Credit: Creative Commons
Growing up outside of Atlanta, I learned to crawl with Bob Dylan’s “Only A Pawn In Their Game” as my soundtrack, anti-war posters hanging on the walls, beckoning me and my raw knees forward. I was weaned with the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. reverberating down the narrow halls of my parents’ apartment, formed my first words as though delivering a soliloquy on equality.
In first grade, I asked the teacher if the ‘Indians’ still celebrated Thanksgiving. When she asked why I wanted to know, I responded, “Because the people they ate with took their land,” something I’d learned from an honest mother. During a Little League game, my father intervened when coaches tried to initiate a prayer circle, wanting us to give thanks in Jesus’ name. He fiercely believed in the separation of church and, well, everything.
As an American Jew, I was mostly instilled with progressive values as a child. Rather, I was instilled with progressive, American values – particularly those which aligned with liberal, Jewish ones. A love of social justice, human rights, equality. A disdain for racism, fundamentalism, colonialism. Sure, I attended Hebrew school, but my scripture was more the Bill of Rights than the Torah, and my anthems came from hip-hop and rock, not the Book of Psalms (תהילים).
Despite this, my early love for progressivism was accompanied by a love for the State of Israel. As a short, Jewish kid who wanted to be an NBA star, I was naturally inclined to root for the underdog. And at synagogue, we were taught that Jews were the ultimate underdogs, miraculously surviving the Holocaust and a history of oppression to create a contemporary “light unto the nations” which fought with dogged determination against evil and had a cool flag. And I was taught that I was vulnerable, that there were people who wanted me dead, and that Israel was a safe haven, a beacon, a garden to which I could always escape.
Palestinians, accordingly, were portrayed as just one in a series of people who have risen up throughout history to destroy us, being painted as a caricature of evil. As a boy, I nodded and understood. Israel was not just good, it was necessary.
One Sunday morning, my parents dropped me off at our local, liberal synagogue for what was billed as the youth group’s pancake breakfast. Once inside, we were surprisingly herded into a multi-purpose room and sharply ordered to sit against the walls by masked men carrying plastic assault rifles. Stale bread was thrown on the linoleum floor toward me and my friends, perplexed and unsure what the hell this was all about, but smart enough to know it was not actually a dangerous situation. Younger children started crying.
This is what the enemy is like, some teachers told us when it was over.
I nodded. We were the good ones.
–§–
As an adult, I’ve moved away from such naiveté while holding on to both my Zionist and progressive leanings, despite the growing struggle for coexistence between the two. And it’s not as though I’m mildly informed about the region or mildly invested in Israel and my Jewishness. The opposite, in fact, is the case. I’m a Jewish studies teacher at a day school, yeshiva-educated with a master’s degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I’ve authored a memoir about my experience with terror and reconciliation, and write extensively about the region, often critiquing Israel from a progressive perspective while maintaining my desire for a two-state solution to the conflict.
As an adult, I’ve learned about the cleansing of Arab villages which took place from 1947-1949 to make way for the Jewish state. I’ve learned about the ongoing settlement enterprise, the appropriation and bifurcation of Palestinian lands. I’ve learned the horrors of Israel’s decades-old occupation of the West Bank, about the suppression of basic human rights and the atrocities committed. I’ve studied Israel’s use of indefinite detentions, home demolitions, restrictions on goods and movement, and the violence visited upon those being occupied.
I’ve learned that – and this is just one example of many – a Palestinian child has tragically been killed every three days for the past 14 years. That bears repeating, since such deaths are rarely, if ever, given any attention in America: Palestinian parents have had to bury a child every three days for the past 14 years.
Knowing all this, I’ve still held fast to my ‘progressive Zionism,’ hoping Israel could become that beacon of liberalism I was presented as a child, a beacon which never truly existed in the first place, despite the country’s socialist roots. Why have I done so? For two reasons: 1) deep down, I still believe in the promise of Israel, and 2) I can’t shake the notion that a Jewish state is absolutely necessary for our security.
Over the last decade, I’ve formed alliances with progressive Americans and the Israeli left, working in my own, small ways to try and move Israel away from those illegal, geopolitical policies causing so much suffering for Palestinians and undermining Israel’s ability to not just thrive, but survive. All the while, I’ve watched the anti-war movement in Israel weaken, watched racism flourish and religious fundamentalism grow, watched Israel’s government build settlements at a record pace and make clear it has little interest in peace.
These realities have forced me to consider the incongruity between my American-borne progressivism and my Zionism. They have forced me to admit, like Peter Beinart, that in order to continue supporting Israel as a Jewish state, with everything it continues to do, I must compromise my progressivism.
However, the mind-numbingly horrific events of the past week have forced me, for the first time, to wonder whether such compromising can be sustained.
