Intimate Departure
Once a year around Easter, my family
leaves me behind for two weeks. My wife Tali and our two kids Mai (12)
and Yann (7) make their way to Israel. My wife calls it a family visit,
she insists that the kids must see their close relatives and my views
on Israel, Jewish identity and global Zionism should never stand in the
way or interfere with family matters. For the obvious reasons, I myself
never go to Israel. I had decided ten years ago that unless Israel
becomes a state of its citizens, I have nothing to do there.
In
our first parental years in London Tali and I had some discussions
about her favourite choice of Easter break. Initially I didn’t approve.
I insisted that schlepping innocent youngsters to the apartheid ‘Jews
only state’ would contribute little to their future well-being, and in
fact, it may distort their ethical senses. In those early parental
years Tali dismissed my fears, she argued that our kids should be
treated as free human beings. They must be entitled to see their family
and it is down to them to make up their minds when they are ready to do
so.
When our kids were very young, I found it pretty difficult
to sustain my argument. Mai and Yann didn’t have any interest in
political or ethical complexities. However, as my kids grew up, their
journey in and out of the Hebraic shtetl had become a major education
chapter for myself more than for anyone else. Observing my kids
transformed into light Israelophiles opened my eyes. I happened to
grasp the impact of Israel and Zionism through the juvenile eyes of my
British kids. I had learned to admit how easy it may be to fall in love
with Israel.
My kids love it there. They adore the blue sky,
they go on and on about the sea and the sandy beaches. I guess that
they love humus and falafel. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that
everything I have mentioned so far belongs to the land - i.e.,
Palestine rather than the state - i.e., Israel. However, it doesn’t end
there. They also love to talk in Hebrew surrounded by Hebrew speakers,
to laugh in Hebrew and even to get upset in Hebrew. They love the
Hebraic Chutzpah that is inherently entangled with the Israeli
openness. At the end of the day, Hebrew is their mother tongue.
When
Tali and the kids land in cloudy London they happen to be confused and
lost for a while. Tali becomes slightly nostalgic about the successful
theatrical career she left behind. This obviously makes a lot of sense.
The case of my kids is slightly more complicated. They are Brits.
Though Hebrew is their mother tongue, English is their first language.
In London they clearly miss some liberties they celebrated there: they
want to keep on playing in the open fields, to bathe in the glorious
Mediterranean sun overwhelmed by the dry spring blossoms. But far more
noticeably, Israel resolves what seems as their inevitable emerging
identity complex. While here in London they are troubled with their
ethnic identity, they can never decide who they are, whether they are
ex-Israelis, ex-Jews, Secular Jews, Christian by culture, the
descendents of a Hebrew speaking Palestinian, the son and daughter of a
notorious proud self-hater and so on. In Israel, and especially with
their family around, none of those questions come into play. The
Israelis tend to accept you as a qualified brother as long as you are
not an Arab. While in multi-ethnic London my kids are often confronted
with some obvious questions regarding their origin, questions they find
hard to tackle a lot because of myself and my stand, in Israel those
questions are non-existent.
When my kids come back to London,
for a week or so they make me feel as if it is me and my lunacy which
imposed these winter exilic conditions upon them. Deep inside I know
that they are absolutely right. ‘Tough’, is all I can say in my defence.
For
a week or so after their return my kids become light Zionists. It is
not that they dispute what I say about Palestine, it is not that they
develop any sense of Jewish national aspiration, it is not that my kids
are blind to the suffering of the Palestinian people either. In fact my
seven-year-old son is horrified by the gigantic wall and can’t stop
asking about the people who live behind it. But, there is something
they experience in Israel, something that makes Zionism into the
biggest successful Jewish Diaspora narrative for over two millennia. It
is not the ideology that makes Zionism successful, my kids do not care
about ideology, they probably do not know what the word means. It is
not the politics either, my kids do not know much about politics. It is
all about belonging. Zionism is a symbolic identifier and it provides
the Diaspora Jews with a symbolic order. It gives a signifier to every
possible appearance, it creates a coherent and consistent world. It
gives name to the sea, the sky, the sun, the land, brotherhood,
yearning and friendship. But it also gives a name to the enemy, the
goyim and even the self-haters. Zionism is a lucid world order,
unfortunately it is merciless and murderous as well.
