If you spoke to me seven years ago about Israel – Palestine, my view would have been a lot closer to those of the commenters who oppose me than the one I espouse today. I would not have been as bombastic as they. But, on balance, I believed that Israel should exist as a Jewish homeland and that its military actions were largely defensive in nature.
Obviously, my views have changed. How that occurred is a story for perhaps another post, and certainly a topic for my talk to the East Valley PDA this coming Thursday. But the fact is that my views have changed in a huge, huge way.
I’m not alone. Although I consider myself an Atheist religiously, my heritage is 100% Jewish. Many, many of the pro-Palestinian voices you hear these days are actually Jewish: Noam Chomsky, Philip Weiss, Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein, Henry Siegman, and Miko Peled, to name a few. Jewish Voice for Peace has over 100,000 on its mailing list.
So, I and all these other Jews support the Palestinian cause, but precious few Palestinians support the Zionist point of view. Why is that? Mind you, I’m not saying there are zero Palestinians who oppose the Palestinian cause. We actually have a Muslim here in Arizona who the conservatives trot out on a regular basis to justify their Muslim bashing. My guess is there may be a Palestinian or two somewhere shilling for Israel. But there are precious few of them compared to the number of Jews who support the Palestinian cause.
Why is that the case? If the Israeli position is as righteous as the Zionists claim it is, why are there nowhere near the number of Palestinians speaking for Israel as there are Jews speaking for Palestinians?
In exploring why this dichotomy exists, let’s start with a fundamental assumption: Palestinians collectively have the same intellect and moral make-up as do Jews. That is not to say every Palestinian has great intellectual powers or is highly moral. Just as there are Jews who lack intellectual capacity or moral fiber, there are Palestinians who lack those qualities as well. But unless we are to assume that Palestinians are a race inferior to the Jewish race, we have to assume that, as a percentage of their respective populations, there are equivalent numbers of Palestinians and Jews who have the intellectual and moral capacity to question the position of their side in the debate, recognize that it is the other side that has the moral high ground, and speak out accordingly.
There’s of course a second assumption to make, namely, that I’m wrong in my views and that it is the Israelis who are acting with greater moral clarity in this conflict.
And therein lies a glaring, unavoidable contradiction: If you make those two assumptions, it would be impossible for so many Jews, including many Israelis, by the way, to speak for the Palestinian cause while so few Palestinians speak for the Israeli cause. If anything, we’d see the opposite phenomenon take hold, especially if the higher moral ground of the Israelis is as easy to understand and as free from doubt as the pro-Israel right claims it is.
Logic thus dictates that at least one of my assumptions is wrong. In order to explain the dichotomy between Jews supporting the Palestinian cause and Palestinians supporting the Israeli cause, at least one of the following must be true: (1) Palestinians collectively are inferior intellectually and/or morally to Jews; or (2) On balance, Israel is the bad actor in the ongoing Israeli – Palestinian conflict.
Ironically, many on the pro-Israel right, in speaking for the Israeli cause, actually do contend that Palestinians are inferior morally and/or intellectually to Jews. We’ve heard these arguments. “We value life, they value death,” would be one example. Another would be that email I get from time to time comparing the Nobel prize totals of Jews and Muslims.
Mitt Romney pandered to this belief in 2012 when he explained to a group of Israelis his view that the Israeli culture was superior to that of the Palestinians.
There’s of course an obvious problem with this explanation: It’s racist. There’s zero basis for believing that the Palestinian race is inferior to the Jewish race. That’s no more justified than the belief that the Jewish race is inferior to the German race.
And when the people of one race come to believe that their race is superior to another race, terrible things happen.
Which leaves us with the alternative explanation for the dichotomy, that the Palestinians stand on higher moral ground in this conflict than do the Israelis.
In that regard, consider Chris Hedges’ piece in Truthdig, Why Israel Lies:
All governments lie, as I.F. Stone pointed out, including Israel and Hamas. But Israel engages in the kinds of jaw-dropping lies that characterize despotic and totalitarian regimes. It does not deform the truth; it inverts it. It routinely paints a picture for the outside world that is diametrically opposed to reality. And all of us reporters who have covered the occupied territories have run into Israel’s Alice-in-Wonderland narratives, which we dutifully insert into our stories—required under the rules of American journalism—although we know they are untrue.
