Converging Narratives

So, last night I went to an event at the JCC. It began with a few short film clips and then broke into discussion groups.

Join other young social justice and Israel activists for an exciting evening of short films and an open, facilitated dialogue, which will grapple with the Arab experience in Israel.

A lot comes to mind, including just how open the Jewish community can be to such things. Afterall, this and the previous event were both at the JCC in Manhattan. Also, it's always worth noting how solidly even the leftwing Jews who come to these things stand behind Israel. They're critical but not anti-Zionists by any means. One person, a journalist stationed in Israel for a few years, offered an experience of seeing IDF "purity of arms" in action. At the same time, I'm also participating in a Jewish social justice discussion group, where people are similarly critical but not anti-Zionist. I forget where, but in comments at a blog post discussing this article, someone claimed that when Hannah Arendt thought Israel was truly threatened, in the '73 war, she donated money to the JDL. (For those unfamiliar, the JDL is a reactionary Jewish group, listed by the SPLC as a hate group.) I think most Jews, even many who are awfully critical will similarly turn to hawkish defense if they actually perceive Israel as threatened. Much of the difference between the Jewish "left" and "right" (I'm coming to hate those terms as applied to Israel) is simply the perception of how serious the attack on Israel is.

Anyway, the event was largely about Palestinian narratives. I was a bit surprised none of the clips mentioned the Nakba or dispossession (though the speaker who introduced the event did mention it). I don't know if that's an oversight by the organizers or not, but I do feel it helped me a lot to be less defensive. Instead, two of the three clips focused on the problems of identity. In the third, a Bedouin woman complained specifically that Bedouin children are assimilating, even as she herself was quite thoroughly assimilated.

I wanted to say to her that I understand that complaint, because that's my history, but it's also why I'm a Zionist. Jews everywhere for three thousand years since the Babylonian conquest have had to deal with that very problem. And it's been terrible for us. I want Israel to be a multicultural state where she doesn't have to deal with that, but I also want it to be a Jewish state so Jews don't have to either. Or, at least, so Jews have a choice, in either Israel or the Diaspora, of what kind of society to assimilate to.

When oppressors promote contrarian minorities

I just did a google image search for "Orthodox Jews." I wanted the image to show how Jews often can stand out as quite different in a visual way. A huge number of the early results are Neturei Karta. Seven images of 19 images (I'm ignoring a Barbie Doll in Tefellin) on the first page.

Neturei Karta, which has maybe 5,000 members (of whom perhaps only a tiny minority are politically active), and more specifically a one-dimensional representation of even this group as anti-Israel that ignores their stances on a million other issues, has come to represent for many people what Orthodox Judaism is.

Well, no. NK is a tiny group that doesn't represent Orthodox Judaism. Chabad-Lubavitch, for example, has over 200,000 members worldwide. And because they're very active, it would make a lot more sense to me if people took C-L as representative of Orthodox Judaism, even if they're not even as large in number as Modern Orthodox.

But C-L and Modern Orthodox have much more pro-Israel stances than NK. So when people who aren't Jewish (or Orthodox Jews) want to talk about Judaism in a way that fits their anti-Zionist views, they pretend NK are "true Jews." This, of course, means I get Christians and Muslims trying to tell me, effectively, that I'm not Jewish enough to speak from a Jewish perspective -- which is just insane. And Racist. It's colonialism, plain and simple.

On those brave Jews who speak out against "Zionism"

The speakers are lauded as “three brave hearts,” whose “courage and eloquence” should be “saluted” by “grateful Canadians.” This is, apparently, because they have spoken out against XXXXXXXX, and (it seems that this is a crucial element) have received flack for doing so.

The missing word is, in that case, 'Islamism.'

It seems that the most important credentials these days for Muslims to get taken seriously by some media outlets are based on how much the rest of the Muslim community (apparently) hates them. Their actual knowledge of Islam or Muslim communities is brushed aside. The actual impact that they have had in doing anything to fight “Islamism” (however the author understands it) is equally irrelevant. I am not saying that any of the people profiled have no knowledge or haven’t been active in these issues (even if I may vehemently disagree with many of their ideas). What I am concerned about is that we’re being asked to take them at their word simply because certain key people disagree with them, and we’re being implicitly told that their own thoughts and actions are not especially important as reasons to pay attention to what they say.

This is problematic in itself, because it means that many Muslims end up being represented by people that they may not agree with.