Revolutionary Humanism

JEWISH and non-Jewish CHAUVINISM. The question of Jewishness and Jewish identity only arises in the context of support for Palestine because some supporters of Palestine insist on being identified as Jews against Zionism or Jews against Israeli Occupation. This itself would not cause any particular problem except that they have become, in the words of one activist ’the gatekeepers’ of acceptable criticism of Israel and Zionism. It thus appears that most Jewish people (living in Israel or not) identify with Israel, on a similar basis to the old nationalist sentiment ‘my country right or wrong’. Although these Jewish Israeli supporters have thus introduced a nationalist content to their Jewish identity, there are some Jews who choose not to. However, rather than abandon the label Jewish and let the Zionist have it, they seek to contest the content of what constitutes authentic Jewishness. The groups which finds this task easiest are those adhering to the religious traditions of Rabbinical Judaism. Thus one Jewish author is able to say that it is firm belief in the covenant with God which is the core of Jewish identity. And; “Without it there can be no Judaism and no Jews. When this concept disappears, when the Jew, through lack of this inner compulsion, no longer wishes to retain his identity as a Jew, then nothing will stand between him and assimilation.” (Max Dimont. ‘Jews, God and History’ Pub. Signet. Page 30.) Thus, according to this view, without belief in the Covenant with God, there is no such thing as Jewishness. Indeed, such views could be replicated in considerable quantities from within the writings of religious anti-Zionist Jews. However, this compulsion to adhere to belief in God and the special Jewish covenant with God has certainly lessened if not disappeared for many people of Jewish ancestry. Nevertheless this lack for some Jews, has evidently not led to a wish to abandon Jewish identity. If at the same time we recognise that the specific economic and networking role of merchants and bankers, which also helped maintain Jewish communal identity for a thousand years, has also ceased to exist for many Jews, we have to ask what is left of Jewish separatist ethnicity after most of the religious and economic foundations have disappeared? I suggest there can only be a form of nationalist (reactionary or liberal/cultural) motive left. The reactionary nationalists are the Zionists and their supporters, but among the liberal/cultural Jewish nationalists are anti-Zionist Jews. It is these who seem to have most difficulty in defining what their form of Jewishness represents. A most useful illustration of what might be at work for some is provided by the late Isaac Deutscher in his article ‘The non-Jewish Jew’. The title of this article itself is at least partly oxymoronic for how can a Jew be non-Jewish. By definition a Jew is Jewish and only a non-Jew is non-Jewish - or Gentile in that fabricated dualistic framework. Yet the use of this title by the biographer of Trotsky and an anti-Capitalist writer of some stature, suggests a clue to what is going on. This initial indication is followed by other pointers, as one would expect from such an accomplished scholar. He argues that the expansion of capitalism and the disgust this exploitative system engenders has been (and was) turned away from its basis in the productive relationships of society, and re-directed against identifiable agents of this system. This disgust has thus been directed; “….not at the core of capitalism…but its externals and its largely archaic trappings, which so often were indeed Jewish….Decaying capitalism has overstayed its mark and has morally dragged down mankind; and we the Jews have paid for it and may yet pay for it.” ( Deutscher. ‘The non-Jewish Jew’. In Zionism Reconsidered.’ Ed. M. Selzer. Pub Macmillan. Page 85.) He is here commenting upon Judeophobia and the Holocaust, and correctly identifies the general decline in morality and ethical values which attend capitalist economic and social hegemony. Despite his knowledge of both Marx’s economic analysis of Jewishness and those of the Orthodox Jews, he still wishes to retain (ie the ‘we Jews‘ in the above quote) a Jewish identity. A further pointer is provided by his repeated use of phrases such as ‘Jewish temperament’; ‘peculiarly Jewish literary gifts’; ‘the Jewish intellect’ ‘Jews that go beyond Jewishness’. He names some of these figures which he suggests epitomise this ‘Jewish genius’. Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Freud. He recalls; “It was, I think, an English Protestant biographer of Spinoza who said that only a Jew could have carried out that upheaval in the philosophy of his age that Spinoza carried out - a Jew who was not bound by the dogmas of the Christian Churches, Catholic and Protestant, nor by those of the faith in which he had been born.” (ibid page 75.) We must leave aside any discussion of the abilities or ideological stance of this particular protestant biographer of Spinoza, since Deutscher apparently could not even remember who it was. A fact which is interesting in itself as to why one would use this un-testified source as an important reference. Yet the intention is clear. It is to impart and assert some special quality to Jewishness. The insertion of “only a Jew” - “not bound by dogmas” (?) gives the game away. What I suggest is operating here, and elsewhere, in the non-religious, non-economic sphere of Jewish identity is a form of conscious or semi-conscious cultural patriotism or biological chauvinism. Trapped within the paradigm of Jewish identity it appears - even to Deutscher - as if it is Jewishness which produces prodigious talents such as Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Luxemburg and Freud and numerous others such as Einstein. Indeed this is how it also appears to many non-Jews who have also not sufficiently thought the matter through. However, it is actually the case that any human community which manages to attain successive generations of literacy, sufficient economic well-being to permanently support the long-term freeing of some of its members from the drudgery of manual labour, produces over a period of time, people of outstanding intellectual ability. It matters little whether this community is called, or calls itself, Macedonian, Greek, Persian, Roman, German, French, Russian, Arabian, Islamic or Jewish; all of whom (and more) have produced outstanding literary, artistic and scientific figures. However, it is not their geographical location, nor their religious or biological affiliation which has produced these people. It is the ability of human beings in general to be able to specialise under conditions favourable to those activities in order to create outstanding works of artistic, literary. philosophic and scientific merit. It is those with the time, the opportunity, the tradition of literacy and immersed in a suitable intellectual milieu who at certain junctures are able to make these outstanding achievements. If more human beings have done so from within those born into a Jewish community (which is by no means certain) then this only suggests that such individuals within their communities have been fortunate enough to enjoy these privileged conditions and opportunities more than other communities. Such Jewish cultural patriotism or biological chauvinism, is similar to other nationalist chauvinisms in that instead of celebrating the achievements of human beings in general and in particular when they are fostered and mature under favourable economic and social conditions, claims those achievements for its own narrow self-serving interests. Instead of campaigning to create human economic and social conditions in which more and more people can produce outstanding results (an anthropocentric or humanist goal) the focus is moved to protecting the ethnicity, or nationality of the tradition which it is imagined produces the outstanding results. If even Deutscher could be blind to this form of chauvinism and patriotism and wish to remain a non-Jewish Jew, (!) then this indicates its deep entrenchment. But it also reveals a degree of self-delusion in those who perpetuate these biological or cultural chauvinisms. It also begs the question as to whether many of those who wish to be identified as ‘Jews’ in the Palestine solidarity movement are doing so out of similar cultural chauvinistic or biological patriotic motives. Some may do so, but others may be trapped in an emotional and cultural chasm. For example, Avigail Abarbanel argued that; “Keeping trauma alive and constructing a whole identity around it is at the heart of mainstream Judaism….Only our sentiments, our feelings for Israel and Jerusalem mattered, our suffering, pain and love of our children, as if no one else existed or had similar sentiments. When I first began my journey to differentiate from my family of origin I did not know that I would also have to differentiate from my culture…It became clear that the ways members of my family dealt with their history was culturally dependent.” (A Abarbanel. (New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy Volume 24 Number 1. March 2003.) This led to what she described as the Jewish ‘survivor’ reaction of ‘destructive entitlement’, which in spite of the savage dispossession of Palestinians, allows Israeli Jews to imagine themselves as victims in this colonialist conflict. Deconstructing ones identity or engaging in what the above author describes as ‘differentiating’ is a difficult but necessary thing if one is to leave the restricting and competitive cul-de-sacs of identity politics and engage with the world as a human being. Sadly some people are unable to do so and this ties them to the Jewish Zionist enterprise. As Sarah Irving comments recently in her Review of Benny Morris’s book ’Making Israel’ ; “As with some manifestations of the Israeli peace movement and its US and European sympathisers, most of the issues touched on in this book are concerned with cleaning up the inside of Jewish Israel’s own house, not with restoring justice to Palestinians, whether citizens of Israel, living under Occupation or in the Diaspora.” (Aqsa News. Issue 