--- PAUL EISEN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 06:18:58 +0100
> To: "Bob G." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> From: PAUL EISEN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: JEWISH POWER
>
> JEWISH POWER
> Paul Eisen
>
>
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> The crime against the Palestinian people is
> being committed by a Jewish
> state with Jewish soldiers using weapons
> displaying Jewish religious
> symbols, and with the full support and
> complicity of the overwhelming
> mass of organised Jews worldwide. But to name
> Jews as responsible for
> this crime seems impossible to do.
>
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>
>
>
> The future is always open and nothing can ever
> be ruled out; but, for
> now, it's hard to see how Israel can be
> stopped. After over fifty years,
> it is clear that Israel will only relinquish
> its eliminationist attitude
> to Palestinians and Palestinian life when it
> has to. This need not be
> through military action but it is hard to see
> how anything else will do.
> The conventional wisdom - that if America
> turned off the tap, Israel
> would be brought to its knees - is far from
> proven. First, it's not
> going to happen. Second, those who believe it
> may well be
> underestimating both the cohesiveness of
> Israeli society and the force
> of Jewish history which permeates it. Even more
> unlikely is the military
> option. The only force on earth which could
> possibly confront Israel is
> the American military, and, again, that is not
> going to happen.
>
> Palestinian resistance has been astonishing.
> After over fifty years of
> brutal assault by what may well one day be seen
> as one of the most
> ruthless and irrational powers of modern times,
> and with just about
> every power on earth ranged against them,
> Palestinians are still with
> us, still steadfast, still knowing who they are
> and where they come
> from. Nonetheless, for the time being effective
> resistance may be over
> (though the possibility of organised
> non-violent resistance can never be
> ruled out), and, for now, the only strategy
> open may be no more than one
> for survival.
>
> For us it is so much easier to deny this
> reality than to accept it, and
> doubtless the struggle will continue. How
> fruitful this will be no-one
> can say. Although the present seems hopeless,
> survival is still vital
> and no-one knows when new opportunities may
> arise. Anyway, to struggle
> against injustice is always worth doing. But
> what if the struggle
> becomes so delusional that it inhibits rather
> than advances resistance?
> What if the struggle becomes a way of avoiding
> rather than confronting
> reality? Those slogans "End the Occupation!"
> and "Two States for Two
> Peoples!" are now joined by a new slogan, "The
> One-State Solution!" This
> is every bit as fantastic as its predecessors
> because, just as there
> never was going to be an end to the occupation,
> nor a real Palestinian
> state, so, for now, there is no possibility of
> any "one state" other
> than the state of Israel which now stretches
> from the Mediterranean Sea
> to the Jordan River, and the only "solution" is
> a final solution and
> even that cannot be ruled out.
>
>
> "ZIONISM IS NOT JUDAISM; JUDAISM IS
> NOT ZIONISM..."
>
> The crime against the Palestinian people is
> being committed by a Jewish
> state with Jewish soldiers using weapons with
> Jewish religious symbols
> all over them, and with the full support and
> complicity of the
> overwhelming mass of organised Jews worldwide.
> But to name Jews as
> responsible for this crime seems impossible to
> do. The past is just too
> terrible. All of us know of the hatred and
> violence to which accusations
> against Jews have led in the past. Also, if we
> were to examine
> critically the role of Jews in this conflict,
> what would become of us
> and of our struggle? Would we be labelled
> anti-Semites and lose much of
> the support that we have worked so hard to
> gain?
>
> The present, too, is full of ambiguities.
> Zionism is not Judaism;
> Judaism is not Zionism has become an article of
> faith, endlessly
> repeated, as is the assertion that Zionism is a
> secular ideology
> opposed, for much of its history, by the bulk
> of religious Jews and even
> now still opposed by true Torah Jews such as
> Neturei Karta. But Zionism
> is now at the heart of Jewish life with
> religious Jews amongst the most
> virulent of Zionists and Neturei Karta, despite
> their impeccable
> anti-Zionism, their beautiful words and the
> enthusiasm with which they
> are welcomed at solidarity rallies, etc., may
> well be just Jews in fancy
> dress, a million miles from the reality of
> Jewish life.
>
> And even if Zionism can still be disentangled
> from Judaism, can it be
> distinguished from a broader Jewish identity or
> Jewishness? So often
> Zionism is proclaimed to be a modern add-on to
> Jewish identity, another,
> albeit anachronistic, settler-colonial ideology
> simply adopted by Jews
> in response to their predicament. But, could it
> be that our need to
> avoid the accusation of anti-Semitism and our
> own conflicted perceptions
> and feelings, our insistence that Zionism and
> Jewishness are separate,
> has led us seriously to misunderstand the
> situation? Has our refusal to
> look squarely at the very Jewishness of Zionism
> and its crimes caused us
> to fail to understand exactly what we are up
> against?
>
>
> Jews, Judaism and Zionism
>
> Jews are complex; Jewish identity is complex
> and the relationship
> between Judaism the religion, and a broader,
> often secular, Jewish
> identity or Jewishness is very complex indeed.
> Jewishness may be
> experienced a long way from synagogue, yeshiva
> or any other formal
> aspect of Jewish religious life, yet is often
> still inextricably bound
> to Judaism. That is why secular Jews are able
> to proclaim their
> secularity every bit as loudly as they proclaim
> their Jewishness. Marc
> Ellis, a religious Jew, says that when you look
> at those Jews who are in
> solidarity with Palestinians, the overwhelming
> majority of them are
> secular - but, from a religious point of view,
> the Covenant is with
> them. For Ellis, these secular Jews unknowingly
> and even unwillingly may
> be carrying with them the future of Jewish
> life.
>
> Jewish identity, connecting Jews to other Jews,
> comes from deep within
> Jewish history. This is a shared history, both
> real and imagined, in
> that it is both literal and theological. Many
> Jews in the west share a
> real history of living together as a distinct
> people in Eastern, Central
> and then Western Europe and America. Others
> share a real history of
> settlement in Spain followed by expulsion and
> then settlement all over
> the world, particularly in Arab and Islamic
> lands. But this may not be
> what binds all Jews, because for all Jews it is
> not a real, but maybe a
> theological, history that is shared. Most
> Palestinians today probably
> have more Hebrew blood in their little fingers
> then most western Jews
> have in their whole bodies. And yet, the story
> of the Exodus from Egypt
> is as real to many of them, and most
> importantly was as real to them
> when they were children, as if they, along with
> all Jews, had stood with
> Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai.
