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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Self-hating rabbis

Self-hating rabbis

by DougJ|  July 10, 20103:57 am| 33 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

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Because of the current make-up of the Israeli government and because of the TNR/Weekly Standard/AIPAC dominance of the coverage of Israel here in the United States, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there are plenty of Israelis who view relations with Palestinians quite differently than Marty Peretz et al.:

“If we try to enter our land, settlers will be waiting, and we will be beaten,” said Muhammad Moqbel, a 71-year-old Palestinian from the village of Qaryout who pointed to fields that he said had been stolen by settlers. Last year, he said, he was hospitalized with a broken rib after settlers attacked while he was picking his own olives.

Rabbis for Human Rights has helped Palestinians recover some land through lawsuits in Israeli courts. And Rabbi Ascherman and other Jewish activists escort such farmers to protect them. The settlers still attack, but soldiers are more likely to intervene when it is rabbis being clubbed.

[….]

Not everyone finds Rabbi Ascherman inspiring. He gets death threats, and hard-line Israelis see him as a naïve traitor.

He responds that he is struggling to uphold his religious and moral values. But he also argues that building bridges between Jews and Palestinians helps make Israel a safer place for his children. “In the long run, we’re going to live here together,” he says, “or we’re going to die here together.”

Kristof likens these rabbis to civil rights activists, which I think is accurate. When peace is finally achieved in that part of the world, it will likely be more because of people like these rabbis than because of all the “pro-Israel” crazies.

I realize I sound like even more of a hippie than usual saying all of this, but seriously, what are the odds of any kind of peaceful agreement when Israeli settlers are stealing land from Palestinians?

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33Comments

  1. 1.

    NobodySpecial

    July 10, 2010 at 4:32 am

    None. Peace is neither desired nor required. All that is needed is enough guns and time to take what you want and hold it all. They will have Judea and Samaria if it kills them and everyone else.

  2. 2.

    balconesfault

    July 10, 2010 at 4:46 am

    What – there are still olives to be picked?

  3. 3.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    July 10, 2010 at 4:48 am

    Wow. What about self-hating hippies?

    Does everyone realize that the word “hippie” as used by Atrios or Digby is ironic or at least snarky? That is, Josh Marshall does not, in fact, consider himself to be a hippie any more than Duncan Black really thinks that where he lives is a hell hole.

    I’ve just noticed that the word is used at this blog far more than anywhere else I’ve ever seen.

    And yes, there’s actually considerably more range of viewpoint about Israel allowed inside Israel than there is in the US, from what I can tell and as Glenn Greenwald keeps demonstrating so well by the fire he draws.

  4. 4.

    Yutsano

    July 10, 2010 at 4:56 am

    I wish Livni would grow a pair and force apart Netanyahu’s coalition. It shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish, Kadima did win the most seats and could probably force a no confidence vote over just about anything at this point. I doubt it will happen, but if Benji slips up she’ll pounce, I have zero doubt about that.

  5. 5.

    Bob Loblaw

    July 10, 2010 at 4:58 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I’ve just noticed that the word is used at this blog far more than anywhere else I’ve ever seen.

    That’s because this blog is populated by old geezers who are afraid of the world. The use of the same three memes every single day is just a woobie. That and the fucking cat pictures.

  6. 6.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    July 10, 2010 at 5:09 am

    @Bob Loblaw: Well I wouldn’t go that far. Being fairly geezerish myself and not at all afraid of the world.

    It is strange though, sometimes I laugh out loud at people here sneering at “Broderism” and his disdain for “non-serious” people, and then turning and making comments here about “progressives” or “the left” that could be copied right out of one of Broder’s columns.

    I think in DougJ’s case it’s more the ironic use of “hippie”, but I get this sense of tiptoeing around lest anyone accuse one of being one here, which given certain regulars here is entirely likely. And unfortunate.

  7. 7.

    DougJ

    July 10, 2010 at 6:19 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I mostly try to use it in a certain way here, to mean something that is obvious, i.e. people will hate you if you steal their land, but which is treated as far, far left by the media. I think that is more or less how it is used by others in the left blogosphere. I like this usage.

