Gabe Ende – It’s All Greek to Me
I was recently in the Greek island of Kos, where my attention was captured by a solitary monument that appeared from ten feet or so like an identical facsimile of a well-known sculpture in Yad Vashem. Upon approaching and reading the accompanying explanation, I realized that it was indeed a holocaust memorial—but of one preceding the Shoah by approximately twenty years: the “genocide”—the term used in the explanation– of the 353,000 Greeks from Pontus slaughtered by the Ottoman Turks in 1922.
I was well aware of the monstrous magnitude of the massacres accompanying the struggle of the Greeks after World War I– but standing before the monument proved to be an unexpectedly poignant moment for me.
The same Greece is currently home to a large and vociferous “anti-Zionist” crowd that follows groups of Israeli tourists around to scream expletives from afar, the result of an apparent arrangement with local police. They have even learned to correctly accentuate some Hebrew expressions.
But they haven’t learned much from their people’s history…
They probably are aware of the “colonial settler” character of Muslim Turk imperialism. I assume that they are knowledgeable about the Armenian Holocaust. Has any of them, however, pondered the similarity between the obstinate refusal of the Turks to permit minorities in their far-flung empire to gain independence and the slogan of “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea”? The Ottoman ideology of “one homeland for all” is no different in essence from the doctrinaire character of “the river to the sea” slogan chimed by Hamas and its demagogically inebriated “progressive” supporters. Both positions ignore basic moral and practical realities, which no honest and moral thinker dares set aside.
This critique applies to much of the Israeli right as well. Yes, attempts to implement elements of the two-state solution in the past have failed—but the one-state position is no less than a springboard to hell. The two-state solution is thus unacceptable as an immediate goal but must be an integral part of any long-term vision. There is no alternative, unless we want to fight incessantly with diminishing international support and domestic cohesion, while saddled by a reality of apartheid and repression and their inevitable cancerous effects.
So what do we do in the interim? Zahal must remain strong and vigilant, but there must be an end to annexationist land-grabs, either by violent Judaeo-fascist militias or arbitrary government decisions.
Similarly, those abroad critical of the Israeli government should have the intellectual honesty and moral integrity to rid themselves of the seemingly innocuous “river to the sea” slogan. This would not only constitute an act furthering the cause of peace and justice. It would also offer much-needed moral support to rational, genuinely moderate forces among both Israelis and Palestinians.
And in the case of the Greek radicals, it would indicate that they have finally developed an honest appreciation of the implications of their people’s historic experience.
