Thursday, November 25, 2010

Ameinu Banishes JVP From the Jewish Communal Table

Does Jewish Voice for Peace have a place at the Jewish communal table? I expect the answer to be "no" from people on the right wing of the Jewish communal spectrum; after all, some of them barely tolerate J-Street. But as an old-fashioned liberal, I am still naïve enough to believe that people who call themselves "liberal" or "progressive" will answer "yes". After all, JVP does not call for emptying Palestine of Jews, or driving them into the sea. It doesn't call for the violent destruction of the Zionist regime, or sending Jews back to their country of origin. Here is a paragraph from its mission statement:

JVP opposes anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry and oppression.  JVP seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem; security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians; a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on principles established in international law; an end to violence against civilians; and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East

If anybody in J Street or Ameinu doesn't subscribe to the above, then they should turn in their membership cards. Where JVP differs from those organizations, aside from their tactics, is that it does not mandate any one particular political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, i.e., how the self-determination of Israelis and Palestinians should be fulfilled, the way that liberal Zionist organizations do. Its concern is primarily for the welfare and self-determination of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, Jews and Arabs, and not for any particular political structures. That is a broad enough tent to include many Jews and Palestinians, Zionist, not-Zionist, and anti-Zionist. This is not to say that all members of JVP are agnostic or don't have definite views on the subject. But, as I understand their mission statement, JVP doesn't take a stand as an organization on the question of three states, two-states, one-state, federation, etc. JVP recognizes that there have always been differences of opinions on these questions, within and without the respective communities.

Enter Kenneth Bob, president of Ameinu, which claims to represent "liberal" and "progressive" values. Bob banishes JVP from the Jewish communal table for its willingness to include people who are agnostic on the ultimate political solution to the century-old conflict between Jew and Arab:

That is what separates progressive Zionists from JVP. We cannot be "agnostic" about the most central issue in the conflict, the importance of a solution that includes two states for two peoples, Israel and Palestine. It is ludicrous to suggest that one can be involved in the Jewish communal discourse about the future of the Middle East without having an opinion on whether Israel should exist.

"Ludicrous?" Not "mistaken" or "misguided' but "ludicrous? Is it ludicrous for Ameinu to sit around the Jewish communal table with Zionist organizations that are not agnostic about denying the Palestinians their claims to self-determination in their homeland? No doubt Bob would claim that this denial separates Ameinu from the Zionist Organization of America – but will he call for its banishment from the Jewish communal table?

For the president of an organization that calls itself "liberal" it is not enough for JVP to state explicitly in its mission statement that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs have a right to self-determination. Apparently, a Jewish organization must explicitly pledge allegiance to the particular form of Jewish self-determination adopted by the state founded in 1948 as a result of the expulsion of a majority of Palestinian's Arab inhabitants. Only that will satisfy an organization that calls itself "liberal" and "progressive". Bob elevates the steadfast commitment to the existence of State of Israel to the status of a Jewish article of faith. Maimonides famously held that Jews had to believe in the existence of God to be considered part of the Jewish community. Now belief in God has been replaced by belief in a particular political regime.

Should JVP have a place at the Jewish communal table? Let there be a litmus test for Jewish organizations, but let it be their commitment to the survival and thriving of Jewish people everywhere. Require that an organization observe rules of civility and decorum at meetings like the GA, and leave it up to JVP to decide whether a place at the Jewish communal table is worth moderating its tactics.

But is there anything more pathetic than a liberal Zionist group, often badgered by the right, attempting to exclude groups on its left like JVP? Whether it does so out of genuine conviction, or out of a desire to legitimize itself at the expense of delegitimizing others, it is a disgraceful move.

Or so thinks this old-fashioned liberal.

 

Thursday, November 18, 2010

FAQ on Zionism and Racism

(Occasioned by Jerome Slater's article, the comments (mostly critical) of Slater on Mondoweiss, and Ahmed Moor's criticism.)

Is Zionism inherently racist?

No. Zionism was never based on theories of racial or even cultural superiority. Zionism, was and is a movement to achieve Jewish self-determination (there are other elements as well). For most Zionists, the place for that self-determination was and is the Land of Israel.

Is there racist Zionism?

Sure, there are certainly racist versions of Zionism, if we broaden "racism" to include theories of religious-racial superiority.

Have there been racist Zionists?

Sure, but not by virtue of their Zionism. Even the attempts of certain religious Zionists to posit a metaphysical distinction between Jew and Gentile, or who suggest that the Ishmaelites have inherited their ancestor's hatred of Isaac, etc., can not be laid at the feet of their Zionism, but rather their understanding of Judaism. And, of course, there are racists everywhere. Even cultural Zionists like Magnes expressed feelings of cultural superiority towards local Arabs in his private correspondence. But that did not figure into his Zionism. He simply was an American who had spent time in Germany, and who had the cultural snobbery that infects many people. In America, German Jews didn't let Russian Jews become members of their country clubs because they viewed the latter as uncouth and vulgar. A person can be a bigot and a Zionist, but that doesn't make Zionism bigotry.

Is Zionism inherently discriminatory?

Not all forms of Zionism are, but the sort of exclusivist-ethnic-statist Zionism that emerged in Palestine was and is inherently discriminatory – even if Zionists wish to believe that it is not. They could never give convincing arguments for the distinction between favoring Jews (good) and discriminating against Arabs (bad) on the level of the state. You really can't have one without the other.

Was Zionism essentially a colonialist movement?

There are essential colonialist elements within classical Zionism, both in practice (settlements) and in mentality (feelings of cultural superiority over the natives.) But it differs from colonialism in that it is a settler nationalism that sees its task as reclaiming its ancient land.

