First, I am incredibly grateful to everyone for sharing this journey with me. It is not an easy one. I appreciate your openness and honesty. That you are ready to engage counts enormously.
Second, there are many things I love about Israel. I love the food, I love the warmth of the people, I love the vibes in the cities. There are so many amazing Israelis who are trying to make things better and trying to reflect on what is happening here, the unspoken heroes of this conflict.
I am proud of being Jewish. My journey, while critical of the policies of the Israeli government, is deeply rooted in my love for my own people. One of the things I value most is our emphasis on asking questions, discussing and debating. Being dafka. I think it makes us strong. I think it makes us confront reality.
But I also understand, that because Israel receives so much criticism from the outside, most Jews believe it is their duty to be loyal, to stand by Israel.
I think a lot about my Bobba (my grandmother). She was not in Europe during the Holocaust, but she had to stand by and watch while Hitler tried to exterminate our people. How do you live with that? For me it is obvious that in her time, the most important cause was the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people. And she fought for it with a passion and determination that I deeply admire. She even bought an enormous apartment in Tel Aviv in the hope that her three children and their families would make aliyah, and that she would house all fifteen of us!
Israel is now a strong, independent, vibrant and thriving nation. It has proven its resilience time and again. But with power comes responsibility. And this means being accountable for your actions and respecting the rule of law. If it is our duty as Jews to support Israel, then are we not undermining the state by not holding it accountable for its actions? by not insisting that it upholds its own laws and international obligations?
I am not asking Jews to become the victim again. It stinks to be the victim. I would rather be strong and have enemies than be weak and extinct. So I am not asking us to be perfect, I am asking us to be better. Because I believe we can be, and because I believe it is in our interest to be better. For now. For tomorrow. And for the future.
24 days to go...
Strong or weak,
ReplyDeleteWhat is the difference?
Victim or perpetrator,
Are both not the same?
A coin has two sides,
Heads or tails we call
For one way or another,
And the one coin appears splits in Two.
If I asked my right hand to cut off my left
You would call me mad
But if I asked Israel to cut off Palestine
You would call it security.
Insane is one body fighting like a cancerous cell
Against itself,
Insane is one nation fighting against another
Like mother against it’s own child
One humanity
One body
Victim or Perpetrator
There is no difference
It takes two to tangle.
An eye for an eye
Will only make the world blind.
-Edo
Being brave and strong is also about examining yourself, asking the tough questions, and refusing to accept and feed a narrative with loop-halls. I greatly appreciate your courage, Carin, and strongly support this effort.
ReplyDeleteAs a ZTABAR with strong roots, I also find it hard to ask those questions, and even harder to face the answers. The fact that my ancestors were victims is beyond any doubt – both of the Holocaust in Europe and of the aggression against Jewish communities in the Arab world in the early 20th century. The newly born state of Israel instantly became a victim of the all-Arab plot to destroy it upon its declaration, and of the conflict thereafter. But there is another party in this story, which is often discarded in the mainstream Israeli narrative – the Palestinian people. Our status of victims is not mutually exclusive. This is the inconvenient truth of the Israeli narrative: indeed, we are entitled to our state in the land of Zion, but at the same time we should acknowledge another group of people living on the same land. Unlike the implicit suggestions of the narrative, there was no vacuum in this land prior to our arrival. Like everything else in life, this story is not black and white, it is not simply us the good against them the bad. Leave that to Texan presidents and to the American narrative. This story possesses a spectrum of angles, tragic stories, and many victims, at multiple sides. Being better, as you suggest, is facing this inconvenient truth, and striving to fix it.
Questioning the mainstream Zionist narrative, whether it takes place in Israel or in a Jewish community in the diaspora, is often tagged automatically as betrayal, especially when it involves any sympathy with the Palestinian side. This cycle will not be broken unless brave people will question the narrative and seek the answers. But this is inconvenient, did we say that already?
-- Ofer
It's very trendy (at least in the last 60 years) to be as (in your own words) "critical of the policies of the Israeli government". In this respect you are not unique. It makes you a member of a very big group of passionate 5-6 million Israelis regardless of political affiliation….
ReplyDeleteWhat you are engaged with is contrition or penitence. I guess your European manners prevent you from being blunt on the issues - .
Don’t hide behind "Israeli Government" – They are, if you or I like it or not a reflection of a very vibrant democracy, a direct reflection on the Israeli society. (and I would never vote for any of them….)
What you are engaged with is "Questioning the mainstream Zionist narrative ". Below this surface lies an accusation that Israel was born in sin, that Jewish nationality, should be dismissed, portraying the surviving remnant of the Holocaust and the oriental Jews as the prey of Zionist manipulations and the Palestinians as innocent victims of collusions and atrocities.
Behind it is the idea that denies Jewish nationalism; at least in its present form of a nation-state, and the demand apparently relying on the spirit of "globalization"….to turn Israel into a state of all its citizens.
Behind this is disapproving of the Zionist movement's policies in all fields and all periods. Behind it is denial of the connection between historical Judaism and the State of Israel.
So if this is the case your family opposition is right. But frankly I believe that you are more sincere in your approach than that. I would rather have painful relations with your kind rather love affair with some indifferent ignorant fellow members of the community.
But do me a favor – don’t bring the Israeli Gourmet Hummus kitchen as a major factor of your link to this country and its people. We deserve better than that.
BTW - Long after most national-liberation movements have achieved their goals, the Palestinians who have enjoyed far greater international support are still in the same place, if not worse. This fact alone should have led Palestinian intellectuals and their Western (and Israeli) sympathizers to re-examine their own narrative and paradigms.
Carin - The above anonymous is Shalom.
ReplyDeleteThat was a very nice one. Don't feel guilty, keep critism and heart open to everyone and keep on with your journey, you do it in a great way.
ReplyDeleteBises
As another member of your family I am extremely proud, not only of what you are doing, but your hard choice in trying to fair as a human being.
ReplyDeleteIf growing up in South Africa has taught us anything, it is our obligation to be just and fair in the context of humanity, not to the group we happen to be identified with.
Below is a link to a Bill Moyers interview with Goldstone which is really worth watching. (Possibly by your aunt...!)
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10232009/profile.html