March 12, 2010
Israeli settlers celebrate slaughter of 29 Palestinians
Andrew Sullivan in The Daily Dish:
Having forcibly evicted Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem, the new inhabitants sing songs in praise of the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein. And you really think the decision to make the site of that massacre a national heritage site for Israel had nothing to do with this association? Maybe AIPAC will wake up one of these days and see the reality that less informed and educated observers cannot miss:
No, this is not representative of all Israeli opinion, as massive Israeli demonstrations against this latest provocation reveal, and as another brilliant column by Bradley Burston demonstrates. But open your eyes. Something is happening in the soul of Israel. And it carries great foreboding for peace ... for the West, and above all, for Israel.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 04:14 AM | Permalink
Comments
It's terrible. Monstrous immorality on proud display and Andrew Sullivan, he of the "Bell Curve" and the "fifth column" of all people, getting to point it out.
Posted by: Hektor Bim | Mar 12, 2010 3:29:38 PM
These crazy fanatics do not represent "the soul of Israel" anymore than David Duke represents the soul of America.
Posted by: Luke Lea | Mar 12, 2010 7:38:42 PM
Luke, if David Duke and his followers have even a tenth of the influence on the U.S. government that the settlers have on the Israeli government, then you might have had a point.
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Mar 13, 2010 6:37:18 AM
Not just their own government. The Israeli settlers and their proxies in the US have far more influence on the "American" government than David Duke can ever hope to have.
Posted by: Ruchira | Mar 13, 2010 10:11:49 AM
In the late 1990s, Geraldine Brooks wrote _Nine Parts of Desire_, a marvelous book about the lives of Muslim women who had become her friends during her decade covering the Middle East for the WSJ.
About the crackdown on women that was evident even then in the more conservative Muslim countries, Brooks had a bit to say that related to whether this trend was the "real" Islam at work. (Or, what?) I'm paraphrasing her but I recall she said the real Islam was whatever the majority of Muslims at any given time subscribed to, so that you couldn't actually say a rising trend was against the spirit of the real Islam if enough living Muslims were either driving the trend or acceding to it.
You might analogize defining "the soul of Israel" to this way determining what "the real Islam" is. Just as there is a battle within Islam between progressive and regressive forces, so there is a battle inside world Jewry, within Israel itself, about which direction to take. Thus the soul of Israel will be found -- no, built and rebuilt -- not by a wistful vision of the wisdom of Hillel, for instance, but by the number of Israelis who accede to a government they may privately wish were not in power, but do not bring down.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 13, 2010 11:51:58 AM
Elatia-
Lets not confuse political influence, which the settler movement has plenty of, and the common views of Israelis. Casual support for killing Palestinians within the general public, and the automatic assumption of justification, does not by and large extend beyond IDF (and Mossad) actions. The average Israeli in no way endorses non-state sponsored terrorism.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 13, 2010 12:17:53 PM
Absolutely Cyrus. But I did not endorse American torture of any kind during the Bush Years -- not the kind you know the government goes in for, not the kind it looks the other way at but lets happen. And yet. I am uncomfortable that I did not do more to bring Bush down; it was a fork in the road for every American, whether to make a massive push to to end that regime as early as possible. So I see how it is that enlightened Muslims in conservative countries, who do not wish FGM, illiteracy and innumeracy on their daughters, and Israelis who have strong feelings about the human rights of Palestinians ceasing to be violated, and Americans who voted, signed petitions, volunteered some, and gave money to be rid of Bush MAY not be doing enough, if the soul of what they stand for is at issue.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Mar 13, 2010 12:34:27 PM
Elatia, I agree more or less with your larger point. But a majority of Americans now support torture, whereas majority of Israli's do not support the random killing of Palestinians. That was my only point: the polling data shows that this most extreme position is not supported. I think you'll find plenty inbetween the lines in my first post as to what is supported.
Anyway, I'm not sure the soul of Israel has been missing this last decade. I'm just not sure we've wanted to acknowledge it.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 13, 2010 1:30:31 PM
Cyrus-
As a member of a Jewish Community Center, and someone who speaks with Israelis several times a week, I'm not so sure.
This is still a traumatized culture, making bad decisions, surrounded by people who resent them occupying their land.
My wife is Jewish, and I'm surrounded by jewish culture, and it is not black and white.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Mar 13, 2010 7:39:57 PM
Absolutely Dave, didn't mean to imply some sort of twisted, blackened, dark thing, but rather a soul that is not at peace, either with itself, or the rest of the world. Both sides of the conflict have a recent traumatic past in common, and each side's violence should be understood in that context. That excuses neither side. Yet in the U.S. we routinely do just that, but for one side only.
Posted by: Cyrus Hall | Mar 13, 2010 9:05:56 PM
A massacre of only 29 is a quiet day in Iraq, Pakistan or Afghanistan. As in those countries (though obviously to a lesser extent), the extreemists sense the weakness of central government and the symbols of the rule of law. In Israel this weakness is not due to lack of military or police means, it is political in nature
Posted by: aguy109 | Mar 14, 2010 2:52:52 PM
My main objection is to the phrase "Something is happening in the soul of Israel." I grew up in a right wing Orthodox community. This sort of nastiness doesn't seem new to me (Goldstein, Yigal Amir, and the Kahanes were not isolated individuals acting outside a community that supported their views, and they're not something that just happened in the past few years).
Issues of representativeness have already been brought up, so I'll say no more.
Thanks for the blog by the way, I've been reading it for four years now (but I haven't commented).
Posted by: Avi | Mar 20, 2010 5:41:48 PM
Basically, the point I wanted to make is you can show this clip as an example of the far-right among Israelis or Jews, but I don't think it is fair to say it is evidence of a significant cultural change (since extremism of the ethnic cleansing sort isn't new). What seems to be changing is an increase in the number of people who hold these views or sympathize with them. These sorts of beliefs and behaviors aren't new, even if they're just being shown on YouTube for the first time.
Posted by: Avi | Mar 20, 2010 5:59:32 PM
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