muslim -> israel hater…
Finally, for what it’s worth, Muffti thinks that the way this is being set up is all very bad on both sides. Look at Middle’s phrasing even:
Making it sound as though having sympathy for palestineans is a bad thing strikes muffti as hitting exactly the wrong note. Muffti finds it pretty hard himself not to have sympathy for palestineans at large and he numbers himself among both the pro-israel and the left. One thing that seems to happen an awful lot in pro-israel education is an attempt to combat myths and lies of the other side, which Muffti thinks is very useful – what doesnt’ happen a lot is a frank admission of the mistakes (intentional and unintentional) that Middle alluded to and discussion about the fact that you are not a bad person or zionist if you if you are willing to acknowledge some of those mistakes and are willing to feel sympathy for Palestineans and their condition. Muffti’s jewish education was extensive and of high quality, but in the aim of keeping things positive about israel and his attitude largely pro, most of the israel education he got carefully avoided said mistakes. Similar things happen with american education: so far as he can tell, Americans are never told anything bad about american history, american foreign policy until they get to college, so no wonder students feel somewhat betrayed when they find out where the CIA sold drugs, which countries receive weapons shipments, how Manifest Destiny was put into effect…
Muffti isn’t advocating demonizing america, israel or otherwise; but a more frank and honest discussion would leave people feeling less like they are cheerleaders reading off a script and more like people who won’t be shocked and wil have a nuanced approach to the ups and downs of their country’s policies and home and abroad and won’t feel like fish out of water when confronted with the uglier sides of things that anti-israel propagandists like to pick on and sell as the defining characteristics of Israel.
Poor Eli, he received a poor “normative Zionist education.”
You should have come to us then, Eli, then you wouldn’t be so conflicted, not to mention wrong, about your current beliefs.
Uh Muffti, you read that line about the Palestinians the way you wanted to and not the way I meant it. It was supposed to mean that they develop a sympathy for the Palestinians. Period. Nothing wrong with that. I have a great deal of sympathy for most Palestinians.
We agree that cheerleading is stupid. It’s important to be honest about Israel’s failings as well as successes.
I have to go right now but will respond to the rest later. I just wanted to address the accusation about my phrasing because it offends me. You’ve read enough of my stuff over the years to know where I stand.
Sorry, middle, muffti read too quick. he begs your forgiveness.
The Zionist movement, and the state is created, perpetrated various crimes against Jews. For example, In the beginning of the state, Israeli government officials sanctioned the suppression of the Yiddish language (and the culture it created) by making publishing newspapers in Yiddish a crime. Censorship, by my standards at least, is a crime. The Israeli government’s actions were motivated not only by an understandable desire to promote a national language that would unite the diaspora, but also by bands of armed thugs who terrorized, and even killed Yiddish-speaking intellectuals. These thugs believed that the yiddish language was the vessel through which the weakness, and I would argue, a philosophy of Jewish subhumanity, emerged. The moral crimes are embedded in these political ones.
Eli, that’s interesting. I just read a history of Yiddish in that period and it appears that you are being quite dramatic in your presentation but the reality was somewhat different. I didn’t see anything about thugs killing intellectuals because of their Yiddish and in fact found that the state permitted a series of publications in Yiddish to be published during the early years of the state. The objection was to a daily newspaper because it was important for the establishment to promote Hebrew as a common language in the nascent state with new immigrants coming in from numerous countries from all over the world. Oh yes, the state also restricted plays that were solely in Yiddish and performances were to include at least some Hebrew.
If this is what you call a “Zionist crime,” then I’m sure you have some serious issues with how Palestinians treat homosexuals and supposed informers, not to mention terror attacks against Israeli civilians, and therefore you passionately abhor the political and moral crimes that some Palestinians (often under the auspices of their leadership or committed by militants who work for that leadership) commit against innocent people, both Arab and Jewish. I think you should share these issues with your pro-Palestinian friends and I’m sure you’ll find that they’ll be receptive. They won’t disown you for your views and will probably even cry together with you about the lost dreams of Palestinian nationalism.
Muffti, back to you:
Seriously, is the complaint that it’s hard to be pro-zionist and kind of ignorant?
Well, Eli here just provided a beautiful example. You’ll notice he talks about language in the early years of the state. Then, he gave us a number of “Zionist crimes” tailored perfectly for our sensitive American mores. He began by talking about censorship in Israel and equating it with a crime and then moved on to state-sponsored or sanctioned murder of intellectuals by Israel, and then compared these alleged Israeli murderers to Nazis in engendering a philosophy of “Jewish subhumanity.”
That’s pretty sophisticated stuff, don’t you think? First of all, how many people at all even know about Israeli language policies in 1948, 1949 or thereabouts? Ask ck whether off the top of his head he knows anything about this.
How many students would know something about this? Go ahead and Google it since you have the luxury of sitting in a room with a computer – something that the average person going to a presentation by Finkelstein or some on-campus Palestinian supporter doesn’t have. How long before you find any information that relates to this from a primary source or a source you trust?
Second, the student would now have to defend the “Zionists” for “crimes” ranging from censorship, to murder of their own, to suppression of their own as if they are sub-human. Where does the student begin, Muffti? And how long would it take you to counter this type of attack before anybody listening would have their eyes gloss over? How do you avoid going on the defensive in this situation?
Do you honestly expect more than a handful of students who are supportive of Israel to have the tools to counter something like this attack? And, in your opinion, how much depth of knowledge on a topic is required in order to know who is right and who is wrong in the bigger picture? I can think of two hundred other things I’d teach about this conflict and the Yiddish language restrictions of the state’s early years wouldn’t be anywhere near those two hundred. So how is Ilana or anybody else supposed to be prepared for or even taught this?
Next.
Why shouldn’t I put up words of encouragement that Ilana is on the just side when that’s what I think and believe and that’s what I want her to know as encouragement. I completely expect that she’ll go and get better educated because, unlike you, I read her bio and she was a former intern for the Jerusalem Post. I suspect we’ll be reading Ilana’s journalist articles in a short number of years.
I think your point is not well made. This is a very complex conflict that has now existed for over a century of detailed history. The perceptions of the two sides differ greatly as to what has happened and even what is happening now. Even when you learn facts, it isn’t uncommon to have to learn they were wrong or perceived differently. Look at the revolution Benny Morris caused in people’s thinking, but then you have scholars who challenge him on his scholarship. He himself keeps contorting, in public statements, his earlier positions if not his research. So which Benny Morris are you going to teach the student? The one who accuses Israel of removing Palestinians or the one who defends Israel’s actions in 1948?
It takes an enormous investment of time and energy to learn even a fraction of what there is to know about this conflict. For you to suggest that the average student should be as knowledgeable as a Mearsheimer or Finkelstein is absurd. This is what these guys do professionally. They get paid to study and write it full time. Students have to deal with a course-load, earning tuition, social life, etc.
It’s as if you told me that in order to believe in [enter philosopher’s name here] theories, I have to be able to counter the theories of the professor who came to campus to say that this philosopher was full of hot air. Most students aren’t equipped because they are amateurs. Lay people. They’re not going to have the tools that professors or active advocates for causes have. In addition, the depth of their interest may not be deep enough to explore this deeply.
Finally, with respect to my claim that the far-Left is in the corner of the Palestinian supporters, I don’t see how you can claim otherwise. This isn’t some recent phenomenon, this has been the case for decades. Virtually all the terrorist groups that supported PLO activities back in the day were Leftist extremists. Virtually all the Left wing oriented media is in the Palestinian corner (Nation, Counterpunch, Harpers). The Left wing of the Democratic party as represented regularly on Daily Kos is staunchly anti_Israel and the list continues. Next time your far-Left on-campus group has an event, go see what books they’re selling and get back to me about whether I’m right about this.
All due respect to you, Middle, Muffti doesn’t really see what the alternative might be. Muffti thinks you can be pro-israel, or believe in [enter philosopher’s name – preferably ‘Grand Muffti’] theories without being able to defend him from professors who try to refute [same philosopher’s name]. It’s just you should expect to be taken less seriously when you do your best to be pro-[enter philosopher’s name] or when you try to convince others to be pro[-enter philosopher’s name]. And you should expect to be ‘confused’ when you encounter people better equipped to argue than you are on the particular topic w/r/t which you are pro-[enter philosopher’s name].
In other words, what do you expect from people when they find more knowledgeable people? They are likely to listen to them or take them seriously. Which leads precisely to the situation that you fear is coming. So tell me the alternative you suggest in an environment where students are encouraged to think for themselves and question intellectual authority by learning.
