26 April - 2 May 2001
Issue No.531
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 April - 2 May 2001 Issue No.531 |
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A convergence of opposites
Neo-Nazis and Zionists: unlikely bedfellows? Not really, writes Abdelwahab Elmessiri
Zionist propaganda is a construct founded on omission and invention; it refutes or discards anything that does not jibe with what is convenient and vests such sweeping propositions as "a land without people for a people without a land" with a sanctity of mythical proportions. One of the manifestations of this blinkered vision is the puerile tendency to denounce anything that conflicts with its take on reality as "anti-Semitic." Thus, the Palestinian rejection of the Zionist invasion is anti-Semitic, and the Intifada is anti-Semitic. People who describe Zionism as a racist movement are anti-Semites, as are governments that conclude arms deals with Arab nations. Even to entertain the idea of submitting the Nazi holocaust to academic scrutiny is a flagrantly anti-Semitic crime.
The Encyclopaedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism, which I edited and most of the entries of which I compiled, was described in Israel as anti-Semitic because it did not distinguish between Jewish as an indication of religious affiliation and Jewish as a description of ethnic identity (or what they called national identity). In the Jerusalem Post of 25 July 1999, David Weinberg remarked, "Egypt's hostility to peace was demonstrated by granting the International Book Fair Award for 1999 to an eight-volume anti-Semitic encyclopedia."
Such gut reactions, I believe, reflect a powerful desire to escape reality, to avoid any intellectual engagement with notions that would upset the Zionist world view and expose the myths and falsehoods on which it is based. I very much doubt whether any of my Zionist critics actually read the encyclopaedia, at least with any degree of open-mindedness, judging by the many ready-to-hand stock phrases that riddled the commentaries on the book immediately following its publication.
Contrary to the anti-Semitic tract that was conjured in the critics' minds, however, this encyclopaedia was no campaign of denunciation or vilification (which, in all events, is both an immoral and a futile endeavour); nor did it cater to a propagandistic agenda for "rallying forces in defence of Arab rights." Rather, it was an attempt to comprehend and explain Judaism and Zionism through the processes of deconstruction and reconstruction and the development of new paradigms capable of encompassing the various aspects of these phenomena in their totality and specificity. To this end, it consistently fought to stay clear of the facile generalisations, trite reductions and hackneyed terminologies that characterise many studies on Judaism, Zionism and Israel.
Many commonly held notions and conceptual devices mask an anti-Jewish perspective, one that paradoxically caters to the Zionist world view. Take for example the notion of Jewish "oneness," which presumes that, at any given time or place, the Jews form a single, homogeneous entity, separate from the society that surrounds them, perpetuating a particular mode of life and operating under laws that do not apply to the society of the majority. It further holds that there exists a distinct Jewish nature (manifested through eating and drinking habits, clothes, language and social and political institutions), a single, constant, identifiable Jewish essence common to all Jews and that this Jewishness is immutable over time, or that if it does change then it does so according to laws of its own.
This perception of Jewish identity is ideal for constructing a self-referential explanation of Judaism and Zionism, framed solely in terms of what are held to be unique and unalterable Jewish attributes, while systematically excluding all factors diverse Jewish communities may have had in common with the societies in which they lived. Of course, the Jew, according to this view, is a singular creature. It goes without saying that this view is horrendously naïve and crude, a grotesque, one-dimensional characterisation that strips individual Jews and individual Jewish communities of their place in space and time, divests them of their particular drives, indeed of their very humanity, through the fabrication of some monolithic alien entity that has nothing in common with other human societies. Nevertheless, this has become the frame of reference for Zionists and anti-Semites alike. Thus, a Jewish genius owes his outstanding intelligence to his ineffable Jewishness (so the Zionists would posit) and the behaviour of a Jewish criminal is equally due to that set of uniquely Jewish traits (from the anti-Semitic perspective). In like manner, any analysis of the Jewish present can only be explored in terms of the Jewish past, since, after all, the life of the Jews is one invariable, autonomous continuum.
One of the products of this one-dimensional outlook is that the Jews in both Zionist and anti-Semitic literature inevitably stand in juxtaposition to Others (i.e. non-Jews). There is always some latent trait that makes it difficult for societies everywhere to absorb them and makes them reluctant to assimilate. As a result, in these literatures, Jews must be prone to dual loyalties, as they cannot feel secure in the land of their birth and must eternally yearn for their true homeland in Zion. It follows, therefore, that to defend the civil and religious rights of Jews in their diaspora is futile, and indeed should be eschewed in order to perpetuate the exclusion and expulsion of the Jews from hostile societies, thereby sustaining their natural movement towards the land of Zion.
The difference between the Zionist and the anti-Semitic paradigms is not in their premises, terms, logic or solution, but rather in the mechanisms for realising that solution. In other words, the difference is purely mechanical rather than conceptual. Both camps propose a simple answer to the problem of that unique, homogeneous, unassimilable Jewish entity, which is the expulsion of the Jews from their native lands. But, whereas the anti-Semites would advocate violence, the Zionists hold that the Zionist movement can supervise the process and complete it in a systematic and orderly way. The Zionist/anti-Semitic paradigm must ultimately translate itself into blind hatred venting itself in persecution and pogroms; but what its proponents forget is that the Jews expelled from their native lands must ultimately end up in Palestine and take up arms against us.