I saw small boys baited and killed by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis. The soldiers swore at the boys in Arabic over the loudspeakers of their armored jeep. The boys, about 10 years old, then threw stones at an Israeli vehicle and the soldiers opened fire, killing some, wounding others. I was present more than once as Israeli troops drew out and shot Palestinian children in this way. Such incidents, in the Israeli lexicon, become children caught in crossfire. I was in Gaza when F-16 attack jets dropped 1,000-pound iron fragmentation bombs on overcrowded hovels in Gaza City. I saw the corpses of the victims, including children. This became a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory. I have watched Israel demolish homes and entire apartment blocks to create wide buffer zones between the Palestinians and the Israeli troops that ring Gaza. I have interviewed the destitute and homeless families, some camped out in crude shelters erected in the rubble. The destruction becomes the demolition of the homes of terrorists. I have stood in the remains of schools—Israel struck two United Nations schools in the last six days, causing at least 10 fatalities at one in Rafah on Sunday and at least 19 at one in the Jebaliya refugee camp Wednesday—as well as medical clinics and mosques. I have heard Israel claim that errant rockets or mortar fire from the Palestinians caused these and other deaths, or that the attacked spots were being used as arms depots or launching sites. I, along with every other reporter I know who has worked in Gaza, have never seen any evidence that Hamas uses civilians as “human shields.”
There is a perverted logic to Israel’s repeated use of the Big Lie—Große Lüge—the lie favored by tyrants from Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin to Saddam Hussein. The Big Lie feeds the two reactions Israel seeks to elicit—racism among its supporters and terror among its victims.
By painting a picture of an army that never attacks civilians, that indeed goes out of its way to protect them, the Big Lie says Israelis are civilized and humane, and their Palestinian opponents are inhuman monsters. The Big Lie serves the idea that the slaughter in Gaza is a clash of civilizations, a war between democracy, decency and honor on one side and Islamic barbarism on the other. And in the uncommon cases when news of atrocities penetrates to the wider public, Israel blames the destruction and casualties on Hamas.
Hedges’ analysis provides a plausible explanation for the dichotomy. Many will buy into the Big Lie. Israelis will most easily, as it’s in their interest to do so. American Jews will as well, although not as easily as Israelis. Because they have less to gain from the Big Lie than do Israelis, American Jews are more likely to apply the level of scrutiny that reveals the Big Lie for what it is. But there is one group that will know the Big Lie is a lie without even having to ask questions: the Palestinians, the victims of the Big Lie.
Thus, a small, but noticeable, portion of Israelis see the Big Lie for what it is and support the Palestinian cause, while the majority of Israelis buy into the Big Lie. A larger portion of American Jews see the Big Lie for what it is, while many American Jews still buy into the Big Lie. But no Palestinians buy into the Big Lie.
As Hedges points out, the Big Lie itself is built on a racist foundation. In order to buy into the Big Lie, one also has to buy into the moral superiority of Jews over Palestinians. Hedges:
The Big Lie allows believers to take comfort—a comfort they are desperately seeking—in their own moral superiority at the very moment they have abrogated all morality.
The Big Lie, as the father of American public relations, Edward Bernays, wrote, is limited only by the propagandist’s capacity to fathom and harness the undercurrents of individual and mass psychology. And since most supporters of Israel do not have a desire to know the truth, a truth that would force them to examine their own racism and self-delusions about Zionist and Western moral superiority, like packs of famished dogs they lap up the lies fed to them by the Israeli government.
Which explains further why I have no Palestinian counterparts. Palestinians, you see, don’t see themselves as an inferior race. Imagine that.
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To Bob Lord
At one of your posts (I could find it again and post my response here), you referenced reading “The Generals Son” by Miko Peled.
I began to read an excerpt of Peled’s “The Generals Son” until I got to his “The Myth of 1948” narrative – I could not square his perspective as an Israeli Generals Son, or as a combat soldier.
Peled writes:
“In 1948 the Jewish militia became the Israeli army but between the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1949 they destroyed close to 500 towns and villages and exiled close to 800,000 Palestinians who to this day are not permitted to return. So, it turns out that the creation of Israel had not, after all, been a haphazard fight in which the Arabs fled their homes due to the directives of their own leaders. It had been a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Jewish militia involving massacres, terrorism, and the wholesale looting of an entire nation.”
