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Axis of Logic Readers join the Cohen-Chomsky Debate - Updated Daily Printer friendly page Print This
By Axis of Logic Readers
Axis of Logic
Wednesday, Sep 2, 2009

Editor's Note:  The following letters were received by Axis of Logic over the Labor Day weekend in the U.S.  Their authors join the Cohen-Chomsky Debate which began when Noah Cohen challenged Noam Chomsky in his critical analysis: Noam Chomsky and "Left" Apologetics for Injustice in Palestine

Chomsky replied to Cohen, which we published. We also published Cohen's rebuttal.  Chomsky has not yet replied to Cohen's well-written response, but we hope that he will. 

The excellent contributions to this debate by Axis of Logic readers are published below, in the order in which they were received (most recent at bottom).  Also, Israel Shamir has joined the debate.  His contribution will be published separately above these these comments by other Axis of Logic readers, also on the front page of Axis of Logic.  We wish to thank each of these individuals for offering their perspectives on this debate which goes to the heart of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. We also invite you to comment on the One State vs. Two State Solution as framed by Cohen and Chomsky.

- Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic


Dear Axis of Logic:

Realism and States of Denial, by Paul Larudee

I have no reason to doubt Noam Chomsky's humanitarian and pragmatic motives in arguing that it is more "realistic" to pursue a two-state solution than any proposed form of a single state for Palestine/Israel. It is, however, possible to accept many of his arguments and yet arrive at a different conclusion.

One may, for example, accept that it is more possible for the two sides to achieve agreement on a two-state solution (e.g. the Geneva Accord) than to eliminate ethnic discrimination from what is currently a "Jewish" state. However, we must face the facts that neither solution has even come close to implementation in the last 56 years. It is therefore arguable that the difference in probability of success between the two is negligible, a possibility that Chomsky does not address. To use quantitative terms (an admitted absurdity), the probability of achieving a two-state solution may be double, triple or quadruple that of a single non-ethnically based state, but if the probability of the latter is 0.1%, the difference is still trivial.

It is also fair to question whether in fact the possibility of implementation is greater for one solution than for another, a question to which Chomsky devotes much of his response to Cohen but for which there are still unaddressed considerations. Much of the historical Zionist leadership of Israel, including Sharon, has argued that conflict with the indigenous population of Eretz Israel is a necessary part of Israel's existence for the foreseeable future, and even desirable, both for territorial objectives and to maintain the "vigor" of the Jewish Nation. Thus does Sharon refer to all the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River as "western Eretz Israel" and to the 1948 war as "unfinished". Under this view, a two-state solution is regarded as a defeat for numerous reasons, not least that it may lead to future demographic problems that could otherwise be dealt with more ruthlessly (e.g. for "security" reasons) in a situation of conflict.

The possibility of a two-state solution is also receding as fast Israeli authorities can make it happen, for the motives described above. More than half the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 have already been confiscated and hundreds of Jewish-only colonial towns built. The Enclosure Wall is projected to displace an additional 400,000 Palestinians upon completion in March, 2005. Even the 82 enclosed areas will have more than 50 settlements inside them, along with exclusive Jewish-only access roads and security zones slicing them up into hundreds of separate areas subject to periodic closure. That Israel is trying to remove the two-state option is evident from the prodigious efforts made to populate the settlements. According to periodic polls, fully two-thirds of the settlers have chosen to live on stolen land because of the tax and housing incentives and other privileges granted to settlers, or came as immigrants with little choice but to accept the housing offered.

Implementation of a two-state solution should also not be confused with negotiations leading to it. Negotiations are useful as a red herring and to justify further conflict when they fail, as long as the failure can be blamed on the other side, a situation that requires a compliant press and a well-managed PR campaign, both of which are well established in the case of Israel and its U.S. supporters. Negotiations are in fact an important tool in preventing a solution, two-state or otherwise, as demonstrated by several analysts, including Tanya Reinhart, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe. One of the most effective of these was the Oslo agreement, because it even resembled a steppingstone to resolution while permitting Israel to pursue its territorial and ethnic alteration objectives.

