By Matan Kaminer

MK Nitzan Horowitz. Horowitz recently announced his candidacy for mayor of Tel Aviv. (Jstreet CC BY NC SA 2.0)

Although municipal political party Ir LeKulanu is not considered “left” in Israeli terms, it embodies one of the greatest successes of the non-Zionist left in Israeli history. In national elections, the non-Zionist or “radical” left keeps slamming into the brick wall of privileges enjoyed by Israel’s Jewish citizens, including not only Mizrahi, Ethiopian and Russian citizens (whose Jewishness is the only thing separating them from the socio-economic abyss), but also the “liberal” Ashkenazi middle class.

However, the municipal arena is a bit different. Since most decisions pertaining to the state’s Jewish and colonial character are not made at the municipal level, it is possible to envision an alliance between victims of urban capitalism in the face of disagreement over so-called “national-political” issues. Under the aegis of Ir LeKulanu (“City for All”), radical activists whose opposition to Zionism is well known have been able to join forces not only with young middle-class people from the city center but also with an active, vocal group of south Tel Aviv residents. (At the same time, the movement has been only partially successful in connecting to the Palestinian residents of Jaffa, whose “Yafa” party ran separately but supported Ir LeKulanu mayoral candidate Dov Khenin.)

Five years have since passed over Tel Aviv-Jaffa, bringing with them two wars on Gaza, one Arab Spring and one wave of social protest which momentarily shook Israeli society. The party’s many members who expected it to develop into a full-fledged popular movement were disappointed. But Ir LeKulanu’s very survival under the bitter attacks it faced from the municipal opposition is not to be taken for granted – and most of the credit for this perseverance goes to the movement’s indefatigable council members.

About two weeks ago, Khenin announced that he would not be running for mayor again, opening a debate on the desirability of running a candidate from the party, especially in the wake of Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz announcing his candidacy. Some say that all oppositional forces must be united for the overarching goal of defeating incumbent mayor Ron Huldai. But insufferable as he may be, Huldai is only the representative of an urban alliance which is bigger than him. The two wings of this alliance are the affluent, mostly Ashkenazi residents of the northern neighborhoods who enjoy the fruits of Huldai’s reign, and the capitalists reaping profits from the transformation of the city center from a living residential area into a glitzy playground of real estate speculation.

Horowitz is far from challenging this alliance. In a mass e-mail he sent out to declare his candidacy, Jaffa is never mentioned, and the city’s south is barely paid lip service. Praise for former mayors, on the other hand, is abundant, with especially warm words for the incumbent, under whom Horowitz’s party has served loyally for four of the current administration’s five years. Whether or not it is efficacious for him, this tactic sends a clear signal to the oppressed groups in the city – Palestinians, refugees and migrants and Mizrahi residents of the south – that Horowitz is signalling his utter indifference to them.

This is the time for Ir LeKulanu to hoist another flag, differentiating itself from both Huldai and his little brother Horowitz. It is going to be a turbulent summer, with great turmoil over the austerity measures about to be unleashed by the government. Now is the time to catalyze urban energies around an alternative pole. In a sense, Khenin’s decision is advantageous, as it enables Ir LeKulanu to make a clear statement by choosing a Mizrahi from the city’s south to be its candidate for mayor. Such a choice would not be forced or artificial, since the movement has included a lively contingent of south Tel Aviv activists from its inception. Among these are two of the movement’s most outstanding city council members, Yael Ben-Yefet and Aharon Maduel, as well as many others. Yet candidacy is not just a matter of personal excellence, but of what the candidate symbolizes. Running a candidate will be a clear sign to the residents of the south that they are a central priority for the movement, and that their presence within it is desired.

The Mizrahi Jewish community is Israel’s largest ethnic group. Its historic links to the culture of the Middle East and its class position make it a critical component in any revolutionary coalition imaginable in Israel. When even far more privileged groups are unwilling to reject Zionist identifications at the national level, it is neither fair nor realistic to expect Mizrahis to be the first to do so. But for this very reason, at this critical junction, the radical leftists who form an important component of Ir LeKulanu should not pass up the opportunity to throw their weight behind a Mizrahi urban leadership in coalition with Palestinians, Ashkenazis, refugees and migrants. The way to do so is clear: to fight with determination in support of a south Tel Aviv candidate for mayor.

Matan Kaminer is active in Ir LeKulanu. This article was first published in Hebrew on Haokets. Haokets is a non-profit, independent, progressive Israeli web magazine that hosts critical discussion where hundreds of writers publish professional and original pieces on socioeconomic, cultural and philosophical issues, human rights activism, feminism, and Mizrahi politics. Visit their English-language blog.

Related:
Will Tel Aviv have its first openly gay mayor?

By Noam Wiener

Mavi Marmara. (Free Gaza movement/CC BY-SA 2.0)

On May 14, the Union of Comoros, represented by Turkish attorneys, sent the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) a referral requesting it commence an investigation into Israeli conduct, due to alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The complaint does not refer to Israel’s illegal settlement policy, nor does it refer to the use of phosphorous shells during Operation Pillar of Defense. The referral does not pertain to the rather liberal use of artillery by the Israeli military during Operation Cast Lead either. No, Comoros is alleging that war crimes and crimes against humanity of a gravity that ought to engage the ICC took place when Israeli commandos boarded the MV Mavi Marmara during the flotilla incident in May of 2010.

Comoros, a member of the ICC, can refer the case to the prosecutor because the Mavi Marmara was sailing under a Comorian flag. Thus, any alleged crimes committed on board the Marmara took place on Comorian sovereign territory, granting the ICC jurisdiction in the case.