>
> And histories like that don't stop at the
> present. Even for secular
> Jews, though unacknowledged and even
> unrealized, there is a sense, not
> only of a shared history, but also of a shared
> destiny. Central to
> Jewish identity both religious and
> non-religious is the sense of mission
> centered on exile and return. How else to
> explain the extraordinary
> devotion of so many Jews, religious and
> secular, to the "return" to a
> land with which, in real terms, they have very
> little connection at all?
>
> For many Jews, this history confers a
> 'specialness'. This is not unique
> to Jews - after all, who in their heart of
> hearts does not feel a little
> bit special? But for Jews this specialness is
> at the centre of their
> self-identification and much of the world seems
> to concur. For religious
> Jews, the specialness comes from the supposed
> covenant with God. But for
> secular Jews, the specialness comes from a
> special history. In either
> case this can be a good, even a beautiful,
> thing. In much of Jewish
> religious tradition this specialness is no more
> than a special moral
> obligation, a special responsibility to offer
> an example to the world,
> and for so many secular Jews it has led them to
> struggle for justice in
> many places around the world.
>
> At the heart of this Jewish specialness is
> Jewish suffering and
> victimhood. Like the shared history itself,
> this suffering may, but need
> not, correspond to reality. Jews have certainly
> suffered but their
> suffering remains unexamined and unexplained.
> The Holocaust, now the
> paradigm of Jewish suffering, has long ceased
> to be a piece of history,
> and is now treated by religious and secular
> alike, as a piece of
> theology - a sacred text almost - and therefore
> beyond scrutiny. And the
> suffering never ends. No matter how much Jews
> have suffered they are
> certainly not suffering now, but for many Jews
> their history of
> suffering is not just an unchallengeable past
> but also a possible
> future. So, no matter how safe Jews may be,
> many feel just a
> hair's-breadth away from Auschwitz.
>
> Zionism is at the heart of this. Zionism is
> also complex and also comes
> from deep within Jewish history with the same
> sense of exile and return.
> Zionism also confirms that Jews are special in
> their suffering and is
> explicit that Jews should 'return' to a land
> given to them, and only
> them - by God if they are religious, or by
> history if they are not -
> because they simply are not safe anywhere else
> on earth.
>
> But so what? If Jews think that they are a
> people with a religious link
> to a land and have a deep wish to 'return', why
> should we care, so long
> as the land is not already populated by
> Palestinians? And if Jews feel
> that they are special and that God has made
> some kind of special
> arrangement with them, so what, so long as this
> does not lead them to
> demand preferential treatment and to
> discriminate against others? And if
> Jews feel that they have suffered like no-one
> else on the face of the
> earth, fine, so long as they do not use this
> suffering to justify the
> imposition of suffering on others and to
> blackmail morally the whole
> world into quiescent silence.
>
> This is the problem with Zionism. It expresses
> Jewish identity but also
> empowers it. It tells Jews (and many others
> too) that Jews can do what
> Jews have always dreamed of doing. It takes the
> perfectly acceptable
> religious feelings of Jews, or if you prefer,
> the perfectly harmless
> delusions of Jews, and tries to turn them into
> a terrible reality.
> Jewish notions of specialness, choseness and
> even supremacism, are fine
> for a small, wandering people, but, when
> empowered with a state, an army
> and F16s become a concern for us all.
>
> Zionism as Jewish empowerment in statehood
> changes everything. Israel is
> not just any state, it is a Jewish state and
> this means more than just a
> state for Jews. This Jewish state is built on
> traditions and modes of
> thought that have evolved amongst Jews for
> centuries - amongst which are
> the notions that Jews are special and that
> their suffering is special.
> By their own reckoning, Jews are "a nation that
> dwells alone" it is "us
> and them" and, in many cases, "us or them". And
> these tendencies are
> translated into the modern state of Israel.
> This is a state that knows
> no boundaries. It is a state that both
> believes, and uses as
> justification for its own aggression, the
> notion that its very survival
> is always at stake, so anything is justified to
> ensure that survival.
> Israel is a state that manifestly believes that
> the rules of both law
> and humanity, applicable to all other states,
> do not apply to it.
>
>
> Their own worst nightmare
>
> It is a terrible irony that this empowerment of
> Jews has come to most
> resemble those empowerments under which Jews
> have suffered the most.
> Empowered Christianity, also a marriage of
> faith and power, enforced its
> ideology and pursued its dissidents and enemies
> with no greater fervor
> than has empowered Judaism. In its zeal and
> self belief, Zionism has
> come to resemble the most brutal and relentless
> of modern ideologies.
> But unlike the brutal rationality of Stalinism,
> willing to sacrifice
> millions for political and economic revolution,
> this Jewish ideology, in
> its zealotry and irrationality, resembles more
> the National Socialism
> which condemned millions for the attainment of
> a nonsensical racial and
> ethnic supremacy.
>
> Of course there are differences but there are
> also similarities.
> National Socialism, like Zionism, another blend
> of mysticism and power,
> gained credibility as a means to right wrongs
> done to a victimized
> people. National Socialism, like Zionism, also
> sought to maintain the
> racial/ethnic purity of one group and to
> maintain the rights of that
> ethnic group over others, and National
> Socialism, like Zionism, also
> proposed an almost mystical attachment of that
> group to a land. Also,
> both National Socialism and Zionism shared a
> common interest - to
> separate Jews from non-Jews, in this case to
> remove Jews from Europe -
> and actively co-operated in the attainment of
> this aim. And if the
> similarity between these two ideologies is
> simply too great and too
> bitter to accept, one may ask what National
> Socialism with its uniforms,
> flags and mobilized youth must have looked like
> to those Germans,
> desperate after Versailles and the ravages of
> post-First World War
> Germany. Perhaps not so different from how the
> uniforms, flags and
> marching youth of pre- and post-state Zionism
> must have looked to Jews
> after their history of suffering, and
> particularly after the Holocaust.
