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Go Home The Weak Edifice Of Palestinian Nationalism

THE SPINE JANUARY 14, 2008

The Weak Edifice Of Palestinian Nationalism

BY JAMES KIRCHICK

The Bush visit to the Middle East is now come and gone, over. We will see what we will see.

But I've just reread an article instructing George Bush on what he must do there to be a success. It was published in the FT ("Bush must dispense bitter pills to bring about peace") on the day (January 9) the president landed at Ben Gurion Airport, and it was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Not actually as a memo to Bush but more as a sop to the people around Barack Obama who go into conniptions when reminded that Zbig is one of their candidate's foreign policy advisers.

The article is not rocket science. But it is sensible enough. The Israelis have already agreed to more or less everything that Brzezinski says Bush should demand of them, and they did most of that when Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat were cooped up at Camp David in 2000.

Brzezinski knows this, and so there is none of his usual hectoring of the Israelis. Does he want to be National Security Adviser again? He can't. He reminds everyone of Jimmy Carter. Also way too old.

But Zbig does not want to be pariah, as he has been during the last decade.

One matter on which he is abundantly clear is that there is not to be "a right of return" of the so-called refugees to the Jewish state. (I'll write about these people and their problem some time soon -- and also about the Sephardic world which, under duress and due to widespread violence, transferred itself more or less entirely to Israel.)

This is the "don't touch me" line of the Palestinians. If they give up this demand, their entire ideological structure withers away.

 

 

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61 comments

I don't think Obama would take the risky and divisive Brzezinski at National Security Advisor. In any case, most speculate that a Democratic administration would likely feature Richard Holbrooke as the head of the diplomatic corps.

- rozenson

January 14, 2008 at 4:59pm

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It would be a surprise if a Pole like Zbig were to advocate a "right" that is not made available by Poland to Prussian Germans.

- teplukhin2you

January 14, 2008 at 5:05pm

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The United States, through Israel, with US money, should offer money to the individual Palestinian families for compensation directly and cut out the PTO and Hamas. If enough of them sell away their rights to make claims on property then that issue can be resolved. Buy them off, money now instead of what most must know of as a delusion of return. And I know it will never happen but I would also like to see a great increase in Palestinians being offered green cards to the US on condition they renounce previous claims on Israel. If we can absord 20 million Mexicans we can take 2 million Palestinians. Put them in Detroit, they will hardly be able to tell the difference.

- blackton

January 14, 2008 at 5:14pm

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The thing is, blackton, there are a lot of people who are very angry with the 20 million Mexicans. How are those people going to feel about two million Muslims suddenly descending on "The land of the White and the home of the Protestant"?

- rozenson

January 14, 2008 at 5:46pm

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"It would be a surprise if a Pole like Zbig were to advocate a "right" that is not made available by Poland to Prussian Germans."

This is an important point. Most of the WW2 refugees were never repatriated and had to make homes elsewhere. This is also true of the refugess of the Turkish Greek wars before WW2 and the MUlsim and Hindu refugees from the parition of India. Only the Palestinians  Arabs were given special status, they are contemporary history's great exception.

It's not out of the question that anti-semitism was the driving force behind this "exception."

- jacksondyer

January 14, 2008 at 5:47pm

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" If we can absord 20 million Mexicans we can take 2 million Palestinians. Put them in Detroit, they will hardly be able to tell the difference."

No thank you, Blackton. Let they need to get citizenship in the countries they have been living for more than fifty years. The Arab countries are in part respsonsible for their plight and should help resolve a problem which they helped create.

- jacksondyer

January 14, 2008 at 5:50pm

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blackton, if your offer (to buy them off) isn't backed up by a popular Palestinian leader, it will not work. They'll refuse. In any case, it's a whole enterprise, and can't be done on an individual level. each such person will have to leave the refugee camp and build or buy a house for himself. it's a huge project, which takes a massive propaganda campaign to start with. How does one even start such a campaign when 4 generations have been brainwashed into believing they're going back?

How about this: we agree to the right of return only for those who were born in what is now Israel, and can prove it?  they're at least 60 years old by now. Their families (all next 3 generations) are there with them and will not be admitted back. Most of them will refuse, and some will come back to spend their last years here.

This time bomb the UN (via UNRWA) has prepared here... perpetuating the conflict by turning the state of being a refugee into a genetic trait! Four generations.

I truly believe this is where the core of the conflict lies, and there's no way to resolve this one.

