I am coming to believe that there is a type of zero-sum game of discussion about Palestine and Israel that needs rethinking. Do you know what I mean by this? A half-century or more of Israelis bad/Palestinians good, or Arabs bad/Israelis good rhetoric leaves people nothing to do but react predictably to the latest crisis...Dear friends,
The current blood-letting that is going on in the Gaza Strip, particularly, should, at least to me, raise questions in all of us, regarding our genuine belief in human freedom, dignity, and justice.
I am honored to begin a series of discussions about the constant mess that represents the life experiences of our brothers and sisters, of all groups, in the Middle East. Neil Zagorin, a brilliant thinker, who has appeared on this blog in the past, brings a wealth of scholarship and goodwill to the dialogue that appears below.
One Love, One Heart, One Spirit!
G. Djata Bumpus
*******************************************
Djata: Neil, in our attempt to bring more clarity to the current view of what is going on in the Middle East generally, how do you think we should approach it? In other words, is it the “terms” of the discussion or the “facts” of same that we need to consider?
Neil: I want to put it out there that our written exchange stems from a meal we shared recently, when there happened to be disturbing news about Israel’s military operation in Gaza. We’re both citizens of the U.S. You’re an African American with family roots in Barbados. I’m an Ashkenazic Jew with family roots in the Czarist Empire. It was the kind of situation in which probing discussion of the Palestinian-Israeli impasse often goes nowhere, yet we shared outrage, dismay, and sadness in many of the same ways. More importantly, we explored areas where we might differ without personal venom, and most importantly, did so while resisting the temptation to resort to dehumanizing narratives about either side, Palestinian or Israeli. I think this is too rare: do you agree?
So, I am coming to believe that there is a type of zero-sum game of discussion about Palestine and Israel that needs rethinking. Do you know what I mean by this? A half-century or more of Israelis bad/Palestinians good, or Arabs bad/Israelis good rhetoric leaves people nothing to do but react predictably to the latest crisis: anti-Israel as usual, anti-Arab/Palestinian as usual, or anti-both as usual. It’s a horrendously complicated situation. Israel is much stronger than the Palestinians, but they’re both small and diverse groups of angry, scared, confused people in a world where small nations – and they’re both small nations – can sway in the wind created by bigger powers.
Djata: Okay. But is calling Israel a small nation in the same context as one does Palestine a false abstraction? Israel does have nuclear weapons, after all. More significantly I must ask, at what point does the government of Israel pull a Nagasaki and Hiroshima, as the US did in becoming a world power?
Neil: Israel is a military giant compared to Palestine, but not compared to the entire Arab world. Don’t forget that Israel has also relied heavily on U.S. support for decades to maintain its tenuous position in the world. So I’ll maintain that Israel is a small country.
I observe that it’s common for critics of Israel to view Israel as some huge monolith that always sets the agenda. For all of Israel’s resolution in pursuing its aims, I challenge you to acknowledge the many ways that efforts by Jews to build a Jewish state have been influenced and conditioned heavily by outside factors. That is,the Ottoman Empireʼs colonial policy allowed Palestinian land to be legally acquired for Jewish settlement in the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries.
The British and French Empires controlled the Middle East after World War 1, and redrew the map, physically and politically, in ways that endure today. The British Empire made differing promises about Palestine to Jews and Arabs, and, in dissolution after World War 2, dropped the conflict into the lap of the fledgling United Nations. The Nazi campaign to kill Jews, and the world’s reaction to it, had a huge impact on the movement to create a Jewish state. The West and Soviet Bloc both conducted Cold War conflict by proxy in the Middle East.
It’s still an area in which governments and non-governmental actors from abroad support one side or another for financial or political gain. There are governments or movements that support one side or another as minor players in some larger conflict. There are governmental and non-governmental organizations in other places that profit from munitions expended in Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’m willing to bet that there are smaller and larger military organizations in many places that have some involvement in what’s going on in Gaza to draw lessons for their own use about waging asymmetric warfare. There are governments or movements beside Hamas that anticipate political gain if Hamas continues to lob rockets randomly at Israel to precipitate continued military conflict in which Gazans will suffer the most. Do you think I’m badly wrong in these observations?
As for nukes, they say that Israel has them. If so, I pray they never use them, but I’m a lot more worried about the possibility of nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India.
Djata: I think that what you’re doing here is keeping with the facts, but not with the terms. And that’s fine. Yet, based upon our initial premise, how do we keep the dialogue in "terms" as opposed to "facts", in light of the obvious domination by the Israelis over Palestinians? Additionally, since the violence (rocket launches) of Hamas is mostly symbolic, as are the rocks thrown at both real and imagined planes in the sky, by small Palestinian boys, when does the reality of "moral superiority" defeat the Israelis, regardless of the benefits of this conflict to bigger powers?
Neil: Djata, when thinking of the difference between “terms” and “facts,” I’m thinking of the zero-sum game of judgment that we’re seeing even now. There’s a nightmare occurring in Gaza. Lots of people are quick to point to one side or the other as the villain, forgoing a deeper discussion that this tangled tragedy deserves. By contrast, I think thereʼs responsibility in many places, both in Israel/Palestine and outside. .
In physical confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis, hatred and murderous intent exist on both sides, though I have to reject the stereotyping of either group. In my understanding, Israelis have shed much more Palestinian blood than Palestinians have shed Israeli blood. Am I wrong in thinking this? In trying to find a way forward, this will make reconciliation, if this will ever happen, a complicated as well as painful process. Somewhere along the way, Israel should expect to be judged for the number of casualties it has caused.
