\u2018When violence answers violence in a growing frenzy that makes the simple language of reason impossible, the role of the intellectual cannot be \u2026 to excuse from a distance one of the violences and condemn the other \u2026 that role is clarify definitions in order to disintoxicate minds and to calm fanaticisms, even when this is against the current tendency.\u2019<\/p>\n
Albert Camus, \u2018Preface to Algerian Reports\u2019 (1958)<\/p>\n
I am no expert on Middle East politics. But I am a human being who teaches and writes about politics for a living, who also happens to be a Jewish American and who believes in human rights and cares about the world. Failing to think through the current unfolding situation, and to share my thoughts, is not for me an option.<\/p>\n
The 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel and on Israelis were reprehensible and inhumane. No credible \u2018resistance\u2019 or \u2018liberation\u2019 movement engages in such brutal tactics, displaying such contempt for human life. And anyone on the left, or anyone in the name of \u2018anti-imperialism\u2019 or \u2018solidarity\u2019 with the wretched of the earth who can applaud, much less justify such terrorism, is contemptible.<\/p>\n
It is obvious that such terrorist attacks require and will be met by an Israeli military response, to defend the Israeli population, to subdue the attacker and make further such attacks impossible, and to satisfy a public expectation that the perpetrators of such violations \u2013 in this case, Hamas leaders and militants \u2013 will be punished.<\/p>\n
It is equally obvious that any sustained military response faces many difficult tactical, strategic and moral<\/em>\u00a0challenges. The regional situation is volatile, there are Israeli hostages in danger, and there are over two million Palestinians living in Gaza.\u00a0To collectively punish the entire civilian population of Gaza would be a crime.<\/p>\n Both the Israeli and Palestinian people have suffered for a long time, as their leaders have failed to bring about a civil, peaceful and at least modestly just end to a long and violent conflict. I feel for them all, and particularly for the children who have grown up knowing nothing else.<\/p>\n Source: Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n *<\/p>\n I have never regarded Israel as \u2018the Promised Land\u2019 or \u2018Eretz Yisrael\u2019, but merely as a place, and a nation-state, which is not \u2018mine\u2019, whatever ties to some of its people or even its history I might feel. But for many years I have promoted a \u2018two-state solution\u2019. I publicly challenged Noam Chomsky when he came to my university to denounce Zionism and Oslo (he had my mic shut off), and I argued with Edward Said when he did the same (he was a gentleman and listened to what I had to say). I have argued with anti-Zionists who insisted that the solution of all regional problems required \u2018linkage\u2019 to Palestinian statehood, and I have almost lost some friends over these arguments.<\/p>\n And yet I have become increasingly revolted by the way rightwing settlers and reactionary religious zealots have been coddled and empowered by the Israeli political system; by the way the Israeli state has become increasingly antiliberal; and by the way the Israeli public has elected unsuitable leaders, including, many times, the deplorable and corrupt Bibi Netanyahu. But most of all, I have become revolted by the way the Israeli state has treated the question of Palestinian statehood \u2013 and indeed the Palestinians themselves \u2013 without any serious regard.<\/p>\n I have come to see \u2018the Jewish state\u2019 \u2013 which is\u00a0not<\/em> \u2018the state of all the Jewish people,\u2019 even if many Zionists insist on seeing it that way \u2013 as an ethnonationalist democracy that systematically privileges Jewish over non-Jewish citizens and indeed religious<\/em>\u00a0Jewish citizens over secular Jewish citizens, and in so doing runs contrary to modern liberal and universalist norms. This is true even if it is also true that the Israeli state more closely approximates a liberal democracy than any other state in the region, and grants more rights to its Arab citizens than they possess in the other states in the region, from Egypt to Syria to Saudi Arabia to Iran.<\/p>\n Can a \u2018two-state\u2019 project be revived? I sincerely doubt it. But regardless, it is not something I can any longer advocate, even though I honestly have no idea what a better alternative could be.<\/p>\n Some of the special kinship I now feel with Israeli victims of Hamas terrorism might have an ethnic dimension. But the solidarity I feel is primarily what the Czech philosopher Jan Patocka called \u2018the solidarity of the shaken\u2019. It has to do with the value of human life, and with my abhorrence of the deliberate and terroristic murdering of civilians.<\/p>\n I am also concerned about the way in which the situation is being moralistically framed by some commentators, and the way in which a certain kind of unconditional support for Israel \u2013 which in this context means support for the current Israeli government \u2013 is being promoted, and loudly and proudly announced by President Biden (even as his administration also tries, understandably, to prevent escalation). In international affairs no support should be unconditional. And everyone serious about solving the problems in play is obliged to think about ways of influencing, and\u00a0conditioning<\/em>, the behaviours and the outcomes that have the best chance of de-escalating the current war.