East (?) Jerusalem and Sheikh Jerach

Sent 22.April.2010

To my friends both across the sea and here in Israel,

This is a political letter. I apologize if you prefer that I keep my thoughts to myself. (if so, delete now. I won’t even know.) But as at previous occasions, I feel the need to share with friends things other than family affairs, health and well wishes. Be patient with me. As in the past, I don’t know how to shorten my letters.

Last week I packed a few sandwiches along with a couple of bottles of cold water and drove southward to Jerusalem to join the protest against expulsion of Arabs from their homes in the Sheikh Jerach section of East Jerusalem. The demonstration was in late afternoon. I used the morning for a refresher tour of East Jerusalem, its various villages and neighborhoods and the surrounding Wall. It’s not enough to hear about, not enough to read about, not enough to watch internet doco-clips. There are things which need to be re-seen and re-explained on location in order to be hit once more with the full impact of our national lunacy, a lunacy driven by both covert and overt policies of our various government agencies.

Jerusalem is a city of friction and contradiction, with conflicting passions and desires between ultra-orthodox, orthodox, the vaguely devout, the merely impious and the sophisticated secular. It’s a city of contradiction between Arab and Jew, Palestinians and Israelis, Left and Right and something nebulously called Center. It’s the city which will have the heaviest impact on our ability to move towards a Two-State resolution of our territorial conflict. Meanwhile its impact is woefully negative, backed by the execution of policies aimed at scuttling possibilities of Two-States for two peoples.

I read this week of Eli Wiesel’s passionate letter about Jerusalem in the N.Y. Times and the Washington Post. Wiesel is unable to understand why we Israelis are being asked by Obama to stop (even temporarily) building Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. I was saddened at the lack of knowledge by one of my treasured icons about what the East Jerusalem “building” conflict is really all about. I also realized that while I am constantly angered by the cynical use of “Jerusalem Eternal” as our pious “right” to build anywhere in East Jerusalem, others may be totally unaware of the absurd use of that infernal/eternal excuse.

In 1967, immediately after an amazing and well earned victory over a number of Arab armies, we reunited a divided Jerusalem. We were elated and exuberant at being the supermen of the neighborhood, and were certain that now our Arab neighbors will have seen the need to make their peace with us. It took another much bloodier war to show us how fragile our self image really was. But in 1967 we reunited Jerusalem forever and ever (we supposed).

But, wait. What did we actually do? In 1967 the city boundaries of East Jerusalem encompassed about 6 or 7 square kilometers. Within these boundaries, the Old City is about one square kilometer. This is also about the total area of our “Eternal City” of two thousand years ago with its surrounding neighborhoods. For those of us who perhaps truly believe (Eli Wiesel??) in the concept of Jerusalem Eternal belonging to us and ONLY US, these are the boundaries of our Eternal City. But in 1967 we annexed to the city limits of Jerusalem about 70 (yes, seventy!) square kilometers’ instead of only 7 (seven), including 28 Palestinian villages which were never within the city limits. We did so for a number of reasons, the primary one being the creation of a security area around the city which includes a circle of mountain heights. But also simply because we wanted to annex as large an area around the city as may still be called a “reasonable” annexation. For example: a long fat finger extends the new city limits northward almost up to Ramallah. Why?... In order to include the small airfield of Atarot within the city limits. (The story goes that Teddy Kolek wanted to have a large international airport within the city limits. This hasn’t happened.) But here’s the rub: meanwhile the entire 70 square kilometers annexed to the city limits have been politically labeled “Holy” and became part of that “Eternal Jerusalem” which belongs to us and only to us for ever and ever. From the neighborhoods of Ramot Alon and Pisgat Z’ev in the north to those of Har Choma and Gilo in the south of the new city limits, we have built most (almost all) of our new Jewish neighborhoods outside of “Eternal Jerusalem” by cynically using the pretext of returning to our ancient capital – where we claim to have full historical rights to live and build as we choose. (Who do we think we are fooling, other than ourselves?)

……And those 28 Palestinian villages (neighborhoods) which ended up within the municipal boundaries? Legally, morally and in any democratic society they would receive the same city services as other neighborhoods within the city limits. They don’t. From sewage to education they’ve been neglected for years and have remained with their dowry from the Jordanian government of 43 years ago. All new Jewish neighborhoods come complete with municipal investment and services. Palestinian neighborhoods remain woefully neglected. It seems strange to admit that Jordan invested far more in the municipal infrastructure of these villages during 19 years from 1948, than we have in the 43 years since annexing them into the city limits of Jerusalem.

Why is all this happening? Eli Wiesel naively turns to Obama with a desire to keep Jerusalem “above politics”, while it is actually we Israelis who insist on using our contrived Jerusalem ethos as a political tool – as an excuse for not stopping the erection of new Jewish building in the greatly expanded city limits of East Jerusalem. (And, no doubt, the Palestinian Authority is no less political in its use of religion as a basis for its own historical rights in Jerusalem.)

And why are we doing all this (building more and more in the expanded E.Jerusalem)? And why are we not doing all that (developing the Arab neighborhoods in E.Jerusalem)? …………it becomes so simple to me while driving around the area with map in hand, with a blue line for the city limits and a red line for the Wall around it.

We evidently have three basic goals being fed by so many of the policies and directions of our government agencies:

1. Build maximally so that no future “agreement” will be able to claim back that which has been added to the municipal boundaries.

