Israeli Capitulation:
Return & Flight From The Promised Land
by Erik Valencic
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Israel is the heart of Jewish identity. According to Old Testament writings God Jehovah made the Hebrews for his chosen people. Moses, a prophet with miraculous powers, freed the Hebrews from Pharaoh’s shackles and led them to the Promised Land of Canaan, which later on became known as Palestine. The journey lasted for 40 years and was accompanied by many hardships and tests of endurance. At the end of the travel Moses died and chose Joshua for his successor, who then led settling of Jews in the Promised Land.
Historians agree that the Jewish conquest of Canaan in the 2nd millennium BC was accomplished as much by intermarriage and the alliance with Canaanites as it was by military conquest. Around 1000 BC kingdom of Israel was formed with Jerusalem as its capital city. These were times of constant wars. In 8th century BC Israel was conquered by Assyrians, while Babylonians razed Jerusalem some time later. Jews were mostly displaced or they fled on their own. Centuries later many started returning to Canaan, while others settled on the shores of Black Sea and in broader Mediterranean. In 2nd century BC a second Jewish state, kingdom of Judah, was established, only to be conquered by the Romans almost a hundred years later. Jews more or less successfully resisted the Roman dominance, but the new enemies were already swinging their swords on the horizon: the Christians. When Constantine I, emperor of Rome, accepted the new religion for himself and his empire AD 313, Christian antagonism towards Jews was already widespread. This was a prelude to a general persecution of Jews, which reached its most tragic peak during the holocaust.
Throughout history Jews settled all over the world, but they have never lost touch with their roots. They have kept their culture and religion alive. In the centre of Jewish ethnic identity had always remained hope of return to the Promised Land.
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THE RETURN
The idea of returning to Palestine got new impetus at the end of 19th century with the emergence of political Zionism whose founder was Theodor Herzl. By 1914 there were already 85.000 Jews in Palestine. The numbers increased significantly in the following years due to good organisation of Jewish communities around the world and due to intensified persecution of Jews in Europe.
Even though settlers themselves fled from persecution and racism, they showed much hostility towards native Arabs. Dislodgement of Palestinians began soon. Edward Said, a respected Palestinian writer and scholar, explained that “Zionists in effect introduced terrorism into Palestine. It was one of the standard techniques of the early groups of Zionist extremists, in the 1920s, who put bombs in Arab market places to terrorize the population.” During that period Palestinian Jews established three paramilitary organisations: Haganah, Special Night Squads and Irgun Zvai Leumi. Contemporary Israeli historians seek to justify the existence of these organisations through explanations of self-defence, but historical facts are against them. George Bisharat from the University of California's Hastings College of Law explains: “Palestinian villages were often attacked at night, from two or three sides, while a road to the closest Arab country was left open.”
One of the biggest massacres occurred on April 9, 1948 in the village Deir Yassin, where IZL members slaughtered 254 Palestinians. Heinous crime also horrified many Jewish communities around the globe. The leader of IZL at that time was Menachem Begin, who then transformed the paramilitary organisation into Freedom Party (Tnuat Haherut). Party members preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism and racial superiority. Menachem Begin later on became an Israeli prime minister (1977-83).
Jewish crimes against Palestinians did not go unnoticed by the rest of the world. To state only one example, Mahatma Gandhi wrote in India’s Harijan on November 26, 1938: “And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. (...) A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart.”
Israel was established on May 14, 1948. In Palestinian memory this year is known as al-Nakba (the catastrophe). Israel occupied 78% of Palestinian soil. Around 750.000 Palestinians were driven away from their homes. They became permanent refugees (today there are 5.5 million of them). Israel rejected UN resolutions demanding that Palestinians must be granted a right to return. Chaim Weizmann, first Israeli president (1949-52), once commented about Palestinians: “There are a few hundred thousand Negroes, but that is a matter of no significance.” Official propaganda was that Palestinians are nomads, and therefore by expelling them, no greater damage was done. Only David Ben-Gurion, first Israeli prime minister (1948-53, 1955-63) once admitted to his friend, Nahum Goldmann: “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. (...) They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country.” In 1967 Israel occupied the remaining 22% of Palestine (Gaza and West Bank).
