Israeli Defence Force soldiers
The number of protesters on the Gaza-Israel border killed by Israeli soldiers rises each day, recently claiming an infant and a young paramedic. Listening to certain spokespeople in Australia, one is left with the impression that it’s all the fault of others — Hamas, the protesters themselves, the ABC or even The Australian.
It’s the kind of thing I grew up with as a kid with part-Pakistani parentage, where communal and public conversations about Partition and Pakistan are treated with nationalistic fervour. It’s also the kind of thing often seen since 9/11 — public conversation dominated by nationalists from “leadership” organisations.
This brings me to a community event at the Paddington Town Hall, Sydney, on the evening of June 6 organised by a group calling itself the New Israel Foundation. From that title, I’d normally imagine such an event to be devoted to unconditional support for Israel, with speakers repeating the rhetorical themes I have come to expect from many of my Australian-Pakistani elders: “we are an island of peace surrounded by an enemy many times our size”.
Speaking at the event was Avner Gvaryahu, a special forces soldier from the Israeli Defence Force. Surely this guy will be a hawk, sounding off like Jim Molan or Andrew Hastie. But Gvaryahu said his work with the group Breaking The Silence was about standing up for Israel by opposing the military occupation of Palestinian territories. He said the IDF’s “brutal use of violence, misuse of weapons and beating up Palestinians” was a daily experience for Palestinians, confirmed through the testimonies of IDF soldiers and officers. “You can’t have an occupation without violence. You have to use violence when controlling a people who don’t want to be controlled.”
Gvaryahu spoke of the “straw widow” strategy whereby solders would take over a private Palestinian home and use it as a military post. Virtually always the Palestinian family whose home was overtaken had no involvement in any protest activity.
Gvaryahu is pilloried both inside Israel and by Israel’s supporters outside. He has been called a traitor and has frequently found himself attacked by those who feel he is not patriotic enough. But he soldiers on, even if his audience (including myself) found what he had to say uncomfortable. When asked why he didn’t go with the Israeli majority that elected governments enforcing these policies, time after time, he said, “Well, the Palestinians whose houses and lands we occupied didn’t get to vote for these governments. The Occupation isn’t just an Israeli issue. Our decisions are affecting millions of other people. Plus I used to walk around the streets of Nablus and Jenin holding an M16 that had the words ‘Property of the US Government’ on it.”
Another speaker at the event was Pulitzer Prize-winning Australian author and former Wall Street Journal reporter Geraldine Brooks, who noted her disappointment that many of her Jewish friends did not wish to attend the event as they “couldn’t bear to hear the discussion”. She said that “even though breaking the silence isn’t currently in the mainstream of Israeli opinion, it is definitely in the mainstream of the Jewish tradition … of having an argument for the sake of heaven”.
Brooks shared a story from September 1987 when she was about to be sent to be the WSJ’s Middle East correspondent. She was told by a Reagan adviser that she wouldn’t need to spend much time in Israel/Palestine as “all the Palestinian kids just want to get educated and make lots of money”. Indeed they may do, which could explain why they are the most educated group in the Arab world. But as Brooks soon found out with the eruption of the Intifadeh that year, Palestinians also worry about other things.
So why does Brooks think such issues are harder to debate in Australia than Israel? “Look, I get this. Antisemitism is real and rising. I see defamation of Israel all the time, especially in Europe. But that’s not what this is. This is a discussion from a place of love, from wanting Israel to survive … There’s more than one way to love Israel.”
Indeed, patriotism need not be the final refuge of the scoundrel.
Beautiful. I’m glad there are such people in this world!
Gut wrenching description of the evils of sectarianism and the desperate need for human decency and reason to break through the terrible impasse between Israel and Palestine.
You know there is no actual impasse and there never has been.. In 1947 the UN General Assembly disendorsed the Palestinians by illegally granting 56% of their nation to a group of newly arrived Jews who had nothing to do with the place and were not refugees in Europe, in spite of claims that the Israeli’s make.
The only impasse per se is that diaspora Jews think they have the right to the country when they don’t, and don’t give me the spiritual homeland crap because Judaism was not invented anywhere near Palestine, and Hertzl wanted this ”homeland” in either Argentina, Uganda or the northern part of WA.
Who cares if Israel survives? Who cares if any nation state survives? Put people first. Nations states are an abomination, only created for the purposes of war. They intentionally create a delusional sense of belonging and laud this stupid abstraction above all else. Patriotism is always phony and always destructive. No ifs or buts.
A classic case of “the more things change the more …”. The story is reminiscent of the statements that Begin (the last Samaritan?) would make. Zealots tend not to be able to see the forest for the trees – which extends to any material changes in their immediate vicinity. Over the last 30 odd years the policies of Shamir, Sharon and Netanyahu have defined the region. Yitzhak Rabin realised that the policies to date were not long term with history confirming the hypothesis.
The propaganda that has been disseminated by Israel is wearing off, particularly in Europe and, to a lesser extent the UK, and quite a
few in Israel have been aware of this phenomenon for some time. The reality of Zionism and hence Israel is “Slip Slidin’ Away” as Paul Simon put it – 40 years ago.
> Indeed, patriotism need not be the final refuge of the scoundrel.
Quite; but it invariably is. Bjelke-Petersen (KCMG) was no more representative of QLD than is Netanyahu of Israel. Its just a question of who
possesses the megaphone.
Israel was created by Europeans as recompense and exculpation for centuries of pogroms, culminating in the biggie, circa 1939-45.
Palestinians were not a consideration.
Then, now or in the future, if any.
A tad more detail. The Arabs (Faisal (bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi), as was Lawrence) were shafted by the The Sykes–Picot Agreement; a typical (behind-ones-back) enterprise when the Arabs had promised support against the Ottoman Empire; ‘The Arab Revolt’ – if anyone is interested. Meanwhile the Zionist were scanning the map of the world for a Jewish (secular) state – and had not given Palestine a thought.
Then there was the nastiness of WW2 and the collective guilt of the MS St. Louis (a German-registered ship with 900 Jewish refugees) that, in 1939 was refused entry by a number of “liberal minded” white quasi Anglo governments.
The Brits, having the mandate for Palestine, were “encouraged” to turn a blind eye to the Jewish immigrants that wafted into the place and the UN thought that was just fine – giving its assent in May 1948.
The contemporary circumstances (borders and harrassment of the Palestianians etc.) are nothing like the origional ratification of the state by the UN 70 years ago. Without WW2 the event woud not have occured – certainly NOT with the advice of Leauge.