[Peace-discuss] Submission to NG on Palestine

[David Green via Peace-discuss]

I submitted the piece below a couple of weeks ago. Dan Corkery has told me that he has put it on the "back burner." He has looking first for a piece to "balance" Niloo's article from last Sunday--"but so far, nothing." I've told Corkery that I'm disgusted by his attitude. And given the photo in the paper this morning, what a shameful state of affairs the Jewish community has arrived at.
 
Palestine, Jewish History, and the Prophetic Tradition
David L. Green
As a 9-year-old in 1960 studying the Jewish Bible at a Reform synagogue in West Los Angeles, I read the following words in a textbook written by the rabbi of that synagogue, Mordecai Soloff, in “When the Jewish People Was Young” (1934):
“Amos was the first prophet to write out his messages, and the others followed him.… In his own lifetime, the people paid very little attention to what he said. That is only natural. People did not like to hear him say that some of the Kohanim (priests) were not good Jews. … Amos explained to all his people that the rich should be fair to the poor, that the judges should be honest, and that all people should worship God. Amos explained that God did not want the Jews to hurt any of their neighbors, such as the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Arameans. Naturally, these neighbors were themselves expected to treat the Jews and each other equally well.”
Noam Chomsky, in my own view our most compelling living prophet, explains the notion of a prophet: “The word ‘prophet’ is a very bad translation of an obscure Hebrew word, navi. Nobody knows what it means. But today they’d be called dissident intellectuals. They were giving geopolitical analysis, arguing that the acts of the rulers were going to destroy society. And they condemned the acts of evil kings. They called for justice and mercy to orphans and widows and so on.”
Chomsky grew up in Philadelphia in the 1930s and 40s in a family committed to the revival of Hebrew language and culture. He supported a bi-nationalist and non-statist Jewish homeland in what was then British-ruled Palestine. As the world’s most prominent linguist and cognitive scientist, he has since the 1960s opposed American imperialism, American support for Israel as a “stationary aircraft carrier” in the Middle East, and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory—the West Bank and Gaza. He continues, at age 85, to tirelessly criticize elites who exercise illegitimate authority and serve only the powerful.
In the 1950s, the advent of the state of Israel was understandably seen by most American Jews as a miracle for a persecuted people, as a kind of redemption in relation to the Holocaust, and as an emergent model of a socialist society. But as the historical record makes clear, the Zionist movement and the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948 were consistent with the sort of European settler-colonialist movements that established societies in North America, Australia, and South Africa while largely removing or eliminating the indigenous populations.
Jewish teachings prior to the advent of Zionism at the end of the 19thcentury in no way advocated the literal return of Jews to the land of their biblical origins, no less the establishment of a Jewish state, no less a state that has a “right to exist.” But in the Europeanized and Americanized world of the 20thand 21stcenturies, a state is what we’ve got, and its evolution is consistent with the 500-year-old model of European nation-states: expansionism, economic development and technological progress, exploitation, dispossession, nationalist/religious ideologies glorifying all these things, and militarism.
Add radical disparities in wealth and gross abuses of power, sublimated by directing the attention of the population at a despised minority; in Israel that of course being the Palestinians, both those who are Israeli citizens and those who live under occupation. Given its evolution as consistent with European and American models, Israel has ironically become a sort of generically Christian nation, in the worst sense of the words. It’s not by accident that its most ardent supporters are among the Christian Right in this country (e.g., Cal Thomas), while more liberal Protestants are under enormous pressure to just keep their mouths shut, should they have any inclination to open them. Meanwhile, both here and in Israel, Jewish nationalism has been combined with religious fanaticism and extremism in volatile and dangerous ways.
Nevertheless, it should be stressed that Israel’s development as a broadly militaristic and weapons-based economy and society is consistent with the geopolitical strategies of major American political parties and the secular elites whom they represent, as well as the liberal and largely moribund Israeli political party known as “Labor.” What is occurring in occupied Palestine can only be understood in these frameworks. Words like “tit for tat” and retaliation fail to provide any insight, which is exactly why the mainstream media repeat them.
Nevertheless, along with Palestinian resistance we are seeing a revival of the prophetic tradition in some corners of Jewish political culture. We have abundant examples, religious and secular, from biblical to recent times. The basic elements are really quite simple: an inquiring mind, a consistent conscience, an open heart, and a rational voice. This is a tradition that even children can understand.
David Green (davidgreen50 at gmail.com) lives in Champaign. He is affiliated with the local antiwar movement AWARE, and the national organizations Jewish Voice for Peace and End the Occupation. He contributes regularly to News from Neptune on UPTV.
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