2. Do our best to encourage Arabs of East Jerusalem to leave, by not giving building permits, by evacuation via immoral but legal discriminatory laws, by withholding municipal funding of investment and services, and by etc..etc..(the list is long and frightening).

3. Use Jerusalem as a tool that will inhibit the possibility of drawing a map with boundaries that will be acceptable to the Palestinian Authority for a Two-State solution. This goal is further accentuated by our government’s desire (and plans) to extend the city limits of Jerusalem eastward (an area called E-1) up to the Jewish settlement of Maaleh Adumim, and our government’s plans to extend the surrounding Wall half-way eastward to the Jordan River and the Dead sea – essentially splitting the Palestinian West Bank into two sections. Fortunately, these plans have meanwhile been held up mostly by American insistence, but the goal is clear and evident.

I made my way to Sheikh Jerach, a neighborhood built in the 20’s for and by some of the well-to-do Arabs of Jerusalem, though appended to it is also a small area of a few homes built yet in the 1890’s (some by Jews). Today it is still considered to be good real-estate in East Jerusalem (some very respectable consulates are there). Three Arab families were recently evicted from their apartments in Sheich Jerach after their homes were legally returned to private buyers who bought the deeds from previous Jewish owners till 1948. The Arab families fled their homes in the Israeli sector and were given these apartments legally by the Jordanian government. Nearby, also in Sheich Jerach, are Jewish squatters/settlers in a building which the High Court has ordered to be evacuated and torn down. The Jerusalem municipality has successfully held off this verdict for a number of years now. The two cases depict and exemplify some of the normal policies and realities of East Jerusalem.

I came to Sheikh Jerach to join other demonstrators against the above depiction of normal policies and realities in East Jerusalem. Why demonstrate? Well, our laws and our policies state that a Jew who owned property in East Jerusalem prior to the State in 1948, can claim and get back his property no matter who is living in it today. However, an Arab from East Jerusalem, now a legal resident of Israel, who had property in West Jerusalem (or anywhere else), but fled (or “was fled”) in 1948, cannot have his property returned under any conditions. We can…..they can’t. simple. Evict Arabs – yes. Evict Jews – no way. This is the micro reason for the demonstrations. In the macro, we are demonstrating against the three goals stated above, and the policies that support them.

There were about two hundred of us at the demonstration. It felt cozy….intimate…my kind of people. We all knew we were doing something important, but I still drove home with an empty feeling. Two hundred (or even three) demonstrators, coming to Sheikh Jerach every Friday afternoon will ultimately accomplish little in today’s political world. It will give us (the demonstrators) a feeling of doing something, but more….???? I am reminded of the “orange shirts” in the Ukraine and of the “red shirts” in Thailand. Perhaps if we had 20,000 demonstrators, each with our Israeli flag, sitting and demonstrating in Sheikh Jerach, without going home, cuddled in sleeping bags on-site for the night, continuing for days and even weeks non-stop…….perhaps then, and only then, could we get the attention needed to affect changes in basic policies and their execution. But meanwhile, most of us leftist, humanistic, liberal do-gooders are armchair supporters who think of today's demonstrators as good people who just don’t know when to leave well enough alone.

If ever a miracle happens, and we do get our supporters out of their armchairs and into their sleeping bags on the streets of a place like Sheikh Jerach, I hope to be with them….sandwiches in one bag, all my prescription medications in another, laptop with extra power supply, borrowed sleeping bag, and lots of hope. Yes, I’ll be there rooting for the very legitimate rights of Palestinians, but most of all I’ll be there because I’m a Zionist Jew, and because I know that the destruction of a Two-State possibility will bring upon us the disastrous result of One-State for Two Peoples (with no equality for all), and also the end of the Zionist dream.

Fewer and Fewer of Us ??

Sent 18.March.2010

A dear person who was a role model for me many years ago in Washington D.C. during my early years in the Habonim Labor Zionist youth movement, has been very generous by sending some of my letters and comments to a sizable “political” e-mail list of her own. Recently I received a pessimistic mail from her about the future of the Israeli Left. She titled the e-mail subject heading with: “Frankly, I’m not sure if there is anyone else to talk to.”

I wrote her back:

My response is …..riddled with the difficult task of reacting to some of the very short but terribly troublesome things you wrote:

“Frankly, I’m not sure if there is anyone else to talk to.” (that was the subject heading of your e-mail.)

“You must be suffering.” (meaning me, and you are so right.)

You also wrote: “My feeling is that it feels nuts to work for a two state solution here [in the U.S.], ie. J street, while in Israel less and less people believe that it is possible, ve' tov lehem kmo she zeh achshav.”

First, be rest assured, I am definitely suffering as each year places me within a smaller political minority and puts into further question my ability to foresee any possibility of a political and social turning point within our Israeli public.

We are evolving into a racist public. I include here those of us who are openly and actively racist, those of us who passively support our racism, and also those of us who are not happy with our racism but are too passive or seemingly too busy to come out openly and actively to refute and oppose our racism.

More than half our Jewish high school students think that Arab Israelis should not have equal rights to Jewish Israelis. This is no surprise in a country where children of Ethiopian Jews are quarantined in separate schools by some communities or sit at home in some others while searching for schools ready to accept them. Our Media vilifies and our politicians decry the occurrences, but the reality continues to exist and grow.

