Waltz With Bashir Animator Takes On Gaza

Via JVoices:

(Cross-posted on Alas, A Blog.)

What is Anti-Semitic

1. Saying the state of Israel should be dissolved. Unless you’re a) saying the same thing about every nation-state created by violence, and b) sharing your bright idea for what to do with Israelis.

2. Referring to Jewish people as “The Jew.” If you can’t see why collapsing us all into one giant pulsating brain is dehumanizing, try it with your own group. The Woman calls for equal rights, but does not seem to be interested in equal responsibility. The American lacks the intellectual rigor to understand or challenge his privilege in the global economy. The Academic will never admit that his “work” is irrelevant to real people. Wow, see how laughably inaccurate these statements become? See how many real people they erase?

Of course, if you’re doing both of these things at once, you’re probably not desperate to keep your dislike of Jews a secret, so why am I even bothering?

Q: What happens when a Jewish blogger doesn’t read Ha’aretz every day?

A: It takes her over a week to see this story:

A recent survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League found that anti-Semitic attitudes in seven European countries have worsened due to the global financial crisis and Israel’s military actions against the Palestinians.

Some 31 percent of adults polled blame Jews in the financial industry for the economic meltdown, while 58 percent of respondents admitted that their opinion of Jews has worsened due to their criticism of Israel.

The ADL, a Jewish-American organization polled 3,500 adults – 500 each in Austria, France, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom – between December 1, 2008 and January 13, 2009.

According to the survey, 40 percent of polled Europeans believe that Jews have an over-abundance of power in the business world. More than half of the respondents in Hungary, Spain and Poland agreed with this statement. These numbers were 7 percent higher in Hungary, 6 percent higher in Poland and 5 percent higher in France than those recorded in the ADL’s 2007 survey.

How much can we trust a survey put out by the ADL? Is this organization at all interested in documenting and challenging anti-Semitism? How much has it dissolved into a right-wing propaganda machine?

Because if almost a third of non-Jewish Europeans believe that Jews are controlling the world’s money, I’d kind of like to know that. But the ADL has rendered itself so irrelevant to actual Jewish concerns that I simply don’t know what to do with this information. What questions were on their survey? Whom exactly did they poll? What do they plan on doing with the results?

I do think Moshe Kantor has a point, though: the rise in anti-Semitism almost certainly has more to do with the financial situation than with the attack on Gaza. Most people in countries with significant Jewish populations don’t actually care about what happens in Palestine. (If they did, they’d spend more time trying to end the occupation and less time vandalizing synagogues.) It’s just easier to set up a binary – They Are Nothing Like Us! – when you point to the Jews with the guns.

“What is bad for the Jews is better for Zionism.”

This review originally appeared at Feministe. It’s taken me forever to haul it over here, as usual.

The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes by Avraham Burg
(Palgrave Macmillan)

When liberals and radicals discuss the occupation of Palestine, two soundbites tend to emerge: “How can Jews persecute Arabs when they themselves were persecuted? They know better!” and “It’s like when an abused child grows up to abuse their own children. It’s just something that happens.” There are elements of truth to both assertions, but each one shaves off so much of the complexity behind Israeli aggression that neither one is very useful in understanding how to end it. Auschwitz survivor Ruth Kluger, in her memoir Still Alive, addresses the idea that “Jews should know better” in a scene where she takes a group of university students to task for comparing Israel to the Nazis. “Auschwitz was no instructional institution,” she scolds them. “You learned nothing there, and least of all humanity and tolerance.” And it’s true. When you experience violence, you learn violence. The idea that genocide turns people into enlightened beings is preposterous.

However, the opposite assertion – that Israel is like an abused child – can be shallow and insulting. A human being operates on emotion and impulse just as much as logic and rationality; we forgive individuals for acting without thinking. A government, on the other hand, must be held to a higher standard. To say that Israel is just an abuser and that’s all there is to it is to give up on Israel’s capacity for good, and to give up on that is to dismiss the possibility of a Palestinian state and peace in the region.

Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset, doesn’t flinch from the complex web of trauma, pride, anger, sadness, and paranoia that has led Israeli citizens to condone the slaughter of Palestinians. The Holocaust is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes doesn’t address the manipulation of Holocaust remembrance by Israeli and American politicians, the Christian Zionist movement, global anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim sentiment, or the other external factors that fuel Israel’s various military endeavors; instead, his half-memoir, half-polemic dissects the psychology behind Israel’s preference for violence over diplomacy, and makes the case for why Israel cannot achieve peace and stability until it stops seeing every threat as a potential Shoah.

Yes, Hugo Chavez is Scapegoating Jews

A lot of people are quick to excuse Hugo Chavez’s stance on the widespread attacks on Jewish Venezuelans – his citizens may be writing “Jews get out” on synagogues, but he’s just protesting Israel’s attack on Gaza, and that’s kosher. Leaving aside the question of whether he would have expelled Israel’s ambassador if said ambassador wasn’t representing a Jewish country (I support the action in the abstract, but you can’t tell me that there’s no chance anti-Semitism played a role in it), I think it’s fair to ask why, if his beef is with Israelis and not Venezuelan Jews, he’s been so curiously lenient on all the attackers.

Anna sent me the Washington Post’s very salient take on it:

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chávez, who says he intends to remain in office for decades to come, lost a referendum 14 months ago that would have removed the constitutional limit on his tenure. When he announced another referendum in December, the first polls showed him losing again by a wide margin. Yet, as Sunday’s vote approaches, his government is predicting victory — and some polls show him with a narrow advantage.

How did Latin America’s self-styled “Bolivarian revolutionary” turn his fortunes around? Not through rational argument, it is fair to say…. [T]here is the assault on Venezuela’s Jewish community — which seems to have replaced George W. Bush as Mr. Chávez’s favorite foil. After Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip last month, the caudillo expelled Israel’s ambassador and described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide.” Then Mr. Chávez turned on Venezuela’s Jews. “Let’s hope that the Venezuelan Jewish community will declare itself against this barbarity,” Mr. Chávez bellowed on a government-controlled television channel. “Don’t Jews repudiate the Holocaust? And this is precisely what we’re witnessing.”

Government media quickly took up the chorus. One television host close to Mr. Chávez blamed opposition demonstrations on two students he said had Jewish last names. On a pro-government Web site, another commentator demanded that citizens “publicly challenge every Jew that you find in the street, shopping center or park” and called for a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses, seizures of Jewish-owned property and a demonstration at Caracas’s largest synagogue.

Emphasis mine.

Hold the phone – a government official is using hatred of Jews to distract people from other, more pressing problems? Gee, we’ve never seen that before.

I’m sure I don’t need to explain why the quote in bold is offensive, but just in case you’re new at this: demanding that each and every Jew in a country make some sort of public statement condemning the actions of a far-off government that most likely doesn’t represent them, in a country that they may not even have any emotional or familial ties to, is just an updated version of the loyalty oaths that Jews have been forced to take throughout history. Notice that he’s not willing to give Jews the benefit of the doubt here? How, if he comes across a Jew, his assumption will be that the Jew supports the attack on Gaza until that Jew says otherwise? Hey, sort of reminds me how non-Arab, non-Muslim Americans assume that every Muslim or Arab we meet is a terrorist – and how, no matter how far that Muslim or Arab goes to prove otherwise, the suspicion never really goes away. See why this isn’t okay?

Also, what if a Jewish person does support the attack? What if he or she is ambivalent? Does he or she deserve to be harassed and attacked?

I could go on – there are plenty of tropes in Chavez’s actions and remarks that are worth unpacking. I think the writer of the editorial is exactly right; he’s using his country’s Jewish population as a smokescreen for issues that actually, you know, affect them. If he cares about Gaza so much, then what is he doing to help Gazans?

See also Brown Shoes’s post on the situation.