- babigail

January 14, 2008 at 5:59pm

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Yes, let us give a rousing chorus of boos to the UNRWA for giving obvious and ridiculous preferential treatment to the Palestinian "refugees."

- rozenson

January 14, 2008 at 6:10pm

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Jordan is the obvious answer to this problem. If the Jordanians were ever to take them in, the WB could be given to Jordan.

- teplukhin2you

January 14, 2008 at 6:21pm

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"Jordan is the obvious answer to this problem. If the Jordanians were ever to take them in, the WB could be given to Jordan."

yes!

- jacksondyer

January 14, 2008 at 6:41pm

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rozenson,

The reason UNRWA gives preference to the Palestinians is because it was established purely for the Palestinians, AFAIK the only UN agency to be focused on just one group.  Also, by its definition of refugee, the Palestinians can be refugees in perpetuity, the only group with that privilege.  In the event of a political solution is anyone willing to bet that a cozy long established bureaucracy like UNRWA won't transform itself into some agency also with an open-ended mandate for for aiding the new Palestine?

tep2,

Zbig would probably support a right of return for the East Prussians if the Poles had one for those parts of Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine which were part of Poland pre-WW2.  

I've noticed that in stories about the Palestinians and the right of return in the MSM, virtually none mention that as many or more Jews in Arab countries were forced out after the establishment of Israel and no one is calling for those countries to compensate those Jews and their descendants.  

- whimsy007

January 14, 2008 at 6:47pm

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... assuming of course that some future Palestinian leader doesn't try to overthrow Jordan's government as that previous leader tried to do in 1970

- teplukhin2you

January 14, 2008 at 7:01pm

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whimsy - ...and which were part of Russia pre-WWI? How far back are you willing to extend this?

- teplukhin2you

January 14, 2008 at 7:02pm

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babigail, it is just dime store musings, personally I prefer a 3 state solution, a Republic of Gaza, Israel, and Republic of the West Bank. In any event, in 10 years we will be proposing the same ideas with the same results. In 50 years, Gaza will be underwater due to global warming, but if I live that long I doubt that will be a particular concern of mine, being that the rest of the world will either be thoroughly screwed or unimaginably high tech. by then Palestinian assimilation might have an entirely different meaning.

- blackton

January 14, 2008 at 7:33pm

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Jackson,

Actually, Germany has given right of return to German Jews and Austrian Jews, which would include my mother-in-law and, by extension, my husband, kids, and me (that's not me making assumptions).   And frankly if, God forbid, Hillary wins the presidency, I may just have to take them up on that offer.  

- MOLLYSIMON

January 14, 2008 at 8:59pm

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molly, ha. in that event, do you have an extra room to rent?

- blackton

January 14, 2008 at 10:00pm

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teplukhin2you said:

"... assuming of course that some future Palestinian leader doesn't try to overthrow Jordan's government as that previous leader tried to do in 1970"

Wwll, I take it for granted that they will, though for now the King is still in  astrong position. If and  when  it happens Israel will know what to do.

The important thing, for now, is to get that white elephant called the West Bank of off Israel's shoulders.

- jacksondyer

January 14, 2008 at 11:54pm

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tep2,

I think that the Poles would point out that the land claimed by the Russians (now in the Ukraine) was part of Poland before it was partitioned between Russia, Prussia, and Austria.  

I've seen some references to post-WW2 Middle East as representing a new era where nations could no longer acquire land by conquest,  However, that change didn't seem to apply to Russia of just a few years before, China with regard both to Tibet and parts of India, and possibly including India absorbing Sikkim.  Note that part of warming relations between China and India was India recognizing Tibet as part of China is exchange for China recognizing Sikkim as part of India.  And no one is asking Russia to give up the Kaliningrad oblast although it was annexed from East Prussia and sits athwart Poland and Lithuania, i.e. it was never part of historic Russia.  

- whimsy007

January 15, 2008 at 12:00am

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mollysimon, Germany’s action regarding Jews is a way for that country to show that it has overcome its dark history.

If I were you I wouldn't be in such a hurry to move there. It's a nice place right now, but there are some changes coming which may not be so nice. This is true for Europe in general.

Remember too that Germany's relation to Jews was always cyclical going back to the middle Ages. Periods of tolerance alternated with periods of intolerance.  It's not for nothing that Ashkenazim spoke a German based dialect.

We are not talking about individual people, but about political cultures, and above all history. I doubt that human beings are capable of abolishing history altogether.

