Points of View: Israel and North America
The most common justification given for denying rights to persons belonging to an undesired group, like being allowed residency, is "security". That practice certainly is not confined to Israeli authorities in the occupied territories. Another excuse is what has been called (e.g. by me) the "demographic threat", the prospect that a group you don't belong to will contribute an ever larger percentage of the population of the country, in the end possibly a majority. Uri Avnery has now referred to a "demographic demon" afflicting Israeli brains. The demon's "emissaries scour the world for Jews, real or imagined. They have discovered (and brought to Israel!) Indians who claim to be descended from the tribe of Manasseh, one of the ten tribes that were exiled by the Assyrians - according to the Bible - from Palestine some 2720 years ago" [to India??].
Others include New Mexicans alleged to be descendants of Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition; as well as many Ethiopians (Falashmura) who converted more recently; and loads of Russians, the Jewish identity of a major part of whom was based on a desire to find a way out of the Soviet Union. All these get immediate Israeli citizenship with ("absorption") subsidies, while a Jenin wife of an Israeli cannot even obtain an entry permit.
It's not hard to understand Avnery's, and his Israeli friends', special concern with that. In the Gush Shalom e-mail version of that December 30 article, another heading reads "How can a democratic state not belong to all its citizens"? Good question. But for people, including Jews, outside Israel, it is at least as important to ask: How can a democratic state claim to speak and act in the name of citizens of other democratic countries, i.e. in the name of these non-Israeli Jews; and the governments of their own democratic countries to accept such usurpation? There is, indeed, an organization of Jews calling itself NION (Not In Our Name), but it seems to be just one of many disconnected local (Chicago?) organizations which refuse to tow the allegedly unanimous "Jewish" line.
That demon may not mind getting other non-Arabs, but he surely still wants especially Jews, regardless of what they want. The general Zionist "narrative", that the Jewish people is returning to its home after 2000 years of "exile", may no longer be doctrinal for all, but it certainly hasn't been abandoned by all. Nor is that only motivated by that demographic demon; "rejection of the exile" has itself had high priority in most Zionist ideologies.
That rejection ("Shlilat ha-Golah" שלילת הגולה) resulted in a conflicted attitude toward antisemitism. At least before the reality of the genocide it led to during WWII had really sunk in, and that took some time, an accepted cliche in Israel was that "a little antisemitism is not a bad thing"; which others were supposed to acknowledge with a knowing smile (that it helps Jews decide to leave home for "Aliyah" to Israel). But even most good Zionists didn't really like any antisemitism. I wish I could say that about the recent Israeli "elites" eager to play Realpolitik.
As to the "leaders" of the "Organized Jewish Community", i.e. the offiicials placed in charge of organizations with access to the democratic institutions of their countries, their main task is to play the "good friends of Israel" game rather than to act for an honestly informed membership thus enabled to chose leaders with their own differing attitudes toward Israeli policies and practices.
Other organizations are marginalized. The first substantial attempt in North America was Breira (Alternative); which started almost 40 years ago. It was eliminated within less than a decade. Breira board members had been summoned to the Israeli embassy in Washington and given to understand they had no right to be heard, since they had not served in the Israeli armed forces. I know of no protest or other action by the U.S. government; which never formally transferred jurisdiction over its Jewish citizens to another government.
Others include New Mexicans alleged to be descendants of Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition; as well as many Ethiopians (Falashmura) who converted more recently; and loads of Russians, the Jewish identity of a major part of whom was based on a desire to find a way out of the Soviet Union. All these get immediate Israeli citizenship with ("absorption") subsidies, while a Jenin wife of an Israeli cannot even obtain an entry permit.
It's not hard to understand Avnery's, and his Israeli friends', special concern with that. In the Gush Shalom e-mail version of that December 30 article, another heading reads "How can a democratic state not belong to all its citizens"? Good question. But for people, including Jews, outside Israel, it is at least as important to ask: How can a democratic state claim to speak and act in the name of citizens of other democratic countries, i.e. in the name of these non-Israeli Jews; and the governments of their own democratic countries to accept such usurpation? There is, indeed, an organization of Jews calling itself NION (Not In Our Name), but it seems to be just one of many disconnected local (Chicago?) organizations which refuse to tow the allegedly unanimous "Jewish" line.
That demon may not mind getting other non-Arabs, but he surely still wants especially Jews, regardless of what they want. The general Zionist "narrative", that the Jewish people is returning to its home after 2000 years of "exile", may no longer be doctrinal for all, but it certainly hasn't been abandoned by all. Nor is that only motivated by that demographic demon; "rejection of the exile" has itself had high priority in most Zionist ideologies.
That rejection ("Shlilat ha-Golah" שלילת הגולה) resulted in a conflicted attitude toward antisemitism. At least before the reality of the genocide it led to during WWII had really sunk in, and that took some time, an accepted cliche in Israel was that "a little antisemitism is not a bad thing"; which others were supposed to acknowledge with a knowing smile (that it helps Jews decide to leave home for "Aliyah" to Israel). But even most good Zionists didn't really like any antisemitism. I wish I could say that about the recent Israeli "elites" eager to play Realpolitik.
As to the "leaders" of the "Organized Jewish Community", i.e. the offiicials placed in charge of organizations with access to the democratic institutions of their countries, their main task is to play the "good friends of Israel" game rather than to act for an honestly informed membership thus enabled to chose leaders with their own differing attitudes toward Israeli policies and practices.
Other organizations are marginalized. The first substantial attempt in North America was Breira (Alternative); which started almost 40 years ago. It was eliminated within less than a decade. Breira board members had been summoned to the Israeli embassy in Washington and given to understand they had no right to be heard, since they had not served in the Israeli armed forces. I know of no protest or other action by the U.S. government; which never formally transferred jurisdiction over its Jewish citizens to another government.
posted by solar_sol | 5:13 PM
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