Israeli ignorance and demonisation of Palestinians feeds virulent nationalism and oppression
Culture of fear by Seth Freedman
Seth Freedman is a writer living in Jerusalem.
"By continuing to provoke and bully the Palestinians, they create what they fear. Another generation branded Amalekites: another reason for Israelis to circle the wagons, batten down the hatches, and convince themselves that it is simply their lot to be eternally hated and reviled. And no amount of well-intentioned pressure can ever be sufficient to penetrate the calcified layer of mistrust between the Jewish people and the outside world."
History has handed the Jewish people the fear of annihilation on a plate – but while the fear exists, what is feared may not...
For there to be a justification for Israel's existence, there first has to exist an existential threat to the Jewish people. Granted, history has handed us that fear of annihilation on a plate, but just because the fear exists, it doesn't necessarily follow that what is feared does too.
A prominent narrative of the Jewish tradition is that, in every generation, a manifestation of Amalek will attempt to wipe out the Jewish people, just as the original marauding Amalekites did during the Jews' exodus from Egypt. The Romans, Babylonians, Greeks, Soviets and Nazis have all, understandably, been christened modern-day Amalekites – and now Iran is being touted as the most recent member of the millennia-old dynasty.
Fear of extermination is the ace in the Jewish pack of emotions, and has been capitalised on in spades by the virulent strain of nationalism encapsulated in today's Zionism. Occupy an entire people and crush their hopes and dreams for 40 years? A necessary evil – if we don't then we're done for. Fly in the face of international law, basic morality, and even the central tenets of our own, ostensibly compassionate, religion? Sorry, but you have to understand that "they" all want us dead; it's us or them, from now until eternity.
It's almost irrelevant who "they" are. One day it's the Palestinians for daring to try to shake off the yoke of oppression; the next it's the European left for having the nerve to intercede on behalf of justice and decency...
Concrete walls are built between "us" and "them"; orders are given banning Israelis from crossing the divide into PA territory – all under the banner of protecting the security of Israelis. In reality, however, they are merely an insidious attempt to hermetically seal Israel off from the outside world and convince the Israelis that it's an unavoidable measure to take...
The reaction amongst my Israeli friends when they hear of my trips to Jenin, Ramallah or Bethlehem is usually one of abject horror that I even set foot inside the cities, let alone met the locals and visited them in their homes. "They'd kill you if they knew you were Jewish," they cry, utterly convinced that a Palestinian wolf lies behind every refugee camp door. The truth is far different, of course; almost everyone I meet knows I am both Jewish and Israeli, and – thus far – I've been neither beaten, beheaded nor bludgeoned to death.
It's totally understandable why the mythology and misconceptions flourish unchecked amongst the Israeli man on the street, or in the diaspora Jewish community. In the vacuum left by enforced separation between Jews and Palestinians, rampant fabrication runs riot, and fiction becomes truth in the minds of the masses. It's also understandable that the government encourages and promotes such fairy tales, in order to garner support for their never ending policies of irredentism and subjugation.
But just because it's understandable doesn't make it in any way acceptable. Morals and ethics are crushed under the wheels of the nationalist juggernaut, and what would be entirely unpalatable in any other circumstance becomes not only tolerated by society, but actively encouraged by the Israeli electorate and their cheerleaders around the world.
By continuing to provoke and bully the Palestinians, they create what they fear. Another generation branded Amalekites: another reason for Israelis to circle the wagons, batten down the hatches, and convince themselves that it is simply their lot to be eternally hated and reviled. And no amount of well-intentioned pressure can ever be sufficient to penetrate the calcified layer of mistrust between the Jewish people and the outside world.
The full article was first published on uardian.co.uk on Sunday June 22 2008. It was last updated at 10:00 on June 22 2008.