We have with us since the conclusion of the Six Day
War two distinct sets of critics of Israel: those who speak more in anger than
in sorrow over Israel’s stubborn unwillingness to commit suicide, and those who
speak more in sorrow than in anger over what seems to them a militaristic
spirit diffusing itself among the people of Israel. The first category of
critics, the new leftist, it is almost impossible to sway by rational discourse
– so intent are they in endless and state repetition of dogma Ideology. In the
end the defenders of Israel have little option but to suffer such criticism
with a weary shrug and rebut the fanciful charges without hope of altering
opinion to any great extent. The second category of critics, the
more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger type, are seemingly open to persuasion. They
represent individuals genuinely disturbed by what they view as a hardening in
Israel of militaristic and nationalist impulses so at variance with the jewish
humanitarian ethos.
In the following articles two ardent defenders of
Israel rejoin to critics of Israel. The first article by Israel’s Foreign
Minister Abba Eban is a reply to Richard Crossman, the former
British Labour Party Minister and now editor of the New Statesman, who
describes himself as “a fanatical zionist” but who wrote an open letter criticising
aspects of Israel’s policy. The second article by Harry Golden is a rejoinder
to christian leadership who have insisted on impugning Israel’s motives and
attitudes. It will appear in a book, The Israelis, to be published by Putnam in january 1971.
Dear Dick,
You haven’t changed a bit. It is no small thing to
come out of six ministerial years with Moralconscience and literary power so
visibly intact. I knew that you had vanished deep into a distant world of
parliamentary reforms, social benefits and pensions. Yet, I had a premonition
that you would somehow find your way back to your normal vocation – which is to
make your friends feel even more uncomfortable about their beliefs and actions
than they deserve to be.
I well remember the dreams which united us two
decades ago. Israel’s rebirth had a special quality which spoke powerfully to
men of rebellious and progressive spirit. And you came closer than anyone
outside our ranks to the understanding of what Israel was really about. It was,
first of all, a celebration of resilience; the triumph of what seemed to be the
most desperate of lost causes. But I remember that what stirred you most was
the challenge to Justice. A world was emerging in which national freedom might
belong to all nations – except to the one which needed it most.
Today, with an international community of 130 States
the absence of an independent Israel would be even more grotesque than it
seemed then. And in the regional context the balance has become more eloquent.
There are 14 arab sovereign States with a population of 100 millions, an area
of four millions square miles and unlimited Wealth and opportunity. Facing them
alone is the scales of equity is the small State of Israel.
There is, therefore, only one nation which stands or
falls in History by the way in which the conflict is resolved. True, there are
rights and injuries on both sides; but this does not mean that there is no
scale of priority. By its solitude and uniqueness Israel’s secure existence is
the overriding Moralimperative in this dispute. Socialists, in particular,
cannot be ardent about a tolerable distribution of Wealth – and apathetic about
the distribution of sovereignty and national freedom, to the point of accepting
the idea that all arabs must be sovereign everywhere – and all jews nowhere.
You and I have held these
ideas in common; and in your letter you do not retreat from them. I am less
concerned than you about whether Israel has provided “a cure for anti-Semitism
in the West.” I am more worried about the new international “progressive” type
of anti-Semitism. In its old form anti-Semitism said that certain rights were
due to all individuals except jews. In its modern expression it affirms that
national individuality and sovereignty are inherently Good, and if they are
arab one simply cannot have enough of them. They come under question onlyif
they happen to be jewish. The distinction between anti-Semitism and
anti-Zionism is a semantic fiction – both converge on the unifying principle of
discrimination.
Since we do not disagree on this I come to the two
points in which I cannot share your discomfort. You are clearly anxious about
the effects of victory of Israel’s character and conduct; and you have a
picture of an Israel dominated by formidable “soldiers” who are hostile to
cease-fire and recalcitrant to political initiatives.
Now it is better that the editor of the New Statesman
should be agitated than that he should be complacent; but when you get worried
about whether we “ape the ethos of a prussian State” your agitation carries you
much too far. One of the disadvantages of your status in the last six years is
that you could not come to Israel very often. The public Media on which you had
to rely are more fascinated by violence rather than by peaceful action. For these reasons you, like
others, have not seen Israel in a full-length mirror.