–§–
What has happened? This: on June 12, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped while hitchhiking in the West Bank by Palestinians belonging to a rogue branch of Hamas. I, along with friends and loved ones, worried they would become three more Jewish victims (added to the 1,100 killed since 2001) in an unending conflict, and watched closely as the Israeli military began combing the West Bank for them. Only, it soon became clear that soldiers weren’t looking for them so much as collectively punishing Palestinians for the crime of a few people. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu falsely blamed the kidnapping on Hamas – a move likely aimed at derailing the PA-Hamas unity government – and vowed they would “pay a heavy price.” But it was Palestinian civilians who paid a heavy price as for weeks soldiers raided over 1,600 sites in the West Bank, indefinitely detained hundreds, and killed five Palestinians.
Israel placed a gag order on details surrounding the teens’ abduction, and reports surfaced that Israeli officials knew the boys were dead, but wanted to justify ongoing military operations under the hope of bringing the boys back. (Alas, it seems such reports may have been accurate.)
And then, on June 30, the tragic news suddenly came: the three teens had been found dead. And just as suddenly, calls for blood and vengeance echoed from Israel, starting with Netanyahu, who turned a Chaim Bialik poem on its head by using it to call for blood:
In turn, calls for blood and revenge began echoing throughout Israel and on social media, with a Facebook page dedicated to such calls quickly receiving 35,000 likes. It featured soldiers posing with weapons, asking for permission to kill, along with countless Israelis calling for revenge:
On the left, Israelis hold a sign that reads,"Hating Arabs isn't racism, it's values! #IsraelDemandsRevenge," while on the right, a soldier post a picture with the caption, "Let us simply spray (them with bullets)."
After the funeral for the three slain Israeli teens on July 1, angry mobs of hundreds began roaming the streets of Jerusalem chanting “Death to Arabs,” attacking Palestinians and promising bloodby nightfall.
Chemi Shalev of Haaretz, witnessing the genocidal chants from Israelis and reading reports of Israeli police saving Palestinian citizens from the mobs, wrote the following:
Make no mistake: the gangs of Jewish ruffians man-hunting for Arabs are no aberration. Theirs was not a one-time outpouring of uncontrollable rage following the discovery of the bodies of the three kidnapped students. Their inflamed hatred does not exist in a vacuum: it is an ongoing presence, growing by the day, encompassing ever larger segments of Israeli society, nurtured in a public environment of resentment, insularity and victimhood, fostered and fed by politicians and pundits.
By nightfall, with the ink of Shalev’s pen barely dried, horrific news came that a Palestinian teen from East Jerusalem had been abducted and killed by Israeli settlers in an act of revenge, with reports revealing the unspeakable: he was likely burned alive.
Since that night on July 1, parts of Israel have been burning, and clashes between Palestinians and police in Shuafat, the East Jerusalem neighborhood where the killed teenager lived, have been particularly intense. The police have been unrelenting, raining rubber bullets and tear gas down upon a grieving neighborhood. And the scenes have been difficult to watch.
Perhaps the scene that has put me over the edge is one that should hit close to home: an American teenager from Tampa visiting Israel, who happens to be a cousin of the slain Palestinian teen, was almost beaten to death by police, ostensibly for throwing rocks, and remains in Israeli detention. [Video of the incident.]
Mother of the American teen beaten told ABC, "He wasn't recognizable."
I have no words.
–§–
There are parts of me right now that feel defeated. Yes, there have been calls for peace and the denouncing of extremism in Israel, but such calls feel as though they have been drowned out by those still craving revenge. And as Shalev notes, this isn’t an isolated incident – this is the result of a real shift in Israeli society concurrent with the ongoing occupation.
The past week’s events have shaken me to my core, and have forced me to look long and hard at my personal politics. For if this were any country but Israel, my progressive values would not allow me to support, much less love, such an enterprise. Yet the reality is this: I do.
I’m not ready to abandon the dream of a Jewish state that lives up to its democratic promises, and continue to hold tenuously onto the idea of two states for two peoples. However, I have begun, for the first time, to consider what a single, bi-national state might look like, to consider that it might finally end this madness.
And here’s the irony: Israel’s extreme-right leaders, embracing various one-state solutions, have forced me to do so. Hell, Israel just elected as its President a one-state proponent. How can I not consider what that might look like?
As it happens, during all of this, I’ve just finished Ali Abunimah’s The Battle for Justice in Palestine, which makes an impassioned case for a democratic, bi-national state as the only way to end this conflict.
The progressive American in me agreed with much of his arguments. The Zionist in me was scared by its premise.
The humanist in me just wants all of this to end. Wants all of the suffering and pain on both sides to end.
If not now, when?
-§-
David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, published recently by Oneworld Publications.
Follow him on Twitter @David_EHG.
As usual, a thoughtful analysis of what is happening in occupied Palestine. For I’ve never seen Israel as a light among nations, but a white, colonial enterprise, dispossessing the indigenous Palestinians. The fact that my children have no right to return to Safad, the city of my former husband’s birth, should put to rest any idea that Zionism is progressive. It’s not. Progressive Zionism is an oxymoron. But, someone like David is someone we can work with, because he’s beginning to see the light that many of us have seen for decades. I loved his book. I have followed his journey.
