Gabe Ende – Letter to a Niece and Nephew Struggling for Israel on Campus
Letter to a Niece and Nephew Struggling for Israel on Campus: Is anti-Zionism always anti-Semitism?
- If the question is philosophical –as it was in certain Jewish circles before 1948 and to a lesser extent afterward—the answer is no. There were ultra-Orthodox groups ( Satmar, for instance) who contended that the premature recreation of a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael ( certainly a secular state) would be hateful in the eyes of God and significantly delay the arrival of the Messiah. And there were secular “diasporists”, who contended that Jewish statehood would have a harmful effect upon the moral and social character of Jewish life, which flourished essentially because as a minority we were capable of avoiding the lure of “nationalist interests and traditions”, thus enabling ourselves to adopt a critical moral perspective which advances universal human values instead of biased “national values”. A prominent exponent of this position was George Steiner (recently deceased) , who claimed that the establishment of a Jewish state would bring out the worst in us, “as is the case in the world at large”. But these are essentially philosophical positions. As a result, Steiner hurried to Israel after the Six-Day War to express his concern and support, explaining that his preference for a diaspora-centered Jewish world does not mean that he is insensitive to the feelings and needs—and the very real dangers and fears—of the millions of Jews living in the State. In a practical sense, therefore, it is possible to be supportive of Israel’s needs even if one is “anti-Zionist” philosophically.
- A similar phenomenon prevails in Israel among those who contend that Israel should no longer function as a “Democratic Jewish state” but merely as a democratic “State of All its Citizens”. There is a wide variety of positions among them but most ardently view themselves as Israeli patriots and serve in the army. Uri Avneiri was a prominent example. In this case, once again, “anti-Zionism” was clearly not anti-Semitism. The litmus test must always be empirical.
- At American universities, a much more radical form of “anti-Zionism” now prevails. An early expression of this new brand appeared in the “Palestinian National Charter”, adopted by the PLO in 1968. It called for the expulsion of all those Jews and their descendants who migrated here “after the Zionist invasion” (i.e. the Balfour Declaration of 1917 ) and the establishment of a “secular democratic state where Muslims, Christians, and Jews can live in peace and harmony”. Why is this anti-Semitic? Not only because it is predicated upon large-scale “ethnic cleansing” of Jews and the destruction of the Jewish state, but because it camouflages a very real threat to many Jewish lives ( those who might foolishly remain).
- The large-scale exodus of Palestinians during Israel’s War of Independence —often characterized as “ethnic cleansing” by critics—was the product of many factors, most particularly Arab aggression under the deadly serious banner of “throwing the Jews into the sea”. It is obvious to any honest observer that “repatriating” even a small portion of the millions of multi-generational Palestinians would result in a brutal, never-ending civil war. Once this non-solution is taken off the table, others can be considered. Only those infatuated by the flow of blood or seething with hatred of and indifference to Jewish—and, in fact, also Arab—lives continue to propagate this irresponsible demand. Unlike the jihadists, we have no death wish. And after seventy-five years, it’s time for the Palestinians and their supporters to think less dogmatically and more creatively.
- The same document categorically denies Jewish nationhood, a classic expression of anti-Semitism. When representatives of one people assume the arrogance to determine the legitimate identity of another people, they are dehumanizing them. I feel the same way, incidentally, about Jews who definitively declare that the Palestinians lack the characteristics of nationhood.
- Returning to the Palestinian narrative, we often encounter absurd claims such as “there was no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem” (Arafat), “the Jews have no national history in this land” or “the Jews never regarded themselves as a nation”. This denial of the Jewish heritage is blatantly dehumanizing, hence anti-Semitic. It dovetails with the denial of the Holocaust or its monstrous dimensions. The attempt to deny a people its heritage is symbolically an expression of a wish—even an intention– to destroy them.
- “From the river to the sea”… The Jews are 80% of the population of Israel. They are 50% ( or even slightly more) of the population “from the river to the sea” ( including Gaza). Should the territory fall completely in the hands of the Palestinians, Israel would naturally be destroyed. Would the forced disappearance of an Arab or Muslim state not be a racist endeavor? Is the denial of national sovereignty legitimate only in the case of the Jewish state? Is the denial of the democratic process as the basis for determining the character of statehood permitted only where there is a Jewish majority? The insistence on a two-state solution is perfectly legitimate. A one-state Palestinian “solution” is illegitimate, considering its violent—even genocidal—ramifications.
- The South African comparison also reeks of anti-Semitism. There are certainly expressions of inequality in ” Israel proper” (excluding the West Bank), as in many other countries, but does that justify the hideous term “apartheid”? Is it applied to the Islamic Republic of Iran as well, for instance? Do the Israeli Arabs suffer from greater discrimination and persecution than the other minorities in the Middle East? Or is the Opposite the Case?? At any rate, the whites in South Africa were a small minority. We are the overwhelming majority in the State of Israel. That is why they ultimately bowed to reality, while we insist that the world accept reality. And that is why many Israelis ( myself included), notwithstanding the tragically failed attempts to live alongside Palestinian control in the West Bank and Gaza, feel that we dare not annex the “territories”.
