The Palestine Collection: Palestine and the Problem of History
Palestine and the Problem of History
I’m guessing that a decent portion of my audience discovered me or still keeps an ear on what I’m up to because of the network of people I’ve worked with: including my former co-host Coleman Hughes, of course, and people like Sam Harris and there are others in the orbit whose names we all know. It should be no secret or surprise by now that I am floored and dismayed by the level of ignorance, carelessness, and tribalism exhibited by some of them. I’m using that word “ignorance” as carefully and charitably as possible and as amorally as possible, meaning that these people are literally unaware of history and are deeply taken in by myths. And that’s okay, I was clouded by many myths too, and potentially still am. I always want to keep the spirit of skepticism of my own positions as centrally important to my analysis. But sadly some people whom I mentioned also seem to be uninterested or unable to challenge themselves in this way.
I think I’m not alone in that assessment judging by the small window I can look through to the audience's reaction… If you’re a fan of those people and you’re confused, frustrated and disappointed with them… I am too. Let me also express that none of this is meant to be personal or hurtful. These people have become friends, and disagreements between friends on political and philosophical grounds are lovely things. Though there are certain relevant disagreements which might be revealing of things which really ought to be clarified and surfaced honestly.
But what I’ve learned through my failed efforts to budge certain minds, is that it seems that there is no amount of evidence or polling data or directly stated intent by officials or expose after expose after expose of what-should-be myth and argument shattering events that looks like it will prompt some people to pause and consider that they might possibly be mistaken… or that the moral math which they use to come out with utilitarian justifications of their positions might be missing huge and important variables. There is now a very detailed 84 page brief submitted to the ICJ by South Africa which has been provisionally accepted and granted by the court as being a plausible case of genocide… this brief was, of course, dismissed as antisemitic by Israel and called meritless by Joe Biden and other public intellectuals. And now there is a slam-dunk ICJ case seeking an advisory opinion regarding the legality of the settlements and appealing to resolution 242. It won’t matter to certain minds. They are uninterested. And they have their ready-made dismissals typed up ahead of time. They are reckless to say the least and display shocking levels of what I am calling “tribal essentialism”. More on that in a second.
So instead of wallowing in that disappointment and getting more annoyed in my frustration, I figure that I simply have to keep trying over here with my platform and do what I can do to try to make some sense in the world.
Okay, so here is the line of argumentation that is really doing all the moral work. “"If the IDF could go in there and kill only Hamas... if you gave them magical weapons, what would they do with them? They would kill only Hamas. Right? And they would turn Gaza into the South of France."”
This is something Sam Harris said on the decoding the Gurus podcast. I really don’t mean to pick on Sam. Like I said, he’s a friend and colleague at this point, and none of this should be taken personally. But he’s a very useful avatar because he so eloquently expresses statements like these which are unfortunately commonplace. Sorry Sam, you are a victim of your own fluency sometimes.
So, in the earlier paragraph, I referred to this mentality as “tribal essentialism”. I searched for the right terminology here for a while and I think it’s really important. There are words thrown around like racism, bigotry, and supremacy which I think are close to accurate but not entirely so, and thus end up derailing and being unhelpful. So, I don’t think most of the people saying these kinds of things are bigots or racists. Those words tend to conjure up ideas of outward hatred and prejudice. We tend to think of Edward Norton’s character in American History X, with the swastika tattoos and the neo-nazi raves chanting N-words. Racists think of other races as “less than” somehow. It is an outward facing form of bigotry, even if it is kept as a private thought. When people reply to accusations of racism with something like “I can’t be racist, some of my best friends are black!” this really is pointing to a difference between themselves and Edward Norton’s character. And it does actually mean something. It’s a type of defense against the charge of racism. But I don’t think people expressing that line about the IDF turning Gaza into the South of France are racist in quite this way. I think their mental positions are much more inward looking. That is where I get the word tribal. And the essentialism aspect is referring to something like this:
Essentialism is an attitude where there is a certain category of intentions and desired outcomes which is not considered from the very start of the analysis when it concerns the behavior of one’s own tribe. Let me say that again. Essentialism is an attitude which entails that a certain category of intentions and desired outcomes is not considered from the very start of the analysis when it concerns the behavior of one’s own tribe… And let me express that this is not limited to Jews, or whites, or westerns of course, this is a universal problem. It, of course, exists in every culture and every tribe. And it’s a MUCH bigger problem than the racism and bigotry boogey-men that we often hear about… which is thankfully much more rare in the year 2024.
