I am entirely irreligious, so I have no affinity for the Biblical lands of the Jews. If I did, I would live there. And I am fascinated by those American Jews who assert that Israel is their land, but won't live there either. There are two reasons why most American Jews don't move to Israel:
1) they're doing better here than they ever could in Israel, so they would take a hit to go there - but they assure us that if Israel ever really needs them, or if things get so bad in the US that they need Israel, they'll get on the first plane. Maybe. Maybe not.
2) they stay here so they can make a lot of money, some of which they give to Israel, and also so they can influence American politics. That reason is absolutely true, and it's a good thing for Israel that they're doing that, because this way Israel gets not only Jewish money but American taxpayer's money, more than Jews alone could give.
I do understand others' affinity for the Biblical lands. If it's a cultural affinity, that's one thing; if it's a religious affinity, that leads to all sorts of intransigeant problems like the settlers in the West Bank, for example. I have never understood that population pressure is forcing Jews to settle in the West Bank, sort of grabbing lebensraum. I understand that Jews settle in the West Bank because they believe it is necessary for Jews to have that territory in order for the Messiah to come. And maybe there might be a few who go there for the commute.
But that there needs to be a Jewish homeland I cannot dispute. It's interesting to me that Jews have not quite agreed on whether they need a state because they are a nation or because they are a religion. It doesn't matter, anyway. There are no guarantees against another Holocaust. And if the people who are willing to live in a Jewish homeland feel an affinity for the Biblical lands, they should go for it - as long as they are prepared to take the consequences of living amongst a hostile pre-existing population.
I know Jews argue that
they are the pre-existing population. History does move on, though, and I doubt those Jews who live in New York are prepared to give Manhattan back to the Indians. (They'll no doubt say the Indians gave up Manhattan in a fair bargain, while the Jews were screwed out of Israel - which is true, but irrelevant, to my mind.) As for those who claim God has given the Jews that land, if I believed in God I would probably agree with them, keeping in mind that (just as Jews believe that God gave them the military victories by which they subjugated that land) the Arabs tend to believe it was God who gave them the early military victories in which they took Israel/Palestine and a whole lot of other places. I tend to stay out of these arguments, as well as arguments over whether God determines the Super Bowl winner.
The early Jewish settlers in Palestine (by early I mean late 19th and early 20th centuries) accepted the prospect and the risks of living among others, and mostly managed to develop decent relationships with the Arabs. The Holocaust changed the ball game. There had to be somewhere for Jews to go, after being betrayed in the lands they had lived in. The British, foreseeing what has since come to pass, tried to keep them out. But that was impossible. And, since there was nowhere else for the Jews to go, warfare between Arabs and Jews became inevitable, since the Arabs believed they were losing their land for the sins of others.
Initially, Jewish settlers in Israel after WWII were resigned to the fact that they were going to have to fight for the land and their lives. Some of them no doubt believed they had an absolute right to the land, and some of them believed that whether they had a right or not, they were going to take it because they had no choice. For the former there was no moral dilemma in displacing other people, and for the latter the moral dilemma was overcome by sheer necessity. I think the problems Israel lives with now began when Israel forgot that early moral dilemma entirely.
After the Six Day War, Israel began to feel secure - and to be secure. At that point, for real security, Israel should have resolved that moral dilemma. And I think in some ways they tried to, and were met with Arab intransigeance. Continued awareness of the moral dilemma would have suggested continuing efforts to resolve it. But changes in the population of Israel put an end to that.
When founded, Israel was a Socialist state. Most of the founders were European Jews whose politics had been leftist in Europe. It would have been very difficult for them, after having been attacked twice (at least, not forgetting the myriad small Arab attacks in the meantime) to have any sympathy for the Arabs; but I would bet they had not forgotten the moral dilemma, and if the Arabs had changed their behavior they might have tried to resolve it.