Through the
eyes of my young kids I have an opportunity to study the meaning of
Israel rather than its politics or practices. Through them I can see
what Israel is there to offer and how forceful it may be. Analysing my
children’s empathic relationship with Israel, I have now grasped that
the contemporary Jewish experience is premised on two inherent sets of
dialectics. One is set between Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora, the
other can be formulated as ‘love yourself as much as you hate anyone
else’.
Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora
“I am a human
being, I am a Jew and I am an Israeli. Zionism was an instrument to
move me from the Jewish state of being to the Israeli state of being. I
think it was Ben-Gurion who said that the Zionist movement was the
scaffolding to build the home, and that after the state’s establishment
it should be dismantled.” (Avraham Burg, ‘Leaving the Zionist ghetto’
in an Interview with Ari Shavit, 25 July 2007)
As far as
Israeli-born secular Jews are concerned, Zionism means very little. If
Zionism is there to maintain that Jews are entitled to national home in
Zion, the Israeli-born Jew lives this very realty to start with. For
him/her, Zionism is a remote historical chapter associated with an old
picture of a man with a big black beard (Herzl). For the Israelis,
Zionism is not a transformation awaiting to happen, it is rather a
boring, tedious, dated and dull historical chapter on the verge of bla
bla. It is far less interesting than contemporary Olmert’s cash
envelops or Obama turning into an Israeli Spokesman. Indeed, for the
new Israelites, Galut (Diaspora) has some bad connotations. It is
associated with ghettos, with shame and persecution, yet, this term
doesn’t ascribe to downtown Manhattan or London’s Soho. In other words,
Israelis do not tend to identify their migration out of Israel as a
return to the Galut. Like other migrant populations, they just search
for a better life. It must be mentioned that for most Israelis, Israel
is far from being a heroic glorious location. Naturally, after 60 years
with the same woman, one may fail to see her beauty anymore.
The
so-called ‘Israeli’ i.e., an Israeli-born secular Jew, the successful
product of post-revolutionary Zionism, is now so used to his existence
in the region that he has lost his Jewish survival instinct. Instead,
he adopts the most hedonistic interpretation of Western enlightened
individualism that abolishes the last reminiscence of tribal
collectivism. This may explain why Israel had been defeated in the last
Lebanon war. The new Israeli doesn’t see any real reason to sacrifice
himself on a collective Jewish altar. He is far more interested in
exploring the pragmatic aspects of the philosophy of ‘good life’. This
may explain as well why the Israeli military cannot tackle the growing
threat of Qassam rockets. In order to do so, Israeli generals need to
implement some courageous ground tactics. Seemingly, they learned their
lesson in Lebanon: hedonistic societies do not produce Spartan warriors
and without real warriors at your disposal you may better off fighting
from afar. Instead of sending special infantry units into Gaza at dawn,
it is apparently far easier to drop bombs on populated neighbourhoods
or alternatively to starve its habitants to submission. Needless to
say, the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Hezbollah, the Iranians and the
entire Muslim world see it all. Day by day they review the Israeli
cowardice tactics, they know that Israel’s days are numbered.
As
interesting as it may sound, the Israelis are not that concerned with
their fatal inevitable emerging reality, at least not consciously.
Because their tribal survival instinct has been replaced by enlightened
individualism, the young Israeli is concerned largely with personal
survival rather than with any collective plan. The Israeli can go as
far as asking, “how the hell can I get out of here?” The new secular
Israeli Jew is an escapist. As soon as he/she finishes his/her
compulsory duty, he or she would either rush to the airport or learn
how to ’switch off’ all news channels. The amount of Israelis who leave
their homeland is growing by the day. The rest, those who are doomed to
stay, develop an apathetic culture of indifference.
