Here's what I mean. I believe in the project of building a democratic and secular Jewish state in Palestine.Marshall's terminology underscores the problem. Study each of these words:
Some of Israel's enemies and too many of her friends and advocates use the word to mean in a Jewish state in all of historic Palestine or even, as used to be the Revisionist credo, a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River.
That's not what I believe.
I believe there should be a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza. Not a collection of autonomous cantons but a full state, with the border being the Green Line or some very near approximation of it.
"...a democratic and secular Jewish state in Palestine..."
Do the words "Jewish" and "secular" really make a comfortable fit? If we're calling the place "Palestine," then don't the Palestinians have the first, best right to live in that land? Don't they have the right to come and to go freely, to vote and to attain office -- and to breed at whatever rate seems right to them?
And if they do all that, then how can the place remain democratic and Jewish? There can be no true democracy unless equal rights apply to everyone.
An old observation bears repeating: A "Jewish state" is a 19th century concept with no place in a 21st century world. Society can no longer tolerate a national identity based the hegemony of one race or religion, and backed by the legalized suppression of minority beliefs. The phrases "Jewish state," "Islamic state," "Hindu state," "white state" (or Aryan nation...?) and "black state" are all equally odious.
(I'd argue for the continued existence of Vatican City as a "Catholic state," but only because the Vatican is one-third the size of the Los Angeles Zoo.)
It's useless to argue that Israel is secular. Although Judaism does not proselytize, conversions do occur. Anyone -- you, me, any Palestinian -- may covert to Judaism and thereby attain full citizenship rights in Israel.
So let's stop pretending that Jewish religious intolerance does not reside at the heart of the conflict.
And let's stop pretending that Zionism is or ever was a necessary response to Nazi persecution. Quite a few Zionists collaborated with the Nazis, and the leader of the Stern gang even offered to fight on Hitler's side. The strongest anti-fascist voices in the 1930s came from anti-Zionist American Jews. In one of the maddest declarations made during the Nuremberg trials, arch anti-Semite Julius Streicher declared his willingness to fight on the side of the Zionist movement -- a bizarre pledge which hints at the longstanding psychological affinity between the two ideologies.
In an undervalued book called The Nazi Legacy: Klaus Barbie and the International Fascist Connection, authors Magnus Linklater, Isabel Hilton and Neal Ascherson describe how South American death squads received training and support from both European neo-Nazis and the Israelis. The world has not forgotten the close collaboration between Israel and the fascist-oriented rulers of apartheid South Africa. Wouter Basson, the notorious South African CBW specialist mentioned in an earlier post, claims to have worked closely with Israeli counterparts.
Think about it: Why wouldn't any post-war Nazi favor Zionism? If someone had explained to Adolf that advanced versions of the V-2 could carry nuclear weapons, he would have salivated at the prospect of all the world's Jews gathering in one small location far from Europe.
So. How would I bell the world's least-bellable cat?
I used to favor a two-state solution, as outlined by Joshua Marshall (who means well and almost always does well). But the recent madness in Lebanon teaches us, once again, that a powerful state often bullies weaker neighbors, even when doing so runs counter to its own interests.
Under prevailing circumstances, a Palestinian state can only serve as an artificial construct -- a Bantustan designed to reduce the official number of non-Jews in Israel. The imbalance of military might rules out a workable two-state solution.
I now favor a the idea of single state -- a genuinely secular democracy, neither Jewish nor Islamic nor Christian. What would happen if a fair and free vote extended to every person whose fate is now controlled (directly or indirectly) by the Israeli government? Some would forecast a bloodbath of retaliation. Many predicted such a fate for post-apartheid South Africa, but it did not happen.
A secular democracy can take root in Palestine/Israel, if the United States and the rest of the world demands that outcome and pledges to protect minority rights.
11 comments:
When Palestinians prevailed in Palestine Jews lived there in peace.
I too, favor a One State solution, a secular democracy. Maybe then, Palestinians, Jews, and Christians can Finally get themselves a Constitution and become an actual democracy instead of a fictional one.
