ROUSs

Hello Sirs,
this is hardly a "post" (i can barely keep one blog going...), but I thought you'd appreciate this:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=945818&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0

muchos amores
N

R.O.U.Ss? I don't think they exist!

NS thank for inaugurating the blog, albeit with one heavy entry - where does one continue from there? To Indonesia I guess...

Well, here in London the wife and baby have gone for a visit to Israel, leaving me most of this Sunday to contemplate my life. Well, that and seeing a film, going to an exhibition, having one of the best English breakfasts ever in Soho, reading the paper and taking apart the living room door. If the landlord asks, I had enough of it so I put it away.

I don't know what I think about Ahmedinejad. The fact that he looks so much like Ringo Starr throws me a little, and makes me want to like him. Shame he comes across like such a 'ocher Israel'. And as for those who question Israel's right to exist, what can you say? Fine. Question it. I don't think it's illegitimate to question Israel's right to exist, or any other country, if that's what floats your boat. It's when the discussion moves into solutions mode, especially 'final' ones, that I get upset. I think my advice to anyone whose legitimacy as an equal player is undermined is not to play ball.

The truth is that on the scale of worries, Iran less worrying for me right now. I worry more about Israel doing something stupid like it did in Syria last month, the repercussions of which I am sure will not go unnoticed. Thankfully we didn't get a war, but a line has been crossed and as a result the line is blurring. I also worry about Russia more than I do about Iran. I hope they're not going through what Germany went through in the 30s right now, although there are alarming parallels. Perhaps the only thing worse than the USSR as a superpower is Russia carrying the baggage of an ex-superpower. Iran, minus the ayatollahs and the oil is not really a threat to anyone, because it isn't out for revenge, the way Putin is.



On a brighter note, I spent a couple of days in Dublin last week in a conference on Services and Innovation, and I was pleasantly surprised at the marked difference in attitudes towards Israel, as compared with the UK. In England I hardly hear mention of Israel in any context other than political, and then it's usually negative, and you are more likely to hear about the US, China, India, France, Scandinavia and Canada when comparisons are sought. In Ireland, due in part to the similar population sizes of the two countries and possibly due to the politically turbulent past, Israel is referred to much more readily in a positive light, especially connoting the economy, the hi-tech and bioscience industries and the skill base.

So there, despite the fact that Israelis hate their country's existence being questioned, we get so much petty pleasure from hearing our name mentioned and our existence verified.

A battle of the wits? To the death?

Dearest comrades,
I'm very happy to inaugurate this "blog". If I understand correctly, it's private - among the three of us? If not, please let me know.

So I don't know if this fits your tastes, but seeing as I'm D-8 from leaving for Indonesia for ten months, rushing to finish a million and one things, including some important grant applications (what can I say "I'm swamped"), I've found myself writing up something completely unrelated to anything.

So here it is. It might be shite, it might be something I'd send in for rejection as an op-ed. If the former, feel free to start our discussion on it (or not on it). if the latter, please give any and all comments (but geared toward submitting it, even if you disagree with parts, which means perhaps cutting down some words).

muchos lovos.
and I love the drawing!
nbs

Ahmadinejad and Massachusetts’s Right to Exist

Now that the dust has settled, it is fair to say that most people were not overly impressed with the content of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s New York orations. Most people still believe that human rights are violated daily in Iran and that the holocaust did, indeed, happen. But many find one often-overlooked element of Ahmadinejad’s arguments actually very compelling: Even if the holocaust happened, he asks, why should the Palestinians pay the price?

This question lies at the heart of Ahmadinejad’s apparent obsession with mid-20^th century European history and one must admit: it’s a good one. No one should be punished for another’s crimes, and the Palestinians did not perpetrate Europe’s. But what is interesting about this question is that it is not, as one might expect, relegated to yawningly academic discussions on ethics and history. Ahmadinejad’s ranting about the holocaust – as deeply offensive as it is – is not academic or historical, it is political. It precedes a question every Israeli abroad knows well: why should Israel even exist?

Ahmadinejad’s logic is simple: Israel was “given” to the Zionists as reparations for the holocaust, at the expense of the original inhabitants of the land, the Palestinians. If the holocaust didn’t happen, and even if it did, Israel has no right to exist because the Palestinians were not to blame. It should, as he repeatedly suggests, be moved to Europe, Canada, Alaska, or even be “wiped off the map”.