On that note, Muffti should note that university campuses are about as ideal an opportunity one can get to go learn more and become better educated as exist in the world. If you can’t do it htere, you’re fucked.
On the topic of the far left, Muffti still disagrees. Sure many far left groups support palestineans and see Israel as agressors. But (1) the ‘far’ left make a very small percentage of students on any given campus and (2) of this small group, not all are committed to any particular side. So Muffti cries ‘bullshit’.
Muffti, of course you’re going to be taken less seriously if there’s a pro around. And yes, you will be “confused.” That’s my point! Most students don’t have the tools, time or desire to gain the sophistication they would need to contradict a lecturer or even just a strong advocate who is an expert on the topic.
Even if you’re a supporter of Israel or [Grandmuffti’s] lame ideas, you’re still going to have to be unusual in your desire to go that extra distance. Look where we are now in this discussion. You are attacking and I am defending my proposition in the original post which was:
So you see, we are in complete agreement and you made us both waste fingertip lifetimes when you knew I was right all along.
Next you want me to offer you an alternative when I had also written in my original post, Is there a solution? Not one that comes up easily.
That means, I don’t have a friggin’ clue. I have some ideas, but the fact remains that you’re naive if you think that all it takes is some dedication from the student on a campus where the faculty specializing in the topic tends to be from the anti-Israel LEFT and there’s a strong presence of pro-Palestinian advocacy (Ilana describes 7 organizations – 8 if you include the “progressive” Jews – to the one Israel-supporting organization) and there are constant visits from the anti-Israel luminaries of the lecture circuit.
As Eli showed us, even if you had gone to the library and learned enough to know that Mearsheimer is wrong, you’d still encounter these exotic claims. And you would go hibernate if you could Muffti, because you would want a girlfriend and decent grades, not a cause. That’s true for most and that’s my point. The success of the anti-Israel advocacy is not in the advocacy, it’s in the destruction of links by students to Israel, and to their own identity unless the commitment was there previously. It is much easier to just walk away and live your life.
Finally, again about the automatic support from the far Left which you deny. It’s like denying that the sun rose earlier today. We’re not talking weak-willed Middles here, Muffti, but far Leftists. This isn’t news. The far Left doesn’t like Israel and if you’re going to still find pockets of the far Left anywhere in American society, it will be on campuses. Percentages are small? Maybe, but you only need a few dozen people who are committed and active to change the face of an event on campus. And that’s what you get. As I said, if you add these groups to the Muslim and Palestinian-Supporter groups, you end up with a sizeable contingent. If you just took the far Left group or groups on their own, you’d have a much smaller number. So once again, we agree…it’s just you need to take that thought a little bit further and extrapolate… 😉
I’d really be interested in knowing who these “Yiddish intellectuals” murdered by Zionists in the pre-state era were. Maybe Eli could supply us with some names and details.
Why does something tell me his source will be either Al Jazeera or Electronic Intifada?…..My bad, a quick google search led me to an article about this on a marxist website and another on amin.org (arabic media internet network).
Is anyone else on here annoyed by Muffti referring to himself in the third person?
Tori. Muffti’s been a writer at Jewlicious since the begining. Referring to himself in the third person is one of the lovable things Muffti does. Well, that and that whole Muff… ti thing if ya know what I mean. Whatever the case may be, Yiddish is alive and well here in the holy land. A day does not go by that I don’t hear it on the streets.
Here is an article that contains some research from a book on the subject of Yiddish in Israel’s early years.
Jewlicious: covering every angle.
TheMiddle: Regarding your last paragraph, like Muffti, I consider myself Left wing. I espouse Liberal values, I support socialized health care, a woman’s right to choose, gun control etc. etc. The part of the left that I have issues with is the extreme left which has been subverted by this whole Israel/Palestine thing and has become a mouth piece for anti-Israel extremists. One does not have to be anti-Israel in order to be a leftist. In many respects, Israel is a very liberal democracy with extensive gay rights, women’s rights, socialized health care etc. – progressive initiatives that have no comparable equal in the Arab world and very few equals in the rest of the world including the US. When we talk about Leftist Extremists, let’s be very clear in identifying them as such. Similarly, just because there are right-wing anti-Semitic extremists, it doesn’t mean that everyone on the right is a jack booted thug.
I thought I was pretty clear when I wrote “far Left.” That seems to differentiate from “Left.” So I’m not sure how I could have beeb clearer.
Ah, I see, in the last paragraph of the last comment I used “Left.” Sorry, I guess Muffti pooped me out. About to be fixed.
Muffti does that to people. He wears them out. We used to call him “jackhammer” back in the day. Don’t even ask…
So the question of Israel should exist outside the general academic discourse in order to handicap it for impressionable Jewish students? Come to think of it, that’s sort of been Campus Watch, David Project, Camera’s goal all along.
Your conception of “the other side” is rather limited. Most of the students who consider themselves pro-Palestinian are rather moderate, but have been turned off by people like Ilana, who put the word occupation in scare quotes forty-one years after the Six Day War.
Muffti offered a solution: go forth and learn if you care about the subject. Muffti isn’t sure if you’ve noticed, but the internet is chock full of information and debate over the conflict. Universities have libraries full of books, professors and the like. They even run classes on this sort of thing. Muffti guesses perhaps we just agree in tone but Muffti can’t see himself to feeling bad for people who take strong stands in ignorance, such as being pro-israel. if you find that tough, too bad Muffti guesses.
And Muffti wouldn’t go hibernate to get a girlfriend. He knows well that (1) women don’t get turned off by intelligent debate – they seem to like self confidence and given the weepy story you are selling about just how hard it is to be pro-israel, you’d show an awful lot of it by engaging in debate against your own odds of an easy life (2) as we were discussing, the actual number of any women who are willing to devote dating choices to your political views (assumign you aren’t an extremist on any given side) is very small, not large like you are making out and (3) he stuffs a cucumber down his pants so…
I appreciate everyone’s comments here. I’m glad that people are on top of their shiz. However, I stand by my claim. For more information on the suppression of Yiddish culture by Zionist militants, check out What Must Be Forgotten: The Survival of Yiddish in Zionist Palestine by Yael Chaver, an Israeli professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In it, she writes about the Gedud meginei ha-safa (Battalion of the Defenders of the Language). I am not at all claiming to dismantle the legitimacy of Israel or its right to exist. I am forever intent on making known that Israel, in many ways, was predicated on the end of the Diaspora. I think this has had grave social and political consequences, and has impeded Israelis from understanding themselves.
On a personal note, I don’t appreciate the questioning of my personal integrity.
themiddle writes:
“Well, Eli here just provided a beautiful example. You’ll notice he talks about language in the early years of the state. Then, he gave us a number of “Zionist crimes†tailored perfectly for our sensitive American mores. He began by talking about censorship in Israel and equating it with a crime and then moved on to state-sponsored or sanctioned murder of intellectuals by Israel, and then compared these alleged Israeli murderers to Nazis in engendering a philosophy of “Jewish subhumanity.â€
First, I am an American, and a Jew. I disagree with themiddle that calling censorship a crime is an American sensitivity or more. Second, I never compared Israelis to Nazis, but merely asserted that Yiddish was, as Katz, Chaver and many other scholars have shown that Yiddish was perceived as a less than human (i.e. non-Zionist) expression of Jewishness.
And just on a personal note – I am a committed devotee of Israel, having spent much time there as a student, activist under the funding of an American philanthropy. I also will begin a doctoral program in Jewish studies in the fall. I hope no one has gotten the impression that I am an enemy of Zionism. I am just interested in Zionism’s cultural margins and educating our youth to understand that simply defending Israel’s right to exist is a sad alternative to confronting a pain-stricken society at war.
Another thing. I’m not entirely unsympathetic to the sentiment here. I, too, remember my days as a (relatively) emthusiastic pro-Israel freshman, and my indignation at the arguments of the pro-Palestinian activists. I also remember the exact moment, at a talk about the way the layout of the wall made commerce and everyday life in the West Bank unfeasible, in which I accepted that maybe I don’t know everything about the conflict. I don’t think it’s an unhealthy experience, and it’s one that’s central to the idea of the academy. The flexibility to re-examine beliefs in light of new evidence is among the most important skills taught in college. This doesn’t mean that every college student should graduate hating Israel. But to graduate while still clinging to an unexamined Hebrew school conception of the history of the conflict is to miss out on an essential part of the intellectual aspect of the college experience.
It’s not this re-examination that is at fault in the lack of college students active in pro-Israel politics on campus. Rather, it’s the insistence of the community on presenting a unified front on Israel, where Jews can’t talk about occupation (in scare quotes, apparently), but rather are expected to prattle on about the Technicon and humus and hookah.