I am a firm believer in the moral imperative to bring international criminals to justice, and thus am also a supporter of the ICC. Yet I think this referral is an abuse of the institution of international criminal law. The abuse is not the result of jurisdictional overreach – the grant of ICC jurisdiction over individuals who are citizens of non-member states is perfectly legitimate if these individuals commit crimes in the territory of a member state. Further, the reason I say it is an abuse of the ICC is not because the Israeli military did everything it ought to have done to minimize casualties – it did not, the Israeli operation was reckless and dangerous. It is simply that even if all the allegations are true, this is not a case of the magnitude or gravity that ought to take up the time of the prosecutor.

That the ICC has jurisdiction over alleged crimes does not mean the prosecutor is obliged to commence proceedings. I do not intend to provide a complete legal analysis here of the admissibility requirements of the ICC (see legal blogs here, here, and here for some legal analysis or read the Rome Statute here).

Instead I merely ask that we think of some of the cases that the ICC and other ad hoc international criminal tribunals have dealt with so far: World War II in Europe and in Asia (millions killed), the killing fields in Cambodia (two million victims), the wars in the former Yugoslavia (tens of thousands killed and millions displaced), the genocide in Rwanda (hundreds of thousands killed), the civil war in Sierra Leone ( tens of thousands killed and millions displaced), or the fighting in the Congo (tens of thousands killed in each, thousands of child soldiers recruited).

And then look at the nine dead on the Mavi Marmara.

My intention is not to be disrespectful to the people who lost their lives trying to break into Gaza, or to argue that the Israeli military was in the right. Every life lost is a tragedy. But in a world of limited resources one must choose how to allocate prosecutorial time and money so as to go after the gravest crimes. The violent takeover of the Mavi Marmara simply does not stack up to violent mass executions of passive civilians. Referring the situation to the prosecutor, with the knowledge that it does not measure up to the standard, has costs.

First, one of the main arguments made by detractors of the ICC has been that it will be used as forum to bring petty political based complaints to harass states instead of acting as a neutral arbiter. The scale and severity of this action, when compared to genocide and campaigns of mass rape and extermination, plays right into the hands of the ICC’s opponents. Referring a relatively minor incident in the context of a highly politically charged conflict would confirm suspicions that the ICC is no more than a political wolf camouflaged in the neutral trappings of criminal justice.

Second, Israeli conduct in the occupied territories and Gaza is sometimes manifestly criminal (settlements) and at other times most likely criminal (instances of indiscriminant use of force – I say most likely because the conduct is subject to claims of proportionality). The results of such conduct are disastrous, with the occupation costing thousands of lives and causing grave injustices over the years. But all this is simply irrelevant to the case of the Mavi Marmara. Trials, unless the judges lose control of the courtroom, focus on specific questions relevant to specific charges rather than on broad political contexts. The Marmara case, should it reach trial, will focus on questions such as the degree of force the Israeli military could use to enforce its blockade, in light of the resistance of the people on board the ship, and other similarly technical questions that have nothing to do with the plight of Palestinians. Thus, this referral risks assisting Hasbara experts in “spinning” the discussion away from more serious violations stemming from Israel’s conduct.

The ICC is still very much a nascent institution. Although it should not shy away from taking on serious cases due to political pressure, adhering to the gravest manifestations of international crimes is crucial to the court’s legitimacy. It would be best for supporters who believe that international law has an important role to play in defining basic norms of behavior and punishing perpetrators who violate them to refrain from setting unnecessary pitfalls for the ICC and sacrificing its legitimacy in order to promote narrow political ends.

Yair Lapid. The Israeli public feels that the status quo represent the preferable alternative on the Palestinian issue (photo: Yotam Ronen / Activestills.org)

Yair Lapid, the surprising star of the last elections and Israel’s current finance minister, gave an interview to the The New York Times in which he left only “a little daylight” between himself to Prime Minister Netanyahu on the Palestinian issue, as the Times’s Jodi Rudoren put it.

That was clearly an understatement. Except for paying lip service to the need to create a Palestinian state – now a precondition for every policy speech by a mainstream Israeli leader, intended to prevent accusations of Apartheid – Lapid didn’t even try to hide his rejectionism. He told Rudoren that a final status agreement with Mahmoud Abbas is probably impossible; he said that Israel “should not change its policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” and he objected to territorial compromises on Jerusalem, as he has done in the past.

When it came to talking about what should be done, rather than what shouldn’t, Lapid had the following idea:

Mr. Lapid acknowledged that tens of thousands of Jews would someday be uprooted from what he described as “remote settlements” in the West Bank, something he called “heartbreaking.” But he said that problem should be set aside for now, advocating the immediate creation of an interim Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank where no Jews live, with final borders drawn in perhaps three, four or five years.

Lapid failed to offer a catchy name for his plan. I suggest the “Oslo Accords.”

______________

A favorite pastime among observers of Israeli politics and ‘The Conflict’ is searching for a new leader of the peace camp – someone who will finally end this foolishness with the settlements and lead the army out of the West Bank. Some thought that he or she would come from the Left, carrying with them the democratic traditions and pragmatic determination of the founding fathers. Others say it should be a centrist, or even better, a hawk-turned-dove, a general, an expansionist or a former-settler who, after decades of war, chose to live with the enemy rather than continue fighting him.

Lapid appeared to be somewhat of a hybrid – not exactly a lefty, certainly not a general, but popular enough with the Israeli mainstream. To top it off, he’s pragmatic and handsome. A new leader for a new age. In order to believe that he will end the occupation, one needs to engage in willful suspension of disbelief, to not listen to anything Lapid actually says and avoid reading his platform. But in a difficult moment, this is a small price to pay for the cause.