- jacksondyer

January 15, 2008 at 12:04am

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Don't mind Jackson Molly. Take up that offer and move to the civilized world.

I have a lot of hope in Europe's future and I do believe that the grim past will not be repeated. Europeans today are constitutional patriots and not nationalists anymore. Particularly in Germany and in other countries that experimented fascism from within. And the European Union is the monument that is there to represent the overcoming.

- luispc

January 15, 2008 at 7:24am

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Yes, Luis, especially if some reason this insane war keeps going for a 100 years more (which McCain, our very likely next president--should Hillary be the Democratic nominee--says it will).  I will not allow my son to be drafted; instead he, along with the rest of his family, will be on the first Lufthansa flight to Berlin.  Where they will appreciate an educated Westerner.  

I agree Luis--the insanity has now moved to the middle East and parts of Africa.  This is where the 21st-century atrocities are taking place.  Though pessimism is deeply encoded in my DNA, and I do sometimes wonder what would happen to Jews should the economy here makes an unprecedented nosedive.  I think civilization is a thin veneer.  For instance, immediately after the last huge earthquake in L.A., people were fighting each other in supermarkets, shoving old people aside for milk!  Ah, well, this is probably why I should be writing movies about life after nuclear winter.  

- MOLLYSIMON

January 15, 2008 at 11:41am

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"I have a lot of hope in Europe's future and I do believe that the grim past will not be repeated."

I never said the grim past will be repeated as an exact copy of the past. It will be repeated in the Kiekegaard sense of repetition which is to say as forward movement of recollection.

- jacksondyer

January 15, 2008 at 1:22pm

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I want your guys' help, I have a theory:

I think Bush is trading the NIE in exchange for serious Israeli cooperation on reducing/reversing Israeli settlement activity.

In other words, Bush (and Rice) are actually serious about this effort at an Israeli/Palestinian deal and are truly pushing Olmert quite hard on settlements. In exchange, Bush is disavowing his own NIE (that says Iran is far from building nukes) to assure Olmert that the US continues to take the Iran threat 'very seriously.'

I'd like everyone's thoughts.

- mmathog

January 15, 2008 at 1:26pm

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mollysimon “….especially if some reason this insane war keeps going for a 100 years more (which McCain, our very likely next president--should Hillary be the Democratic nominee--says it will).  I will not allow my son to be drafted; instead he, along with the rest of his family, will be on the first Lufthansa flight to Berlin.”

Is this the same unsinkable Molly who not so long ago wondered if a scandal involving a “Jewish” banker would be a catalyst to antisemitism here?

In Berlin, (as in most of Europe) every Jew is an emblematic representation of all Jews.

“Where they will appreciate an educated Westerner.”

Sure, but there you won’t be  “a Westerner” you’d be a Juden, and perhaps sometime an uncouth, though educated American.

- jacksondyer

January 15, 2008 at 1:45pm

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Speaking anecdotally I'd guess that Molly would have a far easier time of it in Berlin than in London.

Not just from the British media, which is far more open about their hatred of Israel, but from day to day interactions on the street or in private houses and offices. Can't count the number of times I've heard Brits sneer/spit/fulminate against the jewish state and/or jews. I'd guess that such is now considered respectable behavior at Holland Park or Notting Hill dinner parties.

My (limited) experience of Berlin was the opposite: people bending over backward to be tolerant, even pro-Israel. Go for it, Molly. It's a great city, great classical music, close to the baltics prague munich etc.

- teplukhin2you

January 15, 2008 at 1:59pm

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mmathog - in our era, an I/P deal at the end of his 2nd term is the wet dream of every American president. Esp those reeling from unpopularity, scandal, a reputation for incompetence etc

- teplukhin2you

January 15, 2008 at 2:01pm

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The UK has a serious and growing problem with home-grown jihadis. France and Germany do not. Anti-semitism may well be on the rise in France, but it is out of control in London today, probably the rest of Britain. Not just among the Ken Livingston crowd but also investment bankers, doctors, lawyers, journalists and (probably worst of all)  academics and teachers.

Truly poisonous, and ironic: London has never been so cosmopolitan, welcoming of foreigners, foreign cultures languages foods habits etc, as it is today. Every Other except the Jewish Other, that is. Go figure.