The motley ‘far left’ crew (crue?) Middle cites– the Muslim and Palestinian activists, the Nation subscribers et al.– can all be reliably expected to vote for Barack. Together with Middle himself, n’est-ce pas?
Middle’s penultimate paragraph in #17 reminds me of concerns my dad, a ninth-grade dropout, had about sending his kids away to college. We’d lose our values, fall under the sway of the pinkos and libertines of the dorms, revile our past…. This is a pretty, uh, reactionary stance, Middle. As reader suggests, if kids turn on Israel with something akin to a sense of betrayal, it bespeaks a poor approach to their pre-college education in the history and politics of the region.
I’m confused about what truly worries Middle. The Jewish kids, who may lose heart or go over to the other side? Or everyone else, the gentile kids? The latter will likely view loud Muslim-Jewish disputations outside the cafeteria over what really happened in 1948 rather peculiar and off-putting. Middle’s done yeoman’s work on this site as self-appointed defender of the historical record of the Mideast conflict. But that approach readily leeches over into a kind of defensiveness and special pleading– not the best way to win hearts and minds in a campus setting, especially if the audience is a non-Jewish one.
Eli – I respect your sincerity. But please understand the difference between a government and a movement. If early Israeli governments acted to ban Yiddish (which is at least debatable), then your ire should be at the crimes you perceive that government to have committed. Your anger should not be directed at the movement which undergirds the entire philosophy of a Jewish right to self-determination in its ancestral homeland.
Women indeed don’t get turned off by intelligent debate, actually there are ones who may consider it quite stimulating, but to be intellectually stimulating, a debate has got to be thought-provoking and constructively working towards a consensus. What is going on here is a counter-positioning of concepts, not so much an exchange of ideas or even a debate. Which is understandable, given the topic and the background of the commenters, which likely has made them make up their mind on this issue way before the above post was up. So in this context, a counter-positioning of ideas is fair enough as it will reflect different existing views on the matter in question.
That said, Muffti’s about the hottest intellectual Jewlicious has got to offer, and we’ve got lots of them, so go figure.
Amen, Reader, that’s exactly what Muffti was trying to say in a nutshell. And thanks Froylein, but Muffti ain’t blushing yet.
Good, some more participation.
Tom, first you out of respect for age (before beauty so Muffti comes second). Consider many of the discussions we’ve had on Jewlicious about assimilation, interfaith marriage, decline in interest in Jewish movements, etc. What I’m saying is that the on-campus movements are actually hastening this process of assimilation because it moves everybody – young people in particular – away one more notch. Nobody wants to get beaten over the head over and over again, and that’s the situation Ilana is describing on her campus. It is much easier to walk away and be unaffiliated and to ignore the topic than to listen to every possible, conceivable activity which Israel has ever conducted called a crime.
I mean, look at “Eli’s” focus here. He didn’t bother with the usual stuff. Nope, his fave “Zionist crime” is that the state didn’t want to allow Yiddish to remain a dominant Jewish language while trying to absorb multitudes of refugees from dozens of countries. His facts are wrong and either he’s a troll or else he’s worse, he’s precisely what I’m talking about. He takes a mish mash of propaganda, which is inaccurate at best, and allows it to dictate his views on Israel. Suddenly (and assuming his story is true) we have here a person who grew up in a normal Jewish household with a “normative Zionist education” getting to higher education and who believes in “the political and moral crimes that Zionism committed against innocent people, both Arab and Jewish, I realized that more often than not, I agreed politically with many pro-palestinian groups.” As evidence of this range of political and moral crimes, he provides a mish mash of historical information and a false historical analysis of this information. But he sure knows where he stands on the conflict!
Should he not go to college? Where do I say that? People are going to go to college. I’m lamenting a situation where the good side has been overtaken by the dark side and there’s little to do about it. If pro-Palestinian advocacy on campuses was less shrill and full of self-serving comparisons to major historical crimes supposedly being conducted by Israel, there could be some dialogue. Instead, there is a war and on campuses, they are emerging as a power while the Israel supporters find themselves on the defensive.
Muffti, you continue to miss the point. Listen to this carefully: I am not worried so much about pro-Israelis. If you choose to take a stand, you should educate yourself and seek help whenever possible.
However, and listen to this carefully as well, I am worried that all the other students, particularly Jewish but also non-Jewish, who are continually exposed to this barrage of biased anti-Israel information will be affected or influenced to a degree that matters down the road in how Israel is perceived and supported by average voters, politicians, businesspeople, etc. With respect to the Jewish students, again I repeat not the active ones or the pro-Israel ones, but the general Jewish student population, I think it causes them to distance themselves from Israel and often from the Jewish community or affiliation as Jews because they can’t be bothered or it bears too negative a connotation.
Muffti sees what you are worried about (finally). Fair enough, though he’s not really sure that its true that students are quite as intellectually lame as you are suggesting. he’s also not really sure that the transcend political apathy in general in the way that you are suggesting. Is there any real evidence that political activity by pro-palestinean groups and speakers brings along anything but intelligent debate on an issue?
I’ll make Muffti blush someday when he least expects it.
Eli,
“Gedud meginei ha-safa” (Battalion of the Defenders of the Language) was around in the 1920s and 1930s when there was a battle, as yet quite unresolved, as to whether Hebrew was going to become the “new” Jewish language. These were the equivalent of hoodlums, mostly high school kids or around that age, who taunted or used sometimes violent tactics to try to scare off Yiddish writers or the organizations that wanted to hire them. This was long before Israel was founded, did not represent any major movement or the leadership of the Yishuv (although I suspect they supported these kids) and really has nothing to do with your sweeping, grandiose claim about supposed “moral and political crimes committed by “Zionism” against innocent people, both Arab and Jews.
Second, I’m anonymous and you’re anonymous. Try not to take it too hard when I’m personally critical of you. For all I know, you could be Yasser Arafat’s long lost love child.
You’ll forgive my skepticism but the first thing you attacked was censorship?! Censorship? I mean, there were attacks on Jews by local Arabs that had no cause or reason other than pure hatred and of all the issues you choose to introduce to us as the example of “Zionist” crimes is supposed censorship? Mr. Edelman is buying, but I’m not.
Second, you’re the one who chose to claim that Zionists supposedly viewed Yiddish speakers as “subhuman.” Those were your words. You wrote, “I would argue, a philosophy of Jewish subhumanity, emerged.” That’s precisely what the Nazis did. That’s isn’t what the Zionists did. They did reject the shtetl and what they considered the weakness of diaspora Jewry, but that is very different from considering them or treating them as subhuman. Unless, that is, you’re trying to propagandize a little. You know who did treat Jews and some others as subhuman? Nazis. I stand by what I said about what you wrote.
And just on a personal note – I am a committed devotee of Israel, having spent much time there as a student, activist under the funding of an American philanthropy.
Of course, you just oppose the movement that founded the state as well as its moral and political crimes against innocent Arabs and Jews. So what is it that you do support?
I also will begin a doctoral program in Jewish studies in the fall.
Great. I hope you get some professors of quality who can offer objective information. MESA already has enough members.
I hope no one has gotten the impression that I am an enemy of Zionism.
I did. It was the part about the movement’s supposed crimes and the suggestion they treated others as subhuman that convinced me.
I am just interested in Zionism’s cultural margins and educating our youth to understand that simply defending Israel’s right to exist is a sad alternative to confronting a pain-stricken society at war.
So the war is Israel’s fault and by defending its right to exist, we are promoting more war? Dude, by supporting the Palestinians and attacking Israel and Zionism in this way, you are ensuring that these pain-stricken societies will remain at war. It’s not the other way around. The attempt here is to destroy Israel, not to destroy the Palestinians.
Well, the notion that Jewish kids will be hustled closer to assimilation because of some shrill lefty or Muslim activists on campus strikes me as implausible on the face of it. I’ll bet this is a lot less likely than losing kids– and this may be eli’s story– who are given too milquetoast a view of Israel and the Middle East, the equivalent, say of US history without its dark pages. I read eli to think the truth was somehow kept from him until he grew up and went to college. This sort of dynamic surely should be avoided.
Dear Middle,
Congrats on your correct guess that I’m a “mister”. What gave it away?
But, nu? What am I buying? My accepting Eli’s sincerity–regardless whose love child s/he may be–just acknowledges that s/he may have beliefs that are just as strongs, though different from, my own. Doing so frees me to concentrate on facts and logical reasoning that (in case you hadn’t noticed) weakened to the point of obliteration Eli’s fallacious argument against Zionism.
