The Orthodox Anarchist (don’t ask, just visit the site) brings an excellent video about Jewish terrorists, created by PBS Frontline.
Some caveats:
The report makes it sound as if these people are reacting to Palestinian terrorism that started with the second intifada. Anyone who has read my City of the Dead series as well as other articles I have written, knows that this ideology goes way back. The Hebron settlers caled us Nazis not for tearing down synagogues but because we didn’t let them beat up Arabs. Settlers have been killing innocent Arabs and violently attacking them and their property long before either intifada began.
The report also makes it sound as if these people are an extreme and roundly condemned minority in Israeli politics. But the fact is, senior ministers in Sharon’s own government espoused similar ideologies. The right in Israel is a spectrum, and these people just say publicly what many others politicians think, but aren’t ready to personally express or act on. Many in the Likud, including Arik Sharon, have publicly embraced and expressed support for these young fanatics.
The report focuses on a failed attempt of terror. The head of the Shabach talks about the incendiery effect of a terror attack against the Temple Mount mosques. But this ignores the actions of the Israeli police and army, whose excessive use of force is not much different in its effect, than any act of Jewish terror. What about the unwarrented use of live ammunition used against Arab’s protesting Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, which was the spark that set off the second Intifada? What about the hundreds of Palestinian children killed by Israeli armed forces, many of which have been documented cases of excessive or unwarrented use of force? How do the death of these innocent Palestinian children differ in moral and practical terms from the Bat Ayin gang’s attempt at blowing up a girl’s school?
Along the same lines, the report presents these people in an almost sympathetic light - young idealists fighting for a cause, willing to sacrifice everything for their beliefs. In the interview with the film-maker Dan Setton, Setton says the following:
“Did you ever find yourself sympathetic to them?”
“I was never sympathetic to their ideas or their actions. I was never sympathetic on the ideological level. I’m not sympathetic to somebody who believes in revenge as a virtue, even though I can understand it in some cases. But– I met Yitshak Pass. Yitshak Pass lost his daughter, a 10-month-old baby, Shalhevet. She was killed on a sunny Saturday morning by a Palestinian sniper. He was walking in the street with his wife, pushing a trolley, and a sniper shot the little baby in the head, killed her. I mean–”
“Was Pass radicalized by that?”
“Of course he was radicalized by that. I think most people would be. But when I spoke to him, he didn’t speak about revenge to me. But I could see, I could understand. Put yourself in his shoes. My God. You would want to avenge, you would want to go after these guys.”
“People lost their babies, and kids lost their parents. Yeah, you can understand the feeling of revenge. On both sides. It’s one thing to feel it. But when you make of it a modus operandi, part of your ideology, part of your conduct, it’s a different thing.”
To say that Pass was radicalized by the murder of his baby daughter is simply not true. As a Hebron settler, he already had extremely radical views about Arabs (see my City of the Dead series). In comparison, let us enter the mind of the Arab sniper. He and his family and tens of thousands of other Palestinian Arabs living in Hebron, are virtual prisoners in their home as a few hundred Jewish settlers are pampered by the Israeli army. Daily, they suffer humiliation, often death at the hands of the settlers and the army. So one day a young Palestinian can’t take it anymore. He is “radicalized” and decides to take revenge. He picks up a rifle and shoots at settlers he sees walking in the distance. His bullet murders an innocent baby - Shalhevet Pass. Do you sympathize with this young murderer?
Every human being deserves sympathy, nay empathy for their suffering. I can’t begin to fathom the pain Yithak Pass and his wife must have felt when they found their baby dead. But revenge is not something that should be “understood” or sympathized with. It is a human reaction, true, but a most dangerous one. Not just revenge, but the desire for revenge should be condemned, opposed, denounced, in no uncertain terms. Revenge always leads to a desire for revenge on the other side, in an endless cycle of violence.
I recently saw the movie “The Battle of Algiers.” It is a most powerful and compelling film. Made in 1966, it is as relevant as today’s news. The parallels to the Israel/Palestine conflict and the U.S. war in Iraq are striking. Comparing it to Setton’s film is quite instructive.
One of the most striking things about Setton’s film is that the settlers have already achieved their goal: in Setton’s landscape there is not one Palestinin voice. The rare view of Palestinians is of the defeated victim, living by the grace of their Israeli masters.
The power of Gillo Pontecorvo’s film is that he gives voice to both the Algerian and the French side. We can see the logic of all actors and see the victims on both sides as living, breathing people who died senselessly. Pontecorvo obviously is sympathetic to the yearning for freedom of the Algerian people and rejoices in their victory over the French. But there is a depressing historical footnote to that story. When the FLN came into power, like nearly all militant revolutionary movements, they replaced the oppressive regime they overthrew with yet another oppressive regime. From the standpoint of the average Algerian, the FLN government was not much different than the French government. To this day, Algeria is still caught up in the mess.
The Zionist nationalist movement was also a militant revolutionary movement. The Kahanists just take to the extreme, ideas which are inherent in Zionism and mix it up with fundamentalist religious elements. The Palestine Liberation Organization is a militant revolutionary movement. The Hamas just take to the extreme, ideas which are inherent in Palestinian nationalism and mix it up with fundamentalist religious elements. Sharon is a militant Zionist, and opposses the Kahanists only from a pragmatic point of view. The same for Abbas in his relationship with Hamas.
Anyone who truly believes in peace must ultimately conclude that militant nationalism is the core of the problem. Its extremist manifestations are merely symptoms. Anyone who truly believes in peace must oppose both Jewish and Palestinian nationalism as the ultimate solution to the conflict. Anyone who truly believes in peace must oppose the violation of Palestinian human rights perpetrated by the Israeli government for decades, the violence of the Israeli army against the Palestinian population and acts of violence against civilians by militant groups on both sides. Anyone who truly believes in peace must support human rights, freedom and the dignity of all individuals. Nationalism almost always destroys these central human values.
