Israel's Nation-State Talk Means the Return of The Yellow Star

Gideon Levy — 2014-04-01T20:00:00Z

Israelis are judging people by their ancestors and withdrawing into a ghetto-state whose nature will be determined by its purity.

This kind of talk could only take place in darkness; in beer cellars, at violent fringe demonstrations or at the headquarters of outlawed organizations. Only the extreme, fascist, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic and xenophobic right would dare to breathe a word of it. Only skinheads and their masters would dare to speak of national purity and of defining their country based on ethnicity, religion, race, nationality or heredity.

No one would dare to say France for the French, America is all-American, Germany is a German state or Italy is a Catholic one. Anyone who did so wouldn't be considered credible. These countries are democracies of all their citizens; their character is determined by the components of the entire population. Living in each are minorities, their numbers growing in this era of globalization and migration. No one speaks of a nation-state, of a state of one religion, of one racial group.

But this kind of talk is fashionable in Israel. It's legitimate and even Zionist: a Jewish state. Only in Israel are individual rights and the character of the state determined by origin, like having a Jewish great-grandmother. The hell with members of minority groups – most of whom were born here.

This kind of talk has also become a basic condition for the negotiations with the Palestinians. It's just a cheap excuse, of course – one more obstacle on the road to reaching a peace agreement, heaven forfend. But the disease's malignant symptoms are deeply encoded in Israel's DNA.

Israel is returning to the ghetto, building its own neo-ghetto with its own two hands. Welcome to the Israel Ghetto; it built the walls and fences that surround it long ago, and the mental and cultural walls are on the way. What was done to the Jews for generations, the Jews are now doing to themselves: judging people by their ancestors and withdrawing into a ghetto-state whose nature will be determined by its degree of purity.

This time it's not the goyim's fault, it's Israel that yearns to live in a ghetto. It's an old-new obsession, and history laughs its bitter laugh. The new Jews, the Israelis, embrace the methods and the standards of the Nazis, may their name and memory be erased. The Israelis check their bloodlines and then put them in a ghetto.

The only thing missing is the yellow star; maybe it will come back, too. After all, how will we know who's Jewish in the Jewish state? There has to be a way to identify who is (and more importantly, who isn't) a Jew. The most obvious identifier is the bad old yellow Star of David sewn on your clothes.

Yes, it's a new yellow time in which the Jews are withdrawing back into the ghetto. Israel is doing its best not to be accepted into its neighborhood – the “villa in the jungle” as Ehud Barak called it – and the effort goes beyond security and politics.

It's “no entry” to Middle Eastern culture, to Arab art and history, to African asylum seekers, to anyone who isn't a Jew. Every Israeli knows the mantra “a Jewish state,” but it's doubtful anyone knows what it means. Is it a halakha state run in accordance with Jewish law? Is it a theocracy with no civil marriages, no public transportation on the Sabbath and a mezuzah on nearly every doorpost?

That's a Jewish state. And would Israel be non-Jewish without these traditions? Would it be non-Jewish with 50,000 asylum seekers and Jewish without them? We haven't yet decided whether Judaism is a religion or a nationality, or even who is a Jew. The main thing is that we want a Jewish state, the kind Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will recognize forever.

But Israel's character will be determined in other ways – not by the blood that flows in its inhabitants' veins, but by its system of government, culture and society. An Arab from Taibeh is no less Israeli than a member of Bnei Menashe, a community from Burma and India, who was brought to the settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron.

The child of African refugees who was born and raised in Israel, whose language is Hebrew, whose favorite singer is Eyal Golan and whose soccer team is Hapoel (or Maccabi) Tel Aviv is no less Israeli than a student at an Ateret Cohanim yeshiva. If there's to be a yellow star, it must be for everyone. For all Israelis.

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.580021

John Kerry's Mideast Peace Deal is a Disaster

Gideon Levy — 2014-02-14T21:33:04Z

If United States Secretary of State John Kerry fails in his efforts, it will be a disaster; if he succeeds, it will be an even greater disaster. Failure is liable to herald what New York Times analyst Thomas Friedman has called “the Brussels intifada,” a third intifada that won't involve bombings and violence but sanctions and international boycotts of Israel. Failure will push the Palestinians back to the United Nations, where even the U.S. may remove its automatic and blind veto umbrella that has always protected Israel there. In the end, failure is also liable to reignite the fire of rebellion in the territories.

But success would be even more ominous. Kerry is not an honest broker, because the U.S. cannot be one − not even the U.S. of President Barack Obama, as disappointing as that is. The absolute ally of one side can never be a fair intermediary, not in business and not in diplomacy. An ally that cannot exploit the dependence of its protectorate to advance a fair agreement can't achieve anything that will resolve the ultimate problems.

Instead, the name of the game now is exploiting the weakness of the Palestinian Authority. With the Arab world fighting its own regimes and the Western world tired of this endless conflict, the Palestinians are left alone to their fate. America is trying to bring them to their knees and subdue them. If it succeeds, it will be a disaster.

It would not only be unfair, but futile. If Kerry succeeds and the Palestinians sign the letter of surrender, 80 percent of the settlers will remain in place; Jerusalem won't really be divided − certainly not enough to serve as two capitals; the Jordan Valley will remain in Israeli hands, whether leased, rented or borrowed; the imaginary Palestinian state will be demilitarized; Gaza will remain besieged, trapped and forgotten; Hamas, which represents around half the Palestinian people, will continue to be treated as an outcast; Israel will be recognized as a strictly kosher Jewish state, certified by the PA; the right of return will be denied forever to all the Palestinian exiles and refugees, wherever they may be; and the demands for “security arrangements” will be met − Israel's demands, of course. The Palestinians, 7,000 of whom have been killed since 2000, have no security problems; their lives and wellbeing are guaranteed and thoroughly secured.

And what happens then? Will this solution last for any length of time? Will the millions of Palestinians bow their heads in submission and return happily to their routines, alongside 80 percent of their uninvited neighbors, with their lust for real estate, messianism and dispossession, some of whom live on the Palestinians' private lands? Will they celebrate their independence in the alleys of Shuafat, their new eternal capital? And the refugees in the camps and the exiles all over the world, will they give up their dream? Will Hamas be disarmed? All because Kerry pressed and Mahmoud Abbas gave in?

None of this will happen, of course. Kerry is offering submission, and Abbas may be forced to sign off on it. Obama is watching what's going on from a safe distance, lest failure be attributed to him. But failure is guaranteed, even if “success” is achieved. There might be a (slim) chance that these agreements will be implemented. And then what? Sooner or later, the Palestinian rebellion will erupt again, as justified as ever. The refugees whose problems were not solved, the farmers whose lands were not returned, Hamas, which was left out in the cold, and the left-wing movements will not accept the agreement. They won't be able to accept it.

And then most Israelis' heart's desire will be achieved. Again they'll be able to say to the world: See? We yielded and yielded, and they betrayed us; we gave and gave, and they returned to terrorism. They're like animals, just like after the disengagement. Prospects for a real solution will recede even more, this time perhaps forever.

I ran into Friedman at the airport last week as he was leaving the country following his conversations in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The esteemed commentator said that he got the impression that much more was going on beneath the surface than was obvious. And my heart was filled with great fear.

Source: http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/beyond-the-mass-bds-psychosis/

Alternatives International

Israel's Nation-State Talk Means the Return of The Yellow Star

John Kerry's Mideast Peace Deal is a Disaster