But as the Arabs reacted to the Six Day War by making life utterly miserable for Jews who lived in their countries, those Jews - Sephardic, mostly - emigrated to Israel, bringing with them both a justified hatred of Arabs for the way they had been treated and an unreasoning attitude similar to that of the Arabs in the countries they had just left. For them there has never been a moral dilemma, any more than there has been for the vast majority of Arabs. (I am not discussing the Russian Jews, which is a much more complex situation.)
When they gained power in Israel, the moral dilemma disappeared, and you had Jews and Arabs facing each other with the same hate and the same unsophisticated sense of identity - primarily a tribal thing, I think. So now there is little difference between the political attitudes of those who rule Israel and the political attitudes of Arab rulers. Both think they're superior as human beings, and both will cut the other no slack.
This in no way ignores the fact that Israel has been far more internally progressive and productive than any Arab country. Arabs have a real problem with creating value - at least since the days of Egypt and Babylon. Arab wealth comes from exploitation of raw materials they are lucky enough to live over, and not from exploitation of their minds except in the merchant cunning which has always been their way. They don't seem to be equipped to compete in the modern world, and they bemoan the fact that they used to be a center of power while completely disdaining any attempt to reproduce the conditions which created that power - i.e., intellectual activity.
But this Israel progressivism is not applied to the "Arab question." It used to be. And it needs to be again.
Which brings me to an interview of Barack Obama which I think illustrates what I'm talking about. The interview was conducted by Jeffrey Goldberg, who posted it on his
blog at Atlantic.com. The sense that Obama makes and the rationality he exhibits are remarkable in this day and age.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I’m curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?
BARACK OBAMA: You know, when I think about the Zionist idea, I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young man -- as a child, in fact. I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth grade who was Jewish-American but who had spent time in Israel, and during the course of this two-week camp he shared with me the idea of returning to a homeland and what that meant for people who had suffered from the Holocaust, and he talked about the idea of preserving a culture when a people had been uprooted with the view of eventually returning home. There was something so powerful and compelling for me, maybe because I was a kid who never entirely felt like he was rooted. That was part of my upbringing, to be traveling and always having a sense of values and culture but wanting a place. So that is my first memory of thinking about Israel.
And then that mixed with a great affinity for
the idea of social justice that was embodied in the early Zionist movement
(that includes the sense of moral dilemma I was talking about) and the kibbutz, and the notion that not only do you find a place but you also have this opportunity to start over and to repair the breaches of the past. I found this very appealing.
JG: You’ve talked about the role of Jews in the development of your thinking
BO: I always joke that my intellectual formation was through Jewish scholars and writers, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Whether it was theologians or Philip Roth who helped shape my sensibility, or some of the more popular writers like Leon Uris. So when I became more politically conscious, my starting point when I think about the Middle East is this enormous emotional attachment and sympathy for Israel, mindful of its history, mindful of the hardship and pain and suffering that the Jewish people have undergone, but also mindful of the incredible opportunity that is presented when people finally return to a land and are able to try to excavate their best traditions and their best selves. And obviously it’s something that has great resonance with the African-American experience.
One of the things that is frustrating about the recent conversations on Israel is the loss of what I think is the natural affinity between the African-American community and the Jewish community, one that was deeply understood by Jewish and black leaders in the early civil-rights movement but has been estranged for a whole host of reasons that you and I don’t need to elaborate.
JG: Do you think that justice is still on Israel’s side?
BO: I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience. I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea.
That does not mean that I would agree with every action of the state of Israel, because it’s a government and it has politicians, and as a politician myself I am deeply mindful that we are imperfect creatures and
don’t always act with justice uppermost on our minds. But the fundamental premise of Israel and the need to preserve a Jewish state that is secure is, I think, a just idea and one that should be supported here in the United States and around the world.
JG: Go to the kishke question, the gut question: the idea that if Jews know that you love them, then you can say whatever you want about Israel, but if we don’t know you –- Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski –- then everything is suspect. There seems to be in some quarters, in Florida and other places, a sense that you don’t feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it.
BO: I find that really interesting. I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what’s been accomplished.
