by Noam Chomsky
* The particular target of Dershowitz’s slanders was the Israeli Arab writer Fouzi el-Asmar, held for 15 months without charges under administrative detention. On the basis of information provided to him by the Israeli secret police, Dershowitz arrived at the “personal conviction” that he was a terrorist “commander,” as he proceeds to assert without qualification, so that the detention was legitimate. There is, by now, little pretense in Israel or elsewhere that there was any substance to these charges, but it is interesting that in the U.S. it is not considered that Dershowitz’s stand represents any departure from civil libertarian standards. The attitude within the American Communist Party to Soviet judicial proceedings is similar. See Alan Dershowitz, “Civil liberties in Israel,” in Howe and Gershman, eds., Israel, the Arabs & the Middle East, and the responses in Commentary, July 1971, to the original article. See also note 107.
belief that Palestinians are human; see his entry in the Anti-Defamation League “enemies list,” for example.145 Again, these facts fall under the ideological aspect of the “special relationship,” as discussed earlier.
6. The Testimony of the Samidin
T
he account given above is primarily from Israeli sources. There is ample testimony from the victims, but it is virtually unknown here. Suppose that some American intellectual who expressed his undying love for the Soviet Union were to return from a visit there
and write that Jews are prosperous and generally content apart from some youthful rabble-rousers and Zionist terrorists who try to incite them, basing his conclusions on discussions with Russian experts on Jewish affairs, government officials, and Russian academics and taxi drivers. It is an understatement to say that such a person would be dismissed with contempt and disgust. Comparable practices are quite common, however, in the case of Western visitors to Israel.146 The standard practice of dismissing Arab sources falls into the same category. It is simply an expression of racist attitudes so deeply entrenched as to be quite unrecognized, one aspect of the amazing double standard with regard to Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs that we have observed throughout, and that would be apparent to any observer of the American scene with even a pretense of rationality.
I have mentioned the reports of Arab prisoners, available only to the most dedicated researcher and excluded from mainstream journalism and scholarship. The same is true, by and large, of the writings of Palestinian intellectuals. For example, much insight into the lives of Israeli Arabs is provided in a personal memoir by Fouzi el-Asmar (see section 5.5* above).147 It is an important and, I think, shocking fact that this material is essentially unavailable in the U.S., which bears a major responsibility for what has happened to the indigenous inhabitants of the former Palestine. The same can be said about material produced by Palestinian intellectuals from the occupied territories. It is, for example, fairly safe to predict that the thoughtful and revealing study by Raja Shehadeh, his “journal of life in the West Bank,” will remain unknown in the United States (see note 48). That would be a shame—indeed, a scandal, given the crucial American role in perpetuating the conditions he describes.
Shehadeh distinguishes three ways of responding to occupation. The first is that of “blind hate,” the second, “mute submission.” To the captive population, the first way is that of the freedom fighter, the second, that of the quisling. To the conqueror, the first way is that of the terrorist, the second, that of the moderate. The paymasters keep to the rhetoric of the conqueror, naturally. What then is “the third way”? That is the way of the Samid, “the steadfast one,” who watches his home turned into a prison.
“You, Samid, choose to stay in that prison, because it is your home, and because you fear that if you leave, your jailer will not allow you to return. Living like this, you must constantly resist the twin temptations of either acquiescing in the jailer’s plan in numb despair, or becoming crazed by consuming hatred for your jailer and yourself, the prisoner.” To be Samid
is like being in a small room with your family. You have bolted the doors and all the windows to keep strangers out. But they come anyway—they just walk through the walls as if they weren’t there. They say they like your room. They bring their families and their friends. They like the furniture, the food, the garden. You shrink into a corner, pretending they aren’t there, tending to your housework, being a rebellious son, a strict father or an anxious mother— crawling about as if everything was normal, as if your room was yours for ever. Your family’s faces are growing pale, withdrawn—an ugly grey, as the air in their corner becomes exhausted.
The strangers have fresh air, they come and go at will— their cheeks are pink, their voices loud and vibrant. But you cling to your corner, you never leave it, afraid that if you do, you will not be allowed back.