The day that Palestine becomes a place for everyone with equal rights for Jews, Christians, Muslims and anyone else who would like to live there in peace is the day I wait for. It is coming sooner rather than later, as many Jews are appalled over what is happening.
I have only one correction. There is NO evidence that any Palestinian kidnapped the three illegal settler boys. None. Even Israel doesn’t know, But there is ample video evidence of who kidnapped the 16 year old and burned him to death, including photos of their faces.
Kind of lie the paradise in Lebanon or Syria. Is that what you’re hoping for?
READ: The Jewish nation’s intact moral compass by Ilya Meyer
Many people are dissecting what they have chosen to term Israel’s “delusions of moral superiority” following the appalling murder of Muhammed Abu Khdeir.
The fact is that the disgust expressed by the entire Jewish people and the entire nation of Israel, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, and the unified condemnation by the entire Israeli government of this one (1) Arab teenage boy’s disgraceful, inexcusable murder speaks volumes about the intact moral compass of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Equally, the delight, the public celebrations, the official Palestinian Arab government support and the joyful three-fingered salutes by young children that accompanied the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli Jewish teenagers Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach – the inexcusable brutal act that preceded and directly sparked this inexcusable brutal act – speak volumes about the deranged moral compass of Palestinian Arab society.
We also have to remember that none of this started with the killing of those three Israeli schoolboys: there are countless hundreds of young Israeli Jewish victims of Palestinian Arab barbarity over the years, some as young as a few months old, all deliberately targeted simply for being Jewish. The most recent such abhorrent Arab crime targeting an Israeli, Shelley Dadon, simply because she was Jewish, took place in May 2014 and her Arab killer was recently brought to justice.
There is a difference too in that no streets or public squares, no schools or computer centres, no sports arenas or soccer teams will be named in “honour” of Muhammed Abu Khdeir’s despicable murderers, whatever their ethnicity, religion, nationality or motivation. In the Jewish state as in the Jewish psyche, murder is illegal and abhorrent. No ifs, no buts, no explanations, no excuses. And definitely no cause for public celebration in the streets.
The families of the murderers will not be paid a lifetime pension (see also here, here and here) by the Israeli government. That, however, is exactly what happens with Palestinian Arab mass-murderers, whose own income and that of their families stands in direct proportion to the number of civilian Jews they succeed in killing. The incitement, the racism, the active encouragement to violence by the Palestinian Arab government and its various institutions is the source of this vile climate, and a dangerously naive world community provides the international funding that makes possible this corruption of an entire generation of Palestinian Arab children – children who are already shouldering the responsibilities of adulthood and taking with them these attitudes into positions of political, commercial and religious leadership.
So in all the perfectly understandable soul-searching following this most recent sequence of tragedies, in which Palestinian Arab society has yet again perpetrated and celebrated the kidnapping and murder of children and the consequential one-off kidnapping and murder of an Arab child in a disgustingly misguided tit-for-tat act of retaliation, keep sight of what this whole desperate situation is actually about: the insatiable penchant of the Palestinian Arabs for Jewish blood. From the 1929 massacre of Jews in Hebron to today (see also here, here, here, here and here).
Therefore, enough talk about this misguided concept of “moral superiority”. The world judges the Jewish state and the Jewish people by a totally different standard – and this is a nasty, primitive racist attitude.
Of course, that racism of which the world community is guilty may actually be of a different kind altogether: people expect Jews and the Jewish state to behave in a more “civilised”, “enlightened” and “acceptable” way than the Arab neighbours that surround Israel. A kind of “they don’t know any better and they’re not capable of any better, so we might just as well get used to the Arabs’ primitive behaviour”. Well, that’s despicable racism too. Because this is 2014, and every one of us is capable of civilised behaviour. To have low expectations of an entire ethnicity, nationality or religion simply because you don’t believe they are capable of any better is genuine, died-in-the-wool racism.
And that’s unacceptable. In the terrible situation caused by Palestinian Arab racism towards Jews, we need to acknowledge Palestinian Arab racism for what it is and stop condoning the world community’s eager embrace of that racism: racism aimed at the Jewish state because it is inexcusable to hold Jews to a higher standard, and racism aimed at the Palestinian Arabs because it is equally inexcusable to hold Arabs to a lower standard.
Because ultimately it is actual behaviour each and every day that counts. This one (1) single disgraceful aberration by the killers of Muhammed Abu Khdeir stands in stark contrast to the decades-long despicable behaviour of the PA and its various illusionary “partners for peace”. The PA has deliberately and carefully crafted a violent, racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic, corrupt and genocidal society over the years – all funded by the UN, EU and US.
Now, an exposé of THAT issue would be an interesting and relevant article to read.