So, what is the category of intentions which is not considered by an essentialist? It’s the category which includes intentions that are hateful, that are supernatural, that are ugly, that are vengeful, that are dehumanizing, that are inhumane, but most importantly it includes the intentions which are irrational. I’ll get to that in a bit.
So, why would Sam Harris think that the IDF would only kill Hamas if they had a magical weapon? Because he’s jumping over all of those potential intentions, they’re never even considered. It’s just not part of the analysis. It’s not considered that they might actually want to kill a palestinian baby because it was palestinian, or that they would want to demolish a palestinian house because they want the land, or that they would want to shoot and arrest palestinian teenagers because they’re vengeful, or that they would want to expand their territory because they have a divine right and commandment to do so, or that they would want to encourage and fund islamists like Hamas, even if it meant risking the lives of israelis, as a way to undermine the reputation of secular national resistance movements and thus derail paths towards reconciliation and resolution. No, all of these intentions are passed over and cashed out in a response about “self interest” or security, otherwise known as “rational behavior”. You see, for the essentialist, their tribe is rational and so Sam’s assumed interpretation of the IDF is one of a rational person’s behavior who is faced with an unfortunate trolley problem. A rational person tries to reduce collateral damage in service of a stable and peaceful outcome. A rational person does not murder innocent people because they take pleasure in it, they only kill when it is necessary and they do as little of that as possible. And you see when you jump over the “irrational” motivations of hatred, vengeance, martyrdom, extermination and the like, you get this convenient response to any evidence which could potentially push back on this so-called rationality.
Here’s the way it works: If the IDF had magical weapons they would kill only Hamas? Okay, well the IDF has smart bombs and over 40% of the bombs dropped on Gaza have been dumb bombs (compared this to the zero percent of dumb bombs dropped by the US military in Libya - regardless of what we could criticize about that action)… the response? Well, I suppose that is the best they could have done given the circumstances. Or maybe their anger got the best of them. Or maybe it was an act of deterrence rather than collective punishment, I mean why would they want to kill innocents, that doesn’t serve them! Sound familiar? Do you hear the problem of the erased potential irrational motivations?
Or try this: If the IDF had magical weapons they would kill only Hamas? Okay, what about the many children with sniper bullets in their brains who have arrived at hospitals in succession from the same locations as reported on by the LA Times of all outlets… the response? Well, I suppose those kids could have been bombs, that kind of thing has happened before, so it’s not really as simple as it looks. You have to understand how difficult this trolley problem is for the IDF and how much the cruel Hamas tactics have rigged the game… and yeah, maybe there are a few bad apples and their anger gets the best of them. I’m sure the IDF will discipline them and that is the part that really proves that they don’t want these things to happen… Okay, very well. But we’re still waiting on about 1000 of those investigations (of course while Israel bars independent outside investigations)… but if they get around to it they might issue an apology a year or two later and that apology will prove the point about the intentions. Yes? I could go on and on with pointing out the countless explicit biblical justifications which the IDF has used as have people at the very top of their government, and the countless calls for extermination, and the history of massacres and assassinations which obviously extend much further into history than the last 3 months. But you get the point here… the response is always the same. Tribal essentialism prevents full evaluation and assumes the rationality of the merely apparent criminals. It is a way of thinking which is impervious to evidence. It’s a plague of bad and cowardly thinking, and it is sadly rampant.
But just notice how this irrational and inhumane category skipping is not granted to people of other tribes whose behavior is judged as being possibly motivated by all of those ugly things. When those tribes behave, their intentions are deciphered using the full possibilities of ideologies and desires, and we use their stated intentions, revealed actions, and historical precedents as evidence. And for certain thinkers, the irrational motivations (which I am not disregarding) really are the game changers. So, before I get too much further in this analysis, I want to remind the listener that I am fully aware of the very real variable of Jihadism. And, clearly, for someone like Sam Harris, the presence of this phenomenon is such an outsized variable that it generates an unfortunately hugely lopsided trolley problem which creates unavoidable collateral damage. To what scale? I have yet to see that limit reached, but I fear it is exponentially higher than anything to date.
Now, I certainly have disagreements with some of the weighing of those variables, but that is not even the point I’m trying to make here. If that really is the argument that people want to make (the one about the jihadism variable), then make it honestly and with an informed and transparent argument. By that, I mean if one is arguing that the appearance of jihadism is a deal-breaker which justifies all violent attempts to eliminate it while, of course, trying to make an effort to minimize collateral damage, then one should say that the history and context which lead to the current problem does not matter. How we arrived on the track of this trolley problem is merely academic, we now have a situation which is an emergency and needs to be taken care of… and we’ll try to do that as ethically as possible, mistakes and oversteps may be made, but we gotta do what we gotta do.