- teplukhin2you

January 15, 2008 at 2:05pm

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nmathog - your "theory" has a few implicit assumptions:

1. Bush & Co truly believe that the I-P conflict is central to everything in the ME

2. they, on the other hand, are not really alarmed about Iran going "nucelar"

3. the only obstacle to resolving I-P conflict (and, by extension, stabilizing the whole ME)  is the removal of Israeli settlements

Incidentally, isn't it the crux of the Iraq Study Group's conclusions?

If all this is true for Bush and RIce, they'd be not merely incompetent, but plain delusional.

- sabaka

January 15, 2008 at 2:31pm

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Yes, Berlin these days is a magnificent place to be. More cultural action than in New York. And a very relaxed, popular, atmosphere.

Let me keep my hope, Jackson.

The danger today, Tep's right, is coming from those that think they have no responsibilities for the past, those that are not confronted with their own inescapable responsibility and consequently are not so aware of the absolute need to support political structures that keep us from falling into the "banality of evil" again.

Germany today is a safe place.

And the magnificent way in which they are dealing with their totalitarian past (both nazi and comunist) and the lessons that they collectively have taken from it can be seen in the films they are producing these days. Sophie Scholl (in what concerns the nazi past) and The Lifes of Others (in what concerns the comunist past) are beautiful reflections on totalitarianism in which the right lessons are seen to be taken. If you haven't seen these two films, see them immediately. They are both incredibly beautiful and revealing.

- luispc

January 15, 2008 at 2:36pm

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Well sabaka, I wasn't commenting on the wisdom, just what I think Bush and Co. are thinking, to your points:

1. That's not necessarily true, it could be something that they just want done, for whatever reasons... (I think Tep outlined one motive)

2. Why not? They could both be true, one doesn't preclude the other.

3. Not the 'only' obstacle, but certainly a necessary condition for a true I/P deal.

Bush and Co. might believe that an I/P deal is not necessarily 'central' to everything in the M.E. could also truly believe that the NIE understated the Iranian threat and finally could believe that the settlements are merely one of several necessary steps and my theory still holds.

- mmathog

January 15, 2008 at 2:48pm

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Tep, I don't know why Bush is doing it, the concerted effort is so uncharacteristic, it's as if he woke up the other day, realized, for the first time, that he was actually President, realized he wouldn't be for much longer, and then decided to go and 'do something.'

He'd probably have better luck arbitrating the Hollywood writers' strike (why hasn't Arnie stepped in here?).

Anyway, for whatever reason, Bush is doing it, and he seems serious about it.

- mmathog

January 15, 2008 at 2:51pm

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What else is he doing these days? Anything?

- teplukhin2you

January 15, 2008 at 3:21pm

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"Let me keep my hope, Jackson."

Of course, Luis;  'hope springs eternal in the human breast.'

btw: If we are going to be involved in a "hundred year war" then Europe will be on the front lines of the conflict.

- jacksondyer

January 15, 2008 at 3:28pm

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'hope springs eternal in the human breast"

And I would not say, after that, as Pope has, that "man never IS" and would not transfer everything for a "life to come"-

I would say that "man IS".

- luispc

January 15, 2008 at 3:34pm

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Is this what you meant?

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always To be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come."

Alexander Pope

- jacksondyer

January 15, 2008 at 4:30pm

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Yes. Is my reading wrong?

- luispc

January 15, 2008 at 4:36pm

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Wrong? I don't know, I didn't understand it.

- jacksondyer

January 15, 2008 at 5:01pm

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re: Contemporary Germany?

www.haaretz.com/.../943953.html

"Holocaust scholar: 'Jew' has become curse word among German youth"

By Ofer Aderet, Haaretz Correspondent  

"German schools are failing in educating students about the Holocaust, a new study by a political education center has found, as German youth, who one historian said use the word "Jew" as a common curse in daily discourse, are increasingly distant from the suffering of the victims of Nazism. ..."

- jacksondyer

January 15, 2008 at 5:02pm

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nmathog:

" it (ie, the I-P peace deal) could be something that they (Bush & Rice) just want done, for whatever reasons"

And I want to make it big in Vegas some day (preferably before this year's end), for a very specific reason - but, alas,  I know that my chances are less than slim. So I don't make my plans contigent on that.  Should we expect a similar grasp of reality by our national leaders?

"Why not? They could both be true, one doesn't preclude the other."

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the Bushies are equally concerned with Israeli settlements and Iran's drive for nukes. If true, it means that Bush and Rice  are - again-  detached from the reality and not capable of good judgment. Or, as Teplukhin noted, they are merely marking time concerning themselves with what future historians will write about their role in the ME "peace process".

