Monday, May 08, 2006

Gas Chambers vs. Refugee Camps

Hopefully this post is useless; hopefully the argument can be laid to rest, but just in case it can’t, here goes. The difference between Germany’s treatment of the Jews and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is so evident given the scope of history that the contrast doesn’t even need to be made. For the most part, I feel, lots of people already understand that such a comparison is futile and baseless, however, there are always those outspoken and mindless few whom are energetic in making their parallels of the Nazi regime and the Israeli state; some of them are Muslims. I think that to even cover this topic is kin to flogging a dead horse, but certain people never cease to amaze me, and it is to them that I dedicate this piece.

Before I get into the mechanics of the fallacious comparisons between Germany’s gas chambers and the West Bank’s and the Gaza Strip’s refugee camps, I must point out a bias that damages the entire analogical attempt before it is even constructed. There are many, many more numerous and more valid comparisons that a person can make to the Nazi regime’s gas chambers than the State of Israel, but the fact that the mindless individual whom chooses to make the comparison davka (spitefully) chooses to make the analogy to Israel, a Jewish enterprise, shows his eagerness to compare “the Jewish victim” to his aggressors. It is no ironic mistake of history that Israel is similar to Germany, in fact, it is not real at all; the entire comparison is founded simply on a desire to eradicate Jewish dignity and morale by comparing Jews to their worst oppressors and by comparing the Palestinians to Jews. It is a narrative of sorts, a narrative with no basis in reality. If you are a liberal radical Anglo-American, you make this analogy because you want something to strive for and are likely silly; if you are an Arab-American, you make this analogy because you come from a long tradition of Jew-hating, so deal with it.

Having said that, we can now examine the logical reasons as to why the comparison is flimsy. The Nazi’s carried out a vicious and systematic attempt to eradicate the entire Jewish population of Germany (and Europe). If I have to explain further how Germany and Israel are different thus far, I suggest that the reader open up a few history books before even reading on, or you can just take my word for it. Israel is not trying to eradicate the Palestinians by any stretch of the imagination; in fact, and if you like irony, it is the Palestinians that are trying to eradicate Israel -- just consider Hamas’ charter, which calls for, guess what, the eradication of the State of Israel. There are more comparisons between the Nazi Party and Hamas than between Germany and Israel, but cognitive dissonance is a favorite of people with hate in their blood.

There is no reason for the Israeli state to want to eradicate the Palestinians; all of the ideological conundrums of the Nazi war machine, backed by a long tradition of the European Christian anti-Semitic psychosis, simply has no parallel with Israel. The Israeli’s do not believe themselves to be a superior race of people, which they go to great lengths by providing bogus scientific “evidence.” They do not have a campaign in place to ship Palestinians into concentration camps where they can dispose of them in huge bonfires. They do not view them as so inhuman that even when eradicating them they try to save bullets. They do not believe that the Palestinians are vermin that are taking over the world and are by nature despicable mongrels. However, in epileptic pseudo-intellectual outbursts, the Palestinian propaganda machine attempts to mold the Palestinian into the image of the ghettoized Jew of the second World War, an appealing parable for heartless bleeding hearts, yet at the same time it denies that the Holocaust occurred or insists that it was hyped up. What then is the rationale for this comparison? Cognitive dissonance and ignorance, inability to properly process information or to think freely, the deep cultural internalization of propaganda from a very young age – these are the answers. Indeed, all of these are the same telltale forecasts predicting the morbid cloud hanging over Germany in what has become this century’s universal tale of the effective power of mental monopoly. Contrast this to the freedom of thought and speech that exists in the Israeli media circuit and the Israel-Germany analogy dematerializes and is replaced by a “Palestine”-Germany structure.

