Sunday, May 9, 2010

More on Israel’s Foundational Discrimination against its Arab Minority

On my previous post there was a long anonymous comment that made two erroneous claims: first, that I attribute Israeli Jewish discrimination of Israeli Arabs to "natural bigotry" and racism; second, that this discrimination can be best explained by the dubious loyalty of Israeli Arabs, as evidenced by their political leaders, their identification with Palestinians outside Israel, etc.

My response was too long for a comment, so here goes:

Actually, the commentator misunderstood me entirely. My original post agreed with much of what he wrote. In my opinion, Israeli views towards Arabs for the most part are formed by the century history of enmity between Jews and Arabs. That is the main factor, Of course, there are also feelings of European/Jewish ethnic and cultural superiority over Arabs, but I really don't think that is a significant factor. Non-Arab gentiles are also discriminated against, but not to the same extent.

How do we best explain this official discrimination against Israeli Arabs? Let's perform an experiment; let's look at two sectors that share a lot In common for our purposes, the Israeli Arab and the Haredi. Both are ideologically anti-Zionist, both receive legal deferments from military service; both do not celebrate state holidays; both are vilified by the Israeli mainstream. Yet one has had representatives in virtually every governing coalition since the founding of the State, wields enormous political power beyond its numbers (often as a coalition partner) and controls important and powerful ministries. The other has political parties that never get to drink from the trough and no political power, despite their numbers in the population.

From this I infer that failure to do military service, possession of an anti-Zionist ideology, non-observance of national holidays, and -- this is important -- being the object of hatred by many mainstream Israelis are all PERFECTLY COMPATIBLE WITH WIELDING POLITICAL POWER.

So when Israelis give reasons for discrimination against the Arab sector as their lack of service in the military, or their lack of observance of national holidays, etc., said Israelis engage in deep self-deception.

For what about the Druze who serve in the military, die for the state of Israel, and observe the national holidays? Compare their lot with the Haredim. Strength in numbers, you will say? That is what explains it?

So we are left with the explanation of the distinction between the political power of Arabs and Haredim as the view that Arabs are actual or potential enemies, because they are Arabs (with a certain history) and haredi Jews are potential friends, because they are Jews (with a certain history.)

What created the view of the Arab as enemy -- for the first time in Jewish history, really, since Ishmael was understood classically as Muslim rather than as Arab -- was the inevitable consequence of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. Israel no doubt wanted to live in peace with its Arab neighbors, once it had a state and territory. But this desire was quite understandably viewed as a foreign invasion by interlopers. I am not denying that there were massacres of, or discrimination against Jews, by Arabs, before Zionism. But these were local events explained by local circumstances, and not indicative a deep antipathy towards Jews. Let us not forget that there were Jews who rose much higher in some Arab societies, then any Arabs have risen in Israeli society. And, indeed, the Zionists themselves did not make the assumption that the Arabs were natural enemies of the Jews. (Of course, there are those who believe that it is in the Arab blood or destiny or culture to hate Jews, and that explains their opposition to Zionism. This is rubbish. And leave religion out of this; no religion here is more tolerant than the next. Maimonides held that Christians are idolaters, and that idolaters must be forced to give up their religion or be put to death in a Jewish realm.)

Surely it is reasonable to expect that the Palestinian Arabs would resist the attempts of Polish and Russian Jews to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. Many Zionist leaders themselves thought it reasonable; that is how they would have responded to the claims of a foreign invader. The Zionists simply felt that the Arab claims to Palestine were unwarranted, or that the Jews had a better claim. That is why I wrote that Israelis quite naturally expect the Arabs to be enemies, and understand why they are hostile; that is how Israelis would act in the same circumstances. It would have been racist for them not to have such expectations, because then they would have had to explain Arab hostility as something perverse (e.g., inbred cultural hatred of the Jew) or their lack of hostility as something unnatural (they are happy to live under other masters, Turks, British, Jews because of a servile mentality).

The new state of Israel, from the beginning, should have made an attempt to create an Israeli people with an Israeli identity that would include, as much as possible, Israeli gentiles, Arab and non-Arab. It should have retreated to the 1947 partition lines, offered full citizenship to the Palestinians and promised a new order in which Palestinians and Jews would be on equal footing as Israelis. It should have shown that its acceptance of the Partition Plan was not merely a temporary irridentist tactic in order to gain power and time (Ben Gurion expressed himself in that manner at least once) but was a principled compromise. Instead, it forgot about the partition borders as soon as it had increased its geographical area through conquest.

What did it do instead? It blocked the return of the Palestinians to their homes; took over territories that were not allotted to it under the Partition plan; secretly agreed with Jordan to a partition of Palestine that would thwart the partition plan and the establishment of a Palestinian state, resettled Jewish refugees in the homes of Palestinians, and placed the remaining Palestinians under a military government for close to two decades. (I could go on and on about how the Shabak used collaborators to spy on the Israeli citizens, rewarded "good Arabs" through patronage and bribery, split the Druze from the Moslem Arabs in order to divide and rule, etc., created Arab political parties that were part of Mapai, etc. All this is in Hillel Cohen's book about "Good Arabs.") So for the first 18 years of the state, the essential patterns towards the Israeli Arabs were established, despite the fact that during this time fewer Jews were killed by Israeli Arabs on nationalistic grounds than died last week in Israel in traffic accidents.

Now, the Arabs did not suffer such discrimination because of what their political leaders said, because those leaders were handpicked by David Ben Gurion and his Mapai party. Nobody was upset at the Arabs then for not serving in the military because they were informally BANNED from serving in the army as security risks. All this followed very naturally from the logic of statist Zionism, which said that good (for the Jews) Arabs would be rewarded with privileges; bad Arabs would not. Arabs would have what freedom of speech the Zionists would allow them, but if they started demanding things like educational autonomy, the sort of things given to the haredim, they would be viewed as separationists.

From Wikepedia:

"While most Arabs remaining in Israel were granted citizenship, they were subject to martial law in the early years of the state.[28][29] Travel permits, curfews, administrative detentions, and expulsions were part of life until 1966. A variety of legal measures facilitated the transfer of land abandoned by Arabs to state ownership. These included the Absentee Property Law of 1950 which allowed the state to take control of land belonging to land owners who emigrated to other countries, and the Land Acquisition Law of 1953 which authorized the Ministry of Finance to transfer expropriated land to the state. Other common legal expedients included the use of emergency regulations to declare land belonging to Arab citizens a closed military zone, followed by the use of Ottoman legislation on abandoned land to take control of the land.[30]

In 1965, the first attempt was made to stand an independent Arab list for Knesset elections, with the radical group al-Ard forming the Arab Socialist List. The list was banned by the Israeli Central Elections Committee.[31]

In 1966, martial law was lifted completely, and the government set about dismantling most of the discriminatory laws, while Arab citizens were, theoretically if not always in practice, granted the same rights as Jewish citizens." (This last line I don't agree with entirely, but it would be folly not to realize that there have been significant changes since 1966. Of course, there have been changes in the other direction, as well.)

In short, statist Zionism said that Israeli Arabs would be tolerated provided they lacked real political power. And this was ensured since no coalition government, including the "leftwing" Merez-Avodah government of Rabin, would ever invite them into coalition talks.

Now, most Israelis will read this and say, "Sure, why not? This is a Jewish state. They can stay here as long as they behave." And the liberal Israelis will allow them more leeway.

But the result of all this exclusion were powerful feelings of alienation among Israeli Arabs. And so they lose out both ways. It is not legitimate for them to be a powerful part of the state, since this is a Jewish state. On the other hand, it is not legitimate for them to identify with the Palestinian people, since they are the enemies of Israel. And their educational system forces them to be *Israeli* Arabs, which gives them this hybrid identity.

The Anonymous Commentator made the following statement to explain why there are so few Israeli Arabs in the foreign ministry.

After all, would you want a Geulah bochur in your Foreign Ministry going around the world undermining Israel, or for that matter would you want someone who cheered for Hezbollah in 2006 in the Defense Ministry?

Now, my short answer is no, I would not. But why would any decent person assume that a qualified candidate for a foreign ministry post who happens to be haredi or Arab must possess the views herein attributed? Note that I say decent person. Because a bigot believes that an individual is defined and determined by what the bigot believes to be the worse attributes of a group he is prejudiced against. So he will disqualify an Arab from being Israeli Consul in Atlanta say, because he cannot help but be a cheerer of Hezbollah, since he belongs to a group where some, even many, cheer Hezbollah.

In order not to be accused of racism against Arabs, the commentator threw in a bigoted remark about haredim yeshiva students from Geula. It used to be that an unconscious bigot would say, "Some of my best friends are Jews" to show she was not prejudiced. Now all she has to say is, "Some of my worst enemies are Jews" to prove the same thing.

