On poets and pogroms

by Gabriel Ash

16 December 2002

A teapot scandal erupted after Harvard's English Department invited the distinguished British poet Tom Paulin to give a prestigious lecture on campus. Some folks were shocked to discover the things Paulin had said in an interview with an Egyptian magazine. In that interview, Paulin apparently called the Brooklyn-born Jewish fundamentalist settlers in the Occupied Territories "Nazis" and said that they ought to be shot.

From the left, The Nation's Eric Alterman called Paulin's views "disgusting." From the right, Andrew Sullivan labeled them "anti-Semitic." Let's take a close look, beginning with the "Nazi" word. After reading the press, both "liberal" and "conservative," you'd think Nazism and Jewish fundamentalism are miles apart, so many miles apart that comparing them is not merely wrong, but disgusting, anti-Semitic, beyond the pale, etc. You'd be surprised then to learn a few things.

A basic tenet of the Jewish settlers' religious doctrine is that Jews have the duty to conquer every piece of land in "Greater Israel," an ill-defined territory that can stretch as far as Iraq, and includes areas in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. In conquering that area, Jews have a right to kill "every single one" of the inhabitants until "not a memory or trace" remains (these words of love, belonging to Rabbi Yisrael Ariel [1], appeared in the settlers' principal magazine Nekudah). To turn this political project into the Nazi ideology of Lebensraum, we need but substitute Europe for the Middle East, and Aryans for Jews.

"Transfer," ethnic cleansing, is popular among the general public in Israel as a political "solution." Among the fundamentalist settlers, however, expelling the non-Jewish inhabitants is not a matter of expediency, which would be bad enough. It is rather a divine commandment, rooted in the Bible and Jewish law. But "transfer" is just the tip of the iceberg. Many settlers also believe genocide is a legitimate way of dealing with the "enemy." The right (for the more extreme, actually the religious duty) to genocide is based on the biblical story of the genocide of Amalek (Deut. 25:17-19) on God's orders. Accordingly, Jewish fundamentalists believe "Arabs are the Amalekites of today." Such views are widespread among the Brooklyn-born settlers as well as among their supporters and sponsors.

The root of the fundamentalist settlers' ideology is the belief that Jews are a 'chosen people,' superior to the rest of humanity and free of the moral obligations by which other nations must abide. Non-Jews are viewed as lesser beings. Some "moderate" fundamentalist rabbis do believe that after expulsion/genocide, there will be coexistence. The few remaining non-Jews will then recognize the Jews' superiority and be allowed to live according to the Talmudic laws for the so-called "ger toshav," namely, under severe limitations – they must not be citizens; they should be prohibited from sexual intercourse with Jews; according to some, they must not own property, etc. This may not be the Nazi race theory letter for letter, but it isn't far off.

Jewish fundamentalists in the U.S. and Israel don't just make racist comments. They also carry out terrorism in God's name. Ateret Cohanim, The Jewish Underground, the Jewish Defense League, Kach, Kahana Khai, Eyal, etc. are among the many groups that planned and/or carried out terrorist attacks against mostly Palestinian civilians from the 1970s onwards. One study shows that in the years 1980-1984, the Israeli press reported 380 attacks against individual Palestinians, leading to 23 deaths, hundreds more against private property, houses, cars, etc. and 41 attacks on Muslim and Christian institutions.

For the years 1988 and 1993, B'tselem reports 62 Palestinians killed by settlers. According to Btselem's 1994 report, "Using weapons supplied by the IDF, individuals and organized groups initiate operations against Palestinians and their property in order to intimidate, deter, and punish. In many cases, these are planned operations, initiated carefully by groups of settlers, who are backed by the established leadership of the settlements. The operations ... include entering villages, shooting at houses and solar water-heaters, sabotage and torching of vehicles, violent disturbances, blocking roads, smashing windows, destroying crops and uprooting trees, harassment of merchants and owners of stands in the market including destruction of their wares, and so forth."