There is no active “leftist” opposition within our national politics. Our government is leading us to a scenario where there will be no viable two-state modus-vivendi. We seem to be straying into a swamp which will be called a “one state solution” with a tremendous amount of discriminatory policies and laws, backed up by “necessary” oppression of Palestinian “citizens” or “non-citizens”, and constantly peppered by internal underground movements permeated with a belief in the effectiveness of violence as therapy for despair or vengeance.

As a Zionist I came to a realization long ago that a national consciousness is not a matter of “right” or “wrong”. Also, one national consciousness can have a completely different set of roots and rules than another, and still be true and real. Our own national consciousness is seeped in a combination of history, religion, fate, suffering, and long-term memory. These elements gave us the “need” and created the "will" to seize the historic opportunity that was offered us by a world that didn’t want us but was entering an age of nationalism and self-determination. But our voyage into modern nationalism is no truer nor more real or more justified than the national consciousness of the Palestinian people who were ripped apart from the larger Arab-Moslem consciousness, as were all other Arab nations in the Middle-East at the end of the First World War. Their newer and more localized national consciousness was born within borders foisted on them by colonial powers, was created out of the torn remnants of a greater Arab consciousness, was instigated further through their antagonism to our own reignited national consciousness within the same borders, and was sealed with the trauma created by the success of our own national aspirations. Our national consciousness may be thousands of years old, and theirs barely one hundred. Yet one is no more just or righteous or deeply felt.

Till we Israelis recognize and come to terms with the symmetric “validity” of both our and their national consciousness, we won't readily make the steps needed for a mutual arrangement with the Palestinians; till the Palestinians gain their aspirations for national self-determination, they will be unable to come to terms with the reality of an Israeli nation. Unfortunately, both these conditions seem to be floating hopelessly further and further away.

With a government and its policies that are supported by a stable majority of our Israeli public, and with no strong and loud political opposition, we have no intention of creating the conditions for a viable two-State reality. We temporarily freeze some expansion in the conquered territories in order to show how good we are, while actually continuing to build and expand and expropriate under the guise of various sundry (il)legal excuses. By doing so, we are hastening the day when a one-state solution will be the only default left for us. That One-State will either contain a true Apartheid concoction of sorts, or will be some type of democratic formation that will erase the last vestiges of a Jewish Homeland. Neither case will be void of constant and abundant internal violence and bloodshed.

There is therefore much possible justification when you write me: “that it feels nuts to work for a two state solution here, ie. J street, while in Israel less and less people believe that it is possible, ve' tov lehem kmo she zeh achshav. ”

And yet…….it may be a false appraisal of what people believe and what is yet possible. I don’t think our problem is based on Israelis who don’t believe a two-state solution is possible. That would be like saying most Israelis believe there is “no one to talk to”. And the truth is that most Israelis today do think there is “someone” to talk to in the Palestinian Authority. But the loud voices of leadership on the political scene make it consistently and constantly clear that they do not want to talk about the things which need talking about. And this vocal leadership is the backbone of our government and its policies. This leadership, taking along with it so much of our public, fears the concessions that result out of compromise, but is also wary of the condemnations which result out of a one-sided refusal to negotiate and compromise. It is much better to raise the ante to a point where “the other side” will be unable to accept participation in a dialogue. Then we could always claim “Its not our fault. Its them!”

Therefore we announce our agreement to a two-state solution, while demanding not only that they recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel, but that they announce Israel to be the Jewish State. (regardless of the 20% Arab-Israeli citizens; regardless of the fact that the State of Israel can define itself from within itself, and with no need of a definition by a neighboring state; regardless of the fact that till now it sufficed us to define the State of Israel as the Jewish Homeland, but also the State of all its people.) Therefore we announce a temporary freeze on building of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, while also announcing as loud as we can that building will continue with extra vigor as soon as the freeze period is finished. Therefore we exclude Greater Jerusalem from the freeze and openly, vocally and physically, step up our Jewish building and settlement in East Jerusalem, even into the very confines of Arab neighborhoods, and meanwhile also doing our best to enlarge the borders of Greater Jerusalem within its occupied territory. Therefore we take no steps whatsoever to encourage some belief within the Palestinian leadership that we are serious about moving to a two-state solution (such as depopulating the so-called illegitimate settlements, or curbing all announcements of new building in east Jerusalem, or a long list of other trust-building possibilities). We are consciously and deliberately trying to pay lip-service to what the world wants to hear, while programmatically and just as deliberately demanding and doing everything that will make it difficult or impossible for the Palestinian Authority to trust in our honest intensions towards a two-state solution. This is how we’ve kept them away from any official or non-official negotiation table since the Netanyahu government took office.

Today there is “someone” to talk to more than ever before. Today (even more than in the past) we are the ones who are looking for ways not to talk to that “someone”. And we are succeeding very nicely.

In other words, it is not true that “less and less people believe that it is possible” to create a two-state solution. In truth, less and less people WANT that creation and are quite satisfied with our government’s successful attempts at avoiding such a creation.