“My mother remembers the homes of the Palestinians who were forced to leave West Jerusalem. She herself was offered one of those beautiful spacious homes but refused. She could not bear the thought of living in the home of a family that was forced out and now lives in a refugee camp. She said the coffee was still warm on the tables as the soldiers came in and began the looting. She remembers the truckloads of loot, taken by the Israeli soldiers from these homes.”
The Facts: — Peled conveniently begins his narrative:
“In 1948 the Jewish militia became the Israeli army but between the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1949 they destroyed close to 500 towns and villages and exiled close to 800,000 Palestinians …..”
But Peled conviently fails to begin his narrative at the point in time that Israel, upon being declared an Israeli State, was immediately attacked by neighboring Arab Nations that included the West Bank and Gaza.
War was declared against Israel with the acquiesce of the Palestinian peoples who occupied both the West Bank and Gaza. In war bad things happen. When American GI’s invaded Germany they did the very same thing – drove Germans civilians out of their homes as a punitive lesson – told to me by a GI who described doing it himself. Declaring war has its consequences!!!!
It’s naive to believe when you’re combating with peoples who are out to kill you to extend the niceties that come from congenial neighbors.
Was Israeli’s treatment of Palestinians during the 1948 war more severe than what Americans did to German and Japanese people after being attacked? Declaring war has its consequences!!!! But Islam has put a new twist to war – starting it and then whining about being the victim?
Peled also writes: “Change will come because the non-violent resistance movement in towns and villages all over Palestine will prevail,” but Peled is oblivious to the fact that 80% of the Palestinian peoples elected Hamas who have vowed to eliminated the State of Israel. How will that play out???
Read an excerpt? Why don’t you wait until you’ve finished the entire book before quibbling with what he has to say?
Hearts and Minds
To Bob Lord – You and I both know you don’t intend to acknowledge responses to your posts (although I have been responding to yours), but using this blog as an extension of the Hamas propaganda strategy to sway readers by playing the “look at the inhumanity the Israeli’s are brutally bombing and killing our innocent women and children.” It’s a well-known technique of turning accusations around to confuse the casual lay public.
You talk of moral fiber, but don’t define it — Hamas moral fiber advocates “theological justification” to not only murder infidels, but the murder of their own people, and hide behind women and children as shields. Of course, the Israeli’s are doing the same thing, right?
The killing of Palestinian’s is truly brutally inhumane, BUT let’s get it straight, Hamas has purposefully orchestrated a “self-suicide” strategy to paint Israel as a monster – but Hamas is not fooling anyone. What’s more, one cannot imagine what level of intellect can conceive of a strategy of such outrageous barbarism.
What God would espouse such barbarism? What civilized peoples would accept it? What twisted mind could believe a civilized people would?
I Bob Lord don’t expect you to reply to my questions, because it won’t square with the Hamas’s twisted logic, a logic you clearly embrace. You speck of your own logic, but avoid the scrutiny of counter-point – I welcome it, why don’t you? Who knows, we may all learn something.
Consider this if you will, if you and I can’t get on the same page, how do you expect the Israeli’s and Palestinians to do it?
Where is your response Bob?
If I‘m Wrong, Please Correct Me
To be clear, I am an agnostic, and believe the claims of God(s) are a creation of man to control man, and although I may not be a believer, I believe in the right of others to be free to believe and worship as they choose.
Some religions guide societies to evolve into an elevated morality that values human life and the right and protection to pursue their own beliefs free of state persecution.
Others religions impose on their societies a morality of “theological justification” to not only murder those who are not followers, but provoke the slaughter of its own followers to present the appearance of victims.
“Theological justification” to murder?
You claim that Israeli’s lie, here’s what President Clinton had to say about Hamas:
“We can thank former President Bill Clinton for perfect clarity in his comments about the chaos and horror of Gaza. In an interview on Indian television, Clinton—who told us in his memoir that Palestinian self-destructiveness (in the form of Yasir Arafat’s various delusions and prevarications) undid his effort to bring about a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict—blames the Muslim Brotherhood’s Gaza affiliate, Hamas, for adopting a policy of deliberate self-murder in order to present Israel with a set of impossible dilemmas. “Hamas was perfectly well aware of what would happen if they started raining rockets in Israel,” Clinton said. “They fired a thousand of them. And they have a strategy designed to force Israel to kill their own civilians so that the rest of the world will condemn them.”