These actions are done with the tacit support of the Israeli police and army. They are pogroms, namely deadly riots organized in collusion with the official authorities. These pogroms are carried out with the wink, wink, nod, nod of the state of Israel, and are often witnessed by indifferent IDF soldiers. Typically, the army refuses to protect Palestinians but does intervene to protect settlers from Palestinians who try to defend themselves against the pogromistas. After Baruch Goldstein's massacre of 29 worshipers at the Ibrahimi mosque, the Israeli army shot another 23 civilians in Hebron and imposed months of curfew on the victims, the civilian Palestinian population of Hebron – they didn't punish Kyriat-Arba, the fundamentalists' den.

During the second Intifada, the pogroms intensified and grew larger. More than 80 Palestinians have been killed by settlers in the last two years. The "official" U.S. press is rarely interested in these pogroms and other violent incidents, some of which have been reported on YellowTimes.org. For example, [Dead links: see note 2] "Hebron: Not allowed to live", "Settlers roadblocks", "Being a Jewish Fundamentalist", "Settlers carry out a Pogrom", "Gangs terrorize Palestinian villagers with police help" and "Settlers set fire to Palestinian olive fields" .

Scholars will surely find subtle differences between these pogroms and those suffered by European Jews at the hand of Nazi gangs and other anti-Semite thugs, but nothing that can justify calling the comparison "disgusting."

The Jewish terrorist groups and their supporters are a minority, but they are hardly a fringe element. Among their supporters they count the leadership of the Gush Emunim settlers' movement. Their pogroms enjoy wide support among settlers and right-wing American and Israeli Jews (check these photos of "moderate" Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert hobnobbing with Genocidal Rabbi Yisrael Ariel at the Temple Institute).

Goldstein, whose tomb has become a shrine, is a hero among the fundamentalist settlers. [Dead link : see note 3] Iga'al Amir, who assassinated Rabin in 1995, claimed to have acted according to Jewish law. Their actions have been defended and justified by influential rabbis in Brooklyn and Israel, such as Abraham Hecht, Dov Lior and Nahum Rabinovitch.

Rabbi Meir Kahane, leader, chief proponent of Jewish racism, and founder of two terrorist groups, had a regular column for thirty years in the "respectable" Brooklyn-based Jewish Press, an influential publication with print circulation of 160,000. On its webpage the other day, they had an article that prepares the ground for the assassination of Amram Mitzna, the Labor candidate for the coming election in Israel, accusing him of reviving Hitler's "final solution" for Jews.

Some will argue that the Nazi analogy is counterproductive, or that it isn't accurate. I can understand that. It is certainly possible to make ideological and practical distinctions between the Jewish fundamentalist settlers and their American supporters and the original Nazis. The Nazis didn't put such an emphasis on God and his commands. The settlers don't appeal so much to the science of race. But the similarities run much deeper. Both movements are racist, supremacist, totalitarian, anti-humanist, anti-democratic, and extremely violent. Both sanction expansion, conquest, ethnic cleansing, murder, repression and genocide. How on earth can comparing two movements with such glaring similarities be considered beyond the pale of acceptable speech, anti-Semitic, "disgusting," etc.? Why is the U.S. press, which twice a day lectures Saudi Arabia about Wahabism, almost silent about a murderous, totalitarian movement, with deep roots, bases, and funding in America itself?

Paulin, as we remember, also said the fundamentalist settlers from Brooklyn should be shot. Before we look into that, it should be noted that he was, at worst, recommending to serve them a helping of their own porridge. Certainly, people who consider genocide legitimate, organize pogroms and worship mass murderer Goldstein cannot seriously complain that someone wants to shoot them.

Paulin did not make an argument. He simply expressed his outrage at the settlers, using some very harsh words. He hasn't endorsed the murder of children, as Israel's apologist, Nat Hentoff, for example, insinuated. Support for violent struggle isn't support for any and all violence. But the vitriolic detractors of Paulin reveal no interest in intelligent debate about legitimate vs. illegitimate violence.