That illusion didn’t last very long though. After forbidding his party members from taking an educational tour of East Jerusalem, forming a political pact with the settlers, keeping intact tax breaks and other benefits for Jews who move to the West Bank, avoiding meeting any Palestinians and rejecting the notion of a final status agreement and even a settlement freeze – one needs to go very far out on a limb in order to still hold out hope that Lapid, or this government for that matter, will advance the cause of peace.

_______________

I don’t buy the new storyline about Lapid’s fall from grace. It’s no less absurd than “Lapid the peacemaker” or “Lapid the guardian of democracy.” Lapid is an excellent communicator with a good sense of the Israeli consensus and he has the rare ability to set and manipulate the national agenda. He is surrounded by powerful and experienced people and he is learning from his mistakes. Recent polls confirm that Lapid’s supporters are not leaving him just yet; Israeli politics are very forgiving, and Lapid has just begun his journey.

Still, even if Lapid’s descent is as fast as his astonishing rise was, I don’t think that we should hold our hopes for his successor. Contrary to popular belief, the problem at the heart of the occupation is not Israeli politicians or Israeli leaders: it’s the Israeli people. The public simply doesn’t want to deal with the Palestinian issue in any meaningful way. It doesn’t really matter what the Palestinians, Americans or Europeans do to appease Israel. There is an almost instinctive, little-spoken understanding that both alternatives – both one-state and two-state solution – are inferior to the status quo. Talks regarding the “unsustainability” of current trends seem very abstract. So far, the occupation seems to be the most sustainable thing this country has known.

Politicians understand this, and those who don’t lose elections (see: Livni). Lapid certainly understands. There is at least one demonstration every weekend outside his home over his new tax code and austerity measures. I don’t think he is about to see a single protester beneath his window over the NY Times interview, nor would his numbers drop.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and EU High Representative Cathrine Ashton can spend countless more hours in Jerusalem and burn many more miles between capitals; the problem they are facing is not Lapid or Netanyahu – not even Lieberman – but Israeli voters. Even if talks resume, they are bound to be meaningless (that’s why the Palestinians refuse them). Israelis will consider ending the occupation only when the current trend becomes less attractive. Until then, their leaders will offer negotiations for the sake of negotiations or repackage the status quo as “an interim solution.” It’s simply what their constituents want.

Related:
Will Europe take a leading role on Israel/Palestine?
Direct negotiations: Recipe for prolonging the occupation

By Mark R. Cohen

On one of my many trips to Israel, in January 2012, words spoken at the celebration of the founding of the PLO in Ramallah were disseminated far and wide via the Internet by Palestine Media Watch, shocking many in and outside of the country. Introducing the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the officials referred to the “enemy” (Israel) as “apes and pigs,” quoting a famous verse from the Qur’an according to which God, through His prophet Muhammad, censures the “Sabbath breakers” for violating (Jewish) law and condemns them to be transformed into “apes and pigs.” In his own speech, the Mufti quoted an equally famous Islamic hadith: “’The Hour (of Divine Judgment and Resurrection) will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind rocks or trees. Then the rocks or trees will call out: ‘Oh Muslim, Oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him; except for the Gharqad tree, which is the friend of the Jews.’ Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad trees surrounding the Israeli settlements and colonies.” This hadith, with its anti-Semitic overtones, is famously quoted in the Hamas “Platform” as license to kill Jews.

Anti-Semitism in the contemporary Muslim world is real. It pervades the media in the very countries that are most inimical to Israel. It appears in political speeches, in cartoons, in the press and on Middle Eastern radio and television. It resonates all too familiarly with the anti-Semitism that fueled the Holocaust.

For a people who have suffered the consequences of anti-Semitism since the Christian Middle Ages, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust, such expressions of anti-Jewish hatred in the Muslim world, side-by-side with Islam’s version of Holocaust denial, militates against hopes for rapprochement, political or otherwise, with Israel’s Arab neighbors and strengthens politicians’ resolve to resist statehood for the Palestinians.

Where does contemporary Muslim anti-Semitism come from? Does it stem from the Qur’an and other foundational Islamic texts? Is it endemic to Islam? Is it therefore ineradicable? Many, especially Jews, and especially Israeli Jews, believe this to be true.

Or is this anti-Semitism new, originating in Western (Christian) Jew-hatred that arrived in the Middle East on the heels of colonialism, and later became clothed in Islamic garb? And, if so, has this Muslim anti-Semitism somehow been enflamed by the rise of Zionism and the conflict with Israel?

The claim that Jews lived under Muslim rule in the past much as they had under Christendom — in a state of abject misery, relentlessly humiliated and even persecuted — does not stand up to scrutiny. In an essay for a volume edited by Israeli Middle East expert Moshe Ma’oz, entitled Muslim Attitudes to Jews and Israel: The Ambivalences of Rejection, Antagonism, Tolerance and Cooperation (Sussex University Press, 2010), I refute that approach. Building on the arguments in my book, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (also published in Hebrew with the title, Be-tzel ha-sahar veha-tzlav (Zmora/Bitan-Dvir, 2001), this essay “Modern Myths of Muslim Anti-Semitism,” from  the Ma’oz volume (linked here with the permission of the publisher, or in Hebrew), explains the relatively decent relations between Muslims and Jews under Islamic rule, and attributes modern Muslim anti-Semitism to just that: modernity, rather than inherent features of Islam.

Mark R. Cohen is the Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East at Princeton University.

EU High Representative Catherine Ashton (European Union / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

A top European think tank is urging the European Union to take concrete measures to keep open a window for the two-state solution. The report, published two weeks ago, urges European countries to exempt settlements goods from Israeli-European trade agreements, to refrain from contacts with the West Bank’s new university in Ariel and even impose visa requirements on settlers.

