Israel's secret fears

15 comments from readers

nawawimohamad
15 May 2008 at 11:07

"Many Israelis, even liberals and left-wingers, hold Europeans morally responsible for the Holocaust either by participating in, or being indifferent to, the annihilation of the Jews during the Second World War." But now Israel is solely responsible for the death of many Palestinians.

greed n power
15 May 2008 at 12:48

How many thousand years of ignorance are needed?

The belief of ultimate truth fuelled by religious traditions, long out dated, are the cause of this conflict.

A state embracing this singular approach will inevitably fail.

The capacity to forgive is not one promoted by either religions involved in this drama. The suffering of the people will continue until each individual will leave these antiquated century old beliefs behind and

forgive.

Forgive those who inflicted the wrongs and themselves for inflicting the wrongs. Until the day people will actively and consciously step out of the cycle of violence and retribution, people will suffer. The state of Israel is a manifestation of resentments to the exact level as its opponents.

truthfromearth
15 May 2008 at 17:52

nawawimohamad - I think arabs killed far more arabs than Israel ever did, are you comparing them to nazis as well? You should!

Leonard
15 May 2008 at 19:02

Though apparently sincere the piece is very onesided and biased. The author doesn't seem to be aware of how he is manifesting what a large segment of Jews see as an anti-Israeli bias in the European media. Given the history of European behavior during the Holocaust and throughout the last millennium, suspicions and even a conviction of anti-Semitism, perhaps unconsciously institutional, are far from irrational. Nevertheless, I have been noticing a gradual shift in the European media, away from the extreme anti-Israel bias of recent decades. But given my belief in the authors sincerity I long for the opportunity to sit in conversation with him and others like him in the British media.

Very truly,

Leonard Schwartzburd, Ph.D.

Berkeley, CA

USA

writeon
15 May 2008 at 21:55

But the European media don't have an anti-Israeli bias at all, that is a myth. On the contrary, the European media is generally very supportive of Israel, it just isn't as totally biased towards Israel as the US media is. It's this contrast that makes it seem like the European media is critical of Israel, which, relatively speaking, it is, but only marginally so.

Gideon Polya
16 May 2008 at 04:45

For those such as myself haunted by the impact of WW2 on their scattered families, the fundamental messages from the Jewish Holocaust (6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) and the WW2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma victims) are "zero tolerance for racism" and "never again to anyone" .

Unfortunately these sacred injunctions have been violated for over 60 years by the Zionist fanatics running Apartheid Israel and the Anglo-American backers of Zionist colonization of the Middle East - and of course this gross violation is IGNORED by Zionist-beholden Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite Mainstream media and politicians in t he Western Murdochracies.

There are roughly 11 million Palestinians world-wide: 5.5 million living outside the Holy Land and forbidden to return; 1.5 million are Palestinian Israelis (second class citizens living in an ethnocracy under Apartheid-style race-based laws); 4 million are Occupied Palestinians imprisoned (uncharged, untried, and mostly women and children) in the over-40-year-duration Samaria, Judaea and Gaza Concentration Camps and subject to remote military policing (bombing by aircraft, shelling by distant artillery) - and all subject to the will of US- and UK-backed Apartheid Israel (5.5 million Jewish Israeli colonizers).

Post-1967 excess deaths in the Occupied Palestinian Territory total 0.3 million (mainly deaths from deprivation); post-1967 under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million; there are 7 million Palestinian refugees (4.3 million registered with the UNHCR); 85% of Christian Occupied Palestinians have fled; UNICEF informs us that 2,400 Occupied Palestinian infants die avoidably EACH YEAR; violent and non-violent excess Occupied Palestinian deaths total about 5,000 EACH YEAR (about twice the total number of Jewish Israelis murdered by Palestinians since 1949 , according to Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs data).

Apartheid Israel violates the core messages from the Jewish Holocaust and is a blot on Jewry, Judaism and Humanity as a whole.

Sanctions and Boycotts – successful against Anglo-American- and Apartheid Israeli-backed Apartheid South Africa 2 decades ago – must be urgently applied against Apartheid Israel and its Anglo-American backers to stop the Palestinian Genocide and the related “might means right” racist horrors of the ongoing Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide (for a succinct, documented analysis see: http://www.liberalati.com/?q=node/261 ).