" Not the 'only' obstacle, but certainly a necessary condition for a true I/P deal."

Now it's your opinion.  I actually happen to agree - some settlements will have to go, some will be included into Israel (ie, true "land for peace") when - and if - the final deal is done. The Israeli government should also implement their own decisions to remove all unauthorized settlements/outposts regardless of anything, that's what one would expect from a functioning democratic country.

But that, as the recent history showed, wouldn not stop Arab/Palestinian rejectionism and terrorism, it may actually encourage it. So the necessary - and only possible - way out  right now is to figure out how to stop that.  Afterwards, some real movement towards peace may actually start.

Currently it's a total stalemate, and most Israelis - not just hard-code settleres -  do not support simply withdrawing from the W.Bank and hoping for the best.  Absent serious change in Palestinian/Arab attitudes, nothing will change that.  Not summits, not surreal "final outlines" I-P meetings, not another X number of billions in aid thrown down the same familiar drain, not heroic efforts by Ms.Rice to remove this checkpoint or that.  Nor any speeches and op-eds.

Got any ideas?

- sabaka

January 15, 2008 at 6:59pm

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Jackson:  That's probably why, despite Luis's invitation, I'm not sure I could move to Europe.  Anti-Semitism is just too ingrained.   I was going to recommend to you a documentary I saw on Sundance, "Jewish Like Me," but I found the narrator/protagonist so obnoxious I just couldn't.  In any case, he went to England and interviewed a Jewish ex-pat who said that after 20 years she was returning to the States.  The anti-Semitism was becoming too painful for her to live with.  Sentences that start with, "You Jews . . . . "  His pit-stop in France was really horrifying--he went to an area mixed with Arabs and heard the foulest things about Jews coming out of their mouths.  

Not that I think the French are thrilled with the situation either.  But as that comic I mentioned a while back proves, even the non-Arab French have some issues.  And I'm sure this is my paranoia, but as a Jew I always experience some discomfort in these places.  It's like I can't trust that the locals, should they know I was a Jew, would see me as automatically an "other."

Germany I don't know about.  But it seems that almost every German I've ever met has either directly or indirectly apologized for the Holocaust.  I always want to say, "Chill, dude, I'm not blaming you."  But their openness and sincerity are touching to me.  The article you linked addressed how the current techniques for teaching the Holocaust are not working.  Which may explain the Jew as curse word.  And, as in many parts of Europe, the Arabs are definitely playing a part.  Still, one wonders where these kids get it.  And how deeply the country has been purged of anti-Semitism.

- MOLLYSIMON

January 15, 2008 at 8:44pm

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"And I'm sure this is my paranoia, but as a Jew I always experience some discomfort in these places. "

Oh, for crying out loud, stop second guessing yourself. Also, please stop apologizing for your perceptions.

“It’s like I can't trust that the locals, should they know I was a Jew, would see me as automatically an "other.""

And there is no such thing as an "other" in the actual world. In the world you are either a man or a woman, or a Frenchman, or a Turk, or Portuguese, or German or a Jew or an Arab....etc... One thing you are not and that is an "other."

Otherness is a philosophical notion which has been appropriated first by sociology and then by the political and turned into something that means all things to all people and hence it means nothing.

England is currently going through a political nervous breakdown due to its fading into insignificance on the world stage. The attitude toward Jews is only a symptom of the disease. But who wants to live in a diseased environment?

- jacksondyer

January 15, 2008 at 9:57pm

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I'm not saying that there aren't some localized phenomena of racism. And perhaps the fake notions that have been established by leftist post-modernists and that today are dominating the education system in many European countries are not helping.

But one thing is for sure: the cultural roots that allowed for Germany to fall into nazism (and many other European countries to fall into fascism) are today completely destroyed. Of course, to keep those roots destroyed (to abolish completely the friend-enemy distinction as basis of the polity) is a continuous work. Europe's history, it's moral lessons and it's admonitory meaning, as Judt said, "must be taught from the beginning to every new generation".

You must understand that, for European peoples themselves, the fall of fascism, is felt as a liberation.

And today, in Germany (I studied in Germany for some time and I know what I'm talking about), you can be sure that racism or more specifically anti-semitism is not accepted and is not widely spread. On the contrary.

And the support the wide majority of Germans has given to the EU (and the financial effort Germany continuously makes to have it established, financing almost alone the cohesion and solidarity policies) means precisely that today they are commited in the construction of a polity in which "belonging" has not to do with race or ethnical origins but with humanity and citizenship. The effort is to build a polity similar to the US one. In which the country is no one's and everyone's simultaneously.