>
> This is, for Jews, their own worst nightmare:
> the thing they love the
> most has become the thing they hate the most.
> And for those Jews and
> others, who shrink from the comparison, let
> them ask themselves this:
> What would an average German, an enthusiastic
> Nazi even, have said in,
> say, 1938 had they been confronted with the
> possibility of an Auschwitz?
> They would have thought that you were stark,
> staring mad.
>
>
> AMERICAN JEWS AND JEWISH
> AMERICA
>
> At the heart of the conflict is the
> relationship between Israel and
> America. The statistics - billions in aid and
> loans, UN vetoes, etc.,
> etc. need not be repeated here - American
> support for Israel seems
> limitless. But what is the nature of this
> support? For many, perhaps
> most, the answer is relatively simple. Israel
> is a client state of
> America, serving American interests or, more
> particularly, the interests
> of its power elites. This view is underpinned
> by the obvious importance
> of oil, the huge strategic importance of the
> region and the fact that,
> if Israel did not further the interests of
> those who control America,
> then we can be sure America would not support
> Israel. Also, there is no
> doubt that, in the IDF, America has found a
> marvellously flexible and
> effective force, easily aroused and let loose
> whenever any group of
> Arabs get a little above themselves.
>
> But is this the whole story? Does Israel really
> serve America's
> interests and is their relationship wholly
> based on the sharing of these
> interests? Consider how much in terms of
> goodwill from other nations
> America loses by its support for Israel, and
> consider the power and
> influence of the "Jewish", "Zionist" or
> "pro-Israel" lobby, as when many
> an otherwise responsible lawmaker, faced with
> the prospect of an
> intervention in their re-election campaign from
> the Jewish lobby, seems
> happy to put his or her re-election prospects
> way in front of what is
> good for America.
>
> The details of the workings of AIPAC and
> others, and the mechanics by
> which these groups exert pressure on America's
> lawmakers and governors,
> have been dealt with elsewhere; we need only
> note that this interest
> group is undoubtedly extraordinarily effective
> and successful. Not just
> a small group of Jews supporting Israel, as its
> supporters would have us
> believe, these are powerful and committed
> ideologues: billionaires,
> media magnates, politicians, activists and
> religious leaders. In any
> event, the power of the Jewish lobby to make or
> break pretty well any
> public figure is legendary - not for nothing is
> it often referred to
> simply as "The Lobby".
>
> But again, there may be far more to the
> Israel/U.S. relationship than
> just a commonality of interest and the
> effectiveness of certain interest
> groups. That support for Israel must be in the
> interests of those who
> control America is certainly true, but who
> controls America? Perhaps the
> real relationship is not between Israel and
> America but between Jews and
> America.
>
> The overwhelming majority of Jews in America
> live their lives just like
> any other Americans. They've done well and are
> undoubtedly pleased that
> America supports their fellow Jews in Israel
> but that's as far as it
> goes. Nonetheless, an awful lot of Jews
> certainly do control an awful
> lot of America - not the industrial muscle of
> America - the steel,
> transport, etc., nor the oil and arms
> industries, those traditional
> money-spinners. No, if Jews have influence
> anywhere in America, it's not
> over its muscle and sinew but over its blood
> and its brain. It is in
> finance and the media that we find a great many
> Jews in very influential
> positions. Lists abound (though you have to go
> to some pretty unpopular
> websites to find them) of Jews, prominent in
> financial and cultural
> life: Jews in banks; Jews in Forbes Magazine's
> Richest Americans; Jews
> in Hollywood; Jews in TV; Jewish journalists,
> writers, critics, etc.,
> etc.
>
> Nor have Jews been slow in exploiting their
> position. Jews have not
> hesitated to use whatever resources they have
> to advance their interests
> as they see them. Nor does one need to
> subscribe to any conspiracy
> theory to note how natural it is for Jews in
> the media to promote Jews
> and their values as positive and worthy of
> emulation. When did anyone
> last see a Jew portrayed in anything other than
> a favourable light? Jews
> are clever, moral, interesting, intense, warm,
> witty, complex, ethical,
> contradictory, prophetic, infuriating,
> sometimes irritating, but always
> utterly engaging. Nor is it any wonder that
> Jews in influential
> positions are inclined to promote what they see
> as Jewish collective
> interests. Is it really all that incredible
> that Jewish advisers around
> the Presidency bear Israel's interests at heart
> when they advise the
> President on foreign affairs?
>
> But so what? So there are a lot of Jews with a
> lot of money, and a lot
> of Jews with a lot to say and the means to say
> it. If Jews by virtue of
> their ability and use of resources (as honestly
> gained as by anyone
> else) promote what they perceive as their own
> collective interest,
> what's wrong with that? First, with some
> notable exceptions, the vast
> majority of Jews can, in good faith, lay hands
> on hearts and swear that
> they never take decisions or actions with
> collective Jewish interests in
> mind, certainly not consciously. And even if
> they did, they are acting
> no differently from anyone else. With a few
> exceptions, Jews have earned
> their advantageous positions. They came with
> nothing, played according
> to the rules and, if they use their influence
> to further what they
> perceive as Jewish interests, what's so special
> about that? Do not the
> Poles, the Ukrainians, the Gun lobby, the
> Christian Evangelicals also
> not work to further their group interests?
>
> The difference between Jews and other groups is
> that they probably do it
> better. Jews are, by pretty well any criteria,
> easily the most
> successful ethnic group in America and, for
> whatever reason, have been
> extraordinarily successful in promoting
> themselves both individually and
> collectively. And there would probably be
> nothing wrong with this were
> it not for the fact that these same people who
> exert so much control and
> influence over American life also seem to
> refuse to be held accountable.
> It is the surreptitiousness with which Jews are
> perceived to have
> achieved their success which arouses suspicion.
> Jews certainly seem
> cagey about the influence they have. Just
> breathe the words "Jewish
> power" and wait for the reaction. They claim
> it's because this charge
> has so often been used as a precursor to
> discrimination and violence
> against them, but never consider the
> possibility that their own
> reluctance to discuss the power they wield
> arouses suspicion and even
> hostility.