We should also not confuse the will of the leadership of Israel with that of its population. There is ample evidence that a clear majority of the populace would accept a two-state solution, whereas there is no such mandate for a secular single state, as Chomsky points out. However, it is highly arguable whether this translates into any increased likelihood of achieving such a solution, given the manufacture of consent and deterring of democracy about which Chomsky is a well-known authority.

In fact, the contrary is arguable, i.e. that a single state solution is a more practical and realistic solution than its alternative. First, there is the obvious fact that it resolves all of the outstanding issues and avoids the pitfall of leaving behind a disenfranchised population that may plant the seeds of future conflict. More important, however, is that it has a good (if short) track record, with South Africa as its most outstanding and most comparable example. Chomsky allows that U.S. policy must change in order for even a two-state solution to be achieved. The question is why it cannot achieve a single-state solution the same way. Some suspension of aid is necessary in both cases, possibly along with an embargo. Such measures, among other factors, led the South African leadership to conclude that Apartheid was unsustainable. Why would Israel not conclude the same about Zionism?

It is time to abandon the myth of "realism" as an argument against a complete and just solution in Israel and Palestine. All solutions to the Israel/Palestine conflict are unrealistically remote in the near term, and even stripped of its idealism, there is every reason to consider the single-state solution just as realistic as a two-state solution, and perhaps more so. Along with the fact that it is also a more just solution, the argument for it is compelling.

Paul Larudee
El Cerrito, CA 94530


 

 

Dear Axis of Logic,

A fascinating, informative and necessary debate between Cohen and Chomsky on the issue of Palestinian rights. I'd read Chomsky's article before Cohen's and felt persuaded by his position, but much less so after reading Cohen's strenuously argued case.

I think it's a bit harsh to label Chomsky's position "apologetics" for Israel's thoroughly reprehensible behavior. I believe Chomsky is sincere in his concern for Palestinian welfare and is convinced that the best means of alleviating their terrible suffering is through a two state settlement along the lines of Geneva. On the other hand, I think Chomsky's rejection of Cohen's points was uncharacteristically perfunctory, as well as inconsistent.

Where I differ with Cohen I think, is in his characterization of Geneva as a premeditated tool of further Israeli colonial conquest. Were this the case, one would think the Israeli hard-liners would trip over one another to embrace it, (rather than disdainfully refuse to consider it, as Sharon has done). Cohen is quite right however, to point to the leap of faith required to believe that Israel will not make cynical use of this "treaty" as a lever of further racist control in the future. If Cohen's assessment that the Accord legitimates Israel's ethnic cleansing while obliging the Palestinians to rely on little more than "good faith" from the Israelis is accurate, his rejectionism does indeed seem in the best interest of the Palestinian people. I hope Chomsky will offer a further reply to Cohen's two superb articles.

richard harth
new Orleans, la


 

Cohen, Chomsky, and Palestinian Self-Determination

Naomi Jaffe, September 5, 2004

The missing piece on both sides of the Cohen-Chomsky debate, and the wider one- vs. two-state debate, is self-determination, specifically self-determination for the Palestinians, the half of the Israel-Palestine equation that currently has none. Palestinian voices are conspicuously absent.

Voices on both sides of the one- vs. two-state debate claim to speak for, or at least in the best interests of, the Palestinians, without any evidence of having consulted any actual Palestinians. There's more than a little paternalism going on here. Steve Kowit, for example, says that "more than likely" the Palestinians "would" embrace a one-state solution -- his position -- once the "realization dawns on them" that the two-state solution is a fantasy and the one-state solution means having their country back. How odd they haven't yet caught up to his advanced thinking after all these years of struggle!

What do actual Palestinians want? Certainly, there is much disagreement, as befits a thoughtful population in a very tight spot. It appears that Palestinians want different things, that they do not all agree on the best balance between realism and justice, and perhaps do not want to pin themselves down to an outcome while the struggle for some sort of just and viable result is still in progress. There is overwhelming support for the right of return. Perhaps there is hope that chances for justice will improve by continuing the struggle on the ground, rather than pinning down a solution at a time of such unequal power. And although the struggle continues, there also appears to be monumental exhaustion, sadness, and despair. As a non-Palestinian, I infer these positions from what I have read of various Palestinian voices. I am sure the reality is much more complex, nuanced, contentious, and profound.