Ahmadinejad’s antics aside, the “Israel as reparations” notion is very widely shared. In April, while hilariously depicting his “travels” to Israel, John Oliver of the Daily Show with Jon Steward, described Israel as being “…founded in 1948 as reparations for the holocaust. Oh, and can’t forget about the Spanish inquisition. And the pogroms in Russia and throughout Europe. That was big. And, of course, the expulsion from Egypt; not pretty.”

Yet as tidy as the reparations notion is, it is simply wrong. The United Nations 1947 resolution mandating the creation of two states in British Palestine – an Arab one and a Jewish one – may have owed much to the West’s guilt. But while the U.N. mandated the two states, it did not create them (one of the states still awaits creation, after all). It was the Jews themselves who created Israel. At the core of modern, secular Zionism is this very idea of taking one’s fate into one’s own hand: the autoemancipation of the Jews, in Leon Pinsker’s term. Israel was not “given” to the Jews. They declared it, built and – when their neighbors rejected the two state resolution – they fought for it, themselves. One full percent of the Jewish population was killed in 1947-49 (equivalent to 3 million Americans today).

Neither Western guilt nor U.N. paperwork founded Israel. Another Western notion – national self determination – did.

Moreover, Israel wasn’t and isn’t “about” the holocaust. When my grandparents moved from Berkeley, California to British-ruled Palestine they were not fleeing the Nazis; Hitler had not yet come to power across the Atlantic. Modern Zionism was born more than fifty years before World War II. The families of most Israelis today originated from countries that were never under Nazi control – in Arab and Muslim countries (like Iran), the former USSR, South America, the United States, Palestine itself and elsewhere. Zionism, from the start, was a call by Jews, to Jews, to change their way of life, their political structures, and their perpetual immigrant, minority existence. Of course, Zionists often used the holocaust in argumentation (and Israelis still do, often to their own detriment), but it was, to them, not the reason for Zionism but rather its most tragic, dramatic validation. It verified their most apocalyptic warnings that Jews would not be safe - as Jews - if they did not have a homeland of their own.

My point, though, is not that Zionism was right or wrong. Nor that Israel has a right to exist. My point is that Israelis have a right not to be asked that question. What country in the world must justify its existence based on the historical origins? How are the lives of Israelis today – 7 million of them – contingent on Ahmadinejad’s or anyone else’s judgment of history? The native inhabitants near Plymouth Rock were not to blame for the persecution of the pilgrims in Europe, any more than the Aborigines by Botany Bay were responsible for the British exiling convicts. The tireless, tiresome questions about Israel’s right to exist are as justified as debates about the existence of Massachusetts or Australia.

***[the next two paragraphs should probably just be deleted]*****

Of course, neither Massachusetts nor Australia defines itself by religion or national group. But contrary to common misperception, Israel’s status as a “Jewish State” is far from unique. Many other countries conceive of themselves as nation-states and many have official religions. Denmark, Norway and Iceland are officially Lutheran. Britain is constitutionally bound to protestant monarchy, the queen being head of the Anglican Church. Of course, the homeland of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent (conceived as such at the same time Israel was founded) is “The Islamic Republic of Pakistan”. Another “Islamic Republic” is Iran. Nor is the right of returning Jews to citizenship unique. Irish law provides for citizenship (and the coveted European Union passport) for anyone who can prove an Irish grandparent. Numerous other countries facilitate immigration based on national and ethnic ties, including Finland, Greece, Bulgaria, Armenia, and Ukraine,

The relevant political question – a very important one - is not whether national character is legitimate, but whether democracy is maintained alongside this character, whether the rights of minorities and dissenters are forcefully, vigorously upheld. Israel has much to fix in this regard. Is it the only democracy that does?

Let’s face it. The real reason so many in the West find the “reparations” logic convincing, has nothing to do with Israel’s historical background, its national character nor the quality of its democracy. The incessant questioning of Israel’s “right to exist” is largely rooted in opposition to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank (and formerly of the Gaza Strip). On this count, however, many Israelis (roughly half, if not more) happen to agree, as they should. In fact, the stated policy of the government of Israel favors the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and the president of the Palestinians themselves – unlike his Iranian counterpart – recognizes Israel.

The next time I’m asked that question I should really just say: “Israel exists. Get over it.” Unfortunately, it will probably take me a few hundred words to say it.