Was Zionism essentially anti-Arab?

Zionism essentially ignored the Arabs, at least until the Arabs made it impossible not to. Zionism was not initially directed against the Palestinian Arabs; they were the "collateral damage" of the Zionist project, especially the statist Zionist project. But with time, and with the predictable and justifiable Arab resistance, anti-Arabism entered Zionism.

But didn't a Jewish state require ethnic cleansing?

That depended on the sort of Jewish state. The state that Ben Gurion envisioned would have had great difficulties without ridding itself of the Palestinian population, which it defined as hostile. It did not have enough land for the socialist pioneers, and it did not have room for the anticipated waves of immigration. Nor was anybody interested in 1948 with power-sharing. Before 1948 the Zionists told the world that a Jewish state could arise with a sizeable Arab population. The state that the Jewish Agency accepted was 40% Arab. But upon independence the State of Israel passed a law that effectively barred the return of Palestinians to their homes, and there has been an effort to keep the total number of Arabs to no more than 20%. To justify this morally, the Zionists have engaged in self-deception; they claim that the Arabs left voluntarily and had abandoned property claims and that they could not return because they were a hostile element. The Zionists didn't want to accept responsibility for the ethnic cleansing, but they were happy for it. That is true of the vast majority of Israelis, today.

Then why do people call Zionism "racism"?

Either because they use the term loosely, or they don't understand Zionism, or because racism is very bad, and if you want to delegitimize something, you throw the word "racism" at it. Thinking people, on the other hand, can realize that "Zionism" and "racism" and "colonialism" are complicated terms, and that terminological sobriety is a virtue. Something can be very, very bad without being racist or apartheid. If I say that Israeli society discriminates against Palestinian Israelis, the discrimination need not be based on racism in the technical sense. Part of it is racist; part of it is not. All of it is very, very bad.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

J Street U Protests Protests the Hebron Fund’s Annual Dinner

For three years in a row, guests at the New York based Hebron Fund's Annual Dinner, which raises money for the Jewish settlement in Hebron, have had to walk by protesters led by Adalah-NYC. That protest was endorsed this year by:  The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, Al-Awda NY, American Jews for a Just Peace, Brooklyn For Peace, Code Pink, Columbia University Students for Justice in Palestine, Delaware Valley Veterans for Peace, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews Say No!, Middle East Crisis Response, Siege Busters working group, War Resisters League, WESPAC, Women in Black – Union Square, Women of a Certain Age, Woodstock Veterans for Peace.

In other words, the usual suspects, God bless them.

But this year a separate protest was organized by J-Street U, the student wing of the progressive Zionist organization. They came with Israeli flags and sang Hatikvah. As far as I know, this is one of the first times that J Street U has demonstrated alongside – yet retaining its separate identity and message – a protest organized by the Palestinian groups and leftwing Jewish and Christian groups.

This, dear readers, is something new in the US and shows the impact of Israeli activism on progressive Zionist young men and women. American Jews go to Israel and see the joint struggle against the Occupation. They hear the young Israelis of the New Israeli Left chanters slogans like "From Bilin to Sheikh Jarrah, Palestine will be Liberated". They witness the obscenity of the Separation Fence, the destruction of Hebron's main commercial district for the sake of gun-toting Ku Klux Klanners wearing yarmulkes and tikhels instead of white sheets. They go to Sheikh Jarrah – I have seen them there – and then they return to campuses. Pro-Peace, Pro-Justice, Pro-Israel.

I don't know what the Adalah-NYC or the Hebron Fund crowds made of the New Kids on the Block. But this won't be the last time, I hope, that they join the protest against the bad guys.

And – wouldn't you know it -- on the day after the J Street U protest, the news comes down from Boston that a Reform Temple in Newton cancelled an event with Jeremy Ben Ami, the director of J Street. According to Rabbi Keith Stern:

The understanding was that it was going to be what I considered to be an honest and open conversation with a liberal Jewish organization, but I clearly did not understand how deep the antipathy is among a group within the Jewish community toward J Street and toward Jeremy Ben-Ami,' he said.

Translated into terms that an historian can understand – Israel is beginning to tear apart the American Jewish Community, and it will happen shul by (non-orthodox) shul. If you marginalize J Street – liberal Zionists, ribono shel ha-olam – you are going to marginalize the even more progressive Zionists of the next generation. And as the Occupation drags on, more young Jews will see J Street U (and to its left) the proper place for them.

The AIPAC crowd doesn't get this. They see a future in which Jews who care about Judaism will be overwhelmingly pro-Israel – and the others who don't will just melt away in the American pot. They may lament the statistics, but secretly they have to be happy about the prospects of liberal Jews not caring about Israel's misdeeds. But here they are mistaken. The first rumbles of the earthquake are already out there. I suggest that the Federations, hurting from shrinking donations, should adopt the slogan, "We Aren't One Anymore"

As for J Street – they have had a consistent message from Day One. It so happens that I don't agree with much of that message, and they don't agree with mine. That's fine. But they have established their presence and their credentials, and they certainly should have a place at the pro-Israel table.

Prof. Jonathan Sarna tried to explain the cancellation as follows:

I actually think, in this case, it's all about the community's question, which is totally legitimate from my perspective as an observer, of 'What is J Street?' Is it simply a progressive organization that supports a different policy for the state of Israel, or is it a Trojan horse for anti-Israel activists?