At the core of Paulin's outrage, there is a simple moral intuition: that Palestinians have a right to shoot at people who cross the ocean in order to destroy their houses and livelihood, expel and kill them. This moral intuition could be rejected. Some pacifists, for example, will reject it because they reject all violence, even in self-defense. We have to respect this position. But the chorus that assaulted Paulin is far from endorsing pacifism. Take Larry Summers, for example. Harvard's president has expressed his displeasure at inviting Paulin to speak at Harvard. Summers doesn't stop at Paulin; he accused of anti-Semitism even people who support divestment from Israel.

But when Summers worked in the Clinton administration, his colleague, Madeleine Albright, told an interviewer that the death of half a million Iraqi children was "worth it," (see FAIR's article). Unlike Paulin, Albright did justify the killing of a mind-blowing number of children. Summers did not resign in protest. He didn't say anything at all. Equally silent was the whole U.S. official media. One wonders what the reaction would have been had Albright said the death of half a million Jewish children was "worth it."

Except for some versions of pacifism, the right to armed struggle against oppression is universally recognized. The doctors of the medieval church recognized the right to rebel against tyranny. The U.N. recognizes the right to engage in armed struggle for self-determination. Thomas Jefferson inscribed into the U.S. Declaration of Independence the right to take up arms against a government that proceeds with "a long train of abuses and usurpations."

Indeed, many Americans believe they have a right to shoot a burglar who intrudes into their house to steal a VCR. How, then, can one deny the right to take arms to people who have, indeed, suffered a 50-year "train of abuses and usurpations," who have been dispossessed and expelled, who live under a vicious military rule for the last 35 years, without human rights, without civil rights, with even their own water taken from them, with sewage running in the non-streets of the world's most overcrowded concentration camps, with soldiers shooting at them at will and settlers, living on their stolen fields, attacking them at will? How is it possible to deny the right of people to take arms against those who work to disappear them?

It isn't possible. And that is why none of those who attacked Paulin has any patience for discussing the rights and boundaries of legitimate rebellion and violence. Instead, they resort to name calling.

Maybe, one could argue, Paulin's comments were not a good occasion to discuss the difference between legitimate and illegitimate violence. The problem is that, apparently, nothing is. Consider this: on November 15, Islamic Jihad launched a successful attack against an Israeli army unit, killing 13 armed soldiers and security personnel. Israeli sources lied about the incident, describing it as an attack on worshipers, allegedly, a "sabbath massacre."

There was no massacre, only a lengthy battle, and it had nothing to do with worshipers. Yet the American media, as well as Bush, Powell, Kofi Annan, and others, bought into Israeli propaganda and condemned the "shocking and reprehensible attack."

The fake "Sabbath Massacre" was a perfect opportunity to discuss the legitimacy of armed struggle. After all, by misrepresenting the attack, Israel implicitly acknowledged its legitimacy. Alterman and Hentoff could have praised Islamic Jihad for their choice of target, or for the zero collateral damage operation. Listening to the sound of the media silence, one fears the notion that brown people have a right to fight off their oppressors has become incomprehensible in the U.S.

Notes

1. “Rabbi Yisrael Ariel wrote in 1982 that "Beirut is part of the Land of Israel. . . our leaders should have entered Lebanon and Beirut without hesitation, and killed every single one of them. Not a memory should have remained."”. (Quoted by the Department for Jewish Zionist Education)

2. All of the following links refer to articles on YellowTimes, a discontinued website. The article Bombs and pogroms by Khalid Amayreh refers to an incident in Hebron.

3. The previous link refers to a web site that appears to have been discontinued. The page should be available on the Internet Archive.

Gabriel Ash was born in Romania and grew up in Israel. He is an unabashed "opssimist." He writes his columns because the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword – and sometimes not. Gabriel was the Middle East Editor of YellowTimes.org's News From the Front. The site has been discontinued. He lives in the United States.

Gabriel Ash encourages your comments: gash@YellowTimes.org