38 Sept 2008.) If this desire to clean up the image takes precedence over the campaign for Palestinian rights it will impede and restrict the campaign. Indeed, in re-reading some of the Jewish peace movement material recently I am struck once again by the limited aims of some of the suggestions of how peace and justice can be obtained in Palestine. Aims which seem to be limited by the need and desire to justify the existence of and retain the actual state of Israel as an exclusively Jewish entity and thus protector and arbiter of an exclusive Jewish identity. For example; “If preserving Israel as a Jewish state is a rock-bottom requirement for both the Israeli Jewish public and most of the international community, a sustainable peace must then include Palestinian self-determination in a minimally-viable state of their own, plus the ability to address the refugee issue. The Occupied Territories are so small and truncated that the Palestinians are left with very little room to manoeuvre. If, however, a regional confederation with Jordan (at a minimum) was a guaranteed part of the solution, then, as suggested earlier, the Palestinians could be more forthcoming in terms of territorial compromise“ (Jeff Halper. ‘Obstacles to Peace. page 68.) Here we have an Israeli, Jewish peace activist suggesting a solution which allows Israel to keep hold of even more territory than it grabbed in 1948 and more than it is entitled to under the already biased United Nations resolutions. The 78% of historic Palestine already obtained by Israeli force (recognised by the UN since only the territories Occupied in 1967 are considered.) is to be supplemented by Palestinians ceding all (or most) of the ‘illegal settlements’ in the occupied territory of the West Bank. Palestinians may well ask ‘with friends like these we may not need any more enemies’. The problems caused by this to the viability of a future Palestinian state it is later suggested by this Jewish peace advocate can be met by a regional confederation with Jordan and elsewhere. The reason; “The state itself, too small and localised to deal with the entire refugee population, too limited to develop a strong economy, could nevertheless provide the dispersed Palestinian population with a political identity, national participation in the international community, and a modicum of self-determination. Other responsibilities too large for the small state - refugees, economic development and the like - could be dealt with on a regional basis. This would lighten the burden on the limited Palestinian state, thereby permitting the Palestinians to make territorial compromise they simply cannot make if a viable solution depends solely upon a separate state.” (ibid) In other words, other countries (such as Jordan and Syria) can pick up the responsibilities for the refugees and Israel who created them doesn’t have to deal with the problem. The Palestinian state after making these further ‘territorial compromises’, will enjoy a ‘modicum of self-determination‘. All these suggestions are gift wrapped and presented in an intellectual package labelled ‘peace and justice‘. But from a humanist position we have to ask; ‘What form of justice is this? This ICAHD perspective recognises a) full self-determination for the ‘Jewish State’ on territory stolen from the Palestinians, and b) only a modicum of self-determination for Palestinians in what’s left of their former territory. The ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees is to be transformed into the ‘right to stay’ in Jordanian refugee camps or in the Diaspora. Does this not raise the suspicion that what is really being proposed by such peace movement acceptance of ‘facts on the ground’ is not peace and justice, but peace only via internationally accepted land and resource appropriation. Both of which, I imagine, will allow a welcome degree of demilitarisation of Israeli society and a much hoped for degree of Israeli (Jewish or Zionist) ethical redemption. The ‘never again’ perspective. The need for a Jewish State is often derived from a ‘never again’ response to the Holocaust, (ie Abarbanel‘s ‘destructive entitlement’) but this too is a chauvinist solution, for Jews were not the only sufferers of Nazi genocide. Gypsies, Socialists, handicapped and Slavs were massacred as well as Jews. A ‘never again’ position from a universalist, humanist perspective would argue for never again for everyone or anyone. Just a ’never again’ will Jews be led to the slaughter’ attitude is shorthand for something much deeper in the psychological make up of Jews who have not escaped the intense identity aculturalisation of children within Jewish family life. What prevents the ‘Never Again’ attitude from merely being a benign defensive posture or a universalist proposition and is translated into an offensive slaughter of Palestinians, is the concept of being ‘chosen‘, ‘special’ or ‘unique‘. What stops ‘never again’ from being any other form of understandable reaction is a particular modern form of ancient tribal identity. The real substance of ‘never again’ from this Judeo-centric mentality