43 comments:

pabelmont said...

1950 Israel could have retracted to the land proposed by the UN 1947 partition proposal, allowed the refugees (from that smaller territory) to return, and thereby been more idealistic and less clearly a military people "on the make" militarily. Thank you for the thought.

Following that thought, Israel could still be a Jewish-majority democracy. (In principle at least.)

This post shows the different "Israels" that people see, different realities that might have been, etc. See discussion here.

Y. Ben-David said...

A couple of comments:

(1) Your comparison of the non-Zionist Haredim and the anti-Zionist Arabs is simplistic. Saying that the political power the Haredim wield compared to the much less powerful Arab political movements in Israel can only be explained by "racism" ignores the fact that IN PRACTICE, the Haredim (or at least the large majority of them) DO identify with the state, and work and pray for its welfare. Only a small group say like the Arabs that it is a disaster and the Jewish people would be better off without it. Simply comparing ideological statements of both groups does not give an accurate picture of the situation on the ground.

(2) Your claim that Jews generally "had it good" under Muslim rule is a gross exaggeration. I have been reading Andrew Bostom and Bat Ye'or on this subject....the myth that Muslim countries were "tolerant" as compared to Christian Europe was concocted by various people such as Disraeli in order to justify British support for the Ottoman Turks against the Christian Russian Empire, and by various Jewish intellectuals in Europe to shame their Christian counterparts into supporting equal rights for Jews. Yes, some Jews did reach high positions. Frequently, when the Sultan wanted to raise taxes, he would appoing a Jew as treasurer, put him in charge of extorting the money from the Muslim population. The Jew would advance his Jewish brothers by giving them appointments of favoring them in business. This would inevitably cause great bitterness among the Muslim population, to the Sultan would then, having filled the treasury, have the Jewish treasurer killed, repress the other Jews, and thereby profit twice...by filling his coffers and pacifying his Muslim population.

It is important to remember that the FIRST large massacre of Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages occurred in (IIRC) Cordoba in (supposedly tolerant) Muslim Spain in 1066, BEFORE the more well-known massacre of Jews in the Crusades, three decades later.

Anonymous said...

My oh my, am I glad I posted anonymously, since I have now been called a bigot by the mighty, ethical, moral, non-bigot Magness Zionist. Why have I been called a bigot? Darn good question, since I am not one. I guess we'll go through your, uh, disgusting, article in detail since I now have to explain that I'm not a bigot.

First, MZ agrees that "In my opinion, Israeli views towards Arabs for the most part are formed by the century history of enmity between Jews and Arabs. That is the main factor..."

Then MZ undermines this very claim. He compares as I did, Haredim to Arabs.

"Both are ideologically anti-Zionist, both receive legal deferments from military service; both do not celebrate state holidays; both are vilified by the Israeli mainstream."

After telling us what I also mentioned, that Haredim enjoy much greater influence in Israel than Arabs, MZ concludes:

"From this I infer that failure to do military service, possession of an anti-Zionist ideology, non-observance of national holidays, and -- this is important -- being the object of hatred by many mainstream Israelis are all PERFECTLY COMPATIBLE WITH WIELDING POLITICAL POWER."

Well, yes. Except for one really important detail: the Haredim didn't launch wars against Israel or attacks against Yishuv civilians before the state existed.

Now, please, please!, don't call me a bigot again because I didn't qualify that not EVERY Arab was involved in this fighting. The point is that the Arab side fought against the Jewish side. The Haredim never picked up a gun for either side.

Doesn't the fighting strike you as sufficient reason for Israelis to be extremely concerned about the Arab population without a scintilla of bigotry as part of the motivation for keeping them outside mainstream Israeli society? Even today, the Haredim are not considered an existential problem for Israel, while for many Israelis the question of Arab loyalty is existential because of the history of fighting.

There is also the small question of self-determination that plays a role in the outcome of these two groups. One group undermines Jewish self-determination while the other is part of that self-determination even as they seek to undermine the state in other ways.


Hopefully that clears up the following claim:

"So when Israelis give reasons for discrimination against the Arab sector as their lack of service in the military, or their lack of observance of national holidays, etc., said Israelis engage in deep self-deception."

And, of course, you sort of acknowledge this:

"So we are left with the explanation of the distinction between the political power of Arabs and Haredim as the view that Arabs are actual or potential enemies, because they are Arabs (with a certain history) and haredi Jews are potential friends, because they are Jews (with a certain history.)"

But then, despite having touched on the real reason, you don't really want to address it, because you REALLY want to accuse Israelis and their supporters of bigotry. So you resort to a little rewriting of history.

"What created the view of the Arab as enemy -- for the first time in Jewish history, really, since Ishmael was understood classically as Muslim rather than as Arab -- was the inevitable consequence of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine."

Oh? Really?

So when the Ottomans taxed the hell out of Palestine's Jewish community, this was considered a friendly act? Or when they didn't permit the Jewish community to build synagogues in Jerusalem, they were considered friends? Should we discuss the pogroms that took place in Arab lands over the centuries? Why did Maimonedes have to leave his home in Spain along with much of the Jewish community if not for Islamic threats and demands to convert? What about pogroms in Iraq and Morocco last century before Israel was born?

Anonymous said...

"Israel no doubt wanted to live in peace with its Arab neighbors, once it had a state and territory."

More rewriting of history.

No, actually the Yishuv wanted to live in peace with its Arab neighbors BEFORE it was a state or had much territory. In 1937, to give one example, the Yishuv accepted the Peel Commission's recommendations.

"But this desire was quite understandably viewed as a foreign invasion by interlopers. I am not denying that there were massacres of, or discrimination against Jews, by Arabs, before Zionism. But these were local events explained by local circumstances, and not indicative a deep antipathy towards Jews."

That's ridiculous. Islam considers Jews dhimmis. Always has. To claim that things that happened were "local" without recognizing that the link was an Islamic view of the Jews that was not consonant with equality, is to purposely misconstrue history.


"Let us not forget that there were Jews who rose much higher in some Arab societies, then any Arabs have risen in Israeli society."

Great comparison. One Jewish country embroiled in war with Arabs for a century is being compared to dozens of Arab countries and Muslim societies over a period of centuries. That is very convincing.


"And, indeed, the Zionists themselves did not make the assumption that the Arabs were natural enemies of the Jews."

Exactly.

There goes your argument about racism.

Don't believe me? Take a look at early Yishuv art and see how warmly they depict the Arabs. Listen to what the Yishuv leaders said about Arabs in the early years.

When did this begin to change? It began with the riots of 1920. In other words, with war on the Jews. And it proceeded over the years with other riots, revolts, wars and terror attacks. By the mid-1930s, the die is cast.

The Israeli response to be concerned about the Arabs is a response to this history and NOT in any way a racist response.

Anonymous said...

"The new state of Israel, from the beginning, should have made an attempt to create an Israeli people with an Israeli identity that would include, as much as possible, Israeli gentiles, Arab and non-Arab. It should have retreated to the 1947 partition lines, offered full citizenship to the Palestinians and promised a new order in which Palestinians and Jews would be on equal footing as Israelis. It should have shown that its acceptance of the Partition Plan was not merely a temporary irridentist tactic in order to gain power and time (Ben Gurion expressed himself in that manner at least once) but was a principled compromise. Instead, it forgot about the partition borders as soon as it had increased its geographical area through conquest."

Oh sure! It should have done this right after a life and death war with several Arab nations AND the local Arabs. Why not? Surely that would have led to peace and a warm and friendly Arab population.

Except that if you look at the UN records of various interactions between the Arab states and Israel at the UN, you will see that you are talking nonsense. The Arab states were not discussing peace, 1947 borders or anything of the sort. They were demanding that Israel allow the refugees to return without any preconditions or commitments. They also refused to recognize Israel. All this while Israel was licking its wounds having lost 1% of its population in that war.

The Partition Plan had indefensible borders on purpose. Why would Israel return to those?

"So for the first 18 years of the state, the essential patterns towards the Israeli Arabs were established, despite the fact that during this time fewer Jews were killed by Israeli Arabs on nationalistic grounds than died last week in Israel in traffic accidents."

Of course, they were under martial law. There were, however, many dead Israelis at the hands of infiltrators who, theoretically, came from the same nation as the Israeli Arabs. That was the primary reason Israel went to war in 1956.

"Now, the Arabs did not suffer such discrimination because of what their political leaders said, because those leaders were handpicked by David Ben Gurion and his Mapai party. Nobody was upset at the Arabs then for not serving in the military because they were informally BANNED from serving in the army as security risks....In short, statist Zionism said that Israeli Arabs would be tolerated provided they lacked real political power. And this was ensured since no coalition government, including the "leftwing" Merez-Avodah government of Rabin, would ever invite them into coalition talks."