That question is legitimate only if there is evidence that J Street harbors anti-Israel activists. If protesting racists and bigots supported by the Hebron Fund is considered "anti-Israel" then J Street U is guilty as charged. But if you can't find within the leadership of J Street "anti-Israel activists" – people who are trying to destroy the Jewish state – then the "legitimate question" seems more like an McCarthyesque insinuation.

Or should I have said "Glenn Beckesque"

Thursday, November 11, 2010

“Would Muslims Give Up Control of Mecca?”

That's the question that Jeffrey Goldberg asks in a blogpost. He writes:

…What does "Jerusalem" mean as a practical matter? Does it mean neighborhoods far from the Temple Mount that have been Arab for hundreds of years? Does it mean neighborhoods far from the Temple Mount that no Jew visits? I don't believe Israel should give up control of its holiest sites -- would Muslims give up control of Mecca? -- But the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem aren't holy, at least in my understanding of the notion.

Before I disagree with Goldberg, let me state where I obviously agree: Israel should not be building in many neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

Indeed, the proper response to Bibi's "Jerusalem is not a 'settlement'" line is "Settlements are not 'Jerusalem'." The municipal borders of present day Jerusalem do not constitute Jerusalem – certainly not the historical Jerusalem to which Jews faced when praying, nor the Jerusalem that was supposed to be internationalized according to the Partition Plan, nor the Jerusalem of the cease-fire lines of 1949. Herein lies the biggest deceit that Israel has perpetrated in Jerusalem: It has expanded Jerusalem to maximize territory and neighborhoods over the Green Line (Ramot, Giloh, French Hill, Ramat Eshkol, Givat ha-Mivtar, Har Homah, etc.), encouraged tens of thousands to settle in these neighborhoods, and has then called those neighborhoods "Jerusalem, the Rock of our Existence." If it were up to the city, Jerusalem's borders would extend to the wealthy Mevasseret Ziyyon suburb in the west, so that its yuppy denizens would subsidize the haredi male population between 20 and 45 who don't pay municipal taxes. (Full disclosure: I am writing this from a Jerusalem neighborhood from which the Arabs were ethnically cleansed in 1948)

So here are problems with how Goldberg frames the question, "Would Muslims Give Up Control of Mecca?"

First, nobody has asked "Jews" to cede control of their holy sites – if by "control" one means Jewish administration. The issue is not administration but sovereignty. The Jews shouldn't have to give up control; but both sides may have to give up claims for sovereignty.

Second, the Jewish holy sites in Israel are almost all Muslim holy sites. You will answer, "Ah, but the Jews considered them holy first." Yet there is no evidence for that at all, at least for most of the sites. The idea that the Land of Israel has permanent "holy sites" is unheard of in the Bible and the Talmud, except, of course for the Temple. It becomes prominent, if I am not mistaken, in the Byzantine period by Christians, and then later, by Muslims and Jews (I am referring to sites like Rachel's Tomb, the Cave of the Machpelah, King David's Tomb, etc.) Now, I personally don't care who was there first; both religions see these sites as important for them, and so arrangements should be made that they be shared. And if that cannot be done except through partitioning the site (such as in the Machpelah Cave in Hebron, or the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem), so be it.

Third, as for the Temple Mount, may I remind my better-known blogger that this is also a holy site for Muslims – the Noble Sanctuary. And since it is of no interest to me who came first when it comes to holy sites, or their relevant importance, something creative will have to be worked out there – e.g., Jewish administration over the Western Wall area; Muslim administration over the Noble Sanctuary. That involves a concession on both sides, and both sides have to figure out how to make it work, with the help of their friends.

Fourth, none of this has anything to do with sovereignty. Judging from the abysmal record of both sides, the Jewish and the Arab, when in control of the others' holy sites, places of worship, and cemeteries, the best solution would be to give sovereignty to neither. If they can work out joint sovereignty, fine. But the Western Wall is a part of the Noble Mount, and hence is also a Muslim holy site.

Hat tip to Ali Gharib, who reads the Atlantic.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Young Jew, With Whom Do You Stand?

Young Jews Disrupt Netanyahu at Jewish General Assembly from stefanie fox on Vimeo.

For the first time ever, American and Israeli Jews interrupted the Prime Minister of Israel's Address to the General Assembly of the North American Jewish Federations with a simple message: The actions of the Israeli government are delegitimizing the State of Israel.

I urge you to look at the video here, even if you, like I, don't like shouting down a speaker. Not only did it take courage to do what those young people did (especially the ones at the end, when the crowd turned ugly) but their message was not particularly radical or off-the-wall. In fact, what they said is what many Israelis say, and what the pro-Israel and pro-peace lobby J-Street also says. Some will disagree with their tactics, but the sad truth is that for too long Jews have said, privately, that they disagree with the Occupation – and then have turned the page and gone on with their support. These young folks are shaking up those who need to be shaken up.

And that had to make a lot of reps to the GA uneasy. I understand the need for many American Jews to listen respectfully to the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, and to pledge support for the state against its enemies. But when American Jewish liberals, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic, hear statements shouted by protesters –statements with which they agree – then that confuses and saddens the hell out of many of them.

And when they see the viciousness of some of the other delegates, the hatred and violence in the eyes – listen to the crowd's reaction as it gets progressively nastier – it just makes things harder for them.

Kudos for JVP for facilitating this. I hope the "GA 5" visit some college campuses soon to spread the message; I know that JVP is setting up "chapters" at a college near you.