A Very Momentous Day

As I post this, Israelis are heading to the polls to elect the eighteenth Knesset and a new prime minister. This is going to be big, folks. A lot is riding on this election – possibly the very future of the state of Israel. Will the country continue to slide into a morass of bigotry, violence, and religious radicalism, or will it abruptly switch directions and start making real change? The race will be tight, and you can be assured that the entire world is watching.

Oh, wait… No, sorry, I was thinking about Obama again.

Ahem. Okay, we all know that with regards to the occupation, the election in Israel is virtually meaningless. Flip a coin, consult the zodiac, blindfold yourself and throw a dart at a photo – it’s all going to have the same result. If change comes to Israel, it’s not going to be instigated by a politician (or, at least, a politician with something to lose). Not this election. As an American, I find it strange to watch an election in which the major parties aren’t bitter enemies – but even compensating for that, I think Israel’s election is pretty astonishingly one-sided.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that things are hopeless.

A few weeks ago, Jewschool posted this clip from the Israeli version of Saturday Night Live:

Each culture has its own sense of humor, so I’ll confess that the sketch didn’t exactly have me in stitches – although I did love the part where they ask, “What do we want?” and, after faltering for a second, just start dancing again. (A cliched joke, you say? More like tried and true!) The sentiment is similar to Jon Stewart’s Strip Maul segment: the more Israel tries to shove its victim narrative down the throats of Diaspora Jews and its own citizens, the more ridiculous that narrative becomes. The forced silence of Palestinian voices becomes louder and louder. The seam in the mobius strip starts to show.

The very same day I saw that video, I blogged about this protest in Tel Aviv. There were 1,000 Israelis in attendance, which seems pathetically small until you remember what a tiny country Israel is; the percentage of the population that managed to make it out onto the streets is actually on par with the number of Americans at many of the Iraq war protests in 2002 and 2003, and we weren’t dealing with the same level of protest fatigue. It’s hard to tell way over here in California – and the situations are different enough that I realize playing with numbers is a bit facile – but one can hope that the peace movement in Israel is about as lively as it was in the US a few years ago.

Here, we didn’t elect a liberal president immediately – in fact, we took our sweet time about it, rejecting a certain charisma-lacking Vietnam vet despite mounting dissatisfaction with our foreign policy. But our desensitization to our government’s propaganda, though gradual, did finally reach a crisis point. Could it be that Israel is slowly starting to swing in the same direction? A year ago, I thought Guantanamo would never close; now our president has issued the order to shut it down within a year. After over a decade, health care reform is back on the table (I hope Ezra Klein is right when he says that Ted Kennedy and Max Baucus’s letter may be an even bigger event than Daschle’s withdrawal), and we may finally begin to question the “War on Terror.” Shockingly enough, change is possible.

It’s true that the occupation has been going on for a few decades longer than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and that Israel has already seen too many peace movements flounder or fizzle out. The inertia (not to mention the rocket attacks and the incentives to continue settlement expansion in the West Bank) is extremely difficult to overcome. But the support is there. And if American Jews put pressure on our own president (click the Hope button to the right for a handy petition!), maybe we can help make that change happen.

Quick Links: Fun With Yiddish and Ways to Help Gaza

People familiar with Leo Rosten’s Joys of Yiddish will recognize this illustration of the ways that Yiddish’s emphasis on tone and inflection to express meaning has influenced English:

Even the English question “I should buy two tickets for her concert?” can take on seven meanings depending on where the emphasis is placed — a common thing among Yiddish speakers:

– I should buy two tickets for her concert? — “After what she did to me? And nu, her mother should return some of my calls now and then?”
– I should buy two tickets for her concert? — “What, you’re giving me a lesson in ethics? And who are you that you should think you know?”
– I should buy two tickets for her concert? — “I wouldn’t go even if she was giving out free passes — or if she paid me!”
– I should buy two tickets for her concert? — “I’m having enough trouble deciding if it’s even worth one – and you barely even call since your father died, nu, all the sudden you have time to see a concert with me?”
– I should buy two tickets for her concert? — “She should be giving out free passes, or the hall will be empty, what with that tone-deaf mother of hers, she can be no better.”
– I should buy two tickets for her concert? — “Did she buy tickets at our daughter’s recital? What, all the sudden she expects me to do for her? Hrmph!”
– I should buy two tickets for her concert? — “You mean, they call what she does a ‘concert’? This is an art form?”