Beaufort and Sderot
I
recently watched Beaufort, an Israeli award winning war film. Though I
wasn’t at all overwhelmed with the cinematic achievement, the film is
an astonishing exposure of Israeli fatigue and defeatism. The film
tells the story of an IDF special infantry unit (Golany) that is dug-in
in a bunker within a Byzantine fortress on top of a mountain in
southern Lebanon. The plot takes place days before the 1st Israeli
withdrawal from Southern Lebanon (2000). As it happens, the Israeli
platoons are surrounded by Hezbollah warriors. Days and night they live
in trenches, hide in concrete shelters and are subject to constant
barrages of mortars and missiles. Though they all plan life after that
hell they are caught into, they happen to die one after the other by an
enemy they don’t even see.
The Israelis loved Beaufort, the
world was slightly less convinced of its cinematic quality. If you ask
yourself why the Israelis loved it so much, here is my answer. For the
Israelis, the situation in the Beaufort is an allegory of a state that
comes to realise its temporality and futile existence. As much as the
Israeli soldiers are dreaming to run away as far as they can get,
whether it is settling in NYC or ‘getting stoned’ in Goa, the Israeli
society is coming to terms with its doomed fatality. Like the soldiers
in the film, the Israelis want to become Americans, Parisians,
Londoners and Berliners. The numbers of Israelis who are queuing for
Polish passports are increasing by the day. Beaufort the film is a
metaphor of a society that comes to terms with itself being in a siege.
A society that comes to realise that there maybe no escape route
whether it is a physical one or by the means of growing indifference.
The film can be interpreted as a parable of a society that comes to
terms with the gravest notion of its own temporality.
Interestingly
enough, as much as the soldiers in the Beaufort and the people of
Sderot or Ashkelon are confused by their will to leave everything
behind and to run for their life, as much as they can’t see the point
in clinging to where they are, for the Diaspora Jew, Israel is nothing
less than a lucid model of glory. Israel is both the meaning and the
meaning in its making. For the Diaspora Jew, Israel is the symbolic
transformation aiming at liberation and even redemption of the Jewish
misery. Israel is everything the Diaspora Jew is not. It is full of
chutzpah, it is forceful, it is militant, it stands for what it
believes in. Accordingly, for a young Jew from Golders Green or
Brooklyn, making Aliyah or even just joining what he or she mistakenly
regards as the heroic Israeli army, is far more glorious than joining
dad’s law firm, dental studio, or accountant company.
Being
horrified by the remote possibility that my kids may surprise me one
day by suggesting that they may consider spending some time in Israel
on their own without their mother’s parental guidance, I recently
started to grasp that which Israel is there to offer world Jews. In
fact, not many Jewish parents would stop their son or daughter from
joining the IDF, why should they? The IDF is a very safe army to be in,
it avoids ground battle, it kills from afar, it values its soldier as
much as it loves inflicting the ultimate pain on others. Every Jewish
father must accept that it may be useful for his youngster to learn how
to drive a tank, fly a helicopter or shoot an MK 47. Unlike the
shockingly under-equipped Palestinian warriors who die in vast
quantities on a daily basis, the Israeli soldiers hardly risk their
lives. Hence, the heroic Aliyah and even joining the IDF, seems to be a
safe adventure, at least for the time being.
Though it is rather
clear that most young Diaspora Jews choose to get on with their lives
wherever they are and to avoid ‘taking advantage of’ the Zionist Aliyah
challenge, Zionism still provides them with a symbolic identifier.
Zionism and its Aliyah operators offer them the opportunity to either
identify with the few who went that far or to themselves become
soldiers in one of the strongest armies in the world.
Wandering Around
Zionism
invented the Jewish nation and set its national home, Israel, into a
devastating conflict that is now taking a global shape and has become a
serious global threat. Yet, for the Israelis, those who happen to be in
the eye of the storm, ‘Zionism’ means very little. Israelis join the
IDF not because they are Zionists but because they are Jews (as opposed
to the Muslims around them). This crucial realisation may convey a new
meaning for the notion of the ‘wandering Jew’. The dialectic that is
set between the Diaspora and Eretz Yisrael leads towards a counter flow
of migration, aspiration and yearning. The Diaspora Jews are aspired by
Israel in the light of the Zionist fantasy, the Israeli Jews, on the
other hand, are determined to escape their emerging siege. The Diaspora
is heading towards Eretz Yisrael, the Israeli Jews, at large, are
desperate to get out.