 

 

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Israel’s “Arab Problem,” Part Three – The Israeli Nation-State

As a rejoinder to Shalem Center's Rabbi Daniel Gordis, who hails from the United States, I publish here a translation of a recent Haaretz opinion piece by Hebrew University's Dr. Dimitry Shumsky, who hails from Russia. So much for national generalizations: Gordis' writing reads like the work of a nineteenth century ethnic nationalist, whereas Shumsky is a liberal nationalist of the twenty-first century. Shumsky is the author of an important book, Between Prague to Jerusalem: Prague Zionism and the Idea of a Binational State. in which he argues that binationalist Zionism has its roots in the political experience of young Prague Zionists as Czecho-German Jews, i.e., Jews who embraced both cultures. These Jews included Hugo Bergmann, Hans Kohen, Robert Weltsch and Max Brod, who later became identified with the "radical" faction of Brit Shalom in Jerusalem. The book is currently in Hebrew; I hope it will appear in English.

The Israeli Nation State

Dimitry Shumsky

In 1917 David ben Gurion published an article entitled, "On Determining the Origins of the Falahin," in which he formulated, systematically, the claim that was commonly accepted by the members of the Second Aliyah – that the rural Arabs of the Land of Israel were the descendants of the ancient Jews who had converted during periods of persecution. This idea, which in hindsight appears rather naïve, did not arouse much enthusiasm among the Arabs of Palestine of the Jews of the Land of Israel, each of whom clung to their national-religious identities, which over the years increasingly became polar opposites.

Still, underlying Ben-Gurion's line of thought was a deep political insight that was not bereft of an element of healthy political realism. This insight was the recognition that the future state would have to formulate a national-civic myth that would be shared by Jews returning to their homeland, and by Arabs dwelling in their homeland.

In spite of the continuing bloody conflict between Jews and Palestinians, there has developed over the years the beginnings of civil-territorial consciousness that is shared by most of the Jewish citizens and some of the Arab citizens – an Israeli identity. Yet in recent years, anybody who suggests taking the name of Israel, which is familiar in the international community, seriously, and to recognize Israel as the Israeli nation state is called a "post- Zionist" or an "anti-Zionist," who seemingly wishes to undermine the principle of self-determination for the Jewish nation.

But it would be an illusion to think that the conception of an Israeli identity excludes the notion of Jewish nationalism. On the contrary, the term "Israeli" contains within it the religious, cultural, and national "baggage" of the Jewish past. Most of the Jewish citizens of the State of Israel see themselves, through voluntary and conscious choice, as Israelis.

At the same time, the abstract concept "Israeli" signifies not merely the Jewish religio-ethnic dimension, but also the status of citizenship that is common to all Israeli citizens. As a result, even among the young Arab population in Israel, at an age where one would expect them to be most influenced by radical trends, it turns out that half of them see themselves as Israelis [and not as Palestinians – JH], according to a poll conducted by the Maagar Mohot Research Institute.

A new self-definition of Israel as the state of the Israeli nation would not undermine the collective right of its Jewish citizens to define themselves as members of the Jewish nation. On the contrary, the former definition would reinforce the latter definition within a broader civil framework, in which Jews would share citizenship in common with Arabs. In this old-new framework, not a single one of the essential components of Jewish national sovereignty would lose its validity, neither the freedom of the Jewish nation to foster its values of cultural, ethnic, and religious inheritance, or his right to provide the members of his Jewish national diaspora with citizenship. Nevertheless, such a definition would put an end once and for all to the anomalous, humiliating, and perverted situation where citizens of the State of Israel, whose ancestors dwelt in the country for generation before the founding of the state, are prevented from joining the sovereign nation of the state – unless they convert to the religion of the founders of the state, who recently returned to their homeland.

Theodor Herzl in "Altneuland" believed that the civic foundations shared by Jews and Muslims in the "Old New Land" could be formed on the basis of the monotheism held in common by both sides. Ben-Gurion saw this basis in the idea of the common ethnic origins of the returnees to Zion and its inhabitants. The experience of Israeli citizenship, common to both Jews and Arabs, has fostered, despite its inherently unequal character, the concrete possibility to establish this foundation within the idea of an old-new Israel nation, which is able to contain within it all the memories, values, and national symbols of the Jewish majority as well as those of the Arab minority, in all its complexity.

The realization of this possibility will signify therefore the completion of the civic vision of statist Zionist and the only way to establish

 

 

 

Israel “Arab Problem,” Part Three – The Israeli Nation-State

As a rejoinder to Shalem Center's Rabbi Daniel Gordis, who hails from the United States, I publish here a partial translation of a recent Haaretz opinion piece by Hebrew University's Prof. Dimitry Shumsky, who hails from Russia. So much for national generalizations: Gordis' writing reads like the work of a nineteenth century ethnic nationalist, whereas Shumsky is a liberal nationalist of the twenty-first century. Shumsky is the author of an important book, From Bilingualism to Binationalism: Czecho-German Jewry, the Prague Zionists, and the Origins of the Binational Idea in Zionism, 1900-1930, in which he argues that binationalist Zionism has its roots in the political experience of young Prague Zionists as Czech-German Jews, i.e., Jews who embraced both cultures and neither to the exclusion of the other. These Jews included Hugo Bergmann, Hans Kohen, Robert Weltsch and Max Brod, who later became identified with the "radical" faction of Brit Shalom in Jerusalem. The book is currently in Hebrew; I hope it is being translated.

Shumsky's thesis articulated below needs to be fleshed out in details. But it is more than a step in the right direction.

