Election Section

Commentary: A Scholar Asks: ‘Who Speaks For The Jews?’ By H. SCOTT PROSTERMAN

Friday September 23, 2005

John Gertz’s commentary titled “Anti-Israelism: Only in Berkeley” misses the mark on multiple levels. While the foundation of some observations are valid, his assumptions about people he doesn’t understand destroys any sense of context. 

Unknowingly, the writer contributes to the very strains of anti-Semitism, against which he rails. How? By failing to note the distinction between Judaism as a religion; and Zionism as a political ideology! Many ignorant people THINK they hate Jews, because they see the brutality of Israel’s “security excesses” as the most prominent expression of modern day Judaism. This is no more “Jewish” than the crusades were Christian. It is not a Jewish thing to expropriate land, pirate water and farming resources, close schools and cut people off from their families or jobs. Nor are those sins Israeli things, any more than the Bush Jr. vanity war in Iraq is an American thing. Bad leaders hijack their national agendas sometimes and bring shame to their country. The growing Israeli shame ultimately led to the evacuation of Gaza. And there’s still a long way to go. 

It is shocking that a “community leader” in Berkeley would dare to disparage the Judaism of many good Jews, on the basis of where they stand on Zionism. How dare he? In other parts of the country, I have experienced community leaders denigrating and marginalizing thoughtful Jews, who take exception to Israeli policy. But Ehud Barak got elected as Israeli prime minister for a while, on the basis of recognizing the need for a dialogue with the Palestinians. Barak had the courage to argue for evacuation of some occupied territories. Since Ariel Sharon administered the evacuation, does Gertz consider him to be an anti-Zionist too? 

Ultimately, Gertz assumes that the only thing driving the critiques of Israel in Berkeley is a dying strain of Trotskyite Communism. Oh, please! I haven’t heard that one since I was earning my master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan in the late 1970s. The only thing I had in common with the Spartacus Youth League was . . . well, nothing. We even disagreed on WHY Israel was doing the wrong thing, and most of the “Sparts” weren’t big on historical context. But neither is John Gertz. 

Jewish community leaders have freely engaged in character assassination against their own for generations. Over the years, I’ve been called a “self-hating Jew,” among less kind things by rabbis and community leaders. I earned this enmity by publishing many articles and broadcasting radio commentaries arguing that: 

“Israel as a country has a right to exist and defend itself. But many things about Israel policy are self-defeating and downright suicidal, namely the insistence on establishing a Jewish presence in occupied areas where we are not welcome. Jews emigrated and lived peacefully in Palestine for at least 100 years before the advent of the political Zionist movements beginning in 1896. It was only when large-scale immigration began in the early-20th Century that conflicts began. For as long as Jews emigrated at a natural pace, they blended harmoniously with their Palestinian landlords. The influx of thousands at a time upset the natural order of these relatively primitive societies. Israel has a right to exist, but not to brutalize the Palestinians.” 

I’ve given talks on Israel and Middle Eastern history in a variety of synagogues and community forums. Most Jews are shocked to learn of the many parallels of Judaism and Islam. Some Jews actually refuse to believe that Islam recognizes all the Jewish prophets as vital to their own theology; that their system of Halal was derived from our Kashruth (Kosher); and that the Palestinian traditions of family and academic achievement rival our own. Why don’t some Jews want to believe these truths? Because it is inconsistent with what they’ve been taught about why it’s OK to hate Arabs. They become faced with dissonance, confusion and inconvenience, and it does not compute. 

Finally, Gertz begs the question as to why so much of the academic community, the global journalism trades and many thoughtful people criticize Israel. Since 1967, Israel has administered an occupying force in another country. No country in the world gets a free pass for that. During the 1967 war, there was never any intent to keep these lands. Abba Eban, the Israeli president at the time, made it clear he did not want to administer to a hostile population, and intended to use those lands as bargaining chips. When Menachem Begin became prime minister in the mid 1970s, Israeli politics made a brutal turn to the right that is now slowly self-correcting. That the pendulum is swinging back can be seen with the Gaza evacuation, and the widespread reluctance of soldiers to serve in occupied areas. 

There are all kinds of Jews in this world. And in Berkeley, the full spectrum is represented among the 25,000 in this town of 105,000. You gotta admit, our large number here has a lot to do with defining Berkeley for better or worse. 

Recently, I was at a Shabbat dinner in the home of a young rabbi. When the conversation revealed that I have academic credentials in Israeli-Palestinian relations, one of the guests became suspicious and hostile, demanding to know where I stood on various issues. In deference to Shabbat, I deflected his hostile questions, until he left the room, upon realizing he had made a total fool of himself. I might have expected such an inappropriate challenge in Memphis or Atlanta, but it was disheartening to find it in Berkeley. 

It is more shocking and downright sad, to see that a former president of the local Jewish Community Center appoints himself as judge of the validity of other people’s Judaism. How dare he denigrate Holocaust survivors, who are entitled to feel exactly as they do? Gertz’s interpretation of his “three strains of anti-Zionism” illustrate a vacuous misunderstanding of history and his own people. To equate thoughtful Jewish critiques of Israel with the brazen Uncle Tomism of Clarence Thomas is an expression of gross ignorance. In so doing, Gertz marginalizes himself.  

 

H. Scott Prosterman holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan. He frequently publishes humor and political commentary in a variety of publications and websites. ›