Further, this propaganda tries to transform the refugee camps into the concentration camps, which acts as fodder driving the Palestinians to "take up arms" against Israel and justifies the wholescale murder that they then take against its citizens. Note that even in the Jewish Ghetto Uprisings of the Holocaust, where the Jews were really being eradicated, resistant Jews did not prey on German civilians; they were so far removed from all civilian life that even had they wanted to kill civilian Germans, they were in totality separated from them and could not reach them. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are a rock's throw away from Israeli civilian society, a testament to the difference between Israel and Germany. It would be more accurate to compare the State of Jordan's 1979 "Black September" slaughter of some 3,000 to 5,000 Palestinians (although the killing was mutual) to Germany's elimination of Jews. Some people term the Jordanian massacre a genocidal attempt. The terrorist group whom kidnapped and murdered the eleven Israeli's during the Munich olympics named their group "Black September" after the Jordanian massacre.

*Note; Jordan's Palestinian population, behind Yasser Arafat's lead, was trying to create a Palestinian state within a Jordanian state, which led Jordan to expel him and according to Wikipedia, "The number of casualties in what resembled a civil war is estimated at tens of thousands, and both sides were involved in intentional killing of civilians. It was a turning point for Jordanian identity, as the kingdom embarked on the program of "Jordanization" of the society." It seems that both Israel and Jordan have had similar problems with the Palestinians, yet Israel acts, and is expected to act, radically different.

Israel’s media’s and liberal intelligentsia’s gravest sin is the guilt-ridden attempt to “prove” that Israel is the polar opposite of Germany, an internalization of all of the worst claims leveled towards it. The relationship between this heaping evidence and the effectiveness in reaching its desired goal is a transverse relationship; the more Israel provides evidence for its innocence of this charge, the more its accusers believe it is guilty. The reason for this is because Israel approaches its “trial” as if it is indeed guilty; you cannot convince others of your innocence if somewhere inside your troubled psyche you believe that you are guilty, and perhaps somehow deserving of such a fate. This particular Israeli (Jewish) ideology needs a whole new paradigm shift.



4 comments:

OrthodoxJew said...

Again, thanks for posting. Lots of salient points made in your post. Not boring at all!

Yah, where to start, where to start?

OK, Talmud and Jewish supremacy. The truth is that I am not very well versed in Talmud, something that I would like to be, and Insha-llah, I will be soon. Anyway, I know my way around Judaism well enough to tell how Jews think of themselves in light of others, both in theory and in practice.

Theoretically, i.e., according to the dictates of the Jewish religion, which includes the revelations of the Torah itself, the Prophets and the Writings, and the Oral Law (Talmud), which is similar to the Hadiths, Jews do not think themselves superior than the rest of the world's population.

I am hesitant to make generalized conclusions about the content of the Talmud without knowing more about it, more or less for the same reason that I try to be accurate when making conclusions about anything, and needless to say, because it would be irresponsible of me to say possibly negative things about the law of my co-religionists without understanding the intent. There are volumes of content in the "work" titled Talmud, covering about 2,000 years of Jewish history and being composed in several different places and situations.

Nevertheless, much of Jewish Law is focused on telling the Jew how to be "holy," a people unto G-d, as the Torah says it, a people set apart for a different task. This has many implications on interactions between Jews and non-Jews, whomever those non-Jews happen to be at that point in time, be they Christian, Muslim, Babylonians, Assyrians, etc...

For example, on Shabbat, the Sabbath, a Jew is prohibited from completing certain types of labor (some of which are not physically straining at all), such as turning lights on and off, or electrity. Therefore, a Jew may ask a non-Jew to turn lights on and off for him; the Talmud explains that the Jew has to be considerate of the Gentile's feelings - he is not a tool, but a person helping with something. Most simply put, the Jew is not allowed to do that thing and the Gentile is, so he can be asked. Further, he can't be asked straight out, because then one could easily bypass all of the Shabbat restrictions. Rather, the Jew has to imply that it needs to be done, like, "Whoa, it's dark in here." "No problem, Jewish neighbor, I'll turn it on for you." Could a Jew, in the real world, think of himself superior to a person who isn't Jewish? Sure, it happens, but the Talmud doesn't lend itself to that. Another example is that a Jew cannot eat food, on certian occasions, made by non-Jews. On the surface, it seems that the Talmud is telling us that non-Jews are dirty. A little deeper we realize it's because there are certain requirements in the preparation of food to render it kosher; a non-Jew, who most likely knows nothing about Jewish dietary law, might do something accidently to render it non-kosher. For that reason, a qualified Jew has to supervise the preparation of the food. These laws are also quite intricate. It would be very easy to read them as implying that non-Jews are inferior, but G-d forbid, it doesn't say that.