>
> But there is another claim, subtler and more
> worrying. This is that it
> doesn't exist; that Jews do not wield power,
> that there is no Jewish
> lobby; that Jews in America do not exert power
> and influence to advance
> Jewish interests, even that there are no such
> things as Jewish
> interests! There are no Jewish interests in the
> war in Iraq, there are
> no Jewish interests in America; most amazing,
> there are no Jewish
> interests even in Israel and Palestine. There
> is no Jewish collective.
> Jews do not act together to advance their aims.
> They even say that the
> pro-Israeli lobby has actually not all that
> much to do with Jews, that
> the Jewishness of Israel is irrelevant and the
> Public Affairs Committees
> (PACs) which lobby so hard for Israel are in
> fact doing no more than
> supporting an ally and thus looking after
> America's best interests even
> to the extent of concealing their true purpose
> behind names such as
> "American for Better Citizenship", "Citizen's
> Organised PAC" or the
> "National PAC" - none of which make one
> reference in their titles to
> Israel, Zionism or Jews. Similarly, Jews and
> Jewish organisations are
> said to be not so much furthering Jewish
> interests and values as
> American, or, even, universal interests and
> values. So, the major
> Holocaust Museum, styled as a "Museum of
> Tolerance", focuses not only on
> anti-Semitism, but on every kind of intolerance
> known to mankind (except
> that shown by Jews to non-Jews in Israel and
> Palestine). Similarly, the
> Anti-Defamation League is but an organisation
> for the promotion of
> universal principles of tolerance and justice,
> not just for Jews but for
> everyone.
>
> This conflation of Jewish interests with
> American interests is nowhere
> more stark than in present American foreign
> policy. If ever an image was
> reminiscent of a Jewish world conspiracy, the
> spectacle of the Jewish
> neo-cons gathered around the current presidency
> and directing policy in
> the Middle East, this must be it. But we are
> told that the fact that the
> Jewish neo-cons, many with links with right
> wing political groups within
> Israel, are in the forefront of urging a
> pro-Israel policy, is but a
> coincidence, and any suggestion that these
> figures might be influenced
> by their Jewishness and their links with Israel
> is immediately
> marginalised as reviving old anti-Semitic myths
> about Jewish dual
> loyalty. The idea that American intervention in
> Iraq, the one viable
> military counterweight to Israeli hegemony in
> the Middle East and
> therefore an inspiration to Arab and
> Palestinian resistance, primarily
> serves Israeli rather than American interests
> has also been consigned to
> the nether world of mediaeval anti-Semitic
> myth. The suggestion that
> those Jews around the president act from
> motives other than those to
> promote the interests of all Americans is just
> anti-Semitic raving. And
> maybe they're right. Perhaps those who promote
> Jewish interests are in
> fact promoting American interests because, for
> now at least, they appear
> to be one and the same.
>
>
> Jewish America
>
> In Washington, D.C. is a memorial to a terrible
> tragedy. Not a memorial
> to a tragedy visited on Americans by a foreign
> power as at Pearl Harbour
> or 9/11, nor to a tragedy visited by Americans
> on Americans such the
> sacking of Atlanta. Nor is it a memorial of
> contrition to a tragedy
> inflicted by Americans onto another people,
> such as to slavery or to the
> history of racial injustice in America. It is
> to none of these. The
> Holocaust memorial is to a tragedy inflicted on
> people who were not
> Americans, by people who were not Americans,
> and in a place a very long
> way from America. And the co-religionists or,
> even, if you like, the
> co-nationals, of the people on whom the tragedy
> was visited and to whom
> the memorial is built make up around two
> percent of the American
> population. How is it that a group of people
> who make up such a tiny
> percentage of the overall American population
> can command such respect
> and regard that a memorial to them is built in
> the symbolic heart of
> American national life?
>
> The Jewish narrative is now at the centre of
> American life, certainly
> that of its cultural and political elites.
> There is, anyway, much in the
> way that Americans choose to see themselves and
> their history which is
> quite naturally compatible with the way Jews
> see themselves and their
> history. What more fitting paradigm for a
> country founded on
> immigration, than the story of the mass
> immigration of Jews at the end
> of the nineteenth and early twentieth
> centuries? For many Americans, the
> story of those Jews who came to their Goldenes
> Medina, their Golden
> Land, with nothing and, through hard work and
> perseverance, made it to
> the very top of American society, is also their
> story. Similarly, what
> greater validation for a country founded on a
> narrative of conquest and
> ethnic cleansing than the Biblical narrative of
> the conquest and ethnic
> cleansing of the Promised Land with the
> addition of the equally violent
> settlement of modern Palestine with its own
> ethnic cleansing and then
> "making the desert bloom"? And what could be
> more inspirational for a
> country, if not officially but still
> viscerally, deeply Christian than
> the story of the Jews, Jesus' own people and
> God's chosen people,
> returning to their ancient homeland and
> transforming it into a modern
> state. And for a nation which sees itself as a
> beacon of democracy in
> the world, what better international soul-mate
> than the state of Israel,
> widely held to be "the only democracy in the
> Middle-East"?
>
> Most resonant, of course, is the notion of Jews
> as a suffering people.
> The fact that this "suffering people" is now
> enjoying a success beyond
> the dreams of any other ethnic group in America
> seems irrelevant. Also
> ignored is how American Jews have made it to
> the very top of American
> society whilst, every step of the way,
> complaining about how much
> they're being discriminated against.
> Nonetheless, to America, Jews have
> an enduring and ongoing history of suffering
> and victimhood. But this
> history has rarely been examined or even
> discussed.
>
>
> A Suffering People
>
> That Jews have suffered is undeniable, but
> Jewish suffering is claimed
> to have been so enduring, so intense and so
> particular that it is to be
> treated differently from other sufferings.
> The issue is complex and cannot be fully
> debated or decided here but the
> following points may stimulate thought and
> discussion.