Meanwhile, Palestinians continue all forms of struggle under the most oppressive conditions and against the most formidable odds. Everybody in the world seems to think they could do it better, has advice and a second guess -- more non-violence, settle for less, demand more, target the U.S., collaborate with the U.S., demand the right of return, give up the right of return, demand one state, demand two states, get rid of Arafat, stop the suicide bombings... Nobody, possibly including the Palestinians themselves, thinks they are doing it right.

And yet the fate of the Palestinians has become the focus of the attention of the whole world. Does anyone think this was inevitable? The strongest military power in the region and the strongest military power in the world want the Palestinians and their problem to vanish. Toward that end they have invested billions of dollars and sold their souls to promote death, destruction, torture, and imprisonment, and to forego the rule of law and the salvation of the land. In the face of this overwhelming power, the Palestinians have not only not vanished, they have become increasingly visible. They haven't won, they have suffered immensely, but amazingly they haven't lost either. Nobody knows how to do what they are trying to do, least of all we privileged North Americans and Europeans. Nobody has done it. South Africa,or India, to which comparisons are always being drawn, were very different places at very different times in history.

What is needed from those who are committed to justice in the region is not more advice to the Palestinians, who, after all, have the least room to move and face the greatest risks of all the different forces involved in the situation. We internationals, especially those of us in the U.S., have an obligation to use our relatively greater safety, power, and privilege to change the balance of power in such a way that Palestinian self-determination can play its rightful role.

Easier said than done, of course. But figuring it out and doing it is our job. We need to apply pressure to the U.S. and Israel to cease their economic, military, and political onslaught. We need to, and indeed we are already beginning to, be part of forming a global consensus that Israel's oppressive and murderous actions are outside the circle of acceptable human behavior, and are not justified by claims of victimization either past or present.

We have our hands full doing our job. Coming up with solutions is not part of it, and neither is giving advice to the Palestinians about how to do theirs better. Palestinians are a smart and courageous people. They deserve our support and they have the right to determine their own destiny.

Naomi Jaffe


 

 

Dear Axis of Logic,

One of the ways to conduct the debate re return is to ask not whether there is a right of return but whether there is an interest in return. Do indeed people have an interest to return to a country which they have never lived in only because their parents or grandparents live there? This is quite dubious in my view.

For those who are interested in a very serious debate concerning the right of return. See the recent volume of Theoretical Inquiries volume 5 no. 1 July 2004.

 

Best,

Alon Harel


 

Dear Axis of Logic,

Obviously, ther will be no 'solution' to the problem that is acceptable to the racist fanatics who are the core of 'Israeli public opinion'.

Those who base themselves on this artificial, foreign imperialist-created chimera called 'Israeli public opinion' are only deluding, not themselves, surely, but trying to delude world and Palestinian opinion.

If, in 1980, smeonehad proposed a South AFrican arrangment under which the Afirkaaners would accept Nelson Mandela as President under a universal suffrage, essentially a 'one-state arrangment, would very likely have been derided as Martians, unralistic, even 'dangerous' to the apartheid accommodating imperialist 'moderates',

etc. etc. etc.

One way or another, a solution will have to be found that the Israelis will have to accept, whether they wish to or not.

That is why at least half a million already live in and around New York City, returning to Israel only often enough to maintain citizenship and voting rights.

They know full well that sooner or later the GReat White FAther in Washington will decide that Zionism is costing him more than it is worth, and will signal to the Zionists that some sort of South African approach is going to be tried...

and you Zionists either get on board, or get on board ship for Europe and America, an option probably about half the Israelis will quickly take, since about that many have dual citizenship and;/or are English speaking and have marketable skills in those countries....

Pl Oneill


 

 

Dear Axis of Logic

Chomsky is one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century, someons who to my generation and yours is like Jean-Paul Sartre or Bertrand Russell, perhaps, to previous generations. This doesn't mean that folks with time and inclination to attack him - for whatever personal or other motives - should not while away their copious spare time in doing so. But it seems to me that when the Left begins engaging in these internecine polemics it's a sign that we're failing on the front we really have to engage -- not Chomsky, but, for example, Daniel Pipes. Or Paul Wolfowitz. Or Norman Podhoretz. Or Joan Peters reborn. That's our real work. Not sectarian disupte.