is; ‘Never again will the ’chosen’; the ‘special‘, the ’unique’ people (however defined) be discriminated against or oppressed, and never again will they relinquish their last word authority over all who come within their reach. This alone explains why Arabs, internationals, gentiles, and Christians, are all treated with contempt and aggression if they do not acquiesce or prostrate themselves to this tribal identity with its varying and variable attendant desires and actions. It does not matter whether this reach is within the state boundaries of Israel, or within the solidarity campaigns outside of it. Show any reluctance to defer to their Jewish sensibilities or criticise in any way their fragile ethnocentrism and their full venom (verbal or physical) is directed against the offender, whether the offender be goyim or those who they define as self-hating Jews. This venom also indicates the fragile nature of this assertion of Jewish specialness because although it is thoroughly emphasised in much of Jewish culture and religion, it constantly bumps into the reality of everyday life. Jews are not that special, either negatively as the Judeophobes fantasise, nor positively as the Judeophiles imagine. The reality is that Jews, as human beings, are no more talented, clever, chosen, unique or special, than any other group of human beings. Any collective of humanity has a variety of talented, intelligent, unique individuals as well as those less well blessed. This conflict and dissonance between theory and reality must be difficult to resolve and in some individuals create frustrations and strong emotions seeking release. However, a surrogate form of uniqueness is created by the adherence to an illusory tribal identity. In that sense a reality is created by adherence to a myth of commonality depicted by the term Jew. In any real sense there is no substance to the term. It no longer represents a religion to some, it no longer bears any economic substance to others. There is very little of the cultural element left - only the abstract term remains with very little if any common content. Only the remaining reflexes of a childlike ego-centric mentality keeps it alive. And it is this mythical, ego-centric adherence which becomes a force for aggressive mischief when collectivised in the form of Zionism. To really understand the stifling confines and distorted perspectives of any given chauvinism, one has to step outside that paradigm. It simply cannot be done from within it. This is why those Jews who oppose the extremes of Zionist aggression cannot break completely with the state of Israel, as long as they choose to remain within their tribal form of identity. The underlying and fundamental position that unites the ‘Peace Now’ anti-Zionists with the ’kill every Arab’ Zionists is that Jews should have a state of their own. Their differences are over why, how and where this should be achieved. The vast majority whether religious or not think this should be in Palestine (the Holy Land). The doves think this should be done by diplomacy and negotiation (pay the Syrians, Lebanese and Egyptians to permanently accept Palestinian refugees and grant some bantustans), the hawks that it should be done by slow or quick ethnic cleansing (pay the army and arms manufacturers to drive or starve them out, and grant them nothing). The doves, like the hawks, think that the Palestinians have no right to resist because they (the Palestinians) are resisting a unique, special or ‘chosen’ people - whether this special quality is because of God, the ‘Holocaust‘ or some other ‘special’ reason. Hence the almost total silence over the 2008-2009 Blitzkrieg of Gaza from the ‘Peace Now’ camp. The majority of the Peace Now camp are at one with the ultraZionists in blaming Hamas (via rockets and right of return) for the continued problems, just as they were previously at one in blaming Arafat and the PLO terrorists (!) for the previous hostilities. The term ‘occupation’ is rarely heard, and where it is heard is emptied of its real colonialist ethnic cleansing content. The only criticism of the Gaza Blitz from the Peace Now camp was over some of the more obscene excesses, but not over the right of Israel to enter Gaza, nor over the right of Israel to exist on the basis of colonial oppression and stolen land or resources. Since the term Jew has nor real common content outside of the religious, save an illusory form of uniqueness, the content of the term is actually being filled by Zionism. The much publicised existence of Israel as a ‘Jewish State’ along with its atrocities are topping up with Zionist aggression the space left by the absence of religion and culture in the term Jew. Jewish Diaspora neutrality and support for Israel via this mythical, illusory commonality does nothing to stop or erode this re-definition of Jewishness, so that Israel is now destined to become a pariah nation, and Jewishness, instead of passing peacefully away, as with other forms of manufactured religio-nationalist identity, is sadly well on the path to becoming a pariah identity. R. Ratcliffe (December 2008.)