The Wandering Who: A Study of Jewish Identity Politics (19 page)

One answer may be that Jews do not agree amongst themselves about what is right for the Jews. Back in 2003, Zionists believed, for instance, that sending the US and Britain to destroy Iraq was ‘good for the Jews’. Jewish anti-Zionists were convinced that opposing the same war ‘as Jews’ was the best thing Jews could do for themselves. The Jewish escapists were and are still convinced that turning a blind eye is the best thing for the Jews.

Whether Jews know or can agree on what is ‘good for the Jews’ is an open question, yet to identify politically as a Jew and to wonder what is ‘good for the Jews’ is the true essence of Jewish
tribal thinking
and the Third Category identity. This is where I began this book, and this, apparently, is where I end it.

Epilogue

I would love to end this book on a positive note, to suggest a practical solution. That it is not easy. Jewish cultural and ideological exceptionalism has left Jewish political discourse with no hope or future.

As a young Israeli I believed in the Zionist ethos, I regarded myself as an inherent part of the Jewish modern revival project. I saw myself as part of Jewish history, and Jewish history as an extension of myself. As a young Israeli growing up in the post-1967 era, I saw myself and the people around me as an evolving collective consciousness, fighting a revolutionary battle for historic justice.

It took a while before I realised that my historical revival project was in fact a chain of blind spots. It took me many years to understand that I myself was a black spot. I remember my high school class visit to
Yad Vashem
, the Israeli Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem located next to
Deir Yassin
, a Palestinian village that was wiped of its inhabitants in 1948. I was fourteen years old at the time. I asked the emotional tour guide if she could explain the fact that so many Europeans loathed the Jews so much and in so many places at once. I was thrown out of school for a week. It seems I didn’t learn the necessary lesson because when we studied the middle age blood libels, I again wondered out loud how the teacher could know that these accusations of Jews making
Matza
out of young Goyim’s blood were indeed empty or groundless. Once again I was sent home for a week. In my teens I spent most of my mornings at home rather than in the classroom.

As much as I was a sceptic youngster, I was also horrified by the Holocaust. In the 1970s Holocaust survivors were part of our social landscape. They were our neighbours, we met them in our family gatherings, in the classroom, in politics, in the corner
shop. They were part of our lives. The dark numbers tattooed on their white arms never faded away. It always had a chilling effect. Yet I must mention that I can hardly recall a single Holocaust survivor who ever attempted to manipulate me emotionally. Recently I spoke to a Scottish friend who volunteered in a Kibbutz in the 1970s. That Kibbutz was known for its high percentage of Holocaust survivors. My Scottish friend pointed out to me that he really enjoyed his time there working and talking with those survivors. They were largely very quiet and polite, they never used their past as a claim for fame. It was the young Israelis who he couldn’t stand. My experience was very similar
–
as far as my personal experience is concerned, it is always the alleged sons, daughters and grandchildren of survivors who exploit the Holocaust as a political argument, or a claim for some form of exceptionalism.

The American historian Norman Finkelstein is correct when arguing that Israel transformed the Holocaust into a political tool after 1967, when it needed an ‘ethical’ excuse as a non-ethical occupier. I must admit that, even as a nationalist youngster, I never felt comfortable with the Holocaust. At the time I thought that Jews shouldn’t brag so much about being resented.

It was actually the internalisation of the meaning of the Holocaust that transformed me into a strong opponent of Israel and Jewish-ness. It is the Holocaust that eventually made me a devoted supporter of Palestinian rights, resistance and the Palestinian right of return. In 1984, while being a soldier, during that short visit to Anzar concentration camp in Lebanon, I realized that I was on the wrong side.