Shabbat Shalom et Chag Sameach.
-jde
And froylein, don’t fall into that familiar human pattern of believing someone just because he’s good-looking.
No worries, Tom. I wasn’t going to propose to Muffti or keep him as my pet philosopher though I’d love to at least once utter the line, “Think for me, puppet.”
😀
The puppet abides, mind ready but unblushable.
That way the puppet won’t earn treats.
J.D., I figured I had a 50-50 chance of being wrong and gambled on it. Being anonymous helps out in these situations because when I’m wrong, people can’t see me flushing while punching the wall angrily. If I came across as somebody who doesn’t acknowledge that Eli’s beliefs are strong, I should say that I’m sure they are. It’s a question of whether the character presented here is the same person in real life. Chag sameach to you as well.
Tom, Eli’s complaint is echoed by numerous former Jewish educated students. When Christians grow up and realize that as kids they were taught there’s this non-existent being called Santa Claus, they get over it. With Jews, they turn pro-Palestinian when they can’t get over it.
The usual complaint is about being let down because they were taught about Israel’s heroism, goodness, progress, blah blah blah. The thing is, there are many people who believed and believe it to this day. These aren’t bad people, and Eli’s second grade teacher isn’t a criminal, they actually believe in Israel in a wholehearted way. Let’s not forget that Eli was born long after the creation of the state and long after the Holocaust. However, for those folks who were around before those years, Israel is an amazing place and full of achievements of which people can be proud.
Look at the euphoria that followed the ’67 War. It’s not as if they intended to trick Eli, they believed what they taught him. Even now, when historians like Benny Morris have changed people’s perceptions of the conflict and its origins, you have plenty of historians who reject his analysis. So why should everybody subscribe to Eli’s vision of “Zionist crimes?” Maybe Eli’s son will rebel against his dad one day for teaching him about “Zionist crimes” instead of a balanced and open-minded history of Zionism, the creation of the state and its history to now.
Finally, as to whether what I’m proposing is implausible. I’m fairly convinced it isn’t. People want to be liked; they want to be part of the group. When your connection to one group isn’t all that firm anyway (for a bunch of entirely unrelated reasons), this particular topic becomes yet another negative in the connection to the Jewish identity and certainly for any affiliation with Israel.
I read eli’s last comment to suggest that it’s a mistake, in his view, to make the bottom line of all discourse the notion, ‘Israel has a right to exist and is fighting for its survival.’ I think he’s saying that that precludes a more nuanced approach to hot-button issues. Perhaps there’s something to that.
Nuance isn’t “…political and moral crimes that Zionism committed against innocent people, both Arab and Jewish.” That’s an assault.
I think the discussion about Israel’s existence is dictated by its enemies not Jewish students or Israel supporters or Eli’s second grade teacher at Hebrew school. Arab armies tried to destroy Israel in the late ’40s and refused to sign peace treaties. Nasser threatened Israel’s existence while the PLO wrote a charter with this idea as its premise. In this generation, we have Nasrallah, Hamas leaders, Iran and the occasional PA leader all talking about it frequently. That’s why it’s an issue and part of the overall debate about this conflict. Also, it is misleading for somebody who bonds with anti-Israel groups to claim that Israel’s existence isn’t on the table. If the group to which you belong supports the interpretation of Israel as born in sin, or as an apartheid state that should offer the Palestinians a vote for the Israeli government instead of their own, you are the one bringing up the whole existence issue.
So if your interpretation of Eli’s comment is correct, Tom, then he’s being quite naive or quite devious. As long as the enemy makes Israel’s existence a topic for discussion, it is one.
On the positive side, when I visited a little while ago, there was a certain solidity to the place that suggested to me that the country isn’t going anywhere. People were living their lives fairly normally. The issue is that people can live that way because there’s an IDF lording it over another people nearby.
I think that’s the key topic here. The issue is security. In what form does security take shape and what is legitimate and illegitimate? There are fair criticisms and points of debate within this topic. Was it right to go into Lebanon? Was the war conducted ethically? Does Israel have the right to have checkpoints? Are the settlements a land grab or are they legitimate entities? Is the launching of rockets into Israeli civilian centers terrorism or is it a legitimate form of nationalistic warfare against a colonial power. And so on.
It all gets back to security and even when couched in terms of “Israel’s existence,” I think the real problem is how the world (and in this case students) perceive the struggle to maintain this security so the country can function relatively normally.
This has become the crux of the issue today. We are all living in the aftermath of 1967. There are many legitimate questions that need to be asked OF BOTH SIDES. Instead, we get one side being attacked in the most dramatic demagoguery over and over (Nazis; apartheid; colonialism; genocide; war crimes; etc,). As the first piece of evidence, I point you to Eli’s “subhuman” remarks.
“It sounds trite, but Israelis grow up singing songs about peace and the pain of war. ”
they also grow up without seeing a map of the Green Line in their textbooks. what does that teach their kids?
“Even the presence of Israel in the Territories is far from a black and white story and this was true before and is shown againt to be true now that Israel has left Gaza. ”
can you explicate this one a bit further, TM?
(response to #47)
Bullshit. They were using Benny Morris books as texts in upper grades until recently. The entire oeuvre of the “New Historians” has infiltrated every corner of secular Israeli schooling and general awareness, and through opposition most corners of religious Israel have been touched in the same way.
The fact is that in the last election, Kadima ran on a platform of “disengaging” from the West Bank/Judea and Samaria and between them, Labor and Meretz, not to mention other parties whose politics did not touch on these issues but were considered neutral or friendly to these ideas (the seniors’ party for example), they won the popular vote quite clearly and cleanly.
So, to answer your question, their kids learn that they need to seek peace and that peace is a goal above all else. They also learn, however, that they’ve had quite a hard time over the past few decades with the Arabs. They recognize they are at war and they might have to fight to survive. It speaks volumes about Israeli education that you have so many active human rights, Palestinian rights and other rights groups so heavily represented within the broad population.
You claiming the Green Line is in textbooks? Then why is the Education Minister trying to have them marked with it?
This is from Jan. 2 2007:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=808337
“Education Minister Yuli Tamir’s decision to have the Green Line marked on maps in schoolbooks, and the controversy it sparked, led us to reexplore this month the Israeli Jewish public’s views on the future of the settlements and relations with the Palestinians. In keeping with the Knesset Education Committee, and unlike Tamir’s position, the rate of those who prefer that the Green Line not be marked on the maps is higher than the rate of those who agree with her. Likewise, even though a considerable majority of the Jewish public realizes that it is impossible to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians without evacuating most of the Jewish settlements in the territories, only a minority supports such an evacuation and an even smaller minority believes the Palestinians would sign a peace treaty in return”
As far as I can tell, it hasn’t been implemented, and this July 27,2007 CSM story from last summer makes it sound like it won’t be:
“Recently, for example, Tamir tried to mandate the use of maps in Israeli schools showing the Green Line, Israel’s pre-1967 boundary with Jordan.
“An agenda that might seem logical abroad – making sure Israeli schoolchildren know where the border was 40 years ago and what areas are considered occupied by international law – is deemed unacceptable by some right-wing groups here.”
Gershom Gorenberg, as quoted in JChronicle, Aug 2007:
“Similarly, I came across a note from Yigal Allon in October 1967 telling the head of the government map department to remove the ‘green line’ from official maps! When the present minister of education, Yehudit Tamir, recently suggested amending this for maps used in schools, it set off a storm of protest.”
—
The ironic thing is what storms of protests are set off by the maps Palestinians use in schools. Why are they criticized for not showing the Green Line when Israeli doesn’t?
The Green Line has been taught. It depends on the tides and turns in government. Either way, you are ignoring the bigger point I gave which is that Benny Morris has been taught in schools.
“One large atlas I edited,” Braver recalled, “included the Green Line and was used in many schools without bothering anyone” until then-education minister Limor Livnat ordered its removal.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881821783&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
By the way, I intend to answer 48 but need some time because I’m busy and it’s not a small question.
Which Benny Morris — the fan of ethnic cleansing?
I was quite surprised when a 25-year old Israeli lawyer I met a few years ago told me she had never been taught where the Green Line was in school.
Cute. I’m not the fan of Benny Morris, you are, remember?
Besides, he’s not a fan of ethnic cleansing, he’s somebody who tries to speak to the reality of what happened in 1948. I think his later ideas are more in line with the reality of the history than some of the research which earned him notoriety in the first place. By the way, what’s you opinion of the PA’s demand that every last Jew leave Gaza?
They were settlers, living there illegally. Not quite the same thing as living in villages for hundreds of years and getting expelled, is it.