Cybertiger
16 May 2008 at 10:19

"Apartheid Israel violates the core messages from the Jewish Holocaust and is a blot on Jewry, Judaism and Humanity as a whole."

Well said, Gideon.

"zero tolerance for racism" and "never again to anyone" .

One powerful and influential person who broke these sacred injunctions was Madeleine Albright. But which God will punish her?

Amihai
16 May 2008 at 10:51

The author of this article, it must be noted, is indeed a journalist in Israel... a sports journalist! In addition, Mr. Baram also writes a column for a tiny local weekly publication in Jerusalem. Mr. Baram in other words, is not a highly respected journalist in Israel, largely because he represents the tiniest of margins in the Israeli political spectrum. This context should be taken into consideration when reading him. In other words, not only a pinch of salt is needed but a spoonful of this white substance is necessary in understanding his perspective.

modernityblog
17 May 2008 at 01:56

Mr. Baram,

You wrote that:

"Within an hour 481 comments had appeared, 472 of which were vehemently anti-Arab and abusive of "bleeding-heart leftists". Some of the comments were simply racist, but the majority were nationalistic, betraying deep hatred of Israel's Arab citizens."

Shocking and very wrong

But why not do this instead:

Write a small article for Comment is Free (the Guardian on-line presence) that argues a pro-Israeli case (it does not have to be very "hard line"), just a generally pro-Israeli case, one that acknowledges the human rights abuses, the corruption, the social affect of 60 years of conflict on both sides.

Then ask the Cif moderators not to block ANY comments, no matter what they say, and I'll bet (on previous form) that you are called a "racist", "Zionist", "neo-con", "pro-imperialist" etc,

It won't matter what you write, just a generally pro-Israeli article and you'll bring out all of the nasty little insects that inhabit Comment is Free.

I imagine that, without the moderation turned on at CiF, you'll see stuff wouldn't look out of place on a BNP or white power web site, when even the topic of Israel is brought up.

Please try it and see what happens.

tonyg
17 May 2008 at 02:40

Modernityblog suggests an article on the Guardian's Cif to see just what the responses are like. Well having written a few articles from an Jewish anti-Zionist perspective I've been labelled a 'self-hater' (straight from the Nazi archive - this was their accusation against anti-fascist Germans), a 'kapo' (apparently it is treachery and worse not to support Israel if you are Jewish) and other epithets. Whereas calling someone a 'racist' 'Zionist' 'neo'con' or 'pro-imperialist' are merely political labels, be they right or wrong.

Gideon Polya has it right. The lesson Zionism drew from the Holocaust was 'never again' when what they really mean was 'never again to the Jews' as if you can defeat racism by forming one's own separate state. Unfortunately the gays, gypsies, handicapped did not have this option. And within Israel racism is so prevalent that we even have neo-Nazi gangs based on the Russian Jewish community (because white Russian immigrants are preferable to palestinians, even if one-third of them aren't even Jewish!).

But when 80% of people in opinion polls say they wouldn't admit an Arab to their house or want to live alongside them, and 2/3 want Israel's Palestinians deported and laws are passed saying that an Israeli palestinian who marries a Palestinian in the occupied territories must leave Israel, or 40% want the right of Palestinian Israelis to vote to be abolished and there is in any case a concensus between the major parties that no governing coalition should rest on Arab votes, you then see what the problem is.

Arabs are not merely 2nd class citizens of israel, but the permanent untermenschen. A Jewish State cannot be other than one that treats its Palestinian citizens as guests, at best

Tony greenstein

Amihai
17 May 2008 at 05:32

I remember the moment when the Palestinian diaspora began to interest me, professionally. It was in Rashidiye Camp, outside Tyre, in June 1982, just after the Is¬rael Defense Forces had scythed through on their way north to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization from Lebanon. A journalist at the time, I picked my way through the devastated buildings. Most of the men had fled or been detained or killed by the Israelis, but I was struck by a group of old women hunched over a tabun, an outdoor oven, making pita bread far from their homeland. A few weeks later a stash of documents produced in 1948 by the Palmah—the strike force of the Haganah, the main Zionist underground in Palestine—was opened for me, revealing why and how many of these people had been displaced as Israel was born.