<\/p>\n Contrary to what many are saying, what happened last weekend in Southern Israel was not \u2018a pogrom\u2019. Hamas is not the Czarist regime; it is a reactionary political-military organization in control of the Gaza strip, a tiny, overcrowded and completely dependent enclave, populated by a poor, powerless and stateless people, an enclave described by Human Rights Watch as an \u2018open air prison<\/a>\u2019. The victims of Hamas\u2019s terrorism were not a poor, disenfranchised, in some ways stateless Jewish minority; they were the citizens of Israel, the self-defined \u2018Jewish state\u2019, a state that is armed to the teeth, that has long superintended Palestinian \u2018occupied territories\u2019 and has used a preponderance of violence to do so, and that is undoubtedly the strongest state in the region, its recent intelligence failures notwithstanding.<\/p>\n What happened was perpetrated by a movement with clear antisemitic commitments, as Hamas\u2019s 1988 Covenant makes clear. But repeating over and over again that \u2018it is the largest number of Jews killed since the Holocaust\u2019 is to invoke a misleading and inflammatory analogy. For the Gaza Strip is not Nazi Germany, Israel is not the Warsaw Ghetto, and Hamas\u2019s terrorism \u2013 cruel, violent, despicable \u2013 is not directed towards a Jewish minority, but towards the state of Israel and its Jewish majority, a powerful state that bears no comparison to the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide.<\/p>\n To say this is not to deny that Hamas\u2019s recent calls for a broader \u2018jihad\u2019 have already fueled a wave of anti-Semitism and generated real fear of anti-Semitic attacks in other parts of the world, especially Europe. But it does not make invocations of the Holocaust any less misleading.<\/p>\n The 9\/11 analogy is equally problematic. For unlike the Al Qaeda attacks on the US, the violent danger posed by Hamas was well known, precisely because it has often been directly experienced by Israelis in the form of bombardment (which have typically led the Israeli government to very publicly respond with even greater violence). The entire situation facing Israel is much more serious, the danger more real. But the complex political responsibility is also very real.<\/p>\n While most Americans had never heard of al Qaeda before 9\/11, every Israeli has known for the past quarter-century that a few miles away was a terrorist organization called \u2018Hamas\u2019 that was hostile to Israel\u2019s very existence \u2013 even as it was often a useful pawn to be played against the Palestinian Authority. There are no easy answers, and there will doubtless be much blood shed in the days to come. Voices of sanity are in too short supply, and in constant danger of being drowned out by the rhetoricians of all-out war.<\/p>\n There is no forestalling an Israeli military response. But unless this response is restrained by respect for the lives of civilian non-combatants, it will quickly become a moral and political catastrophe. Indeed, recent developments suggest it is precipitously headed in that direction already. Decent people and responsible political leaders must do everything they can to hinder what can only be a humanitarian disaster.<\/p>\n 10 October 2023<\/em><\/p>\n A longer version of this text appears here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.eurozine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/1280px-Palestinian_girl_on_gate-1024x681.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
![Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n*<\/p>\nI have never regarded Israel as \u2018the Promised Land\u2019 or \u2018Eretz Yisrael\u2019, but merely as a place, and a nation-state, which is not \u2018mine\u2019, whatever ties to some of its people or even its history I might feel. But for many years I have promoted a \u2018two-state solution\u2019. I publicly challenged Noam Chomsky when he came to my university to denounce Zionism and Oslo (he had my mic shut off), and I argued with Edward Said when he did the same (he was a gentleman and listened to what I had to say). I have argued with anti-Zionists who insisted that the solution of all regional problems required \u2018linkage\u2019 to Palestinian statehood, and I have almost lost some friends over these arguments.<\/p>\nAnd yet I have become increasingly revolted by the way rightwing settlers and reactionary religious zealots have been coddled and empowered by the Israeli political system; by the way the Israeli state has become increasingly antiliberal; and by the way the Israeli public has elected unsuitable leaders, including, many times, the deplorable and corrupt Bibi Netanyahu. But most of all, I have become revolted by the way the Israeli state has treated the question of Palestinian statehood \u2013 and indeed the Palestinians themselves \u2013 without any serious regard.<\/p>\nI have come to see \u2018the Jewish state\u2019 \u2013 which is\u00a0not<\/em> \u2018the state of all the Jewish people,\u2019 even if many Zionists insist on seeing it that way \u2013 as an ethnonationalist democracy that systematically privileges Jewish over non-Jewish citizens and indeed religious<\/em>\u00a0Jewish citizens over secular Jewish citizens, and in so doing runs contrary to modern liberal and universalist norms. This is true even if it is also true that the Israeli state more closely approximates a liberal democracy than any other state in the region, and grants more rights to its Arab citizens than they possess in the other states in the region, from Egypt to Syria to Saudi Arabia to Iran.