That argument would be debatable. Though I obviously would vehemently argue about how wise or unwise or ethical the attempt to solve the trolley problem would be… I was just trying to point this out with just a very quick skimming of IDF behavior, but… we would at least be clear about the position that history does not matter.
But what’s weird about that argument is that it leaves out the possibility of understanding jihadism itself better. Does history and context play any role in the appearance, attraction, and ascendance of jihadism? I understand the temptation to say that it does not, and to solely point to the holy doctrines as the only ingredient needed to generate it… but history obviously laughs in the face of such a ridiculous suggestion. I sincerely hope that this is not the argument being made by honest thinkers.
Why did the Ayatollah of Iran rise to power? Can that be explained without the western world propping up the brutal yet secular Shah of Iran whom he disposed of? Can it be explained without the American and British support for the Zionist project in the land palestine? Why did it not happen 50 years earlier in say the year 1930? Did the Quran change? Of course not? Again, this is not to dismiss the power of the doctrine itself, it is clearly an important variable and obviously shapes and encourages certain expressions of violence and oppression. Let me remind the listener that I have no love loss for religion, and am not afraid to compare and contrast doctrines. But you get the point here about understanding how these supposed trolley problems form with islamism. And there is the question as to whether understanding how we got here might help inform us of how we could potentially get ourselves out of it or, in the very least, could help ensure that we are less likely to produce another version of the problem in the future. Just like the way that I plunged deeply into wanting to understand how something like Nazi Germany could form and being frustrated by the overly simplistic and inadequate supernatural or irrational explanations I was receiving in my Jewish education, I want to understand jihadism too. I wish I had more fellow seekers there. I, of course, could tell similar stories about the rise of Islamism in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria and so on… and all of them would require complex conversations about geopolitics and resources, legacies of colonialism, Western self interest and intervention, as well as religious doctrine.
I’ll return to that point about Western self-interest and intervention later but I do want to stress it here for a moment. There is an incredibly important point to be made here which is often overlooked which plays into the difficulty of deciphering the popularity of certain ideas. I’m going to be recommending a bevy of films, books, articles and conversations along with these episodes that I’d really encourage you to explore. But one of them is The Square which is a 2013 documentary. It was nominated for an Academy Award and was well received. It follows a group of revolutionaries who were in the middle of the Arab Spring protests from 2011 onward. It’s an incredible film in many ways but in the context of the argument that I’m making here pay close attention to the way the Muslim Brotherhood weaves in and out of the revolution. The Muslim Brotherhood, for those who don’t know the history, is an islamist group formed in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna in response to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and a growing dissolution with British Colonialism in the middle east, especially the prized Suez Canal, and the Palestinian resistance to Zionism. They have been directly involved in that effort since the 1930’s and hoped to mobilize more of the Arab world to come to their rescue. Like all islamist groups, it is cloaked in religious notions of social order and wishes to establish sharia law. It runs in direct contrast to the secular political powers and military dictators who collaborate with the West. I am no fan of the Muslim Brotherhood, let’s be clear. You probably aren’t either. But even a quick review of their history presents an obvious blend of religious and geopolitical ideas and grievances. That perpetual question of whether religious motivations precede the geopolitical ones or merely shape and entrench the anger or attitude towards them is a bit exhausting and not even really that important of a point, the blend is what makes it potent and opportunistic in power vacuums. Here is what you should watch for in The Square…
Hosni Mubarek was ruling Egypt as a defacto dictator. He assumed power in 1981 after the assanation of Anwar Sadat. He was the only candidate and renewed this situation as the single candidate again in 1987, 1993 and 1999. He finally won a multi-party election in 2005. His rule of the country was repressive and his suppression and brutality towards the Muslim Brotherhood was notorious. He was certainly no fan of Israel and was sometimes a broker for peace attempts with the palestinians. The Western powers surely had mixed feelings about him, he was easily corruptible and his record is filled with shady military contracts which have since been prosecuted. But he was a stable and predictable ruler to a point and was hellbent on repressing the islamist groups in his country, let alone any secular liberal revolutionaries who may be growing tired of their lagging living conditions.