The Messianic fringe movement of Zionism which erupted to the forefront of Israeli politics in 1967 was fueled by all sectors of our political scene – branches of religious Zionism, offshoots of the Revisionists, and an emotional sector of Labor. Religious Zionism adopted the premise that God had begun the process of our Final Redemption (Geula) and will lead us now to the fulfillment of His contract with Abraham which will widen our borders from the Euphrates and unto the stream of Egypt. This fulfillment will also bring the nations of the world to recognize the righteousness of Israel and will bring peace and justice and wellbeing unto the world. Therefore we have no right to oppose this process of redemption, and we cannot give back any land which is part of our promise from God. There is no need to debate the rights and wrongs or the possibilities of compromise. With the advent of Zionism, the miracle of the State in ’48 and our expansion in ’67, we are now bound to God’s process of redemption.

So many of us “left-wing humanistic/secular” Jews assume the above paragraph belongs only to a fringe element of our Jewish society in Israel. That assumption is false. The belief that we are in the midst of God’s process of “Geula”, a process we are forbidden to divert, and therefore All Will End Well, has permeated the bulk of Religious Zionism. It has also profoundly affected the bulk of right-wing traditional and secular Jews here in Israel, some consciously and many more sub-consciously. It is a concept which goes beyond our historical bond to the Land of Israel. It is a concept not in the hands of man, but one that emanates from God. It is therefore a concept that doesn’t rely on reason, nor even on morality. It relies on belief alone. This is a concept which underlies so many of the other (and louder) reasons for being uncompromising in our political stance towards the Palestinians (reasons such as: security, “no one to talk to”, etc…). This is the concept which has driven Religious Zionism since ’67, and has infected the veins of traditional and secular right wing politics. This is what we’re up against.

Can this be changed ??

During our lifetime changes occurred that seemed far from imminent only moments before they occurred: The Walls of Berlin fell along with the Cold War; South Africa and apartheid………..; a black President in the U.S.?? Evidently, much of history can only be learned backwards. Forecasters of both weather and history can be wrong.

I think we haven’t yet progressed beyond the point of no return, though who knows how close we are to that destination. It means the voice of our dwindling minority group needs to hold its head above water and continue to write and to whisper and to talk and to yell and to act and to organize and to reorganize until either history passes us by or history suddenly decides to try a minority opinion.

But I also don’t think History will change course without helpful outside interference, including by the world Jewish public (J-Street seems to be one good example), and including by supporting countries (e.g. the U.S.A. ……is there anyone else ??), and including by economic pressure (yes, my fingers trembled a little as I wrote that. Though I’d prefer the use of carrots rather than the stick. But will carrots work?). Unfortunately things may change only once our Israeli public begins understanding that things are not going well for us (once again my fingers tremble at these words). And I do think things will get worse. This is not meant as a wish! Perhaps it’s a foolish attempt at forecasting history.

Evidently, I’ve rambled way more than I meant to when at last responding to your letter. I guess you simply gave me the opportunity to tell someone what I think. Because here too “frankly, I’m not sure if there is anyone else to talk to.” (that was the subject heading of your e-mail.) I guess I've poured it all on you.

It was good hearing from you. Wish you all the best,

aaron

Response to Daniel Gordis

Sent 7.Nov.2009

Daniel Gordis is a columnist in the Jerusalem Post. Though I have always thought that he writes very well, I have also always had reservations to many of Gordis' remarks and conclusions, His latest article annoyed me enough to respond directly to his Internet site, and I thought you may be interested as well. So here was my response (to which I never recieved an answer):

To: Daniel Gordis:

As you so frequently write in your well-written articles, you display an attempt at understanding both sides of the political issues that have divided us Israelis over the past 40 years. And as you usually do, you end up showing why criticizing our country’s policies regarding the handling of occupied territories and of our enemies in general is essentially a subversive act.

Your article of November 6, “Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You”, is typical as much as it blatantly shows how you wind your literary way from an attempt at understanding to a total condemnation of those who seek something other than the policies of our government. Biblically you write “Are you with us or do you seek our destruction? ……those are our only choices”.

You engineer a fairly nasty literary analogy by equating J Street to Donald Bostrom. Unfortunately it also shows how narrowly you perceive that part of your biblical quote saying “Are you with us…..”. Your concept of being “with us” means agreeing with policies which others see as detrimental to our national interests and to our Jewish heritage.

You are terribly worried in your article that “Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You” by those nations and peoples that are out to get us. It follows symmetrically that it matters not what we say, it shall always be used against us. Logically it should also follow that we can say to each other what needs to be said, we can agree and we can disagree, without worrying about “what will the Goyim think” for they will always use it detrimentally. Actually, though, our ups and downs with the “Goyim” have little to do with what we “say”. It has mainly to do with what we “do”. But here, too, those who want to “get us” won’t relent regardless of what we “do” , so we may as well find ways of doing what we think is right.

Many of us believe that much of our country’s policies and actions in the occupied territories are not “right”, but wrong. Many of us believe that our government is manipulating everything it says and does with the intention of holding on to as much (if not all) of the occupied territories as possible. Many of us believe this is wrong. Many of us think that our government does not want any kind of modus Vivendi which will allow for a separate Palestinian State, and therefore constructs its policies and actions in a way that will thwart that possibility. Many of us think that our government prefers the inevitability of more wars and intifadas rather than the loss of part of our biblical real-estate.