The Israeli Nation State

Dimitry Shumsky

In 1915 David ben Gurion published an article entitled, "On Determining the Origins of the Falahin," in which he formulated, systematically, the claim that was commonly accepted by the members of the Second Aliyah – that the rural Arabs of the Land of Israel were the descendants of the ancient Jews who had converted during periods of persecution. This idea, which in hindsight appears rather naïve, did not arouse much enthusiasm among the Arabs of Palestine of the Jews of the Land of Israel, each of whom clung to their national-religious identities, which over the years increasingly became polar opposites.

Still, underlying Ben-Gurion's line of thought was a deep political insight that was not bereft of an element of healthy political realism. This insight was the recognition that the future state would have to formulate a national-civic myth that would be shared by Jews returning to their homeland, and by Arabs dwelling in their homeland.

In spite of the continuing bloody conflict between Jews and Palestinians, there has developed over the years the beginnings of civil-territorial consciousness that is shared by most of the Jewish citizens and some of the Arab citizens – an Israeli identity. Yet in recent years, anybody who suggests taking the name of Israeli, which is familiar in the international community, seriously, and to recognize Israel as the Israeli nation state is called a "post- Zionist" or an "anti-Zionist," who seemingly wishes to undermine the principle of self-determination for the Jewish nation.

But it would be an illusion to think that the conception of an Israeli identity excludes the notion of Jewish nationalism. On the contrary, the term "Israeli" contains within it the religious, cultural, and national "baggage" of the Jewish past. Most of the Jewish citizens of the State of Israel see themselves, through voluntary and conscious choice, as Israelis.

At the same time, the abstract concept "Israeli" signifies not merely the Jewish religio-ethnic dimension, but also the status of citizenship that is common to all Israeli citizens. As a result, even among the young Arab population in Israel, at an age where one would expect them to be most influenced by radical trends, it turns out that half of them see themselves as Israelis [and not as Palestinians – JH], according to a pole conducted by the Maagar Mohot Research Institute.

A new self-definition of Israel as the state of the Israeli nation would not undermine the collective right of its Jewish citizens to define themselves as members of the Jewish nation. On the contrary, the former definition would reinforce the latter definition within a broader civil framework, in which Jews would share citizenship in common with Arabs. In this old-new framework, not a single one of the essential components of Jewish national sovereignty would lose its validity, neither the freedom of the Jewish nation to foster its values of cultural, ethnic, and religious inheritance, nor his right to provide the members of his Jewish national diaspora with citizenship. Nevertheless, such a definition would put an end once and for all to the anomalous, humiliating, and perverted situation where citizens of the State of Israel, whose ancestors dwelt in the country for generation before the founding of the state, are prevented from joining the sovereign nation of the state – unless they convert to the religion of the founders of the state, who recently returned to their homeland.

Theodor Herzl in "Altneuland" believed that the civic foundations shared by Jews and Muslims in the "Old New Land" could be formed on the basis of the monotheism held in common by both sides. Ben-Gurion saw this basis in the idea of the common ethnic origins of the returnees to Zion and its inhabitants. The experience of Israeli citizenship, common to both Jews and Arabs, has fostered, despite its inherently unequal character, the concrete possibility to establish this foundation within the idea of an old-new Israel nation, which is able to contain within it all the memories, values, and national symbols of the Jewish majority as well as those of the Arab minority, in all its complexity.

The realization of this possibility will signify therefore the completion of the civic vision of statist Zionist and the sole way to establish a "Jewish and Democratic" state, not merely as an empty slogan, but as vital reality.

 

 

 

Two for the Road

Some of the best op-eds in Haaretz are left untranslated – don't ask me why. Today Haaretz's print edition had two. The first, by Prof. Yehuda Kahana and Yoel Hecht, let the real demographic demon out of the bottle: No, it's not the ratio of Arabs to Jews; it's the ration of both of them to territory. By 2050 population projections forecast 18-20 million people between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. That will place an enormous burden on infrastructure, resources, and – unmentioned by the authors – the quality of life for Jews and Arab. Even if there is a slowing of the birth rate, the number will be high. Heck, it's overcrowded here now, as anybody living in Israel can attest. The authors go on to note that the percentage of laborers in the workforce is going to shrink, unless efforts are made to boost employment among Haredi men, and Israeli Arab women. They do not recommend taking steps to try to lower the birthrate, thought I don't know why. Who knows, maybe if it gets that bad, even more Israelis will leave.

The second, by Haim Baram, one of the most perceptive columnists in Israel, takes issue with the claim that the Labour Party is now, or ever was, leftwing. It has always belonged to what he calls, memorably, the "chauvinistic center". He points out that the Labour Party was in governments that initiated most of Israel's wars; during its tenure, the three most serious incidents against Israel's Arab citizens occurred: the Kfar Kassem massacre in 1956, the violent suppression of protests on Land Day in 1976, and the murder of 13 Arab citizens in October 2000. The destruction of the Histadrut Labour Union, the close cooperation with apartheid South Africa and French colonialism in Algeria, the adoption of the settlement project in the Occupied Territories, the building of the nuclear reactor in Dimona, not to mention Shimon Peres' support of Margaret Thatcher and Yitzhak Rabin's support of Richard Nixon – all these "achievements" of Labour governments can hardly be squared with leftwing social democracy. At best, some of the left-leaning members of Labour like Yossi Beilin, can be considered liberals, but not leftists.