The exercise falls prey to a few different stereotypes, but it’s fun nonetheless.

Also, I should have posted this days ago, but Laila El-Haddad has posted ways that you can help Gaza. Here’s a heavily abridged version so you can get the gist (visit her blog for a wealth of links):

1. Get informed. Sounds easy enough, but a large number of people I have met whose gut instinct is to sympathize with the Palestinians cause are surprisingly uninformed about the issue, or the history. Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est. And oh so true. Being informed will enable you to speak intelligently about the topic-whether to your family, to your friends, to your co-workers, or to your politicians….

2. Wear a Palestine pin, t-shirt, or arm-band-great conversation starters and ways to show your support. You can purchase a number of creative shirts online in the Palestine online store or Cafe Press.

3. Contact local media. Write letters to editors (usually 100-150 words) and longer op-eds (usually 600-800 words) for local newspapers. But also write to news departments in both print, audio, and visual media about their coverage. In the US http://tinyurl.com/2jxwf You can find media listings in your country using search engines like google.

4. BDS!! Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. Now more than ever the BDS campaign must be used and intensified against Israel to end its impunity and to hold it accountable for its persistent violation of international law and Palestinian rights. Remember: It was only when Apartheid was abnormalized that the anti-Apartheid movement gained momentum.

Thus, our efforts must focus on abnormalizing Israel’s illegal occupation and its tactics. Begin work to encourage your local institutions to divest from Israel….

5. Contact elected and other political leaders in your country to urge them to apply pressure to end the attacks. In the US, Contact the State Department at 202.647.5291, the White House 202-456-1111 the Egyptian Embassy 202.895.5400,

6. Work towards bringing Israeli leaders before war crime courts (actions along those lines in courts have stopped Israeli leaders from traveling abroad to some countries like Britain where they may face charges).

7. Join local groups in your area active on the issue. Many-such as those here in Durham- have also been successful in at bringing coalitions from different constituencies in their local areas to work together (human rights group, social and civil activists, religious activists, etc) and most are made of ordinary people who also have other lives to live and so welcome any input and activism….

8. Visit Palestine! Two great groups that facilitate such trips are the Alternative Tourism Group, whose guide I helped write, and the Siraj Center.

If you cannot visit, support human rights and other groups working on the ground in Palestine, such as the Free Gaza Movement (which accepts tax-exempt donations).

9. Contact your local churches, mosques, synagogues, and other houses of worship or institutions and ask them to take a moral stand and act.

10. Support Palestinian farmers and workers by buying gifts and produce directly from the West Bank and Gaza…..

11. If you prefer, donate your money to a charity, or hold a creative bake sale (manaeesh anyone?)…..

I’ve written before about my feelings on Israel-wide boycotts (as opposed to, I should point out, occupied West Bank boycotts), but I think “abnormalizing” the occupation is spot-on. Bandwagons are unfortunately all too popular, and as long as the bandwagon supports Israel unconditionally, we’re not going to see any improvement. If criticism of Israel become more mainstream, however, I think it would increase exponentially as people either realized that it’s “okay” to deviate from accepted narratives or just went along with what people around them thought. (This does, of course, open up the floodgates for anti-Semitism, but that’s a whole different problem.)

By the way, like my shiny new button in the right sidebar there? Click it and sign JVP’s letter to Obama! They have the design on T shirts, too!

The Israeli Settlement Database, via Ha’aretz

Jewschool brings us this news article from Ha’aretz, where they find themselves with the complete database of settlement construction from the Israeli government. The link to the article can be found here.

As pointed out in Jewschool, these findings directly contradict the Israeli’s government claiming it does not requisition private lands for the purpose of building settlements – many of those settlements were built on private land seized for “military purposes” and this allegedly includes Talmudei Torah (religious schools).