>
> - During even the most terrible times of Jewish
> suffering such as the
> Crusades or the Chmielnitzky massacres of
> seventeenth century Ukraine,
> and even more so at other times in history, it
> has been said that the
> average peasant would have given his eye-teeth
> to be a Jew. The meaning
> is clear: generally speaking, and throughout
> most of their history, the
> condition of Jews was often far superior to the
> mass of the population.
>
> - The above-mentioned Ukrainian massacres took
> place in the context of a
> peasant uprising against the oppression of the
> Ukrainian peasantry by
> their Polish overlords. As has often been the
> case, Jews were seen as
> occupying a traditional position of being in
> alliance with the ruling
> class in their oppression of the peasantry.
> Chmielnitzky, the leader of
> this popular uprising, is today a Ukrainian
> national hero, not for his
> assaults on Jews (there are even references to
> his having offered poor
> Jews to join the uprising against their
> exploitative co-religionists -
> the Jews declined) but for his championing of
> the rights of the
> oppressed Ukrainians. Again, the inference is
> plain: outbreaks of
> anti-Semitic violence, though never justified,
> have often been responses
> to Jewish behaviour both real and imaginary.
>
> - In the Holocaust three million Polish Jews
> died, but so did three
> million non-Jewish Poles. Jews were targeted
> but so were Gypsies,
> homosexuals, Slavs and Poles. Similarly, the
> Church burned Jews for
> their dissenting beliefs but then the church
> burned everyone for their
> dissenting beliefs. So again, the question must
> be asked: what's so
> special about Jewish suffering?
>
> The Holocaust, the paradigm for all
> anti-Semitism and all Jewish
> suffering, is treated as being beyond
> examination and scrutiny.
> Questioning the Holocaust narrative is, at
> best, socially unacceptable,
> leading often to social exclusion and
> discrimination, and, at worst, in
> some places is illegal and subject to severe
> penalty. Holocaust
> revisionist scholars, named Holocaust deniers
> by their opponents, have
> challenged this. They do not deny a brutal and
> extensive assault on Jews
> by the Nazi regime but they do deny the
> Holocaust narrative as framed by
> present day establishments and elites.
> Specifically, their denial is
> limited to three main areas. First, they deny
> that there ever was an
> official plan on the part of Hitler or any
> other part of the Nazi regime
> systematically and physically to eliminate
> every Jew in Europe; second,
> they deny that there ever existed homicidal
> gas-chambers; third, they
> claim that the numbers of Jewish victims of the
> Nazi assault have been
> greatly exaggerated.
>
> But none of this is the point. Whether those
> who question the Holocaust
> narrative are revisionist scholars striving to
> find the truth and
> shamelessly persecuted for opposing a powerful
> faction, or whether they
> are crazy Jew-haters denying a tragedy and
> defaming its victims, the
> fact is that one may question the Armenian
> genocide, one may freely
> discuss the Slave Trade, one can say that the
> murder of millions of
> Ibos, Kampucheans and Rwandans never took place
> and that the moon is but
> a piece of green cheese floating in space, but
> one may not question the
> Jewish Holocaust. Why? Because, like the rest
> of the Jewish history of
> suffering, the Holocaust underpins the
> narrative of Jewish innocence
> which is used to bewilder and befuddle any
> attempt to see and to
> comprehend Jewish power and responsibility in
> Israel/Palestine and
> elsewhere in the world.
>
>
> JEWISH
> POWER
>
> What is a Jew?
>
> Israel Shamir, the Russian-born Israeli writer,
> advocates the right of
> all people, whatever their ethnicity or
> religion, to live together in
> complete equality between the Mediterranean and
> the Jordan River. Shamir
> condemns the behaviour of Israel and of
> Diaspora Jews and calls for an
> end to their preferential treatment, but he
> also proposes an opposition
> to Judaism itself for which he stands accused
> of being anti-Jewish - a
> charge he does not deny but actually embraces.
>
> Shamir proposes the existence of a Jewish
> ideology, or "Jewish paradigm"
> as he puts it, and proposes that it is the
> voluntary adherence to this
> "spirit" which makes a Jew into a Jew. For him,
> Jewishness is neither
> race nor ethnicity - there is, for Shamir, no
> such thing as a Jewish
> 'tribe' or 'family' - no biological or ethnic
> body from which there can
> be no escape. Further, this ideology, based on
> notions of choseness,
> exclusivity and even supremacism is, at least
> when empowered,
> incompatible with peace, equality and justice
> in Palestine or anywhere
> else for that matter.
>
> No-one wants to oppose any Jews simply for
> being Jews, or even for what
> they believe, but only because of what they do.
> The problem is that
> since, according to Shamir, what Jews believe
> and even do is precisely
> what makes them into Jews, so opposition to
> Jewishness as an ideology
> surely comes dangerously close to opposition to
> Jews simply for being
> Jews. But for Shamir, Jews are Jews because
> they choose to be Jews.
> Someone may be born of Jews and raised as a Jew
> but they can if they
> wish reject their Jewish upbringing and become
> a non-Jew. And many have
> done just that including such famous escapees
> as Karl Marx, St. Paul,
> Leon Trotsky (and Shamir himself), etc.
> Opposition to Jews is not,
> therefore, like opposition to Blacks or to
> Asians or to other common
> racist attitudes since the object of the
> opposition is perfectly able to
> relinquish the ideology in question.
>
> Shamir has never in any way called for any harm
> to be done to Jews or
> anyone else, nor for Jews or anyone else to be
> discriminated against in
> any way. Adherence to this Jewish ideology is,
> for Shamir, regrettable,
> but not, in itself, a matter for active
> opposition. Nor does this mean
> that Shamir is opposed to any individual Jew
> just because he or she is a
> Jew. What Shamir actively opposes is not "Jews"
> but "Jewry". Analogous
> to say, the Catholic Church, Jewry consists of
> those organised Jews and
> their leaders who actively promote corrosive
> Jewish interests and
> values, particularly now in the oppression of
> the Palestinians
>
> One doesn't have to be in complete agreement
> with Shamir to understand
> what he is talking about. Why should Jews not
> have a "spirit"; after
> all, such a concept has been discussed with
> regard to other nations?