The report (PDF), published by the Middle East-North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations and written by Senior Policy Fellow Nick Witney, claims that European support for the Palestinian Authority has created “a culture of dependence,” while removing the occupation’s financial burden from Israel. Due to Israeli restrictions and past agreements which prevented real economic developments, “state building efforts have reached a dead end,” the paper states.

Similar suggestions were raised in April by former European leaders and negotiators in a letter to EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton. Both the letter and the ECFR paper recognize the diplomatic vacuum created by the U.S.’s inability to confront Israeli governments over the occupation, and urge EU action.

The ECFR paper has a couple of interesting observations. First, it recognizes that the political elites in Europe, and not the public, are at the heart of the problem. While the European public is more and more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians under occupation, EU foreign policy is “on autopilot,” sticking to the Oslo paradigm and framework, even when it’s clear that it serves to maintain the status quo (one could claim that this is the opposite of the American problem, where popular support for Israeli policy remains high even as the elites are beginning to question it). The paper cites economic interests – Israel being an important trade partner of many states – and successful lobbying efforts by Jerusalem as possible explanations for the lack of coherent and unified action by the EU.

The paper also recognizes the failure of positive incentives vis-à-vis Jerusalem:

There is simply no appetite among European governments for anything that might look like sanctioning or punishing Israel. Yet finding positive incentives – carrots, as opposed to sticks – is difficult also. Israelis already enjoy the main things they want from Europe: commercial access to the world’s largest market, visa-free travel and a unique position in the EU’s research and innovation programs.

The ECFR doesn’t have a unified position and the new paper only represents the opinion of its authors, and not that of the entire think-tank. However, put together with the February report by EU diplomats regarding settlements, the decision by 13 member-states to proceed with labeling settlements products and the April letter (discussed above), one can point to a clear trend toward greater involvement in the diplomatic process.

Haaretz’s Barak Ravid reported Sunday morning that the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council was set to vote on directives for the labeling of settlements products this week (the principle decision on the matter already passed last year). However, following pressure from the U.S. – which, according to Ravid, was prompted by an Israeli request – the vote was postponed until June, after Secretary of State John Kerry plans to report on his efforts to renew direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

It seems that Israel’s effort to prevent labeling settlements products is likely to fail: the labeling directives for member states will eventually pass and might even be implemented. I doubt, however, if the impact of such a step will be more than symbolic in nature. The settlements’ share in Israel’s total exports is not that large, and much of their sales take place in the local market. Given the strong representation settlers enjoy in the current Israeli coalition, I believe they would be able to get at least some government compensation if European trade measures lead to financial losses.

The heart of the matter is that as a whole, the Israeli public views the status quo as the preferred alternative in its relations with the Palestinians – a notion that has only been strengthened by regional changes and the international community’s inability to mobilize on the issue. For years, critics of the occupation have been warning Israel of international isolation due to the country’s occupation and colonization of the West Bank, while the exact opposite has been taking place – Western support for Israel is at an all-time high. Under such circumstances, further statements or symbolic gestures are almost useless, if not outright harmful.

The settlements are an Israeli national policy and not just an initiative of the settlers themselves, so targeting them on their own will be a difficult, probably even impossible task (there are more people employed by the state in the OPT per capita than anywhere else in Israel; as such they are immune to outside pressure). Other recommendations in the ECFR report – like those concerning travel visas for settlers or allowing Palestinian legal action against the occupation – seem to have a greater potential for bringing results, but at the same time they are not likely to be adopted anytime soon.

Altogether, I think that one of the most important developments in the past few month has been the European recognition of the need to give up the Oslo framework. Yet the European Union’s complex consensus mechanisms prevent fast, radical measures, even when they are clearly viewed as necessary. If EU member states want to see change take place on the ground, they will have to adopt a more responsible and pro-active policy on Israel/Palestine, instead of just following the EU’s lead.

Related:
EU diplomats recommend sanctions against Israeli settlements
Former senior EU officials: ‘Oslo process has nothing more to offer’

Even though I’ve always agreed with the stated goal of the “social protest” – to redistribute Israel’s wealth more equitably – I can no longer sympathize with it. While many if not most of the people in the streets would like to turn the movement against the occupation and not only against “swinish capitalism,” this hasn’t happened after two years of protest. It’s not going to happen, either, because the moment it does, the social protest loses its legitimacy to speak in the name of “the people,” because “the people” of Israel couldn’t care less about the Palestinians. This was clear to everyone from the beginning; left-wingers hoped that what began as a demand for economic justice would extend to a demand for justice for the Palestinians, but that hope remains as hollow today as it did in the summer of 2011.

Regardless of the politics of the street protesters and the organizers, the masses at home who identified with the cost-of-living protests two years ago, and who identify today with the protests against the new budget, are dominated politically by the Jewish middle-class and their concerns. Those concerns not only exclude the Palestinians, they exclude the Arab citizens of Israel – and they largely exclude the genuinely poor Jews of this country, too. While many middle-class demands happen to coincide with those of the poor – for instance, opposition to higher consumption taxes and to cuts in education – the poor are hangers-on in this movement. (Again, I’m not talking about the protests in the street, but the wave of popular discontent over the economic policies of Finance Minister Yair Lapid and the government.)

The days when poor Jews from the urban slums and peripheral “development towns’ could mount an attention-getting protest in this country are over. (For Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, of course, they never began.) Those days ended in the early-to-mid 2000s when then-finance minister Netanyahu outlasted the single mothers’ hunger strike led by Vikki Knafo. At the same time, he was slashing aid to the poor amid the worst recession and terrorism in the country’s history, which in turn expanded poverty and economic inequality to levels never before seen here and which have not diminished since. But because overall economic growth returned (based largely on the vast enrichment of the prosperous minority) and unemployment went down (while a giant class of “working poor” was created), the consensus today is that Netanyahu, in his years as finance minister, saved the Israeli economy.