That's because they were considered part of the group that had put Israel into the military predicament in which it has had to live for a century. Not because of bigotry.



"But the result of all this exclusion were powerful feelings of alienation among Israeli Arabs. And so they lose out both ways. It is not legitimate for them to be a powerful part of the state, since this is a Jewish state. On the other hand, it is not legitimate for them to identify with the Palestinian people, since they are the enemies of Israel. And their educational system forces them to be *Israeli* Arabs, which gives them this hybrid identity."


On this we agree. It is their tragedy and Israel's tragedy that this is so. However, please don't minimize the enmity many Israeli Arabs feel toward Israel. It plays a serious role in the relations between both sides.

Anonymous said...

And now to your truly offensive remark at the end:

"The Anonymous Commentator made the following statement to explain why there are so few Israeli Arabs in the foreign ministry.

After all, would you want a Geulah bochur in your Foreign Ministry going around the world undermining Israel, or for that matter would you want someone who cheered for Hezbollah in 2006 in the Defense Ministry?

Now, my short answer is no, I would not."

Of course you would not.

"But why would any decent person assume that a qualified candidate for a foreign ministry post who happens to be haredi or Arab must possess the views herein attributed?"

Well, actually, the Geulah bochur almost certainly opposes the state. The odds of such a person staying in Geulah, within the "system" and not opposing the state are virtually nil. It was on that basis that I made the comparison.

Do I think that every Israeli Arab supported Hizbullah in 2006? No. But a strong case can be made that a majority did. This isn't bigotry, this is factual, just as it's factual to point out that Geulah torah scholars are going to hold Israel in contempt.

But why just rely on my word? Why don't you track the activities and words of Israeli Arab elected officials in 2006? At least one has fled Israel and won't return because he is believed to have provided information to its enemies during the war. So, in the media coverage and in the political world, I can point to a consensus among many Israeli Arabs regarding which side they took in 2006.

You can't refute these facts, so you take a different approach:


"Note that I say decent person. Because a bigot believes that an individual is defined and determined by what the bigot believes to be the worse attributes of a group he is prejudiced against."

Now you see, that's just nasty.

I'm not a bigot.

Neither are most Israelis.

I am, however, a realist. I watch the tv, I read the news, I listen to Adalah, I listen to Israeli-Arab students at Israeli campuses, I follow those Israeli-Arabs who lead the Boycott and Divestment movement against Israel, I watch Arab-Israeli politicians continually attack the state, I watch in disbelief as virtually the entire Arab population refuses to participate in national service for the state, the numerous tax revolts against the state, the Land Day activities which are broadly attended...and I conclude that chances are that most Israeli Arabs will not represent Israel effectively in the Foreign Service.

However, at no point did I say they should not or could not or that they never should or that all of them should not. Nope. I never said any such thing.

You see, that's because I don't believe such things.

Anonymous said...

I believe there are Israeli Arabs who would make tremendous ambassadors and consuls for Israel. Today.

My point was, however, that you should understand WHY it is hard to find these individuals in certain ministries. The answer is that the odds are against them and the Israeli system is not going to easily find ways to get around the perceptions that have been built up over these years. Part of this, by the way, is because Israeli Arabs don't participate in the army and don't have access to networks as do most Israelis - just like the Geula bochur won't.


"So he will disqualify an Arab from being Israeli Consul in Atlanta say, because he cannot help but be a cheerer of Hezbollah, since he belongs to a group where some, even many, cheer Hezbollah."

I didn't disqualify anybody. I was making the point that Israeli Jews aren't naturally bigots. That, instead, a difficult and complex security situation challenges them to identify Arab Israelis who could represent Israel in the Foreign or Defense ministries. It's easier for them not to confront such challenges since it's hard enough as it is to find work in Israel and if Tzachi knows Yossi and can get Yossi's friend a job at the ministry, he will. And Ahmed? He won't even know about the position, not because Tzachi is a bigot or the ministry is bigoted, but because he's not part of the network.

"In order not to be accused of racism against Arabs, the commentator threw in a bigoted remark about haredim yeshiva students from Geula. It used to be that an unconscious bigot would say, "Some of my best friends are Jews" to show she was not prejudiced. Now all she has to say is, "Some of my worst enemies are Jews" to prove the same thing."

You should be ashamed of yourself.

You began with an unfair blog about supposed Israeli "foundational" racism and have now accused a person who expressed no bigotry but did challenge your false premise, of bigotry.

I suspect that deep inside, you have insecurities that compel you to proclaim moral superiority to others. However, the fact is that it is you who have taken a nation and found some form of collective criticism with which to attack it (again) when the answer to the question "why" does not require an accusation of racism, but instead a simple look at fear and paranoia caused by a century of fighting and the ongoing actions of many members of the Arab-Israeli community.

I reject your claims about Israel and I reject your claims about me.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Jerry Haber said...

And now to the contradiction.

Do you believe that people should be judged on their qualifications for government positions?

You apparently do.

So do you oppose not hiring qualified Palestinians who have passed security clearances, solely on the grounds that some of that group have expressed support for Hizbollah.

You apparently do not.

Do you condemn those who would exclude Israeli Palestinians solely on collectivist grounds?

Here is where things get tricky for you. For you now express understanding for actions and sentiments that you yourself condemn, and not just understanding, but justification.

So my question is -- how forcefully will you fight against the discrimination that you yourself condemn on the one hand, yet (in others) you understand and justify?

My feeling is that you are wavering back and forth between the poles of recoiling at bigotry, on the one hand, and justifying it in the case other Israelis, on the other. And disqualifying somebody on the basis of group membership is bigotry. I don't care how many justifications one gives. Your answers move between these poles.

One final comment. One could claim that we are at war, and in war time, we cannot take risks with groups of citizens, some of whom express support for our enemies, and all of whom belong to the same ethnic group, and who have a history, etc.

If you argue that, then you will have accepted the main thesis of my post, and that will be nice. For enmity towards Zionism -- which has no historical precedent whatever, since the Jews never came to conquer Palestine, and which has nothing to do with anti-Semitism or Muslim religious bias towards Jews (although both of these were enlisted in the fight against Zionist -- please try to follow me, here) -- is perfectly understandable.

And, as I wrote, there cannot be an Israel without arousing this antagonism and hatred.

Jerry Haber said...

Y Ben David,

You have been reading garbage propagandists on Islam -- people who have absolutely no standing as scholars. They are the Israel Shahak's of the Islam crowd.

At least Bernard Lewis, for all his rightwing Zionist biases, has some credentials, except his recent writing.

The attempt to link Arab opposition to Zionism to anti-Semitism is laughable - and only rightwing Zionist historians like Wistrich and fall for this crap. As if the Arabs would have welcomed the Zionists were it not for the Mufti's admiration of Hitler.

Let me explain what I mean.

By anti-Zionism I mean here opposition to a Jewish state in Palestine. Now, one could object to this on Muslim grounds. And one could object to this on anti-Semitic grounds. But the vast majority of Arabs opposed Zionism not on these grounds but on the grounds that the Jews, as foreigners, had no rights to Palestine. I realize that this gets tricky when we talk about religious motives. Certainly religious Jews and religious Muslims give religious arguments for excluding the other from sovereignty over the land. But historically speaking, it was a clash of nationalism more than a clash of religions. And remember the important part played by Christian Arabs in the formation of Palestinian nationalism and identity.

When the Arabs made their case against a Jewish state, their major claim was not that Palestine is waqf, but rather than the natives of Palestine are Arab and should have self-determination, and that the Jews have no rights as a people to Palestine.

So what if Jews were dhimmis? In a medinat halakha, the Muslims are dhimmis. We should be thankful that there was no medinat halakha in the middle ages (much less now).

By saying that Arab anti-Zionism is another form of anti-Semitism, you dehumanize the Arab. Because you say that the reason why he fights the peace-loving Zionism is some irrational religious or ethnic blind hatred, born of his culture.

Whereas the real reason is that the Arab doesn't want his rights to life, liberty and property taken away from him. He resists the Jews, just as the Jew resists him.

Between Arab and Jew there is no difference on this score.

Jerry Haber said...

Y. Ben David,

You should read carefully what I wrote about the haredim and the Arabs. You will see that we are in agreement about that. I was reacting to something specifically that Anonymous wrote.

Jerry Haber said...

Thanks, anonymous, for taking the time to make all those comments. Where others will see self-contradiction in them, I see struggle, and I am glad of that.

