Dreams Thoughts Activism

It takes TWO to tango

Like it takes TWO to tango, peace requires all parties involved to talk and negotiate in order to have security. Creating peace unliaterally gives no space for security to exist.

Oren Ben-Dor: Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East? What exactly is being defended? Is it the citizens of Israel or the natureof the Israeli state?

Published: 26 July 2006

As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for itsself-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks onIsraeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this dutyshould be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a statewhich, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest thelatter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by eithera religious or ethnic test.

To hide this primordial immorality, Israelfosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of thevictim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terroriststate like no other.Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talkingabout a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitlyendorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part ofPalestine which became Israel.

This action was carefully planned. Withoutit, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion,have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internallydisplaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not besufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid thedestabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among IsraeliJews.

To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood amongoutsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them:the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace"is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality.Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial andcontinuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter nooption but to resort to violent resistance.

In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given uptheir cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank weresubjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence. The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured achronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasemrockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza.

What we witness is more hatred, more violence fromPalestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis -all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine byethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needsterror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidonwhich preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings notsecurity but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.

Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides theroot of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silenceits voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak. In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression orshock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.

posted by J. @ 10:22 AM