  8. 8.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    July 10, 2010 at 6:48 am

    @DougJ: Yeah reading that again I figured perhaps it could appear on any number of blogs, it just struck me the first time as “Now don’t think that I’m a hippie!” aimed at the commenters here, but that’s possibly me reading into it because I find the hippie-bashing here really annoying sometimes.

  9. 9.

    Hypnos

    July 10, 2010 at 7:06 am

    One commenter here (I think he was Indian) pointed out that Americans seemed to be unable to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because they view the world under the light of the great 20th century struggle of democracy against totalitarianism – first Nazi, then Soviet.

    The USA was on the right side of that conflict; Israel is a democracy. By extension, Israel is also on the right side of the conflict.

    However, that isn’t by far the largest struggle of the 20th century, for the majority of the world. For the 70% of world population that lives in Africa and Asia, the great struggle of the 20th century was against colonialism.

    And in that struggle, the US was firmly aligned with the colonialist powers – it was in the wrong.

    This is the same with Palestine. What Palestinian are engaged in is a liberation struggle against a Western colonialist power that is hell bent on appropriating their land and expelling them from it. That is the epitome of colonialism.

    That is why Israel is firmly in the wrong. That is when US officials say that “Israel is the only democracy of the region” they are stating a completely meaningless fact as long as assessing the morality of the conflict is concerned.

    The UK was also a democracy as it subjugated million across the world. So was France, and the Netherlands, and Belgium. They were morally wrong. And so was the US as, in the name of fighting communism, it supported colonial nations against national liberation movements. And in so doing, it utterly betrayed the very anti-colonial principles upon which it was funded.

    You should try and bring your fellow Americans to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under the light of colonialism, not of democracy against dictatorship.

    What Israeli settlers are doing is inexcusable. America should bring all its might to bear so that the stolen land is given back to their rightful owners, and the settlers are repatriated.

    Forcefully, if needs be.

  10. 10.

    drkrick

    July 10, 2010 at 8:18 am

    I realize I sound like even more of a hippie than usual saying all of this, but seriously, what are the odds of any kind of peaceful agreement when Israeli settlers are stealing land from Palestinians?

    Zero. The policies of both the faction currently controlling the government of Israel and of Hamas make sense only if both are determined to ensure that hostilities continue indefinitely. What I don’t understand is why either thinks thats a good thing.

  11. 11.

    Cat Lady

    July 10, 2010 at 8:53 am

    @Hypnos:

    This is exactly the right analysis. The whole Kristof column could have been describing Gandhi’s colonial India or the pre-civil rights south, but with the interesting twist that a Jew instead of a Palestinian is playing the role of MLK and Gandhi. It sounds like this self-hating rabbi is prepared to be martyred as well.

  12. 12.

    drkrick

    July 10, 2010 at 8:58 am

    ”’ and in that [anticolonial] struggle, the US was firmly aligned with the colonialist powers – it was in the wrong.

    That’s a pretty serious oversimplification of the actual history. The U.S. was not interested in preserving the colonial empires as such, and in fact pressured England and France to shut their empires down.

    What the US did want was the right to prevent any of the newly independent governments from “going Communist.” I don’t think “colonialist” is the best way to describe that desire. To use Vietnam as an example, we weren’t fighting to put the French back into control but to prevent their successors from being Ho Chi Minh’s government. If the leadership of Vietnamese independence movement had been (almost any) non-Communist force, the US response would have been all hearts and flowers and aid checks.

    The long-standing desire of the US to ensure the rest of the world is sufficiently “cooperative” with corporate desires is problematic in all sorts of ways, but rather than colonialism, which is supposed to involve asserting actual sovereignty, it’s better described as a more limited version of influence like mercantilism.

  13. 13.

    drkrick

    July 10, 2010 at 8:58 am

    ”’ and in that [anticolonial] struggle, the US was firmly aligned with the colonialist powers – it was in the wrong.

    That’s a pretty serious oversimplification of the actual history. The U.S. was not interested in preserving the colonial empires as such, and in fact pressured England and France to shut their empires down.