This counter flow of migration/aspiration
is far from being a matter of contingency, in fact it is the direct
product of the holy Judaic scriptures. As I explored in my ‘Esther to
AIPAC’ paper[1], more and more Bible scholars are now disputing the
historicity of the Bible. Seemingly, the Bible is for most part
“written after the Babylonian Exile and whose writings rework (and in
large part invent) previous Israelite history so that it reflects and
reiterates the experiences of those returning from the Babylonian
exile.”
Consequently, the Bible, being an
exilic text, leads to
a fragmented reality in which the Diaspora Jew yearns for ‘homecoming’
yet once at home, the ideology loses its appeal. The case of Zionism is
shockingly similar, it has managed to aspire some Jews about Zion, yet,
once in Zion, the ideology fails to provide for the domestic adventure.
We
can clearly detect a dialectic tension between Zionism, a Diaspora
Jewish identity and
Israeliness, which is largely related to the
Hebraic project. Zionism and Israel are two diverse poles that together
form the contemporary Jewish Experience.
Love Yourself as much as you Hate Everyone Else
Once
we understand the dialectic opposition between Eretz Yisrael and the
Diaspora, we are ready to move on and reflect upon the unique
complimentarily relationships between the two.
As much as Eretz
Yisrael and the Diaspora establish a counter flow of aspiration and
migration, Israel is there to establish a coherent and consistent
symbolic interpretation of Jewish tribal chauvinism and supremacy.
Israel makes ‘love yourself as much as you hate everyone else’ into a
devastating reality, in which the self-lover happens to be capable of
inflicting the ultimate pain on his surrounding neighbours.
In
order to understand the Jewish concept of self-loving, we may have to
reflect first on the issue that makes this particular form of personal
emotional consciousness take place: the issue of chosenness.
While
the religious Judaic understanding of Jewish chosenness is realised as
a moral burden in which Jews are ordered by God to stand as a model of
ethical behaviour, the secular Jewish interpretation is reduced into a
banal chauvinist form of racially orientated supremacy. It clearly
encourages those who are lucky enough to have a Jewish mother to love
themselves blindly. It is crucial to mention at this stage that in most
cases Jewish supremacy would lead to a certain level of dismissal of
the elementary rights of the other. In many cases it leads toward
animosity and even hatred whether latent or manifest.
It is this
supremacy which stands at the heart of the Zionist claim for Palestine
at the expense of its indigenous inhabitants. But it obviously doesn’t
end with Palestine, the radical manifestation of Jewish lobbying for
extension of the “War Against Terror” as expressed, for instance, by
the AJC is just another example. I would never dare say that this type
of war mongering is inherent to Jews (as people), yet, unfortunately,
it is rather symptomatic to Jewish tribal political thinking left,
right and centre. Thus, it shouldn’t take us by surprise that at the
forefront of the struggle for humanism and universal ethics we meet
Jews such as Jesus, Spinoza and Marx. These people who went out of
their way to introduce a notion of brotherhood stood primarily against
the tribal supremacy they found in themselves and in their cultural
heritage. They above all protested against what was familiar to them
and suggested brotherhood and love instead.
However, we may note
that Jesus, Spinoza and Marx, didn’t manage to transform the Jews (as a
collective), though they had a bit of success with some of them.
Seemingly, the move from hard-core dogmatic monotheistic tribalism
towards tolerant pluralist universalism is on the verge of the
impossible. Indeed, more than a few Jews have managed to leave God
behind, as we know some had become Marxists but somehow even many of
those remained loyal to their monotheistic tribally exclusive ‘Jews
only’ philosophy (Bund, JAZ). Others moved as far as becoming a ‘nation
like other nations’ (Zionism) except that they made sure they cleansed
and killed those who didn’t fit ethnically to their vision of
themselves (1948 Nakba). Some became so liberal and cosmopolitan that
they managed to reduce contemporary global conflict into a simplistic
take on ’soft drink’. “People who drink Coca Cola do not fight each
other”, they informed us. This may be the truth, however, as it seems,
the Coke drinkers have recently killed 1.5 million Iraqis all in the
name of ‘democracy’.