It has been pointed out to me that my critical take on Zionism can be also seen as a great Zionist achievement, for Zionism vowed to create a ‘free’, rational, liberal and open Jewish discourse. Indeed, like an Israeli, I do not hold back, I do not mince my words either. As if this is not enough, it is no secret that I look like an Israeli and sound like one. It may well be that these
are necessary qualities needed to grasp the Israeli mind, politics, identity and culture. Amongst the most productive critical voices of Israel and Jewish-ness you will find Israelis and ex-Israelis such as Israel Shahak, Israel Shamir, Gideon Levi, Shimon Tzabar, Shlomo Sand, Avrum Burg, Amira Hess, Uri Avneri, Tali Fachima, Mordechi Vannunu, Nurit Peled and a few others. I guess that there must be something positive in the Zionist heritage if it has managed to bring forth so many critical voices. Israeli media constantly tries to engage me in debate. It would seem that there is still an element of openness within the Zionist discourse.

As a young secular Israeli Jew, I believed enthusiastically in the possibility of transformation of the Jewish character into a ‘civilised, authentic humanist collective’. I believed myself to be one. I then grasped, through a long and painful process that Israel wouldn’t bring about a humanist Jew. It was entangled in a colossal sin and it was far too arrogant to save itself from its doomed circumstances. I realised that if I was genuinely enthusiastic about the Goyim lifestyle, I had better just leave Israel behind, dwell amongst the Goyim and even try to become one myself. So I did. To date, I have never looked back with yearning. I even proudly own the few contradictions I have managed to retain.

I guess that leaving this book without a quest for peace and reconciliation would be a missed opportunity. Needless to say, I am not holding my breath for a solution from any ‘peace talks’.

Imagine an Israeli PM wakes up one sunny morning with the unusual determination to bring about true peace. In the wee small hours, wisdom embraces him or her. He or she realises that Israel is in fact Palestine: it is stretched over historic Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian people, their livelihood and their history. He or she grasps that the Palestinians are the indigenous people of the land, and the rockets they shoot from time to time are nothing but love letters to their stolen villages, orchards,
vineyards and fields. Our imaginary Israeli PM realises that the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved in 25 minutes once both people decide to live together. Following the Israeli unilateral tradition, an immediate televised press conference is called on the same day at 14:00. Captivated by true righteousness, the PM announces to the world and his/her people ‘Israel realises its unique circumstances and its responsibility for world peace. Israel calls the Palestinian people to return to their homes. The Jewish state is to become a state of its citisens, where all people enjoy full equal rights’.

Though shocked by the sudden Israeli move, political analysts around the world would be quick to realise that, considering Israel is the representative of world Jewry, such a simple peaceful initiative won’t just resolve the conflict in the Middle East, it would also bring to an end two millennia of mutual suspicion and resentfulness between Christians and Jews. Some right-wing Israeli academics, ideologists and politicians join the revolutionary initiative and declare that such a heroic unilateral Israeli act could be the one and only total and comprehensive fulfilment of the Zionist dream, for not only have Jews returned to their alleged historical home, they also have managed, at last, to love their neighbours and be loved in return.

As much as such an idea is thrilling, we shouldn’t expect it to happen any time soon, for Israel is the Jewish state and Jewishness is an ethno-centric ideology driven by exclusiveness, exceptionalism, racial supremacy and a deep inherent inclination toward segregation.

For Israel and Israelis to become people like other people, all traces of Jewish ideological superiority must be eliminated first. For the Jewish state to lead a peace initiative, Israel must be de-Zionised
–
it should first stop being the Jewish State. Similarly, in order for an imaginary Israeli PM to bring peace about, he or she must be de-Zionised first.

As things stand, the Jewish State is categorically unable to
lead the region into reconciliation. It lacks the necessary ingredients needed to think in terms of harmony and reconciliation.

The only people who can bring peace about are the Palestinians, because Palestine, against all odds and in spite of the endless suffering, humiliation and oppression, is still an ethically-driven ecumenical society.

As far as Jews are concerned, a few questions remain. Can the Jewish identity discourse be liberated from its self-imposed ideological and spiritual tyranny? Can Jewish politics drift away from supremacy? Can Jews save themselves? My answer is simple: for Jewish ideology to universalise itself and for Jews to move on and emancipate themselves, a vigorous and honest process of self-reflection must take place. Whether Jews can engage in such a critical endeavour is an open question. I don’t know the answer, I guess that some can, others can’t. I would hope, though, that this book may offer a fairly good start.