I do not agree that Hamas' targeting of Israeli civilians can be entirely categorized as "symbolic". Why launch rockets at Ashkelon when the thousands of Israeli soldiers massed at the borders of Gaza are available as a foe against whom one can symbolically resist with dignity and honor? Yes, part of what's going on is an oppressed people demonstrating its uncompromising resistance to subjugation in the modest ways possible to it. Another part of it is that the spilling of Jewish (not just Israeli) blood as an end in itself beyond national self-determination is one of the goals for many of the militants in Hamas, and analagous groups. Some of these people are real religious zealots, and do not operate within the moral or political framework of the national liberation movements that struggled in many parts of the world for justice and liberation when we were younger.
Justice needs to be achieved in the Middle East. I ain't King Solomon, and I don't know to achieve it, though the two-state solution, with the world insisting, watching, and supporting so that it works in some real way, seems like the way to go. More funerals of Palestinian children will not bring justice. I do not want to believe that most Palestinians, and Arabs and Muslims in a wider sense, as angry as they might be with Israel, would really view more funerals of Jewish children as a triumph. Some of the militants who launch rockets at Israeli cities, when they already have the world's full attention, would. They should be judged accordingly.
None of this is to claim that there is equivalence between the suffering of Gazans and whatever atmosphere of fear Hamas is able to achieve in Israel. I don't think that Israel is morally superior; many of its views, goals, and methods are morally troubling, in my opinion.
Do you think that all of Hamas' views, goals, and methods are really morally superior to those of Israel? Something I'd like us to look at together over the coming months is how Palestinians look at Hamas; I'm getting the sense that it's increasingly not with tremendous pride and pleasure.
Djata: I think that we can discuss solutions in a future discourse. Your points are certainly well-taken. To be sure, we hear a lot about the involvement of the United States with Israel. Some have even called Israel our 51st state. Yet, are there any other countries or bodies who share culpability in the mess that has been proliferating for much of the 20th Century -and beyond, in Palestine/Israel?
Neil: You’re right, we hear a lot about the involvement of the U.S. with Israel, here in the U.S. It follows predictable patterns: either you hear about an admirable bond of solidarity between two good nations, or you hear about a partnership in which the U.S. supports, or is manipulated to support, Israel’s unjust domination of Palestinians.
For our purposes, I’d like to respond to the latter view. In my opinion, Israel should be held accountable for its actions, and this includes an accounting for the current nightmare in Gaza. With that said, I am hesitant to assume that Israel has been and continues to be in confident control of its own destiny.
To those who feel that Israel should bear responsibility for what’s happening in Gaza, I say “you’re right.” I’d say the same thing to those who feel that Hamas should bear responsibility. I want to add to this that responsibility should be borne by those, neither Israeli nor Palestinian, who pursue their own interests in the Middle East without regard to the interests of millions of frightened, despairing people who live between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
Djata: Yes, but let us not forget that during the apartheid era in South Africa, the US circumvented restrictions imposed by the UN embargo against South Africa, by funneling both financial and technical assets to apartheid South Africa through Israel – a country that ignored the aforementioned UN sanctions. At any rate, in speaking out for justice for Palestinians, when is it right to acknowledge the failures of their leaders? Likewise, in acknowledging Israel's vulnerabilities, as Western media outlets so commonly do, at some point, is it either proper or improper to recognize Israel’s use of military and political force, as well, such as bombing the homes of Hamas leaders? Israeli leaders are never targeted it seems, after all.
Neil: Defenders of Palestine or Israel acknowledge the moral and political failings of the side they support incidentally, if at all. That’s my observation. More honesty is necessary to bring greater understanding and less dehumanization of both Israelis and Palestinians. That’s my conclusion.
Concerning South Africa and Palestine, Nelson Mandela has made the point of acknowledging the steadfast support of Palestinians during the anti-apartheid struggle. I admire and honor Palestinians for this.
Concerning South Africa and Israel, it’s an anti-Israel orthodoxy to underscore Israel’s role in working with the apartheid regime. Yes, Israel did this, and should answer for it, but we both know that there were many governments world-wide during the apartheid years that paid lip-service to justice while quietly doing business with Pretoria. The Israel-South Africa connection has been of undoubted value to those seeking to present the Palestinian cause to the world, but does continuing to stress it as has been commonly done come into conflict with the spirit of South Africa’s truth and reconciliation process, which seeks honesty and openness about what actually transpired during the apartheid era?
Djata: While apartheid is gone in “code”, unfortunately, a new social uprising has begun there against injustice and impropriety. Nevertheless, it has been a pleasure Neil, as always. Until next time, my final thought is: Militarily-speaking, why do you think that the Bush administration finds it reasonable for the Israeli government to attack the Palestinians in Gaza, when our own government sought no such reprisal, of any kind, against Saudi Arabia, when 19 of their citizens killed thousands of Americans in one day - on 9/11?
Neil: Oil is precious and blood is cheap. I think it’s the responsibility of citizens here in the U.S. to prevent our government from acting as if this is true.
Look, man, this has been great. We’ve been wrangling with some thorny, complicated issues, trying to be moral in our judgments and analysis, without oversimplifying, and without resorting to any of the racist discourses about Arabs and Jews that often poison discussions about the Middle East. To me, that’s heartening.
Djata: Cool, Bro’. Peace.
Read full post
