Nov 23 2006
In The Dictionary Under Ironic …
The injury we do and the one we suffer are not weighed in the same scales. ~Aesop, Fables
The irony of this post is, for me, twofold.
The first "irony" factor involves the timing of this post. Given my political leanings and the fact that I was raised jewish, one would think my first post concerning politics or religion would somehow involve the renunciation of my atheism based on the logic that, since Dick Cheney is Satan incarnate, by inference there also must be a god. Sadly, this is not the case (the subject of my posting, not that Cheney isn't Satan - which he is).
The second issue concerns the underlying subject matter of the post, and the fact that I'm delving into not one, but two of the subjects of which you don't speak if you were raised jewish and NOT pro-Isreali.
I recently came across an editorial written by Bradley Burston in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. The piece, entitled "Wishing the Palestinians Out of Existence," addresses the complaints of numerous visitors to the site, presumably Israeli, whom in their argument for waging an ongoing war against the Palestinians have taken to using as a talking point the claim that: "There are no Palestinians." As noted by Burston:
A number of readers have written to suggest that the guidelines for talkback responses listed below - in particular the prohibition on use of the phrase "There are no Palestinians" - are fascistic, capricious, anti-democratic, a blatant curb on free speech.
In response, Mr. Burston and the editors of Haaretz have been forced to prohibit - en toto - any such arguments. Based on reader feedback, Burston is now forced to explain why the prohibition is not going anywhere:
I believe that it is a form of racism to tell an entire people, millions upon millions all over the world, that their culture is not a true culture, that their identity is not an identity, that they do not, in fact, exist.
I believe that the reason for denying their existence is to deny the legitimacy of their pain, their aspirations, their longing, the facts of their history, none of which make for a comfortable fit with the history that Zionism originally wrote for itself.
The very idea of the Palestinian Arab represents competition for limited resources of land, the moral high ground, and the self-esteem of long-oppressed peoples.
Agreed. However, what I find utterly flabbergasting, and which is not addressed in the editorial, is that this reasoning must be explained to Israeli Jews in the first place!
Israelis, who loathe their neighbors to such an extent they would deny them their own identity if not their existence, were themselves only three-score ago the subject of horrific hatred and denial of underlying humanity. Only 60 years have passed and they have already forgotten what it feels like to be made to feel less than human. It is both inconceivable and reprehensible.
Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with either the methods or many of the claims of the Palestinians. But let's not forget or ignore, as most have apparently done, that it was the British and their allies who first caused this morass a century ago by promising two different peoples the same land in exchange for their assistance against the Germans. This was further compounded by White Papers, and years of lies, and more lies, and so on.
When I first moved to Miami, I was living with a woman much smarter than I (yes, not saying much) who had studied Arabic at Princeton and had traveled extensively throughout the Middle East throughout the course of her studies. I have never spent any reasonable time anywhere in the Middle East, including Israel, nor have the majority of my relatives. Notwithstanding, one of the primary things I had been told growing up (not necessarily by my parents, who are fairly even-keeled persons), was that regardless of anything else, ANYTHING else, having suffered through the Holocaust automatically made you right with respect to the Palestinian struggle. Being young and less stupid, I had never previously questioned the validity of this statement.
While it took some time for me to get my head around, after researching the issue (most likely more than 90% of the buffoons who weigh in on the subject), I came to understand the incredible complexity of the situation - the subtle religious, proprietary, riparian, historical and other issues involved. I also came to realize there was no way in HELL I was ever going to fully comprehend it. Instead, I just hoped there would be people smarter than me in positions of power able to rectify the situation. I gave up on that when Bush was elected and simply resolved myself to the hope that the younger generation would not carry the hatred and self-deserving feelings still possessed by those of my jewish relatives fortunate enough to have lived through the war. Apparently, that was not to be.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my ex. I wonder if, had I not been enlightened by her experiences, I also would still be claiming there are no Palestinians. God, I hope not.
