Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2008, pages 26-27

Jerusalem Journal

In Search of the Elusive Israeli Peace Partner

By Samah Jabr

ASIDE FROM a few individual initiatives and such rare, fleeting phenomena as the new historians and refusenics, the “Israeli peace camp” remains far from being a significant political movement, whether in proportion to the Israeli population or to the level of progressiveness of its vision and platform. Indeed, the Israeli claim that “there is no peace partner” among the various Palestinian movements more accurately describes the Israeli factions.

Some Israeli Jews maintain that living in occupied Palestine is a religious obligation—that they are a chosen people, and abide by all that identifies the public and national behaviors of Israeli “citizens”: the Star of David on the flag, the Menorah as a symbol of the state, the significance of Shabbat, etc. They believe that modern European Jews are the direct descendants of the ancient Hebrews, who had exclusive rights to Palestine, in which they alone lived. Accordingly, European Jews have the right, 2,000 years later, to claim the homeland of their alleged ancestors.

Most Israelis, however, are secular, if not atheist (such as David Ben-Gurion, the country’s first prime minister), and believe that the biblical glory of the Promised Land is nothing but a myth.

Nevertheless, regardless of whether a Jew is a descendent of the Hebrews or the Khazars, decides to embrace another religion or become secular, he or she can legally claim to be a Jew on the basis of national affiliation. In the Jewish state it is impossible to distinguish the secular from the religious: in addition to the fact that it is their Jewishness that grants them rights, both are partners in occupation. Many are dual citizens, living in the land when it is to their economic or social advantage.

When a white, blue-eyed, Western, secular, religion-despising Israeli defends the exclusivist Jewish State as a defense against anti-Semitism and another Holocaust, I hear only ignorance talking. Isn’t the neurotic obsession with anti-Semitism and a “future Holocaust” in fact a camouflage for the addiction to colonial injustice Israelis call citizenship rights: the profoundly unjust distribution—not to mention theft—of land, water, income, property, you name it? That those colonial privileges were stolen from the inhabitants of Palestine to be granted to foreign immigrants solely because they are of a given race, share certain genes or believe in a certain ideology—what can that be called except racism? How can Israelis’ explicit expression of concern about Palestinian natural growth be described except as ethnocidal fantasies?

In the Jewish state it is impossible to distinguish the secular from the religious.

Secular Israelis who reject and resist a one-state solution in favor of an exclusive Jewish state for themselves because they fear and mistrust their non-Jewish neighbors offer feeble excuses intended to mask a subtle racist ideology—one based on theocratic and ethnic supremacy—reminiscent of 19th century colonialism. Jews today enjoy full rights around the world—as, of course, they should. There simply is no need for the continued existence of a distinct Jewish entity in the world, especially when it obliterates another nation and people.

Historically, the international socialist, liberal and labor movements always have focused on opposition to imperialism, colonization and capitalism, and have fought for equality and advocated for the rights of the poor and the marginalized. Today the term “leftist liberal” suggests an enlightened social attitude, with particular emphasis on individual freedom and human rights.

This does not describe the Israeli left, however. In fact, Israel would not exist had not the left cooperated with the bourgeoisie and Western imperialism. It is the secular Israeli left—not the religious Haridim—that has been responsible for the massive expulsion of Palestinians and the massacres committed by Jewish militias since 1948. When the Israeli left established the kibbutz system in the 1950s and 1960s, leftists around the world hailed it as a model of collaboration and equality. But Palestinians already knew that those kibbutzim were warm houses for the Israeli leaders who were responsible for war and torture and who inflicted the worst forms of inequalities upon the inhabitants of Palestine.

The Israeli left wants to have its cake and eat it, too. While benefitting materially and otherwise from the injustice the occupational, it still wants peace with the Palestinians. On the ground, this translates into meeting with, dancing with and hugging Palestinians—all the while avoiding listening to the voice of the Palestinian resistance, being reluctant to deal with the matters of substance and, most importantly,  solving the conflict. As Palestine shrinks beneath us, Israel leftists content themselves with endorsing official occupational discourse, adding to it such phrases as “competing claims” of a “complex situation,” the “cycle of violence” and the hallowed “two sides.” The left seems to be more interested in the process—a diversion that serves to salve the Israeli conscience and calm world opinion, but fails to put an end to Palestinian anguish.