In Britain (and to a certain degree in France), things are different. Mainly because they do not feel responsible for the past. And they keep a posture of "moral superiority" or of "political exceptionalism" that can be as cultural damaging as other forms of self-differentiation. One of the manifestations of this lies in their inability to integrate others in their societies. Something that today countries that experienced fascism are much more successful in. If you come to the Iberian countries, you'll watch the integration of foreigners made in a much more successful way. Spain is exemplary on this and the example followed is precisely the American one.

And I don't think the cultural malaise today felt in Britain is only dued to their lost of power in the world-stage. I think there are important cultural factors playing here. Besides their belief in their "political exceptionalism", there is a profoundly uneducated mass, very easily explored by the extremism (almost fascism) that can be seen in Mr. Murdoch's tabloids. All this tied with a "sentimentality culture" (that produces phenomena such as Diana or Blair's touchy-feely populism) and you have a cultural soup that is not recomendable at all.

All the "others" suffer from this, not just the Jews. I don't know if you've heard about the story of the British girl that was kidnapped in Portugal and whose parents were suspects. Although they were made suspects because the girl's DNA had been found in their car and they refused to answer police questions (and our law makes it mandatory to constitute someone suspect when one refuses to answer police questions, precisely to protect the interests of the suspects, since from that moment on they have the right to remain silent), the British media presented the case as one of the persecution of poor British suffering people by evil foreigners.

The British reaction, here and in other cases, is unthinkable in other countries. Because these other ones do not feel special anymore and learned to face their past as one of moral responsibility.

- luispc

January 16, 2008 at 3:18am

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Luis - Spain integrates foreigners successfully? Do you mean those who already speak spanish, or are you also talking about north africans, romanians, moldovans etc? If so, why do I never see any non-Spanish names in the lists of corporate titans, politicians, intellectuals or media figures?

- teplukhin2you

January 16, 2008 at 9:47am

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Because immigration in Spain, at least mass immigration, is a recent phenomenom. But wait 1 or 2 decades.

In the case of Portugal, where immigration of people from the ex-colonies is a phenomenom observed from the sixties, you have today people from all colours and creeds (from Macau to Africa, from India to South America) occupying important places, from CEO's to University professors (in my University, at least 10% of the professors are from the old portuguese India and at least two are from East Timor).  Other examples: the mayor of Lisbon, ex Minister of Justice and probable future PM; the head of the most important private TV channel; the head of the most important daily newspaper, etc.

And in what concerns the specific case of Jews, both in Spain and in Portugal the remaining ones plus those that chose to stay here when fleeing nazism (and there are some), all occupy preeminent positions in society, particularly in the intelectual world.

In both Madrid and Lisbon you have temples of all creeds. The particular privileges of the Catholic Church are almost all completely abolished. And you have public support of projects such as recovery of ancient sinagogues and jewish cemiteries.

- luispc

January 16, 2008 at 10:43am

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Luis, Jackson, Blackton, Tep, anyone else who may be reading this:

Guys, I had a letter today posted on AndrewSullivan.com!  It's under the heading of Obama and Jewish-black relations.  I haven't read your above Talkbacks yet, but wanted to let you know before you disappeared from this thread.   I've grown attached to you--you're real presences in my life--and couldn't wait to let you know.  

- MOLLYSIMON

January 16, 2008 at 12:12pm

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Molly, I just read your post on Sullivan. I am of your mother's generation and feel much like her about Jewish-black relations despite the fact that one of my best friends actually roomed with Farrakhan. On an individual basis, Jews and blacks can get along well. But on an institutional basis, I believe that sterotypes on both sides get in the way of warm relations. Black leadership has never acknowledged the enormaous contribition Jews made to the civil rights movement. Insteads we get snide remarks from Jesse Kackson and others.

However, Obama does not fit that mold. I am still suspicious of Obama, not because of Farrakhan but because of Zbig.

- r-ennis

January 16, 2008 at 12:49pm

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Congratulations on the letter Molly. I read it and it's excellent stuff.

- The Ignorant Populist

January 16, 2008 at 1:03pm

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Thanks, Ig!

Jackson--you're so right.  My hedging is highly annoying.  From now on, I'll just say it without apologies.

R-ennis:  Agree with you about Zbig.  I don't know what O is thinking.  Z was right about Iraq and the blowback, but whatever he did under Carter cancels makes him look like a fool and incompetent.  In any case, Obama saw the writing on the wall without the help of a "sage."