The anti-Semitic paradigm practically and profoundly serves the Zionist vision by instilling in people such a terror of the Jewish Satan that they fear war with it long before the battle has begun. Superpowers amass enormous and highly destructive arsenals, fully aware that they will not use them, but relentlessly intent on doing so nevertheless in order to intimidate their enemies. Anti-Semites perform this task for Zionism free of charge. An article published in Ha'aretz on 21 December 1993 remarked: "It appears that the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion] (notorious for inflaming anti-Semitic feeling) may well not have been written by an anti-Semite, but rather by a very clever, far-sighted Jew (i.e. Zionist)."
Indeed, in Zionist literature there is an acute awareness of this convergence between anti-Semitism and Zionism. Hertzl himself spoke of "our friends the anti-Semites," and Balfour was perfectly conscious that his Zionist bias was rooted in his own anti-Semitism and the desire to rid Europe of the Jews as the solution to the "Jewish question." It was only a small step from Balfour to Hitler. Both wanted to achieve the same end -- to rid Europe of the Jews -- but whereas Balfour's solution was to pack them off to the British colonies, Hitler's was the concentration camps and the gas chambers. Then again, Hitler did not have the luxury of foreign colonies, Germany having been stripped of its colonial possessions following World War I (although in fact Hitler had contemplated a Balfour-like solution in Mozambique).
The anti-Semitic paradigm, in its facile generalisations and its satanisation of the Other, is clearly racist and, as such, a violation of all humanitarian, moral and religious values. It serves no practical purpose, and in fact is counterproductive to its proponents. The premise that Zionism, and hence our opposition to Israel, derives from some inherent Jewish diabolism may succeed, initially, in firing popular animosity and mobilising mass energies against the Zionist enemy; however, we soon find ourselves confronted with a bitter truth, which is that people actually come to believe the illusions such conspiracy theories put about, which is that the Jews are an evil, invincible power (like the Israeli army), a race of masterminds ruling the world, extending their hidden tendrils across the globe. Who would dare challenge such a gargantuan force, as indomitable as fate?
Some believe that to "humanise" the Jews is to acquit Zionism and to sympathise with its advocates. Nothing could be more erroneous. Our conflict with the Zionists is not a trial and we are not bringing suit against them. What we are, or should be, trying to do is to understand them and their behaviour so as to be able to deal with them better in war or in peace. "Humanise," moreover, is by no means equivalent to "sympathise." I am reminded in this context of Mark Twain's famous remark that "Jews are members of the human race, worse than that I cannot say of them." Colonialism is a human phenomenon, as are racism, exploitation and other evils; and as part of the very core of human existence we can observe and attempt to explain most of their aspects. To attempt to explain and understand is a far cry from condoning these ills, and we must make the effort to comprehend if we are to grasp reality and therefore change it. Conversely, without this effort, all we have are hollow slogans, and the struggle to counter these ills becomes suicidal, because it entails hurling ourselves blind and unprepared into an obscure and raging storm.
In the Encyclopaedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism I have sought to humanise the Jews through an attempt to explain the phenomenon of anti-Semitism. I tried to elucidate the intellectual and mental processes by which anti-Semites oversimplify human realities, divest their victims of any concrete human traits and subtleties and create some amorphous human entity as the embodiment of a core image of their own devising. Pure fabrication and lies have been the traditional tools of racial propagandists, but since the age of positivist science dawned it has become increasingly common for them to attempt to rest their cases on "hard" evidence, to focus on some aspect of reality, then to over-generalise and over-simplify, for example by concentrating exclusively on the wrongdoings perpetrated by some and applying this to the whole. For this process to work, though, the propagandists must also deny Jewish heterogeneity and emphasise cohesion and unity of purpose, divorce the Jews as individuals and communities from their social and historical context and disassociate ideological drives, such as Zionism, from the greater movements and developments in which they were born, as though the Jews were compelled by some malignant impulse rather than the panoply of motives that combine to shape all men's actions and aspirations.
I included in the encyclopaedia a lengthy entry on anti-Jewish racism in Arab rhetoric, a phenomenon I sought to explain -- though not to justify -- in order to highlight its dangers. I made use of the notion of the "functional group," a body of people brought in from abroad or created within society to fulfil a specific function. Moneylenders, warrior castes and mercenaries have figured prominently among such groups, viewed in terms of their role, not in terms of the humanity of their constituent elements. I further demonstrated that anti-Semitism is a form of racism and xenophobia, which are manifestations of the fear of the unfamiliar and the Other, and thus have the potential to surface in any society. Simultaneously, all societies contain individuals unable to content themselves with the wealth they already possess and, therefore, covet the property of others, especially that of minorities who generally do not enjoy the same immunities and privileges as the members of the majority. Generally these attitudes and motives remain latent, surfacing only in individual instances of overt violence and hatred, as long as societies remain stable and all members of society know their function. At times of flux, however, when functional groups lose their functions, these opportunistic motives acquire greater force, and individual instances of overt hatred and violence proliferate to the extent as to create a full-blown social phenomenon. This is what occurred since the Renaissance in Europe. The Jewish functional groups gradually lost their functions, engendering the Jewish question, which grew increasingly acute in the 19th century and led to increasingly rabid anti-Semitism and the emergence of Zionism as a solution to the problem of the functional group divested of its function.
Furthermore, to drive home the point that this process is connected with socio-historic dynamics and not with so-called Jewishness, and to emphasise that there is no such thing as an absolute, finite set of exclusively Jewish characteristics, I referred in this section to the Chinese in Indonesia, the Indians in South Africa and certain Arab communities in Africa, thereby demonstrating the similarities between the situation of these minorities and that of the Jews in Europe. In short, my treatment of anti-Semitism sought to present a complex reading of this phenomenon through a balanced consideration of its specific and general dynamics while, to the best of my ability, avoiding the generalisations and oversimplifications that come so readily to Zionists and anti-Semites alike.
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