Perhaps because of its overt “pragmatism,” the Israeli peace camp is viewed poorly by the Israeli and Palestinian public alike. It opposes the occupation only when the cost becomes too high: leftists watched quietly during Israel’s 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, for example, only taking to the street in protest when they ended up on the receiving end of Hezbollah missiles. They support Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories so as not to endanger the “Jewish and democratic” character of Israel through the incorporation of “a million hostile Palestinians who represent a demographic and political burden over Israel.”

In Israel, there is little price to pay for being on the left; on the contrary, in addition to the privileges of colonialsm one may enjoy free peace tours and profit from the business of coexistence. The left is eager to meet with Palestinians, eat hummos, talk about feelings and narratives—in short, to engage in any perpetual process not intended to reach any resolution, while its government gains time and creates ever more facts on the ground, consolidating its hold on the land. 

It’s different for Palestinians, who do not have the luxury of moving from the real and everyday horrors of occupation to the world of existential rumination, acknowledging that, yes, we “feel” badly treated. For no matter how passionately Israeli leftists embrace the Palestinian “feeling” of dispossession, they continue to solidify the Zionist mythology that was, and is, used to justify our dispossession. In all they do, Israeli occupiers—even the leftists among them—are participating in the oppression of Palestinians.

From birth, Israelis and Palestinians, regardless of their individual merits, experience life differently. Israeli values are sovereign, of course, and confer the advantages of the occupier. The more difficult our life is made, the easier they live at every level: their high living standards are based on our low living standards, because we can be exploited at will and are not protected by the laws of the occupation. Israelis work at administrative jobs, and we as their servants and laborers. Whatever is reserved for them is because it is excluded from us. Even the reluctant occupier is seduced into complicity by the economic benefits of the system.

Even in the peacemaking arena, the left is the master. American and European donors entrust them with funds, and it is they who choose the Palestinian partners with whom they can engage in a “dialogue,” resulting in the appearance of a fawning friendship. It is the Israeli “partner” who distributes the budget, determines the agenda and concludes whatever he wants. One can only wonder if such meetings serve any function other than to sugarcoat the occupation.

But the occupation is not a natural, inevitable historical process that can be rendered more humane, pleasant or tolerable. It is based on a dangerous ideology that claims that some nations, languages and cultures are superior to others—thereby giving the former permission to trample the rights of others. This racial exceptionalism can only be countered by an anti-occupation ideology which mandates that all people have identical civil and human rights and that all nations, cultures and religions, while different, are equal. Nor, obviously, is this just about Israelis and Palestinians. It is a universal standard, applying to all nations.

A true Israeli partner recognizes his duty to oppose the occupation and the system which, since the establishment of the Jewish state, has rendered non-Jewish inhabitants stateless and without rights. Such a partner will reject the occupation’s representations and tools as fundamentally unjust and immoral, a theft of land, life and liberty from individuals, as well as a nation. The occupation is an attempt at ethnocide; as such, it is a crime against the heritage of humanity.

I can feel no harmony or communion with an occupier who, no matter how generous or empathetic, fails to take a heartfelt verbal and active stand against the occupation. Nor would this be an historical anomely: there were French who supported Algeria’s FLN resistance, and some white South Africans backing the ANC. Where, however, are the Israeli partners in resistance to the occupation—one of the most humane and altruistic deeds imaginable? They not only would help dissolve the smokescreen until the walls of the occupation fall, but would also pave the way for peaceful relations when Palestine is liberated.

Opposition to the occupation is not self-hatred, animosity, prejudice or racism—just as I am not an angry, bitter or violent person. Rather, it is a moral duty for all who care about justice, fairness and equality, and who respect all nations and peoples. Those who espouse those values can come to only one conclusion: that Zionism and peacemaking don’t mix.

Samah Jabr is a psychiatrist practicing in the West Bank and her native Jerusalem.

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