You mean the Jewish community of the Old City of Jerusalem or the community in Hebron? I didn’t know you’d agree so readily with me.
Or is your point that it’s permissible to rid an area of all its inhabitants from a particular undesirable group if they don’t meet certain criteria? I guess it’s not just Benny Morris who is a fan of ethnic cleansing.
Or maybe it’s just that using “ethnic cleansing” doesn’t really address the complexity of what happened here? Maybe it’s a facile short-cut that attempts to load the debate and gain an advantage with an accusation against one side of a supposed massive criminal undertaking? Yup, that’s exactly what it is.
The only reason the West Bank or Gaza were free of Jews until 1967, xisnotx, is that the Jews were either killed or evicted TO A PERSON long before then. You see, after you evict or kill EVERY person from a group, you no longer have any of those people living among you. Interestingly, in light of your comments, the Israelis have had a non-Jewish Arab population living among them throughout the history of the state but the opposite is true of the Jordanians, Egyptians (Gaza and Sinai) and now the Palestinians.
What an odd picture. When you put the bombastic rhetoric aside, it’s as if one side rejects genocide while the other embraces it. I wonder what would happen if we explored which of these sides was agreeable to peace and a compromise over the land. Oh yeah, I guess that would also be Israel, in 1937, 1947 and 2000/2001.
Ponder this, xisnotx: the immediate question that comes to mind is why it’s illegal for a group of people, Jews in this case, to go and live in areas in which they had lived before if there is no legal controlling entity such as a state to impose restrictions. And please, this time let’s not pretend the “settlers” didn’t have a connection to the place in question since the “settlers” had a presence in Hebron and Jerusalem that goes back to the days before Islam.
International law forbids building settlements on captured land, but this land was captured from an occupying power, Jordan, that did not have historical or political rights over this land. Prior to that, the land was under Mandatory British jurisdiction TO GIVE TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE, and before that it was Ottoman land but the international community agreed that it was no longer such. In other words, what you call “illegal” is not a clear cut case of anything. We could argue that circumstances dictate this contested land, the Territory and ex-Territory, should go to the Palestinians. However, there is no reason not to have Jews living in Gaza and there is no excuse for wanting to and actually committing the action of removing every last one of them.
Oh, before I forget: about villagers living in places for hundreds of years, quite a few of the Palestinians weren’t such people. Let’s not exaggerate. And there were quite a few of them who left who weren’t expelled. Watch the BBC documentary commemorating Israel’s 50th anniversary where the two Palestinians who ran the radio broadcasts publicizing Deir Yassin admit they exaggerated in their broadcasts and that their broadcasts were heard far and wide and passed on from mouth to mouth leading to the departure of many Palestinians. Most important, let’s not forget that it was the Arab side that started the war with an intent to “drive the Jews into the sea.” This was after Israel accepted the UN partition plan and the Arabs didn’t. Acceptance of the plan means no war. Not attacking Israel means no war. No war, no departing Arabs. No war, no refugees from the Arab side, although it’s arguable whether the tide of Jewish refugees from Arab countries would have stopped or been stopped.
Last, the Green Line you want taught in schools, “exists” because the Arab states refused to negotiate terms of peace with Israel or even recognize Israel in 1949. It’s simply an armistice line, nothing more. It has taken on a different meaning because the Arabs would like to turn the clock back to 1949 as a step to returning to, well, to what has never been before. The Green Line that you want taught and which apparently has been taught under different Israeli governments, actually slices Jerusalem in a way that would disengage Israel and the Jewish people from the thousands-year-old presence they had in east Jerusalem and the Old City prior to the forced expulsions of the Jews in 1948. Even with prior expulsions, the Jews always returned to Jerusalem – which means what we now call the Old City in east Jerusalem – the heart of their faith. How should that be handled? After all, it’s only the site of the holiest place for Jews in the entire world and the only reason the place is called “Arab east Jerusalem” by the press is this, um, “ethnic cleansing” of Jews in 1948.
“the immediate question that comes to mind is why it’s illegal for a group of people, Jews in this case, to go and live in areas in which they had lived before if there is no legal controlling entity such as a state to impose restrictions. And please, this time let’s not pretend the “settlers†didn’t have a connection to the place in question since the “settlers†had a presence in Hebron and Jerusalem that goes back to the days before Islam.”
There is a legal ruling entity, the state that occupies the territory, and its bound by the restrictions of international law and convention. It would be legal for Jews from Hebron or Gush Etzion to go back and live there, or have their descendents claim the property. The people you’re talking about don’t fall under that category. If all the settlers were druze, I’d say they aren’t living there legally as well; the ethnicity issue is a red herring here. it’s about not being allowed to settle your citizens in occupied territory. The issue is violating the Geneva Convention.
As for settlers having a connection to the place, why doesn’t the same argument work for Palestinian refugees?
If Jews have the legal right to go live anywhere they want between the river and the sea, under any circumstance, then why don’t Palestinians refugees, who after all were expelled just 60 years ago, as opposed to 2,000.
Nu? why has comment moderation been turned on?
X, it’s always on.
odd. Usually I’m able to just post w/out moderation. #59 worked that way.
Well… certain key words or conditions trigger auto-moderation. It’s to prevent the blog from being overrun by spam. I have no idea why that particular comment triggered it, but in general, legitimate comments don’t. Sorry for the inconvenience!
DAMN! My response to xisnotx was just erased by the site!!@!!!!@
I’m sorry, I don’t have it in me to rewrite it again right now. It’ll have to wait.
*grumble* *grumble*
The paragraph xisnotx quotes underlines an ambiguity in Middle’s argument. xixnotx is addressing legality. Why isn’t 1948 the starting-point for this analysis? Aren’t these the int’l. borders Israel agreed to accept? Middle advances a version of settler ideology lite, in which he finds (or implies he finds) a legal justification for settlement activity in the ancient presence of Jews in the land. This amounts to a ‘we got there first’ rationale, under which, I suppose, we should defer to Germany the next time it demands return of the Polish Corridor or the Courland.
A dozen or more years ago, the handicap parking space outside my building used to be available to anyone. Now, it’s 75 bucks to park there. The law is what those who frame and enforce it say it is– currently. Assuming arguendo under int’l. treaties and ICJ decisions settlements are deemed illegal, isn’t your appeal to pre-1948 history not a legal but an extralegal argument?
Tom, Israel never accepted international borders until they cut a deal with Egypt. Not because they didn’t want to but because the Arabs didn’t wish to recognize Israel or negotiate with it. The so-called Green Line is an armistice line, not a border, by the choice of the Arabs.
Second, I don’t need to imply or find legal justification for settlement activity, this is Israel’s governmental policy and position
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2003/2/DISPUTED%20TERRITORIES-%20Forgotten%20Facts%20About%20the%20We
and
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/peace%20process/guide%20to%20the%20peace%20process/israeli%20settlements%20and%20international%20law
This actually isn’t just about who got there first. This is about statehood versus non-statehood. This is about competing claims for land in a territory where there were no countries before. Whether you agree or not, while Israel is a state, the Territory and ex-Territory are not (and I would say by the desire of the Palestinians to demand more land than to settle and compromise with the Israelis, not the other way around).
I realize none of this is “nice” or “pleasant,” but what we’re dealing with here is nothing less than a war over land. The war could end tomorrow if the Palestinians were willing to compromise and offer peace.
As to international law, I address that a bit in my answer to Xisnotx, so please wait.
Are you saying that Israel proper has no borders?
I wrote:
Xisnotx responded:
There is no high contracting authority on the Palestinian side, that’s the point. There is no state there and the autonomy given to the Palestinians under the PA does not constitute statehood.
Israel is the controlling entity, but it believes – and by this I mean not only the government but the judiciary as well – that it isn’t violating international rules and laws by allowing Jews to live in these areas. http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/peace%20process/guide%20to%20the%20peace%20process/israeli%20settlements%20and%20international%20law
The Israelis write:
The provisions of the Geneva Convention regarding forced population transfer to occupied sovereign territory cannot be viewed as prohibiting the voluntary return of individuals to the towns and villages from which they, or their ancestors, had been ousted. Nor does it prohibit the movement of individuals to land which was not under the legitimate sovereignty of any state and which is not subject to private ownership.
There’s more which you should read because even if you don’t agree with all of it, it is germane to understanding their viewpoint.