    What the US did want was the right to prevent any of the newly independent governments from “going Communist.” I don’t think “colonialist” is the best way to describe that desire. To use Vietnam as an example, we weren’t fighting to put the French back into control but to prevent their successors from being Ho Chi Minh’s government. If the leadership of Vietnamese independence movement had been (almost any) non-Communist force, the US response would have been all hearts and flowers and aid checks.

    The long-standing desire of the US to ensure the rest of the world is sufficiently “cooperative” with corporate desires is problematic in all sorts of ways, but rather than colonialism, which is supposed to involve asserting actual sovereignty, it’s better described as a more limited version of influence like mercantilism.

  14. 14.

    Svensker

    July 10, 2010 at 8:58 am

    The most interesting part of the article was this statement:

    The settlers still attack, but soldiers are more likely to intervene when it is rabbis being clubbed.

    What does that tell you about how the Israeli army treats Palestinians when there are no rabbis involved? And what does that tell you about the Israeli government’s attitude toward the Palestinians?

    soldiers are more likely to intervene when it is rabbis being clubbed

    Let Gator90 and the other apologists come and defend the actions described in that sentence.

  15. 15.

    El Cid

    July 10, 2010 at 9:03 am

    @Svensker: There was a reason why pro-civil rights whites went down South to show their solidarity with African American civil rights strugglers.

    It’s the same reason today that Americans and Europeans go to walk beside threatened human and political and civil rights workers in nations which the repressive governments (or their allies) fear looking too bad in front of their Western funders.

    A white, or American, or European face, might get these targets another glance or two before they’re wiped out.

  16. 16.

    Svensker

    July 10, 2010 at 9:36 am

    @El Cid:

    I know, El Cid. Just seems like Americans either don’t know or don’t care about what’s going on there. It makes me sick to be sending my tax dollars to pay for this.

  17. 17.

    Allison W.

    July 10, 2010 at 9:48 am

    This Rabbi is doing exactly what he is supposed to do. How can you be a man of God and allow people to be treated like this. More Rabbi’s and other men of God should be preaching about this injustice and taking action rather than trying to govern what goes on in my bedroom.

  18. 18.

    New Yorker

    July 10, 2010 at 9:48 am

    Isn’t it obvious that there’s a far greater range of “acceptable” opinions on Israel within Israel than in the US? If those Rabbis escorting the Palestinians back to their land had been Americans, “Commentary” would have already compared them to Reinhard Heydrich.

  19. 19.

    Joey Maloney

    July 10, 2010 at 10:22 am

    @drkrick:

    The policies of both the faction currently controlling the government of Israel and of Hamas make sense only if both are determined to ensure that hostilities continue indefinitely. What I don’t understand is why either thinks thats a good thing.

    Well, I think both sides think that a) the situation can be ultimately resolved by force and b) their side can prevail. And c) in the meantime it’s the easiest way to maintain their personal privilege and power, without having to do any of the really messy work of governing, the part that involves figuring out what would make their citizens’ lives better and then trying to do it.

    Basically, they’re all twats.

  20. 20.

    Gator90

    July 10, 2010 at 11:06 am

    @Hypnos:

    America should bring all its might to bear so that the stolen land is given back to their rightful owners, and the settlers are repatriated. Forcefully, if needs be.

    Good plan – America should fix the Middle East through military force.

    Spoken like a true neocon.

  21. 21.

    Gator90

    July 10, 2010 at 11:13 am

    @Svensker:

    Let Gator90 and the other apologists come and defend the actions described in that sentence.

    Who, me? I’ve no interest in defending the sad fact that rabbis are more likely than Palestinians to receive protection from Israeli soldiers against psycho settlers (pardon the redundancy). Sorry if that disappoints you.

  22. 22.

    El Cid

    July 10, 2010 at 11:26 am

    @Svensker: When Americans do go over there to show solidarity with Palestinians, they get run over by armored bulldozers or shot in the head at close range with ‘rubber bullets’. And then the right celebrates the ‘pancaking’ of the young woman.

  23. 23.

    El Cid

    July 10, 2010 at 11:30 am

    On this:

    ..seriously, what are the odds of any kind of peaceful agreement when Israeli settlers are stealing land from Palestinians?

    I think there’s a decent chance of a final settlement for a Palestinian state. Not an overwhelming chance.