What I also love about Israel is the fact that people argue about these issues, and that they’re asking themselves moral questions. (Something which is not yet happening in the American Jewish community.)Sometimes I’m attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives. (
This is the kind of Jewish thought which has disappeared from the discourse of the people who claim to lead the American Jewish community now.) The point is, if you look at my writings and my history, my commitment to Israel and the Jewish people is more than skin-deep and it’s more than political expediency. (
What he's saying is he feels an affinity for Jews as they used to be, and for those Jews who still are what all Jews used to be.) When it comes to the gut issue, I have such ardent defenders among my Jewish friends in Chicago. I don’t think people have noticed how fiercely they defend me, and how central they are to my success, because they’ve interacted with me long enough to know that I've got it in my gut. During the Wright episode, they didn’t flinch for a minute, because they know me and trust me, and they’ve seen me operate in difficult political situations.
The other irony in this whole process is that in my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews. When I ran against Bobby Rush [for Congress], the perception was that I was Hyde Park, I’m University of Chicago, I’ve got all these Jewish friends. When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I’ve been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends, so when I find on the national level my commitment being questioned, it’s curious.
JG: Why do you think Ahmed Yousef of Hamas said what he said about you?
BO: My position on Hamas is indistinguishable from the position of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I said they are a terrorist organization and I’ve repeatedly condemned them. I’ve repeatedly said, and I mean what I say: since they are a terrorist organization,
we should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements. (This is a concession for Jewish votes.)JG: Were you flummoxed by it?
BO: I wasn’t flummoxed. I think what is going on there is the same reason why there are some suspicions of me in the Jewish community. Look,
we don’t do nuance well in politics and especially don’t do it well on Middle East policy. (No shit!) We look at things as black and white, and not gray. It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,” and that’s something they’re hopeful about. I think that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security.
When I visited Ramallah, among a group of Palestinian students, one of the things that I said to those students was: “Look, I am sympathetic to you and the need for you guys to have a country that can function, but understand this: if you’re waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional. Because my commitment, our commitment, to Israel’s security is non-negotiable.” I’ve said this in front of audiences where, if there were any doubts about my position, that’d be a place where you’d hear it.
When Israel invaded Lebanon two summers ago, I was in South Africa, a place where, obviously, when you get outside the United States, you can hear much more critical commentary about Israel’s actions, and I was asked about this in a press conference, and that time, and for the entire summer, I was very adamant about Israel’s right to defend itself. I said that there’s not a nation-state on Earth that would tolerate having two of its soldiers kidnapped and just let it go.
So I welcome the Muslim world’s accurate perception that I am interested in opening up dialogue and interested in moving away from the unilateral policies of George Bush (and AIPAC), but nobody should mistake that for a softer stance when it comes to terrorism or when it comes to protecting Israel’s security or making sure that the alliance is strong and firm. You will not see, under my presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel’s security.
JG: What do you make of Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that Israel resembles an apartheid state?
BO: I strongly reject the characterization.
(More political expediency.) Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there’s no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn’t advance that goal. It’s emotionally loaded
(that's his real bitch with Carter), historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe.
JG: If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?
BO: What I will say is what I’ve said previously.
Settlements at this juncture are not helpful. Look, my interest is in solving this problem not only for Israel but for the United States.
JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?
BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable. I am absolutely convinced of that, and
some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically.I want to solve the problem, and so
my job in being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth and say if Israel is building settlements without any regard to the effects that this has on the peace process, then we’re going to be stuck in the same status quo that we’ve been stuck in for decades now, and that won’t lift that existential dread that David Grossman described in your article.The notion that a vibrant, successful society with incredible economic growth and incredible cultural vitality is still plagued by this notion that this could all end at any moment -- you know, I don’t know what that feels like, but I can use my imagination to understand it. I would not want to raise my children in those circumstances. I want to make sure that the people of Israel, when they kiss their kids and put them on that bus, feel at least no more existential dread than any parent does whenever their kids leave their sight. So that then becomes the question: is settlement policy conducive to relieving that over the long term, or is it just making the situation worse? That’s the question that has to be asked.
So true. But will it ever be?Tags:
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