I agree as well, though am not convinced that democracy has ever really been the goal in Israel. It remains an idea that has been successfully marketed and sold to the rest of the world.
Most Americans don't even realize the degree to which they have been indoctrinated to believe in the idea of a democratic Israel, no matter what the cost.
I, too, was struck by the absurdity of the phrase "secular Jewish state." Wow.
Everybody seems to take for granted the paradigm of Arabs vs. Israel (Moslems vs. Jews), but as Sunny pointed out, Moslems through most of their history have shown remarkable tolerance of other religions. Even when they ran the whole Mediterranean world, they allowed Jewish temples as well as Christian churches. Certainly they have been more tolerant of Judaism than Christians have been, as Catholics and Protestants alike have purged the Jews periodically through Europe and Asia. (At least by my reading of history.)
My point is that this current ME enmity is not a consequence of inconsistent belief systems. It is a consequence of the Jews refusing to fairly share the land that both religions claim as part of their heritage.
So there is a real obvious solution to the problem, even if the devil is in the details. But Israel doesn't really want a solution, I don't think. They have defined themselves as the perpetual "out-group" and they bask in that status. And, since they define themselves as victims (albeit who refuse to be victims any longer) they can act in as fascist a manner as they want, and suffer no cognitive dissonance.
The best path for the US to follow may be to cut off Israel's military support, as Joe suggested. (I notice that in the proposed cease-fire, Hezbollah's re-supply from Iran and Syria is to be cut off, but not a mention of Israel's re-supply from the US.)
A more sweeping solution, of course, is to expunge monotheism from the face of the planet.
I think the recent events have been causing a lot of Israel's supporters some serious cognitive dissonance. Just look at how all the big pro-war blogs have gone from defending the civilian death toll to denying it outright by claiming that all the pictures of Lebanon's ruined cities and dead civilians have been staged by the "anti-Israel media". How much more delusional can you get? You think it's psychologically possible for them to keep this up?
From the point of view of fundie Christians, they might be shocked to learn that while Judaism reviles and denies Jesus, Muslims revere him as the prophet of God. How is that for irony?
Sunny, I do not believe that Judaism "reviles and denies" Jesus. They do not accept that he was the Messiah, of course, but there is a great deal of good scholarship by Jews about Jesus, who, of course, was a Jew.
joe, what a powerful and profound post, and interestingly, most of what you pointed out i was working into a piece that i now will shelve in deference to you. (been doing that a lot lately; you are just so quick and so damn prolific!)
however, i will also here that the usual suspect readers for their remarkably astute comments, and suggest they visit josh's post today of a reader's comment that is both pointed and pithy:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009335.php
and there is also this follow-up, calling josh out on what he left out:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009338.php
you have to give it to josh that he will publish comments that get in his face.
and finally, i emailed josh the following comment, but nothing i've ever sent in to that website has ever been published, so i'm not holding my breath.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Josh,
So glad to see that you printed the recent excellent but “breezier” reader’s comment on how poor a neighbor Israel has been, most especially after your affirmation of Zionism.
Your affirmation was most disturbing, and exposed what appeared to be a complete lack of sensitivity of the real history of the region, which was even more disturbing because of the great respect I have for your intelligence and knowledge. To my mind, the gift of Palestinean lands to a state of Israel was a great presumption – and not so veiled racism – on the part of the West, particularly Britain and the US, who together possessed tremendous historical and future power interests in the region. Roosevelt had promised King Saud, verbally and in writing, that the Arab leaders would be consulted in the plans to grant land to Israel, but Truman was more zealous after his predecessor’s death, and after discovering the extent of the Holocaust; he completely disregarded FDR’s promise.
Though we can certainly understand the origin and motivation of Truman’s zeal in response to the Jews’ suffering, it is difficult to forgive him his lack of respect for a diplomatic promise, and the lack of foresight for the inevitable tensions his action would cause in the future, both immediate and lasting, not to mention the immediate and lasting humiliation of the Arab leaders and their people.
