Another Jewish Voice for Peace

Third guest post by Joshua Deutsch:

I represent a substantial portion of American Jews. I’m not religious, but I have a strong sense of my Jewish history, culture, and identity. I understand that my family history is distinct from other Euro-Americans, and the past 150 years of Jewish history in Europe and America has profoundly shaped who I am today. For many younger American Jews, our Jewishness is more about the Holocaust than it is about God.

While Zionism may shape many Israeli Jews’ attitudes towards the occupation of Palestine, I don’t believe that this doctrine is very influential among American Jews. Every Jewish person I talk to about the Israeli occupation is primarily concerned about the security of the Israeli state. They see Israel as a tiny Jewish outpost within a sea of vengeful Arabs. Further, they believe that Arabs, if given the opportunity, would destroy the state of Israel. Finally, they point to horrific acts of violence, particularly the blowing up of school buss-es, as proof that Israel must respond violently.

When I argue with these people, I try to convince them of Israel’s expansionist agenda against the Palestinian people. I point out the fact that Israel invaded Palestine in the first place, that it has extended settlements throughout the West Bank, that it blocks travel between Palestinian towns, hoards water resources, destroys agricultural land, and generally makes life in the occupied territories unlivable. Furthermore, Israel is building the apartheid wall far inside Palestinian territory.

If the wall were really about security rather than a land grab, Israel would build the wall inside Israeli territory so it could defend it better against intruders. Even if Israel does have legitimate security concerns, the occupation is not primarily motivated by security. There is no question that Israel wants the land. Certain aggressive Israeli tactics can be construed as security measures, but many cannot. It is not clear why Israeli security necessitates the settlement policy or the occupation. I find it very troubling that American Jews, for the most part, refuse to recognize that the Israeli government is trying to displace the Palestinian people from their land.

The refusal among American Jews to accept this basic reality of the occupation is deeply rooted in our perception of who we are. First, Jews have traditionally been oppressed because we are successful. We are scapegoated out of jealousy because we have thrived under harsh conditions. So the fact that we have gained power is even more of a reason why we can’t let down our guard. Our history teaches us that our transient moment of success makes us more vulnerable to persecution. Second, our history teaches us that we are a peaceful people. I think that most Jews have a hard time believing that we could be the aggressor. It’s simply not in our nature. To the extent that the Israeli government has the job of protecting the Jewish people from legitimate security threats, we trust that they will do whatever is necessary for our protection.

I am very passionate in my opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Jews and Muslims are siblings, and both of us trace our history back to this same land. A military occupation contradicts our religious teachings and our history as a peaceful people. I do not want my Jewish identity to be associated with the policies of the Israeli government, and I hope that more Jews start to feel the same way. This occupation tarnishes us as a people. It makes us seem bull-headed and uncompromising because we are unwilling to accept criticism and acknowledge fault. It causes us to be despised throughout the Muslim world. It will divide us from our Muslim brothers and sisters creating generations of enmity and conflict. And ultimately, it will generate the very threats to our survival that drive us to support such a shortsighted policy in the first place.

According to our religious teachings, God made Moses and the Jews wander for 40 years in the desert before letting us into the Promised Land. God told the Jews that they weren’t ready to enter the Promised Land because they hadn’t learned their lessons nor understood their purpose. Many Jews see themselves as the "chosen people," which contrary to popular misconceptions is an obligation not a privilege. As the chosen people, Jews must be a positive force for peace and justice in the world. Our history of being persecuted has taught us to stand up for justice and against oppression. We must make sure that wrongs committed against us are not committed against others. But God made us wander for 40 years in the desert because we didn’t fully understand this purpose. We had not learned the lesson that would prevent us from doing these same wrongs against another people.

Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The rest of our people were scattered throughout Europe and America. We felt traumatized, isolated, and let down by the world. Like the Jews out of Egypt, we desperately needed a homeland where we could be together and feel safe. But this time, we didn’t have to wait 40 years. The colonial powers quickly carved us out a territory in someone else’s home. Consequently, we didn’t learn our lesson or our purpose. Our obligation is to never allow any people to suffer the way that we have suffered. God believes this lesson is so important, that God did not want us to enter the Promised Land until we fully understood. Instead, we entered the Promised Land by force in 1947, and we live with the consequences to this day. Oftentimes, peace requires sacrifice. This is a sacrifice that our religion and history obligate us to make. If we want to live side by side with our Muslim brothers and sisters, and avoid generations of conflict, then we need to let our guard down, end the occupation, and try to resolve this conflict through diplomatic means.

Comments

[Womble]

Anyone who begins their speech by saying he represents someone, while not being entitled to represent that group, is the living breathing embodiment of arrogance. Not to mention the mountain of factual mistakes and the language that gives me nostalgic feelings: my old Russian schoolbooks were written in this annoying style.