You see, I know Jews who say they are bigots and are proud of it. Like Kahane, they say that Judaism is racist, and they are proud of that, too. So what I hear somebody who protests that he is not a bigot, I think that is a good sign. No teshuvah without hakarat ha-het. Agreed?

I never accused Israelis' attitude towards Arabs as racist, but you keep saying that I did. You have yet to respond to any of my arguments about Zionism. You said that the Zionists wanted peace. The Zionists, my friend, wanted territory. Most of them wanted a Jewish state. Had they wanted to live in peace, they could have gone elsewhere. As it is, the only Jews who have not lived in peace since 1945 have been..you guessed it...the ones in the Jewish state.

And my central claim is that the desire to build a Jewish state in Palestine inevitably meant war, because inevitably the local population would protest. The fact that the Zionists did not want war was besides the point.

So the Palestinians hate the Zionists? Of course -- they are, wa'llah , HUMAN -- and humans don't want other people coming in from far away and taking what the consider to be theirs. And they have good reason to consider that.

Surely you understand why people who wanted to protect their territory would fight those who wanted to take it from them.

Jerry Haber said...

And now to the contradictions.

Do you believe that people should be judged on their qualifications for government positions?

You apparently do.

So do you oppose not hiring qualified Palestinians who have passed security clearances, solely on the grounds that some of that group have expressed support for Hizbollah.

You apparently do not.

Do you condemn those who would exclude Israeli Palestinians solely on collectivist grounds?

Here is where things get tricky for you. For you now express understanding for actions and sentiments that you yourself condemn, and not just understanding, but justification.

So my question is -- how forcefully will you fight against the discrimination that you yourself condemn on the one hand, yet (in others) you understand and justify?

My feeling is that you are wavering back and forth between the poles of recoiling at bigotry, on the one hand, and justifying it in the case other Israelis, on the other. And disqualifying somebody on the basis of group membership is bigotry. I don't care how many justifications one gives. Your answers move between these poles.

One final comment. One could claim that we are at war, and in war time, we cannot take risks with groups of citizens, some of whom express support for our enemies, and all of whom belong to the same ethnic group, and who have a history, etc.

If you argue that, then you will have accepted the main thesis of my post. For enmity towards Zionism -- which has no historical precedent whatever, since the Jews never came to conquer Palestine, and which has nothing to do with anti-Semitism or Muslim religious bias towards Jews (although both of these were enlisted in the fight against Zionist -- please try to follow me, here) -- is perfectly understandable.

And, as I wrote, there cannot be an Israel without arousing this antagonism and hatred.

So you feel that the Arabs should still be under the martial law that they were under until the 1960s. Or perhaps you are in favor of expelling them. If not, then why not? After all, you seem to see them as a threat to the state, as a population that has to be managed (kinda like the Jews in nineteenth century Europe.)

By the way, the Zionists before the establishment of the state, did not believe this. The Zionists, at least when they spoke to the world, said a Jewish state would not be to the detriment of the Palestinian Arab majority (Remember, the Zionists contemplated a Jewish State in which the Jews would be a minority.) We now know that this was either wishful thinking or pulling the wool over the eyes of the goyyim. Or maybe they felt tha they could always count on the enmity of the Palestinian Arabs. That is why they refused to let in Arabs who had not opposed a Jewish state at all, or elderly Arabs.

Why didn't the Jewish state allow Arabs back to their homes who would sign a loyalty oath to the state of Israel? Because these are people who simply cannot be trusted?

Finally, some more questions. Do you agree with the government that the the percentage of Arabs in government positions should be 20%. If not, then why not? And if yes, then what would you do to achieve that goal? And who would you fight with ideologically to see that goal achieved?

I should be ashamed of myself? You have no idea how much I am ashamed of myself. I am ashamed at how little I do for the cause of justice. I am ashamed at how little I do for the cause of eliminating poverty. I am ashamed of myself for what my people have done to others, how they have shown themselves no better, and sometimes worse, than their persecutors. Every minute of every day an injustice is committed against every Palestinian in the West Bank -- simply by virtue of the Occupation, not to mention, the ongoing theft. It is not the settlers who are at fault; or not only the settlers. It is all of us.

And we all shall pay one day.

Anonymous said...

MZ writes:
"The Zionists, my friend, wanted territory and many of them wanted land. Most of them wanted a Jewish state. Had they wanted to live in peace, they could have gone elsewhere. As it is, the only Jews who have not lived in peace since 1945 have been..you guessed it...in the Jewish state."

That's nice, but it isn't the Zionists' fault they haven't lived in peace since 1945. They agreed to share the land, even though the sharing would have been to their disadvantage and less than they were promised, as early as 1937. They did again in 1947. In 1950, they offered to take in 100,000 Arab refugees even as they were struggling to absorb Jewish refugees (who, by the way, are entirely missing from your version of history).

You know what else the Zionists did? They purchased land. They paid exorbitant sums - I've seen comparisons with New York City real estate prices at the time that were more expensive in Palestine - for this land in order to acquire it fair, square and legally.

Which negates what you believe was inevitable: war.

Not all Zionists believed war was coming and many believed that by playing by the rules, it could be avoided. It took until the 1930s for Jewish groups to finally develop military capabilities. That indicates many years of hope prior to some Yishuv members giving up some.


"Surely you understand why people who wanted to protect their territory would fight those who wanted to take it from them."

If the Jews were taking "their" territory, I would buy that. The Jews were, however, buying territory and not "taking" it. They were only settling land they owned.

I realize Arab perceptions may have been different, but that's not a justification for war or attacks. Ultimately, the Jews owned about a third of the land owned by the Arabs, but they sought to fight and wage war.

Even if they were right to wage war, the outcome which has led to Israeli fears about the Arabs are no less valid. This "foundational discrimination" makes less sense to you than Arabs wishing to wage war over land they perceive has been stolen from them? If you give one side this sort of credit, give it to the other.

I will add one more comment. Zionism is not and was not a movement premised on taking land away from others. Ottoman Palestine was perceived BY EVERYBODY as a province of the empire, poor, sparsely populated and of little concern to its rulers. Zionism was a movement to establish a home for a nation and the movement decided that this poor province would be the ideal home because it was, literally, Zion.

This was not about war or colonialism. This was perceived as a homecoming by many Zionists. Today, we view things with a prism of a century of war, but you have to take yourself back 100 years and think about people believing whole-heartedly that they were coming back "home" to Zion, to build a new Jewish nation in its ancient homeland.

What sounds hokey now, was not hokey then. And when the attacks began on the Jews by the Arabs, this had already become home to many Jews who were struggling mightily to survive and build something.

Yes, both sides were wrong and both sides were right.

Jerry Haber said...

One more misreading, Anonymous.

I wrote,

"Israel no doubt wanted to live in peace with its Arab neighbors, once it had a state and territory."

You misunderstood my import.

Zionists always wanted peace with the Arabs. But not at the expense of a Jewish state. And that meant that war was inevitable, despite their intentions.

That reminds me of the thief who wants somebody to be his friend, before, during, and after he takes his bike away. After all, the thief reasons, wouldn't it better for the friend if the thief had the bike? The friend really doesn't know how to use it well. And the thief will let the friend ride the improved bike occasionally. In fact, the thief doesn't even think he is a thief.

Try to convince the friend of that.

Jerry Haber said...

Anonymous,

You have just offered a reasonable solution to the conflict. Let the Palestinians buy up more of Michigan. According to you, title to property is a sufficient condition to claim sovereignty.

Or maybe the Israeli should buy up New Jersey. And then claim sovereignty.

Or how is this: let all the illegal immigrants from Mexico, who have settled in Texas, claim Texas for Mexico. After all, think of all the illegal immigrants in Palestine who swelled the ranks of the Jews.

In 1933, the Jews had the same percentage of the total population that the Arabs have in Israel today. Perhaps the Israeli Arabs should claim all the territory of Israel? After all, think of the Palestinian refugees who would be able to swell their ranks through legal and illegal immigration.

(What you called "infiltrators" were Palestinians returning to their homes from which they had been barred. And yes, the Israelis shot at them, and massacred villagers, for which the perpetrators received short prison sentences and pardons.)

Anonymous said...

"And now to the contradictions.

Do you believe that people should be judged on their qualifications for government positions?

You apparently do."

Yes.


"So do you oppose not hiring qualified Palestinians who have passed security clearances, solely on the grounds that some of that group have expressed support for Hizbollah.

You apparently do not."

Right.

"Do you condemn those who would exclude Israeli Palestinians solely on collectivist grounds?

Here is where things get tricky for you. For you now express understanding for actions and sentiments that you yourself condemn, and not just understanding, but justification."

Correct.