Ellen Cantarow


 

 

Dear friends,

I have followed Chomsky and Cohen's exchanges and now the exchange between Steve Kowit and Charles Mankin regarding the question of one vs. two states in Palestine/Eretz Yisrael.

An argument advanced by both sides is that of what is "realistic". On one hand it is claimed that it is unrealistic to expect Israelis to accept a "one state" because they insist on their own autonomy as a Hebrew society. It is also claimed "unrealistic" that the world can be prompted to coerce Israel to accept this solution. On the other hand it is claimed that it is unrealistic to expect the hundreds of thousands of settlers, particularly in the West Bank, to pack their belongings and leave the settlements. Many of these people are born in the settlements and consider these their legitimate homes. Obviously, we are dealing with two scenarii, both of which require enormous efforts, whatever solution is taken.

The question then amounts, for what ultimate purpose should these enormous efforts be spent ?

It is obvious to all that a two-state solution, even in its most optimistic dressing, would essentially mean an utterly unjust solution of the conflict. The Palestinian people, a nation of similar size as the Israeli Jews, if not larger, will obtain just a quarter of the territory alloted to Jews. This territory, moreover, will not be continuguous, so that Palestinians will remain, indefinitely, at the mercy of Israel to travel between their areas (Gaza and West Bank). This will be the bottom line, even in the unlikely case that the Palestinian state would be allowed to be a fully sovereign state, including the right to enter into defense treaties with whoever it wishes. The two-state solution won't either solve the problem of Israel as a "Jewish" state, namely a state which is based on the idea that Jews should permanently "control" the state apparatus. Such states do not exist today. No democracy legislates the right of a religious group to maintain control over the state. Israel does have legislation to that effect (even if couched in euphemistic terms).

I argue that the only long-time efforts worthwhile are those which are based not on "nationalism" but on "human rights", namely the recognition that sometimes a choice must be made between national rights and individual human rights. In the case such a choice is to be made, progressive people must opt for human rights, because national rights are a derivative of human rights, not independent rights. Those who place national rights about individual human rights are correctly designated as fascists. In the case of Palestine, there is a conflict between "national" and "human" rights. This conflict appears in the discussion on one- or two states. Israeli Jews can only secure their human rights (including the right to life) by accepting to relinquish "national" rights. The claim that Jews would be persecuted if they would live with Muslims and Christians is a scare-tactic. Jews live in security and well-being in all democratic states, including the country which was responsible for the Holocaust. There is nothing genetic or cultural in the opposition of Arabs to Israel. When people are treated as human beings and with dignity, they do not feel the need to persecute. The fear of Israelis may be based on their guilt of having done so much wrongs. This can be understood. But these feelings must be exorcised, including by Israelis admitting the wrongs that were committed and promising to bring to judgment those who bear the highest responsibility for these wrongs. The work of Truth Commissions would be applicable.

What I do not agree to, with the writers, is that Israel should be coerced to choose the right way. On the contrary, any attempt to coerce the Israeli people to accept whichever solution is a totally wrong approach. A far more sensible approach is to strengthen the forces within Israel and Palestine which are actively working for the respect of universal human rights and those associations and groups which promote cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians on equal footing for a peaceful and just peace. By this I do not mean the cooperation of the secret services and of the VIPs, but of genuine grass root movements committed to the principle of equality and human dignity. The way forward is to slowly but firmly exclude from the political landscape all groups which reject the full respect of human rights. Those who reject the Palestinian right of return are essentially opposed to human rights. They should not be regarded as partners in a peace plan.

Elias Davidsson
Reykjavik Iceland
(born in Palestine)

 


 

Dear Axis of Logic,

Well, I read Noam Chomsky's "Advocacy and Realism: A reply to Noah Cohen".

Apparently Noam Chomsky thinks that pro-Palestinian activists are in it because they want Palestinians to have more material comfort and less physical suffering. Presumably some of them are. However, I am in it intensely because I took up (at an early age) a value system that puts liberty and justice at the top, above life and material well-being. For those with the same values as myself I am a useful ally, but I grant that for those who put material life above else I am not.