Shouldn’t be to hard to find the perpetrators of the kidnapping. The phonecall contained the voices of young men speaking Hebrew, laughing and listening to an Israeli radio station. Who gains? Who thought wrongly that they would gain? Even the IDF resent the Yeshiva boys, partly because they do not do national service, and because they cause problems with the Palestinians then cry to be rescued by the military.
Aren’t you the Greta Berlin who gets condemned as an antisemite by even Ali Abuminah of Electronic Intifada?
Thank you for that last correction – I was just going to ask you you about it!
Hamas has every reason not to want a situation like this in the wake of it’s deal with Fatah – exactly when it is trying to gain international legitimacy and move away from its associations with violence. Natanyahu, on the other hand has made his hostility toward the Hamas-Fatah deal abundantly clear and so has every reason to want to discredit Hamas. It would be absurd to accept his self-serving accusations without a shred of evidence.
And I correct myself: the correction was Greta’s, not the author’s.
And a correction for Greta: it seems that Taiq is 15, not 16.
http://news.sky.com/story/1296023/teenager-in-beating-video-row-speaks-out
Were those Hamas love rockets sent barreling into south Israel?
Thank you, David Harris-Gershon. Your objectivity and your compassion are refreshing — like a ‘voice crying in the wilderness.’ You give me hope that perhaps there are many Jewish people, here and in Israel, that feel as you do. Media censorship precludes our hearing their voices, however. Shalom from an Irish-American Christian.
Has the Palestinian Authority helped to find the murderers of the 3 Israeli kidnap victims?
How can be so sure Hamas was behind the killing of the tree young settlers?
This article resonates with me – and I am sad. I too was raised with the mythologies of Leon Uris’ Exodus and similar writings; my Hebrew school did not put me through such a graphic lesson, but we certainly received similar messages. As an adult I have struggled to reconcile my progressive values with my Jewish heritage and have allowed the two, often conflicting visions to live in an uneasy balance in my mind. But the continued shifts in the Israeli consciousness and politics is making this impossible. I don’t know the solution, but I know that the present course is unsustainable. The answer is peace, but the path appears impassible. Thank you.
IMHO, much of this problem was created by the ignorance and the stupidity and the naivety of America and Britain with Truman and Churchill making decisions, while Joe Stalin secretly smiled and chuckled. The Jews lost any claim to a promised land in 70AD under the piss and vinegar of a Roman emperor who sent them packing to the four corners of the empire and tore down their temple in Jerusalem. Truman was a 33 degree Mason – Masons hated Jews then and still likely do today. If America felty sorry for Europe Jews wh got there after 570AD, we shoud have given them the whole state of New Mexico [ over 100x larger ] and also a desert and renamed it as New Israel. Jews and Arabs are COUSINS – all are Semites! This ANIMUS goes back thousands of years to bad blood between half-brother : Ishmael getting the raw deal while Isaac [ a/k/a Israel ] got all of Daddy Abraham’s loot.
The problem is not that you are Jewish or sympathetic to the state of Israel. The problem is that you are “Progressive and a Socialist. Look at the Millions of people, including Jews, murdered in the name of Socialism, from the National Socialists of Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Spain, to the Marxist/Communists around the World. Socialism/Marxism/Communism (Progressivism) always promises fairness and equality but delivers murder and misery on epoch scales!
The atrocities you allude to were indeed atrocities, but they have nothing to do with Socialism or Communism, nor with anarchism. There has never been a socialist state, for such an entity cannot exist. The historical acts you refer to were carried out by state capitalist governments, having all the classic elements of a capitalist economy: the state, wage slavery, a money economy, a hierarchical structure of society, exploitation of labour, [private] ownership of the means of production, mostly by the state, production of goods for profit, markets, war to control external markets, labour and sources of raw materials — need I continue?
There has never been a socialist/communist/anarchist society. It has yet to be enacted by the wisdom of mankind.
Interesting, the events this week convinced me the only answer is two states for two peoples.
Thank you, David. We are coming into times that, once again, truly
“try men’s souls”.
It seems to me that much of the good, and the promise, that came with
the rebirth of Israel in 1948, was sabotaged, compromised and
derailed by a neocolonialist U.S., drawing Israel into a devil’s bargain
during the paranoias of the cold war period. Very hostile to genuine
growth of democratic process.
In return for virtually unending military, financial and economic support
from the U.S., Israel found itself becoming a kind of second arm of
U.S. foreign policy, at first locally in the Mideast, and later on around
the world. Israeli support of reactionary regimes in Central and South
America is a case in point. To understand the core evil governing this
kind of alliance, I strongly recommend Chomsky’s essay in Tikkun, titled
“Noam Chomsky on America’s Real Foreign Policy: Global Corporatization
by Force.”
