False Dichotomies

Following the responses to my piece on the Norwegian terror attacks, I wanted to write a clarification, and to explore one point in greater detail. As the emphasis of the piece was on left-wing hypocrisy over what happened, I don’t think I made it sufficiently clear that I’m not against exploring the connection between extremist writing and terror per se. Rather, I was arguing that it is unreasonable to accuse people like Daniel Pipes and Melanie Phillips of somehow inciting Breivik to murder, simply because he happened to have read them and in part agreed with them, anymore than Osama Bin Laden’s endorsement of Noam Chomsky means that Noam Chomsky is guilty of inciting 9/11. Read more

“Imagine, as many did at first, that the perpetrator of the horrendous terrorist attacks in Norway had been a Muslim associated with Al Qaeda. Imagine that right-wing bloggers and commentators had seized on this fact for political capital and had accused Muslim ideologues and politicized clerics of bearing indirect responsibility for the crime. The left would be outraged. They would correctly emphasize that you can’t tar whole communities with the barbaric actions of one individual. They would condemn the crime but call for caution before casting the net of blame far and wide. Or perhaps they would even describe the massacre as “blowback” for Western crimes against the Arab world.

Of course, Anders Behring Breivik, who was responsible for the attacks, is not a Muslim; he is an extreme right-wing Norwegian whose worldview combines elements of neo-fascism, Islamophobia and far-right Zionism. So the normal rules don’t apply. Many left-wing commentators feel perfectly free to deploy the same tactics they routinely condemn as outrageous when used by their opponents. Not coincidentally, those at the forefront of these efforts — on sites like Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss and Tikkun Olam — are also those who were first to highlight Breivik’s sympathies for right-wing Zionism. Their strategy is to exploit the awful events in Norway for dubious political gain.” Read the rest at the Jewish Daily Forward.

When I first heard about the Israeli housing protests, I thought about a poem from an old Noam siddur. I can’t find it online, but I remember it longing for a “roof over my head in Jerusalem” with a “skylight” and “room for my books”. Sentimental, of course, but also a neat encapsulation of the Zionist dream. So it should come as no surprise that housing prices is the issue that has driven Israelis out of their neoliberal slumber.

The cost of living continues to rise but most salaries remain stagnant. While not everything is expensive, many costs are way out of proportion with what most Israelis earn each month. Tolerance for this state of affairs, at least until now, has two explanations. First, Israel understands itself primarily as a western country. This means that Israelis are keen to have access to western luxuries, even if the costs are prohibitive. Second, economic growth over the last twenty years, and the feeling that careful financial management left Israel largely immune to the worldwide recession, makes it difficult for the population to break free of the myth that ‘they’ve never had it so good’. Read more

The climax of Doctor Who, Series Three: The Doctor has just pulled a messianic trick to prevent the Master from taking over the universe. His nemesis is at his mercy. Enraged humans stand around, recalling how the Master forced them to watch as he destroyed whole countries with nuclear weapons (a timey-wimey trick will reverse these atrocities). They demand the ultimate sanction, but the Doctor resists. The Master may be evil incarnate, but he is also a Timelord, just like the Doctor. It is not for humans to mete out vigilante justice: if necessary the Doctor will travel for eternity with the Master locked up in a specially-designed Tardis prison, but he will not permit his execution. The Master is the Doctor’s responsibility.

Believe it or not, I was reminded of this scene by the following comment from ‘Fabian ben Israel’ at Harry’s Place: “Who will cover your back in a war, Alex, Avi from Maale Adumim or Abu from Ramallah? Who are your brothers are who are your enemies? I cannot justify boycotting my brothers.” Rhetoric of brotherhood and unity can be very alluring, but these are ideals no less unobtainable than post-nationalist notions of ‘shared humanity’ and ‘common universal values’. To be human is to be divided, even within the confines of a national group. A nation shares a common history and culture and language and hopefully certain common goals that will prevent national disintegration, but this does not mean unity and brotherhood should be deployed as emotional blackmail to stifle dissent. Read more



The Indian Army have found a solution to overcrowding in the subcontinent. A curfew. I saw how effective it was in Srinagar, a city of one million people which was suddenly as empty as Tel Aviv on the eve of Yom HaZikaron.

The occasion for the curfew was Martyrs’ Day, one of the key memorial days in the Kashmiri calendar. Originally it marked the day in 1931 when 22 Kashmiris were killed by the Dogra dynasty (there’s a certain irony to this: the Dogras were responsible for creating Jammu & Kashmir as a distinct geographic region), but it is also a day to remember the tens of thousands of Kashmiris killed since then. It’s also a cross-communal day, and politicians from across the spectrum are supposed to put aside their differences to mark a day of national unity. Read more

An unholy alliance of the Zionist far-right and the anti-Zionist far-left is trying to bring Israel down. Like previous unholy alliances, the two partners despise one another, but realize that they are locked in a symbiotic relationship: without one another they will die. The far-right needs the hysteria of the far-left as a pretext for the legislation that fulfills the far-left’s fantasies.