Xisnotx added:
Some Gush Etzion residents are descended from the first group that lived there prior to 1949 and their massacre by Arab irregulars (read: Palestinians) and Jordanian soldiers. They do indeed have a right to “return” there. The Hebron community has always, consciously, connected themselves and their efforts to reviving the thousands of years old Hebron Jewish community which was destroyed by the local Arabs (read: Palestinians) in 1929. If you’re suggesting that as long as territorial claims are unsettled members of a common community cannot “replace” the original inhabitants, you’re creating incentive for mass murder. All you need to do is kill everyone and then claim that the place belongs to you because none of the original inhabitants or their offspring can ever come back. They are dead.
Xisnotx says:
Disingenuous. If they were Druze, they would be permitted to live among the Palestinians. This is about Jews and it is about Jews being evicted to a person in 1948, 1949 and 2005. I don’t recall the local Arabs (read: Palestinians) going out on murderous raids against the Druze in the ’20s and ’30s.
As for the question of “occupied territory” and the Geneva convention, I will point you to the Israeli position on the matter which is that the “occupied territory” is under dispute. The UNSC resolutions that have indicated this is “occupied territory” were not conducted under Title VII auspices and just like the International Court of Justice with its ludicrous ruling againt the security barrier, do not carry the weight of international law. They are advisory rulings.
The Israelis have always maintained that since there was no high contracting authority in control of any of this land, and they captured it in a defensive war from the Jordanians and Egyptians who were themselves “occupiers,” this territory does not fall under the criteria set out by Geneva convention.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2003/2/DISPUTED%20TERRITORIES-%20Forgotten%20Facts%20About%20the%20We
Even under UNSCR 242 which does not permit the acquisition of land by war, you end up with ownerless land because the British conquered it from the Ottomans and you can’t acquire land by war; the Jordanians and Egyptians captured it during a war in the vacuum left by the British departure and you can’t acquire land by war; and the Israelis captured it from these occupiers, Jordan and Egypt, in a defensive war.
The Israeli concession to the Palestinians to negotiate with them to give up most of this land is a huuuuuge concession and despite the non-stop propagandistic language used by the Palestinians about “occupied Palestinian terroritories” and “return to 1967 lines,” the first is a misnomer and the second is not an obligation of Israel’s according to 242.
We are in agreement with the premise of this statement, which is why I tend to side with Israeli offers like those at Camp David and Taba. The answer is territorial compromise and two states. Jews will suffer because Judea and Samaria are the heart of their history and the Palestinians will have to kiss their hopes of coming into Israel goodbye.
I think that it’s unrealistic to imagine that the Palestinians will end up in Jordan and unless Israel wants to become South Africa, it will have to give the Palestinians these disputed Territories as their state.
However, in terms of where things stand today, Jews have a state and the Palestinians don’t. The Israeli state, like any state, is permitted to restrict who enters its borders and who becomes a citizen. This is in stark contrast with the Territory and ex-Territory which are undefined areas, under no specific high controlling authority and which do not constitute a state. When the Palestinians are ready to exercise their right to self-determination over these Territories, then Israel will not be able to support those Israelis who want to live there and it will be up to the Palestinian authorities to permit or disallow these Jews to live there.
And that’s the crux of our conversation. The Palestinians do not seem to want any Jews living among them now or in any future state. By contrast, twenty percent of Israel’s population are Arab non-Jews – relatives of the Palestinians outside of Israel. I think you need to consider the ethnic cleansing by the Palestinians, not the Israelis. Once you do, your mind will be freed to reconsider the nature of this conflict and its history. You see, if there was no attempt to eradicate Jewish presence from this land over and over again, we would not be where we are now. We’d have peace and two states living side by side.
Great question, Tom. I believe, without having actually read any Supreme Court decisions about this (which means I’m guessing here and you should read the rest with a big grain of salt) that the Egyptian border is a closed matter because of the peace treaty. That the Lebanese border is still an open question but Israel is deferring to the UN on the matter of the historic borders of Lebanon (hence the compromise on Shaaba Farms) although I suspect those are still armistice borders. Golan Heights are annexed so they are a closed border. The border is settled with Jordan because of their peace treaty. Israel has now taken itself out of Gaza, although I think that border remains unresolved. And finally the West Bank’s borders are also unofficial. The manner in which the Supreme Court has dealt with these questions is by considering what has been officially annexed (Jerusalem) versus what hasn’t been. So I think Israel’s borders are defined by 1967 lines plus whatever Israel has actually annexed or determined by treaty with Jordan and Egypt. That leaves Gaza and the West Bank as unresolved borders.
Any legal analysis would have to weigh the conduct of the parties, and while you characterize talking over the West Bank as a “huge concession,” in reality Israel can’t digest all of it, right? Certainly it treated Golan and Jerusalem differently. Can Israel afford to annax the West Bank and thereby preclude a two-state solution? Presumably all residents of the West Bank would receive citizenship, voting rights etc. if Israel annexed it. Instead, if I read your quoted passages correctly, an Arab resident of the West Bank with verifiable ownership rights in his land is not subject to Israeli jurisdiction.
I guess I hadn’t been aware of the ambiguity surrounding borders. Be careful not to make arguments that would well suit the authors of Arab school texts.
Trust me, Tom, any argument I make is well known to the Palestinians and their supporters.
As to jurisdiction, that Palestinian is living under the auspices of the PA, as I understand it. However, in areas that are not under PA jurisdication (Areas B and C accorsing to Oslo), he is under Israeli jurisdiction. During the Oslo years and until Israel re-entered Areas A after 2002, 98% of the Palestinians population was under PA jurisdiction. The result was an orgy of suicide bombings.
The huge concession I mention can be perceived as something they couldn’t digest, but I doubt that’s the way they had perceived it in the past. They didn’t consider the Palestinians a demographic threat until the past decade or so. Sharon, a great strategist, only woke up to the problem around 2002.
and why was the ICJ decision ludicrous?
There’s no admissibility of acquiring territory by war, whether it’s defensive or not. this is why it was reiterated in 242.
also, why is it only Israel and a few right-wing Zionists (and some who claim to be lefties such as yerself) seems to think the settlements are legal? why do all major human rights groups say they’re illegal? antisemitism, maybe?
The Israeli High Court has confirmed on more than one occasion that the territories are held in a state of “belligerent occupation” by Israel. Maybe you think the Israeli High Court is ludicrous too?
Apart from the legal questions, you’re ignoring the moral and practical implications and impact the settlements have had on the Palestinians who live there. You speak as if a few Jews have moved onto some unwanted, barren parcels that should not be inconveniencing any of the local inhabitants. Their problem is just that they don’t like living next to Jews, in your mind.
I don’t oppose Jews living there, but I oppose Israel settling its citizens there while the territory is under occupation.
Why was the ICJ decision ludicrous? Um, let’s see. They didn’t receive any information about the importance of the Barrier from Israel. They ignored specific and clear UN Charter provisions about the right to self-defense. Oh hell, why don’t you just read the dissenting opinion by Judge Buergenthal. http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/59c118f065c4465b852572a500625fea/c1b3885e02bece8f85256eeb005534ba!OpenDocument
Hypocrisy and double standard:
Willful ignoring of the facts that caused the Barrier to be built:
Non-applicability of rules concerning all nations to Israel:
Unfair consideration of Israel’s right to self defense:
Misapplicability of international law in order to make the case against Israel. You’ll love this:
Clear one-sided blind bias:
And all of this is coming from a judge who believes the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to this conflict and the Territories and actually, inaccurately and falsely, calls them the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
His criticism is scathing because it points out the unfair manner in which this court handled this case. It is an extension of the biased, unfair behavior one sees in the United Nations Human Rights Commission, where terrorist states get to sit in judgement of Israel and continually attack it while excluding the massive human rights violations by many other states around the globe. Here, this court sat in judgement of Israel without even bothering to fully or seriously consider Israel’s defensive RIGHTS, much less needs.
The problem with all this, TM, is that the reason that Buergenthal feels that the court “did not have before it the requisite factual bases for its sweeping findings” is because Israel, under the advice of Cambridge law professor Daniel Bethlehem, didn’t present any evidence. It chose not to appear before the court, and present its reasons for the wall’s location. That way, it could claim the court’s decision was flawed because it didn’t have enough information. Bethlehem is also the fellow who advised Israel not to co-operate with the UN on investigating what happened in Jenin during Defensive Shield in 2002.
You also neglect to mention that Buergenthal nevertheless had “serious doubts”
http://www.globalpolicy.org/wldcourt/icj/2004/0727utmost.htm
In addition, Buergenthal agreed with the majority that the existence of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank violates the Fourth Geneva Convention. Hence, “the segments of the wall being built by Israel to protect the settlements are ipso facto in violation of international humanitarian law. Moreover, given the demonstrable great hardship to which the affected Palestinian population is being subjected in and around the enclaves created by those segments of the wall, I seriously doubt that the wall would here satisfy the proportionality requirement to qualify as a legitimate measure of self-defense.”