Chomsky makes clear that virtually all U.S. foreign policy is driven by
the agendas of the highest levels of big corporate power. Everything
else is a distant second: make the world safe for American capital
investment and profit. For a deeper study of the origins of this, I
also suggest Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”.
Over decades, the ulterior but very dominant mentalities that drove
the shapers of capital strategy in, and behind, U.S. foreign policy also
called upon, groomed and pandered to the same tendencies that existed
in political and economic circles in Israel. This fostered an increasingly
rightist and insular worldview throughout the upper structures of Israeli
society, fueling a siege mentality which was already underway due to
hostile actions and reactions from surrounding Arabic nations. Further,
it is arguable that an insular siege mentality was evolving throughout
these Arabic nations, resulting in large part from the old colonial practices
of divide-and-conquer, which inculcated jealousies, divisiveness and
narrow thinking throughout old colonial North Africa and the Mideast.
The later emergence of fundamentalist beliefs as default options and
strategies in Islam should then be no surprise. The emergence of
Arabic oligarchies utterly antithetical to any kind of egalitarianism,
enlightenment and democratic principle is also no surprise.
I do not know if Israel can extricate itself from this horrible double bind,
or even become conscious of it. Or if the Arab Spring freedom movements
can yet rise to the occasion and pull their nations back from fundamentalist
extremism or oligarchy-sponsored militarism. Considering the recurrence
of fascist thought in Europe and Asia, we now live on a very harsh cusp
in history.
Chomsky also praised Pol Pot’s revolution back in the day. So much for credibility.
Dear Sam
If you’re truly demanding perfection in everyone’s historical judgement, consider
that you may be living on the wrong planet. Once upon a time, mainly as a child,
I admired the Soviet Union, which was held up to me as an example of our
wonderful future, by my far left wing parents and friends. Over time I found out,
mainly on my own, that there were deep flaws in that core belief system, concealing
venality, insularity and real evil. The culture of my origin family and many of
their friends had many blind spots; they were not immune to lies or brutal
modes of thinking. How easy it is for people to fool themselves.
But the larger truth is, my parents were also capable of quite good judgements
and values on other things: fascism, racism, antisemitism and genuine
progressive and union causes. A mixed bag. Like so much of everything.
Do you have blind spots? Of course you do. Do I? Of course I do. Because
we are born to The Human Condition. And we keep growing and changing.
Wonderful, isn’t it?!
Peace.
PM Netanyahu’s call for revenge, the collective punishment of Palestinian people, the burning murder of the Palestinian youth and the beating of an American cousin of the burnt youth, on top of its aparteid policies, have made the legitimacy of the Israeli government untenable. Isn’t it time for the American government to stop supporting this Israeli government, its principles and policies? If not now, when?
A look at the map makes it clear to me that there is no contiguous two-state solution. The map resembles the South African apartheid ‘homelands’. Or the 1947 partition of India which resulted in the non-contiguous nation of East and West Pakistan. Nothing will change the current map of Israel and Palestine into two states short of a genocidally driven ethnic ‘cleansing’, which political forces on both sides seem intent on. Something stronger than the present forces of hatred and revenge needs to be found before peace can ever come to the region.
Barbara Tilley has written a great book entitled THE ONE STATE SOLUTION. In it she says there are two and only two possible solutions to the Israeli question: (1) perpetual war or (2) a one-state solution. A two-state solution is beyond possibilty.
How are the Jews in Israel to be convinced that they will not be swamped under by the bigger Palestnian population in a one-state solution? How is balance of power to be achieved?
As I write this Hamas rockets are raining down on Southern Israel. This too is collective punishment. Seeking to abolish Israel and replace it with a so-called democratic secular state also strikes me as an attempt at collective punishment.
No one should ever forget that we live in a deeply imperfect world created by a deeply imperfect, yes imperfect God. A world founded on imperfect choices in which only imperfect choices are available. Anything else is a delusion. There is no one in this world who does not have blood on their hands. Including you and including me. Every man woman and child from the soccer mom to the soldier has blood on their hands. So stop blaming whoever you are blaming, stop arguing whatever you are arguing and figure out a way to make it better.
One only has blood on one’s hands if one supports and votes for government, whose purpose as Karl Marx explained, is to adminIster and promote the interests of the owning class. By definition government relies upon force to exist and control.
When I was 21 I voted for someone and since then, now at the age of 82, I have never supported the nation state or voted.
Hence I do not accept I have blood on my hands. Wash your hands. We can change the world as fast as an idea travels.