Baram is mainly correct, although had he more space, he would have done well to distinguish between the Labour Party before the 1990s, when it was a tad more socialist (especially for ashkenazi Jews), and the Labor Party from the 1990s onward, when it abandoned socialism for neoliberalism, privatization, and American-style capitalism. I suppose the same sort of people who consider Obama to be a "socialist" would consider some of the Labour party leaders to be socialist. In point of fact, there is a Left in Israel – it consists of Hadash and some elements of Meretz. There is no extreme left in Israel, and hasn't been for some time. Those who talk about the "extreme left" are akin to those people, who, according to Maimonides, taste the bitter as sweet and the sweet as bitter. The judgment that the Association for Civil Rights in Israel is an "extreme left organization" can only be made by somebody like West Bank settler, Israel Harel, himself an extreme rightist – who, naturally, is considered by most Israelis to be a moderate.

 

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Israel’s “Arab Problem” – Part Two

Readers: This is a long post, so here it is in a nutshell: I argue that in his recent book, Rabbi Dr. Daniel Gordis, Senior Vice President at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, implicitly endorses the involuntary expulsion of Israeli Arab citizens in the future as a way to solving what he calls "Israel's conundrum", i.e., what to do about its Arab citizens. I try to understand what leads Dr. Gordis, a well-known rabbi and author with whom I agree on many things, to this conclusion. I note that discussion of the "transfer" option, which once was considered taboo by Jews, has now gone mainstream. Dr. Gordis's favorable discussion of "transfer" is in a book that won the 2009 National Jewish Book Award in the category of "Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice."

In his book, Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win A War That May Never End, Rabbi Dr. Daniel Gordis does not explicitly endorse "transfer" – the euphemism for the involuntary expulsion of Israeli Arab citizens – to resolve what he calls "Israel's conundrum," its "Arab problem". But the tenor of his discussion clearly implies that he sees such expulsion as a very live, if painful, option – perhaps the only real option available.

Rabbi Gordis admits at the outset of that discussion that the "mere suggestion of 'transfer'" immediately evokes the thought of Meir Kahane and Avigdor Lieberman, and that "on the surface there are almost innumerable reasons to denounce transfer as immoral or unfeasible." (All bolded emphasis is mine, not his) But instead of providing a single reason to consider transfer immoral, he talks briefly about its unfeasibility, especially with respect to the difficulties that Israel would face in the international arena. "Forced population transfers are now considered an international crime by many authorities." But the picture is not "nearly as one-sided as it is often portrayed." Forced expulsion, though traumatic, "need not condemn you to poverty". Moreover, "there are many cases of population transfer that have been conducted bloodlessly, and that have contributed to the creation of peace between formerly warring neighbors," e. g. the transfer of population in Cyprus after the Turkish invasion of 1974. Moreover, what of the transfer of the Jews from Gaza and the contemplated transfer of the Jews from the West Bank? After all, "the Peel Commission thought that transfer of Jews and Arabs was the only workable solution. If one can contemplate the involuntary transfer of Jews, why is it illegitimate to discuss the involuntary transfer of Arabs?" Indeed, Prof. Chaim Kaufmann, "writing in the MIT-sponsored journal International Studies, while not explicitly supporting transfer, suggests that at times, it can be the only way to settle a conflict" – and can be desirable if it is done to prevent a disaster like mass killings. (I will return to this misunderstanding of Kaufmann below.)

So what should Israel do to solve its "Arab conundrum"? Here, Rabbi Gordis opts to pull his punch. He does not explicitly call for "transfer," but rather for a frank discussion of the problem "if for no reason than to bring into sharp focus the challenges that Israel faces, so that Israelis might finally confront head-on the kinds of choices that they will soon have to make"

Therefore, despite the great pain, these potentially agonizing solutions to an undeniable problem have to be raised…Those who seek to restore purpose to Israeli life will have to decide how to preserve Israel's Jewish majority. For it is that majority that enables Israel to serve as such a beacon of hope for Jews. That, in turn, invariably will entail more than rhetoric. It will require abandoning the pretense that Israel is just like other countries, the charade that claims that Israel can deal with its minorities precisely as other democracies do…If Israelis genuinely believe in that purpose, they will then have to be willing to discuss what they are actually willing to do to protect the existence of the state that has saved the Jewish people.

The way I read the above, that's implicitly an endorsement of involuntary expulsion of a peaceful native population, especially since the only other way to ensure a Jewish majority explored by Rabbi Gordis is massive Jewish immigration, which ain't gonna happen in the foreseeable future.

I won't argue here with Rabbi Gordis on grounds of morality or feasibility; I doubt we share enough moral or political principles in common to make such an argument profitable. Instead, I will grant him, if only for the sake of argument, that the Jewish people require self-determination within the framework of a state to survive and thrive. Given that assumption, I will examine what motivates Rabbi Gordis and others like him to entertain as a real possibility the involuntary transfer of 20% of Israel's citizens.

At first glance, the motivation is obvious: in order to ensure a sizeable Jewish majority that in turn guarantees Jewish self-determination, the number of non-Jews must be kept to a manageable minimum. But even granted that proposition (and forgetting that the Partition Plan accepted by the Jewish Agency left a minority in the Jewish state of 40%), aren't there other methods beside forced expulsion and massive aliyah to ensure that the Palestinian citizens will have little or no say in the lives of the Jewish majority? There are many examples from the nineteenth century before universal suffrage became the norm that can serve as precedents. Take away the vote from Arab Israelis, and, voilá, they disappear as a political force. Or, if disenfranchisement seems too radical a step, adopt a kind of district system in which Palestinian votes count for less than Jewish votes. Or, demand of Arab political parties a sort of loyalty oath to the Jewish character of the state that will ensure that there will be no anti-Zionist Arab political parties and that Arab Israelis will vote for Zionist parties.