[Joshua Deutsch]

Simply put, many American Jews are not religious. Their ethnic identity is more significant than their religious identity. In this sense, I represent a substantial portion of American Jews. I do not claim to represent Jewish people in any other capacity.

[adwred]

Joshua --

Thanks for your words.

[Womble]

Joshua, you do realise that you have gotten even the TANACH episode you are referring to absolutely wrong? Aren't you forgetting that the reason why God made the Jews wander in the desert for 40 years because they were afraid to take on the Canaanites to conquer the Promised Land? Does the 12 spies episode ring a bell?

The wonders of American Jewish edication these days...

"We entered the Promised Land by force in 1947"? How is your SECULAR education on the subject, Joshua? By 1947, we already had a de-facto state there. We have entered the land of Israel long before that- not by force, but by labor and trade. For that matter, those were the Arabs and not the "colonial powers" who first offered us a state rather than a vague "national home".

Finally, what makes you think that the Arabs would not like to see Israel destroyed if given a chance? Theirs is not a history of attempts at peaceful coexistence with the "Zionist entity", quite the contrary. Even Scott would like nothing better than to see Israel vanish, if only he thought it was a realistic goal to achieve.

[Joshua Deutsch]

Womble: Without question, Jews and Muslims have coexisted in the Israel/Palestine region since the formation of the Muslim religon over 1000 years ago. Moreover, both rightfully trace their anscestry back to the same place because we are brothers and sisters. Biblically, we both claim to have descended from Abraham. But the creation of the modern Israeli state is a distinct event. Great Brittain claimed colonial authority over the region. The resettling of over a million Jews of European and Slavic descent was facilitated by the colonial powers, even if Jews within the region supported the relocation. The creation of the Israeli state involved exiling 800,000 non-Jewish Arabs. To say that the relocation is simply an outgrowth of the pre-1900's Jewish presence is simply historical revisionism.

In the "12 spies story," fear of the Canaanites causes the Jews to lose their faith in God to protect them. God punishes the Jews for their lack of faith by forcing them to wander for 40 years in the desert until the adult men die off. The term "conquering the promised land" that you use gives the impression that it is the will of God for the Jews to subjugate another people. Even if entering the promised land would have triggered fighting, God simply wanted the Jews to have faith that he/she would protect them. Moses tells the Jews after the 40 years that they must "keep to the Torah." The message is clear: If the Jews maintain hope and adhere to the values of the religion, God will protect them from harm. If they reject their faith, they will be ejected from the promised land.

Peace requires sacrifice. It is much easier for the more powerful actor to bend. It is unjustifiable to subjugate another people by claiming that they would do it to you if given a chance. Many Israeli policies have nothing to do with security and only aim to displace Palestinians from their home. Extending settlements, denying access to water, destroying homes and farmland, curfews and roadblocks do nothing to enhance security and guarantee generations of conflict. Moreover, these tactics and the perceptions they generate are the greatest threat to Israel's survival over the long term.

[Womble]

Joshua:

"The resettling of over a million Jews of European and Slavic descent was facilitated by the colonial powers, even if Jews within the region supported the relocation."

Absolutely false. The Brits did all they could to sabotage the Jewish immigration to Palestine, including sinking refugee ships and placing yesterday's Auschwitz prisoners into Britain's very own concentration camps on Cyprus. At the same time, Arab support for the Jewish project was greater than it is commonly believed, to the point of Arab groups participating in the anti-British warfare hand in hand with the right wing Zionist armed groups like the LEHI/Stern Gang. The growth of the anti-Zionist sentiment among the Palestinian Arabs was induced primarily by the British through empowering the radical Islamists like Haj Amin Al-Husseini (who is often mistakenly called a nationalist- something he never was). Later in the 30-s, the Nazi influences also played an important role.

You are trying to squeeze the story of the creation of Israel into the classic colonial narrative- but it doesn't fit.

"To say that the relocation is simply an outgrowth of the pre-1900's Jewish presence is simply historical revisionism."
I suppose its not- but it wasn't what I implied. What I said was that the Zionist movement had entered the land of Israel not by force, but by trade and labor- by lawfully purchasing land and working on it. Early Zionism was heavily Socialist, if not Communist, in their ideology, and was characterized by a worship-like view of work and the workers. Armed Jewish organizations did not appear until the Arab riots of 1929, when several Jewish communities (Hebron, Kfar Darom) were obliterated.