"So my question is -- how forcefully will you fight against the discrimination that you yourself condemn on the one hand, yet (in others) you understand and justify?

My feeling is that you are wavering back and forth between the poles of recoiling at bigotry, on the one hand, and justifying it in the case other Israelis, on the other. And disqualifying somebody on the basis of group membership is bigotry. I don't care how many justifications one gives. Your answers move between these poles."

I don't view it as bigotry.

It's a complex situation that isn't easily defined by these modalities. For example, your ideal candidate is an Israeli-Arab college graduate. Most of those have studied at Israeli universities. Anybody who has spend time at Israeli universities, knows that the Arab Israeli population on these campuses tends to be activist and openly and strongly critical of Israel.

Now, if you were in the US, and were hiring for a job at Planned Parenthood and an applicant from a Catholic or evangelical Christian university applied, you would be extremely concerned about hiring them. You're not supposed to discriminate, but here is a person who is morally opposed to abortion coming to work for a group that strongly supports abortion. What do you do? What is the right thing to do? After all, it's not just this prospective employee's rights that should concern you, but your constituents and their rights.

My point is that none of this is black and white.

Anonymous said...

"One final comment. One could claim that we are at war, and in war time, we cannot take risks with groups of citizens, some of whom express support for our enemies, and all of whom belong to the same ethnic group, and who have a history, etc.

If you argue that, then you will have accepted the main thesis of my post. For enmity towards Zionism -- which has no historical precedent whatever, since the Jews never came to conquer Palestine, and which has nothing to do with anti-Semitism or Muslim religious bias towards Jews (although both of these were enlisted in the fight against Zionist -- please try to follow me, here) -- is perfectly understandable."

Enmity against Zionism may be "understandable" but the Zionist government may have difficulty hiring those who are its enemies. Just as you understand the former, you must understand the latter.

I will dispute your separation of the antagonism against Zionism from "enlisting" movements such as Muslim religious bias against Jews in the fight. It's all one big, mixed up, bag of enmity.

"And, as I wrote, there cannot be an Israel without arousing this antagonism and hatred."

Fine.

"So you feel that the Arabs should still be under the martial law that they were under until the 1960s. Or perhaps you are in favor of expelling them. If not, then why not? After all, you seem to see them as a threat to the state, as a population that has to be managed (kinda like the Jews in nineteenth century Europe.)"

No, actually, my solution is to make them do 2-3 years of national service and it must be done outside their communities. If after 20 years of this type of service, we still encounter the difficulties that exist today, then we can discuss what to do.

They feel little commitment to the state and national service will teach them about Israeli Jews and will enable Israeli Jews to learn about them. Hostility will diminish and partnerships will ensue.

Of course, my vision and yours are incompatible. That's because you see injustice by the Jews lurking around every corner. Bigotry, discrimination, desire for war, etc. By promoting these views, these false views, you merely encourage those who would deepen the separation between the Arab and Jewish residents of Israel.

That's right MZ, and please do try to follow me here, by encouraging Israel's enemies you are killing the prospects of finding peaceful solutions. After all, here is an educated Jew telling the world that an injustice was done to the Arabs by Zionists, that fighting against this injustice is perfectly understandable and that Israel as it stands is a country devoid of morality.

Think about it.

Anonymous said...

"By the way, the Zionists before the establishment of the state, did not believe this. The Zionists, at least when they spoke to the world, said a Jewish state would not be to the detriment of the Palestinian Arab majority (Remember, the Zionists contemplated a Jewish State in which the Jews would be a minority.) We now know that this was either wishful thinking or pulling the wool over the eyes of the goyyim."

It was not just wishful thinking. There was a lot more money around because of Jewish emigration and it affected the Arab population as well.


"Or maybe they felt tha they could always count on the enmity of the Palestinian Arabs. That is why they refused to let in Arabs who had not opposed a Jewish state at all, or elderly Arabs."

No, MZ, read the UN notes on these issues and you will see that Israel offered and the Arab states rejected the offers as insufficient. Then, and only then, did Israel change its position and refuse to take in any refugees. At one point, they were willing to take in 100,000 refugees on top of the 125,000 Arabs who had stayed already. Considering that the Jewish population was 600,000, I think you would have a challenging time making the case that the Israelis were trying to "trick" people or play games. Their offers were very generous.


"Why didn't the Jewish state allow Arabs back to their homes who would sign a loyalty oath to the state of Israel? Because these are people who simply cannot be trusted?"

No, because the Arab states refused to allow Israel to only accept a portion of the refugees. This is all documented at the UN.

Anonymous said...

"Finally, some more questions. Do you agree with the government that the the percentage of Arabs in government positions should be 20%. If not, then why not? And if yes, then what would you do to achieve that goal? And who would you fight with ideologically to see that goal achieved?"

That should be the goal. There should be a 15-20 year plan to get there. I would start with national service. Any Arab or Jew who doesn't serve the state with military or national service may not serve in a government ministry. Once they do this, both Arabs and Jews must undergo extensive questioning about their values and ideas regarding the state. If the Arab Israeli or Haredi candidate for a position expresses hostility to the state, they are rejected from working for a ministry. If they lie and are caught in the lie, they face a permanent ban.

Who would I fight over this? You have to fight the entire bureaucratic system. It's not just Arabs who suffer discrimination in Israeli government, it's many well qualified people who are overlooked because people with connections get the jobs.

In a perfect world you would just establish quotas, but in Israel you first have to fight the existing system.


"I should be ashamed of myself?"

Yes.


"You have no idea how much I am ashamed of myself. I am ashamed at how little I do for the cause of justice. I am ashamed at how little I do for the cause of eliminating poverty. I am ashamed of myself for what my people have done to others, how they have shown themselves no better, and sometimes worse, than their persecutors. Every minute of every day an injustice is committed against every Palestinian in the West Bank -- simply by virtue of the Occupation, not to mention, the ongoing theft. It is not the settlers who are at fault; or not only the settlers. It is all of us."

Well then, you should strive with all of your might to get the Palestinians to finally, finally, finally, after all these decades, agree to a compromise that doesn't involve making Israel into an entity that isn't a Jewish state.

I realize you are targeting the Israelis, but you are actually undermining the possibility of peace because you strengthen the Palestinians who seek to avoid coming to terms with Israel. Force them to come to a compromise and you will see how quickly Israeli Jewish society lines up behind the peace deal that follows.


"And we all shall pay one day."

We are already paying.

Jerry Haber said...

you write:

Even if they were right to wage war, the outcome which has led to Israeli fears about the Arabs are no less valid. This "foundational discrimination" makes less sense to you than Arabs wishing to wage war over land they perceive has been stolen from them? If you give one side this sort of credit, give it to the other.

Did I say that it made less sense. On the contrary, I claimed that this foundational discrimination made perfect sense. That it inevitably followed from statist Zionism.

I said, and apparently you agree, that a statist Zionism inevitably meant war, because no normal person would compromise over something that belonged to him. Again, the Arabs saw the Zionist as somebody who has no rights to a house claiming one floor of it. Where the Zionists saw a fair compromise, the Arabs saw theft.

Ribono shel olam., I am not saying here who was right. I am saying that the conflict was inevitable and irrevocable.

Maybe I will conclude this discussion by agreeing with you that the foundational discrimination against Israeli Arabs can be laid at the blame of the Zionists who pressed their claims without the agreement of the Arabs, and the Arabs who pressed their claims without the agreement of the Zionists. In any event, what I wanted you to understand is that this discrimination is inevitable. And I think you agree, though I am not sure.

And that was the point of my post. That Israel cannot be Israel -- a Zionist state -- without foundational discrimination.

Jerry Haber said...

Anonymous

All right, it's my blog, so I get the right to the last word.

On refugees you are dead wrong. In fact, what you says doesn't even make sense. Ben Gurion decided not to take in 100,000 Palestinians because of the attitudes of the Arabs? That's a joke. Refugees had a right to return regardless of the Arab position. Who is using them as bargaining chips? Ben Gurion? Your Mitchell Bardian interpretation of 194 is accepted by nobody except Mitchell Bard and Alan Dershowitz. But I guess that wouldn't bother you.

I also think that Jews who have dubious morality, who have been known to cheat the goyyim, should have a waiting period before they are accepted as full citizens of the state, with equal rights....oops, sorry, I thought I was in the nineteenth century Germany.

All I can say is that I hope you do not live in the United States. Because if you disqualified somebody for work on the basis of his moral convictions, or opinions, you could be sued. You apparently are opposed to some forms of discrimination but not others.

