Two Faces of Israeli / Jewish Politics

Two videos by Max Blumenthal. First the haters:

Then the lovers:

The Obama haters film caused quite a stir, with Blumenthal receiving death threats and the usual accusations of being a self-hating Jew. Here is what Blumenthal himself has to say about why he made the film:

I do not and have never claimed that the characters that appeared in my video were representative of general public opinion in Israel. They reflect only a slice of reality, which is reality nonetheless. On the other hand, a new Yedioth Aronoth poll finds a vast majority of the Israeli public holds a negative opinion of Obama and believes he is biased toward the Palestinians. A top minister in Israel’s government has compared Obama to Pharaoh, claiming his call for a settlement freeze is like casting Jewish children into the river. A group of rightists have launched a campaign against “the anti-Semitic Obama,” apparently convinced they can make inroads with the general public.

Behind the Israeli view of Obama lies a climate of extremism that exploded into the open when the country attacked Gaza. Today, extremist sentiment hovers well above the surface. A groundbreaking study of Israeli attitudes published in the wake of the Gaza war by the Tel Aviv University political psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal, who I recently interviewed, found that “Israeli Jews’ consciousness is characterized by a sense of victimization, a siege mentality, blind patriotism, belligerence, self-righteousness, dehumanization of the Palestinians and insensitivity to their suffering.” Bar-Tal commented to me that the army is the primary vehicle for stoking the nationalism of young Israelis. “Some countries are states without armies,” he said. “But Israel today is an army without a state. There is no civilian institution capable of restraining the army’s influence.”

In an interview with me two days ago, the famed Israeli author David Grossman echoed Bar-Tal’s findings, remarking, “The country is trapped in one legitimate narrative: that of the government, which is of paranoia, and every event serves this narrative. Those events that don’t are simply overlooked.”

I have my own personal take on both these films. I grew up in a modern Orthodox community on the Upper West Side. My own parents and those of my friends and family are all refugees and many are also Holocaust survivors. For these men and women Israel represents the rebirth of the Jewish people from the Hitlerian nightmare which also provides a measure of comfort and recompense for the horrific losses in their lives.They conflate the enemies of Israel with Hitler and see any attack on Israel as an existential threat. Despite being Orthodox Jews, they are moderate in their religious practice and in their political affiliations.

Their children’s generation tended to shift rightward both politically and religiously . Their grandchildren, who no doubt make up many of the young men and women depicted in this film, espouse the most extreme Kahanists views after spending their obligatory year studying in Israel. They also often adopt messianic ideologies and extreme Orthodox piety. Their parents tend to follow in their footsteps. I was neither shocked nor surprised to hear their views expressed in this film, and I don’t think the fact that they were “drinking” has anything to do with what they said. I have often heard similar views expressed to me directly by these same people and their parents. This includes their espousal of extreme right wing Republican ideology and hatred of Obama as a shvartza (Yiddish slang which means “darkie” and has a similar conotation to “nigger’) and a Muslim. One of my cousins got into a fight with me at a family wedding calling me an “Arab lover” and accusing me of endangering the life of his son who moved to Israel, by the fact that I write this blog.

There is no doubt that these young people and their parents represents only a minority of American Jews (a good part of the 30-35%  who voted for Bush and McCain) and probably a similar percentage of Israelis. That means at least 60-65% of American and Israeli Jews hold views more moderate than these. Yet 30-35% is not a negligible minority. As I’ve often noted, Israeli views have become more extreme over the years, and Kahanism is now mainstream. Moreover, the settler movement receives substantial financial support from some of the parents of the young Jews depicted in the video, particularly for some of the more extreme projects in Hebron and Jerusalem. So I don’t agree that you can lightly dismiss the first video as the drunken words of a negligible and unimportant group.

There is no doubt that the second group represents a very small minority of Jews both in Israel and the US – perhaps no more that 5%. Again I have a deep personal connection to this film. One of the last things I did in Israel, just a couple of days before I left for good in July, 2002, was attend a Gush Shalom rally in Tel Aviv. Then, as in the film now, no more than two to three thousand people showed up. And yet! Uri Avneri is now 85 and has been espousing his “radical” political platform for probably fifty years. It took many, many years for the two state solution to become a mainstream Israeli position.

Despite all the political setbacks, Avnery remains an optimist. I agree with him. Today, the Prime Minister of Israel representing one of the most extreme right wing governments Israel ever had got up and joined the rest of the world by publically endorsing Avenery’s position: “Two states for two people.” Not surprisingly, Benjamin Yahoo put all kinds of preconditions and limitations on this Palestinian “state.” But all that doesn’t matter. The whole world (including nearly all Arab states) is now behind this formula and so is the Emperor Obama. Mr. Yahoo can hem and haw, but in the end he will cave in to the Emperor. The time fo feet dragging is coming to an end.

I hope Avnery lives to see his dream come true. But whether he does or not, he can take great satisfaction knowing that he and his 5% has dragged the rest of Israel along behind them into the light.

Tags: Feature, Israeli Politics