It is extremely crucial to mention that
many Jews have managed to assimilate and to leave their tribal traits
behind, they operate as ordinary human beings. They have nothing to do
with Bund, Neocons or Zionism. Seemingly, those truly liberated beings
are not the subject of my study, and I can only wish them luck and
success.
However, though Jews are divided between themselves on
many things, they are united in fighting those who they collectively
identify as their enemies. It took me a while to realise that those who
operate under the exclusive Jewish banner within the Palestinian
solidarity and the Anti-War movements are primarily concerned with
fighting any references to Jewish lobbying or Jewish power.
One
explanation was provided earlier on. Zionism per se, has little to do
with Israel, it is an internal Diaspora Jewish discourse. Consequently,
the debate between Zionists and Jewish anti-Zionists has no
significance on Israel or the struggle against Israeli actions. It is
there to keep the debate within the family while planting more
confusion amongst the goyim. It allows the Jewish ethnic campaigner to
maintain that “not all Jews are Zionists, in fact there are almost two
dozen ‘Jewish Anti Zionists’ around the world”. As pathetic as it may
sound, this dull argument has been good enough to effectively shatter
any criticism of Jewish ethnocentric lobbying that may have been voiced
the last four decades. Seemingly (and unfortunately), when it comes to
‘action’, the Zionists and the so-called Jewish ‘anti’-Zionists are
acting as one people. Why are they acting as one people? Because they
are one people. Are they really one people? It doesn’t matter as long
as they themselves believe to be or act as if they are. And what is it
that makes them into one people? They probably hate everyone else as
much as they love themselves.
There is an old Jewish saying,
“Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are”, it
would be most appropriate to amend it into a far more refined reading
of Jewish contemporary tribal politics. “Just tell me who you hate and
I’ll tell you who you are”. If, for instance, you hate Finkelstein,
Atzmon, Blankfort, Mearsheimer & Walt and so on, you must be
Jewish. If you just don’t agree with any of the above you can actually
be anyone.
Hatred and even personal loathing is sadly
symptomatic to Jewish tribal politics, probably something to do with
Jewish politics being marginal and defined by negation. Noticeably,
Israel has managed to perfect it and give it real new meaning. While
the Diaspora Jew is entitled to love himself, his hatred to the other
is largely suppressed. As much as some Jews may like to follow their
religious calling and spit on churches[2] or just destroy the lives of
prominent academics and artists, hatred and violence is not tolerated
within the contemporary Western discourse. This is exactly where Israel
comes into play. As much as the Israelis love themselves, they are
capable of hating anyone else. They are capable of starving millions of
Palestinians, they are capable of killing when they feel like it.
Israel made ‘love yourself/ hate everyone else’ into a viable practice.
It resolved the most inherent ambivalent tension having to do with
self-loving while being amongst others. Israel doesn’t just hate Prof.
Finkelstein, it is capable of detaining and deporting him as well.
Israel doesn’t just hate the Palestinians, it is equally capable of
starving them, locking them behind walls and barbed wire, bombing them
and even nuking the hardliners when the time is ripe.
This is
the most frightening aspect of complimentarily between Eretz Yisrael
and the Diaspora. It is the materialisation of a hate-ridden society.
After two millennia of wandering, the newly reformed national Jew is
capable of not just hating but also of inflicting the ultimate pain on
those he may hate.
Exploring the Jewish Question
Once a
year, around Easter, my family leaves me behind for two weeks. My wife
Tali and our two kids Mai and Yann make their way to Israel. I can
clearly see how much they love it there. I can clearly understand what
is it that they love there. Gladly, I can say that at least for the
time being, my kids are not madly in love with themselves and do not
see themselves as part of any tribal collective. Consequently, they do
not hate anyone either.
However, through their experience I can
see what Israel is there to offer, especially to those who do not dwell
there. I can see how successful the Israeli adventure looks from afar.