>
> "It is dangerous, wrong, to speak about the
> "Germans," or any other
> people, as of a single undifferentiated entity,
> and include all
> individuals in one judgement. And yet I don't
> think I would deny that
> there exists a spirit of each people (otherwise
> it would not be a
> people) a Deutschtum, an italianitia, an
> hispanidad: they are the sums
> of traditions, customs, history, language, and
> culture. Whoever does not
> feel within himself this spirit, which is
> national in the best sense of
> the word, not only does not entirely belong to
> his own people but is not
> part of human civilization. Therefore, while I
> consider insensate the
> syllogism, 'All Italians are passionate; you
> are Italian; therefore you
> are passionate," I do however believe it
> legitimate, within certain
> limits, to expect from Italians taken as a
> whole, or from Germans, etc.,
> one specific, collective behavior rather than
> another. There will
> certainly be individual exceptions, but a
> prudent, probabilistic
> forecast is in my opinion possible." Primo Levi
>
> And for Jews it is, perhaps, even more
> appropriate. The place of Judaism
> as an ideology at the centre for all Jewish
> identity may be debated, but
> few would dispute that Judaism is at least at
> the historic heart of
> Jewishness and, whatever else may bind Jews
> together, it is certainly
> true that religion plays an important part.
> Second, for a group of
> people who have retained such a strong
> collective identity with no
> shared occupation of any land, language, nor
> even, in many cases, a
> culture, it is hard to see what else there
> could be that makes Jews into
> Jews. Surely for Jews, in the absence of other,
> more obvious factors, it
> is precisely such a spirit that has enabled
> them to retain their
> distinctive identity for so long and in the
> face of such opposition.
>
> But if there is some kind of Jewish spirit or
> ideology, what is it? As
> far as Judaism, the religion, goes it seems
> fairly clear that there is
> an ideology based on the election of Israel by
> God, the special
> relationship Jews are supposed to have with God
> and the special mission
> allocated to Jews by God. So for observant Jews
> there is a special
> quality intrinsic to the covenant and to
> Judaism itself, though not all
> of them find it appealing:
>
> "There is a strain in Jewish thought that says
> there is a special Godly
> something or other that is passed down in a
> certain genetic line which
> confers a special quality on people and
> Jewishness is a special quality.
> I call that metaphysical racism." Rabbi Mark
> Solomon
>
> But whilst easy to see such a common spirit in
> religious Jews - after
> all it is precisely that which makes them
> religious - it is so much
> harder to define it in secular Jews, those Jews
> who reject, often quite
> vociferously, all aspects of Jewish faith. They
> often claim that they
> don't have an ideology, or that their ideology
> is one of, say, the left:
> not only not Jewish, but opposed to all
> religions including Judaism. Yet
> seemingly so free of all such ignorant
> superstition, these same people
> still call themselves Jews, still more often
> than not marry other Jews
> and still turn up to solidarity rallies only
> with other Jews and under
> Jewish banners. What is their ideology?
>
> For my money it is much the same sense of
> specialness found in religious
> Jews but with a special reference to
> victimhood. "Yes, but only in the
> Hitlerian sense", answered philosopher Maxime
> Rodinson when asked if he
> still considered himself a Jew. For many of
> these Jews it is their
> identity as a threatened and victimized people
> that makes them Jews.
> "Hitler said I was a Jew, so I may as well be a
> Jew" is one response or
> "To be a Jew somehow denies all those who ever
> persecuted Jews a
> victory- so I'm a Jew". For these Jews, albeit
> estranged from Jewish
> religious and often community life as well,
> Emil Fackenheim's famous
> post-Holocaust 614th commandment (to add to the
> other 613): Thou shall
> survive! is an absolute imperative. But
> whatever the motive, this
> self-identity runs very deep indeed. Amongst
> these Jews, no matter how
> left or progressive they may be, one may
> criticise Israel to the nth
> degree, poke fun at the Jewish establishment
> and even shamefully
> denigrate Judaism as a religion, but depart one
> iota from the approved
> text on anti-Semitism and Jewish suffering, and
> you are in deep trouble.
> For these rational folk, Jewish suffering and
> anti-Semitism is every bit
> as inexplicable, mysterious and therefore,
> unchallengEable as for any
> religious Jew.
>
> Jewish secularism is often offered as evidence
> that there is no such
> thing as a Jewish identity gathered around any
> shared ideology. After
> all, if all Jews subscribe to the same basic
> ideology, then how come so
> many Jews so obviously don't? And if all Jews
> essentially support the
> same interests, how come so many Jews so
> obviously don't? But is it that
> obvious? Not only do secular Jews very often
> seem to subscribe to Jewish
> notions of specialness and victimhood, but
> also, in their attitudes to
> non-Jews in general, and Palestinians in
> particular, they are by no
> means all that different from religious Jews.
>
> It is often quoted how many Jews are in
> solidarity movements with
> Palestinians and how many of these are secular.
> And it's true: there are
> many Jews in sympathy with the Palestinians and
> the overwhelming
> majority are secular, and the main thrust of
> post-1967 virulent Zionism
> has come to be associated with the religious
> right. But this secular
> Jewish tradition, in fact, has been at the
> forefront of Zionism's
> assault on the Palestinians. It was secular
> Labour Zionists who created
> the Zionist ideology and the pre-state
> Jewish-only society. It was
> secular Zionists - good, humanistic, left-wing
> kibbutzniks - who
> directed and carried out the ethnic cleansing
> of 750,000 Palestinians,
> and the destruction of their towns and
> villages. It was secular Zionists
> who established the present state with all its
> discriminatory practices;
> and it was a largely secular Labour government
> that held the Palestinian
> citizens of Israel under military government in
> their own land for
> eighteen years. Finally, it was a secular,
> Labour government which
> conquered the West Bank and Gaza, and first
> built the settlements, and
> embarked on the Oslo peace process, coolly
> designed to deceive the
> Palestinians into surrendering their rights.
>
> And even those secular Jews who do support
> Palestinian rights, on so
> many occasions, the solidarity they offer is
> limited by self interest.