Palestinians are subjected to scarcity and discrimination. Israeli leaders call them lice, grasshoppers and two legged animals. The main rabbi of the Shas Party, Ovadia Yosef, stated that Palestinians are snakes and should be exterminated.
First Intifada started in 1987 and lasted for six years, the consequences of which were several dead Israelis and around 1000 dead Palestinians. Writer Israel Shamir commented: “The Intifada was a sign that these extremely peaceful and patient people are pushed into slow death, and with them Palestine is going for good.” Ami Ayalon, ex-head of the Israeli internal security service Shabak (1996-2000), imputed Palestinian terrorist acts to “bottomless despair”. He added: “Israeli society is sinking into confusion. People mask this reality with swaggering slogans: ‘We will vanquish terrorism!’ At a colloquium, the army chief of staff declares: ‘We are winning’; he evokes the ‘superiority of the Israeli army’ and his ‘feeling that the nation is finding its strength’. Then he adds ‘there are today more Palestinian terrorists than a year ago’ and says there will be even more tomorrow! If we are winning, how come terrorists are multiplying?”
APARTHEID
Current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, sees the solution in a giant wall, that would ‘prevent the Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel’. Amnesty International: “Palestinians are often restricted from reaching their workplaces or distributing their products and factories and farms have been driven out of business. Unemployment has soared to over 50%, more than half the population is now living below the poverty line and malnutrition and other illnesses have increased. Most Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are forced to rely, to some degree at least, on charity for food and other basic needs.” United Nations: “The separation fence Israel is building in the West Bank will have severe humanitarian consequences for almost 700,000 Palestinians. More than 274,000 will be stranded outside the wall because Israel refuses to build it along the internationally recognised Green Line. Thousands will be forced to apply for Israeli military permits to live in their own homes. A further 400,000 Palestinians will be cut off from their farmland, their jobs, universities and schools. This means that approximately 30% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank will be directly harmed by the wall.”
Israel also controls 80% of water in West Bank. World Bank reports: “The Palestinian population is growing 3-4 percent a year but the water supply is static. When they see not only land seized for settlements but settlers enjoying a very generous water supply with a high quality of life, it generates much frustration and even hatred.”
A million of Israeli Palestinians are also subjected to a form of apartheid. Edward Said gave an example: “The road signs are written in English and Hebrew. There’s no Arabic. So if you’re an Arab and you can’t read Hebrew or English, you’re lost. That’s the design. That’s a way to shut out 20% of the population.” The Israeli parliament Knesset voted on July 31 2003 to block Palestinians who marry Israelis from becoming Israeli citizens or residents. Supporters of the legislation called it a necessary bulwark against infiltration of terrorists. Orna Kohn, a lawyer for Adalah, a legal organization for Arab minority rights in Israel, commented: “You have an Israeli citizen who is an Arab, and you won't allow him to live with his spouse? If this is not racism, then perhaps we need to have a new definition.”
THE SPLIT
More and more Israelis and Jews in general oppose to Israeli policy towards Palestinians. Hundreds of reservists refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories. They are represented by an organisation Courage to Refuse. Lieutenant David Zonsheine had to defend his objection of conscience in court. He witnessed how he was forced to hold up Palestinian traffic at a checkpoint in Gaza. “I don’t know how many people died because of the 200 ambulances I delayed there. This made me realise there is no way to have an enlightened occupation,” David stated. He was sentenced to 35 days in a military prison.