    The longstanding goal of Israeli governments of all political stripes — Likud, Labor, Kadima — has been to take as much of the land they desired in the West Bank and East Jerusalem with as many resources, meanwhile walling off Palestinians into tiny hardscrabble urban and rural ghettos.

    Then, once the Palestinian areas of the West Bank are as destitute and poverty-ridden as Gaza, and the chances of a viable, stable Palestinian state are about nil, it’ll suddenly be time to settle for an independent Palestinian state and any problems that future shit-hole of a state has will be blamed by Israeli politicians and US pro-militarists alike as entirely their fault.

  24. 24.

    Svensker

    July 10, 2010 at 11:31 am

    @Gator90:

    It surprises me that you feel that way. Glad to hear it.

  25. 25.

    salacious crumb

    July 10, 2010 at 11:54 am

    its just not the settlers stealing the Palestinian land. the settlers are actively aided and abetted by the Israeli govt in this annexation of Palestinian land. Sure a few in the govt wring their hands in despair and will have an academic debate over the legality of the annexation, while at the same time the usurpation continues until they become “facts on the ground”

  26. 26.

    Gator90

    July 10, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    @Svensker: If that surprises you, then either you haven’t read much of what I’ve written, or one of us understands English poorly.

  27. 27.

    Mike Schilling

    July 10, 2010 at 12:59 pm

    civil rights activists

    AKA “self-hating whites”.

  28. 28.

    Nutella

    July 10, 2010 at 3:06 pm

    …building bridges between Jews and Palestinians helps make Israel a safer place for his children. “In the long run, we’re going to live here together,” he says, “or we’re going to die here together.”

    It continues to amaze me that so many millions of people in Israel and the US don’t understand this. Palestine has one of the highest birthrates in the world. There’s no way Israel can get rid of them all so eventually they will have to live with them. Or die with them as the rabbi says.

  29. 29.

    dmbeaster

    July 10, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    Realize that the settlers truly represent the founding ethos of Israel, which had to take Palestinian land in order to create itself. Too much of the very existence of Israel rests on expropriating Palestinian land. Would be nice if they would reform themselves now that the State is well founded, but never gonna happen.

  30. 30.

    El Cid

    July 10, 2010 at 4:11 pm

    @dmbeaster: The settlers go even beyond, declaring themselves fundamentalist religious followers who reject the authority of the secular state whose founding and continual support makes their project viable.

  31. 31.

    Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos

    July 10, 2010 at 5:27 pm

    @Gator90: But, but, but, what about the rockets?!?! How can we ever expect the settlers to stop brutally stealing land when somewhere a Palestinian wants to shoot a rocket?

  32. 32.

    Viva BrisVegas

    July 10, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    @drkrick:

    To use Vietnam as an example, we weren’t fighting to put the French back into control but to prevent their successors from being Ho Chi Minh’s government.

    The US never fought to put the French back into Vietnam at any stage. The French did the fighting. What the US did in the late 40s was to facilitate the supply and transport of a French army to Indochina. In exchange the French put aside their objections to restarting certain sections of the German economy, principally the coal industry.

    Ho was not a factor in these deliberations, despite having been head of the only significant indigenous anti-Japanese force in SE Asia, and despite having taken over government from the pro-fascist Vichy French authorities at the end of the war.

    Ho made representations to the US government in 1945, begging for aid and assistance. At this stage he was far more nationalist than communist and apparently open to democratic influence. That changed once the US sided with the French in their colonial war and Ho was forced to side with the traditional enemy, China.

    US did not begin fighting there until after the failure of the French military campaign in the late 50s, by which time the fight had transformed into civil war between the North and the South.

    Since 1975, commitment to communism by Vietnam has been pretty flexible, it makes you wonder what might have been achieved had that same flexibility been encouraged by American aid, instead of American enmity, in 1945.

  33. 33.

    Gator90

    July 11, 2010 at 12:26 am

    @Sgt. Jrod and his Howling Commandos:

    But, but, but, what about the rockets? How can we ever expect the settlers to stop brutally stealing land when somewhere a Palestinian wants to shoot a rocket?

    One has nothing to do with the other. Palestinians shouldn’t fire rockets. Settlers shouldn’t steal land. Goose, gander, etc.

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