And others:
“Dead Palestinians represent a propaganda victory for the nihilists of Hamas. It is perverse, but true.”
And others:
“We can thank Hamas for bringing its own form of clarity to this situation. This is the manner in which Hamas works: It builds reinforced bunkers for its leaders (under hospitals and other must-avoid targets) but purposefully neglects to build bomb shelters for the civilians in its putative care. From their bunkers, the leaders order rocket teams to target Israeli civilians. Hamas, which was responsible for the deaths of several hundred Israeli civilians during the second Palestinian uprising alone, has lately been less effective at killing Israelis, but nevertheless, the rockets keep launching. When you repeatedly fire rockets at civilian targets in a neighboring country, that country usually responds militarily. Civilians get killed during the Israeli response in part because Hamas rocket teams operate from sites that are among Gaza’s most densely populated, and in part because Hamas stores its weapons in schools and mosques.”
What Others Have to Say About the Gaza Occupation
• In 1994, Israel granted the right of self-governance to Gaza through the Palestinian Authority. Prior to this, Gaza had been subject to military occupation, most recently by Israel (1967–94) and by Egypt (1948–67), and earlier by Great Britain.
• The Palestinian leadership could have taken the opportunity created by the Israeli withdrawal to build the nucleus of a state. Instead, Gaza was converted into a rocket-manufacturing and -launching facility.
• In 2005, the Palestinians of Gaza, free from their Israeli occupiers, could have taken a lesson from the Kurds—and from David Ben-Gurion, the principal Israeli state-builder—and created the necessary infrastructure for eventual freedom. Gaza is centrally located between two large economies, those of Israel and Egypt. Europe is just across the Mediterranean. Gaza could have easily attracted untold billions in economic aid.
• The Israelis did not impose a blockade on Gaza right away. That came later, when it became clear that Palestinian groups were considering using their newly liberated territory as a launching pad for attacks. In the days after withdrawal, the Israelis encouraged Gaza’s development. A group of American Jewish donors paid $14 million for 3,000 greenhouses left behind by expelled Jewish settlers and donated them to the Palestinian Authority. The greenhouses were soon looted and destroyed, serving, until today, as a perfect metaphor for Gaza’s wasted opportunity.
• If Gaza had, despite all the difficulties, despite all the handicaps imposed on it by Israel and Egypt, taken practical steps toward creating the nucleus of a state, it is believed Israel would have soon moved to evacuate large sections of the West Bank as well. But what Hamas wants most is not a state in a part of Palestine. What it wants is the elimination of Israel. It will not achieve the latter, and it is actively thwarting the former.
• Hamas Covenant 1988
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:”
So much for “Palestinians collectively have the same intellect and moral make-up as do Jews, and the same moral high ground”??????
My point of view exactly. I, too, have made a shift in my opinion of the Israel/Palestine situation, from total support of the Israeli cause to support for the Palestinians, who also deserve a homeland. Unfortunately, Hamas and Hezbollah have created a fertile ground for those who would equate all Palestinians with the terrorist organizations.
That’s nice, Bob. You are truly a logic wiz. However, I think you fall far short in producing a convincing proof.
You accept as given that there are not “equivalent” numbers of Palestinians siding with Israel and against Hamas as there are Israelis/Jews siding with Hamas and against Israel. You completely fail to consider any possible explanations for your unproven given other than that the “Zionist point of view” is not as “righteous.”
How about the larger population of American Jews – many more than American Palestinians)? How about the fact that Jews have become more woven into the American fabric, and thus feel more free to espouse views that may be against interest? How about how Jews and the so-called “Jewish psyche” have developed over the centuries – so that Jews are accustomed to – or, prefer – looking at events from the perspective of the underdog?
The likely answer is that all of these – and, more – are factors. In your previous article, you presented as fact the crazy assumption that Israel wants/needs “systematic persecution” and genocide. (Not sure what happened to my comment that is apparently still “awaiting moderation”, by the way.) Here, you leave out possible explanations. In both cases, you adjust logic in order to reach your predetermined outcome.