My historical account of that event, published a few years later, was greeted with some acclaim by Palestinians and their sympathizers—and much shock by Is¬raelis, who had been brought up to believe, or to pretend to believe, that the Palestini¬ans had fled their homes four decades earli¬er because of orders or advice from their leaders. In certain places, at certain times, there had been such advice and orders, of course. But there had also been Israeli ex¬pulsions, as well as the chaos of British withdrawal and economic hardship and anxiety about an uncharted future under Jewish rule. In most places it was the flail and fear of onrushing hostilities that had set some 700,000 Arabs on the roads.

Myself and several other young Israeli historians were dubbed revisionists and commonly assumed to be doves. But what brought me to my conclusions about 1948 were the facts, not my political views. Con¬trary to current historiographic discourse I believe there is such a thing as the Truth—what, why and how things happened—and I've always sought it in my research. If I've since come to a much bleaker opinion about the possibility of reconciliation be¬tween Jews and Palestinians—many would now call me a hawk—it is also because of that research.

During the 1990s, as the Oslo peace process gained momentum, I was cautious¬ly optimistic about the prospects for peace. But at the same time I was scouring the just opened archives of the Haganah and the IDF. Studying the roots of the Arab-Is¬raeli conflict—in particular the pronounce¬ments and positions of the Palestinian leadership from the 1920s on—left me chilled. Their rejection of any compromise, whether a partition of Palestine between its Jewish and Arab inhabitants or the cre¬ation of a binational state with political parity between the two communities, was deep-seated, consensual and consistent.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Palestinian na¬tional movement during the 1930s and 1940s, insisted throughout on a single Muslim Arab state in all of Palestine. The Palestinian Arab "street" chanted "Idbah al-Yahud" (slaughter the Jews) both during the 1936-1939 revolt against the British and in 1947, when Arab militias launched a campaign to destroy the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine. Husseini led both campaigns.

So when Yasir Arafat rejected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's two-state proposals at Camp David in July 2000, and then President Clinton's sweetened offer the follow¬ing December, my surprise was not exces¬sive. Nor was I astounded by the spectacle of masses of suicide bombers launched, with Arafat's blessing, against Israel's shop¬ping malls, buses and restaurants in the second intifada, which erupted in Septem¬ber 2000. Each suicide bomber seemed to be a microcosm of what Palestine's Arabs had in mind for Israel as a whole. Arafat's rejectionism and, after his death, the election of Hamas to dominance in the Pales¬tinian national movement, persuaded me that no two-state solution was in the offing and that the Palestinians, as a people, were bent, as they had been throughout their history, on "recovering" all of Palestine.

I found that current events had echoes in the historical record, and vice versa. The founding charter of Hamas repeatedly refers to the victory of Saladin over the me¬dieval crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, and compares the crusaders to the Zionists. In researching my new history of the 1948 war, I was struck by the fact that this analo¬gy, usually overlooked or ignored by previ¬ous historians, suffused the statements and thinking of Palestinian leaders and the leaders of the surrounding Arab states dur¬ing the countdown to, and the course of, the war. A few days before Arab armies struck at Jewish forces in Palestine, Abd al-Rahman Azzam, secretary general of the Arab League, told the British minister in Transjordan their aim was to "sweep the Jews into the sea."

If the documents I studied 20 years ago painted Palestinians tragically, as the underdog, this record did the opposite. It has become clear to me that from its start the struggle against the Zionist enterprise wasn't merely a national conflict between two peoples over a piece of territory but also a religious crusade against an infidel usurper. As early as Dec. 2, 1947, four days after the passage of the partition resolution, the scholars of Al Azhar University proclaimed a "worldwide jihad in defense of Arab Palestine" and de¬clared that it was the duty of every Muslim to take part.