“The worst sin is to attack authority for it’s own sake, simply because it’s authority,
for this may lead to the disintegration of order and the triumph of chaos.” The Song of the Purple Mouth
Gene Paltrow …your post is really right on the point…you leave out the fact that all nations act in the way you describe..all of them..the ruling classes get to rule and they all take full advantage where they can…that’s why there are wars…although I do think that the US is very slightly better,at least since the 50s…Israel is a tiny tiny place with a world jewish population of 002 pct ..the Muslims..23 pct…they had to ally with America…Israel is caught in the vortex of the very painful growth of Islam into the modern era..so is the rest of the world…hopefully we all can survive the coming witches broth of hate and death while Islam discards its passions and hate
Hard situation with no easy answers …. but I admire you for bothering to report it, a quick Google search will confirm you are just about the only media outlet that will touch this story … what a shame
This is a typically thoughtful, measured and well-argued piece devoid of the anger and bitterness that has permeated many internet commentaries on recent events and is therefore all the more powerful for it. I have always viewed you as a friend of Israel, David even though many Israelis and American Jews may not agree with me. I categorise you as a friend of Israel not simply because you have regularly professed your love for the country, but because your criticism of its policies is always delivered constructively and with as much concern for Israelis as you have for the Palestinian people (who you clearly empathise with and whose suffering you clearly feel).
When reflecting on how you personify the role of “critical friend” I am reminded of the words of Winston Churchill captured during an interview with the New Statesman in 1939 (not that I was around then of course!)
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.”
Love for Israel means one thing for me – Conscious love for my neighbor.
Not easy.
Conscious love and acceptance for the higher in me.
Not easy.
So many internal wars, conflicts, grief, mourning, momentary deaths of the Goliath in me.
Love for Israel – for me – is not love to the state, to the people, to the place or to the language – it’s love for the idea of prioritizing connection over separation and divisions.
The God in me loves all.
The enemy is inside me.
With love
YoHana
http://thespiritualheartist.com/david-and-goliath/
Mohammed, the murdered Palestinian boy. was 16. His cousin Tarek is 15.
Unfortunately Israel finds itself in a desperate position ,the uber liberal sense of justice sees to want to hold Israel to a much higher degree then any other nation in the world…that’s not possible in the boiling kettle of hate and death that is the levant…running a country under such pressures is a monumental task …I beg those Jews to cut their brothers some slack…they are trying to grow Israel and survive at the same time..no easy task
David,
Your worry that Israel is not living up to its values is precious. Do tell us which country you prefer? South Sudan? Try living in the real world.
In the real world, courageous people who love their country criticize it based on its stated ideals and values. This is how people improve nations they feel allegiance to, in the real world. There is no other way conditions improve in the real world. Ignorant bigoted cowards frequently suggest those critics move to or pledge allegiance to another country, a strategy of civic rhetorical insult which improves nothing.
Mister Segal
Your words “David, your worry that Israel is not living up to its values is precious,” if taken literally (and I wish you would) are absolutely correct. That “worry” IS precious which is to say of high worth, admirable and rare because, as Mister Dorchen so eloquently states, without it no nation would ever improve. It is only your sarcasm which twists the truth of the statement you offer into something mean spirited and small.
Stop blaming who you are blaming. Stop idealizing who you are idealizing. Stop arguing what you are arguing and find a way to make it better.
I know the following question probably sounds inflammatory and offensive, but it is not meant to be. “In light of both recent events and the historical record, how is the idea of having a Jewish state for Jews materially different from having a German state for Germans?” Pointing out that methods of “cleansing” are different does not answer the question. Pointing out that one’s own hands and heart are clean while the others’ are not strains credulity beyond rationality.
Germany was not thrust into an area previously occupied by people of a different ethnic, religious and historic background. It did not derive as a country placed over another civilization, but developed in place. This is not meant to justify German excessive nationalism, but the history behind the two is entirely different.
READ: The Jewish nation’s intact moral compass by Ilya Meyer
Many people are dissecting what they have chosen to term Israel’s “delusions of moral superiority” following the appalling murder of Muhammed Abu Khdeir.
The fact is that the disgust expressed by the entire Jewish people and the entire nation of Israel, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, and the unified condemnation by the entire Israeli government of this one (1) Arab teenage boy’s disgraceful, inexcusable murder speaks volumes about the intact moral compass of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Equally, the delight, the public celebrations, the official Palestinian Arab government support and the joyful three-fingered salutes by young children that accompanied the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli Jewish teenagers Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach – the inexcusable brutal act that preceded and directly sparked this inexcusable brutal act – speak volumes about the deranged moral compass of Palestinian Arab society.
We also have to remember that none of this started with the killing of those three Israeli schoolboys: there are countless hundreds of young Israeli Jewish victims of Palestinian Arab barbarity over the years, some as young as a few months old, all deliberately targeted simply for being Jewish. The most recent such abhorrent Arab crime targeting an Israeli, Shelley Dadon, simply because she was Jewish, took place in May 2014 and her Arab killer was recently brought to justice.
There is a difference too in that no streets or public squares, no schools or computer centres, no sports arenas or soccer teams will be named in “honour” of Muhammed Abu Khdeir’s despicable murderers, whatever their ethnicity, religion, nationality or motivation. In the Jewish state as in the Jewish psyche, murder is illegal and abhorrent. No ifs, no buts, no explanations, no excuses. And definitely no cause for public celebration in the streets.