Acknowledgments

In particular I would like to express my gratitude to my mother Ariella who is not just intellectually inspiring but also one of my closest friends, to my wife Tali and my kids Mai and Yann who debated and challenged my thoughts throughout these years and yet supported me and my strange life-style all along. I would like to mention Mary Rizzo who was my dedicated editor for many years and contributed many great titles to my texts including the title of this book.

I would like to thank all the people who supported me, my writing and my enterprise all those years. When tsunamis of malicious slander were about to wash my shore, I came to know battalions of vibrant ethically driven individuals who stood by my side and paved the way for a journey that led eventually to the publication of this book.

I would like to thank all those journals, magazines, editors, academics, promoters, friends and activists who stood up firmly against all odds and kept publishing my writing, invited me to perform and debate my views. I would also like to express my gratitude to those who welcomed my enterprise and provided me with many inspiring insights and warm support: Gregory Mario Whitfield, Alan Hart, Paul de Rooij, Ramzy Baroud, Gill Kaffash, Ken O’keefe, Manuel Talens, Nahida Yassin, Roy Ratcliffe, Fausto Guidice, Kristoffer Larsson, Laura Susijn, Jeff Blankfort, Amelia Tucker, Sameh Habeed, Nadya Shah, Tim King, Louis Charalambous, Alexander Cockburn, Amos Zukerman, Anthony Lawson, Gordon Duff, Francis Clark Lowes, Chris Cook, David Alpin, Gabi Weber, Massoud Nayeri, Mamoon Alabbasi, James Petras, Glenn Bowman, Eddie Hick, Paul Eisen, Lauren Booth, William W. Cook, Paul Larudee, Mohamed El Dufani, Richard Falk, Janet Kobren, Mitch Albert, Ben Bastin, Jason Bosh, Jeff Salamt, June Terpstra, John Mearsheimer,
Richard Sharma and many others. A special thanks to my friend and collaborator Sarah Gillespie who found herself discussing Jewish identity politics matters over thousands of miles on the way to concerts and recording studios.

I cannot let this opportunity pass without thanking from the bottom of my heart my half the dozen Jewish Marxist detractors who have been stalking me and my music career day and night for years, without whom I would never have grasped the real depth of tribal ferocity. It is these so called ‘anti Zionist’ Jewish ethnic activists who taught me more than any rabid Zionist about the true devastating practical meaning of Jewish identity politics.

Endnotes

1.   Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky was the founder of Zionist revisionism, author, orator and soldier. Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s legacy is carried on today by Israel’s Herut party (merged with other right wing parties to form the Likud in 1973) and the Betar Zionist youth movement.

2.   ‘The primacy of the ear’ may echo (for some) the Judaic
Sh’ma Yisrael
prayer: ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one,’ (Deuteronomy 6:4). Though Judaism allocates great importance to the act of ‘hearing’, it is crucial to make a clear distinction between my own call for a personal and critical judgment, as opposed to Judaic call for total obedience.

3.   In spite of some disturbing Judaic thoughts that are explored in the Torah and especially in the Talmud, it is an accepted fact that the ultra-orthodox Torah Jews stand collectively against Zionism and in support of the Palestinians.

4.   By Way of Deception, Victor Ostrovsky , St. Martin’s, 1990 pg 86-7

5.   Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is a leading Neoconservative, a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense. As Deputy Secretary of Defense, Wolfowitz was a major architect of President Bush’s Iraq policy.

6.   Rahm Israel Emanuel (born November 29, 1959), former White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama; served as Senior Advisor to President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998.

7.   Michael Abraham Levy (born 11 July 1944) was the chief fundraiser for the UK Labour Party. A long-standing friend of former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Lord Levy spent nine years from 1998 as Tony Blair’s special envoy to the Middle East.

8.   David Aaronovitch (born 8 July 1954 ) is a British author, broadcaster, and journalist. He is a regular columnist for The Times and the Jewish Chronicle. Aaronovitch was amongst the few advocates of the 2
^nd
Iraq War within British Press.

9.   Ibid pg 87

10.  Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) was a USA former CIA and USA’s Navy employee who was convicted of spying for Israel. He received a life sentence in 1987.

