How to be Jewish or Palestinian after the destruction of Gaza
German national identity (assuming such a thing exists) changed after Nazism. The same happened with the Jews, recipients of a wave of international sympathy after the horror of the Holocaust. Now, with the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza and the West Bank, the perception of Jewish identity (not just Israeli) is shifting worldwide. What hardly changes is how we see the Palestinians: either terrorists or victims, almost never human beings in all their dimensions.
Two recent books, both published by Capitán Swing, explore this issue. One is "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza," by Peter Beinart, an American professor, obviously Jewish. The other is "Perfect Victims," by the Palestinian poet Mohamed El-Kurd.
Beinart offers an added insight: he spent his childhood in apartheid-era South Africa. He therefore understands the narrative trick upon which that racist society was built. If equality were granted to Black people, the regime said, the white minority would be exterminated. The regime fell, Nelson Mandela and equality arrived, and despite all the accumulated hatred, there were no massacres or major disasters. It turned out that neither Black nor white people were monsters eager to tear each other apart.
Beinart's book, according to him, "deals with the narrative—which convinces even Jews who are genuinely pained by the tragedy in Gaza—that there is no other way to keep us safe. It is our version of a story that is told, with many variations, in many towns and places, where they decide that protecting oneself requires subjugating others; that equality equals death." Jews see themselves, he says, "as a people destined by history to face perpetual annihilation and miraculously survive." And, therefore, they attribute moral superiority to themselves.
Successive Israeli governments have always known the truth. Even back in 1948, when the Jewish army began expelling Palestinians from their homes and lands. In 1956, exactly 70 years ago, General Moshe Dayan, then Chief of the Israeli General Staff, spoke with unusual candor after several Palestinians killed a policeman in Nahal Oz, near Gaza: "Let's not blame the murderers today. They've been stuck in the Gaza refugee camps for eight years, and right before their eyes, we've been transforming the lands and villages where they and their parents lived into our own property."
That honesty has vanished. Now the Palestinians are blamed for everything, simply for existing. They have been dehumanized. In "Perfect Victims," Mohamed El-Kurd speaks of the "Western refusal to look us in the eye." Armed resistance, he writes, “which turns others into heroes, turns us into criminals.”
El-Kurd underlines something obvious: a Palestinian is required to condemn violence; an Israeli is not. He adds: “When television producers invite us to participate in their programs, they don’t intend to interview us for the experiences, analyses, or context we might bring. They don’t offer their condolences to us as they do to our Israeli counterparts. They invite us to interrogate us.”
The Palestinian poet, born in Jerusalem, readily admits his anger and resentment toward Zionism. The American professor is troubled by the resurgence of antisemitism, now especially entrenched on the left and among young people. Judaism and Israel have become almost synonymous, despite being very different things. Beinart observes with regret that the vast majority of American synagogues display an Israeli flag “and include a prayer for Israel in the liturgy.”
El-Kurd declares himself convinced that the Palestinian struggle will continue and perceives "a new dawn" in the world, with growing sympathy for their cause. He believes in ultimate victory: "Zionism may still be a formidable opponent, but it is also an old beast, trembling and blinded by its own transcendence."
Beinart likewise thinks that Zionism will not be eternal and that ultimately the same land can be shared. He points out that 20 percent of the Israeli population is Arab and that these citizens, despite being considered second-class citizens, "constitute 25 percent of Israel's doctors, 30 percent of its nurses, and 60 percent of its pharmacists. Yet few Israeli Jews fear being beaten up when they enter a hospital or poisoned when they enter a pharmacy."
Coexistence, therefore, is possible if there is no occupation, oppression, and violence. Both authors agree on this.