So, when the Arab spring protests started to break out, which was a bit of a short-lived golden era for social media’s power to surprise regimes such as this with rapid organization and demonstration, Mubarek and his militarily backed regime was frightened. The Muslim Brothers, of course, were more than happy to finally see some real threat and pressure on their long time nemesis. And the Brothers definitely started to show up in Tahrir Square and, for the first time in ages, be able to loudly and openly declare their islamism with speeches about sharia and god and praying in unison. The liberal minded revolutionairs were, of course, faced with the eternal dilemma of wondering if they should set their deep differences with the Brothers aside to complete the job of removing Mubarek, something they all agreed with. These liberal minded protestors hated the Brotherhood and certainly did not hope to dislodge a corrupt secular military oppression with an islamist one… but that is exactly what ended up happening. After Mubarek stepped down under the pressure of the protests, a new election was promptly called. Great, right? Democracy and all that, the will of the people, blah blah? Well, not really. Because who was actually organized and ready to mobilize great numbers of like minded people in that situation of a power vacuum? The islamists, of course. The huge advantage of something like islamism, or any authoritarian religious regime, is that they tend to already be collectivist and organized in such a way to strike quickly in these situations. The liberal minded revolutionaries had no organized political parties or leaders to speak of, how could they? They were not able to operate with freedom in the previous decades of military rule which would crush any semblance of a political threat. This is a problem that something like religion can resist against, and even strengthen its resolve in the stories of oppression and victimization and tales of bygone biblical glory to fantasize about.
So in May of 2012, Egypt held its first presidential elections and Muslim Brotherhood candidates rose to the top. In the final run off between Ahmed Shafik who was the next in line of Mubarek’s military succession - a clear continuation of the old military corrupt regime, and Mohamed Morsi, who was an islamist from the muslim brotherhood, Morsi won with 51% of the vote.
Now, he has since been ousted in a vote after the protests in Tahrir Square returned to protest Morsi’s ineffectual, corrupt, and unpopular rule of Egypt. And Abdel el-Sisi took power, and still holds it today. El-Sisi very much represents the military rule lineage which the original protests were hoping to dismantle. We still await the genuine liberal revolution which can be organized and coalesced enough to truly get Egypt the type of political freedom it deserves. Without the naturally powerful organizing force of religion to do this under the repressive and watchful eyes of military leaders, it will be a challenge.
As I mentioned, there are similar dynamics in Yemen with the Houthis and, of course, famously in Iran and Syria and, of course, in Palestine. Though in that case, the leadership and government that they are trying to resist is not entirely of their own. It is that of the Israeli military which is backed by the most powerful country on Earth. Tough task indeed and the islamists thrive under these conditions.
But the point I want to stress in that story from Egypt is to recognize how absurd it would be to look at something like the election data in 2012 after the Arab Spring and conclude that 51% of Egyptians are islamists. Or looking at the election data from Palestinian territories in 2006 and conclude that 44% of them were. Or even more ridiculous to take a poll today and report that 80% of them were (which is something that Sam Harris recently did on his show). Yemen, of course, would also be a tremendously frustrating story where a group such as the Houthis have now taken power after the people of Yemen took to the streets to oust a 33 year old brutal military regime which had been collaborating with Saudi Arabia and its powerful United States allies. The Houthi flag literally says the words, “God is Greatest. Death to America. Death to Israel. A Curse Upon the Jews. Victory to Islam.” Not very subtle in its islamist blend of geopolitics and religion. But will it be fair to cast Yemenis who may cheer on their victories and aggressions into the bin of terrorists and jihad supporters? Of course not. In The Square, there is a shot of one of the principal liberal revolutionaries watching the election results being announced live in 2012. Remember that we have watched this man trash the Muslim Brotherhood many times during the film. As the announcement is made that the Muslim Brotherhood candidate has won and defeated the military regime candidate, he cheers. Is he now an islamists? Get real.
I want to keep discussing history here and point something out about the general argument I’m laying out because I don’t want to be unfair here. And again, only using Sam as a stand in for overwhelmingly common arguments that, honestly, I’ve been hearing my whole life. I want to go back to the suggestion that the honest argument might be to be interested in everything I just mentioned, but to generally discount it because once islamism and jihadism pop up, all bets are off. But I think these people don’t discount history. Or at least they say they don’t want to.
They’ll be quick to tell you the history of anti-semitism in Europe and they may even lean on history from 2,000 years ago with claims of indigenousness to the region of Palestine (a truly bizarre tactic for atheists to make to justify present day behavior, by the way). And they’ll also be quick to tell you about Israel’s history… or at least the history that they assume to be true, which for most of them started after World War 2 and rose from the ashes of the Holocaust.
Because here is another line I’m borrowing from Sam.