The bottom line here, basically, is that this will lend major legitimacy to legal claims against settlement building, which really seems to be the only avenue through which these illegal settlements will be shut down since the government has not shown any willingness to do so, aside from in Gaza.

Why I’ve Stopped Talking About Gaza

Short answer: because I can’t think of anything to say.

A few days ago, I came across this video on Jewschool:

There’s a midrash on the Jacob story that Avraham Burg mentions in his new book. According to the story, Jacob was “anxious and distressed” as he went to fight his brother Esau. He was anxious, the Talmud explains, because he knew he might die – but he was distressed because he knew he might kill.

Even if the attack on Gaza were 100% justified – even if there was absolutely no other action Israel could have taken – don’t these people care about how un-Jewish it is to celebrate killing people? Even if you believe this had to be done, what about it makes you want to dance a horah? Even if you believe that every single Palestinian who has died deserved to die, why would the task of ending someone’s life make you happy?

I meant to write about that video days ago, but I was distracted by the slew of anti-Semitic comments on, ironically, two parts of an essay about anti-Semitism. If we can wrap our heads around the idea that one can do something racist without hating POC, then surely we can fathom that, say, denying the existence of Gentile privilege is anti-Semitic even if some of one’s best friends are Jewish. I want Gaza to be centered in anti-racist, anti-capitalist work right now simply because at the moment, their situation is one of the most desperate and time-sensitive. But I can’t stand it when non-Arab, non-Jewish Americans shriek that even mentioning global violence against Jews is somehow hurting Gazans, and then develop a fucking martyr complex when a Jew angrily points out that decrying Jewish liberation work is anti-Semitic. (I also can’t stand it when the rhetoric in a “discussion” becomes so angry and inflammatory that anti-Zionist Jews are accused of being self-hating and are basically forced to leave. Fuck. That. Shit.)

If you seriously can’t believe that we can work on dismantling anti-Semitism without advocating the deaths of Palestinians, then I doubt I can work with you. If you’re itching to leave a comment along the lines of, “Jewish liberation?! That means ZIONISM,* right!? You must be a Zionist, right!? Because only Zionists care about Jewish liberation!!” then for God’s sake, read a book or two before you accuse me of being a racist anti-Palestine warmongerer because I don’t like it when flaming cars are driven into synogogues.

(On the anti-Semitic attacks in Europe – you wouldn’t believe the number of people I’ve seen saying, “Well, those Israelis have to learn somehow.” If you can’t figure out the distinction between a European Jew and an Israeli, and if you can’t figure out that violence against any ol’ Jewish person probably isn’t stemming from a sincere desire to help Palestinians, then I say it again: I doubt I can work with you.)

I think Mandolin’s post is right on.

I saw Waltz With Bashir the other night. I’d planned on writing a very nice, eloquent review of it, but really it would have all boiled down to this: it helped me stay human. Please see this movie and stay human. Now if only Palestinian filmmakers could enjoy international exposure.

By the way, how do I personally feel about Zionism? Do I identify as a Zionist, an anti-Zionist, a non-Zionist, or a post-Zionist? I honestly don’t know. If we accept that Zionism has come to mean a Jewish state in Palestine, then I’m an anti-Zionist. If we were to consider a Zionism that meant a Jewish state anywhere, then, depending on how much violence or alienation I was personally experiencing, I would be either a Zionist or a non-Zionist (someone who supports a Jewish state but doesn’t plan on moving there). But I feel like the whole question of whether there should be a Jewish state is moot; the fact is, there is one, and it’s not going anywhere. So does that make me a post-Zionist? Not quite; that term means something slightly different. What about the question of keeping Israel Jewish? What will happen when/if Arab births outnumber Jewish births, and the ratio begins to change? More ethnic cleansing is unacceptable (even having to write that seems to diminish its truth) – but if Israelis let their national character change, do they risk violence against Jews? Why is addressing root causes always out of the question?