<\/p>\nCan a \u2018two-state\u2019 project be revived? I sincerely doubt it. But regardless, it is not something I can any longer advocate, even though I honestly have no idea what a better alternative could be.<\/p>\nSome of the special kinship I now feel with Israeli victims of Hamas terrorism might have an ethnic dimension. But the solidarity I feel is primarily what the Czech philosopher Jan Patocka called \u2018the solidarity of the shaken\u2019. It has to do with the value of human life, and with my abhorrence of the deliberate and terroristic murdering of civilians.<\/p>\nI am also concerned about the way in which the situation is being moralistically framed by some commentators, and the way in which a certain kind of unconditional support for Israel \u2013 which in this context means support for the current Israeli government \u2013 is being promoted, and loudly and proudly announced by President Biden (even as his administration also tries, understandably, to prevent escalation). In international affairs no support should be unconditional. And everyone serious about solving the problems in play is obliged to think about ways of influencing, and\u00a0conditioning<\/em>, the behaviours and the outcomes that have the best chance of de-escalating the current war.<\/p>\nContrary to what many are saying, what happened last weekend in Southern Israel was not \u2018a pogrom\u2019. Hamas is not the Czarist regime; it is a reactionary political-military organization in control of the Gaza strip, a tiny, overcrowded and completely dependent enclave, populated by a poor, powerless and stateless people, an enclave described by Human Rights Watch as an \u2018open air prison<\/a>\u2019. The victims of Hamas\u2019s terrorism were not a poor, disenfranchised, in some ways stateless Jewish minority; they were the citizens of Israel, the self-defined \u2018Jewish state\u2019, a state that is armed to the teeth, that has long superintended Palestinian \u2018occupied territories\u2019 and has used a preponderance of violence to do so, and that is undoubtedly the strongest state in the region, its recent intelligence failures notwithstanding.<\/p>\nWhat happened was perpetrated by a movement with clear antisemitic commitments, as Hamas\u2019s 1988 Covenant makes clear. But repeating over and over again that \u2018it is the largest number of Jews killed since the Holocaust\u2019 is to invoke a misleading and inflammatory analogy. For the Gaza Strip is not Nazi Germany, Israel is not the Warsaw Ghetto, and Hamas\u2019s terrorism \u2013 cruel, violent, despicable \u2013 is not directed towards a Jewish minority, but towards the state of Israel and its Jewish majority, a powerful state that bears no comparison to the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide.<\/p>\nTo say this is not to deny that Hamas\u2019s recent calls for a broader \u2018jihad\u2019 have already fueled a wave of anti-Semitism and generated real fear of anti-Semitic attacks in other parts of the world, especially Europe. But it does not make invocations of the Holocaust any less misleading.<\/p>\nThe 9\/11 analogy is equally problematic. For unlike the Al Qaeda attacks on the US, the violent danger posed by Hamas was well known, precisely because it has often been directly experienced by Israelis in the form of bombardment (which have typically led the Israeli government to very publicly respond with even greater violence). The entire situation facing Israel is much more serious, the danger more real. But the complex political responsibility is also very real.<\/p>\nWhile most Americans had never heard of al Qaeda before 9\/11, every Israeli has known for the past quarter-century that a few miles away was a terrorist organization called \u2018Hamas\u2019 that was hostile to Israel\u2019s very existence \u2013 even as it was often a useful pawn to be played against the Palestinian Authority. There are no easy answers, and there will doubtless be much blood shed in the days to come. Voices of sanity are in too short supply, and in constant danger of being drowned out by the rhetoricians of all-out war.<\/p>\nThere is no forestalling an Israeli military response. But unless this response is restrained by respect for the lives of civilian non-combatants, it will quickly become a moral and political catastrophe. Indeed, recent developments suggest it is precipitously headed in that direction already. Decent people and responsible political leaders must do everything they can to hinder what can only be a humanitarian disaster.<\/p>\n10 October 2023<\/em><\/p>\nA longer version of this text appears here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n[ad_2]\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] \u2018When violence answers violence in a growing frenzy that makes the simple language of reason impossible, the role of the intellectual cannot be \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":209772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[154],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":340570,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209771\/revisions\/340570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Palestinian_girl_on_gate.jpg\"){kind=link}