The strangers are advised by specialists, “‘experts on Arab mentality’ churned out by the Hebrew University and called ‘advisers on Arab affairs’.”148 If need be, they can use the means of violence that they monopolize, to whatever degree is required, ensuring that the Samidin will be no more than drugged roaches in a bottle, in the graphic phrase of Chief of Staff Eitan. See section 5.1* above.
Shehadeh gives examples, from his personal experience as a lawyer attempting the hopeless task of working within a legal system devised to ensure failure to protect the rights of the vanquished, and from his life as a Samid. There is the example of “a criminal who was sentenced to life, and released soon after by the Israelis and given a gun,” well-placed in what passes for a courtroom alongside of “the Israeli’s man in court,” who has also chosen the second way. There are the Israeli soldiers who herd demonstrating students into a bus, then shave each one down the middle of his head, “branded”—each one “a new fida’i” (“freedom fighter” or “terrorist,” according to one’s point of view). And the soldiers who find slogans painted on a wall, who “wait until night and then wake up all the people on the street and make them whitewash the wall, … mainly old people wrapped in dressing-gowns, shivering, bewildered, some cursing” after the soldiers have broken into their houses to get them out. There is the military governor who closes an exhibition of Palestinian art, plays, fashion shows of Palestinian dress at Birzeit college on the grounds that “expressions of Palestinian culture are dangerous political acts.” And the Arab policemen at one of the innumerable roadblocks who have standing orders from the Israeli military “to take in for questioning any Jewish woman seen with an Arab.” Roadblocks carry their own terror when manned by Israeli military, many of whom rejoice in the opportunity to humiliate defenseless Arabs in accordance with the doctrine of “purity of arms.” They can also be dangerous, as for Shehadeh’s uncle who was stopped by some soldiers just after the 1967 war, marched off to a nearby field and shot along with his companion, their bodies then set on fire and found days later.
There is also the case of the Arab lawyer who was engaged to contest the sale of land of a nearby village to the Jewish National Fund, whose representatives had frightened an old woman into signing documents selling the land (purchased by charitable tax-deductible contributions by Americans, and then reserved for Jewish use). He was warned by the military government to keep off the case, and when he refused, was arrested “on suspicion of driving without a licence” and sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of 7500 Israeli pounds. The Jewish National Fund is represented by a West Bank lawyer, one who has chosen the second way, “so that it can never be said that the land was taken against our will,” an important consideration for Americans called upon the explain why all of this is right and just. There is the client who “has clearly been severely tortured,” and many other images that shape the world of the Samid.
There are other experiences that entice the Samid to undertake the first way, as the conquerer would no doubt prefer, so as to rid himself of the troublesome intruder in the Land of Israel. For example, the case of Hani, shot by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration against the racist American Rabbi Meir Kahane, who
openly calls for driving the Arabs out of the Land of the Jews, and acts accordingly, with particular effectiveness while he is performing his duties in the occupied territories in the military reserves. Hani says that he was not taking part in the demonstration, but since he was shot, he was a participant by definition, “throwing stones and petrol bombs at soldiers” and injured when he fell, as he was instructed by the soldier standing over him after he was shot. An ambulance arrived from Ramallah hospital, but the soldiers insisted that he first be taken, bleeding from his wounds, for questioning at the military headquarters. He was finally taken to Ramallah hospital for surgery, but the soldiers decided that he must be taken to Israel’s Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem instead. There, he could not be admitted to the emergency room because, he was told, “there is no room.” He was taken to the Hadassah branch hospital at the other end of town. Seven hours after he was shot, he was admitted to a hospital. His mother must borrow “vast sums to pay for his hospitalization in Hadassah,” despite the promises that the military government would pay the bill. At the hospital, “the hostility and coldness were marked…and nurses did not bother to conceal their animosity,” perhaps because of a subsequent shooting of Jews at Hebron. Hani’s calls went unanswered, and he “would be left unfed for whole days on end.” Hani’s mother fears to appeal the decision of the Israeli military that “not enough evidence was found to incriminate anyone,” knowing “that if she files charges, her son will be charged for participating in the demonstration against Kahane,” or he will simply be picked up on some charge and beaten by soldiers, like others. All of this is part of the life of the Samid.