But I really love how you would disqualify Arabs from the diplomatic corps. First, require that they have a college diploma. Then, assume that with a college diploma they are rabid nationalists who oppose the state (hey, there are those, right?) I mean, you really don't need proof that this Arab isn't Azmi Bishara right? After all, how can you trust them. Let them do national service first -- like all the thousands of non-haredi Israelis who do neither national service nor Army service.

Ah, but they aren't Arabs....

Jerry Haber said...

from wikipedia on Lausanne Conference:

The Israelis insisted on discussing solutions to refugee problems only in the context of an overall settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This agreed with the commission's stance that

The interrelation of all the aspects of the problem was too obvious to be overlooked." The Israeli government briefly offered to repatriate 100,000 refugees, but only as part of a final settlement in which all other refugees were absorbed by Arab states. Compensation would be paid, but not to individual refugees or Arab states, only to a "common fund" and only for land that had been under cultivation prior to being abandoned; not for any movable property or uncultivated land. The common fund would be reduced by an amount of compensation to Israel for war reparations.

The Commission found this proposal to be unsatisfactory and declared that:

the Government of Israel is not prepared to implement the part of paragraph 11 of the General Assembly resolution of 11 December 1948 which resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.

I guess Bard and Dershowitz would disagree with the Commission

Tobias said...

"No, because the Arab states refused to allow Israel to only accept a portion of the refugees. This is all documented at the UN."

So if the Israeli government had just offered for every refugee to apply for return as an individual, Arab states would have kept said refugees from doing so by... I dunno? Locking them up? Yeah, riiight.
But I think I know what the basic problem is, as evidenced by the following:

"The point is that the Arab side fought against the Jewish side."

Lemme answer by quoting a comment from the talkback section of Haaretz.com which is right on target:

"A person is a human being. A person is not the same person as his ancestors. Nor is a person the same as some other person who happens to believe that earth was created exactly in the same way that the first person thinks."

Please process this in your mind. And don't disgrace yourself by posting some inane explanation how it's not EVERY Arab and thus it's not bigoted or somesuch nonsense.

Y. Ben-David said...

I knew that when I mentioned Andrew Bostom and Bat Ye'or that this would unleash a barrage of ad hominem attacks on them by you. I have seen this from other "progressives" as well. Now, would you give me at least an example of what they say that you claim is not true?
For example, please refute the following that Bostom has in his book: He has an article pointing out how the jizya dhimmi tax was an onerous burden on most Jews....equal today to several thousand dollars per year per person in a family. And if the Jew could not prove he paid it he was subject to possibly being sold into slavery or even being killed. This article was based on documents found in the Cairo Genizah.

I have a good friend here in Israel who was born in Iraq and was brought as a baby to Israel by his parents in Operation Ezra and Nehemia. His father was a fairly prosperous small business proprietor. He told my friend about the general feeling of insecurity that the Jews had, even if they were part of the more well-off parts of the community. He also told him a story very similar to the one about the Jew who served the King and was then executed in order to placate "the mob". His name was Shafik 'Adas (first letter an ayin). He was wealthy, gave a lot of money to the community and served the king until they had no further use for him. They threatened to kill his whole family unless he confessed to a laundry list of imaginary crimes which he did and he was executed. And this was in the 20th century. Please don't claim that this was an "understandable" reaction in Iraq to the "crimes of the Zionists in Palestine".

Jerry Haber said...

Y Ben David,

So you like Shahak, then?

Jerry Haber said...

All right, seriously.

Discrimination against Jews in Arab lands was prevalent. So what is your point? That because Jews were discriminated and persecuted in Arab lands (and yet very few left before they were kicked out or brought here by the Zionists), that has anything to do with the claims of the Zionists to Palestine? I mean, how does that follow?

Why don't you argue that because the Germans exterminated the Jews, we are able to have a state in Germany?

I already conceded in my post that there was persecution that was unrelated to Zionism. So what? If there were a medinat halakha, we would be persecuting Muslims and Christians, or at least denying them equal rights. As it is, we often deny Muslims access to the Haram al-Sharif, and we have desecrated their mosques and cemetaries.

I grant you that there are Mizrahiyim who are bigoted towards Palestinian Arabs because of their experiences in Arab lands. Again, so what?

Anonymous said...

Discrimination against Jews in Arab lands does indeed strengthen Zionist claims to Israel. In those UN documents to which I keep referring, you can see that by 1951, Israel is claiming that because it has had to absorb 200,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries - the very same ones that are demanding Israel permit all Palestinian refugees to move back into Israel - it has limited resources to also absorb Palestinians.

It also opens the question to one of population exchange. If you look at the UN 1951 report that discusses Lausanne, you will see the committee attempting to bring in parallel situations of population transfers that had taken place so they could serve as guides for the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Y. Ben-David said...

It means that the Arab countries share a responsibility for the rehabilitation of the Jewish people whom they persecuted, just as the Europeans have and that creating a Jewish state is a part of that. This also plays a role in 'the peace process', and how serious the Arabs are in pursuing a true peace.

I have not read much from Shahak, but what I understand is that he cherry-picked quotations from Jewish sources that, on the surface at least, are problematic, but in no way really represent Judaism as it has been practiced or Jewish attitudes. For that reason, I avoid reading quotations from the Qur'an, realizing that might not represent authentic Islam. Boston and Bat Ye'or, on the other hand, give extensively
documented historical facts.

Jerry Haber said...

Anonymous,

The idea that Israel, which was completely responsible for creating the Arab refugee problem, and indirectly responsible for creating the Jewish refugee problem from Arab countries, should be able to deny the Arab refugees the right to return to their homes at the expense of the Jewish refugees -- is sheer chutzpah.

I have discussed this issue before. So let's get some things crystal clear.

1) The responsibility for resettling the Jewish refugees lies solely with the Arab countries that created the problem. Those refugees should be given the choice to be resettled there or elsewhere, with compensation. This was never the responsibility of the Palestinians, and to suggest that they should suffer as a result is morally reprehensible (and, once again, the kind of thinking that lumps all "Arabs" together).

If Israel in the 1950's wanted to take the opportunity to swell the number of Jews by absorbing them (and then treating them as second-class citizens), that is its business. But obviously its first responsibility would be to those who already lived in Palestine and not to newcomers.

The Palestinians were made to suffer twice -- first when they were denied the right to return to their homes, and then when there homes were settled by Jewish immigrants -- (not refugees, by the way, according to the Zionists, because Israel is the home of all Jews, and you are not a refugee when you are coming home.)

So, the Palestinians were shafted by the Israelis and by the Arabs states, just as they were shafted by Jordan and Israel when the two divided Palestine among them, a clear rejection of the partition plan.

Yet, fortunately, there is now some hope for the Palestinian refugees. For the decision of the Israeli courts to restore 1948 Jewish property to Jews in Sheikh Jarrah will be an important precedent for all future Palestinian claims for property in West Jerusalem (don't bother to go there, Y. Ben David) and around the country.

And as for forced population transfers -- fortunately, the idea has now been altogether rejected because of the bad experiences of post world war ii. Nobody (except right wing Zionists) talks about it seriously anymore.

Barukh ha-Shem.

Anonymous said...

Israel is certainly not completely responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem. It might be reasonable to say that it's responsible for part of it, but that's about it as far as being reasonable goes. And yes, I'm going by earlier Benny Morris history when I say this.

As for being indirectly responsible for Jewish refugees from Arab lands, certainly no more than the Arab states that launched their wars or the local Arabs who fought or led the fight against the Yishuv and then the state. The Morooccan and Iraqi pogroms of the early 1940s preceded the formation of the state of Israel.

As for your other comments:


"1) The responsibility for resettling the Jewish refugees lies solely with the Arab countries that created the problem."

Too late. They've resettled in Israel, Montreal, New York, Boston, Toronto, Paris, etc.

"Those refugees should be given the choice to be resettled there or elsewhere, with compensation."

Compensation, yes. Resettled? They've all launched new lives. Also, how many first generation refugees are there? As you know, refugee-ness does not transfer past first generation except at UNRWA.

"This was never the responsibility of the Palestinians, and to suggest that they should suffer as a result is morally reprehensible (and, once again, the kind of thinking that lumps all "Arabs" together)."

That is only a true statement if you can show that local Arabs in 1947 and 1948 did not instigate or participate in the war and the events leading up to the war. If they participated or instigated, they bear some of the responsibility. As one example, consider the critical importance of the Massacre of the 35 near Gush Etzion, who were killed and mutilated by Palestinians.


"If Israel in the 1950's wanted to take the opportunity to swell the number of Jews by absorbing them (and then treating them as second-class citizens), that is its business. But obviously its first responsibility would be to those who already lived in Palestine and not to newcomers."