> That these people, at least as much as anyone
> else, act out of their
> highest motives may be true. Many have been
> lifelong activists for many
> causes and many find their activism springs,
> consciously or
> unconsciously, from what they see as the
> highest ideals of their
> Jewishness. But nonetheless for many of them,
> solidarity with
> Palestinians means above all, the protection of
> Jews. They call for a
> Palestinian state on 22 per cent of the
> Palestinian homeland, but only
> to keep and protect the 'Jewishness' of the
> Jewish state. The
> Palestinian state they call for would
> inevitably be weak, dominated by
> the Israeli economy and under the guns of the
> Israeli military - surely
> they must know what this would mean!
>
> At rally after rally, in speeches and on
> leaflets and banners, these
> Jews denounce the occupation: "Down with the
> occupation…down with the
> occupation…down with the occupation…" but
> not a word of the inherent
> injustice of a state for Jews only; perhaps a
> mention of the ill-gotten
> gains of 1948, but nothing of the right of
> return of the refugees, no
> restitution merely 'a just solution' taking
> account, of course, of
> Israel's 'demographic concerns'. "We are with
> you….we are with
> you….we are with you" they say "...but …"
> Whether it be condemnation
> of some form of Palestinian resistance of which
> they disapprove, or some
> real or perceived occurrence of anti-Semitism,
> for these Jews there is
> always a "but."
>
> They should take a leaf from Henry Herskovitz.
> He is part of an
> organisation called Jewish Witnesses for Peace,
> which holds silent
> vigils outside synagogues on shabbat. Of
> course, all the other Jewish
> activists are shrieking at him that you mustn't
> target Jews for protest,
> that you must draw a distinction between Jews,
> Israelis and Zionists,
> that you'll only alienate the people we want to
> engage.... but he
> doesn't care. He knows that support from the
> Jewish mainstream, as Tony
> Cliff the Trotskyite used to say, "….is like
> honey on your elbow - you
> can see it, you can smell it but you can never
> quite taste it!" Henry
> also knows that to say that Jews in America
> individually and in their
> religious and community organisations should
> not be held accountable for
> what is happening is a lie and discredits all
> Jews before the non-Jewish
> world.
>
>
> So these secular Jews often end up being just
> another round of Michael
> Neuman's "veritable shell game" of Jewish
> identity. "Look! We're a
> religion! No! a race! No! a cultural entity!
> Sorry--a religion!" Because
> this is the key to maintaining Jewish power -
> if it's indefinable, it's
> invisible. Like a stealth bomber (you can't see
> it on your radar but you
> sure know when you've been hit) Jewish power,
> with its blurred outlines
> and changing forms, becomes invisible. And if
> you can't see it you can't
> fight it. Meanwhile the assault on the
> Palestinians continues.
>
>
> "The Jews"
>
> The phrase is itself terrifying because of its
> past association with
> discrimination and violence against Jews, but
> Jews themselves have no
> problem with it. The notion of a Jewish People
> is at the centre of
> Jewish faith with Jews of all or no degrees of
> religious adherence over
> and over again affirming its existence. It is
> also at the heart of
> Zionism even in its most secular forms and is
> written into the
> foundational texts of the state of Israel. The
> concept even received
> international legal approval when the Jewish
> people were declared, by
> the West German state, to be the post-war
> residual heirs of intestate
> Jews. And yet it is an absolute article of
> faith for everyone, including
> those in the solidarity movement, that while we
> may criticize and
> confront Israel and Israelis, we may not
> criticize and confront the
> Jewish people and Jews. Unlike Israel and any
> other state, the Jewish
> People has no common policy and any attack on
> the Jewish people is,
> therefore, aimed at what they are and not at
> what they do.
>
> But is speaking of the Jews doing this or doing
> that any more or less
> acceptable than speaking of, say, the
> Americans? If the American
> military lays waste a third world country, it
> is done by order of the
> government (a small group) with the full
> support of the ruling elites
> (another small group), the tacit support of a
> substantial segment of the
> population (a larger group), the silent denial
> of probably the majority
> of the population (a very large group) and the
> opposition of a tiny
> minority (a small group). Is it all that
> different with Jews?
>
> It may be. Unlike the United States, 'the Jews'
> are not a legally
> constituted body and they do not have an
> obvious and defined common
> policy. 'The Jews' do not have an officially
> designated leadership, nor
> do they inhabit one area of land, nor do they
> speak a common language or
> even share a common culture. Theoretically at
> least there seem to be so
> many differences as to render any comparison
> untenable. In practice this
> may not be the whole story.
>
> It is true that 'the Jews' do not constitute a
> legally recognized body,
> but Zionism, with its claim to represent all
> Jews, has increasingly
> confused the issue. It is also true that the
> Zionists do not represent
> all Jews but they do represent the views of
> very many Jews indeed, and
> certainly the most powerful and influential
> Jews. And there is no doubt
> that the overwhelming majority of organized
> Jews are fully behind the
> Zionist project. That 'the Jews' do not have a
> formally designated
> leadership does not mean that they have no
> leadership - bodies again to
> which the overwhelming majority of organized
> Jews owe allegiance: the
> Israeli Government, the World Zionist
> Organization; numerous large and
> powerful Jewish organizations such as the
> Anti-Defamation League and The
> Conference of Presidents of Major American
> Jewish Organizations, The
> Simon Wiesenthal Centre; lesser bodies such as
> the Board of Deputies of
> British Jews and similar organizations in every
> country in which Jews
> reside. Then there is the extensive network of
> Jewish bodies often
> linked, through synagogues to the whole
> spectrum of mainstream Jewish
> religious and community life. All these bodies
> with their vast and
> interconnected network do provide leadership;
> they do have clearly
> defined policies and they are all four-square
> behind Zionism and Israel
> in its assault on the Palestinians.
>
> Does this constitute a definable Jewish
> collective engaged in advancing
> Jewish interests? Officially, perhaps not, but,
> effectively, when one
> notes the remarkable unanimity of intent of all
> these bodies, the answer
> may well be yes. They do not of course
> represent all Jews nor are all
> individual Jews responsible for their actions,
> but nonetheless 'the
> Jews' - organized, active and effective Jews -
> are as responsible for
> the pursuit of Jewish interests in Palestine
> and elsewhere as 'the
> Americans' in Vietnam, 'the French' in Algeria,
> and 'the British' in
> India.
