What A Dialog About Anti Semitism And The Fate Of The State Of Israel

 It is the more “reasoned”, subtle, and stealthy variety that it is pernicious. “No smoke without fire,” – say people – “there must be something to it!”. In this dialog, I try to deconstruct a “mild” anti-Semitic text. I myself wrote the text – not an easy task considering my ancestry (a Jew) and my citizenship (an Israeli). But to penetrate the pertinent layers – historical, psychological, semantic, and semiotic – I had to “enter the skin” of “rational”, classic anti-Semites, to grasp what makes them click and tick, and to think and reason like them. It is impossible for a gentile – whom they hold to be inferior and reflexively hostile – to penetrate their counsels. Let us examine anti-Semitic arguments more closely and in an unbiased manner: Argument number one – Being Jewish is a racial distinction – not only a religious one If race is defined in terms of genetic purity, then Jews are as much a race as the remotest and most isolated of the tribes of the Amazon. Genetic studies revealed that Jews throughout the world – largely due to centuries of in-breeding – share the same genetic makeup. Jews are not even allowed to partake the food and wine of gentiles and have kept their distance from the communities which they inhabited – maintaining tenaciously, through countless generations, their language, habits, creed, dress, and national ethos. Can you blame us for responding to what you yourselves have so enthusiastically instigated?  The Anti-Semite: Argument number two – The Jews regard themselves as Chosen, Superior, or Pure Vehement protestations to the contrary notwithstanding – this is largely true. This is a pernicious rendition of the colonial White Man’s Burden, and it is coupled with disdain and contempt for the lowly and the great unwashed (namely, the gentiles). Show me one group of people (including the anti-Semites) who isn’t? But there is an abyss between being justly proud of one’s true accomplishments and feeling superior as a result. The Anti-Semite: Argument number three – Jews have divided loyalties It is false to say that Jews are first and foremost Jews and only then are they the loyal citizens of their respective countries. Moreover, the rebirth of the Jewish State presented the Jews with countless ethical dilemmas, which they typically resolved by adhering uncritically to Tel-Aviv official line. This viral hijacking of the host country’s agenda is particularly evident in the United States, where the interest of Jewry and of the only superpower have become inextricable. It is a fact – not a rant – that Jews are over-represented in certain, influential, professions (in banking, finance, the media, politics, the film industry, publishing, science, the humanities, etc.). The Anti-Semite: Argument number four – Jews act as a cabal or mafia There is no organized, hierarchical, and centralized worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Jewish organizations – many in cahoots with the Israeli government – serve as administrative backup, same as some Islamic charities do for militant Islam. The Jews’ ability and readiness to mobilize and act to further their plans is a matter of record and the source of the inordinate influence of their lobby organizations in Washington, for instance. When two Jews meet, even randomly, and regardless of the disparities in their background, they immediately endeavor to see how they can further each other’s interests, even and often at the expense of everyone else’s. Bound by a common history, a common set of languages, a common ethos, a common religion, common defenses and ubiquitous enemies – Jews learned to closely cooperate in order to survive. No wonder that all modern global networks – from Rothschild to Reuters – were established by Jews. Individual Jews – though rarely the Jewish community as a whole – seem to benefit no matter what. Three quarters of the famous “oligarchs” (robber barons) that absconded with the bulk of the defunct empire’s assets were – you guessed it – Jews. As long as people co-operate legally and for legal ends, without breaching ethics and without discriminating against deserving non-members – what is wrong with that? The Anti-Semite: Argument number five – The Jews are planning to take over the world and establish a world government This is the kind of nonsense that discredits a serious study of the Jews and their role in history, past and present. Neither were Jews prominent in any of the recent moves – mostly by the Europeans – to strengthen the role of international law and attendant supranational organizations. Only in Israel – where they constitute an overwhelming majority – do Jews run things. The Anti-Semite: Argument number six – Jews are selfish, narcissistic, haughty, double-faced, dissemblers. Nationalist