Over the past 100 years, the world has seen the creation of some 100 new states -- perhaps more states in a shorter period than ever before in the history of the world. Most of those new states have not proved very successful. But there is one among the states that has succeeded magnificently: the state of Israel. So guess which is the one state that people worldwide seek to overthrow? Terrorist-sponsoring Pakistan? Oil-corrupted Nigeria? Oppressive Uzbekistan?
Nope, nope, and nope again.
OK, OK, you say, tell us something we don't know.
Fine. Over the past few years, there's been an interesting shift among opponents of the state of Israel. They've begun to call themselves "post-Zionist" -- a bland, bloodless phrase. The idea embedded in the phrase is that Israel can somehow be transitioned away from its current status as a Jewish homeland via some technical process not involving massacres and exile -- that Israel can be abolished without harm to the Israelis.
It's not a very realistic project, to put it mildly. But it's an attractive slogan to those who dislike Israel and don't want to face the implications of that dislike.
Last weekend, militant groups inside Gaza launched a rocket barrage against southern Israel. Up to a million Israelis have had to take refuge in bomb shelters. 200,000 children missed school. This is what anti-Zionism looks like.
Over that same week, as so often in the past, Canadian university campuses have been disgraced by renewed vilification of Israel under the slogan of "Israel Apartheid Week." The good news for Canada is that these acts of vilification have been met with resounding criticism from political leaders. Federal Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said forcefully:
"The organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week use the cover of academic freedom to demonize and delegitimize the state of Israel. In reality, this week is nothing more than an unbalanced attempt to paint Israel and her supporters as racist; this week runs contrary to Canadian values of tolerance, mutual respect and understanding."
Liberal leader Bob Rae agreed:
"It is... difficult to understand why this year the focus continues to be on Israel, rather than on the appalling massacres and human-rights violations that have reached intolerable heights in countries such as Syria and Iran."
The short answer to Rae's haunting question is that anti-Israelism has never been about human rights. Anti-Israelism has always been about the destruction of one nation and one people.
For many Israelis and many Jews, the continuing intensity of that ancient hatred understandably feels a crushing, intolerable, and ultimately baffling burden.
It's a tragic fact of human psychology that some people targeted by hatred will seek to find in themselves some reason that they are hated. By blaming themselves, they can impose some sense on a universe that otherwise seems terrifyingly senseless. By blaming themselves, they can perhaps hope to find some escape from hatred -- short, that is, of the murder or suicide which is what the haters say they want for them.
"If we abolish this part of ourselves -- or that -- will you then stop despising us? Will you then grant us permission to continue to exist in some subordinated form or other?"
It's a pattern of thought we see in abused children, in battered women, in bullied gays -- and in post-Zionist Jews.
Sometimes it even works a little and for a time, but always at a terrible price.
The point of Zionism was to put an end to the centuries-old pattern that taught Jews to survive by abnegating themselves. And in that, Zionism succeeded. It succeeded for Jews inside Israel -- and as Israel flourished, Zionism succeeded for Jews outside Israel, too. If Jews in Canada and Europe and the United States dare today to speak up for themselves in ways that would have shocked their great-grandparents, it is in great part the success of Israel that inspires them.
And those Jews who imagine that they can advance or even retain that self-respect by denigrating Israel -- or, worse, by appeasing those who seek to destroy Israel -- are making a terrible error. There is no "post-Zionism." There is only "anti-Zionism" -- the modern form of an ancient malignity.
That's the issue for the Jews in the Israeli bomb shelters. It's the same issue for the Jews taunted on Canadian university campuses by those who push pamphlets calling for the destruction of this one, and only one, of the nations of the world.
This blog originally appeared in the National Post.
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So if you honestly want to analyze the issue you would need to start from accurate historical context. You didn't, and you don't. It is this simple core fact that Israel has been jumping up and down to deny and obscure since their unilateral declaration of independence. Identify another Western colonial imposition after WW2 and we can debate the issue honestly.
Thanks for calling this out. There's a prodigious difference between criticism of policies and delegitimization.
Also, although the words "Arab", "Muslim", and "Palestinian" are conspicuously absent from this article. Ignoring them won't make them go away.
My personal stance on this is utilitarian: if it makes the greatest amount of people happy to have a state of Israel (which I believe it does), then let it be. However, if people have to suffer on both "sides" for it to exist in its current form, we have a moral responsibility to at least question it.