The Samid sees “many Israeli faces fly by,” but “three stand out”: First, the slightly pudgy, bespectacled face of the Ashkenazi intellectual; around him his Sephardi and Druse imitators. They look at me with the arrogance of colonizers. Their eyes express surprise mingled with anger that I, the native, should dare to think that I understand what they are up to. Then comes the gross, almost unlined face of Ariel Sharon and his gang of thugs: a petrifying combination of retardation and power: they mean evil and will succeed. Their faces are blank, completely free of even a twinge of conscience. And last, and in some way more disturbing than any: the weak face of the ‘beautiful Israeli’ who is upset by the occupation, not because it is evil, but because it ruins his looks. And he has every right to be concerned, because the lines on his face are ugly: those of a pampered narcissist who sees in his ever-present mirror his beauty fading—and begins to pout.
It is not too difficult to attach names to the faces, though there are other Israelis too, as Shehadeh eloquently describes—to one of whom I am indebted for sending me a copy of his book.
The faces of Israel seen by the Samid are rather different from those depicted by the admiring American visitor: Saul Bellow, for example, who sees an Israel where “almost everyone is reasonable and tolerant, and rancor against the Arabs is rare,” where the people “think so hard, and so much” as they “farm a barren land, industrialize it, build cities, make a society, do research, philosophize, write books, sustain a great moral tradition, and, finally create an army of tough fighters”149 or Irving Howe, whose Israelis are busy realizing “the democratic socialist hope of combining radical social change with political freedom.” Evidently, things look a bit different from the wrong end of the club.
7. The Cycle of Occupation, Resistance, Repression and Moral Degeneration
T
hese developments in Israel and the occupied territories were a direct consequence of the 1967 military victory, which a number of perceptive Israeli observers saw as a long-term defeat for the society they cherished, not without certain illusions of their own,
in some cases. They were aware of what Eric Rouleau of Le Monde described in the early days of the occupation as “the classical chain reaction—occupation, resistance, repression,—more resistance,” and of further links in the chain: Israeli journalist Victor Cygielman wrote in 1968 that “One thing is sure, terrorism will not succeed in wrecking Israel, but it may succeed in ruining Israeli democracy,” referring to the demoralizing effect of “such measures of collective punishment as the blowing up of houses, administrative arrests and deportation to Jordan.” At the same time, Uri Avneri noted further that the “steep spiral of terror and counter-terror, killing and retaliation, sabotage and mass deportation.. .will bring undreamt-of miseries to the Palestinian people…[while] turning Israel into an armed and beleaguered camp forever,” leading ultimately to “Semitic suicide.”150
7.1 Americans Hear the News Similar warnings have repeatedly been voiced through the years by Israelis and others who called for an end to the occupation. By late 1982, the message had even reached the New York Times. Editor Max Frankel noticed that Israeli “dissenters fear endless cycles of Palestinian terror and Israeli war—and the degradation of Israeli society as it grows dependent on the manual work of…a permanent ‘guest population’”151; those who had been making the same point for 15 years had been given short shrift by the Times, which was extolling the occupation as “a model of future cooperation,” an “experiment in Arab-Jewish coexistence” (editorial, May 19, 1976) as the spiral of violence and repression mounted ever more steeply.