Why would that be? Those people had waged war against the Jews before and after the state was formed, while many of the Jews in Arab lands found their circumstances challenging and sometimes also dangerous. It seems to me that it would be the height of foolishness to invite those who showed hostility to your presence back to the source of that hostility.

Also, with all due respect to your universalist outlook, the fact remains that the Jews from Arab lands shared far more with the Jews who were in Israel than the Arabs who were there did. A longing for Zion, for example.

As for the second class citizen business, that may have some validity but then again, we've now seen half of Israel's presidents come from those lands and reach the Chief of Staff position.

Anonymous said...

"The Palestinians were made to suffer twice -- first when they were denied the right to return to their homes, and then when there homes were settled by Jewish immigrants -- (not refugees, by the way, according to the Zionists, because Israel is the home of all Jews, and you are not a refugee when you are coming home.)"

Yes, they suffered. They lost a war where they intended to remove or annihilate the Jews.

I know, I know, I'm a bigot because I didn't mention that the children and women didn't fight, but the fact remains that they launched a war, participated in it and lost. The examples of Gush Etzion and Jerusalem show with great clarity what the Arabs' intentions were - it was a war of ethnic cleansing against the Jews.

"So, the Palestinians were shafted by the Israelis and by the Arabs states, just as they were shafted by Jordan and Israel when the two divided Palestine among them, a clear rejection of the partition plan."

Why would anybody return to the Partition Plan after a war was launched over it? Why would anybody return to such a plan aftet losing 1% of their population in that war?

"Yet, fortunately, there is now some hope for the Palestinian refugees. For the decision of the Israeli courts to restore 1948 Jewish property to Jews in Sheikh Jarrah will be an important precedent for all future Palestinian claims for property in West Jerusalem (don't bother to go there, Y. Ben David) and around the country."


Sadly, you are right.


"And as for forced population transfers -- fortunately, the idea has now been altogether rejected because of the bad experiences of post world war ii. Nobody (except right wing Zionists) talks about it seriously anymore."

I didn't realize I was a right wing Zionist. Anyway, I was simply proposing that you look at the 1951 committee report where people far less wise than you or left wing Zionists, who were non-Jewish as well, sought to explore the idea off a population transfer to address the situation.

Jerry Haber said...

Anonymous, please try not to be so long-winded.

If you can't write shorter comments, please find another blog to post your hasbarah. If you continue to write long comments, I will summarize them occasionally if I have time.

I am glad, however, that you admit that Israel intended to commit ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, as evidenced by the a) massacres and atrocities of Palestinians civilians; b) secret discussions of population transfers before the outbreak of hostilities (see the revised edition of Benny Morris's book on Palestinian refugees; and c) a racist law that barred all Arabs, of whatever age, gender, and political pursuasion, return to their lands, WHETHER THEY HAD PARTICIPATED IN THE HOSTILITIES OR NOT, or whether they were willing to live or not. According to you, a young Palestinian going to school in Dayton, Ohio when hostilities broke out, because his parents were on sabbatical, must share the responsibility for the massacre at Gush Etzion. By that thinking, all the Jews in Israel should be barred entry because of the Deir Yassin massacre.

That is my last response to you. I have more important things to do.

But I do have some advice. Read some books. Frankly, your brand of hasbara doesn't reach the level of a Dershowitz or a Bard.

It is more like AZYF, c. 1970.

Peter H said...

Anonymous,

Two points in response to your argument that the Palestinian refugee problems is exclusively their fault for launching a war "a war where they intended to remove or annihilate the Jews." First, many of the Palestinian villages whose residents were expelled and/or forcibly prevented from returning did not partake in fighting against the Yishuv. Second, and more importantly, look at the demographics. Without the removal of much of the Palestinian population, Israel would have had, at best, a tenuous narrow majority ruling over enormous minority population that was hostile to the Zionist project. No dispossession of the refugees, no Jewish state.

Further, it's been well-documented that "transfer" -euphemisim for explusions of Arabs - played a large role in Zionist thinking well-before the war of 1947-48. Read this essay, for instance.

Anonymous said...

Tsk, tsk, why so afraid to publish a comment? It's only words and some ideas. Surely, your superior intellect, not to mention your erudite, sophisticated and assuredly correct views of the conflict, its history and Israel will always prove superior to my subpar, devalued, outmoded and disproven ramblings and "hasbara." Right?

I'd understand if I had been posting something antisemitic or truly offensive, but I've been both civil and on point. The history I point to is indisputable, even if our readings of it differ, and unlike you I actually have a realistic solution to the conflict where two countries sit side by side in peace and neither pretends that they have moral superiority or blamelessness regarding the conflict on their side.

Tobias said...

"That is only a true statement if you can show that local Arabs in 1947 and 1948 did not instigate or participate in the war and the events leading up to the war."

Good thinking. In another example, one would of course have to show that local Jews in ~30AD did not want to kill Jesus and thus Jews almost 2000 years later are not Jesus murderers.

Because of course people are
a) collectively guilty of whatever one accuses them of until they prove their innocence in each and every case and
b) identical to their ancestors.

P.S.: I admire Jerry for having the patience to treat you like a rational person who can be discussed with. I am a lesser man, I'm afraid. I can read only small amounts of obstinate inanity before switching into ridicule mode.

Anonymous said...

Peter, thank you for the read. It was exactly what I expected and I'm afraid much of it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. For example, I went directly to the Ben Gurion section and found numerous passages showing that he had always intended to expel the Arabs. However, those of us who've been around the block with these debates, know these passages and know their context - when the passages are even valid.

Why don't you read your own link's Ben Gurion section and then read this article:

http://books.google.com/books?id=SN2FJRMll8oC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=ben+gurion+transfer+expulsion+karsh&source=bl&ots=B4BNbGfwUn&sig=E1fB6fuweVXjsC_JdAZOs7bg8RE&hl=en&ei=SijrS_HTGYX6sQOVlumuDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

It's by Hourani in Karsh's edited book about the so-called "New Historians." Enjoy the read.

As for your first point about wanting a majority state, you should be aware that even Jabotinsky, godfather of the Likud and groups like Lehi and Stern, advocated a democratic state for Arabs and Jews together. Jews were buying land and moving to Israel in large numbers. The hope was that the Zionist enterprise would eventually bring in sufficient numbers to establish a Jewish majority.

The fact remains that in both 1937 and 1947, Israel accepted a parcel of land much smaller than promised to them in 1922 by the League of Nations and part of these plans involved movement of populations into their respective areas.

You do realize that had the Arab agreed, as did the Jews, that these past 60 years would never have taken place? I think bringing up false stories of a desired expulsion when viewed in that context is about as false as complaining about Israeli "apartheid" and occupation at a time when the Palestinians could have established a state twice in the last 10 years and not had any "apartheid" or occupation concerns left.

Anonymous said...

I have just read this Haaretz article (http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/netanyahu-we-will-never-divide-jerusalem-1.290001). I think in view of our general argument about discrimination in Israel, the following part of the article is important to read:

Netanyahu says:

"We are the generation that had the privilege of seeing Jerusalem united, and we need to impart this privilege onto our children and grandchildren," said the prime minister.

"The connection Israel has to Jerusalem is extremely deep and it surpasses any connection any other country has to a city. The connection stayed strong for thousands of years and now it's stronger than ever."

In response to Netanyahu's words, MK Ahmed Tibi (United Arab List-Ta'al) said that "there is no greater lie than the unity of Jerusalem."

"East Jerusalem is a city under foreign occupation, and peace will not established until the occupation ends and East Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine," he said."



Now you can say whatever you want about whether Netanyahu is being fair or unfair, reasonable or unreasonable, or whatever. But you know that what Tibi is saying IS representative of what many Israeli Arabs believe and certainly what a good portion of their Knesset representatives believe. You also know that this flies in the face of what most Israelis believe.

As long as there is a sense that Israel is surrounded by enemies and Israel's Arabs MAY be siding with those enemies, finding true equality is going to be difficult...and with good reason. In fact, it is statements such as these by the Israeli-Arabs' elected officials that lead to significant distrust between the two groups.

Peter H said...

Anonymous,

Thanks for the link. I'm actually already well-aware of Karsh's debates with the New Historians. If you're interested, you can read Morris' response to Karsh. In my opinion, Morris completely demolishes Karsh, but readers of this blog can decide for themselves.

Also, I recommend chapter 2 of Shlomo Ben-Ami's Book, Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragey, "Bisecting the Land or Zionism's Strategy of Phases."

http://books.google.com/books?id=O-uMJuYdDxwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=scars+of+war+wounds+of+peace&source=bl&ots=eROCJCxxKL&sig=S4zyMjnhkVlAMFP5K6-bKwSSszU&hl=en&ei=GArsS_TSG4TGlQeP8pi0CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Anonymous said...