While I consider myself a truly kosher Zionist, while I totally support our need to remain militarily Stronger Than Ever, while I know that my grandchildren will still need to stand guard on our survival, I cannot agree to policies and actions which will teach my grandchildren that the main ingredients of morality and justice are “who can be stronger, fight better, subjugate better and oppress more efficiently”. I see our policies and actions as ones that are polluting our Jewish heritage and our national conscience. You would prefer I be silent for “they will use this against us”. If I speak out, you see me as the enemy who is out to “seek our destruction”. Nevertheless, while you continue to worry about those who will use what we say, I will continue to worry about what we are doing to ourselves.

When the Kibbutz was a Kibbutz

Sent 26.Aug.2009

An article written in Hebrew by Amnon Shamosh, "When the Kibbutz was a Kibbutz", was translated into English by Trudy Greener and Amnon Hadary. The article was a nostalgic journey into the idealic experiences and environment within the Kibbutz of Past memories. The article made the rounds of my Habonim 9th Workshop friends. (We spent a year together at Kibbutz Gesher Haziv in 1959). Via a few email postings a number of our group began wondering whether in 1959 we were still part of “the Kibbutz that Was”, or was it all something before our time.

One of our group wrote:

............ I do not think it was all [past] history- I remember many such [experiences} when I arrived there. I think the bigger changes started in the 70’s with the most dramatic changes in the 90’s- aaron, would you agree?

This was my reply:

Your question is a loaded one which will probably be argued for years to come by fine sociologists and anthropologists. Some say the demise began with the conception. Some say they never saw it coming. Amnon Shamosh’s wonderfully picturesque description of “what-once-was” embraces scenes of a process from before Statehood and up to some realities that still exist today in a very small number of kibbutzim.

My own recollection of Gesher Haziv as a “kibbutz” while on Workshop is fairly vague in retrospect. I don’t think I ever managed to really assess or view the inner workings of the place, nor the community “soul” that made the place tick. I enjoyed working in bananas and I liked the people there. I liked my family and remember well how Rachel and I visited them often. I remember the Sidur-Avoda and the laundry. I remember the chadar-ochel and the half of a boiled egg, and the jam instead of sugar for our tea, and the mashed potatoes and gaining weight. I remember Purim but other holidays are absent or vague (was I sober on Purin and drunk on the others?). and I remember well that the kibbutz was in sad shape economically/financially with serious management problems (running the bananas was someone from elsewhere; the Merakez-Meshek was an outsider foisted on the kibbutz).The rest of my memories of that year are from the Workshop itself, things we did, our relationships, kibbutz members who were involved with us, and a younger crowd (garin and older high school bnei-meshek) who got closer to some of us than to others.

Back in Washington D.C. after workshop I decided to return to Gesher Haziv…….Not because I fell in love with the “soul” of Gesher Haziv. I hadn’t really met with it during our year together……But because I surmised that going to a kibbutz with problems, one in need of new blood in order to re-vitalize it’s mission as a “successful experiment in true communal living”, is indeed the real pioneering challenge of that day. Did I make a mistake? Should I have expended my young ideological energy by joining a completely new kibbutz or one with a solid economic future? No matter. I deal with the reality of past and present as stepping stones into tomorrow, rather than muse on the possibilities of various parallel realities. For the last thirty some years I’ve had a small slogan (in Hebrew) above my desk saying something like this:

“It’s good to die for an ideal, but don’t hurry, because ideals tend to evolve and change, and you may be dying for the wrong stage of its evolution.”

With notable but few exceptions I think I’ve adopted the slogan as a method of wading through a variety of surrounding changes in our world, including the process that changed what we saw as “The Kibbutz That Was”.

I began learning what Gesher Haziv is all about only after arriving in ’65 married and with child. I knew things were different than expected when during our first month we had a get-together with a group of young adults (army and post-army age) who grew up in G.H. ….They were totally confused as to why young Jews would leave America to join them in G.H……were we freaks or something? But it took a number of years later, around the Bar-Mitzva of our third son, to realize that the economic collectivity of our community was on a downhill disintegrating slope. Our gizbar told us to keep all bar-mitzva gifts (money) and put them in our own bank account. (By our fourth son it was no longer a question). That was about 27 years ago. (today it all sounds so trite.)

In truth, the “Kibbutz that was” in G.H. held onto an outer shell made up of many of the colorful institutions and behaviors as described by Amnon Shamosh in his article. But within the shell, throughout the years, those ideals of social and economic collectivity were slowly breaking down and emptying out till the shell itself had little to lean on and began totally cracking-up in the 90’s. By then treasure hunters would have great difficulty finding remnants of “the Kibbutz that was” in G.H.

p.s. “this guy” Amnon Shamosh is one of Israel’s prolific and honored authors. With roots in Syrian Jewery and a sturdy trunk in the Kibbutz, his branches extend to many books on Jews in Arab lands, children’s books, poetry and social topics. He was one of the founders of Kibbutz Maayan Baruch. Among those founders was also a group from American Habonim, joined later by olim from South African Habonim.

Best wishes,

Aaron

Knowing History is not a Bad Idea

sent 23.July. 2009

A (Jewish) friend af mine (I'll call her A) has been actively engaged in the struggle for Palestinian rights in the occupied territories. In a group discussion by e-mails, she commented on Uri Avneri and his reports of injustices done by Israel to palestinians during the War of Independance in 1948. Two friends within our group (I'll call them B and C), wrote back quite angrily about A's support of those "facts".

