File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2002/postcolonial.0205, message 212


Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 11:01:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: samia <chemicalis-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Fwd: Re: Christian Azar (Edward Said's new Article) swedish?


I don't read Swedish. 

--- Christian Azar <frtca-AT-fy.chalmers.se> wrote:
> Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 15:24:48 +0200
> From: Christian Azar <frtca-AT-fy.chalmers.se>
> Reply-to: frtca-AT-fy.chalmers.se
> To: "chemicalis (by way of Michael Azar)"
> <chemicalis-AT-yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Crisis for American Jews, Edward Said's
> new Article
> 
> har läst en artikel i NYT tror jag av en judisk
> prominent person som
> skrev om denna extremism (Wolfowitz fallet) bland
> amerikanska mainstream
> judar 
> 
> intressant vilken polariseringseffekt krig kan ha,
> speciellt för ett
> historiskt sett utsatt folk
> 
> Christian
> 
> "chemicalis (by way of Michael Azar)" wrote:
> > 
> > http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/586/op2.htm
> > 16 - 22 May 2002
> > 
> > Why is American Jewish support for Israel more
> > fanatical than even anti-Arab sentiment among
> > Israelis? Edward Said explains:
> > 
> >   A few weeks ago, a vociferous pro-Israel
> > demonstration was held in Washington at roughly
> the
> > same moment that the siege of Jenin was taking
> place.
> > All of the speakers were prominent public figures,
> > including several senators, leaders of major
> Jewish
> > organisations, and other celebrities, each of whom
> > expressed unfailing solidarity with everything
> Israel
> > was doing. The administration was represented by
> Paul
> > Wolfowitz, number two at the Department of
> Defence, an
> > extreme right-wing hawk who has been speaking
> about
> > "ending" countries like Iraq ever since last
> > September. Also known as a rigorous hard- line
> > supporter of Israel, in his speech he did what
> > everyone else did -- celebrated Israel and
> expressed
> > total unconditional support for it -- but
> unexpectedly
> > referred in passing to "the sufferings of the
> > Palestinians." Because of that phrase, he was
> booed so
> > loudly and so long that he was unable to continue
> his
> > speech, leaving the platform in a kind of
> disgrace.
> > 
> > The moral of this incident is that public American
> > Jewish support for Israel today simply does not
> > tolerate any allowance for the existence of an
> actual
> > Palestinian people, except in the context of
> > terrorism, violence, evil and fanaticism.
> Moreover,
> > this refusal to see, much less hear anything
> about,
> > the existence of "another side" far exceeds the
> > fanaticism of anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis,
> who
> > are of course on the front line of the struggle in
> > Palestine. To judge by the recent antiwar
> > demonstration of 60,000 people in Tel Aviv, the
> > increasing number of military reservists who
> refuse
> > service in the occupied territories, the sustained
> > protest of (admitted only a few) intellectuals and
> > groups, and some of the polls that show a majority
> of
> > Israelis willing to withdraw in return for peace
> with
> > the Palestinians, there is at least a dynamic of
> > political activity among Israeli Jews. But not so
> in
> > the United States.
> > 
> > Two weeks ago the weekly magazine New York, which
> has
> > a circulation of about a million copies, ran a
> dossier
> > entitled "Crisis for American Jews," the theme
> being
> > that "in New York, as in Israel, [it is] an issue
> of
> > survival." I won't try to summarise the main
> points of
> > this extraordinary claim except to say that it
> painted
> > such a picture of anguish about "what is most
> precious
> > in my life, the state of Israel," according to one
> of
> > the prominent New Yorkers quoted in the magazine,
> that
> > you would think that the existence of this most
> > prosperous and powerful of all minorities in the
> > United States was actually being threatened. One
> of
> > the other people quoted even went as far as to
> suggest
> > that American Jews are on the brink of a second
> > holocaust. Certainly, as the author of one of the
> > articles said, most American Jews support what
> Israel
> > did on the West Bank, enthusiastically; one
> American
> > Jew said, for instance, that his son is now in the
> > Israeli army and that he is "armed, dangerous and
> > killing as many Palestinians as possible."
> > 
> > Guilt at being well-off in America plays a role in
> > this kind of delusional thinking, but mostly it is
> the
> > result of an extraordinary self-isolation in
> fantasy
> > and myth that comes from education and
> unreflective
> > nationalism of a kind unique in the world. Ever
> since
> > the Intifada broke out almost two years ago, the
> > American media and the major Jewish organisations
> have
> > been running all kinds of attacks on Islamic
> education
> > in the Arab world, Pakistan and even in the US.
> These
> > have accused Islamic authorities, as well as
> Arafat's
> > Palestinian Authority, of teaching youngsters
> hatred
> > of America and Israel, the virtues of suicide
> bombing,
> > unlimited praise for jihad. Little has been said,
> > however, of the results of what American Jews have
> > been taught about the conflict in Palestine: that
> it
> > was given to Jews by God, that it was empty, that
> it
> > was liberated from Britain, that the natives ran
> away
> > because their leaders told them to, that in effect
> the
> > Palestinians don't exist except recently as
> > terrorists, that all Arabs are anti-Semitic and