With this sort of thinking taking over the country in the last decade, the poor and their problems are no longer a national concern: if they’re not working, it’s because they don’t want to; if their schools are lousy, it’s because of the parents; if their neighborhoods are slums, let them earn the money to move out. Poverty and poor people haven’t been an issue in Israeli politics since the 1999 election campaign, when Ehud Barak made effective use of the image of “the old lady lying on a gurney in the corridor of Nahariya hospital.” By now, the only economic victims anybody wants to hear about are the middle class, and their problems are the only ones that count – not homelessness or unemployment or “food insecurity,” but rather high prices and, now, slightly rising taxes.

In line with this mentality, the “social protest” began over the high price of cottage cheese, moved on to problem of high rents in Tel Aviv, then to the high cost of daycare for working moms. If there is a poster family of the social protest, it is the young, college-educated, hard-working couple in their late 20s with a kid or two, and who don’t know how they’re going to afford to buy their own home in the center of the country with housing prices going up like they’ve been. People of the middle-class who are finding it hard to hold onto their standard of living, and whose grown children are finding it even harder to attain it – these are the voices of economic protest that count today. Whether they’re in the streets or not, these are the masses who make the “social protest” the powerful mass movement that it is.

These people’s greatest moment during the last government was the lowering of the price of cellphones; that it was accomplished by a communications minister who was a hardline Likudnik (Moshe Kahlon), did not stop “the people” from hero-worshipping him. Likewise, the Israeli masses’ greatest moment during the current government was the “open skies” agreement that will soon lower the price of airline flights to and from Europe; that it was carried out by a vicious Arab-hating transportation minister, Yisrael Katz, didn’t hurt him a bit, either. Lapid, too, was a hero regardless of his newfound allegiance to the settlers and disparagement of the “Zoabis.” Only now that the middle-class is coming in for some budgetary pain is he in trouble; when Lapid was showing nothing but callousness to the Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and Jewish poor, he was an Israeli middle-class hero, and the chief political beneficiary of the social protest.

If this is a social protest, it’s about the most smug, bourgeois one I’ve ever heard of. It’s a social protest that shows contempt for this society’s No. 1 victims, the Palestinians, and No. 2 victims, Israeli Arabs, while showing indifference to its No. 3 victims, the Jewish poor.

When the masses behind this mass movement don’t give a damn about people here who have it so much worse than they do – and in the case of the Palestinians, who live under their country’s military dictatorship – why should anyone give a damn about them? When they are deaf to complaints ranging from poverty to tyranny, why should anyone listen to their middle-class blues?

By Lior Sternfeld

Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and his wife, Queen Farah, prepare to depart after a visit to the United States. (photo: WIkicommons)

The relationship between Israel and Iran dates back to the early years of the Jewish state, and constituted the basis of both countries’ geopolitical policies. This political relationship was not, however, merely a matter of the ruling elites. Insofar as Pahlavi’s Iran is concerned, even oppositional circles in the 1960s and 1970s had a complex and sometimes favorable approach to the State of Israel. Moreover, many of these viewed Israel and Iran as essentially exceptional in nature in the contemporary Middle East, a perception that would change definitively for the worse after the 1967 war.

Shortly after the establishment of Israel in 1948, a new love story began in the Middle East. In 1950, Iran granted Israel de facto recognition and opened an embassy in Jerusalem. At that time Iran was (and still is) a homeland to the largest Jewish community in the Middle East, and a safe haven for many Iraqi Jews who had fled persecution in Iraq throughout the 1940s.

Unlike the majority of Jewish communities in Arab countries, many Iranian Jews decided to stay in Iran after the establishment of Israel. While most other Jewish communities in the Muslim world vanished between 1948-1956 and migrated en masse to Israel, the vast majority of Iranian Jews stayed in their homeland and had a complex relationship with the Zionist movement and Israel. This is not to say Iranian Jews were anti-Zionist. However, due to their decision to stay in Iran, Iranian Jewish communities were generally not identified with Zionism. This was, of course, a sharp contrast to most Arab-Jewish communities from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, and Libya. Many Arab-Jews emigrated to the newly founded State of Israel before 1956, due of increasing tensions (and at times outright persecution) with the local populations on the background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the years following Israel’s establishment, non-Jewish intellectual and political elites in Iran generally saw Israel in a positive light. Many were intrigued by early articulations of Labor Zionism, which emphasized the proletarianization of society through dominant trade unions and communal agricultural-based collectives such as the kibbutzim. Left-leaning movements, like the Socialist Union and the communist Tudeh party, were dominant domestic opposition forces in Iranian politics. Once their attitudes towards Israel are examined through a geopolitical lens, their perspectives become significant and understandable. The Soviet Union, which supported the Tudeh Party, also supported the UN Partition Plan of Palestine in 1947 (which divided the land between a future Israeli and Palestinian state) and went on to recognize Israel in May 1948.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, late Shah of Iran (photo: Wikicommons)

Given the prevalence of the “Aryan Hypothesis” in Iran and the general yearning Westward during the Pahlavi dynasty, an ideological pact with Israel made a great deal of sense. This was especially true after the inception of the White Revolution in 1963, a move that was advertised as an attempt to rapidly modernize Iran along Western lines. The notion that these countries shared a more “Western” attitude even though they were situated in the “East” became an integral part in the foundation of a regional coalition among the non-Arab countries of the Greater Middle East (Turkey, Ethiopia, Iran, and Israel). This coalition came to be known as the “Alliance of the Periphery.”