Why do I feel like any time I write something that’s not explicitly condemning the actions of Jews, readers are combing over my sentences, looking for anti-Palestinian oppression? Why can’t anyone accept that it’s harmful when so many liberal and radical Jews feel like our Jewish identities have to revolve around feeling ashamed of Israel? I’ve literally seen people – Jews! – claiming that Zionism is the sum total of Jewish identity. That doesn’t make any fucking sense! Maybe sometimes I want to read my great-grandmother’s letters or take my Yiddish classes without thinking about Israel!

I wanted this post to be about Gaza, but the truth is, I don’t know anything about Gaza. I’m sitting here in California with palm trees swaying outside my spacious apartment and I have no fucking clue.

I think I’m going to start using this blog, in part, to rediscover and examine Yiddish culture. Partly it’s because I suck at timely commentary. Partly it’s because a Youtube search reveals a wealth of Yiddish theater, music, and dance. Partly it’s because the introspective styles of writers like BFP, Joan Kelly, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, and Little Light have taught me more about activist work than even the best political commentary. Maybe, by developing a firmer idea of where I came from, I can stop defining myself against the people celebrating the deaths of Gazans. Maybe if we remember how vibrant Jewish cultures can be, we can funnel our energy into art and writing and dance instead of wars. Maybe we can do the same for American cultures, maybe even for white cultures. Please, please, please, someone tell me you’re with me on this.

(Cross-posted at Alas, A Blog.)

__
* I’m not even getting into the problem with the “Zionism=murderous bloodthirsty racism” mentality… maybe in another post. I know I can’t hope for people to just look it up themselves, or ever believe that early twentieth century European Jews could possibly have sensible reasons for wanting a state. I know it’s too troublesome and complicated to accept that, while the decision to “buy” Palestinian land was obviously racist and unjust, the desire to escape violence by forming autonomous territory was understandable.

Boycotting Jews Does Not Help Gazans.

From Ha’aretz (the article seems to be missing the first few paragraphs):

Jewish group in Italy slams boycott initiative of Jewish-owned shops
By The Associated Press

Mayor Gianni Alemanno for condemning the boycott. Alemanno, a right-wing politician, had gone shopping on Thursday in a Jewish-owned clothing store to show his opposition to the boycott.

Politicians and mainstream unions also condemned the boycott announced by the FLAICA-CUB group, which claims to represent thousands of workers in shops and malls.

While praising the mayor’s strong reaction, Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Paris wrote in a letter to Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi saying the union should be prosecuted for inciting racism, intimidation and other crimes.

“A campaign to boycott Italian Jews would be a clear repetition of Benito Mussolini’s measures,” wrote Samuels, referring to the anti-Semitic laws passed in 1938 during the fascist leader’s regime.

Rome’s Jewish Community has also said it would take legal action. Italy has laws banning discrimination.

The ANSA news agency reported police on Friday seized banners hung up in the north of Rome that contained insults against Jewish leaders and called Alemanno a Zionist executioner.

On Thursday the FLAICA-CUB union called in a statement for a boycott of businesses linked to the Roman Jewish Community. It suggested shoppers should focus the protest on clothing stores, many of which are traditionally owned by members of the capital’s small Jewish community.

Since Israel began its offensive in December, anti-Semitic acts have increased across Europe and attacks have been reported against Jews and synagogues in France, Sweden and Britain.

First off, why are our supporters always right-wingers? Is the Left really so afraid of complexity?

Anyway, the operative word here is Jews. Italians aren’t boycotting Israeli products (which itself is a form of collective punishment), they’re boycotting Jewish-owned businesses. As in: “Hey, those people in another country are doing something shitty! They belong to your ethnic group – which has a reputation for being evil! Therefore, you must be personally responsible!”

How does punishing some random person who happens to live near you help Gazans? How does it bring us closer to a viable Palestinian state?

And what makes you think that fostering hostility towards Jews won’t heighten support for Israel? Remember what happened when the US and Israel tried to make Gazans feel ashamed of being Gazan?