It’s All Connected…

This is actually a reposting of a comment I made on Alas, A Blog, as part of the “More On Chomsky And Anti-Semitism” thread. I decided to repost it here because it really does lay out some of the underlying assumptions I bring to any discussion of Israel, anti-Semitism, etc. It always seems that discussions about Israel, especially discussions between and among Jews, get bogged down in the problem of what stated or unstated assumptions people are starting from. So I would like to state some of mine, at least as I define them now.

1. The State of Israel exists. This is a fact that cannot be changed, nor does Israel’s national existence need any justification at this point other than the fact that it is a fact. This is true not because of anything having to do with Jewish anything, but because there are now at least two generations of people living within the borders of that nation who were born there after 1948, for whom Israel is there national home, whether they are Jewish or not. (I don’t mean to imply that “two generations” is some sort of magical number; I just mean to state the obvious that the independent state of Israel–as opposed to the land where that state exists–now has a significant native population.)

To suggest that Israel, because of its policies, or because of its origins, should somehow cease to exist as an independent state is therefore not only impractical and unjust; it is also almost certainly anti-Semitic, unless one is also calling for a similar dissolution of, say, the United States, which is also a country built on colonial roots and the disenfranchisement of the native population. (I am not interested in arguing whether the Israeli occupation is justified or not; nor am I suggesting that the Israelis want to wipe out the Palestinians as the US government seemed at one time to want to do to the Native American population, but there are parallels between the formation of the US and the formation of Israel, and if you are going to call for the dissolution of Israel on those grounds, then you really should be calling for the dissolution of the US as well.)

2. Because Israel exists as an indpendent state, it has the right to defend itself, especially now that Hamas, a group that is sworn to eliminate Israel has made such a strong showing in the Palestinian elections. Expecting Israel to do anything right now that would make itself vulnerable to this goal that members of Hamas in the Palestinian government have insisted remains in force is both naive and stupid.

3. The State of Israel exists as a Jewish state, both in terms of its majority population and certain aspects of its government. More to the point, for Israelis, Jewish and not, this is as much a part of Israel’s culture as, say, the separation of church and state is here in the US. Whether or not Israel should continue to be a Jewish state in this way, however, and/or what precisely it means for Israel to be a Jewish state, is also a legitimate issue for debate for two reasons:

a. It places non-Jewish Israelis in a permanently less privileged position in their country of citizenship. This would be true even if there is no difference now between how Jewish and non-Jewish Israeli citizens are treated under the law, which, as I understand it, is not the case: those laws can change and to the degree that Israel is a Jewish state, non-Jewish Israelis are vulnerable to some future government that might deem it necessary to institute forms of discrimination against them because they are not Jewish. And, I would add, the fact that we, and by “we” here I mean Jews, might consider this extremely unlikely and therefore not a high priority issue is indicative of precisely the kind of privilege I am talking about. This is a debate that should take place, it seems to me, in Israel, between and among Israelis.

b. If the existence of Israel as a Jewish state means that it is also, or that I should see it as, “my” state, either because Israel claims me as among its own–as Ariel Sharon did and other Israelis have done explicitly–or because the Jewish community insists that laying claim to Israel as my homeland (or any of the variations on that theme one can imagine) is foundational to a valid Jewish identity, then the question of precisely what it means for Israel to be a Jewish state has, to the degree that I identify myself as a Jew, been made central to who I am. If I choose not to lay claim to Israel as my homeland, or if I do not see Israel’s existence as the fulfillment of my personal version, because I do not have one, of what others portray as the universal or near-universal aspiration of the Jewish nation for a state, have I denied some essential Jewishness that I was born with? Have I betrayed my people? Anyone here who is Jewish and has been through any sort of Jewish education, formal or informal, knows both the questions and the standard answers. (Interestingly, they are similar to the questions that are asked of, or the charges made against, those who intermarry, and as a Jew married to a Muslim raising a son without any religious affiliation, these are questions I have been confronted with quite often.)

It is obvious, I suppose, but nonetheless important to stress that this second area of debate encompasses a much larger population than the first one I defined. Indeed, I find myself having very different conversations with Israeli Jews about the situation of Israel and the Palestinians, and about the nature of Israel and as Jewish state than I do with Jews who live elsewhere in the world. For Israeli Jews, Israel is their home, not in some metaphorical sense of that word, not as a bottom-line place of refuge or safety in an anti-Semitic world, not as some place where, thank god!, Jews and not goyim are in charge, but their home, the place where they were born and raised, or the place they chosen to claim as if they had been born and raised there, and because it is their home, because it is the place where they live and work, have children and so on, the issues that arise there are ultimately their’s to work out on their own terms. I, of course, have my opinions, and I share them, but I would never presume that their interest as Jews in what happens in and to Israel coincide with mine as a Jew because Israel is not my home, nor do I have any plan to make it my home.

On the other hand, when I talk to Jews who live outside of Israel, for whom Israel is not home and who seem to have no plans to make Israel their home, but who define their interests in Israel as if it were their home, I don’t feel the same constraints. To these Jews, I am very willing to say, for example, that I don’t think Israel should be a Jewish state, if by Jewish state we mean a state that claims me or that I am supposed to claim as part of some essential Jewishness that exists within me. And with these Jews I am willing to debate the issues at stake in the history of Zionism or of Israel’s formation or whatever because, with these Jews, it always seems that the stakes come down not to home, but to identity.