>
> So why should our response be different? Why
> should 'the Jews' not be as
> accountable as 'the Americans' and even
> ordinary Jews as accountable as
> ordinary Americans? Why do we not picket the
> offices of the
> Anti-Defamation League or The Conference of
> Presidents or the offices or
> even the homes of Abe Foxman, Edgar Bronfman
> and Mort Zuckerman in the
> U.S. and Neville Nagler in the U.K.? Why do we
> not heckle Alan
> Dershowitz in the U.S. and Melanie Phillips in
> the U.K.? What about the
> U.K. Chief Rabbi who in his time has had lots
> to say about Israel and
> Palestine? Why do we not take the struggle to
> every synagogue and Jewish
> community centre in the world? After all, every
> Shabbat a prayer is said
> for the state of Israel in every mainstream
> synagogue in the land, most
> of which are focal points for Zionist
> propagandizing and fundraising, so
> why should these Jews who choose to combine
> their prayers and their
> politics be immune while at prayer from our
> legitimate protests at their
> politics? And for those few Jews who are really
> prepared to stand up and
> be counted for their solidarity with
> Palestinians, why can we not still
> give to them due honour and regard as we did to
> those few Americans who
> opposed American imperialism and those white
> South Africans who opposed
> apartheid?
>
> The answer is that we are frightened. Even
> knowing that Jews are
> responsible and should be held accountable,
> still we are frightened. We
> are frightened because criticism of Jews with
> its woeful history of
> violence and discrimination seems just too
> dangerous a position to take
> - it may open the flood-gates to a burst of Jew
> hatred. We are
> frightened that if we were to discuss the role
> of Jews in this conflict
> and in other areas and begin to hold Jews
> accountable, we might be
> labelled anti-Semites and lose support. And,
> perhaps most of all, we are
> frightened of the conflicted inner passions
> that confound us all
> whenever we come to look at these things.
>
> Does speaking the truth about Jewish identity,
> power and history lead to
> Jews being led to concentration camps and
> ovens? Of course it doesn't!
> It is hatred, fear and the suppression of free
> thought and speech which
> leads to these things - whether the hatred,
> fear and suppression is
> directed against Jews or by Jews. Anyway,
> despite efforts to convince us
> to the contrary, we do not live in the
> thirteenth century. Californians
> are unlikely to pour out of their cinemas
> showing Mel Gibson's 'Passion'
> chanting "Death to the Jews!" And, at a time
> when Jews in
> Israel/Palestine, overwhelmingly backed by
> Jewish organisations in the
> west, are desecrating churches and mosques
> wholesale and brutally
> oppressing entire Christian and Muslim
> populations, we may be forgiven
> for finding it hard to get excited about
> graffiti daubed on some
> synagogue somewhere.
>
> If we were to begin to engage with the role of
> Jews in this conflict, we
> may well be labelled anti-Semites and we may
> well, initially at least,
> lose support. The anti-Semite curse has long
> served as a frightener to
> silence all criticism of Jews, Israel and
> Zionism, and undoubtedly will
> be used to discredit our cause. But so what?
> They call us anti-Semites
> anyway so what's to lose? Edward Said spent a
> lifetime picking his way
> through the Israel/Zionism/Judaism minefield
> and never once criticised
> Jews, and he was called an anti-Semite his
> whole life, right up to and
> even after his death. As a movement we have
> probably spent as much time
> being nice to Jews as we have speaking up for
> Palestinians, and for
> what? Where has it got us? We are not racists
> and we are not
> anti-Semites, so let them do their worst. We
> shall speak our minds.
>
> For so long now Jews have told the world that
> black is white and not
> only that, but also if anyone should dare to
> deny that black is white
> they will be denounced as anti-Semites with all
> the attendant penalties.
> We are held in a moral and intellectual lock,
> the intention of which has
> been to silence all criticism of Israeli and
> Jewish power. In saying the
> unsayable we may set ourselves and others free.
> And think how it will
> feel the next time you are called an
> anti-Semite to say "Well, I don't
> know about that, but I do have some very strong
> but legitimate
> criticisms to make of Jews and the way they are
> behaving….and I intend
> to speak out"?
>
> And you never know; we may be pleasantly
> surprised. Israel Shamir, who
> has no trouble whatsoever in calling a Jew a
> Jew, was cheered
> spontaneously recently when he introduced
> himself from the floor at a
> London solidarity meeting. I saw it with my own
> eyes. His first
> English-language book has just been published;
> he corresponds freely and
> reciprocally with many highly respected figures
> and is on the boards of
> advisers of The Association for One Democratic
> State in Palestine and of
> Deir Yassin Remembered. Perhaps it's all just a
> case of the Emperor's
> new clothes. Perhaps we're all just waiting for
> some innocent child to
> blow the whistle.
>
> The situation facing the Palestinian people is
> truly terrible. Old
> political strategies have got us nowhere. We
> need a new and widened
> debate. It may be that a new and credible
> discourse which puts Jews and
> Jewishness at the critical centre of our
> discussions is part of that.
>
> And one final point: In a previous piece,
> paraphrasing Marc Ellis I
> wrote:
>
> "To the Christian and to the entire
> non-Jewish world, Jews say this:
> 'You will apologise for Jewish suffering again
> and again and again. And,
> when you have done apologising, you will then
> apologise some more. When
> you have apologised sufficiently we will
> forgive you ... provided that
> you let us do what we want in Palestine.'
>
> Shamir took me to task, "Eisen is too
> optimistic", he said, "Palestine
> is not the ultimate goal of the Jews…..the
> world is."
>
> Well, I don't know about that, but, if as now
> seems likely, the conquest
> of Palestine is complete and the state of
> Israel stretches from Tel-Aviv
> to the Jordan River, what can we expect? Will
> the Jews of Israel,
> supported by Jews outside of Israel, now obey
> the law, live peaceably
> behind their borders and enjoy the fruits of
> their victory, or will they
> want more?
> Who's next?
>
> Paul Eisen is a director of Deir Yassin
> Remembered
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
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