The families of the murderers will not be paid a lifetime pension (see also here, here and here) by the Israeli government. That, however, is exactly what happens with Palestinian Arab mass-murderers, whose own income and that of their families stands in direct proportion to the number of civilian Jews they succeed in killing. The incitement, the racism, the active encouragement to violence by the Palestinian Arab government and its various institutions is the source of this vile climate, and a dangerously naive world community provides the international funding that makes possible this corruption of an entire generation of Palestinian Arab children – children who are already shouldering the responsibilities of adulthood and taking with them these attitudes into positions of political, commercial and religious leadership.
So in all the perfectly understandable soul-searching following this most recent sequence of tragedies, in which Palestinian Arab society has yet again perpetrated and celebrated the kidnapping and murder of children and the consequential one-off kidnapping and murder of an Arab child in a disgustingly misguided tit-for-tat act of retaliation, keep sight of what this whole desperate situation is actually about: the insatiable penchant of the Palestinian Arabs for Jewish blood. From the 1929 massacre of Jews in Hebron to today (see also here, here, here, here and here).
Therefore, enough talk about this misguided concept of “moral superiority”. The world judges the Jewish state and the Jewish people by a totally different standard – and this is a nasty, primitive racist attitude.
Of course, that racism of which the world community is guilty may actually be of a different kind altogether: people expect Jews and the Jewish state to behave in a more “civilised”, “enlightened” and “acceptable” way than the Arab neighbours that surround Israel. A kind of “they don’t know any better and they’re not capable of any better, so we might just as well get used to the Arabs’ primitive behaviour”. Well, that’s despicable racism too. Because this is 2014, and every one of us is capable of civilised behaviour. To have low expectations of an entire ethnicity, nationality or religion simply because you don’t believe they are capable of any better is genuine, died-in-the-wool racism.
And that’s unacceptable. In the terrible situation caused by Palestinian Arab racism towards Jews, we need to acknowledge Palestinian Arab racism for what it is and stop condoning the world community’s eager embrace of that racism: racism aimed at the Jewish state because it is inexcusable to hold Jews to a higher standard, and racism aimed at the Palestinian Arabs because it is equally inexcusable to hold Arabs to a lower standard.
Because ultimately it is actual behaviour each and every day that counts. This one (1) single disgraceful aberration by the killers of Muhammed Abu Khdeir stands in stark contrast to the decades-long despicable behaviour of the PA and its various illusionary “partners for peace”. The PA has deliberately and carefully crafted a violent, racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic, corrupt and genocidal society over the years – all funded by the UN, EU and US.
Now, an exposé of THAT issue would be an interesting and relevant article to read. JT
“Because ultimately it is actual behaviour each and every day that counts.”
Yes it is. And, contrary to your in my opinion, one-sided remarks about how Palestinians, with their “deranged moral compass” celebrate evil while for Israelis evil is “definitely no cause for public celebration in the streets” the behavior of some Israelis today is sadly, heart-breakingly no better than that of their equivalently barbaric Palestinian brothers:
“A crowd in Israel cheered on missiles heading towards Gaza as CNN’s Diana Magnay filmed a report.
“I think you can probably see there are lots of Israelis gathered around who are cheering when they see these kinds of Israeli strikes,” said Magnay.
Later on, Magnay tweeted that the crowd threatened to “destroy our car.” She has since removed the tweet.
The truth will out.
Stop blaming who you are blaming. Stop idealizing who you are idealizing. Stop arguing what you are arguing and find a way to make it better.
Mr. Train, you said, “Because ultimately it is actual behaviour each and every day that counts.”
Yes it is. And, contrary to your in my opinion, one-sided and now demonstrably incorrect remarks about how Palestinians, with their “deranged moral compass” celebrate evil while for Israelis evil is “definitely no cause for public celebration in the streets” the behavior of some Israelis today is sadly, heart-breakingly no better than that of their equivalently barbaric Palestinian brothers:
“A crowd in Israel cheered on missiles heading towards Gaza as CNN’s Diana Magnay filmed a report.
“I think you can probably see there are lots of Israelis gathered around who are cheering when they see these kinds of Israeli strikes,” said Magnay.
Later on, Magnay tweeted that the crowd threatened to “destroy our car.” She has since removed the tweet.
The truth will out.
There is good and evil on both sides.
Stop blaming who you are blaming. Stop idealizing who you are idealizing. Stop arguing what you are arguing and find a way to make it better.
A very well written, contemplated, and provocative article, and I thank you for it.
For me, the foundation of the Jewish state is problematic as it would be were we to recognize the United States as a Christian state. It goes without saying that there can be no democracy under such a circumstance. Spirituality is a personal, not a public, value, and merging them always seems to produce a scapegoat. How much longer can we as Americans whitewash this house of cards?