He says. "There may be two sides to the past, but there really aren't two sides to the present. There are two sides to the story of how the Palestinians and Jews came to fight over land in the Middle East. Understanding all of that is important"
He goes on to diminish the importance of history but I’ll take the small victory in his acknowledgement that he thinks it is important. Great. I would be tremendously curious to see how he would describe the 2 sides of the story of how jews and palestinians came to fight over the land and how he might adjudicate the truth of them. There are tellings of the “2 stories” which are entirely logically and historically incompatible and not mere matters of opinion or perspective. Certain things either happened, or they didn't. And they are ambiguous in their interpretations.
I have to admit that I am skeptical of the depth of historical knowledge which he has (again, not trying to be a jerk to Sam here. This is an abundantly common issue on this topic, especially in America. There would be a ton of false information which I would be carrying around if I were only relying on the news media and my formal education, which even included plenty of history classes.)
For example, I’ve never heard him once discuss the existence and activities of the Irgun, the Stern Gang, or the Haganah. I do wonder how he would attempt to explain the behavior of these Jewish groups which targeted civilians and declared their intentions to cleanse the land of eretz yisrael to make room for jews. They often used the Torah as justification and wrote poetry and recited songs about their divine destiny. The land they were seeking to claim, ertz yisrael, of course extended from the river to the sea…no not the Jordan river, go much further east, they were talking about the Euphrates river. This is the land which God promised to the jews in the old testament, a book which mentions Israel over 2,200 times.
A key figure in one of these terrorist groups - the Irgun was named Menachem Begin. He would go on to become the prime minister of Israel after the terrorist paramilitary group morphed into the IDF after the declaration of the state of israel in 1948. Begin’s political party took power, later changing its name to Likud, which, of course, is the current party of Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister in Israel’s history. Begin is no outlier of Israeli leaders who were formerly wanted as terrorists by the British Mandate Authorities.
Of course, this history, through the lens of a tribal essentialist with a penchant for Jews would also be explained as rational and justified by the necessity of clearing the land of Arabs to make room for the persecuted jews of Europe. There was a titanic sinking under European discrimination and the lifeboat by the Mediterranean had to be cleared of other tribes to make room. Perhaps this twisted ethic might break under the strain of the documented massacres during that cleansing operation, otherwise known as the Nakba. In which case, there is always the out, to claim that mistakes and overreach were sometimes made, and the understandable anger from the holocaust got the best of them and was transferred unfortunately onto the local Arab population.
As a personal side note, I had a relative in my family with this exact story. He survived the concentration camps in Europe only to learn that his family had been murdered. He relocated to Israel in its early years and immediately began to fight. He once told me at a family gathering while recalling this time in his life that he “Just wanted to kill.” A chilling expression to be sure, but still granted charity by the tribal essentials to find a rational cause for his own murderous ways. This absurd charity is scaled up to the behavior of a nation. Though, as I mentioned in an earlier essay, I think this free-pass to enact displaced revenge is wearing thin… perhaps not yet in modern Germany, though that is a topic for another time.
And I have to mention the jaw droppingly strange claim that Israel is not a colonial project in his myths episode. I think it was myth number 3. If that is not an eyebrow raising disqualification of someone’s historical knowledge, I'm not sure what is. If he’s interested in taking a stroll through Jerusalem and taking photographs of all of the streets named after british colonizers. I’m sure we can all give him a map. Of course, the difference between the colonizers of Palestine, the Jews, with say the French in Algeria, is that the French themselves could flee back to their “home countries” while the Jews who were collaborating with the largest colonizing empire on planet earth, the British, could not. They were an imported population and therefore could not “go back to where they came from”. This difference, of course, matters from the objective perspective, but I’m sure it mattered very little to the native Arab populations being removed in favor of them.
This kind of thing happened in a few places in the British colonial empire, for example in a place like Uganda where the British imported a significant portion of people from India who ended up receiving favorable trading and tax treatment and became something of a merchant class. Now, there was very little displacement of the local african populations that happened there, though there was some. And the British never intended on handing this territory over to ethnically Indian nationalists as was the case with the Zionists in Palestine. So, those differences certainly matter. But the point is that you now have 4th 5th generation ugandans who are fully ethnically indian. And there have been some tensions there from time to time especially under Idi Amin’s infamous regime, but the point is that all colonizing projects worked a little differently. It wasn’t all like France in Algeria or the story of the American colonies or Germans in Namibia etc…
So, to say that a significant population of the Jews who immigrated to palestine might not technically be colonizers themselves could be defended (in fact you’ll hear in my conversation with Gideon Levy some personal stories which point straight to this situation), but to suggest that the dynamic of Israel and the Jews imported either by illegal zionist groups before 1948 or the British empire themselves between 1917 and 1948, is so divorced from reality as to be comical. Now again, we could argue about how much this history ought to be factored into today’s violence, but those of us attempting to speak to public audiences about it, have a moral duty to know some of this stuff to at least know what we are dismissing, discounting, or diminishing if we choose to make those arguments.