Not skirting the issue, there are clearly areas in the Talmud hostile to Gentiles, but we have to understand the depth of these verses in light of human reality before we can properly judge them. Many cases in the Talmud are in disagreement with other cases, and even if they weren't, I do believe that these verses have been used out of context (as propaganda) to make people believe that all Jews sit and home and are spoonfed these ideas to make them hate their neighbors. Slightly related, it is also possible that people have "placed words" in Muslim texts in order to do the same thing, although to a lesser degree I think.

The point you're making about Germany being unchecked in its actions against the Jews and its other victims is very interesing and I've thought about that before. It's two-pronged.

The first prong is that, yah, more eyes are on Israel. This is for many reasons. First, the Holocaust opened up peoples' eyes, at least theoretically, as you mentioned. Second, lots of propaganda (always going to propaganda) has been produced about Israel, from various sources, about its need to be vigilant against such tendencies in lue of its past. In other words, "Israel, don't do to others what was done to you." I find that sentiment true for Israel as it is for everyone, but the "bias" of the statement is made clear when we consider that the people holding it are almost exclusive in pointing out Israel. Their dislike of Jews is usually skin-deep. Generally, though, Israel is just more in the spot-light, it seems, than other countries, although this has changed a bit since 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq - something else to fill our minds. Also, Israel doesn't want to become the Nazi's, which is good because it shows that they are conscience people, but it also shows that they are very sensitive to their public image, and therefore, sadly, to false propaganda. These, by the way, are two pretty ingrained "Jewish tendencies," and have both positive and negative functions.

The second prong. I don't think that the Palestinians are nationally hated, just as much as I don't think that the right wing Israeli religious Jews are internationally hated; you'll always find supporters. They attack Israel for reasons much deeper than their international image, which is so negative that they might as well do whatever they want. No, there are clear ideological reasons behind Palestinian insurgencies into Israel, if you want to call them that, that are also beyond the scope of this post. I wrote a paper on it and would be glad to send it to you. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the reason Palestinians feel less restricted by international pressure is because they feel more vindicated in doing what they feel is right without the issue of consent. The Arabs are definitely a powerfully-spirited people, which can serve both for and against them. They also are less tempered by the type of disasters that have happened to the Jews, and therefore are less sensitive, if I may say such a thing. I mean, the most salient point I can quickly think of, and I don't like to always go back to the Holocaust, is that: if desperation can cause a group to attempt to destroy another entity in the name of survival, then we should have seen the Jews of the uprisings doing things worst than the Palestinians are in the intifadas. However, they did not, so we know that "mere" desperation is not a sufficient factor in doing something like what the Palestinians are; the Jews never attacked German civilians, and the Jews were TRULY being killed off.

As far as international opinion goes, the more people think that the Palestinians are, for example, comparable to Africans in South Africa being tormented by the Afrikaans, the more they will be supported by liberal peace groups. Not everybody supports the Palestinians, this is clear, but they have a huge following at the hands of liberal groups who like to bunch them in with "the meek" vs "the powerful." Again, this is the effect of a weak grasp on history and a weak mind coupled with an effective propaganda machine. This is the first time in history, I think, where Arabs are fighting a battle from below vs from above. This had made it so they've had to cater to international opinion, especially in a world where international opinion exists (it didn't in the 7th century). A combination of Arab (Muslim) zeal and and "being below" does a fairly good job of explaining the situation. This makes the Palestinian identity truly unique in Arab Muslim history, also because it is unique for Jewish history to be back in control of thier holy areas. I have feeling that they would continue the struggle even without much support as long as they have some, and that support eggs them on, causing them to think that what they are doing is right. However, they have a personal investment in doing this, which seems to trump international opinion. To a degree, the world seems to be afraid of them, a product of thier zeal, and a product of human stupidity, or maybe frailty.

OrthodoxJew said...

The thing is that I understood your rambling.