Like early Americans I say: live free or die.

Jennifer Winkler


 

 

Dear Axis of Logic,

New: Charles Manekin and Steve Kowit Weigh-in on the Cohen-Chomsky Debate:

Two states? One State? No state!

In my judgment, the only realistic and fair solution is to have no state in the area under discussion. Sort of like in Germany after 1945 for a period of time. Some people at that time did not want to see any German state reconstitued.

Recently there was a conference in Switzerland [attended by Cohen] and a Palestinian representative told an Israeli that he did not really want to live in a state with Jews after all the crimes committed by them against his people. This really surprised the Israeli advocate of the one-state solution.

That incident made me think of the idea of "no state" in the area. The area must be administered by an international consortium of states. No Arab states and certainly not the United States would participate in this consortium.

There has to be a de-militarization and de-Judeo-Naziification of the area. Non-Israeli Jews must come to see that their supposed protector is their great threat and begin to actively oppose its Apart-hate social structure and its unrestrained imperial overreach. Just like the Germano-Nazi state was the greatest threat to the German people!

 

 

Patrick McNally


 

 

 

Dear Axis of Logic,

I restrict myself to a general comment on the nature of the one-two state issue and Charles Manekin's last paragraph, which speaks volumes about Zionist attitudes. First Mr. Manekin:

Firstly, the fact that virtually the whole world recognizes Israel does not mean that the nature of the state is impervious to change. South Africa provides a precedent for the sudden shift in the character of a state, a transformation that had been considered fantastic or impossible just months before it occurred. It would be more fruitful to investigate how exactly this came about.

Secondly, the world should indeed do what it can to force Israel to behave in a civilized manner, but that should not shift the burden from Israel's citizenry. It may be understandable in a totalitarian society for a population to fail to speak up against injustice, but for Israel's great majority of people to popularly support--by their own democratic choice--the destruction of Palestinian society puts in doubt whether this "bastard" born in sin is worth preserving.

As for the one-two state issue, the argument has been framed in an unuseful manner. A two-state solution such as the Geneva accords, which deprives the Palestinians of both the full trappings of a state and justice for the exile population, is no solution at all. On the other hand, a one-state solution that does not guarantee basic freedoms to Jewish or other non-Arab citizens is also unacceptable. The real question is the extent to which the new state or states satisfy questions of viability and universally accepted norms for justice. Personally, I tend to favor a single, secular, binational state insofar as it seems far more likely to be adequate in those terms, but a small demilitarized Jewish statelet on 10% of the land, encircled by a wall, would be acceptable too.

 

Miriam M. Reik


 

Received September 9, 2004

Dear Axis of Logic,

I am not sure I agree with either Chomsky's analysis or that of Cohen. While Chomsky is taking a pragmatic approach, the Palestinian situation is bereft of options and pragmatism, in this case, is the equivalent of a drowning man reaching for a piece of driftwood. Getting behind the Geneva Accord at this late date may at least give Palestinian society some respite and allow it to mount smarter resistance, but it is just Oslo in new bottles, the same formula which led to the current Intifada in the first place. I think Chomsky's heart is in the right place, however unfortunate his advocacy for Geneva is. Perhaps, like many of us, after being personally involved with the ever-worsening Palestinian situation, he would prefer Palestinans not be snuffed out of existance and the Accord may do that, even if it puts Palestinians in reservations instead.

The absolutist approach taken by Cohen is much more problematic. While taking Chomsky to task for offering his so-called colonialist paternalism as advocacy, Cohen, another non-Palestinian, situates himself as the true arbitrer of the Palestinian struggle and defender of inalienable Palestinian rights. As a Palestinian who lived in the OPT at the inception of the new Intifada, I can assure you there is much debate about the usefullness of the Right of Return within Palestinian society, especially since it is so often cynically used by Palestinian political actors for their own ends. One must wonder why, during the first years of Oslo, when USAID and other NGO development funds flowed like a river into the PA coffers, was almost nothing done to make life more liveable for refugee populations within the OPT.