> want
> > to kill Jews.
> > 
> > Nowhere in all this incitement to hatred does the
> > reality of a Palestinian people exist, and more to
> the
> > point, there is no connection made between
> Palestinian
> > animosity and enmity towards Israel and what
> Israel
> > has been doing to Palestinians since 1948. It's as
> if
> > an entire history of dispossession, the
> destruction of
> > a society, the 35 year old occupation of the West
> Bank
> > and Gaza, to say nothing of massacres,
> bombardments,
> > expulsions, land expropriations, killings, sieges,
> > humiliations, years of collective punishment and
> > assassinations that have gone on for decades were
> as
> > nothing, since Israel has been victimised by
> > Palestinian rage, hostility and gratuitous
> > anti-semitism. It simply does not occur to most
> > American supporters of Israel to see Israel as the
> > actual author of specific actions done in the name
> of
> > the Jewish people by the Jewish state, and to
> connect
> > in consequence those actions to Palestinian
> feelings
> > of anger and revenge.
> > 
> > The problem at bottom is that as human beings the
> > Palestinians do not exist, that is, as human
> beings
> > with history, traditions, society, sufferings and
> > ambitions like all other people. Why this should
> be so
> > for most but by no means all American Jewish
> > supporters of Israel is something worth looking
> into.
> > It goes back to the knowledge that there was an
> > indigenous people in Palestine -- all the Zionist
> > leaders knew it and spoke about it -- but the fact
> as
> > a fact that might prevent colonisation could never
> be
> > admitted. Hence the collective Zionist practice of
> > either denying the fact or, more specially in the
> US
> > where the realities are not so available for
> actual
> > verification, lying about it by producing a
> > counter-reality. For decades it has been decreed
> to
> > schoolchildren there were no Palestinians when the
> > Zionist pioneers arrived and so those
> miscellaneous
> > people who throw stones and fight occupation are
> > simply a collection of terrorists who deserve
> killing.
> > Palestinians, in short, do not deserve anything
> like a
> > narrative or collective actuality, and so they
> must be
> > transmuted and dissolved into essentially negative
> > images. This is entirely the result of a distorted
> > education, doled out to millions of youngsters who
> > grow up without any awareness at all that the
> > Palestinian people have been totally dehumanised
> to
> > serve a political- ideological end, namely to keep
> > support high for Israel.
> > 
> > What is so astonishing is that notions of co-
> > existence between peoples play no part in this
> kind of
> > distortion. Whereas American Jews want to be
> > recognised as Jews and Americans in America, they
> are
> > unwilling to accord a similar status as Arabs and
> > Palestinians to another people that has been
> oppressed
> > by Israel since the beginning.
> > 
> > Only if one were to live in the US for years would
> one
> > be aware of the depth of the problem which far
> > transcends ordinary politics. The intellectual
> > suppression of the Palestinians that has occurred
> > because of Zionist education has produced an
> > unreflecting, dangerously skewed sense of reality
> in
> > which whatever Israel does it does as a victim:
> > according to the various articles I have mentioned
> > above, American Jews in crisis by extension
> therefore
> > feel the same thing as the most right-wing of
> Israeli
> > Jews, that they are at risk and their survival is
> at
> > stake. This has nothing to do with reality
> obviously
> > enough, but rather with a kind of hallucinatory
> state
> > that overrides history and facts with a supremely
> > unthinking narcissism. A recent defence of what
> > Wolfowitz said in his speech didn't even refer to
> the
> > Palestinians he was referring to, but defended
> > President Bush's Middle East policy.
> > 
> > This is de-humanisation on a vast scale, and it is
> > made even worse, one has to say, by the suicide
> > bombings that have so disfigured and debased the
> > Palestinian struggle. All liberation movements in
> > history have affirmed that their struggle is about
> > life, not about death. Why should ours be an
> > exception? The sooner we educate our Zionist
> enemies
> > and show that our resistance offers co-existence
> and
> > peace, the less likely will they be able to kill
> us at
> > will, and never refer to us except as terrorists.
> I am
> > not saying that Sharon and Netanyahu can be
> changed. I
> > am saying that there is a Palestinian, yes a
> > Palestinian constituency, as well as an Israeli
> and
> > American one that needs to be reminded by strategy
> and
> > tactics that force of arms and tanks and human
> bombs
> > and bulldozers are not a solution, but only create
> > more delusion and distortion, on both sides.
> > 
> >   Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
> > 
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
> > http://launch.yahoo.com
> > 
> >       --- from list
> postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> -- 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> - - 
> Christian Azar
> Professor, Sustainable Industrial Metabolism
> Institute of Physical Resource Theory
> Chalmers University of Technology and Göteborg
> University
> S-412 96 Göteborg (Gothenburg), 
> SWEDEN
> Tel: +46 31 772 31 32, 
> Fax: +46 31 772 31 50
> www.frt.fy.chalmers.se


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
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http://launch.yahoo.com


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