I've never gotten such a relaxed insight into what Arabs are facing day to day. I mean, I've spoken to enough Arabs, read, and have tried to comprehend things enough that much of what you said Arabs face, I have already come to realize. However, what you said brought it into a bit better focus than I could have come to on my own.

I understand that the Arab predicament, as Fouad Ajami calls it (I haven't read the book yet, just showing off) is quite bleak. I actually do feel for them and would love to see things get better for them, but my empathy and sympathy are short changed when I realize that Israel is made out to be the enemy. Years ago, maybe 4 or 5, I used to be more "liberal" towards the Arab sentiment, primarily the Palestinian one. As the years went by and I learned more about the bigger picture, my liberalism tended to fall away and I became more right wing with regards to Israel and the Arab situation(s), but it didn't replace that I knew that things weren't the best for them. I understand now, how their problems cause them to call for the destruction of Israel, but I am not left with much of a choice when my destruction is one of my options. I started to speak out loudly against the Palestinian cause. The one thing that gets me time after time is why the Arabs, who have their own set of problems, turn "the Palestinian martyr" into a beacon of hope for them. I understand its purpose and effect, but rationally it is a thing that makes little sense, especially considering that the Arabs want thier lives to improve.

After what you said I understood the desperation and rebellion that causes Arabs to rally behind terrorist groups in their countries, which I pray can end, but why they rally around the Palestinians, whom serve as purely a symbolic and retorical entity? It's hard for me to understand why Arabs (meaning societies and individuals) demand that Israel relinquish this and that as a means for peace. Clearly they've been "burned" by Israel, at least in their minds (which matters), but every step of the way Israel was met with resistance. Only the Palestinians have been "forced" to suicide bombing, but it seems that the majority of the Arab world feels like they are Palestinians. This exaltation of the Palestinian cause seems counter-productive and sparks up easily-ignited Jewish paranoia and the need for defense.

Maybe Israel and the first Zionists ignored the existence of an Arab national sentiment when they came to Israel (when it was still called Palestine). This is entirely possible and even likely, although there is an indication that Arab nationalism, although not approached exactly in the way Arabs would have liked, was recognized by the first Zionists. For the most part, the Zionists didn't want to simply take Arab land; they had a socialist philosophy and they wanted to live in their little Jewish enclaves and work the land, and believed that the Arabs would have invited this socialist approach. It made a measure of sense, but it was a bit naive as well, and the Arabs were a bit closed-minded and didn't like the sudden immigration of Jews. That they were both Jews and European had alot to do with it, and the stuff that was going on in the background. The Arabs were a bit xenophobic. Desperation wise, the Jews coming there were quite desperate, maybe more desperate than the Arabs, but you can't perfectly measure sentiment even if it's true. The British are to blame as well for stirring things up, but they also tried to help Jews and Arabs. Looks like we have alot of the past pinned down, but the present needs to be addressed.

Today, and this doesn't make sense either, Arab youth and even adults seem to view Jews as some kind of racial group, which Jews never attest to being. For example, I've heard Arabs say and write that, for example, "she has a Jewish accent." What the heck is a Jewish accent? That's like saying "Muslim accent." There is a psychological phenomenon where people reflect onto others mental paradigms that they themselves hold. For example, and maybe I'm wrong, Q'uranic/Islamic thought says that Jews believe themselves to be a race (although we never said that), and for that reason they define us in the way that they believe we believe about ourselves. Does that make sense? The word "Jewish" is not an adjective, but I've heard Arabs using it that way: that thing is "Jewish." It's funny at the same time as it is ignorant.

The pre-occupation with Holocaust-denial is an example of this. It seems that Arabs, and maybe this is becuase of the tormet of the last decade or so, Arabs are quite emphatic about turning particular events into rallying points, such as Deir Yassin, Sabra and Shatila, Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, and Muhammad Dura's death, etc... It's almost like a culture, or a cult. It's true to a certain degree that Jews view, or viewed, the Holocaust in the same way, but I think that Arabs assume that Jews view the Holocaust in the same way that Arabs view, for example, Deir Yassin, or "al Nakba," and therefore put so much energy into showing how it didn't exist, or was played up. I just saw some Iranian intellectuals debating among themselves the exaggerations of the Holocaust. I would say that, maybe, maybe, some Arabs (and Muslims) feel privately guilty about rejecting Israel's establishment the way it did and therefore play down the Holocaust, but I can't be sure.