Nevertheless, Israel has since behaved as if the land there is their god given right, which it absolutely is not, and as if they have the right to pre-emptive and even preventive hostility against their neighbors, as if their own hostility should result in good will or even submission from their victims. Moreover, they have openly behaved as if the peoples whose lands they occupy are barely tolerable, children of a much lesser god, exposing the self-same racism they suffered at the hands of the Nazis. When Golda Meir can make her scathing remarks against the Palestinians, and the citizens of Israel can elect a proven and punished war criminal, one truly must ask as your reader did just what brand of peace and justice these Jews intend for their neighborhood.
So you ask, does not the state of Israel have the right to exist and protect itself? My answer is, only if they prove themselves to be a good and peaceful neighbor; remaining a state in open violation of international law and the rights of its neighbors are not, and cannot be acceptable. And you ask, how does a state move on? I would suggest the people of the region study the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions of post-apartheid South Africa; imperfect, but definitely a step in the right direction. Where does a state go when it moves on, you wonder? Interestingly, from my own studies of the Old Testament, the most powerful quality of the Jewish people was always revealed during their many exiles and wanderings, namely the power of their spirit in adversity, their ability to adhere to their principles and each other during the most trying of times. Yet this spirit clearly holds the potential for rabid and dangerous fundamentalist authoritarianism and paranoid protectionism when placed in positions of power, comfort, and security. This appears to be a truth universal to humanity, not just condemnation of a “chosen” people, and certainly not anti-Semitism.
The prophets railed against these very transgressions, and warned repeatedly that Israel would suffer their downfall by their own loss of wisdom and humanity. These days, such prophetic entreaties look less like divine inspiration than predictions of the obvious.
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i'll keep everyone posted if that email gets any sort of response.
meanwhile, it is worth noting that the abundant evidence of israeli aggression is growing, which is shrinking sentiments for israel, and with the US no longer respected as a peace broker, this may finally be the time when israel's hens come home to roost.
The Spectator.co.uk : In an essay that he wrote for the Illustrated Sunday Herald in 1920 entitled ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism’, which the neocons never quote, Churchill ranted ...
www.antiwar.com/spectator/spec280.html
wow. first time for everything.
did get this response from josh, almost immediately:
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sorry you found what i wrote disturbing. you seem to have had a rather different reaction to that email than i did.
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found this truly confusing, i did, because i thought i conveyed first of all that i was responding to him more than that comment, and that i was not trying to have the same reaction to the comment as he did. so, color me confused.
but still quite disappointed, especially given the next post he chose to post, which you can find here:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009342.php
which is also confusing, but also not just a little outraging. so i wrote back on all counts, for what it's worth:
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Josh,
From your response here, it is not at all clear that you actually read my email, which was more a response to your posts on your Zionist position than it was to the “breezier” comment. I actually agree with that comment, as it asks excellent questions that never get asked. Unfortunately, the only question getting asked appears to be, does Israel have a right to exist and defend itself? It is difficult not to put that interpretation to your Zionist position, as it is the Zionist position.
At the end of my email, I responded to that question, which is one you had asked earlier, and then I responded to the two questions you asked at the end of the “breezier” comment. Those last two questions suggested that you did not focus on the list of questions raised in the comment, but instead on your Zionist-influenced mind set. In other words, well, this is all fine and good, but so what in the face of what a country must do, one presumes to protect itself. Forgive me, but asking the question exposes a startling lack of imagination.
I highly commend the fact that you are posting these comments that disagree so strongly with you, but I also worry that you are not seeing the forest for the trees here, which risks cheapening those posts to a vanity exercise. It certainly does not appear that you read my email carefully, although I cannot argue that we seem to have had different reactions to that “breezier” comment. My email, and the response from KH you just posted, are attempts to direct your attention to the inevitable disconnect and contradiction in taking the Zionist position, as you have done. And thankfully KH points out the damage such blind duplicity does to the progressive movement. How jolly fat Karl must be that there is such a profound schism in our ranks, one that so ironically and thoroughly resembles the Southern strategy of yore, replete with the racism wedge.