The Shah, however, was a deeply unpopular and autocratic ruler among the majority of Iranians. Despite Israel’s role in consolidating the Shah’s autocratic rule, the Iranian elite’s fascination with Israel helped to create a surprisingly favorable opinion of Israel in Iran. Due to the close ties between the two governments, Iranians tended to associate Israel with projects like the rebuilding of Qazvin after the earthquake in 1962 rather than with the notoriously brutal Iranian secret police SAVAK, which the Israeli Mossad helped establish and train.

Although many of the political leaders of the Iranian Jewish communities were sympathetic to the Zionist cause, most Iranian Jews remained indifferent to it. In fact, many joined leftist movements in Iran and eventually assumed leadership positions in them, demonstrating that their political allegiances belonged first and foremost to Iran. Naturally, this situation caused major frustration in Israel, a state whose existence was and still is premised on the notion that the destinies of world Jewries and the State of Israel were inexorably intertwined.

The predominant Iranian Jewish interpretation of Zionism was different from the political Zionism espoused by the Israeli establishment at that time. The former did not necessitate the existence of a Jewish state, but rather reflected a religious sentiment and an emotional-cum-spiritual attachment to Zion, the biblical name of Jerusalem. This was not unique to the Iranian Jewry, but rather common among Jews across the Middle East. It, however, remained relevant only to Iranians, as the other communities for the most part ceased to exist post 1948-1956.

While many Iranian Jews had relatives in Israel and had visited Israel before, Israel was not part of their Jewish identity, and they did not see themselves leaving their beloved homeland for any other country — including Israel. Overwhelmingly, they did not share the political interpretation of of Zionism with the Zionist movement and Israel and tied any meaning of the term to the existence of the State of Israel.

To understand the unique place Israel occupied in the Iranian worldview, one should consider that Iranians who wrote about it. Jalal Pahlavi Al-e Ahmad, a foremost Iranian thinker, may have best conveyed the transformation of Israel’s representations in the Iranian public sphere. Al-e Ahmad, a one-time member of the Tudeh leadership, gained leftist-internationalist credentials with the publication of Gharbzadegi (1962), in which he criticized the tendency of broad segments of  Iranian society to blindly mimic the West. Gharbzadegi (“Westoxification”) lamented the inevitable loss of Iranian culture and identity to Western models and paradigms. His publication influenced a later generation of Iranian revolutionaries such as Ali Shariati and the current supreme leader, Sayyed Ali Khamenei.

Given his remarkable place in both the evolution of the Iranian Left and the development of contemporary political ideologies, one would not expect that he should name Israel as a model society. Yet, Al-e Ahmad conjured ideas that were common among intellectual circles in Iran before 1967 — ideas which brought home the message that Israel in its essence was a cultural and political ally.

Two years after the publication of Gharbzadegi, Al-e Ahmad and his wife, Simin Daneshvar, visited Israel. Al-e Ahmad’s travelogue, Safar Beh Vilayet-e Ezrael (Journey to the State of Israel) attests to the profound impression the country left on him. The critical thinker wrote about Israel in nothing less than admiring terms. He described in details a visit to Yad Va’Shem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, and expressed his fascination with the resurrection of the Jewish people after the horrors of the Holocaust. Later, he broadly discussed the Kibbutz in Israel and the state’s socialist ideology in positive terms.

During their visit, Al-e Ahmad and Daneshvar stayed in Kibbutz Ayelet Ha’Shahar in northern Israel. He described the Kibbutz for the Iranian reader as follows: “[…] these people in Israel had already laid the foundation for the socialization of the means of agricultural production in a part of the world which had been inspired by the Russian Social-Democratic movement and not by Stalin.” Thus, Al-e Ahmad associated Israel with the “correct” side of communist ideology, as the contemporary rift in the Tudeh party also created another communist opposition to Stalin’s legacy.

Jalal Al-e Ahmad and Simin Daneshvar’s writing from the Kibbutz Ayelet Ha’Shahar guestbook. (Kibbutz Ayelet Ha’Shahar archive)

There is perhaps another reason for Al-e Ahmad’s great sympathy for Israel. In his travelogue, Al-e Ahmad depicts the Arabs in derogatory terms as ideological and cultural enemies, to say the least. Cultural tensions between Arabs and Iranians surface clearly in the text. As he wrote: “I am a non-Arab citizen of the East who has suffered much at the hands of the Arabs and still does. In spite of all the services that ‘I’ [I as “Iran,” not the person of Jalal Al-e Ahmad] rendered to Islam through the ages and still does, they still refer to me as Ajam,” which, in this context, likely means a “foreigner” and “illiterate” as well. Similar statements can be found throughout the text. Given Al-e Ahmad’s public status, this travelogue certainly had an impact on Iranian perceptions of Israel.

Interestingly, Safar beh Vilayet-e Ezrael was published in a series of newspaper articles which was read and discussed among secular and religious intellectuals. For example, Iran’s current supreme leader, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, later recalled that this travelogue not only puzzled him but also stirred major controversy among the young clerics in Qom, specifically because of the inherent contradiction they saw between this book and Al-e Ahmad’s previous popular writings, first and foremost Gharbzadegi.

The year 1967 was a watershed moment in the relationship between Pahlavi Iran and the State of Israel. The Six Day War, during which Israel invaded its neighboring countries and occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, transformed Israel into a colonial power in the eyes of Iranian intellectual elites. After the war, many of the Soviet Bloc countries severed their relations with Israel, as did their satellite parties, including the Iranian Tudeh.