To the accusation that these steps change drastically the democratic nature of the state, three replies may be given: first, Israel has unique needs, and its democratic system may also have to reflect that; second, Israel already is ruling over millions of Palestinians without their consent uand representation, and this is seen by many to be necessary for Israel's security and well-being; third, and this is the answer that Rabbi Gordis advances elsewhere, democratic values must take a back seat to the need to preserve the Jewish character and purpose of the state. As he puts it, Israel is not, nor should it be, a Jewish America. So while no one believes that partial or complete disenfranchisement would be welcomed by Arab Israelis, surely they would prefer it to expulsion from their ancestral lands. Frankly, how much political power do they have even with the vote?

In fact, given Rabbi Gordis's view that democracy takes a back place to the Jewish character of the state I am surprised that he requires a Jewish majority at all. I know that many Israelis are offended with the comparison with South Africa under apartheid, and they have a point; there is no Israeli analogue to the racist premises that underlay that system. But why not just reject the principle of majority rule as the White minority in South Africa did for many years? In short, there are a great many alternatives to expulsion if one wants to weaken the political power of the Arab Israeli citizens.

Yet weakening the political power of Israeli Arabs doesn't really solve the "Arab conundrum". After all, they constitute 20% of the population and their political power is virtually nil; if they constituted 30% it would still be virtually nil. It is not merely the demographic issue. It is more that the Arab Israelis are increasingly becoming "radicalized" and hence they are not to be trusted, or, more accurately, they are trusted not to be loyal; if not dangerously disloyal now, then probably in the future. They are a potentially hostile element, some of whom want to destroy the Jewish character of the state. And since that is the raison d'être of the state, and since, as we assumed, the Jewish people's survival depends on their being a Jewish state with this purpose, then those who think like these radicals need to be expelled.

But even this conclusion is not sufficient for Rabbi Gordis. Israel can jail those convicted of sedition, or for that matter, expel them. We have yet to come up with a sufficient reason to contemplate ridding Israel of all its Palestinian population (as humanely as possible, of course) through forced expulsion.

We will arrive at that missing premise once we consider the reasons why Israeli Arabs have decided to remain in the Jewish state, according to Rabbi Gordis: either they remain because life is better for them in Israel than in neighboring Arab countries, or because they wish to destroy the Jewish state from within. He understands and approves of the first motivation, but he is fearful of the second. He became fearful when, after the Second Lebanon War, less than half of the Arabs supported Israel against Hezbollah in a Haaretz poll, and then when Arab Israeli intellectuals published proposals for changing the political structure of the state. As he puts it, "Given their history and their families on the other side of the line, Israel's Arabs are unlikely to become patriots." Rather, Arab Israelis are potentially an existential threat to the Jewish state. Today, they do not constitute such a threat, but they may very well in the future.

What is particularly striking about the account (aside from its chilling similarity to ethnic exclusionary language used against Jews in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe) is the utter failure to understand why most Israeli Arabs refuse to leave Israel: Their motivation is crystal clear from their writings and their statements: This land, and this state, are their homes in three ways: As natives, it is their home in a way never can be for Rabbi Gordis and myself, who were born and lived much of our lives outside of Israel. As members of the Palestinian people, with the consciousness of having a common history and identity, this land is their homeland. And finally as Israeli citizens, it is most assuredly their homeland. For despite the best efforts of ethnic nationalists on both sides, there has evolved an Israeli identity shared by native-born Israelis, whether Jew, Arab, and immigrant children of foreign workers. With all due respect to Rabbi Gordis, neither he nor I can ever be as Israeli as Ahmed Tibi, Emile Habibi, or Azmi Bishara. We are immigrants; they are not. Because it is their home, they want, like ethnic minorities everywhere, to participate in the governance of the state. And the more Israel defines itself as a Jewish ethnic state, the greater and more legitimate their claim for national rights and power-sharing, like ethnic minorities in multi-ethnic societies everywhere.

Not a single one of the four Arab Israeli documents that Rabbi Gordis tendentiously and selectively examines in his book (for example, I couldn't find the "damning" citation he prominently displays as the motto of chapter six in any of them) calls for the elimination of the Jewish majority or Jewish majority culture. All four documents assume as axiomatic that Arab Israelis will continue to be a minority in the state of Israel, and their various proposals clearly presuppose this. The proposal for the state of Israel to recognize the right of return for Palestinian refugees is thoroughly consistent with the Palestinian acceptance of minority status, just as Resolution 194 was thoroughly consistent with the 1947 Partition Plan calling for a Jewish state. Similarly, the proposal for the civil equality between the two national groups in one document is thoroughly consistent with the conception of Arab Israelis -- in the very same document -- as a "homeland minority." What these documents call for is an end to the current extreme ethnic exclusivity that typifies Israel – and which, I will argue in subsequent posts, is entirely unnecessary for Israel to become a beacon of Jewish culture and a source of Jewish pride everywhere. And none of the proposals strikes at any of the distinctive Jewish cultural features of the Jewish state. Since when does the desire to modify the national anthem to make it more inclusive (by adding a verse?) becomes an existential threat to the Jewish people?

What better example of the deep sense of identification Israeli Arabs have with their state than the fact that they make proposals to make their state more inclusive.

In ethnic states with national ethnic minorities, granting a homeland minority national and civic equality is often considered a reasonable trade-off for the state's support and promotion of the majority's culture. In states that are not "thick" ethnic states, there may be a desire to dilute the presence of ethnicity in the public sphere and keep it in the realm of the private and the communal, e.g., the idea of the America as a melting pot. But Israel, as an exclusivist ethnic state, intends to have it both ways – to foster the ethnic identity of some of its citizens, and to discriminate in their favor, while attempting to suppress, or render harmless, the ethnic identity of the other.