B wrote:

"In 1948 when independence was declared, there were 600,000 Jews in the fledgling State of Israel, attacked by no less than seven Arab states. Israel was not prepared for the war imposed upon us and after having the Jewish people decimated by the Shoah, it was felt that we had to fight tooth and nail for the continued existence of the new state and its citizens. The tactics you described were employed against very very few Arab villages whose inhabitants attacked Jews. This has been a stain upon Israel's history. Those which did not were left alone. However, it was never and by no means a matter of systematic ethnic cleansing or violence. Am stating the obvious, war is ugly as its morality, or immorality as the case may be. Horrible deeds are committed in war. On the other hand, witness the number of Arab villages standing today in the Galil, some of them flourishing, and indeed Abu Ghosh, close to Jerusalem is an excellent example. These were isolated incidents rather than normal practice and that is what must be stressed here.
A, in your emails you have demonstrated that you no longer bear any affection, empathy or love for the State of Israel. Rather than attempting to effect change from within (Shalom Achshav, for example?), you chose to place your sympathies with the Palestinians. I no longer wish to receive your emails as I regard their content as a personal attack upon me and all those dear to me.... "

C wrote:

"Is there another country or another army that is so engrossed is self-flagellation as the Jewish country and the Jewish army? And don’t forget how other countries hold us to standards they cannot live up to. Why is it so important for you to know the nitty gritties of what went on 60 years ago? Isn’t it enough that the nascent state had to do whatever it had to do to make a homeland for the remnants of European Jewry? I must say that I agree with B regarding A’s attitude toward the Palestinians and Israel. I would like to be removed from those mailings as well."

I was saddened by B’s and C’s reactions to A’s comments. Ostracizing, blacklisting, boycotting an extremely opposite opinion within a group exchange regarding issues that matter to us, limits greatly our understanding of all sides to those issues. But perhaps I am most concerned with our respect for each other’s nuances, for each other’s deviations from our own world of beliefs, and maybe I am also concerned that I too will be placed beyond the pale at some juncture. Nevertheless, I’ll overcome my hesitations and append my comments to your's. (I wish I knew how to put it all in one short paragraph, but I don’t have the knack or talent for that. Sorry.)

We Israelis have something important in common with our Palestinian neighbors: Part of our majority Israeli approach to the “Palestinian Problem” is that “everything we do is necessary and therefore right, while everything they do is wrong and bad”. This is also the majority Palestinian approach to the “Israel Problem”. This formula is one of the elements which help both us and the Palestinians to purposefully avoid a mutual solution and a minimal understanding of each other.

Our appreciation of history is also sometimes problematic. We may see what really happened 60 years ago as unimportant (I think C expressed that), while our own historical claims dating back two thousand years remain totally legitimate. I think both periods are important, legitimate and relevant…..and as in real life, the harm we do today can greatly injure our reputation, status and legality born of yesterday.

Though I have read so many articles by Uri Avneri, I confess to not having read his books. I began reading him only after he gave up his magazine “Haolam Hazeh” which I found to be yellow journalism at its yellowest in a time before our regular newspapers learned to copy and incorporate a tinge of yellow. Avneri came from a Jabotinskyite Revisionist family, and started part of his active political life in Etzel (the Jewish “terrorist” organization). Nevertheless, in the aftermath of 1948 Avneri saw it important to tell us Israelis more than just about our heroic and necessary fight for our State. He thought it important to tell of the “unnecessary” things that were done. Part of the Israeli public respect Uri Avneri, but most turn a blind eye to what he writes, and many believe that the “unnecessary” actions were also part of the “necessary”. Perhaps this needs an explanation.

War is Cruel. Ugly things are done, some by generals with a mission, some by frightened individuals and some by bad human beings. One result of the war was a Palestinian refugee problem that haunts us till now. Our Israeli viewpoint has always been: The refugees are not our problem. We did not cause them to flee. We even ran around asking them to stay. Those who fled did so because the Arab armies attacking us gave them the word to flee in order not to be in the way of destroying the new State. Eyewitness accounts and historical records confirm this to be so very true. But there were other reasons as well for the flight of most of the Arab population. Those reasons we tend to call “isolated incidents” occurring to “very very few Arab villages whose inhabitants attacked Jews” (B was confirming a long-time Israeli myth which has not stood the test of time and research). The “very few” were close to 500 Arab villages that were destroyed by the war, some of them by Uri Avneri and Samson’s Foxes in just the way he describes. Perhaps most of this was from the subjective necessity of seeing our Jewish Homeland start its new life with a clear and large Jewish majority. But we don’t especially like to know and be reminded that these facts are part of our burden. We prefer continuing our supposition that everything by us is objectively good, and everything by them is bad. The Palestinians do the same.

It is not unimportant “to know the nitty gritties of what went on 60 years ago” (as C writes), especially when there is a clear line of policy stretching from the past into the present. Our politics and policies are constantly involved with the problems of land and demography. Israeli Arab towns and villages have tremendous difficulties getting approval for expansion for natural growth or even building permits for existing properties. Jerusalem is a good example. Last week, in the verbal exchange between Netanyahu and the American administration over a new building project for Jews in annexed East Jerusalem, my Prime Minister asserted that we Jews have as much of a right to build and buy houses in East Jerusalem as Arabs from East Jerusalem have in West Jerusalem. Though this is a blatant lie (not being a politician and not confined to politically correct language, I can use the word “lie”), we shall continue using this excuse to justify actions we are doing in order to expand Jewish and Limit Arab land and demography. Our Lands Authority and many municipalities have done their best over the years to hamper Arab demography by limiting land and not issuing building permits to our Arab citizens. Perhaps an editorial quote from this week’s Haaretz will portray the magnitude of the issue:

“Since 1967 Israel has expropriated 35% of East Jerusalem to construct 50,000 housing units intended primarily for Jews. During the same period, fewer than 600 units for Palestinians were built with government support” (which is why hundreds more were built “illegally” and are threatened with demolition).