Jalal Al-e Ahmad wrote the last chapter of this travelogue in 1968, faithfully reflecting the transformation of Iranian attitudes towards Israel. In this chapter, he describes Israel as a part of a Western capitalist scheme in the region, explaining that the reactionary Arab regimes played into the hands of Israel and the colonial powers. He also criticizes French intellectual elites for their betrayal of the Arabs and supporting, yet again, a new colonial venture. His criticism was aimed directly at Jean-Paul Sartre and Claude Lanzmann for condemning the French colonialism in Algeria and being very critical towards Britain’s ventures, yet miraculously finding a way to ignore the exact same problems when it came to Israel.

Along with the elite’s opinion, Iranian popular perceptions of Israel also changed dramatically after 1967. A clear popular expression of this came about in 1968. That year, the Israeli and Iranian national football teams played against each other in Tehran as part of Asia Cup finals. Habib Elghanayan, a wealthy Jew and a community leader, purchased a large number of tickets for this game for Iranian Jews to attend and cheer for the Israeli team. This game, however, became a site where Iranian fans vehemently showed their discontent with Israel’s policy. The Israeli team and their supporters fell victims to brutal incitement and had to be escorted out of the stadium by the police. This incident reflected a sea change in the Iranians’ attitudes toward Israel. A one-time favorable partner now became an unwanted foreigner, protected only by the grace of the Shah’s iron fist.

Beginning in the 1970s, the Shah attempted to find new alliances in the Middle East and beyond. Iran’s relations with the Soviet Union and some of the Arab countries were revisited. A peace agreement with Iraq and the American election of President Jimmy Carter in 1976, and the subsequent harsh criticisms that Carter voiced against the human rights conditions in Iran, led the Shah to develop a more negative view of the State of Israel. By the late 1970s, the revolution toppled the Shah, and the new regime reflected the Iranian public’s feelings towards the State of Israel with vocal anti-Zionism, kicking the Israeli diplomatic mission out and developing strong ties to the Palestinian resistance. And while the majority of Iranians would come to forget the mixed feelings they initially harbored towards Israel prior to 1967, Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s writings still stand as an almost lonely testament to that time.

Lior Sternfeld is a PhD Candidate in the History Department in the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on Iranian social history and the religious minorities in Iran during the Pahlavi era. This post was first published on the Ajam Media Collective, an online space devoted to documenting and analyzing cultural, social, and political trends across diverse Iranian, Afghan, Central Asian, and their Diaspora communities, and was translated to Hebrew in Haokets. Haokets is a non-profit, independent, progressive Israeli web magazine that hosts critical discussion where hundreds of writers publish professional and original pieces on socioeconomic, cultural and philosophical issues, human rights activism, feminism, and Mizrahi politics. Visit their English-language blog.

By Daniel Bar-Tal

A right-wing protester holds up Israeli flags while thousands march in the annual human rights march in Tel Aviv. (photo by Activestills)

Israel is a prosperous and well developed state with remarkable achievements in technological, educational, cultural, scientific and agricultural spheres by every account. These achievements are a source of pride to Israelis as well as to Jews around the world. But beside these undeniable successes, a considerable segment of the Jews in Israel, who love their country and care about its future, also see a glass half empty.

They see the growing dominance of nationalistic, expansionist, and anti-democratic ideologies – goals and policies which have already crossed democratic and moral red lines. The ongoing occupation of the West Bank and the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories violate Palestinians’ basic human and collective rights and tear apart Israeli society’s democratic and moral fabric, as did past governments’ refusal to engage in meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians while ignoring the Arab Peace Initiative. In carrying out these policies, the government has not only violated international law, but at times also broken Israeli laws, thus seriously undermining the very foundation of Israeli democracy. We’ve witnessed systematic and often successful attempts to pass laws that contradict the fundamental democratic principle of equal treatment of minorities, along with institutionalized discrimination against minorities. In addition, we’ve seen organized attempts to silence criticism of Israeli policies and delegitimize dissenting voices in academia, the media and NGOs.

This deterioration, which has very serious practical implications, is taking place in the spheres of values, moral codes, norms and laws, so often people do not pay attention to them. They can live comfortably without exercising their right to freedom, without defending the rights of others or without observing discrimination, oppression or exploitation carried by their own society. This has happened in many places in the world, often directly affecting the fate of the Jewish people.

This is what is presently happening in Israel. But this time it is Jews who ignore, repress or rationalize deviations from the moral and democratic compass. This process is not surprising if one looks at the way in which a person grows up in Israel. In addition to the continuous external threats which provide the context, Israeli Jews pass through a uni-dimensional tunnel of formal socialization which limits them to different perspectives, and closes them off to alternative ideas to their formal narrative. It begins in the schooling process from kindergarten and continues throughout mandatory military service. Much of Israel’s mass media, although being relatively free, exercises self-mobilization on “security issues” and practices self-censorship in order to maintain a positive image of the state (Freedom House ranked Israel 65th out of 197 states in terms of freedom of the press).

Although there are also clear voices in the media, civil society, academia, art and the political arena that challenge the hegemonic political culture, most Israeli Jews do not subscribe to moral and democratic values of human rights, justice, freedom and equality, particularly when it comes to Palestinians (regardless of whether they are Israeli citizens or they live in the occupied territories). At best, the minority that does care about these values is viewed with disdain. At worst, they are seen as traitors who harm the state’s interests. There is a growing monopolization of patriotism and Zionism, which recognizes only one ideology, one goal and one policy as legitimate and patriotic. All other views are branded as harmful to the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Valid criticism is depicted as “anti-Semitic,” “anti-Israel,” or even as expressing “self-hatred.” This approach aims to silence critical voices by arousing fear, and constitutes a powerful tool that has been used over and over again by anti-democratic forces in different societies.