The late Rabbi Meir Kahane, a very right wing American Jew who lived in Israel, called for the removal of Arabs from Israel and was eventually assassinated by an Arab; I forgot what country he (the assassin) was from. The interesting thing about Kahane, as unpopular among the Israeli left as he was, he made some of the honest and most empathetic comments about the Arab reality in Israel, that it was naive for the Jews to believe that the Arabs would accept their secondary status in Israel, and that it was contuingly naive for the Israeli left to continue to believe that the Arabs are happy with their lives in Israel. Therefore, he argued, that expulsion was the only solution. Until then, he said, Arabs in Israel would continue to wrestle the Israeli estabishment for demographic, civil, and social dominance, and Israel would continue to have to deny them this "right" over and over again, knowing that to endow the Arab Israeli's with it would be utter destruction. The Israeli left would psychotically agrue that the Arabs in fact did NOT want to destroy Israel and were angry because they weren't getting enough, so then liberal Knesset members would advocate for "more rights" and "more equal treatment" for the Arabs. But, Kahane said, the Arabs cannot ever accept their secondary status in Israel, especially in light of the things that you said about how Arabs view Israel in light of what its done. The Arabs in Israel have it worst than any of the Arabs outside of Israel, and the West Bank and Gaza Arabs have it worst than all of them. In the end, he said, either:
1)Israel will become an Arab state

2) the Arabs will continue to be mistreated and rebel

3)Israel will expell them, get a lot of heat for it, but bring peace

4) or Jews will leave Israel

I don't know what the Arabs must do in order to find a way to get along with Israel and to reach internal peace of mind, and I hear alot of people say that America's policies are the culprit, and they probably carry some blame, but the problems are also internal. I don't think that Israel can really do anything to fix the situation, but I do know that our lives (Israel's and Arabs) are intertwined to the point where things have to change.

I too, living in America from age five, loving Zionism, have seen Israeli's be less enthusiastic about it than I, with Zionism being Israeli nationalism. Their morale has sunk there for many reasons, but largely because they are not seeing peace. They have gripped to any philosophy they could to make them happy, many going to liberalism, while it seems that many Arabs have gone to conversativism for the same reason. This is dangerous; Israeli's becoming ultra-liberal and Arabs become ultra-conservative - it's not a recipe for success but for horrible partnerships and injustice. The move towards religiousity has also begun to pick up in Israel, and years ago, while living in America (I still do), I became a religious Jew.

Israeli nationalism, based on culture, and a political identity that did not ensure any cohesion, not to mention flaky moral values, didn't seem to gaurantee Israel, or the Jewish people, with much of a future. That kind of scared me into reality and is one of the reasons I became religious, observant, or Orthodox.

It seems that Arab Muslims and Israeli Jews have certain things in common, but also have many many differences.

Mas'ah 'il-kheer wa shu ismak? Yaniv...

OrthodoxJew said...

Well said, I have no comment. I like your first scenario, I never thought of that. By the way, just curious, how did you find this blog? Good week, Yaniv...

Unknown said...

Comparing someone, anyone, to the Nazis is the standard for anything. Log onto any forum on the Internet and you'll see the comparison used to attack people over shoes, sport, the weather, anything. The Nazis are the architypical, irreproachable evil enemy of Western civilization (and rightly so) but to assume that someone compares Israel to the Nazis because they are anti-Semetic is simply baseless. While anti-Semitism may make someone more likely to make this comparison you cannot say that this comparison equals anti-Semitism. The 'Nazi Insult' is far too widespread in society generally for this to stand up to scrutiny.

Also, the picture at the bottom...historically inaccurate and just generally not helpful. A closed minded, racist semiotic. Not all Muslims are terrorists and not all Jews are innocent victims. Once you can accept that fact you can start to have a grown up conversation about the matter.