http://indymedia.org.il
Response to AMR
author: Hermes
Because you and me are related, and we have a shared history, and a relationship that does not exist between us and the Tutsis, us and the Iraqis, us and the Tibetans. Even if that relationship is a tragic one. Your background is as much European as it is Jewish, or at least if not in your case, because I don't know you personally, this is the case for a great many Israeli Jews.
I relate to you in a way I find difficult to relate to an Indonesian. I know you on a deeper level than I know the African Huttu. As my mind expands, and I confront these issues of human suffering, I see more and more the universality of persecution and conflict, in regions all over the world, at scales even greater than Israel and Palestine.
But Palestine is my first point of contact. Because I see people who think like me, wear clothes like me, have fun in the way I like to have fun, watch the same movies as me, live in a society similar to my own, treating another people with such racism and injustice. It is the same as South Africa, in that respect. There were worse things than South Africa. Many of them happened in other African countries. But the persecutors were white, like us, and rich, like us, and shared our culture and values.
Israel is not the biggest villain on the face of the Earth. But certainly, the issue is a very dangerous one, and the consequences that spring from what happens in that region are having ripples that can be felt when terrorists fly planes into the World Trade Centre, starting off a chain of events that leads our countries into the disastrous occupation of Iraq. What is happening with Israel and Palestine is having a direct affect on what my country is doing, now, in the middle-east.
It is not just 'You and Them', because we've all been dragged into it now. And so, we all have to confront the problems together, and on our 'side', as citizens of 'Western Civilisation', we have to confront the fact that, perhaps we are racist. We still have a colonial mentality. We believe we are better than everybody else. And we are far more willing to build walls of hate and checkpoints of humiliation, than we are to approach another people with open arms, respect and honesty of being.
We are part of the same system, and it is something slightly different to the system in Africa, the rest of the Middle East, or in East Asia.
Maybe here is an emotional complication, which I would like to understand. How does the Israeli Jew relate to their European heritage? Are they happy with it, or do they resent it, and feel angry at it, because of the horrors of the holocaust? And again, how does it feel, to be treated in such a humiliating way in Europe, packed off to another country with our blessings, and then told by us that what you are doing is wrong? It is shit, and it is a complicated issue, but it is one we need to work through together.
I can only say, that I, had I been alive at that time, would have stood up for the rights of the persecuted Jew, and risked my life in the same way I have risked my life for the persecuted Palestinian. I did not have to go to Nablus and get shot at by the IDF. But I believe in higher principles than just survival, and maybe thats a luxury born out of a life of safety. Many people stood up for the Jews, and were murdered alongside them. And they did it, not because they chose a side, 'Germans or Jews'. They did it for human decency. A belief and a respect that all life is sacred, and the blood of one race is no more precious than the blood of another.
Can you not see, so many of us are telling you to stop, not because we hate you, not because we are anti-semitic, but because we do not want to see you become as cruel and stupid as us. We cannot bear to see the Jew we persecuted becoming the persecutor of another people. Our history together is long, and filled with pain. And understandably, you would leave that history behind, and Exodus to the promised land. But there is no escape now, our world has become so much smaller in 3000 years, and we have to learn to live with each other. You cannot fight the Arabs forever. They only have to win once, and its all over for you. If you choose to fight, you have to win every battle if you are to survive. But if you choose a different path, and engage with them, as brothers, you will find your security.
In blood, they are more your brothers than we are. Aren't the arabs also a semitic people? So you have two brothers. The Arab shares your blood, the European shares your culture...
Anyway, thanks, lets keep up the debate