- The attempt to pin the accusation of “genocide” upon us is nothing short of ludicrous. There were about 600,000 Arabs in East Jerusalem and the West Bank before the Six-Day War. Now there are close to 3,000,000. The growth in the population of the Gaza Strip is similar. What sane observer would categorize this as “genocide”? Our bombing of Gaza in the current war is an unfortunate result of the bloody aggression of Hamas and its refusal to surrender or at least to return the hostages. No one wants to destroy the people of Gaza.
- But the radical progressives have never been moved by actual expressions of genocide. The Hutu “uprising” against the ( minority) Tutsi-dominated government in Rwanda several decades ago resulted in about 900,000 deaths by brutal slaughter in the course of a few weeks(!). Did the radical left go to the streets? Nada. Blacks were killing Blacks—Africans killing Africans– so what was the problem? The campaign of China against its Muslim Uighur minority is very much in the character of genocide, but the progressives don’t want to take on the Chinese. It’s apparently not sexy anymore. The decision of Assad’s regime in Syria—with Russian support—to force millions of Sunni Muslims to leave the state in order to strengthen the Shi’ite-Alawite minority regime by means of all-out bombing didn’t cause a single Progressive eyelash to blink, even though it was a classic example of ethnic cleansing and mass murder. But that was Arab against Arab, Muslim against Muslim… And what about the atrocities committed—and renewed again and again—in the Darfour region of Sudan? But that is Muslim Black African against Muslim Black African… The radical progressives are running a marathon of hypocrisy.
- Any movement or ideology that simplistically divides humanity into oppressors /colonialists and oppressed /indigenous, ignoring all other factors and all other atrocities cannot claim to speak for human values.
- 12. It is also the height of chutzpah for them to seek to impose their selective, hermetically sealed categories upon the complex nature of reality. Zionism was essentially a movement of European Jews that sought the support of world powers to migrate and establish “Jewish colonies” in the Land of Israel in order to secure a future free of persecution in their historic homeland. It was thus not at all similar to the migration of Europeans at the behest of their governments to lands in Asia and Africa in order to establish and strengthen colonial outposts geared to promote the interests of the mother country. Is the difference so difficult to comprehend? It’s like claiming that red and blue are identical because they’re both colors.
- The same mentality led the radical left to embrace Pol Pot of Cambodia as an “anti-imperialist hero” after the War in Vietnam and pay no attention to his genocidal policies, which caused millions of Cambodian deaths – because after all, “he’s an anti-Imperialist “. This is the same mentality that lead them to ignore the sexual crimes committed against Israeli women by Hamasniks on October 7–because their convoluted value system doesn’t consider the rape of Jewish women by Palestinians as rape. Or the murder of Jewish babies in their beds as murder. Or the existence of a Jewish-Israeli nation as a bona fide nation. The reality for them isn’t reality. Morality isn’t morality. Truth for them is simply a function of ideology, however off the wall.
- And one additional flagrant flaw: They refuse to acknowledge that there can sometimes be justice among both parties involved in a conflict. When a couple gets divorced, no one contends ( except for their attorneys) that one of them is invariably just and the other evil incarnate. Such a reality is generally the case in conflicts among nations. The Greeks and Turks were at one another’s necks for centuries. Does this mean that we have to assign absolute justice to one side and demand that the other be destroyed? Is this what should be done in the ongoing struggle between the Armenians and the Azars? So what kind of moral perversion leads the progressive radicals to categorically insist that such a polarized reality exists in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? They have adopted the mindset of intellectual pinheads, despite their considerable scholarship and intelligence.
- And not only is reality complex. Believe it or not, It also changes over time. There was no self-conscious “Palestinian people” before the twentieth century. Does that mean that the current “Palestinian people” is an artificial entity– deserving of being ignored, as some right-wing Israeli groups propose? Or is this dehumanizing category of groups incapable of developing into “legitimate nation-states” reserved only for Israelis? Some day in the future the grandchildren of these “progressives” will wonder: How could our grandparents have been so full of shit? So full of malice? Such prostitutes of murderous jihadists?
- It is important that we not allow these proponents of ” The Big Lie” Technique ( incredibly loyal to the mandate of Goebbels: If you want to implant a lie, make it Big and repeat it again and again…) — who contend that they represent the forces of morality and have become the trend-setters on campus — to cause us to doubt the legitimacy of what we know to be right. Their ideological precursors in the last century were the intellectuals of the radical left of the 1930s who convinced themselves that Stalin, a totalitarian dictator, and murderer of millions upon millions, was “the Sun of the Nations”, the moral compass of the future. So nothing is new in Denmark… George Orwell’s excellent anthology,” The God that Failed”, contains recantations of some of Stalin’s most prominent groupies in the West.
- Until such an awakening occurs among the radical progressives, we’re wasting our time and energy ( including a good deal of psychic energy) trying to convince them to reconsider their dehumanizing position toward us. I suggest, therefore, turning inward to draw strength and empowerment from our own people, as well as non-Jewish friends outside these circles of fanatical Israel-haters.
- So the big enemies of Israel are not always blatant anti-Semites—but this makes them no less sinister or morally and intellectually corrupt. imperialist hero. pay no attention to the genocidal policies that caused millions of deaths among