The Right of Return is not going to put food on the refugee table, neither will it Return those refugees at any forseeable date. And where would Palestinians go anyway? Those villages are gone and the people who lived there are now, after 50 years, dead. Their children and grandchildren have only know the urban camps, but now they must return to an agrarian life they have never known? Pushing the Right of Return made sense even 20 years ago, but there is a time to accept losses and formulate new strategies, unless Palestinians are more significant as a totem to capture the imagination of Western leftists, as Cohen suggests. Cohen should know, there is a danger in mistaking Palestinian resistance rhetoric for true discourse, especially in the context of this Intifada, which has rarely been popular in character.

What is really more disturbing is that Cohen seems to offer no solution. The Palestinian Intifada is a one shot firecracker, it has already burned out and well before it could do significant damage to the Israeli state. In fact, Israel has gotten away with the kind of ethnic cleansing it could have only dreamed of before the Intifada, while Palestinians have gained nothing and lost much in the bargain. The next steps will be dictated solely by Israel, without a peep from the international community. If Cohen is advocating continued struggle by non-representative armed militias until the Palestinian nation is erased, I am so far not impressed with his non-colonial approach to advocacy.

Omar Yassin


 

September 11, 2004

Dear Axis of Logic,

Alon Harel's letter asks us to consider not whether there is a right of return for Palestinians but whether there is an "interest" in return to a land "which they have never lived in", thus he calls into question the legitimacy of a possible future return, and also remarks on the "dubious" nature of the Palestinian claim, which the Palestinians themselves have established, as he puts it, "only because their parents or grandparents live there".

Now I trust Mr Harel is willing to apply an equal degree of scrutiny for the very same- albeit two thousand year old- arguments that were tabled to justify the formation of Israel.

Daniel Basque


 

From: Raja Mattar [mailto:ranimar@cyberia.net.lb]
Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 2:44 PM
To: Les Blough
Subject: Re: The article "I am a Christian who lived with Moslems all my life"

Mr. Dan Barkye,

I respect the memory of all those who suffered and died in the Holocaust inflicted on the Jews by the Nazis. I am personally pessimistic about the human race propensity to mass slaughter. Without minimizing the extent of the Holocaust�s brutality, let us remember the mass slaughters that occurred at the hands of so-called civilized humans: the extermination of the indigenous population of the Americas at the hands of the Anglo-Saxons, the Spaniards and their fellow-travelers; the slaughter of half the population of the Congo (estimated at 9 million) at the hands of the Belgians under King Leopold who used the wealth accumulated from the plunder of the Congo to build churches and collect art; the death of millions at the hands of Stalin in the Ukraine; and the recent killing fields of Cambodia. These are of recent memory. History books are full of such examples in centuries past.

 

Going back to the Holocaust, one would have thought and expected that a population which suffered so much would refrain from repeating the atrocities inflicted upon it half a century ago. The mantra that I have heard repeated is �never again�. But let us see who is now doing it again! I wouldn�t want to argue too much about whether the atrocities visited upon the Palestinians are equivalent or less than those inflicted upon the Jews by the Nazis. I leave that to historians to evaluate. What is obvious to any person willing to read an impartial newspaper or history book is that there are four million Palestinians living as refugees outside the borders of what was once their homeland and three to four million living in semi-concentration camps in their homeland. The living conditions � including the level of nutrition � are alarming. If that is not a slow genocide, what is?

 

Having said that let me quote a Jewish professor � Marc Ellis � from page 28 his book �Israel and Palestine: Out of the Ashes� (A book I recommend to every Jew to read):

 

In her moving address on the meaning of Holocaust memory as the sacredness of ordinary life, and by including and naming Palestinian life within the context of Jewish memory, Klepfisz implies what the Jewish community has yet to realize: that no matter what the resolution of the conflict, even were the agreements to fulfill the demands of justice and equality, the destruction of Palestinian life by Jews is now a part of Jewish history that must also be remembered. (italics mine)

 

Here are also a few quotes by that great Jewish mind, Albert Einstein:

"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us."

ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955): letter to Chaim Weizmann,
Nov. 25, 1929 (The Quotable Einstein, edited by
Freeman Dyson, published by the Princeton
University Press, 1996, Hebrew University
Archive 33-411)

"I believe firmly that the Jews, considering the smallness and dependency of their colony in Palestine, are not threatened by the folly of power."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955): letter to
Maurice Solovine, Mar. 16, 1921,in
Albert Einstein: Letters to Solovine
[1987] tr. W. Baskin

 


 

 

"I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from practical consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain - especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly."

 

Albert Einstein (1879-1955): Our Debt to Zionism,
speech before the National Labor Committee
for Palestine, New York, Apr. 17, 1938
(reproduced in Out of My Later Years
[1950] ch.52)

 


 

 

Sorry, Mr. Barkye, murder is murder, and genocide is genocide regardless of who is committing it, and regardless of the number of people killed. We cannot continue hiding behind the fact that crimes are not crimes when they are committed by nice people like us. Many Jews � thankfully, not all � are living in a state of denial. I admire those great contemporary Jewish minds who have come up strongly against the atrocities committed in their name, the likes of Marc Ellis, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Norman Finkelstein, Gilad Atzmon, Ran HaCohen, and many others.

 

Now let us move to the other subject you raised: the historical claim to Palestine. The Jews who were dispersed by the Romans did not migrate to Europe. Most remained in Palestine and in the surrounding areas. Many gradually converted to Christianity and eventually Islam, while a number retained their Jewish religion. Before the creation of Israel, there were about 250,000 living between Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

 

The Jews of Europe are mainly descendants of the Khazar tribes of the Caucasian region who adopted the Jewish religions only about 1,000 years ago. The best authority is the book by the Hungarian Jew, Arthur Koestler, titled �The Thirteenth Tribe.� Somehow the Jewish prayer that you mention� "If we forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right arm be forgotten" when pronounced by a European or American Jew (whose ancestors came from the Caucasus) rings hollow in the ears of any person who is willing to abandon myths and read some unadulterated history.

 

As to the historical presence of Jews in Palestine, let me refer you to a landmark book by Israeli Archeologist Israel Finkelstein of Hebrew University titled �The Bible Unearthed�. When reading it one cannot help but arrive at the conclusion that the Bible, while it is to be respected as a religious book, is far from being a dependable historical record. It is a fairly large and scholarly book, but a pr�cis of the findings of Israeli archeologists appeared in Harper�s magazine in March 2002 under the title �False Testament�. I can send you a copy of that article if you so wish at my email address: ranimar@cyberia.net.lb. (A copy of False Testament is included below for the readers' convenience - Eds.) I can also send you by email the whole book of Koestler �The Thirteenth Tribe�, if you so wish.

 

(See False Testament in the alternative Axis publication of Mr. Matter's letter).

 

Best wishes

 

Raja

 

 � Copyright 2004 by AxisofLogic.com


 

Noam Chomsky is a myth for the european left , but, I think, this time he is wrong. His point of view is seemingly equilibrate, moderate and realistic, but, actually, it is not realistic and avoids to face the true situation, the true Israeli and U.S.A. government politics and the true questions involved in the Israeli-Palestinan conflict. It is useless to repeat the very lucid and clear arguments exposed by Noah Cohen, especially in his reply to Chomsky on August 30, and by Steve Kowit later. My sincere congratulations to Cohen and Kowit for their lucid and courageous exposition. I think, they are both American Jew and their position is certainly not so easy! Congratulations to Axis of Logic too for this interesting debate: we need good debates and ideas in these times so difficult for the left!

Before ending I want to say some words about the Italian debate on this subject: of course the Italian right parties which are in the government (Mr. Berlusconi and his allies) strongly support the Sharon government. The "moderate" left (such as former Communists, now "Democrats of the Left", which have about 20% of votes, and some catholic parties, which have about 10-15%) support a position like that of Chomsky's. The "extreme" left (communist and "green" little parties: about 10% of votes) is divided: generally the base militants and the smaller groups support positions like that of Cohen, while the leader of the greatest party of the extreme left (Mr. Bertinotti, leader of "Communist Refoundation", which has the 5% of votes) supports "realistic" positions, like Chomsky's position. Sorry if my english is not perfect, go on with this good work.

Vincenzo Brandi from Rome.


 

 

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