Like KH and your “breezier” reader, I am most concerned and disappointed that you fail to see the fatal disconnect, and the obvious connections. I mean, do you honestly miss the inherent internal contradiction of a “secular, Jewish state”?? It might be worth your remembering, if you do not know, that Jews lived in Palestine without anything like the current rage and violence, prior to the establishment of the Jewish state. And what other countries of which you are aware that have established themselves in zealous, racial and/or religious principles did so peacefully, or even with respect for the human rights of minorities? Of such countries, which ones leap to mind? To me, two that leap to mind are Afghanistan under the Taliban and Germany under Hitler’s Nazis. Not such great company for Israel to aspire to, I fear.
When you fail to make these connections, you expose the inherent disconnect in taking the Zionist position while claiming to be a liberal progressive in the truest sense of this phrase.
Again, with great respect, but equal disappointment,
XXXX
P.S. I feel the need to respond to the latest comment you posted on this topic. First of all, AC asserts as facts many points that are greatly disputed, not least of which is that the “kidnapped” soldiers were in Israel; earliest press reports, and dozens of them, placed them in Lebanon. Second, the accusation of targeting civilians cannot be leveled solely at Hizbollah; does he intend to thus justify what Israel is doing in Lebanon?? The experience of Muslims in that region is that the civilian population is not just targeted, but terrorized, by Israel. From their original invasion of the land, the theft of properties, the exile of thousands upon thousands, and the rendering of non-Jewish non-citizens to the underclass, to open aggression, attacks on neighboring countries, imprisonment of thousands, kidnapping and disappearing of more, the Nazi-like camps and Berlin-like walls, the violation of human rights and UN rules and resolutions, the build-up of a nuclear arsenal, and the targeting of civilians.... Not that many years ago I read an American reporter’s lament on his witnessing Israeli soldiers “taunting children to their own slaughter.” From all this, AC or you or anyone can attempt to place Israel on justifiably equal footing with Hizbollah? You can pretend that Hizbollah is not allowed to exist because they lack uniforms, but because Israel wears theirs proudly, they are allowed to commit war crimes? Such twisted madness.
Do you not realize what it means for anyone or any country to be in a position of power? Do you not see how it places everyone outside that realm at your mercy? Mercy, then; mercy. For god’s sake, MERCY.
Finally, I therefore agree with AC that we are losing sight of the equivalence of suffering across all peoples. Unfortunately, using the equivalence and victimhood of Zionist pain as his platform again exposes that fatal disconnect.
It’s called hypocrisy.
sofla said:
To Gary B:
Sorry, but you are incorrect when you deny Judaism condemns and rejects Jesus.
The Talmud contains any number of slanders against Jesus and his family, including that his mother Mary was a harlot, not pregnant by God but by somebody she was whoring around with, and that, in fact, Jesus even now is boiling in hell in excrement.
The Koran and Islamic teaching has Jesus at the right hand of God the Father, the one who will judge the quick and the dead on Judgment Day, and honors the virgin birth as a factual story of a miracle from God. While they agree that Jesus had a bodily ascension into heaven, they disagree that Jesus arose from the dead (or was crucified at all).
Looking at Jesus from a religious Judaic standpoint, of course he was a blasphemer, automatically worthy of the death penalty by stoning, and having as low a character as one might imagine as a false Messiah would display.
To answer anonymous, there are a handful of possible references to Jesus in the Talmud, most disputed by scholars. See, for example: http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesusnarr.html:
"Many modern historians detect different strata of texts from different ages within the talmudic period. The passages originally referred to different people named Yeshu, Ben Stada, and Ben Pandira, none of whom were Jesus. Over time, different generations of talmudic rabbis melded the passages together with added phrases and details. However, according to Johann Maier, none of these passages ever related to Jesus. Some scholars, such as Joseph Klausner and John P. Meier, believe that some of the later additions were meant to refer to Jesus, while the original basic text did not. It is therefore very difficult to determine what, if anything, the talmud actually says about Jesus."
Even if we were to concede a small number of obscure,scattered, negative references to Jesus in the Talmud, one could hardly generalize them to saying the Judaism as a whole disparages Jesus.
Also, claiming to be the Messiah would not in itself be considered blasphemous--a number of men made such a claim.
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