This history has deepened and reinforced my pessimism, itself bred by the fail¬ure of Oslo. Those currently riding high in the region—figures like Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal, Hizbullah's Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—are true believers who are convinced it is Allah's command and every Muslim's duty to extirpate the "Zionist entity" from the sacred soil of the Middle East. For all its economic, political, scientific and cultural achievements and military prowess, Israel, at 60, remains profoundly insecure—for there can be no real security for the Jewish state, surrounded by a surg¬ing sea of Muslims, in the absence of peace. (Benny Morris)

(Morris's most recent book on Israeli history is the recently pub¬lished "1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War").

yigal laviv
19 May 2008 at 16:53

yigal laviv:

regarding amihai first comment -baram is indeed well known journalist in israel,always honest. i do not agreed with all his words,but i respect them

Zkharya
19 May 2008 at 23:23

Dear Tony Greenstein,

The other Guardian thread closed, apparently because you were allowed to have the last word rather than because of alleged Zionist agitation. So, I’ll use this venue, if you don’t mind.

What antisemites and Zionists have in common is an ‘understanding’ that the victim of the victimiser would rather be somewhere else. What the antisemite does not believe is that, of all the places in world whence the Jew is alien, the Jew truly belongs in Palestine: the Nazis strove to exile most Jews from the world, not from everywhere in the world bar Palestine. That post-Christian antisemitic belief in Jewish alienation did not appear ex nihilo: it evolved from earlier Christian forms of antisemitism which in turn grew from Christian forms of anti-Judaism. This is relatively uncontraversial stuff.

But thank you for acknowledging that antisemitism evolved from anti-Judaism, even, as you say, ‘the Jews and society changed’. The notion that the Jews were alien exiles from their land evolved into the notion that Jews were alien and to be exiled from humanity and this world all together. And some Jews were saved by conversion to Christianity, primarily because Pope Pius X would not explicitly condemn Nazi policies towards the Jews.

As for the diaspora at the turn of the common era, all Jews in the Roman period were punished as rebels against the state, and by the early Christian period, all Jews came to be regarded as dispossessed of the Land as a punishment for their sins, even as they were now treated as rebels against the new Roman god. That became their legal position in Christendom: a people in captivity and exile, manifestly humiliated by g-d for their sins, and to be kept in a manifest state of dispossession and humiliation, as outlined by such as Augustine. Combined with that pariah status went the restriction of professions Jews could ply, or the property they could own, which was responsible in large measure for the economic and professional status to which you elsewhere refer. So, again, religion in large measure shaped the circumstances in which Jews found themselves but which you claim to by utterly divorced from it.

As for the assertion that most Judean Jews became Christian, that flatly contradicts the written sources that have survived: the Christian sources state that, by and large, the Jews of Judea did not convert, but that they did suffer a Nakba. The ancient, contemporary Christian sources (in which I am paid to spend most of my working time) say gentiles converted, but, by and large, Jews did not. So, upon what do you base your assertion? But even if Jews did convert, so what? There was enormous social, economic and political pressure to abandon Judaism, since, as I said, all Jews were regarded as rebellious against the state had had to pay the Fiscus Judaicus, even in the Christian period. The pressure only increased in the Christian period. That does not mean Jews should be penalised for having remained true to their ancestral customs, even if a Neo-Converso like you thinks different. And if you now wish to adduce that Jews still continued to live in the Land, then one might observe that most Palestinian refugees still live within the borders of original British Palestine.

Anti-Judaism and antisemitism did indeed ‘evolve’, even, again as you say, as ‘the Jews and society changed’. But that does not mean there is no continuity between anti-Judaism and antisemitism, or continuity between Jews and society in the various stages of their histories, rather the reverse.

OK, about asserting a non-Jewish upbringing, I apologise. But then to imply that Jews who have remained rather more Jewish in practice and outlook generally consequently believe ‘Jews to be superior and Arabs to be the untermmenschen’, unlike a more enlightened fellow such as yourself, is very revealing of your outlook generally (not to mention the clear implication that I allegedly believe ‘Jews to be superior and Arabs to be the untermmenschen’, which is a pretty fine example of what constitutes an ad hominem attack by your own criteria). It sounds as though you associate more traditional Jews and Judaism with racism generally.