"The term "conquering the promised land" that you use gives the impression that it is the will of God for the Jews to subjugate another people."
Granted, I am a secular Jew myself- but what you are attempting to do here is inventing your own "new and improved" Torah. The truth is that Deuteronomy 7 explicitly orders conquest- not enslavement, but expulsion or destruction- and uses language so harsh that many a modern theologist had broken their teeth while chewing on it. Just read the text itself before engaging in arcane interpretations.

"Peace requires sacrifice. It is much easier for the more powerful actor to bend."
This is a piece of fallacious, downright dishonest logic, often used to explain why all the pressure should fall on Israel and the Palestinians should never be asked to lift a finger for peace. There is neither sense nor justice in this. The question of who is more powerful has nothing to do with who is right, and does not in any way absolve the weaker actor from doing his own part.

"It is unjustifiable to subjugate another people by claiming that they would do it to you if given a chance".

Even if these people themselves are eagerly describing in great detail what they would do to you if given a chance? Even if they have tried to destroy you in the past?

Give me a break. Living comfortably over in the States, you can afford an arrogant position of pursuing moral absolutes while disregarding the basic security concerns of other people. But those who live here, those who pay the price of the Utopian ventures pursued by the "peace now" crowd, are justified in preferring to err on the side of caution.

[Joshua Deutsch]

Thank you for your comments Womble. I think we are disagreeing on three main points. First is the question of whether the modern state of Israel arose through a normal process of immigration or by force.

The Balfour declaration by Brittain in 1917 promised the land to migrant Jewish people. The National Jewish Land Fund established an organized campaign to buy up land and only hire Jewish workers. Brittish troops were instrumental in putting down Arab nationalist revolts. Still, in 1931 there were ten times as many Arabs as Jews in the region. In 1948, at the time of the formation of the Israeli state, Jews owned no more than 6 percent of the land. Still the United Nations lead by the US partitioned the region in half. In the war of independence, Israel went far beyond this partition by attacking majority Arab areas and displacing 800,000 people. In 1967, Israel occupied the remainder of Palestine. Obviously this history is long and complex. But it's rediculous to assert that the modern Jewish presence in Israel is the result of lawful immigration, land buying, trade and labor. Jews took the land by force and we live with the consequences to this day. We need to come to terms with what we did rather than deny it and run from it.

The second point we disagree on is the religious interpretation of why the Jews wandered for 40 years in the desert. To be honest, it's been a while since I read that section of the Bible so you may be right that the Jews were told to take over the Canaanites. My understanding of the religious history is based on my Rabbi's interpretation and other Rabbi's that I've spoken too. I'm sure there are many stories in the Bible that rationalize terrible acts of violence, but this is not an interpretation of Judaism that most American Jews subscribe too. On the contrary, we believe that our mission is to promote peace and kindness. And that we often must suffer for not understanding our purpose or straying from the principles that God has ordained for us. This may be a revisionist interpretation, but religon isn't history, and this interpretation is more consistent with the beliefs of most American Jews, who do not believe that God asks us to conquer other people.

Thirdly, you suggest that there is no obligation to make compromises to work towards peace. Your reasoning fails to acknowledge any culpability for the violent means of forming the Israeli state. Further, you fail to recognize the brutality of the occupation including measures having nothing to do with Israeli security. Why can't Israel stop unlawful settlements, stealing water resources, bulldozing homes and destroying farmland? Israel is not in danger of being destroyed and has ample resources to defend itself without subjugating the native people of the land and destroying their way of life. Finally, such tactics are shortsighted. Over the longterm, your closemindedness towards the prospect of peace between Muslims and Jews, which has existed numerous times throughout our history, will guarantee generations of fighting and condemn us to a hostile future. Our history and our religon teach us that this is not the course we should choose.
Peace,
Josh

[Womble]

Josh,

No offense, but there is so mani misconceptions in your reply that I am not sure if I have the time and the will to address them all.

First off, you assign way too much importance to the Balfour declaration, which if you read it carefully does not promise the Jewish people actual souvereignity. Given the vague wording of the Declaration and the consistent British policy towards bringing the Jewish immigration to a complete halt ever since the late 20-s, and finally direct and indirect involvement of Britain's military in the Independence war on the side of the Arabs (the Arab Legion of Transjordan, for example, was commanded by a British general John Glubb, and no less than five RAF warplanes were shot down by the newborn Israeli air force while they were providing support to the Egyptian troops), it appears to me that it was never Britain's goal to help establish a Jewish state.

Of much more importance was the Weizmann-Feisal accord, where that day's only legitimate Arab leadership, the Hashemite dynasty, agreed in no uncertain terms to the partition of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. The agreement, unfortunately, was sabotaged by Britain (who funded the rise of the militant Wahhabi Islam in Saudi Arabia, helping Abdul Aziz oust Feisal out of Hedjaz) and France (who defeated Feisal's army at the battle of Maysalun and ousted him from the Syrian throne).