narcissism transformed Zionism into a mission of acculturation (“White Man’s Burden”). In “Altneuland” (translated to Hebrew as “Tel Aviv”), the feverish tome composed by Theodore Herzl, Judaism’s improbable visionary – Herzl refers to the Arabs as pliant and compliant butlers, replete with gloves and tarbushes. They are welcomed and escorted by “Briticized” Arab gentlemen’s gentlemen who are only too happy to assist their future masters and colonizers to disembark. This age-old narcissistic defence – the Jewish superiority complex – was only exacerbated by the Holocaust. Nazism posed as a rebellion against the “old ways” – against the hegemonic culture, the upper classes, the established religions, the superpowers, the European order. The Jews constituted a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that was “wrong” with Europe. They were an old nation, they were eerily disembodied (without a territory), they were cosmopolitan, they were part of the establishment, they were “decadent”, they were hated on religious and socio-economic grounds (see Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”), they were different, they were narcissistic (felt and acted as morally superior), they were everywhere, they were defenseless, they were credulous, they were adaptable (and thus could be co-opted to collaborate in their own destruction). The Holocaust was a massive trauma not because of its dimensions – but because Germans, the epitome of Western civilization, have turned on the Jews, the self-proclaimed missionaries of Western civilization in the Levant and Arabia. Rejected by East (as colonial stooges) and West (as agents of racial contamination) alike – the Jews resorted to a series of narcissistic responses reified by the State of Israel. The long term occupation of territories (metaphorical or physical) is a classic narcissistic behavior (of “annexation” of the other). The Six Days War was a war of self defence – but the swift victory only exacerbated the grandiose fantasies of the Jews. Mastery over the Palestinians became an important component in the psychological makeup of the nation (especially the more rightwing and religious elements) because it constitutes “Narcissistic Supply”. It was born in an age of colonialism, Kipling’s “white man’s burden”, and Western narcissism. The Anti-Israeli: The State of Israel is likely to end as did the seven previous stabs at Jewish statehood – in total annihilation. The Jewish Response: Zionism is undoubtedly a typical 19th century national movement, promoting the interests of an ethnically-homogeneous nation. Consequently, they don’t enjoy the special benefits conferred on war veterans and ex-soldiers. Regrettably, it is also true that Arabs are discriminated against and hated by many Israelis, though rarely as a matter of official policy. Budget priorities are also heavily skewed in favor of schools and infrastructure in Jewish municipalities. A lot remains to be done. It presented itself as an alternative to both orthodox religion and to assimilation in the age of European “Enlightenment”. But it was soon hijacked by East European Jews who espoused a pernicious type of Stalinism and virulent anti-Arab racism. The Jewish Response: East European Jews were no doubt more nationalistic and etatist than the West European visionaries who gave birth to Zionism. But, again, they were not racist. On the very contrary. Their socialist roots called for close collaboration and integration of all the ethnicities and nationalities in Israel/Palestine. The Anti-Israeli: The “Status Quo” promulgated by Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, confined institutionalized religion to matters of civil law and to communal issues. All affairs of state became the exclusive domain of the secular-leftist nomenclature and its attendant bureaucratic apparatus. All this changed after the Six Days War in 1967 and, even more so, after the Yom Kippur War. Militant Messianic Jews with radical fundamentalist religious ideologies sought to eradicate the distinction between state and synagogue. They propounded a political agenda, thus invading the traditionally secular turf, to the great consternation of their compatriots. This schism is unlikely to heal and will be further exacerbated by the inevitable need to confront harsh demographic and geopolitical realities. No matter how much occupied territory Israel gives up and how many ersatz Jews it imports from East Europe, the Palestinians are likely to become a majority within the next 50 years. Israel will sooner or later face the need to choose whether to institute a policy of strict and racist apartheid – or shrink into an indefensible (though majority Jewish) enclave. The fanatics of the religious right are likely to enthusiastically