I didn’t neglect to mention his beliefs or “doubts.” Look at my second last paragraph.
There was nothing wrong with Israel refusing to provide information to the Court, it was not obligated to do so as Buergenthal points out. The outcome of this matter was preordained and appears to have a strong political flavor to it. The Court, however, has all the resources it needs to acquire the information it needs. Buergenthal’s comments bring up many other problems with the ICJ’s ruling on the Barrier for which he didn’t need any Israeli witnesses or information.
Finally, I encourage you to re-read his scathing critique of the ICJ’s handling of this case. My comment above stands that this was a ridiculous ruling.
also, why is it only Israel and a few right-wing Zionists (and some who claim to be lefties such as yerself) seems to think the settlements are legal? why do all major human rights groups say they’re illegal? antisemitism, maybe?
Why do you dismiss anti-Semitism so quickly? What happened at Durban with all the major NGOs including HRW and Amnesty cannot be described as some benign event. That was an out and out attack on the Jewish state, singling it out from among all other nations for supposed violations that don’t compare to many others around the globe and that are far more justifiable considering the existential war in which Israel is engaged.
Unfortunately, the UN doesn’t have a better track record with respect to Israel.
I can’t speak to the rest of your comment because I don’t have a clue who supports the view that settlements are legal. With respect to my own beliefs, I only consider those settlements that were built on public land, as opposed to private land to be kosher. I also fully expect that most settlements will be traded up in any peace deal.
The Israeli High Court has confirmed on more than one occasion that the territories are held in a state of “belligerent occupation†by Israel. Maybe you think the Israeli High Court is ludicrous too?
The Israeli government pushed the Court in that direction on purpose. I don’t have to agree with their premise or the Court’s. No matter how you cut it, there was no sovereign nation controlling the Territories legally or at least with any greater legitimacy than Israel’s subsequent control.
By the way, the Court rejected application of Geneva Convention to the Territories for many, many years. Since you’re so excited that they support “belligerent occupation,” do you also accept that judgement call?
Apart from the legal questions, you’re ignoring the moral and practical implications and impact the settlements have had on the Palestinians who live there.
Not at all. That’s why I support the Taba offer by Israel. I am thinking of the negative aspects for the Palestinians and the Israelis. I don’t believe young Israeli men in uniform should be present among a Palestinian civilian population.
Of course, the Palestinians’ actions in Gaza undermine what I or you would want to happen because it virtually forces Israel to maintain a military presence among the Palestinians.
You speak as if a few Jews have moved onto some unwanted, barren parcels that should not be inconveniencing any of the local inhabitants. Their problem is just that they don’t like living next to Jews, in your mind.
Well, actually, many of the settlements were built on barren, unwanted parcels. The local inhabitants prospered thanks to the work provided in the construction of these settlements. The local inhabitants also didn’t suffer the level of inconveniencing we see today because their war on Israel had yet to become as successful in killing Israeli civilians as it became.
But why are you blaming my mind for the Palestinians’ distaste for Jews living in their midst? Long before there were settlements, long before 1967, long before 1948, Palestinians were violently attacking Jewish communities. Your suggestion that this is about settlements and that it’s just my mind thinking the Palestinians have a problem with Jews in their midst doesn’t address the history of this conflict. Why else would local Arabs violently attack Jews and Jewish communities when Jews represented a small minority on the land?
I don’t oppose Jews living there, but I oppose Israel settling its citizens there while the territory is under occupation.
Why? They can be absorbed into the future Palestinian state.
By the way, I also wish Israel wouldn’t expend the resources it does in settling people in the areas east of the Security Barrier. It’s a waste of time, money, energy, security and it undermines projects they could build inside Israel proper.
“With respect to my own beliefs, I only consider those settlements that were built on public land, as opposed to private land to be kosher. ”
30% are built on private land. Also, often land was never registered by Palestinians because ownership meant taxation by the Ottomans and service in their army. Not to mention all the land that Israel has declared public by deciding Palestinians weren’t really using it.
” Long before there were settlements, long before 1967, long before 1948, Palestinians were violently attacking Jewish communities. Your suggestion that this is about settlements and that it’s just my mind thinking the Palestinians have a problem with Jews in their midst doesn’t address the history of this conflict. Why else would local Arabs violently attack Jews and Jewish communities when Jews represented a small minority on the land?”
From 1957-1967, 40 Israelis died in terrorist attacks. Then came the occupation and settlements. It’s not like i’m arguing the occupation and settlements are the only reason for enmity and conflict. But had Israel not decided to colonize the territories, possibly the conflict would have been solved by now.
Also, you ignore that Jews lived in the midst of Arabs in Palestine relatively peaceably before Zionism.
And what native people has not resisted colonization?
That 30% figure is from Peace Now and I believe it’s dubious. I’m sure there’s some percentage that was built on private land, but I’d bet it’s much smaller than 30%. Whatever that percentage is, it is troubling and those settlements are illegal.
We’ve tackled the question of land ownership pre-1948 before and it’s actually a lot less than you think. Please read here.
From 1957-1967, 119 Israelis were killed in terror attacks. Here’s a table of terrorist murders.
By the way, just out of interest, between 1950 and 1956 almost 300 Israelis were murdered in terror attacks. The ’56 War stopped that and that’s why you see such a drop-off.
I don’t disagree that Israel’s victory in 1967 increased terror. I won’t disagree even that the settlements are a serious point of friction, they are. However, this doesn’t change the fact that there were plenty of attacks before the settlements. In 1929, there were 119 Jews killed by local Arabs, another 44 in 1936 and another 94 in 1938. Another 137 in 1940, and 152 in 1947. Perhaps the most telling is the 24 in 1921 and the 9 in 1920.
In other words, it’s not settlements, it’s a desire to kill the Jews that led to the violence.
I will also remind you that 1967 is a defensive war by Israel, just as 1948 was a defensive war. In other words, no war –> no Israeli victory –> no problems like settlements or territories –> no lame excuses for violence (that would be there anyway as it was before 1948).
Also, let’s get our facts out there to discuss. When you say “settlements,” you’re referring to everything beyond 1967/1949 lines. I consider that border arbitrary, especially because the Jordanians and Palestinians made sure to evict all the Jews in 1948-49. As a result, Jews entering east Jerusalem today (and don’t use the word “colonize” here please) or since 1967 are referred to by you as “settlers.” Well, they’re not. And we have a profound disagreement about this.
I also reject the idea that Israel isn’t permitted to build all the neighborhoods it wants around Jerusalem. It may be a stupid thing to do, but Jerusalem remains the capital of the Jewish people as it has been for a couple of thousand years. It was not a “Palestinian” city but a mixed one with a Jewish majority. I support a compromise over Jerusalem, but it won’t be the one the Palestinians demand in negotiations where they return to Ottoman days with the ability to restrict Jewish access to parts of Jerusalem such as the Western Wall.
Finally, let’s also not ignore the decade in which Arab states refused to negotiate or speak to Israel about anything until Egypt signed a peace agreement. Even after that, the other Arab nations remained at official war with Israel. The settlements grew in part because there seemed to be no exit plan for the Territories.
The reason I bring this up is that when you write that the settlements and “colonizing the territories” have prevented peace, I think you are saying that Israel needs to return to 1949 lines. That, I’m afraid, will be the last thing to bring peace. There are reasons beyond settlements for the conflict to have persisted. Also, according to what you describe, once again Jews will have no access to the heart of their faith which is the Western Wall and the immediate area around it.
Jews lived peaceably under Ottoman rule as long as they paid their taxes. It had little to do with living “in the midst” of Arabs in Ottoman Palestine. This peaceful living included poor access to the Western Wall as dictated by local Arabs. They left a small strip for those Jews who wanted to pray and limited their access times to the site. After 1948, they put places to relieve their bowels in the part of the Mughrabi neighborhood closest to the Western Wall. In other words, if one wants to be a dhimmi or have others lord it over you, then Ottoman Palestine wasn’t too awful.
On the other hand, the right to self-determination in their historic homeland where continuous Jewish residence existed for thousands of years, is a self-evident right for the Jewish people. The Arabs have been welcomed to participate and live together and to exercise their own right to self-determination. They have chosen not to compromise over the land a number of times. I’m going to guess that it’s because they wanted Jews to have none of it.
And what native people has not resisted colonization?”