What about Norway was s Lutheran state or England with its state church or Austis ad a Catholic state. Like all of them, Israel had religious freedom even when there id s state religion. Your point is?
Thank you John train…a brilliant answer and defense of Israel…brilliant indeed
David Harris-Gershon has attempted to meet with terrorists in the past.
Whether you agree with him or not, David Harris-Gershon clearly hopes, both with his words and his actions to lift the level of discourse higher, whereas you only degrade it. His words are a mitzvah, yours are a shanda.
My post regarding the mitzvah of Mr. Harris-Gershon’s article was in response (since deleted) to an ugly comment by an individual who referred to Mr. Harris-Gershon with an expletive, and not to Mr. Train’s post or any other.
Clearly there is a strong feeling among Jews and non-Jews alike that the current Israeli government and its supporting Zionist party is abusing human rights with its continued occupation of Palestinians. But nothing will change as long as the US government and the two major parties continue to support it, with money and moral support. What will it take for the US government to stop its support? How can American politicians be insulated from the powerful Israeli lobby?
Classic “As a Jew…” post. The term “as a Jew” is a marker of identity politics. Jewish anti-Zionists give their identity politics a strange twist. Instead of claiming to represent the opinion of most of their fellow Jews, they mobilize their identity “as a Jew” in order to give their oppositional view more legitimacy. They are saying to non-Jews that this or that might seem to them as though it was Antisemitic, but I, the Jew, am happy to reassure you that it isn’t. They claim that their Jewish identity is authentic in some way that most Jews’ identities are inauthentic. So the anti-Zionist “as a Jew” may be in a tiny minority but she is claiming that she, nevertheless, is the real Jew. The ethical Jew. The critical Jew. The anti-nationalist Jew. The courageous Jew. The far-sighted Jew. And the other Jews, the herd, are actually not such real Jews; their Jewishness has been subverted by Zionism and Islamophobia and a secular unconcern with Jewish ethics. The anti-zionist Jew says “as a Jew” in order to turn opinion against the majority of her fellow Jews. She wants to say that because she doesn’t find something to be antisemitic, for example, and she is a Jew, and she speaks as a Jew, then they should accept that it isn’t antisemitic. Because if a Jew says something isn’t antisemitic then it can’t be. Right?
Shallow is how one defines your comments. Damn this Zio Nazis. Jews are far less Islamaphobic than Europeans in light of the Fascist parties that are growing stronger there. Look at France. Israel is living under a gun and surrounded by hostile neighbors.
Mr. Harris-Gershom comes from a long line of Jews masquerading as friends of Israel, refusing to accept the evil with evil which the Jews in Israel are facing in their effort to build one place in the world that is safe for Jews. The bottom line is that what we are facing in the territory inhabited by Jews in place is the product of the refusal of Arabs , in Israel, and outside of Israel, and by Moslems in both places to accept the fact of Jewish existence. If things are difficult for Arab residents of this territory, much worse for those outside the direct control of Israel, is a direct result of Arab behaviour in a thousand different ways. If we have exhibited human frailty in losing control of our emotions, and I do not condone it, it has resulted in action that are an infinitesimal shadow of the actions perpetrated, and the philosophies espoused by those on the other side. No hand-wringing and moralizing about moral codes alters that reality. I cannot and will nt apologize for our efforts to defend ourselves here, and elsewhere, in a world where Jews are increasingly encircled by those who wish us evil under many guises. David Pearl thought he could treat with these people. Mr. Harris-Gershom would fare no better in pursuing dreams in technicolor.. We must deal with the reality we face and no omelette is fashioned without breaking a few eggs, particularly when we are using the eggs our enemies are throwing at us.
Vancouver, Canada
Wow, I’ve never seen so much ignorance and lies in one article. While it’s expected from the traditional Israel haters, it is sad when it comes from a Jew. I feel sorry for you, David.
I wish the author would apply his concern and humanist views here in America towards Black Americans who are often on the end of White Jewish bigotry here from being called the Yiddish n-word to dealing with slum landlords, etc….
What is it about folks who travel around the world to adopt babies of other hues but not kids here in America the same sentiment exists here with this author….I understand that American Jews like the Irish, Poles , Italians and of late Latino’s have purchased ‘whiteness” the racism must be a part of the package…WTF
It’s also racist to stereotype an entire people as racist. Malcolm X discovered that and said the following:
“[L]istening to leaders like Nasser, Ben Bella, and Nkrumah awakened me to the dangers of racism. I realized racism isn’t just a black and white problem. It’s brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another.
Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant – the one who wanted to help the [Black] Muslims and the whites get together – and I told her there wasn’t a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I’ve lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I’m sorry for now. I was a zombie then – like all [Black] Muslims – I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man’s entitled to make a fool of himself if he’s ready to pay the cost. It cost me 12 years.”
That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days – I’m glad to be free of them.”
Parks, Gordon, “Malcolm X: The Minutes of Our Last Meeting”, Clarke, p. 122.