Criticism comes from all over the world. Numerous distinguished American Jews raised their voices against ‘Sharon’s Israel’. Tony Judt, a publicist from New York wrote: “The behaviour of a self-described Jewish state affects the way everyone else looks at Jews (...) but the depressing truth is that Israel today is bad for the Jews." Daniel Lazar added in The Nation: “Hounded by rabbis, terrorized by suicide bombers, hemmed in by nationalism, Israelis see no alternative but to throw in their lot with a strongman like Sharon. The logic is irresistible, but suicidal - unless somebody can figure a way out of the ideological cage.” Gary Rosenblatt, an editor and publisher of The Jewish Week: “The more strident the pro-Israel position, the less likely tens of thousands of American Jewish college students are to be sympathetic to the Jewish state.”
Organisation Jewish Voice for Peace targets Caterpillar Corporation (USA), that sells bulldozers to Israeli army, which uses them to destroy the Palestinian homes. Even though the media reports, that the army destroys houses of terrorists, the sad fact is that 95% of home demolitions occur for minor permit violations. “Since 1967, Caterpillar bulldozers have been used by the Israeli military to make over 50,000 Palestinian civilians homeless, demolishing homes to pave the way for Israeli settlements and Israel’s Wall,” says Jewish Voice for Peace.
Fifty protestors led by Jews for a Free Palestine occupied the lobby of Israeli Consulate in San Francisco in April 2003. There they read their demands: “(...) an end to the genocidal war on the Palestinian people, an end to the occupation and all settlements, the upholding of the international human rights of all Palestinians, including the right of refugees to return home.” They were arrested.
THE FLIGHT
Avraham Burg, a former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and a Labour Party Knesset member, couldn’t have described it better: “It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies. A state lacking justice cannot survive. More and more Israelis are coming to understand this as they ask their children where they expect to live in 25 years. Children who are honest admit, to their parents' shock, that they do not know. The countdown to the end of Israeli society has begun.”
An American, who returned home after 20 years of living in Israel, told his story to Washington Post: “The economy is awful. Parents do not want their children to go out. The beach is presumed safe, but not a cafe or restaurant. A commute on a bus is gut-wrenching. You watch everyone. (...) To some, especially those on the left, Israel has become virtually a dysfunctional society. The government can't protect its people. Corruption is endemic. Religious zealots have inordinate influence, and their vision, a Greater Israel, compels the building or thickening of West Bank and Gaza Strip settlements. (...) The idyllic Zionist dream is in tatters.”
Sharon’s government is facing a major problem. The existence of Israel is uncertain. In the year 2003 only 23.000 Jews moved to Israel; this is the lowest figure since 1989. People are actually moving out. A quarter of the Americans who have come to Israel since 1989 have left. According to government’s own statistical data an estimated 760.000 Israelis are living abroad, up from 550.000 in 2000. Sharon’s plan to bring another million Jews to Israel by 2010 today seems like a hollow utopia. As a matter of fact, trends are going in the opposite direction. Estimations show that by 2010 there will be an equal number of Palestinians and Israelis on historical Palestine. By 2030 there will be twice as many Arabs as there will be Jews.
There is a burning debate within the highest government circles on what to do. The ultra-orthodox ministers insist that Israel shouldn’t accept secular Jews and those who do not qualify as Jewish under strict religious law, which requires an individual's mother to have been Jewish. On the other side, Ariel Sharon points out to threatening demographic situation in the country and calls on religious leaders to make it easier to become a Jew. These are acts of desperation, which will hardly change things for the better. Sharon’s dreams of larger population are namely being suffocated by his own impotent acts of hate and rage.
More and more Israelis see a solution in moving out. People sell their possessions before departure, but most of them are reluctant to talk about their decision. The pressure is too big. Return to the Promised Land is namely the cornerstone of Zionism and Yitzhak Rabin, former prime minister (1974-77, 1992-95) once described Jews, who emigrated as the “lowliest of parasites”.
Christine Shalev left for Canada, where 6000 Israelis emigrated in 2003 alone. Before her departure she commented: “Israel is falling apart and enough is enough. I feel trapped here but I hope in Canada I can find my freedom.”
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– Erik Valencic
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