It is no wonder that a long range Plan for East Jerusalem which at long last was presented last week for municipal approval, was sent back to the drawing board. Its opponents claimed there were too many housing units planned for Arabs and too few for Jews. Watching the demolition of Arab homes in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem along with extreme limitation of legal Arab housing draws for us a straight line from Uri Avneri’s accounts of 1948 to consistent policies till today. In 1948 we could say that we used opportunities which evolved during a life and death struggle for our existence. Afterwards and today it is because we want to and "we can". Land and Demography are and have been the issues. Of course, they also portray one aspect in the reality of equality (?) before the law for Israeli Arab citizens.

It is strange that while the great overall majority support such policies, by belief or by silence, we still think there is no one “so engrossed in self-flagellation as the Jewish country and the Jewish army” (as C wrote). I suppose that “self-flagellation” is meant as a synonym for complaints about our policies towards the Palestinians in the occupied territories, our rejection of Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, and our despair at our country’s conduct towards our Israeli Arab citizens. It would make me glad to know that our country and army are “so engrossed” with complaining about these policies. Unfortunately, this is not so. The great majority of our country support these policies by belief or by silence. A small minority voice their objections. I fear, though, that only a small minority are willing to listen. Others turn their heads or even ostracize, boycott or blacklist the complainers. This year many Israelis closed their subscriptions to the newspaper Haaretz because Gideon Levy has a column. Uri Avneri had a similar fate for most of his political career…… but he never stopped complaining.

Keep reading.

My best regards to all,

aaron

More on "Thought re: Netanyahu's Vision"

sent 23.June.2009

Dear Friends

A friend of mine forwarded my previous letter (Thoughts Re Netanyahu's Vision) to some Jewish friends here in Israel. My friend received one response which in so few words typifies so much of our government's policies towards the West Bank and towards Israeli Arabs, it also typifies the short-sighted "vision" of our Israeli Right.

This was the response:

"My vision for Israel is a country for the Jewish People...If you don't like it, LEAVE. This small piece of land cannot accommodate more than one people and the Israeli people are it! Arabs have their own countries and have overtaken much of Europe & Indonesia. They have their Mecca and we have our Wall...And never the twain shall meet! T---."

This was such a simple, pure, direct and honest response, that I felt obligated to comment on it. How well our problem is embodied in T's few short words. And so I wrote back to my friend:

Thanks for sending my letter onwards to others.

Yes, T's response is why Netanyahu is prime minister. T's answer is also a short-sighted one, perhaps given without much thought to what happens next. Its easy to say "If you don't like it, LEAVE", but what happens if that doesn't happen: They don't like it, but they don't leave. The 20% of Israeli citizens (2nd rate citizens at that) who are Arab have no intention of leaving Israel. The two and half million Palestinians in the West Bank also have no intention of leaving. Your friend T then has three alternative solutions because according to T the land "cannot accommodate more than one people":

1. Force them to leave…..mass deportation "somewhere", of up to four million Arabs. Quite a tragic scene, though perhaps T is not worried either of the moral implications or the consequences. If so, we don't belong to the same Jewish People.

2. Annexing the West bank as part of Israel and thereby making another 2.5 million Arabs citizens of Israel. Of course this would mean that we are on our way to be an eventual large Jewish minority within the country, a bi-national State….not really a Jewish State by any means. This is what the Palestinians would prefer. I don't think T would go for it.

3. Annexing (or not) the West Bank but keeping the Arab population without any rights of citizenship and penned up under a military clamp….Essentially similar to today's situation. In that case I refer you back to my previous letter which tries to show some of the consequences of this alternative.

All alternatives boil down to some concoction of one of these three. If T knows of some other alternative model, I would be anxious to learn of it. (Having Jordan take over the West Bank is also not an alternative. Both Jordan and the Palestinians reject any such possibility. Just as Egypt refused to take over Gaza once we were ready to give it up. Also "Leave everything to God" is not a viable alternative, I won't even begin to rebut that. Well, maybe I will say that God helps those who help themselves, and then only sometimes. )

But yes, there is one more possible alternative: Coming to some kind of mutual agreement about two States for two People. This too is not simple, and all of our moves via settlements in the West Bank are made to preempt such an alternative, but perhaps we have not quite yet passed the point of no return. Any agreement needs to be mutual, needs to refer to security matters, needs international participation and guarantees, needs to have stages for building trust, stages for reducing hatred, and probably a lot more.

There are many more moral and historical grounds that would classify T's response as lacking both knowledge and foresight, but the problem of the above alternatives will suffice for now. I assume Terry will probably choose alternative number 3 above. In that case, once more I refer you back to my previous letter (see below) and to where that alternative is taking us.

Still hoping for a brighter and more sensible tomorrow,

Be well.