Criticising the behaviour and decisions of the leaders of a nation does not equal a genocidal hatred for all members of that country's religion.
With all the respect your opinions deserve, I must ask:
Honestly man what is the matter with your brain?
Let's have Chinese, Moroccan, Turkish, Russian, Syrian, Iraqi, Saudi, Bahraini, Lebanese, Emirati, Pakistani anti-apartheid week with respect to their respective apartheids.
Right now as BIll Kristol and the Neo-Cons, with their Evangelical allies are presenting a "hysterical hawk approach", it is important to try to think of alternatives to more war. Haven't they done enough harm already? Fritz Stern's quip, intentionally echoing their hero Churchill, is still relevant. "Never have so few done so much to hurt so many". As for their 'Christian right" allies and Israel, do you think Ed Koch is right? "They may be anti-Semitic, but they love Israel" What they love is their sick destructive apocalyptic fantasies. which will cause a lot of suffering, as always. Pursuit of the Millenium is a dangerous game (Norman Cohn). Alliances with mindless characters like Gary Bauer are "mesalliances". A group of peripheralized culturally conservative academics (Neo-Cons), made an alliance with "know nothings". The results have been awful. Even David Frum and co are embarrassed by the Republican primaries-of course they too have been ostracized for criticizing some of the Neo-Con delusions. How about at this point, quietly sneak back to the Center?!
(Regarding your tagline: "Life is too important to take you seriously.")
Why aren't you out protesting against the government of afghanistan's support for a religious missive that supports wife-beating? Clearly your failure to do so indicates that you support wife beating.
Why aren't you out protesting against the chinese government's ongoing repression in tibet? Clearly your failure to do so indicates that you support opressive totalitarian communism.
Or MAYBE, just maybe, there's only so many hours in the day and it would be idiotic to demand everyone take action on absolutely every issue and accuse them of bigotry if they don't.
Plus, it's not for lack of some Palestinians trying.
Even supporters of Israel (like myself) are questioning the actions of its current government. We should be condemning further settlement of the (very undemocratic) West Bank.
Peter Beinart writes a very good (and much more thoughtful) op-ed piece in the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/opinion/to-save-israel-boycott-the-settlements.html?hp
Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, 1944:
"The concept of a racial state - the Hitlerian concept- is repugnant to the civilized world, as witness the fearful global war in which we are involved. . . , I urge that we do nothing to set us back on the road to the past. To project at this time the creation of a Jewish state or commonwealth is to launch a singular innovation in world affairs which might well have incalculable consequences."
"We do not consider the Jewish people as an enemy whose wish is to crush us. On the contrary. We consider the Jews as a brotherly people sharing our joys and troubles and helping us in the construction of our common country. We are certain that without Jewish immigration and financial assistance there will be no future development of our country as may be judged from the fact that the towns inhabited in part by Jews such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, and Tiberias are making steady progress while Nablus, Acre, and Nazareth where no Jews reside are steadily declining." - Hassan Bey Shukri - Mayor of Haifa -1921. (By the way, he survived two assasination attempts by fellow Arabs.)
He just said that Israel is not as bad as most countries created in the 20th century, and that it is hypocrisy and some underlying hatred that makes the haters focus solely on Israel, and not, for example, on the occupation and oppression of the Kurds, or the Saharawis, and the colonization of their lands. Or even the Tibetans for that matter.
1) there was an assumption that there was a god.
2) there was an assumption that the assumed god had chosen the Jews to be "his" (not hers or its) god.
3) that the assumed god gave a piece of land to his (not hers or its) chosen peoiple after they killed every man, woman and child and all the animals in it. Those people are now called the Canaanites. The slaughter ocurred milennia ago. The Jews settled down in the land which had belonged to the Canaanites.
4) the Jews are only those who have a Jewish mother.
5) although the Jews have lived around the world from pre Christian times they have "rights" to the land which was Canaan.
6) the Jews who lived around the world had a right to return to the land of the Canaanites otherwise called Palestine and take it from the people who lived there, the Palestinians. They began to migrate to Palestine and bought land from absentee landlords.
Religious Zionism, Christian Zionism - these are new kids on the block. Most of us Zionists who were supporting the development of Israel as the Jewish homeland are secular liberals.