Tobias, thanks for the ridicule, I feel cleansed.

Have you ever spoken to Israelis who fought or lived at the time in the Yishuv and Israel? I'm talking about 1947-48, not 30 AD. You should. You might learn something, even from the leftists who feel guilty about the Palestinian refugees about what the feeling of being threatened and being on the verge of annihilation is like. Yu will also learn that much of that concern involved the Arabs of Palestine, not just the surrounding armies.

Anonymous said...

Peter, Ben Ami is someone who taught me that no matter how good of a person you are, or how "fair" you wish to be in this struggle over land and history, ultimately the divide is so great and THEIR inability to compromise is so aggressive that it is like a truck running over people who want peace and co-existence.

Hourani addresses Ben Ami's claims. The battle over how to address the Peel Commission's proposal in the Yishuv was important and, like a political campaign, both sides laid out positions they felt would win over the majority (of the leadership anyway). Ben Gurion said things that can be attributed to lobbying to ACCEPT the Commission's proposals, which the Yishuv ultimately did.

That Ben Ami calls transfer a "magic solution" for the Yishuv doesn't inform us of anything we don't know. Today, the idea of transfer would still be considered a "magic solution." For both sides, by the way.

And that's part of the issue here, Peter. I don't just challenge the fact that the Yishuv dreamed of implementing ethnic cleansing or transfer, because I don't believe they did and I don't think the record shows they did. You quote Ben Ami but Shabtai Tevet, the premier historian covering Ben Gurion, rejects the idea that Ben Gurion sought transfer.

In fact, what the RECORD shows about the Yishuv is they bought land at exorbitant prices and on the two occasions where a compromise over land was proposed, in 1937 and 1947, they accepted.

Moreover, Israel kept 120,000 Arabs in its borders and, in 1950, proposed to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees. We also know, for example, stories like Sheikh Munis. In early 1948, the Arabs of Sheikh Munis (the village where Tel Aviv University resides now) sought to flee. There had been Etzel attacks on nearby villages because some attacks on Jews had emanated from them. The situation was made worse by the fact that five shooting incidents (at Jews, of course) from Sheikh Munis had taken place recently. Despite this, Haganah representatives approached the village elders more than once and asked them NOT to leave. To remain. They fled anyway.

Are these the actions of an army or a people who are seeking to evict others? Of course not.

The war changed a great deal of what people believed and wanted, and part of what it changed was any possible confusion about what the ARABS were trying to do. Compare the above to what happened at Gush Etzion and Jerusalem. Compare it to the Jordanian law that prohibits and prohibited Jews from being citizens of Jordan.

Finally, with respect to Morris responding to Karsh, not only has he never convinced me, in part because his attempts at condescension reveal deep insecurities about his position, but he also failed to convince Ilan Pappe who admits that Karsh can be an effective opponent: http://www.ifamericansknew.net/history/ref-pappe.html

"Or does his [Morris's] manipulation of the Ben-Gurion diary’s text, as has been exposed unfortunately by a rival of both of us, Ephraim Karsh (who rejects the ‘new history’ but none the less exposed a serious gap between Morris’ text and the original diary of Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel) of all people..."

Karsh is dismissed by Morris, but these days Morris is edging ever closer to Karsh. Speaking of Karsh, you should read his latest book, Palestine Betrayed. It speaks of the OTHER reasons so many Palestinians left Palestine. You know, the reasons that don't involve ethnic cleansing.

Jerry Haber said...

I don't understand why anybody would object to the claim that Israel wanted -- and wants to -- ethnically cleanse Israel of Palestinians. It does not want or need a total ethnic cleansing; as long as the Palestinians are not more than around 20%, Israel is satisfied.

As Morris showed, the discussion of ethnic cleansing, or population transfer (the two are identical, the latter phrase sounds better) became a real issue in the forties. To this day Israel is an ethnocracy that rejects 20% of its citizens as represented by the nation state.

Whether Palestinians were forced out or left voluntarily was irrelevant. Refugees have a right to return to their homes, and resolution 194 (I am not talking about Israel's twisted reading of it) gave the refugees the choice of going back to Israel, provided that they were willing to live in peace with Israelis.

It is important to realize that the continuing refusal of Israel to let Palestinian refugees to return has absolutely nothing to do with Israel's security and never did; that was only a smokescreen for the rest of the world. Israel never wanted too many Arabs within its borders because it was a Jewish state, and only a token number of Arabs would be allowed in. That is why there is no route for Arabs to be naturalized citizens, why Palestinian Israeli citizens cannot have their spouses naturalized, and why Israel would not accept several hundred thousand refugees, which would pose neither a security nor a demographic threat -- in fact, the won't accept from than 30,000.

Just like the security fence, the goal of this prohibition is to keep the Arab out, and to make it easier to expropriate his lands; we continue to see this in the various petitions to the High Court, and we see this now in the attempt to get deny Palestinians permanent resident status in the West Bank. Since Israelis don't like to see themselves as thieves, they deceive themselves by these little fictions.

Let's not forget that Israel is one of the only countries of the world that has no naturalization procedure besides the fiat of the Minister of the Interior. Israel doesn't want goyyim, and it certainly doesn't want Arabs. Those who stay should know their place.

Jerry Haber said...

Anonymous, once again -- for the third time, I think -- you implied that I had attributed Israeli's refusal to allow Arabs back to "racism", despite the fact that in almost every post I said no. Do you selectively read the way you selectively quote. Or should I require you to do a Bart Simpson and write hundred times, "Haber did not accuse the Israelis of racism"

Perhaps we simply do not understand how each of us is using that term.

When I hear "racism" in English, I think of the view that says that some people are inferior, or have certain negative character traits, by virtue of their race, or if you like, their genetic makeup.

Now I denied and deny that Israelis' attitudes towards Arabs vis-a-vis the law of return follow from their notions of Arab inferiority, which all my Israeli friends have, but which is not relevant here.

Instead I prefer to talk about ethnic bias towards Arabs because the history of the conflict. And this is bad enough.

Now you share this ethnic bias. You don't believe that Arabs can be trusted to be allowed to return to their land because of their history. For the same reason you won't allow Americans to live in America (because of slavery), or Germans to live in Germany (because of the holocaust.) In fact, I understand that you wanted to expel all Germans from Germany who had any time expressed any support of the Nazi regime.

Israel's status as a sovereign nation does not allow it to pursue blanket ethnic discrimination in immigration. The fact that other countries do is immaterial; there are lots of human rights violators out there.

But we are not talking about immigrants; we are talking about returning residents of Palestine. The fact that you did not even recognize the distinction speaks volumes.

According to your logic, Jordan was perfectly justified in not allowing Jews to live in Jerusalem after 1948, and Saudi Arabia is perfectly justified in not allowing Jews to live there now.

By the way, I heard Meir Kahane once make the same argument. He said Germany was perfectly justified in expelling Jews who had lived there for centuries. As a state, it had the sovereign right to decide who was dangerous in its eyes.

Your comments are welcome as long as they are shorter and do not attribute to me ideas that I explicitly deny.

And trust me, I have many right wing readers who are intelligent and perspicacious enough not to just mouth the hasbara. I don't want to get him angry at me for complimenting him, but Y. Ben David is one of them.

Anonymous said...

I have little respect for a person who attacks in the manner you do and then only publishes those comments by his victims that he feels pass muster. How many have you declined to publish from me just in this discussion, 2, 3, 4?

Are you afraid that somehow your readers will become confused?

It's interesting to me that this censorship happens on many of the "progressive" blogs. You do it, Richard Silverstein does it and Muzzlewatch couldn't do it so they closed their comments section. How "progressive!"

The fact you consider me "right wing" is a sad joke. I haven't voiced any opinion that would peg me on that side of the aisle. The constant harping on my supposed bigotry and now making a comparison between me and Kahane is a sadder joke, but in the days that I've been here I've come to understand this is how you operate.

You are wrong about many things. Unfortunately, your actions and the actions of people like you feed the haters of compromise and peace, not to mention that they also feed into what is becoming a serious problem of antisemitism in Europe and coming soon to the US (it's already gotten some serious legs in Canada). No, it's not Israel or its actions that are doing it, it's the unbelievable interpretations of its actions by people like you that cause the problem because you tend to ascribe the basest, lowest motives and because your being Jewish provides "cover" for others also ascribing the basest, lowest motives to Israel and its supporters.

I find it endlessly interesting that not only can't I talk to the extreme right wingers about this conflict, but that it's even harder to talk to the extreme leftists about it. Although, to be fair to the right, they don't censor me or compare me to lunatics.

Have a peaceful sabbath.