11.  
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0195/9501017.htm

12.  ADL-The Anti-Defamation League is a Zionist organization based in the USA. Describing itself as ‘the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency.’

13.  Bernard Lawrence Madoff (born April 29, 1938) is a former American stockbroker and formerly non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market. Madoff was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in what has been described as the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world.

14.  ‘Organism’ can be described as a whole hierarchical assemblage of systems made of collections of organs. While the organism functions as a whole, the particular organ fulfills an elementary function without being aware of its specific role within the entire system.

15.  Appeared in the amended text (16/41992) that followed the embarrassing earlier New York Times leak.

16.  Home page of the Project for the New American Centuey:
www.newamericancentury.org/
(
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
)

17.  Ibid

18.  On June 3 1997 the PNAC released its ‘Statement of Principles’, a list of ideas that set the USA as a global police force, the guardian of ‘morality’, the disseminator of ‘democracy’ and a defender of Jewish state and its interests:
 * we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
 * we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
 * we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; [and]
 * we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

19.  
http://hubpages.com/hub/Nathan_Rotschild_and_the_Battle _Of_Waterloo

20.  Jacob Schiff (the head of Kuhn, Loeb & Company) is credited with giving twenty million dollars to the Bolshevik revolution. A year after his death the Bolsheviks deposited over six hundred million rubles in Schiff’s banking firm Kuhn, Loeb. (New York Journal American 1949. February 3.) One may mistakenly assume that the shift of world Jewry lobbying from Germany to America is the product of Hitler’s rise. In fact the Israeli author Amos Elon (The Pity of it All) provides interesting historical insight into the subject. Seemingly, upon the eve of the first war, some very powerful Jewish German lobbies were operating in America. Apparently, prominent German American Jews protested against America joining England and France. In a statement to the New York Times on November 22 1914, Jacob H Schiff, head of Khun, Loeb (at the time the second largest private bank in the USA), charged the British and French with attempting to destroy Germany for reasons of trade (Elon, pg. 253). East European Jews who emigrated to the USA, evading the anti-Semitic Czarist Russia, regarded the German army as a liberator. American Jewry was mainly pro-German. The British Government took these developments seriously. The British Ambassador to the United States suspected a Jewish conspiracy in America. The 1917 Balfour Declaration was largely an attempt to divert the anti-English feelings amongst World Jewry. This strategy was successful at least in the short-term. Following the declaration, world Jewry, both Zionists and non-Zionists, largely embraced the side of the Allies.

21.  Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan, Consumer Finance at the Federal Reserve System’s Fourth Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C. April 8, 2005
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2005/200 50408/default.htm

22.  Becoming an indistinguishable part of a group or community

23.  Becoming accepted within a larger group or community

24.  
http://www.msu.edu/~womyn/alternative.html

25.  The exposure of Jews in influential positions is done in various ways. Jewish media outlets often expose the Jewish roots of leading key players in politics, business and media. For instance the Jewish Chronicle in the UK names Jews in politics and business. The Jewish Virtual Library proudly names the Jews in different American administrations (
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/ bushjews.html
). And if anyone wants to verify the Jewish identity of a celebrity, there is the website
http://www. jewornotjew.com.

26.  Max Simon Nordau (July 29, 1849 - January 23, 1923) was a Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic. Nordau was a co-founder of the World Zionist Organization together with Theodor Herzl.

27.  Max Nordau, address at the first Zionist Congress, Basle, 1897

28.  Blatant Lesbianism, 1978 Sydney Magazine. P.10-13

29.  Guardian, 13 May 2000.

30.  ‘Women, Wimmin, Womyn, Womin, Whippets – On Lesbian Separatism’, Julie McCrossin,
http://www.takver.com/history /womyn.htm.