In 2011, Israel’s far-right is stronger than ever. They seek an Israel that will maintain decisive control over the occupied territories, where non-Jews will have limited rights, and where orthodoxy will continue to maintain its grip on the country. Their representatives are to be found in HaBayit HaYehudi, United Torah Judaism, Shas, Yisrael Beitenu, and Likud. Their primary weapon is Knesset legislation.

The anti-Zionists want Israel to be transformed into a Palestinian-Arab state. So the only way to assuage them is for Israel to commit national suicide. They believe that Israel was racist and evil before the anti-boycott bill was passed, and that it would remain racist and evil even had it failed. Their ‘One State Solution’ makes as much as sense as forcing Serbs and Croats to live together in a New Yugoslavia. Their primary weapon is BDS, and an increasing number of Israeli organizations are beginning to sympathize with their ideas.

The anti-boycott bill is a disgrace. It effectively delegitimizes a political position held by large numbers of Israelis since the day the occupation began, namely that the settlement enterprise is both immoral and runs counter to the strategic interests of the State of Israel. One could argue that a bill limited to those advocating total BDS might be justifiable under the principle of reciprocity, but given Israel’s increasingly precarious international position that would also be unwise. When even the Anti-Defamation League comes out in opposition to Israeli legislation, questions need to be asked. Read more

Imagine if the Palestinian economy was reliant on Israeli tourism. Imagine that, every summer, the hotels and restaurants of Ramallah were packed with Israelis, with whom the local population had to speak Hebrew and answer to their every whim. Das Ist Komisch, right? Read more

Part one can be found here. You can see photos here.

When I reached the other end of Pantjani, my way was blocked. Soldiers. Barbed wire. Commands blasted from loudspeakers. Some sort of weird concentration camp, Lord Shiva style. “Path closed,” someone said. “Too dangerous.” It was three o’clock. Assuming it was an easy walk down to Baltal, I could still make it by nightfall. Besides, if I got stuck, there were always tents along the route to crash in. I asked another official about the road to Baltal. “Also closed,” he said. I set my Talmudic mind to work: The road to the holy cave is high and narrow, but the road to Baltal must be downhill and easy. Everyone around me wanted to go to the cave. They would not leave this mountain without doing their darshan. But me? I just wanted to go home.

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“Bam bam?” asks the man at Srinagar’s Tourist Reception Centre. “Bholi!” I reply, for the third time. All I want is my permit for the 2011 Amarnath Cave Yatra, but he is more interested in making sure that I say the right words once I get there.  Said to be over 5,000 years old, the Amarnath Cave is dedicated to Lord Shiva, and contains an ice stalagmite which is said to resemble the Shiva Linga. According to Hindu mythology, the Amarnath Cave, which sits at an altitude of 12,756 feet, is where Shiva explained the secret of the universe to Parvati.

I warmed up for the yatra by walking from Pahalgam to Chandanwari, one of the two starting points for the yatra. But there is no karmic benefit to be drawn from walking this stretch, which is why on Friday morning I was the only person to be seen doing the sixteen kilometers on foot. It took me three and a half hours, meaning I was in Chandanwari by two in the afternoon.

Imagine Glastonbury with everything but the live music, but held in the Himalayas for a month and a half, and you should have some sense of the Amarnath Yatra’s scale At Chandanwari, a tented town had sprung up, with food, shops, and tents to sleep in. But I wanted to plug straight on to Sheshnag, another twelve kilometers up the mountain. Unfortunately, in a premonition of what was to come, the route was closed for the day, forcing me to slither off down the hill to find a tent. Read more

Israel’s need to get out of the West Bank is no longer a matter of ideological conviction. Rather, it is a strategic imperative. The longer we stay in there, the greater the chance that the Palestinians will simply request Israeli citizenship, including the right to vote. This will allow them to replace Israel with a Palestinian-Arab state merely by turning up to the polling booths.

This is Israel’s demographic dilemma: A Jewish state without the West Bank ,or the West Bank without a Jewish state. The only way out of this dilemma would be through massive ethnic cleansing, which would be morally reprehensible and would guarantee Israel’s isolation. So the preferable option would be for Israel to get out of the West Back as quickly and as comprehensively as possible. That Israel’s current government continues to procrastinate on this is a cause of deep concern.

But withdrawal from the West Bank will not solve Israel’s demographic problem. Israel’s apocalyptically-inclined human geographers like to warn us that Israeli-Palestinians are out-breeding Israeli-Jews, and that before long Israel will face a similar dilemma in its internationally recognized territory as it does in the West Bank. (Some argue, that, contrary to popular belief, Jews are actually out-breeding Arabs from the river to the sea, but this remains a controversial assertion.) Another demographic threat comes from the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose values are arguably even more alien to those of Zionism than Israeli-Palestinian nationalism at its most radical. Everywhere it turns, mainstream Israel is faced with the demographic threat.

But the main reason Israel faces a demographic threat is because it continues to understand itself in primarily demographic terms. The radical promise of Zionism was that it would fundamentally alter the nature of Jewish existence, that by achieving national sovereignty we would become like the other nations, but this has not been realized. Israeli society is still divided between Jews and non-Jews (not to mention the equally virulent division between Jews), and assimilating into the Jewish mainstream remains difficult, with the possible exception of non-Jewish westerners who have Israeli partners, and non-Jewish, non-Arab children who have been born in Israel. Read more