opt for the first alternative. All the rest of the Jews in Israel are bound to recoil. Civil war will then become unavoidable and with it the demise of yet another short-lived Jewish polity. The Jewish Response: Israel is, indeed, faced with the unpalatable choice and demographic realities described above. But don’t bet on civil war and total annihilation just yet. There are numerous other political solutions – for instance, a confederacy of two national states, or one state with two nations. But, I agree, this is a serious problem further compounded by Palestinian demands for the right to return to their ancestral territories, now firmly within the Jewish State, even in its pre-1967 borders. With regards to the hijacking of the national agenda by right-wing, religious fundamentalist Jewish militants – as the recent pullout from Gaza and some of the West Bank proves conclusively, Israelis are pragmatists. The influence of Messianic groups on Israeli decision-making is blown out of proportion. They are an increasingly isolated – though vocal and sometimes violent – minority. The Anti-Israeli: Israel could, perhaps, have survived, had it not committed a second mortal sin by transforming itself into an outpost and beacon of Western (first British-French, then American) neo-colonialism. As the representative of the oppressors, it was forced to resort to an official policy of unceasing war crimes and repeated grave violations of human and civil rights. The Jewish Response: Israel aligned itself with successive colonial powers in the region because it felt it had no choice, surrounded and outnumbered as it was by hostile, trigger-happy, and heavily armed neighbors. Israel did miss, though, quite a few chances to make peace, however intermittent and hesitant, with its erstwhile enemies. It is also true that it committed itself to a policy of settlements and oppression within the occupied territories which inevitably gave rise to grave and repeated violations on international law. Overlording another people had a corrosive corrupting influence on Israeli society. The Anti-Israeli: The Arabs, who first welcomed the Jewish settlers and the economic opportunities they represented, turned against the new emigrants when they learned of their agenda of occupation, displacement, and ethnic cleansing. Israel became a pivot of destabilization in the Middle East, embroiled in conflicts and wars too numerous to count. Unscrupulous and corrupt Arab rulers used its existence and the menace it reified as a pretext to avoid democratization, transparency, and accountability. The Jewish Response: With the exception of the 1919 Faisal-Weitzman declaration, Arabs never really welcomed the Jews. Attacks on Jewish outposts and settlers started as early as 1921 and never ceased. The wars in 1948 and in 1967 were initiated or provoked by the Arab states. It is true, though, that Israel unwisely leveraged its victories to oppress the Palestinians and for territorial gains, sometimes in cahoots with much despised colonial powers, such as Britain and France in 1956. The Anti-Israeli: This volatile mixture of ideological racism, Messianic empire-building, malignant theocracy much resented by the vast majority of secular Jews, and alignment with all entities anti-Arab and anti-Muslim will doom the Jewish country. In the long run, the real inheritors and proprietors of the Middle East are its long-term inhabitants, the Arabs. A strong army is not a guarantee of longevity – see the examples of the USSR and Yugoslavia. Even now, it is not too late. Israel can transform itself into an important and benevolent regional player by embracing its Arab neighbors and by championing the causes of economic and scientific development, integration, and opposition to outside interference in the region’s internal affairs. The Arabs, exhausted by decades of conflict and backwardness, are likely to heave a collective sigh of relief and embrace Israel – reluctantly at first and more warmly as it proves itself a reliable ally and friend. Israel’s demographic problem is more difficult to resolve. It requires Israel to renounce its exclusive racist and theocratic nature. Israel must suppress, by force if need be, the lunatic fringe of militant religious fanatics that has been haunting its politics in the last three decades. And it must extend a welcoming hand to its Arab citizens by legislating and enforcing a set of Civil Rights Laws. The Jewish Response: Whether this Jewish state is doomed or not, time will tell. Peace with our Arab neighbors and equal treatment of our Arab citizens should be our two over-riding strategic priorities. The Jewish State cannot continue to live by the sword, lest it perishes by it. If the will is there it can be done. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.