There were Arabs who quietly supported Hezbollah? Weren't there Jews in Europe who quietly supported their states' enemies, when those states had oppressed and discriminated against them? Is there anything more natural than this? One wonders who American Jews would support if there were armed conflict between the US and Israel. And if many would support Israel, or support neither, is that cause for expelling the lot of them? Would keeping them destroy the fabric of American society, or the Christian character of much of it?

The "transfer" option that Rabbi Gordis wishes Israelis to discuss seriously has been thoroughly rejected by the decent peoples of the world. No court and no expert, certainly not Prof. Chaim Kaufmann, to whom he makes reference, would condone the unilateral and involuntary permanent transfer of citizens of the state, on the grounds that their ethnicity makes them suspect, or because they wish to peacefully change the structure of the state in order to advance their rights and claims. Kaufmann's ideas about the permissibility of transfer of populations clearly assume that the decision is an international one that it is only made in order to prevent a continuing blood-bath, and chosen only when it is the lesser of evils. None of these conditions even remotely apply in the present situation, and I hope they don't apply in the future (the prospect of a mass genocide of Israeli Arabs is not, thank God, on the horizon.)

Thirty years ago, it was Rabbi Meir Kahane that put the expulsion of Arabs on the table, to the shock of mainstream Jews and Israelis at the time, who were brought up with the Zionist myth that Palestinian Arabs had voluntarily left their homes during the 1948 war and hence had lost all rights to them Kahane's ideas were rejected by many in Israel, partly because they came from the mouth of a fanatical orthodox rabbi, partly because he was an American (and partly because he was correctly perceived as a political threat to the Likud party.) Then came Rehavam Zeevi, the secularist Army veteran, who brought the concept of transfer more into the Israeli mainstream. With Saving Israel, we now have an American conservative rabbi, former Dean of the Ziegler Rabbinical School of the University of Judaism, and currently Senior Vice-President of the Shalem Center, a man with whom I share a somewhat similar background, and with whom I agree on many things, whose conception of the Jewish state leads him, almost inexorably, to the necessity of "transfer." And what is the Jewish response to the book in America? A National Jewish Book Award.

Was Meir Kahane so far away from the mainstream, after all? Was he, as his supporters maintain today, simply ahead of his time? And will we soon hear the same arguments emanating not merely from neoconservative writers but from more liberal Zionist ones? After all, as Rabbi Gordis points out, the historian Benny Morris has complained that the Israelis in 1948 were not thorough enough in their ethnic cleansing, and Morris is considered by Israelis to be a liberal, even a left-winger. The fact that Israel over the last sixty years has suffered more from the Palestinians who were expelled than from those who remained means nothing to that historian. It is the very fact of their presence that disturbs folks like Morris, especially when they press for national equality and rights. Involuntary ethnic cleansing? Perhaps the logic of the sort of Zionism that was embodied in the State of Israel, and which has remained rigid and unmoving since, requires this, once an ethnic minority has acquired a political, national consciousness.

A final comment: When Rabbi Gordis considers the place of Israel Arabs in a Jewish state, he is reminded of his position as a young Jewish student in an Episcopalian prep school. All students including Jews were required to attend Morning Chapel, during which there was a recitation of the Lord's Prayer. As a proud Jew, he balked at bowing his head and saying the prayer, but he did not try to change the policy. He understood that it was a Christian school, that it wished to foster traditions, and that it would have been unreasonable to try to change them. He could always leave if he didn't like them, which he eventually did. He thought the policy "eminently fair". The moral is clear: If you are an Arab living in a Jewish state, you are encouraged to take advantage of its benefits. But don't think you have any right to try to claim more rights than you have been given, or to lobby to change the system.

What Rabbi Gordis doesn't write, and what he doesn't know, perhaps, is that several years after he left the school, it eliminated the recitation of the Lord's Prayer and the singing of hymns altogether – as a result, in part, of complaints from Jewish parents over the years. At first there was an attempt to replace the hymns that mention Christ's name explicitly with ones that did not. But finally, all Christian prayers were dropped. Morning Chapel became Morning Assembly. No doubt some fine and meaningful traditions were lost, but the school still teaches classes in religion, still has a chaplain, and has retained much of its Episcopalian heritage.

How do I know this? You see, unless I mistaken,* I attended the very same Episcopalian school in Baltimore that Rabbi Gordis attended, albeit at an earlier date. Like Rabbi Gordis, I stood in silence when the school said the Lord's Prayer (though hearing it every morning drove it into my head); I sang the hymns, omitting Christ's name. When I attended the school, Catholic students were exempted from the mandatory religion classes, during which period they received their own instruction; they had their own religious educational autonomy, as it were. Jewish students were not exempt, and much of what I know about the New Testament and Christianity I learned from those classes, which were not always pleasant for a proud "in-your-face" Jew like myself.

As a result of my experiences at the school, where I encountered both genteel and not so-genteel anti-Semitism from students and faculty, I resolved never to be as insensitive to the feelings and position of a minority as they had been of mine. Fortunately I made lifelong friends with some of my fellow students, who, as Christians, were genuinely pained by the insensitivity of the majority, and who later worked hard to make the school more inclusive, and to preserve what was true and good in its traditions.

Like Rabbi Gordis, I, Bezalel Manekin, thought the policy of requiring students to attend Morning Chapel eminently fair, at the time. Unlike him, I understand now that when circumstances change, holding on to discriminatory practices can be eminently unfair.

*If I am mistaken, then at least the Episcopalian schools we attended were sufficiently alike for the point to remain.