Israel: Heed The Counsel Of Your Friends

Not just David Toube:

There is a difference between a pogrom and Holocaust. Neither is Hebron the Warsaw Ghetto.

However, the scenes of hate-fuelled, racist violence against Palestinians (and, as we have seen, black and Druze Israelis) is an undoubted hate crime. In other words, a pogrom.

Olmert speaks ‘as a Jew’. But more importantly, he speaks as an Israeli. Israel is a country that is the home to people who have suffered pogroms, in locations as diverse as Eastern Europe, Ethiopia, and the Arab world. It is also a liberal democracy. For those reasons it is right that crimes against groups of people, on the basis of their ethnicity or religion, be condemned and then punished with the utmost severity.

Liberals in Israel have had no difficulty in calling these vicious attacks on Palestinians, and those that have been filmed by cameras provided by B’Tselem what they are. Frankly, it is about time that Olmert did so as well.

The West Bank will ultimately be evacuated of any Jews who cannot live at peace with their fellows. That day is coming closer.

But, although she makes some highly contentious claims about how the West Bank settlers came by their land, Melanie Phillips as well:

I have been following with undiluted dismay and disgust the insurrection in Hebron, where Israeli settlers went on the rampage after 200 of them were removed by Israeli security forces from a house they said had been legitimately purchased from an Arab, but which they were occupying in defiance of an order by the Supreme Court which ruled their presence illegal. Even if they were originally in the right and the Israeli authorities were wrong in evicting them – and there is a complicated dispute over the ownership of this house -- that cannot possibly justify the racist mob violence that followed. All Jews should feel shame at what they did. They attacked defenceless Arabs and their property and even desecrated Muslim graves, for heaven’s sake. They attacked policemen, set homes and cars on fire, shot at Arab residents and broke windows and satellite dishes. One settler who was caught on film firing at two Arabs is now in custody having turned himself in to the police. Their behaviour was simply appalling and there can be no excuse for it. None. The argument that this was a kind of blowback from the forced evacuation of 8000 settlers from Gaza in 2005 is a disreputable attempt to justify the unjustifiable. Israel is a democracy. Whether or not they like it, the settlers along with everyone else have to live within the law.

They also need to behave like Jews rather than barbarians. How can they have acted like this? Hideously, this is the very behaviour from which Israeli Jews suffer constantly at the hands of the Arabs. In the Jerusalem Post, Isi Leibler detects an explanation within that very irony:

I am also reminded of a discussion concerning settlements with the late Dr. Yosef Burg, the wise head of the National Religious Party. He confided to me that he was deeply concerned about the long-term psychological impact on young people living in isolated settlements surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Arabs who radiated such intense hatred against them that he feared it would ultimately impact on their own personalities. Alas, recent events demonstrate that Burg's fears are now being realized with a very small but growing number of youngsters being transformed into violent delinquents. Again, it must be stressed that of the quarter of a million law abiding settlers, only a few hundred at the most are involved in these acts of thuggery and many of them do not even originate from settler families but represent the dregs of Israeli society.

This is by no means the first example of settler violence against local Arabs. Yes, one has to acknowledge the violence of the Arabs towards them. And yes, some of the claims of settler violence are fabricated in ‘Pallywood’ style. Indeed, according to the judge in this Hebron settler shooting case:

...‘there are a number question marks regarding the behavior of the people who were allegedly shot by the suspect; when they are seen getting up and proceeding to pelt the suspect with rocks. Further on in the clip one can also see the 'evacuation' of one of the casualties, whose shirt did not show any sign that he had been shot.

It is also important to note that the Israeli authorities have enforced the law against these people and ensured justice was done. Important also that there has been much anguish within Israeli society about these events. And, as Leibler writes, only a small proportion of settlers behave like this. Most are not religious zealots but impoverished Israelis who settled in the West Bank because land was cheap. They live quietly and pose no threat to anyone. Moreover, most of the land they settled was indeed either empty or bought from the Arab owners.

None of these arguments is accepted by the outside world, which believes falsely that the settlers are a) overwhelmingly racist and violent extremists and b) that they are the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Alas, events such as these will merely confirm the world in those lethally mistaken opinions. Indeed, as Leibler observes the settlers have increasingly allowed themselves to be represented by these extremist thugs, whom as a matter of urgency they should instead disown and control.

As readers of this blog know, I believe the settlements are not illegal. Indeed, under international law Jews have a legitimate claim to the West Bank, where some of the holiest Jewish religious sites are located (including Hebron); the failure to recognise this right has contributed greatly to the Middle East impasse. But I also believe that the really mortal damage from events such as we have seen in Hebron these past few days is to the Israelis’ belief in the rightness of their cause.

Such demoralisation is potentially lethal to Israel’s ability to defend itself. The Jews can (with difficulty) withstand external assault – but what they cannot cope with is their perception that they have departed from their own moral standards, the most demanding in the world. That is why ‘occupation’ has had such a lethal effect on Israeli morale; it is why the wily Arabs are so determined to ensure that the ‘occupation’ never ends; and it is why I thought from the start that the settlements were a terrible mistake and a trap from which Israel would find it increasingly hard to extricate itself. Alas, I fear recent events prove once again that this is all too true.

The question is now not only being asked, but demanding most urgently to be answered: just what sort of country is Israel? It is quite clear that if she gives the wrong answer, then she will rightly (even if they will never be able to say the words in quite this order) forfeit the support even of those who have hitherto been her most ardent devotees.