I already wrote that, before 1914, most Jews’ fleeing persecution went to America. Afterwards most went to Palestine or what became Israel. That is just a flat fact. Which is why Israel comprises 41% of Jews today. I do not know why you adduce the Bund: the Bundists were also Jewish nationalists, something you are manifestly not. They were marginalised then dissolved by Stalin, to perish in the holocaust and its aftermath. The Bundists became extinct; the Zionists survived. That is why the Jewish state of Israel comprises most Jews who survived the persecutions of the 20th century and who fled their homes after 1914, and their descendants. Your reading of history is so divorced from reality that one would never know from it that the Jewish state of Israel comprises 41% of the world’s Jews today, rather one would have to assume that it constitutes a tiny handful of ‘obsessivesand middle-class youth’. Talk about reshaping reality to suit yourself.

And whatever the sins of Zionist Jews, Arab Muslims (and, to a lesser extern, Christians) were quite capable of discriminating against or persecuting Arab Jews to the point of driving them out on their own. While Arab or Islamic treatment of Jews was historically superior to Christian, it was still one of discrimination and occasional persecution. Non- or anti-Zionist Jews could not have come to be seen as more nationally Jewish than Arab, had they not, historically, been seen as nationally Jewish rather than Arab, with their own separate Jewish national history.

helps@chariot.net.au
21 May 2008 at 04:51

The world is sick and tired of the endless Israeli – Palestinian conflict.

As neither party to the conflict has the power to annihilate completely its opponent (and hopefully, the world would not permit a Hitlerian style “final solution” to either party of the dispute) then, the only rational resolution is to reach a permanent peace agreement under the auspices and control of the United Nations.

Therefore, the following unbiased proposal for a “peaceful, final, and fair resolution” of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict should, perhaps, be considered.

Given that proliferation of nuclear weapons is constantly increasing, it will be in the best long-term interest of Israel to come to a definite peaceful agreement:

1 - Internally, with the Palestinians,

2 - Externally, with the bordering Arab states (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt),

3 – Regionally, with the Moslem world (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, etc.),

before it becomes truly impossible to achieve any long-term “peaceful solution”.

Considering that over time, the superiority of Israel in nuclear capability will begin to diminish vs. its adversaries, as they are likely to obtain access to nuclear arms themselves, (from such sources as Pakistan, China, Russia, etc.), therefore, in order to prevent a horrible nuclear confrontation in the Middle East, Israel would be well advised to negotiate a peaceful, final and fair resolution of all outstanding problems with the Palestinians and the bordering or regional Moslem states, as soon as possible, by:

1 Reaching agreement with the Palestinians, residing in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, for the creation of an independent, viable Palestinian State, that would incorporate these territories with a connecting land corridor (similar to one that existed between West Germany and West Berlin, before unification).

2 Compensating the former Palestinian residents (or their surviving descendants) for the properties and assets lost by them in 1948, when expelled (or escaped in fear for their lives) into the surrounding Arab states at the time of the War for the creation of the State of Israel. With a fair compensation, these former Palestinian residents could resettle into the new, yet to be created, Palestinian State or emigrate elsewhere, but by accepting fair compensation, would give up the claim for a “right of return to Israel”.

3 Offering to the Palestinians, (who still live within Israel proper), fair compensation for their properties and assets, provided they resettle into the new, yet to be created, Palestinian State or emigrate elsewhere, but by accepting fair compensation, would give up any claim for a “right of return to Israel”.

Hopefully, this way, the Middle East crisis could finally be defused with:

1 Israel achieving its implied objective of becoming and remaining basically a purely Jewish state within its secure and internationally recognized borders,

and

2 The Palestinians, getting their own independent, viable State, while obtaining fair compensation for lost properties and assets, or alternatively, gaining the opportunity to resettle elsewhere in the region or in the world at large.

peacelover
16 July 2008 at 22:26

NOTHING MORE THAN FULLY AGREE WITH MR. HAIM BARAM'S COURAGEOUS , AUDACIOUS AND TRUTHFUL COMMENTS. IS THE VOICE OF THE TRUTH STILL HEARD?????

ALLEGRA & ALBERT ASSOULINE/U.S.A.