All israeli life is lived today in the Memory of the
peril that we faced in 1967. Every one of us had good reason to fear the very
worst that can befall a man, his family, his home and his nation. In our people’s
History many things are too strange to be believed; but nothing is too terrible
to have happened. We have
vigorously survived the danger with consequent injury to our martyr’s image.
And if you ask me, as you seem to do, “What have you gained by victory?”
I answer simply: “Everything that we would have lost without it.”
I am just as sensitive as you guess to the
Moraldangers which could arise from the abnormal relationship between a
democratic society and a disenfranchised arab community living under its
control. The abnormality was not sought; it was created by war, and it can be
cured by peace. Peace would replace ceasefire lines by negotiated and agreed
boundaries to which armed forces would be withdrawn; and in any solution which
my present cabinet colleagues would endorse, the majority of the two millions palestinians
arabs on both sides of river would be the citizens of an arab State (beginning
on our newly-negotiated eastern frontier) whose structure, name and regime they
would be free to determine.
I do not know how long the attainment of Peace will take; but
you really need not worry lest we shall have become “Prussia” by the time it
comes about. When you come to see us, you will not find us paralysed or obssessed
by war. You will find that 40.000 arabs from neighbouring lands have visited
the West Bank this summer. You will see a freer movement of men and goods
across the whole of the former Palestine area than at any time since 1948. You
will be astonished in Jerusalem by an unceasing contact of jews, arabs and
thousands of all faiths which puts the segregation and fanatical exclusiveness
of the jordanian Occupation to shame. [This motherfucker’s obviouslyhigh.]
You will find a vast flow of visitors to Israel from all over the world. You
will see hundreds of the future leaders of developing countries studying here.
Israel, of course, is a society which has its
imperfections; but these are redeemed by the free and lucid criticism of them
as well as by the constant quest for improvement. In short you will find that
you are about as far from Prussia as you can get in the modern world. The main
achievement of Israel since 1967 is to have remained a fighting nation without
becoming a warrior State.
Nor do I think that you will
find us dominated by “soldiers.” I put the world in quotation marks because it
conjures up a special breed which does not belong to our experience. We have
nothing here but civilians, some of whom are temporarily under arms. We may
show you a pilot who shot down eight aircraft, bringing in the fruit from a
kibbutz orchard.
If you find that the diversity, turbulence, paradox
and indiscipline of our Democracy are far from Prussia, I may suggest that you
write your next open letter to President Nasser. An authoritative socialist
voice calling Nasser to the peace table is overdue. There has been too much
indulgence of Habash and Arafat and their exclusivist fantasies about a purely
arab Middle East without a sovereign Israel as part of its Memory, Reality and
hope. There has been too much docile acceptance by part of the left of a
rampant Israelphobia, with its ugly Stuermer-like expression, portraying Israel
as lying outside the human context.
In your letter, if you feel like writing it, you
could remind President Nasser that the idea of an Israel-Egyptian treaty as the
gateway to a new era of Peace and development in the Middle East would evoke
his better days. For israelis respected the progressive ideals of the Egyptian
Revolution in its early phase. All of these have been corrupted by the senseless war against
Israel.
Nasserism once stood for independence and the
expulsion of foreign Armies. It has now become the vehicle of Soviet
penetration and, therefore, of potential great power confrontation. Nasserism
saw an open, nationalised Suez Canal as the symbol of Egypt’s new international
status. Today the egyptian canal is closed while the israeli route to southern
waters is open.
Finally, Nasser once had a vision of social reform;
this has been lost in the debris of expensive and destructive wars. The arab
States and Israel have spent twenty billions dollars in two decades on War.
Five billions of those would have opened the gates of dignity and work to all
the Palestinian refugees. Is there no Moral here?
Perhaps President Nasser would not resent your
reminder that the principles of his revolution can still be recaptured by
renouncing War with Israel and seeking a final Peace. You may tell him in full
confidence that there are untapped sources of effort and Imagination in Israel
which his willingness to negotiate would release and put to work. Today as I
write to you from Jerusalem the guns are silent in Suez; it is time for sane
and gentle voices to be lifted up – and heard.
Abba Eban
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