31.  In his book,
Ben Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah & the Mossad Eliminated Jews
, Naeim Giladi discusses the crimes committed by Zionists in their frenzy to import raw Jewish labor from Iraq in the early 1950s. Giladi tells a story of a Zionist attempt to hurt Iraqi Jews in order to disseminate the Zionist message
.
‘In attempts to portray the Iraqis as anti-American and to terrorize the Jews, the Zionists planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and in synagogues. Soon leaflets began to appear urging Jews to flee to Israel.’ (
http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.html
)

32.  Israelis are fascinated by the 1967 images of IDF paratroopers, the ultimate
Sabras,
sobbing in proximity to the wailing wall once they completed the invasion of Jerusalem old city. The images symbolically juxtapose the 1967 heroic military affair with the deeply emotional, humane characteristic of the
Sabra
.

33.  Tzitzit - specially knotted ritual fringes worn by observant Jewish males. Tzitzit are attached to the four corners of the
Tallit
(prayer shawl)

34.  The negation of the Diaspora is a central assumption in earlier Zionist trends. It is there to reject the feasibility of Jewish emancipation, integration and assimilation in the Diaspora.

35.  Trials of The Diaspora, Anthony Julius pg Xl, Oxford University Press.

36.  
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/ch02.htm#n10

37.  
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/ch02.htm#n10

38.  
http://www.angelfire.com/il2/borochov/eco.html

39.  
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/6640/zion/nordau.html

40.  
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/6640/zion/jewishproblem .html

41.  Franz Rosenzweig – (December 25, 1886-December 10, 1929) was a German-Jewish theologian and philosopher

42.  Hermann Cohen – (4 July 1842-4 April 1918) was a German-Jewish philosopher. Cohen is regarded by some as the most prominent 19
^th
century Jewish philosopher.

43.  Gershom Scholem (December 5, 1897-February 21, 1982), was a German-born Jewish philosopher and historian. Scholem is widely regarded as the founder of the modern, academic study of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism.

44.  Gefilte fish – a Jewish Ashkenazi fish dish. Typically eaten on Sabbath and religious holidays.

45.  Women Against Fundamentalism and the Jewish community
Journal no.4 1992/1993. pp.3-5

46.  Unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism is a non-reformist religion. In Judaism there is no room for even minor modifications. Judaism is a sealed list of 613 commandments (
Mitzvas
) that must be followed strictly. From a Judaic (i.e. religious) point of view, to depart from Judaism is, in practice, to form a new Church. If Julia was slightly more knowledgeable about Judaism she could articulate her point in a scholarly manner, saying: ‘While Judaism remains unchanged, you can still be Jewish without being a religious Jew.’ Judaism and Jewish-ness are different categories. While Judaism is an unchanged religious core, Jewish-ness is a dynamic category in a continuous flux. Indeed, this is the case with Zionism. Zionism is a dynamic continuation of Jewish-ness: it is racist, exclusive, supremacist and self-centred, yet it is not Judaic. It has very little to do with Judaism. It may be messianic in a territorial sense, yet it lacks the Judaic divinity. In fact, in this sense, Zionism opposes Judaism.

47.  Alan Dershowitz (born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. Dershowitz is an outspoken supporter of Israel. In 2003 he published The Case for Israel, an advocacy of the Zionist cause and Israeli policies. In March 2006, Mearsheimer and Walt, the authors of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (The London Review of Books) referred to Dershowitz specifically as an ‘apologist’ for the Israel lobby.

48.  Max Nordau, speech at the First Zionist Congress, Basel, Switzerland, 29 August 1897. See
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/nordau1.html
[accessed 15/06/ 2010].

49.  Avnery, Uri, ‘I’m a Leftist, but …’,
Counterpunch
, 8 September 2006; see
www.counterpunch.org/avnery09082006.html

50.  Ibid

51.  A Tel Aviv University pole that took place at the time of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza (2008-2009) revealed that IDF’s operation against Hamas in Gaza enjoyed the overwhelming support of Israeli Jews, despite the loss of civilian life. A whopping 94% of the Israeli Jewish population supported or strongly supported the operation, while 92% thought it beneficial to Israel’s security. The poll found that 92% of Israeli Jews thought the air force’s attacks in Gaza justified, despite the suffering of the civilian population in the Strip and the damage they cause to infrastructure.
http://www.jpost.com/Home/Article.aspx?id=129307