Israel, Palestinians must let go of justice and join reality

The reality that will develop will not be a prophetic binational vision: The opposite is true. It will be a patently inhuman reality over which a black flag will fly, on which will be written in blood, 'This is the Balkans.'

Salman Masalha ||

Two backward peoples

The poet Taha Muhammad Ali, who recently passed away, revealed to us in one of his poems that it took him 60 years to realize that "water is the best of drinks / And bread is the tastiest of foods." Someone who takes so much time to understand reality can be tolerated. He's allowed to be backward and learn slowly; he'll write poems about that. But it's different when we're talking about the backwardness of a nation, and how much more so, its elected leadership.

It seems that the people who populate this land from both sides of the "national" barricade belong to "peoples" that are slow to grasp reality, at least for the past three decades. And this slowness is most evident among the leaders.

The milestones of this slowness stand out for all to see. One of these was when the Zionist movement, during its beginnings, adopted the claim that was originally Christian: "a land without a people for a people without a land." Thus, it accepted anti-Semitic claims and made them its own. But it completely ignored the reality in the country and its inhabitants. Only years later did the Zionist leaders, led by David Ben-Gurion, suddenly discover that "the land is not empty."

When the immigration waves increased, the situation in the land changed. The tensions surfaced with all their gravity. The conflict between the Zionist movement, which was orderly and organized, and the land's inhabitants who were still in a pre-national stage began to grow.

With the cynical encouragement of the colonialist powers, the situation became more complicated. The world order that crystallized after World War II put the partition plan on the agenda. The Zionist leaders knew to jump at the chance. But that wasn't the case with the Arab leaders.

After two decades of slowness on the part of the Arabs to grasp reality, the 1967 war broke out and completed the occupation of the land beyond the 1948 hudna (armistice ) lines. The war was a turning point in the conflict. It brought Zionism into close contact with the emotionally charged heritage sites on which the dream of "a Jewish homeland" was based. But it led to a situation in which Israel "swallowed" the land's residents who were beginning to consolidate themselves into a separate national movement.

History doesn't remain stagnant, nor does demography. Two decades of settlement, wars, intifadas and rapid demographic change went by until the leaders of both peoples realized there was no choice but to divide the land. With that, we all returned to square one.

Slowness in grasping the national, social and political situation has led to disasters in the past and will bring more disasters in the future. This slowness is a crime of historic proportions, committed by the leaders. The price will be paid by people, with a great deal of blood.

That's why we must put aside claims of justice - because all people who demand total justice in this conflict are cut off from reality and are merely grasping at delusions. They help themselves and those around them fall into useless dreams that make both peoples act as if they were outside history. This leads to a dark tunnel from which there is no escape; to perpetuating hatred on a primeval path.

The reality that will develop as a result will be concrete and historic. It will not be a prophetic binational vision: The wolf shall not dwell with the lamb, and swords shall not be beaten into plowshares. The opposite is true. It will be a patently inhuman reality over which a black flag will fly, on which will be written in blood, "This is the Balkans."
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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, 13 January 2012

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Associating part of the muezzin's call with Arabs is a Zionist invention intended to demonize all Arabs.

Salman Masalha | Proselytes are hard for Ishmael

The people who gathered among the "pictures of medal-bedecked Russian heroes" at the community center in Lod were waiting for MK Anastassia Michaeli (Yisrael Beiteinu ), who has presented a bill to silence the muezzins. One of those present termed the muezzin's call a "tool of terror," and said that muezzins use the words itbakh al-Yahud ["kill the Jews"] (as reported by Roy Arad in the Hebrew edition of Haaretz on December 20 ). We will return below to the source of the call to "kill the Jews."

Zionism, as its early leaders attested, was not interested in all Jews everywhere. It sought to create a new Jew here, and therefore sought Jews of a different type. David Ben-Gurion expressed this attitude very clearly: "Zionism is not a philanthropic venture," he said in the 1930s to the British high commissioner, and added: "We need here a superior type of Jew who will develop the Jewish homeland."

When there is a dearth of "superior types" of authentic Jews, they bring converts to Judaism. As the Hebrew newspaper Hashkafa reported in 1903, "in a region of Astrakhan are many proselytes...they also leave the Russian language and call themselves exiles in Egypt and they call Russia Assyria and long for the coming of the redeemer who will restore the Jews." (The quote is from Prof. Yuval Dror's "Russian Converts in the Galilee at the Beginning of the 20th Century," Cathedra, 1979. ) The Zionist Movement pounced on this find, because it wanted to increase the number of "Jews" in Palestine and also to bring people to this country who were skilled farmers.

Meir Dizengoff and Dr. Hillel Yaffe, who were members of the early Zionist group Hovevei Zion, helped bring these "converts" to the country, and they were sent to Hadera and colonies in the Galilee. Ben-Gurion himself got to know the converts, Russian farmers who were Subbotniks (Judaizing Christians ), during his time in Sejera. Despite tensions between the Jews and the converts, the Russian farmers proved a great help to Jewish settlement. There was another reason to bring them to the country. It involved improving Jewish blood. "It will not at all hurt Jewish blood, which has become weakened through generations of marriage (among Jews ) to mix somewhat with Christian blood," Yaffe said (also quoted in Cathedra ).

Many of those that "we needed" for the "development of the Jewish homeland" and the betterment of Jewish blood came to Israel with the fall of the Soviet Union. Many of them vote for Michaeli's party, Yisrael Beiteinu. That party took the name "Israel" and appropriated it as a "home" for itself; that is, if party followers claim "Russia is Assyria." But they might also claim they are "exiles in Egypt" and may even pray to the one "who brought us out of Egypt" or "who wrought miracles for our forefathers."

One of the converts, one Yaakov Nitchev, lived in Sejera. He allegedly took to drink after a family tragedy. It is also said that one day a year, on Simhat Torah, he permitted himself to get "as drunk as a goy." When he was drunk, he would revert to being a Russian farmer of the old days, and as with every drunken Russian farmer, the vodka would shout from his throat, bei zhidov ("kill the Jews" ).

That, it seems, is how the call was born here, at the beginning of the 20th century, in Palestinian Hebrew - itbakh al-Yahud. The Russian bei zhidov, which comes from the Russian pogroms, underwent a transformation here due to circumstances. It was translated literally-nationalistically by converts and lovers of Zion and was attached to the Arabs. Associating the call with Arabs is a Zionist invention intended to demonize all Arabs. Therefore, let the ancient sages be comforted: As it turns out, proselytes are not hard on Israel, they are actually hard for Ishmael.
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Published: Opinions-Haaretz, Dec. 28, 2011

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