Aaron

Thoughts re: Netanyahu's Vision

sent 19.June.2009
Dear Friends,

After Prime Minister Netanyahu created a great media spin around his pronounced “vision” for the future of our country in response to President Obama’s prodding, I needed to share my worries with others. I am not a politician, nor do I organize demonstrations. But I know that I need to do something….and sharing my worries with others seems to be the minimum I can do. I know that some of my friends and acquaintances will find dire displeasure with a few of my remarks…….nevertheless………..

While many Israelis praised the words of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s supposed about-face and his readiness to foresee a situation where the State of Israel lives beside a Palestinian State, my own impression was that Netanyahu spoke his best to put a damper on any such possibility. This is coupled to so many of his government’s actions since taking office a few months ago and to the unfortunate path led by most Israeli governments since those six days in 1967.

Among other conditions, Netanyahu preconditioned his grudging acceptance of a Palestinian State with a specific Palestinian assertion of Israel as the Jewish State. Not an “Israeli State which is the homeland of the Jewish People”, but a “Jewish State” – and without a single word about the 20% (and rising) Arab Israeli population (which a goodly part of his government would like at least to disenfranchise and preferably to transfer over to the Palestinian areas). While Palestinian negotiators could swallow the reality of Israel being the “Homeland of the Jewish People”, they can not openly voice a terminology which places Israel as a state solely for the Jewish People……not with a 20% (and growing) Arab population, and a desire for at least a symbolic return of some Palestinians.

Among other conditions, Netanyahu preconditioned his grudging acceptance of a Palestinian State with Palestinian knowledge of an undivided Jerusalem. Eastern Jerusalem with all its Palestinian neighborhoods, all of the Old City and the Temple Mount, and a greatly expanded city boundary so as to reach important outlying Jewish settlements within the conquered West Bank: all this within the Jewish State. This is a vision Netanyahu knows will be unacceptable to the Palestinians and will help drag the “peace process” on and on while energy is diverted to expanding settlements and setting broader boundaries which will make negotiations even more unacceptable to the Palestinian negotiators.

Netanyahu made it clear that his government will not halt the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. This of course emphasizes that our cardinal sin of expropriating Palestinian land under various guises of legal manipulation or direct illegal land-grabbing will continue with the full support of our government. Netanyahu emphasized this knowing full well that his words (and deeds) are a spade that buries any process towards mutual understanding.

It is difficult to know what to do when faced with the pessimistic prospect of my country eventually crossing the point of no return between a democratic State which is the homeland of the Jewish people, and its metamorphosis into a quasi-authoritarian, quasi-theocratic, neo-colonial State steered by a jingoistic nationalism, led by a pride lacking humility and fed by fear.

Once crossing the point of no return, our future becomes fairly clear. We shall hold on to the West Bank and continue expanding our inhabited real-estate in the area. The Palestinians will continue to live without equal rights (or rights at all) in a territory policed by military rule. Within the Middle East we will remain a pariah whose moral and physical strength will be guided by the sword, a sword that will gradually weaken relative to the military abilities of our neighbors, a sword which will not sit favorably with the nations of the world on any continent. We will have wars. We will not always win. In the future, Jews in the Diaspora will write heroic stories about the rise and fall of the Third Jewish Commonwealth.

Our lust for real-estate in the West Bank will also continue to undermine our trust in the Arab citizens within Israel. We will continue discriminating policies which will ensure the righteousness of our mistrust. We will then at long last face our First Israeli-Arab Intifada. We will kill many while restoring order, thereby ensuring the Second Israeli-Arab Intifada, and the Third………and perhaps this will even happen during one of those wars which needed winning in order to ensure the continued existence of the Third Jewish Commonwealth and our precious God-given real-estate in the West Bank.

My Prime Minister offered all the reasons why all of Greater Israel is ours and ours alone. Under dire pressure he conceded the possibility of a Palestinian state. But, while insisting that negotiations with the Palestinians be with no preconditions or previous understandings, he firmly stated a heavy variety of preconditions for any possibility of a Palestinian State…..conditions making it ludicrous to begin mutual talks, and meant to perpetuate the status quo.

My Prime Minister could have offered an extended hand towards a “Sulcha” with our Palestinian neighbors. My Prime Minister could have conceded that not only the Jewish people have suffered. He could have delivered words of empathy to the suffering of the Palestinians over the last 60 years. He could have even conceded that other peoples had managed to root themselves in our land at various times during our two thousand years of exile. He should have hinted that our national aspirations came into inevitable conflict with other national aspirations which were already also evident at the very beginning of the 20th century. He could have conceded to all of that without giving up an inch of ground from our Jewish-Zionist legacy. He could have conceded to all of that as an introduction to our understanding that the conflict also resulted in a tragic calamity to the Arab people rooted in the ancient land of Israel. He could have conceded to all of that as an introduction to our welcoming the end of the conflict by the creation of a Palestinian State living peacefully side by side an Israeli one.

But he didn’t.

Once more he disregarded the opportunity of taking the initiative in the struggle for peace. For my Prime Minister the struggle for peace is worthwhile only if it involves no risk. It is therefore not worthwhile.

If we are ever “forced” into an era of “peace” by outside pressure, it will probably be a short respite not lacking in a continuation of hate and mistrust, for it will not have the element of “Sulcha” and the affirmation of the other’s legacy – two ingredients we ordinary Israelis refuse to initiate. My prime minister is just an ordinary Israeli. Evidently, nothing more.

With sincere wishes for a better tomorrow,
aaron