In light of this situation, it is imperative that Jews around the world who cherish humanistic values of Jewish heritage publicly express their concern about the current, critical situation in Israel, and call loudly and clearly for Israel to return to peaceful, moral, democratic and humanistic values. This is a vital manifestation of concern and love for Israel. It is a shared responsibility towards future generations, who will pay a heavy price for our silence and passivity. The cost of silence far exceeds the cost of involvement. What is at stake is no less than the future of the State of Israel, Israeli society and the Jewish people. It is an obligation to speak out and take action, as an ultimate expression of our identity and conscience. Ultimately, history will judge us by our actions.

Daniel Bar-Tal is a professor of political psychology at Tel Aviv University. He recently launched a project to encourage involvement of liberal Jews around the world to create a critical watch group to monitor Israeli legislation, policies and actions.

Related:
Press freedom in Israel: Democracy in the age of self-censorship

A new joint identity? End sectarianism (Haggai Matar)

Israeli and Palestinian flags are frequently seen flying in Northern Ireland, often in Loyalist and Republican areas respectively. This is symbolic of how even in a place that is 15 years into its peace process, divisions still exist to the extent that some communities take sides in a different conflict as a continuation of their own.

Be wary when comparing “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland to the situation in Israel/Palestine, especially when it gives opportunity to public figures such as Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor to disingenuously proclaim a desire to export lessons from the Northern Irish peace process (his loud exclamations that “We [Israel] can learn from Ulster” are just another form of propaganda to sooth the international community).

Building peace allows communities to reconcile differences and hold on to one’s own identity, while respecting the “other’s” opposing identity and ideas for the future.

The existence of defined structures for delivering equal justice is key, which is why a continuous discussion is necessary when it comes to finding a civil pathway to peace (as Haggai Matar noted in his recent piece on Northern Ireland).

Two important points stand out in Haggai’s piece: the first accepting that “no two conflicts are alike,” and the second is the emphasis on realizing that “a solution that fits one conflict could never be copied successfully to anywhere else.”

True peace and reconciliation comes from being valued, respected and dignified. If there is no genuine relationship or respect among the parties involved, then the situation isn’t going to get anywhere and achieving peace remains little more than fantasy.

Thus, in order to reach genuine peace, a set of basic rules and stages is required. A recent article from Quintin Oliver, a man who helped run a non-party ‘YES’ Campaign in the 1998 Referendum on the Good Friday Agreement, illustrates this in his 15 laws of peace processes.

While Oliver’s laws discuss Northern Ireland, I find some points give an inkling as to what may be lacking in Israel today:

1. Citizenship should be clarified and open to all. Those under Israel’s direct control are not afforded the right to citizenship, and therefore to democratic participation and other benefits that come with it. Palestinians and Israelis must be free to make and exercise their own choices with relation to citizenship and national self-determination within either Palestine, Israel or both.

2. Security must be guaranteed for all, without fear or partiality. Achieving a stable situation is desired in order to bring about an end to violence. Confidence among communities can only increase when Israel and Palestine reach a consensus on the primacy of evenhanded application of security, where both parties can be trusted with ensuring a commitment to one another’s safety and rights.

3. Interpretation and implementation of the law must be assured through an independent judiciary. There cannot be room for a politicized application of the law, as this will only deepen the sense of injustice towards those who are being or perceive themselves to be oppressed by structural discrimination.

4. Truth will always vie with justice as we try to understand what happened to us. A robust process of managing and dealing with the past is essential.

5. Armed groups must be subject to full disarmament, disbandment and reintegration. All armed groups must agree to an internationally observed decommissioning, an agreement to lift the siege on Gaza and an Israeli military withdrawal from the West Bank must follow.

6. International and external forces must be eased out of the day-to-day decision-making. Though important in order to kick start the first stages of a peace process, there must be space for standalone interaction. Over-dependence on international actors providing dishonest brokerage has given Israel ample opportunity to continue its occupation, even 20 years after the Oslo Accords were signed.

7. All legal voices must be included, so as to absorb their political views appropriately. A solution cannot simply involve the Palestinian Authority alone. There needs to be inclusivity, and the question one must always ask is whether the voiceless are being heard.

8. Societal infrastructure must be based on equality and sharing, or risk intensifying division. If the Israeli government and some Palestinian groups continue to institutionalize discrimination using the education system, public transport, housing, teacher training, arts and sports, then division will remain in both societies.

9. A free press which would hold the powerful to account without interference is self-evident. The need for a critical and proactive approach within Israel to push creative policy development is obvious. Israeli society seems dominated by nationalist discourse propagated by the government. Furthermore, there is a need for freedom to criticize the Palestinian Authority and Hamas on legitimate issues affecting the areas under their control.

10. Each party to the conflict must be afforded the right to argue for its own vision of the future with impunity. There are still political groups that advocate the destruction of Northern Ireland as an entity, and yet there has been an end to violence, discrimination, checkpoints etc. A strong desire to end conflict on all levels must be expressed by all sides. Israel requires a fundamental societal shift to achieve circumstances in which other visions are given space for peaceful expression. Of course, the advocation of hatred, murder and other crimes must not be ignored.

If civil society demands a peace process that adheres to the above groundrules, we can remain optimistic about achieving peace between Israel and Palestine.

Gary Spedding is a student at Queen’s University in Belfast and a member of his university’s Palestine Solidarity Society and QUB’s students’ union. Follow him on Twitter.

Related:
Maintaining conflict, stopping bloodshed: Lessons from 15 years of peace in Northern Ireland