The attacks in that list from 1920 and 1921 came at a time when about 5% of the population was Jewish. Let’s try not to justify Palestinian violence against civilians.
In what sense are the 1948/1967 borders “arbitrary”? That’s a potent adjective, and may suggest too much. If the borders of the West Bank and Gaza are, by extension, so ‘arbitrary’ that some or all Jewish “settlers” are not settlers (or colonizers) at all, your terms also suggest Israeli territory itself may be up for grabs by Arabs asserting a ‘right of return.’ After all, if ambiguity surrounds ‘settlement’ activity, isn’t the status of Israel proper (however the latter’s defined) likewise ambiguous?
“Arbitrary” describes many international borders. The Korean border. The Russian/Ukrainian one, as regards Crimea. The Oder-Neisse line. Most, if not all, borders in sub-Saharan Africa.
Israeli state borders are the product of post-colonial, great power dispensation and armed conflict. Alike in that respect are many third world borders and some European ones too.
Middle’s open-ended approach would suit the Palis well.
“Oder-Neisse line”??? Either I need to get a partial refund on my college education, or you need to get out more, Tom (though I suspect both may be partially true).
I like $10 words as much as the next guy but wasn’t this post about the ugly tide of anti-Israel/anti-semitism arrayed against Jewish and gentile zionists on America’s college campuses?
I just offer that reality check, because I’d like to see more focus on how to combat that problem.
No offense intended to the Crimeans, of course.
The key is to cool off passions on the issue, J.D., and what better way to do that than to bore students to death with exchanges like these?
I just spent half an hour in Anna Baltzer’s website, I can’t believe that people like her exist.
“no problems like settlements or territories –> no lame excuses for violence”
whether the war was defensive or not, no one forced Israel to colonize the territories. do you think the US’s settling the West was a “lame excuse” for Indian violence?
“The attacks in that list from 1920 and 1921 came at a time when about 5% of the population was Jewish. Let’s try not to justify Palestinian violence against civilians.”
Jabotinsky, 1923: http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story640.html
“The Arabs loved their country as much as the Jews did. Instinctively, they understood Zionist aspirations very well, and their decision to resist them was only natural”
Wait, now you’re a Jabotinsky fan?
If you support Palestinian violence, then I assume you support Israeli defensive measures too.
Either way, we’re at a point in the conversation where you have justified violence against Zionists and basically any Jew in Israel because of Zionism and or the settlement movement. This isn’t violence directed at soldiers, but has consistently been violence directed at Jewish civilians.
My response to this is to remind you that Palestinian and Arab violence has consistently brought about worse circumstances for them. They have lost land, lost lives and limbs. They have lost their sources of income and some of their freedom of movement. They have watched their Islamists take over, in the process hurting the Christian community and eroding the freedom some of their women used to enjoy. They have watched Jerusalem fall back into Jewish hands.
All of this because they attacked Jews when they were a significant minority on the land. Jabotinsky and the Haganah were born in this violence and prepared for the next rounds.
So keep supporting this and see where it gets the Palestinians. I’m going to guess it’ll get them nowhere. Fast.
i’m not sure why you’ve concluded i support violence. I posted Jabotinsky to show the violence is explicable. and i agree with you; violent resistance has gotten Palestinians nowhere.
You cowards are filtering posts now. Seems that everything I’ve said about your methods is true.
Lance, your comments may be going directly to the junk folder. Congratulations! Sadly for you, it has nothing to do with me and I don’t have the time or patience to go fish them out.
Xisnotx,
I gathered you support Palestinian violence because of whether the war was defensive or not, no one forced Israel to colonize the territories. do you think the US’s settling the West was a “lame excuse†for Indian violence? and and their decision to resist them was only natural.
If you don’t support Palestinian violence, that’s great. Maybe you should rethink the idea that the US and the Indians are a good basis for comparison. Unlike those Europeans who built this country, the Jews actually have a long-standing relationship with the Land of Israel. It’s a relationship the precedes the Arabs who live there. Even the names of the place show who prededed whom. You may also wish to consider carefully how the land wasn’t Palestinian, how there was no Palestinian state, how Palestinian nationalism didn’t take off, how Jews legitimately bought the lands upon which they lived and worked, how the Jews intended to create a state that was democratic and Jewish (read your good buddy, Jabotinsky), how prosperity seemed to come to this barren, impoverished land when the Jews came, and how it was violence against the Jews that directed the evolution of the conflict.
All those factors should play a role in your thinking about this conflict no less than the idea of settlements in Judea and Samaria.
TM, you read like a hasbara manual. yes, it’s all the Arabs fault. I concede everything.
“and their decision to resist them was only natural.”
That was Jabotinsky. you know something he didnt?
“how prosperity seemed to come to this barren, impoverished land when the Jews came,”
Ahad Ha’am, 1891:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story642.html
“We abroad are used to believe the Eretz Yisrael is now almost totally desolate, a desert that is not sowed ….. But in truth that is not the case. Throughout the country it is difficult to find fields that are not sowed. Only sand dunes and stony mountains …. are not cultivated.”
Around the same time, Ha’am wrote:
” ….[the Zionist pioneers believed that] the only language the Arabs understand is that of force ….. [They] behave towards the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly upon their boundaries, beat them shamefully without reason and even brag about it, and nobody stands to check this contemptible and dangerous tendency.”
how’s that for “evolution of the conflict?”
Xisnotx, you read like Electronic Intifadah.
in other words, you’ve got no reply to Ha’am.
There’s always an answer to Electronic Intifadah and misinformation. I’m busy now but give me a few hours and I’ll get back to you.
Sure, I’ve got a reply. If the Jewish population of Ottoman Palestine in 1891, when he wrote this gem, ranged from 15,000 to 45,000, most of whom were long-time, non-Zionist, religious Jews, and the Arab population ranged from 400,000 to 450,000, how exactly did the Jews treat the Arabs so poorly?
Even a Palestinian scholar’s numbers show the absurdity of the claim:
Wow, a whopping 20-30,000 Jews among 10-15 times the number of Arabs. There must have been quite a few “beatings” of Arabs by the Jews, don’t you think?.
Some more on the population size:
So, I’ll tell you, Xisnotx, your quote came up on a bunch of biased websites, because it’s good fodder, but it’s important to learn the context of the quote. Instead of another pro-Pali website, I have actual, real academic books for you. Let’s begin with Rothschild and Early Jewish Colonization in Palestine. What the book says on page 291 is that there was little friction between Jews and Arabs in the late 1800s (when Ahad Ha’am wrote the article you quoted), save for ARAB attacks on Jews in Petah Tikvah and Gedera.
Ahad Ha’am wasn’t living in Ottoman Palestine when he wrote the article which you quote. He was in Odessa and came to Ottoman Palestine for a 3 month visit. What you didn’t mention is that he was in ideological conflict with the leaders of the key movement sending Zionists to Israel, Hovevei Zion. He objected to their ideas about the realism of sending Jews to the Land of Israel and instead wanted to emphasize Israel as a cultural/spritual destination. Obviously, that’s much easier to envision than sending out real live people to populate a place.
In this context, the reason behind his essay which you quote, is to disparage the entire movement of sending over Zionists to live in Ottoman Palestine. Once he returned to Odessa from his trip to Ottoman Palestine, he immediately set about launching a new group that was supposed to oppose Hovevei Zion. He called it B’nei Menashe.
You can read more about the early days of his career .
You will also find this published article about Ahad Ha’am informative. In there, around page 175, you will learn that he had an ongoing fight with the head of Hovevei Zion, and the author believes that his articles from the period reflect this animosity and a desire to offer an alternative.
Hope that helps with Ahad Ha’am.
Any other quotes?
Oh yeah, you wanted me to accept Jabotinsky’s premise that the “decision to resist them [the Zionists] was only natural.” Well, yeah, I disagree. You see, the Zionists were buying land as per the law. They were working hard and developing it hard. They had nationalistic motives which emphasized democracy and a democratic state. Most did not agree with Jabotinsky and would not agree with his followers for many years to come.
You see, I understand the Arabs attacking the British. I understand the Arabs attacking Jewish soldiers when there was war. I don’t understand how you qualify “natual resistance” as attacking civilians and civilians dwellings. That has been the nature of “Arab resistance” for the past century and if it’s okay with you, instead of calling it resistance, I’ll call it “murder” and “random violence led and guided by political motives.” I don’t care that some Arabs felt threatened by Jewish land purchases or immigration. There was also Arab immigration at the time (that link also speaks to the improving quality of life and income in the area, especially as compared to other Arabs states, including those divided up by the British and French) and I haven’t heard anything about riots regarding these new guests on the land.