And so, here’s the thing. I don’t think many people have actually looked into these things. And I’m not trying to sound self-righteous here, I hadn’t always known them either. Some of it is rather ugly and unfortunate. And there is always the danger of falling into conspiracy theories when you start to veer from the official teacher’s lessons. But when the teacher is the American mainstream media and a whitewashed Western education, veering from it might be crucial. So, I want to announce that I’m putting up the transcripts to these next shows, and this essay as well, on my website and I’m linking to the sources I’m leaning on for some claims which might sound surprising to you. Please click away and check my work.
But some thinkers who are really disappointing many of us at the moment should be given some slack here. They honestly don’t know. And if they did, they might adjust their positions… but… like I said, maybe not even then… because jihadism is an absolutely real phenomenon.
So what about when someone like Sam Harris says that he thinks the “settlers should be dragged by their beards off the land”? Is this not showing that he is not guilty of what I’m calling tribal essentialism and he’s able to locate irrational motivations even within Judaism as well?
Well, first he certainly would have to then explain if it means anything that settlements continue to expand.
10 years ago in an essay entitled “‘Why Don’t I Criticize Israel?”, he made this point: “Granted, there’s some percentage of Jews who are animated by their own religious hysteria and their own prophesies. Some are awaiting the Messiah on contested land. Yes, these people are willing to sacrifice the blood of their own children for the glory of God. But, for the most part, they are not representative of the current state of Judaism or the actions of the Israeli government. And it is how Israel deals with these people—their own religious lunatics—that will determine whether they can truly hold the moral high ground. And Israel can do a lot more than it has to disempower them. It can cease to subsidize the delusions of the Ultra-Orthodox, and it can stop building settlements on contested land.
There is so much to talk about here with that passage. When he says that these people are willing to sacrifice the blood of their own children for the glory of god, I think he really needed to add that people are willing to kill Palestinian children for the glory of god as well. But the next line,”But for the most part they are not representative of the current state of Judaism or the actions of the Israeli government”... Who does he think he’s kidding?
Not representative? Well then why has every single Israeli government since the mid 1970’s expanded settlements and announced more, including, of course, this current government which announced one of the largest expansions this year? Representative yet? And to answer his question on “how Israel deals with these people will determine the moral high ground”? Do we want to give a report card here? In the decade since he wrote those words, even if we stop on October 6th of 2023? How about arming those settlers, how about placing several of them at the very highest positions in the government of Israel? No more BS’ing about fringes or small minorities here right? How is that working out? Does this reveal anything about the intentions? Are we representative yet?
Let me just give one specific example here which is merely a blip in an avalanche of horror from Gaza and the West Bank at the moment. So you may have missed it, but it’s the kind of thing that happens regularly when the world is not so focused on the spectacle of bombs and tunnels. The Palestinian activist Fakhri Abu Diab’s home was demolished last week. The home is in East Jerusalem, in a neighborhood which is to the east of the infamous 1967 line which is why it is referred to as occupied East Jerusalem. Although I think some people like to use the sanitized word “disputed” in reference to these areas. Jerusalem, of course, was not supposed to be Jewish nor Arab controlled in the original 1948 partition, but that’s a story for later in this show.
So, it was reported that Diab’s home was being demolished in order to make room for a Biblical Theme Park. This theme park is already partially built. You can take guided tours over a suspension bridge and through underground passageways where you’ll walk in the footsteps of the kings and the prophets. You can also have your bar mitzvah there. And the famous Birthright trips which offer free trips to Israel for diaspora Jews, takes you over that suspension bridge on day 6 of its itinerary. Although, they may forget to mention the homes which had been removed for its construction. The group which funds the Biblical Theme Park Project is called The City of David Foundation. It’s also called the Ir David Foundation. Or Elad in the Hebrew acronym. They have several projects in East Jerusalem which are aimed at promoting the settler movement and evicting non-Jews. About half of the group's income from 2003-2018 came from four companies registered in the virgin islands. Three of the four companies are owned by Roman Abramovich. He’s also donated over 100 million dollars to the group, the largest donor. Don’t know who Roman Abramovich is? He’s a Russian Oligarch who made his money during the Boris Yeltsin sell off of Soviet State assets when he acquired the largest stake in the largest coal mine in Russia, which is coincidentally one of the largest polluters on Earth. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich was sanctioned by just about everyone and forced to sell off the Chelsea football club. He’s suspected of being a “bag carrier” for Vladimr Putin’s wealth by the US intelligence community and was the first person to recommend to Boris Yeltson that Putin be his successor. Abramovich has been suspected of being involved in poisoning and plenty else. But he’s a big fan of the settlers and the mission to clear the east Jerusalem neighborhood of non-jews.