- MOLLYSIMON

January 16, 2008 at 2:02pm

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Congratulations Molly.

I went to andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com and I couldn't find what you wrote. Could you give me a more specific link? Or copy it here?

Thanks

- luispc

January 16, 2008 at 4:21pm

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Luis I agree with almost everything you said, except your conclusion:

“But one thing is for sure: the cultural roots that allowed for Germany to fall into nazism (and many other European countries to fall into fascism) are today completely destroyed. Of course, to keep those roots destroyed (to abolish completely the friend-enemy distinction as basis of the polity) is a continuous work. Europe's history, it's moral lessons and it's admonitory meaning, as Judt said, "must be taught from the beginning to every new generation".”

It’s precisely because all history must be taught anew to each generation (and Tony Judt was hardly the first to point this out) that the future is not guaranteed. As a recent article on Holocaust education in Germany said the students seemed more interested in the gas pipes than in the people gassed when they were taken for a visit to the remains of a death camp for educational purposes.

Teaching Holocaust history is today as difficult as teaching any history. In the era of Ipods, DVD’s, films in which violence is present in every frame the Holocaust becomes just another film and not all that violent since there are fewer explosions. Gassing which stifles the human cry is not that exciting on film. In the pornography of violence into which much of our entertainment culture has descended the plumbing probably of the death camps is more interesting than death of women and children.

This brings me to my real point, and here I agree with you, Nazism or Fascism will not make a comeback in the form we know. There will be no Black and Brown Shirts marching down streets military style. But, that is precisely because we are prepared to deal with when it takes this particular form. Are we prepared to recognize it when it comes in another guise?

Perhaps the very mechanism set up in order to forestall fascism will become the means for its reintroduction in a move akin to what Hegel might call “the cunning of history:” of course without any connotations of ultimate meanings of history. In this sense, Might not multiculturalism, which allows millions of antisemitic Arabs to settle in Europe, be such a vehicle?

Isn’t it the Middle Eastern immigrants who are objecting to the teaching of the Holocaust?

This has happened before in history. After the first and real Russian revolution the liberals were constantly guarding against the return of Czarism and any military man who wanted to fight the take over of the government by the extreme left, was quickly accused of treason and dismissed or imprisoned.

Ironically, when the reaction to the liberal State finally came it came from the left and not from the right.  It was Lenin and company who instituted the new Czarist regime.

The story doesn’t end here, though. Even Lenin and his friends fearful of a Napoleonic type take over of the revolution created a very weak army under the subservience of the Party.

This too was for naught because the Bonapartism which took over the party came not from the army but from the bureaucracy.

In both cases, the vanguard of the new state of affairs assumed it new what form the reaction would take and tried to watch for it. They failed in both cases.

I am not suggesting that the same thing will happen to Europe today, but I am suggesting that it is dangerous to assume that we know what form the forces of anti-liberalism will take.

I agree, though, with your views of Great Britain. I did read about the story you mentioned but didn’t follow it that closely so I don’t know all the details. The British parents seemed to me a little to smarmy, unctuous and very evasive not to have been suspect numero uno.

Finally (somebody else brought this up Luis), I don’t believe in the DNA test of history. I don’t think that Nazism is inevitable in Germany or Fascism in Italy. Most Germans and Italians taken out of the context of German and Italian history will react very differently to political events than did in their home countries. Still, there is a social and historical dynamic at work which is extremely conservative.

It is mindboggling that after almost a century of Communism and after the “re-education” and death of millions Russia seems to have “returned” to its Russian Orthodox past with some noticeable differences.

- jacksondyer

January 16, 2008 at 4:46pm

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Thanks Molly, I'll take a look.

- jacksondyer

January 16, 2008 at 4:48pm

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Can you set up a link to your letter, Molly?

Like Luis I am unable to locate it on Andrew's blog at The Atlantic.

- jacksondyer

January 16, 2008 at 4:55pm

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Well done, Molly!

Jack - here's the link: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.../obama-and-black.html

- teplukhin2you

January 16, 2008 at 5:24pm

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Well done, Molly!

Jack - here's the link: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.../obama-and-black.html

- teplukhin2you

January 16, 2008 at 5:25pm

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Thanks for the link, tep.

I liked your letter, though I am no Obama supporter at this time, as you probably know.

As to the antisemitism in the Black community it is spot on, though Obama is not a part of that.