Others too had begun to hear the news by mid-1982. Irving Howe, who for years had been berating the bearers of unwelcome tidings as “elitist,” anti-democratic, subject to “the pathology of authoritarianism,” and worse, reviewed Rafik Halabi’s West Bank Story (see note 48) in the New York Times Book Review, discovering to his sorrow that all was not well, primarily because of Menachem Begin.152 His comments caused much distress in Israel, even eliciting an article in the Labor Party journal Kol Hair reporting that “the former diplomat Zvi Rafiach recently returned [from the U.S.] quite shaken, bringing with him the issue” with Howe’s review. The journal comments, a bit unfairly, that “in fact Howe had little to say in criticism concerning the new book; he only knew how to speak and weep about himself.” But the matter is serious, the article continues, since “only with difficulty did he find a good word to say about the country that he loves.” And Howe is no ordinary admirer of Israel: “All America recognizes Howe, and knows that he is a lover of Israel. When no more supporters of Israel will remain in the United States—he will still be waving the blue and white flag.” “Who else will we lose because of you, Likud government?,” the writer laments.153
In his review, Howe writes that Halabi’s commentary on life under the military occupation, “though open to dispute at some points, is strong enough to disturb even the most ardent supporters of Israel. At least, it disturbed this one.” The book “fills me with a deep dismay—let me be candid and say pessimism,” even when we correct for Halabi’s exaggerations, as when he says that the occupation has a “corrupting effect…on the moral and social fiber of Israeli society” (“Let us be a little cautious and say instead a coarsening effect”). Howe learned from the book that “the Begin Government’s intention has been the gradual takeover of the West Bank and that its vision of ‘autonomy’ is little more than an enforced Arab docility.” This, in May 1982. He suggests instead that Israel “should announce its readiness to withdraw, provided satisfactory security arrangements are worked out,” but fears that this policy cannot be adopted “as long as Mr. Begin remains in office.” Equally, it could not be adopted if the Labor opposition that Howe supports were in office, as the record of the past 15 years, and Labor’s current positions, make crystal clear. Howe also learned that Labor had stumbled into ‘‘error” in its occupation policy, and that “Labor’s incoherence was replaced by Menachem Begin’s coherence.” But in fact Labor’s rejectionism and pursuit of the Allon Plan were clear from the start and were not in the least “incoherent” to those who chose to look at the facts. And the brutal and repressive character of the occupation in the West Bank was clearly apparent under the Labor government, a fact well recognized by Israeli doves in the late 1960s, as we have seen, n
ot to speak of the repression in the Gaza Strip in the early 70s or Labor’s brutal treatment of the Sinai Arab farmers at the same time; see pp. 105f. The kind of “ardent support” that Howe was providing—in particular, his personal attacks on those who knew what he is now beginning to learn, Daniel Berrigan for example—was a not insignificant factor in helping to establish the “errors” that he is now beginning to perceive with dismay, exactly as Israeli doves and others have been pointing out, with little effect, for many years; it might have been in place for Howe to address this point, which he heard years ago.
Howe is concerned that Begin’s policies will “threaten the Jewish character of Israel”—would we have similar concern about the Islamic; or Christian, or White character of some state? In the same context, he speaks of the “underpopulated Galilee,” to which development funds should be allocated instead of the West Bank. The concept “underpopulated Galilee” is common in Israel, with a particular interpretation: there is a large population of Arab citizens, but there are too few Jews there (recall that many Arabs fled or were expelled from the Galilee in 1948, and that thousands more were expelled during the 1956 attack on Egypt; see section 2* above). The many Arabs, Israeli citizens, are excluded from the “national lands” (reserved for Jews). Their own lands have often been expropriated for Jewish settlement, they are unable to build for their expanding populations because of restriction of land use to Jews, and they have therefore been compelled to find work in Jewish enterprises. There is much concern in Israel over their “land robbery,” over the “invasion” of “national lands” by Israeli citizens of the wrong ethnic affiliation. It was for such reasons that the Jewish Agency, under the Labor government, established the program of “Judaization of the Galilee,” to reverse this specific form of “underpopulation.” It was in response to the same problems that Israel Koenig of the Ministry of Interior, whose jurisdiction covers this region, issued the notorious “Koenig memorandum” in 1976 (under the Labor government), calling for measures to “thin the concentrations of existing Arab population,” reduce employment and educational opportunities for Arabs and otherwise encourage their emigration, undermine their organizations by covert means, etc.—policies that some Israelis described as reflecting “fascist values.” Koenig retained his position after the exposure of this secret memorandum and is still applying his values; see end of section 5.3 above. In short, Howe’s concept “underpopulated Galilee” conceals a tale.154 Howe also reviews some minor examples of the harsh practices that have been in force for 15 years and their “coarsening” effects—on the Israelis—and expresses his dismay as one of those “who admire and think of ourselves as partisans of Israeli society,” indeed an “ardent supporter,” and who continues to support the Labor Party, which was responsible for initiating these practices, with no detectable qualifications.