Okay so why do I bring up this story? Is it representative of Israel or the government yet? Do we have a problem here? Is this a conspiracy theory? Is Israel keeping the moral high ground as Sam suggested they could if they “did less to empower them”?
I would assume Sam would give Israel a low grade here. But then the question must be asked, do any of those things have consequences? Does that low grade, based on his own criteria, give him any pause on the assumed character of the Israeli state? Are they just isolated crimes? Do they not lead directly to problems of anger and resentment and hopelessness and impatience which, yes, does often find its expression through the lens of religious doctrine?
But you may think that this Abramovich story is interesting and maybe kind of irritating and shocking to you, but isn’t this the kind of thing that happens in capitalist countries all the time? Am I holding Israel to some kind of higher standard than other countries which surely engage in this kind of injustice all the time? I mean Abramovich himself was galavanting around in European capitals for decades and people were thrilled to take his money and look the other way. And no one seemed to bat an eyelash when the Varsano brothers sold a Tel Aviv hotel to him in 2015. The younger of the Varsano brothers is married to the proud zionist Israeli actress Gal Gadot, of Wonder Woman fame.
Is this kind of information simply revealing some ugly capitalist corruption in our time?
Well, I want to go back to the magic wand idea to explore this here. Like I said, it really is the thing that does all the work for the moral consequentialist. So, let’s do a simple thought experiment with it. Imagine you held a magic wand. It had the power to grant the owner of it the ability to wave it in the direction of any other country on earth and alter its form of government and freedom of expression and human rights attitudes. It would keep its memories and history though.
Now, before we consider putting that wand in the hands of Hamas, The Houthis, The Muslim Brotherhood, or the Israeli Government, let’s hand it over to the United States of america. Would the United States of America use that wand to turn Yemen into a liberal democracy just like the Netherlands? How about Saudi Arabia? How about Iran? If you think the answer is yes, I have some news for you.
But, “why on Earth would the United States of America want Yemen to not be free?” Does it benefit them for it to be full of such misery? Well, not quite that. But what does benefit them is stability. That is the goal to achieve for a strategic partner of a capitalist country. Why is the United States funding Saudi Arabia’s war against the Houthi revolt and encouraging them to reinstall the Saudi puppet military figureheads like they had before the Arab Spring? Because 33 years of a corruptible and stable situation right next to a crucial waterway choke point was a fine situation. This shouldn’t be too difficult to comprehend. Is it rational? Sure, in the way that rationality points to terrestrial concerns and self-interest rather than the afterlife. Is it horribly unethical and brutal? Absolutely. And is it potentially less stable than they hoped for and crumbled into a power vacuum which was quickly seized by angry resentful bitter islamists? Yep.
So, when the United States supported a brutal shah in Iran and a dictator in Egypt and famously the Saudi Wahabi movement dating back to FDR’s dealings with the House of Saud in the 1940’s, what they were always seeking was stability. Now, if I extend some charity here even to people like George W. Bush and his famous bush doctrine which was supposedly about spreading democracy, I think that if the wand that I imagined had the power to create a stable democracy with freedom of thought and expression and a bunch of peace loving art seeking people, then even the United States would wave this wand at everyone, and indeed would turn Yemen, or Gaza for that matter into “the south of France”, or perhaps “a Texas barbeque” in George Bush’s case. But the magic wand I conjured up did not erase history or memory, and perhaps that is why the stability seeking hegemonic powers would rather not take the lid off of certain situations, even when they clash so obviously with our purported values. But perhaps unfortunately, nothing can erase history or memory, perhaps not even an exorbitant amount of time.
I mean, can we declare the end of the transatlantic slave trade or the history of overt colonialism and simply wave this magic wand and immediately arrive at this stable utopian fantasy that certain people dream of? Of course not. The problem of politics is the problem of what to do about history’s relationship to the present. And there is a stark difference in attitudes in the world at the moment on this question which seems to be a much better fit to define the conservative and liberal faultlines much more neatly than any kind of philosophical economic arrangement.
History matters, and it matters a great deal.