As to Cohen's column, let's not make too much of it. He has himself written stupid things about Israel which he tried to explain away. I doubt too many people will be swayed by some columnist into voting or not voting for some candidate.

Finally, don't abuse you poor mother. She's got a right to vote for whomever she chooses and at the end of the next terms President it may turn out that she was right and you wrong, or vice versa.

It's because we don't know who is right and who isn't that we should value the right to vote one’s conscience. If election politics were a real science then voting would be unnecessary.

All we can do is cast our vote and hope for the best.

- jacksondyer

January 16, 2008 at 6:02pm

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Thanks for the compliments all--and thanks Tep for providing the link.

So Jackson, you're saying I shouldn't threaten my mom with access to the grandkids?  

- MOLLYSIMON

January 16, 2008 at 9:21pm

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Jackson, Luis, I don't believe fascism will make a comeback.  Nor do I think the star and sickle will ever be hanging from L'Arc de Triomphe.  My point to you Luis is not so much that there are pockets of racism but that these pockets are far more prominent and evident in European life.  Here in the states, I have never once heard a friend say, "You people . . . ."  I don't hear about teenagers routinely cussing each other out with the word "Jew."  Maybe once in my life did some street vendor say, "Don't Jew me down."  But he didn't know I was Jewish and when I revealed this fact, looked utterly ashamed.  Jew hatred exists here, sure, but it's so taboo that "You people" in polite company is unthinkable.  When a Jewish financier is involved in a political/financial scandal, his ties to Israel are not in the headlines--as happened recently in England.  The media are not glaringly anti-Israel.  In fact, the very idea of an Jewish Anti-Defamation League fills European Jews with wonder.

Maybe Jews on your side of the pond let this stuff roll off their backs because they're so accustomed to it.  Or maybe they just stick very closely together.  Or maybe they ignore it because they so desperately wish to assimilate.  But for me, putting up with this crap would be  impossible.  And how could I explain it to my kids, who themselves have grown up so sheltered?  I do think that Germany would be far easier than France or England, but maybe not easy enough.

- MOLLYSIMON

January 16, 2008 at 9:36pm

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"So Jackson, you're saying I shouldn't threaten my mom with access to the grandkids? "

You got it.

" I do think that Germany would be far easier than France or England, but maybe not easy enough."

Yes,  contemporary Germany would be a great place to visit and even in which to study, Molly.  Luis is right about that.

I studied in France many years ago and can attest to the rightness of your other comments about European culture.

- jacksondyer

January 16, 2008 at 10:01pm

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Again I sent a post and this stupid site lost it.

Basically I was agreeing that sometimes the danger comes from least expected places. And in Europe today the dangers are sometimes tied to agressive sects that think that integration can be achieved by not attending the cultural roots that precisely create the atmosphere for integration.

We can see this both on those that wish to integrate departing from fake rawlsian notions (forgetting that an "overlapping consensus" is simply impossible if one compromises on the very principles that would allow for mutual existence in conditions of tolerance) or from those that wish to integrate not stressing those basic principles but focusing absurd things such as drug use and sexual liberation (demanding Muslims to be confronted with pictures of naked women and drug use and to express their agreement with those practices if they want work visas: which is being proposed these days by Netherlands - Rita Verdonk, I think is the woman's name).

Well, all this is complicated and must be treated with extreme care. We are now in a mine field, in which one must avoid both old forms of intolerance (tied to exclusive identity narratives, sometimes religiously bound) and new forms of intolerance (tied to new forms of "moral superiority", now from departing from those that become intolerant after pursuing absurd notions of absolute tolerance).

PS: I know that Judt was not the first making that point. But he made it beautifully.

- luispc

January 17, 2008 at 5:38am

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"Again I sent a post and this stupid site lost it."

That's too bad Luis. It happened to me a couple of times also. It's a real pisser.

For the rest, you are right to say that,

"Well, all this is complicated and must be treated with extreme care. We are now in a mine field, in which one must avoid both old forms of intolerance (tied to exclusive identity narratives, sometimes religiously bound) and new forms of intolerance (tied to new forms of "moral superiority", now from departing from those that become intolerant after pursuing absurd notions of absolute tolerance)."

- jacksondyer

January 17, 2008 at 10:52am

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Luis, if you are still reading this thread take a look at this:

print.signandsight.com/.../1633.html

Back to Rudi Dutschke's pram

- jacksondyer

January 18, 2008 at 12:28am

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