In 1615, the English poet George Sandys found Palestine to be "a land that flowed with milk and honey; in the midst as it were of the habitable world, and under a temperate clime; adorned with beautiful mountains and luxurious valleys; the rocks producing excellent waters; and no part empty of delight or profit."
Englishwoman Lady Hester Stanhope, 1810: "The luxuriance of vegetation is not to be described....Fruits of all sorts from the banana to the blackberry are abundant. The banks of the rivers are clothed naturally with oleander and flowering shrubs.... [The Arab orchards near Jaffa] contained lemon, orange, almond, peach, apple, pomegranate and other trees."
In 1859, a British missionary described the southern coast of Palestine as "a very ocean of wheat...the fields would do credit to British farming."
In 1883, Englishman Laurence Oliphant described the Plain of Esdraelon at Acre as being "...in a high state of cultivation. It looks today like a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxurious fertility which it is possible to conceive."
In 1870, Arabs comprised 98% of the population, Jews 2%.
In 1882, Arabs owned 99.9% of the land, Jews 0.09%
Well sort of. Socialist would be more accurate. Don't forget that Liberal actually meant something in the eary 20th century. Mostly it mean unfettered ownership.
Anyway, Zionists may not have been religious, at least not for their time, but they were backed to the hilt by Anglican Britain where it was common to believe that Jews must return to Zion. Hertzel needed those Christians even more than Isarel needs their descendants now.
What about the fact that these same people you are claiming are having human rights abuses committed against them are also committing human rights abuses against other Palestinians and Israelis?
There are far worse areas where people actually are being driven out in droves, raped, tortured and murdered for their land and not a damn peep out of many.
How about using children as human shields and although it is not as frequent now, using children as combatants. Do you think those things might also be human rights abuses?
I don't think taking a one-sided viewpoint is going to help those that truly do want peace and that is what we should be pushing and supporting not some finger pointing adventure that blinds themselves to everything the militant Palestinians are doing. People appear to forget that for right or for wrong that people were given that state. They did not take the area over by force but had to fight to exist in a number of battles with the surrounding Arab countries. These same Arab countries had large populations of Jews who they treated as second class citizens for centuries who they booted out and whose property they confiscated.
How about that for human rights abuse?
Basically my position is that any country that commits human rights abuses should be condemned. Israel has comitted human rights abuses and should be called out on them. They shouldn't be ignored, and Israel should not get a free pass. That being said I also condemn all of the actions you mention, and believe that our government should call these other countries out on their actions as well. People do seem to focus on Israel to the exclusion of all else. This is also wrong. Although Israel should be condemned that should not stop us from also condemning the other countries (including basically all middle eastern countries) for their actions. In my opinion the other countries are indeed larger concerns, and need more focus.
And also I agree that the Arab countries need to learn to tolerate Israel. Mabye their desire to make Israel cease to exist would have been justifiable in the first few years of its existance (please do not take this as supporting their position, I am merely stating that it is justifiable, not morally right). However Israel has existed for 50ish years. Israel has existed for long enough that they have no justification for invading at this point.
I hope this clarified my position.
Unlike Israel, a well documented serial violator of hard-won international human rights laws, the "far worse areas" that you refer to do not recieve $3.5 billion in aid from US taxpayers every year (nearly $10 million per day) along with another $one billion per year in tax-deductibe contributions from American individuals and organizations. Israel receives one-third of the total US foreign aid budget. Furthermore, this aid (i.e., money that the heavily indebted US must borrow from China and other countries) is set aside in advance of the fiscal year into a special account and Israel receives the accrued interest.
Nor are these "far worse areas" protected by the US in international fora, including the UNSC, from censure.
Also, for the record, the UN Goldstone report found no evidence whatsoever that Hamas used Palestinians as human shields during Operation Cast Lead. It did find ample evidence, however, that the IDF did.
thats what the face of collective punishment looks like -----
They DO provide schools, social welfare, and a safety net. That's the primary reason they won the election for leadership. They're widely regarded as more effective and less corrupt than the other parties in Palestine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas
Under "social welfare": "Israeli scholar Reuven Paz estimates that 90% of Hamas activities revolve around "social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities."
Last week the kids in Gaza still went to school. Not all of the kids in Israel could.
Why is it only collective punishment when Israel reacts and not collective punishment when militant organizations indiscriminately send rockets into civilian areas?