Through their experience I learn about the dialectic between the
Israel/Hebraic domestic quest and the Zionist/Diaspora aspiration. The
negation and complimentarily between the Hebraic and the Diaspora is
the essence of contemporary Jewish experience.
If we want to
tackle the crimes committed by Israel and the evil promoted by global
Zionist lobbies, we better initiate a profound study of the Jewish
question and the Jewish experience. It is not just Israel or Zionism
but rather the unique devastating amalgam of complexity formed by both.
Unless we question the Jewish experience, we are doomed to continue
wasting our time employing irrelevant archaic 19th century terminology
that has nothing to do with the conflict.
Once we are brave
enough to explore the Jewish question and Jewish identity we may be
able to understand that Israeli apartheid is not just political
circumstances, it is actually a natural outcome of a particular
racially orientated tribal philosophy. The Israeli wall is not a
political measure but rather a manifestation of an exclusive racist
attitude that stands at the core of the Jewish notion of segregation.
Once we stand up and insist upon interpreting Israeli/Zionist
scrutinising of the Jewish question we may as well grasp why Senator
Obama rushed to the AIPAC conference three hours after his nomination
for the Democratic Party was secured. The set of promises made by
Obama, Clinton and McCain in AIPAC a few days ago is in fact a true
reflection of the contemporary Jewish experience. The senators feed the
Jewish American prominent lobbyists exactly with the food they want to
swallow. At the expense of the Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians
and billion Muslims, American politicians openly promise that America
will keep being biased. Seemingly, America prefers to appease its tiny
Jewish minority instead of being an international mediator and a true
genuine negotiator.
I would strongly argue that in the light of
the crimes committed by the Jewish state in the name of the Jewish
people, we are perfectly entitled to question the philosophy and praxis
involved with Jewish experience. We should never be intimidated by
Jewish ethnic activists and Zionist smear campaigners.
Since
Jews do not form a race but largely succumb to some different forms of
collective, racially orientated politics, we shouldn’t be afraid of
touching the matter. Once we take it as a given that Jews do not form a
race, the study of Jewish identity and politics is neither racism nor
essentialism. It is actually the very opposite, it is in fact a
critical reading of racist ideology and its inherent supremacy.
Those
of us who regard Israel and Zionism as the grave danger to world peace
must pursue in this study. Rather than focusing separately on Zionism
or Israel, we must learn the unique amalgam of complexity that is
formed by both. This dialectic compound shapes the contemporary notion
of Jewish Experience. Zionism in itself is no more than a decoy. It is
there to grab our attention and divert our focus. Seemingly our attack
on Zionism has no significance on Israel, its policies and its people.
At the most, it disturbs some Zionist Jews.
As much as the study
of the ‘Jewish Experience’ may help us to save millions of lives of
Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians and Iranians, it is also a Jewish
collective interest to understand the true nature of the Jewish
experience and politics. At the end of the day, it is Jewish politics
(rather than religion) that may eventually demonise the entire Jewish
collective for the next millennia to come. It is a Jewish collective
interest to stop the political beast before it is too late.
I
owe it to my Palestinian brothers and sisters, I owe it to myself, I
owe it to Yann and Mai, I want to make sure that by the time they
protest against my own ‘anti-Jewish experience’ I’ll be clever enough
to discuss it all with them in an open and thoughtful manner.
Writings 
For more than half a century, those who have been trying to combat the forces that are behind the Israeli paradigm have been identifying Israeli policies and practice with Zionism and Zionist Ideology. I am afraid to say that they were wrong all the way along. Indeed, Zionism’s project dictates the plunder of Palestine in the name of Jewish national aspiration. It is also true to argue that Israel has been rather efficient in translating the Zionist philosophy into a devastating oppressive and murderous practice. Yet, Israelis, or more precisely, the vast majority of Israeli-born secular Jews, are not motivated or fuelled by Zionist ideology. Its spirit or symbols are virtually meaningless to them. As bizarre as it may sound to some, Zionism is either a foreign or just an archaic notion for most Israeli-born secular Jews.
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