It was after these events that the violent Arab opposition to Zionism began to rise- not on nationalist, but on pan-Islamist grounds. For example, the bloody Arab riots of 1929 were ignited by Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, playing the "Al-Aqsa in danger" card for the first time in the conflict's history. He managed to persuade the Muslim worshippers that the Jewish tradition of playing the Shofar near the Western Wall was somehow an insult to Islam and an indication that the Jews want to destroy Al-Aqsa- and when a defiant Jewish youngster played a Shofar near the Wall despite the British prohibition Al-Husseini managed to obtain, the imams led the Arab crowds on a rampage. How anyone can present these events as a "nationalist uprising" is beyond me.

You say the Jews only owned 6% of the land, as if it means something. Let me ask you though: how much land did the Arabs own? I'll let you in on a secret: not much more. The absolute majority of land in Palestine was NEVER in private or communal ownership. Most of the land belonged to the state, from which it was often rented by the farmers (so many of the Arab and Jewish farmers lived and worked on the land but did not actually own it). This land was inherited from the Ottoman empire by Britain, and from them most of it was inherited by the state of Israel. The second biggest land owner was, of course, the Church in its multiple guises. When you subtract the church lands and the government lands from the total, the "6%" argument loses any meaning.

The UN? I've already told Scott that once: all the UN did was give Israel a birth certificate. The baby most certainly wasn't theirs. The UN partition made no sense neither for Israel nor for the Arabs- nor for the UN itself, which is why they did not even protest at the Arab Legion's invasion of the Jerusalem enclave (UN land under the partition). Look at the original partition map: one of the states or another had to allow itseld be split into three separated enclaves. Moreover, Israel actually had the legal right to punish the agressors by conquering some of their territory: the principle of "non-acquisition of territory by war" did not yet exist at the time, while the precendents of confiscating enemy land in a defensive war took place in Europe just a short time ago, in 1945. One could even argue the same about the transfer practice- but I won't, since I am not at all convinced as for how the refugee problem had originated.

Bottom line: no, we did not establish Israel by force. We DEFENDED it by force when it was attacked.

As for interpreting the Torah story, I understand your intentions, but they are simply not supported by the text. Anywhere. Not to mention that normally, the beliefs are required to be consistent with the Scripture and not the other way round (or else one could twist his fate the way he pleases in accordance with the fashion of the day). Either way, I am sure there were better ways to make your point than attempting to push your ideas into the chapter of the Torah where they fit the least.

As for your other points:

"You suggest that there is no obligation to make compromises to work towards peace."
I suggested no such thing. What I do suggest is that the Palestinians not be exempt from their own obligation to make compromises to work towards peace.

"Why can't Israel stop unlawful settlements, stealing water resources, bulldozing homes and destroying farmland?"
You are lumping together things that do not belong together. I myself disagree with the settlement policy and consider it an unfortunate result of chaotic style of ruling and serious neglect often displayed by the Israeli government, where a selfish, yet determined lobby group can often obtain and abuse certain positions of power. However, with SOME of the settlements things are not that simple, because the "1967 border" is nothing but a randomly created line that does not take into account the actual needs of either Israel or the Palestinians, and border corrections will be inevitable. As for the check-points, demolishing of houses and at times the farmland- this shit was brought to you by the glorious Al-Aqsa insanityfada. I've been to the army, and I know that sometimes you do have to call in a dozer and pillage the potential firing position, or else you will take enemy fire the very next night. If you want to get rid of mortar firing crews, there is no choice but to destroy the field in their range of fire so they could be clearly visible. If you are facing fanatics who strap explosives to their chests, neither arresting them nor killing them can be a deterrent, you have to hit them where it still hurts them through their numb skulls- their family's house. And the only alternative is to idly sit and watch your friends being blown up. I've lost one friend already, and I am not willing to lose anymore. If house demolitions are what it takes- so be it.

"Israel is not in danger of being destroyed and has ample resources to defend itself without subjugating the native people of the land and destroying their way of life."
Even the strongest man can be beaten if he does not fight. Yes, Israel has plenty of retaliatory capacity, and it only uses a small fraction of it now. However, for as long as "the native people of the land" refuse to recognize that we, too, are native to this land, that we have the right for a state of our own where we finally govern ourselves and are not ourselves subjugated and governed by others- for as long as they fight to destroy Israel, Israel will, and must, fight back. Convince me that they are no longer out to destroy me- and we can start talking peace.

[Leigh]

In your last post, Womble, you forgot to comment on Josh's question of why Israel steals Palestinian water resources. I would be interested to know your view on that