So, yes. I wouldn’t want the magic wand in the hands of Hamas right now either. But this is a false choice when you understand the dynamics of these moments. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood leadership lasted only 2 years in Egypt after the convenient alliances of the arab spring lost their mutual enemy. The same dynamic may unfortunately repeat itself there as that revolution remains unfinished. But the average liberal revolutionary in Yemen or Gaza or Iran is part of that same pattern and they can hopefully learn from each other’s noble attempts. But I have little doubt that when the cause for being of a resistance movement ceases to exist, and then the movement must figure out how to govern, even a religiously powerful group is revealed to not be nearly as popular as they convince themselves they were during the revolutions' most joyous days. In my conversation with Miko Peled in this upcoming trilogy you’ll hear him make this point when he notes that the best revolutionairs might not make the best political leaders.
So, how about putting this wand in the hand of the IDF? I wouldn’t recommend it. All of the perverse incentives of stability seeking in the way Israel views its Palestinian neighbors are at play here. I’m not the first to point out that the Netanyahu policy of “containment” with a blockade, an iron dome, continued expansion, and operations to “mow the lawn” every few years was something which he wanted to convince himself was the kind of “stability” he was seeking and that the clock would run out and the world would grow weary of the Palestinian cause. Clearly, that was a pretty brutal policy and a very bad bet. But there is also reason to believe that the IDF would use this magic wand in precisely the way they are using their weapons now, but perhaps with greater destructive force. Because Gaza in particular, also carries with it a very troubling psychological reminder in the national myth of the Zionist. Gaza, as it has existed for decades, is the reminder of the crimes of the past. Israelis would rather psychologically flee from the knowledge of whose houses they may be living in, or at least what the foundations used to hold before they were demolished. Gaza’s existence is a living witness to a string of shameful decisions and actions. Israel would love nothing more than for the problem to just go away. But walls can only be so thick and so high. And there are some who are suggesting that “Palestinians going away” is exactly what should happen or should have happened a long time ago. The Palestinians should have just given up and walked off into the desert. And the surrounding countries should have just let them in and shrugged. I call this the “just get over it” argument which is being made popular by the likes of Bill Maher. We’re at the point now where self-purported liberals are outrightly calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
Well, count me very out on that idea.
Ironically, Netanyahu is currently responding to growing calls to recognize the legitimate claims of a Palestinian state by saying “this would reward terrorism”. In the 2nd episode in my trilogy, I talk to the academic Richard English who points out that it is arguable that the creation of the state of Israel itself may be a case of one of the most successful terrorism campaigns in history. The irony is of course very thick here.
The Palestinians, and the Arabs in general, are a very proud people and they don’t wish to reward what they very much contend is an act of colonial terrorism dating back to 1897 as well.
So, here we are.
Am I hopeful? Yes actually I am. I am hopeful that the obvious solution to history is one day reached, though the road there is incredibly painful and takes a huge amount of courage to stay true to. That obvious solution is a deep reckoning with the history of the Zionist project and a radical redefinition of the situation which is not two-states living in a “frosty peace” as was once described as the Egypt Israel relation, but something more like a one state with two people who are truly doomed to live together and work it out. It’s absurd to continue to refer to Israel as “the only democracy in the middle east” while it occupies and dominates a population equal to its own in the territory which it clearly wants. But I do believe that it can become one.
And I think this prediction will sound absurd over the next decade as the stable world order continues to crack all around us. That cracking might get quite loud. But I do think that we will live to see the day when the walls come down around Jerusalem and that the healing processes will begin with honest and courageous acknowledgements of history.
What is the quickest way to get to that day? Well, it can start now, by ceasing to continue to push cowardly argumentation built on false histories and tribal essentialism. We can pressure everyone we possibly can reach to put pressure on Israel to change. We can ignore the absurd charges of anti-semitism which will inevitably come our way from confused and essentialist Zionists. We can encourage the liberal revolutionaries everywhere in their battles, including the dwindling number of them in Israel right now. And we in the West can dismantle the false choice which has been foisted upon the world of embracing an increasingly hypocritical and empty Western world order or the religious reactionary authoritarian plans for society. Neither of these visions of life need one more breath of defense, nor do they need one more sniper bullet in one more child’s head.
So, enjoy the next three episodes of Dilemma which feature first a conversation with the incredible Israeli journalist Gideon Levy which will focus on understanding the character of the state of Israel and its political heartbeat. The second is a conversation with Professor Richard English who takes on a question that I think everyone has been asking secretly but afraid to voice out loud and that question is “does terrorism work?”. And the Third is with Miko Peled who is an author and activist whose father was a famous Zionist general.
I hope you enjoy these conversations and get something out of them. I don’t claim to have all the answers but I sure would like to help figure all of this out.
Thank you.