Why Israel is boycotted
Dror Eydar | Friday December 13, 2013
1.
What lies at the root of the European boycott of Israel? What lies at
the root of the anti-Israel statements that various cultural icons are
constantly making -- statements that camouflage anti-Semitic sentiment?
What lies behind the false and malicious comparison of Israel to South
Africa's apartheid regime?
The
attempts to boycott Israel or mark its products, interfere in its
ancient geography or mark it as racist, fascist or Nazi are the current
political expression of Israel's ancient characterization as "a nation
that dwells alone." The return to Zion is the Jewish nation's return to
history, to life as a sovereign people in its ancient homeland. Calls
for boycott were made even before the establishment of the state. While
these calls came from the extremist factions at the time, they moved
toward the center as the years went by, particularly after 1967. That
was when we came back to the cradle of our nationhood, to the historical
places most closely connected with our identity. Most important, we
came back to Jerusalem, which is also linked with the identity of the
world's nations.
The fight against Israel -- which is a fight against
history's law of the return to Zion -- is evidence of how hard it is for
Israel's opponents to deal with the Jews' return to life after having
been in a state of living death for so long. That is why we and our
products are marked, why the badge of shame is being placed upon us once
again, why we are being isolated and boycotted. This is our
adversaries' way of saying: "You are not one of us."
2.
As Balaam, the prophet hired to curse the Israelites, looked out over
the Israelite tribes gathered on the plains of Moab just before they
entered Canaan, he had a moment of clarity. It was then that he said:
"Behold a people that dwells alone, that is not counted among the
nations."
I
have just said that he made this statement in a moment of clarity, but
it may also be seen as a sophisticated attempt to isolate the Jews. The
main representative of world culture at that time marked out, with his
words, the boundaries of life for the new nation. Even at our people's
beginnings, the world marked us: "They" are a people that dwells alone,
and we do not count them among us.
We
have done much since that prophecy was uttered. We founded a kingdom
and a temple and set up prophets for ourselves and for the world. As a
political entity we endured two destructions, and hundreds of individual
ones until the most horrific of all seventy years ago in Europe. But
never, in word or deed, did we abandon the hope of returning home, of
restoration, of being a free people in Zion and Jerusalem.
Except
for brief periods of relative calm, the nations of the world did all
they could do isolate and shun us. Jews also marked themselves by their
dress and their customs. The Jewish people lived outside history,
acquiring the image of a people in a living death, with all the
significance of that image, for good reason. We lived on the margins of
history and outside it, running for our lives from place to place.
The
Jewish Haskalah (Enlightenment) period in the 18th-19th centuries
marked a new development. The Jews made an effort to integrate into
society and become contributing citizens. Berlin became the new
Jerusalem. Many proponents of the new movement, called maskilim,
assimilated, but many did not, even though they abandoned religious
observance. But more than a century of the Haskalah led to
disappointment in the end. The Jews' hopes of integration went
unfulfilled. The surrounding society's fear and abhorrence of Jews who
had blended in, leaving behind all external signs of their Jewishness,
only grew greater.
Some
foreigners take advantage of a society's goodness without contributing
to it. Sometimes they even work to undermine it or act openly against
it. Not so the Jews of Europe. They tried to be more German than the
Germans, more French than the French. Thousands of Jews died as soldiers
in the wars between the empires. They made contributions in science,
culture, commerce, law and politics. But none of this helped when crisis
struck. Once again Jews were marked with the yellow badge, and even
those whose ancestors had assimilated three generations before were
forced to wear it.
The
Zionist movement was a ripe fruit that fell into the hands of thousands
of young people who had left the Egypt of their day, the Jewish shtetl
and had no desire to assimilate. They wanted only to return to the Land
of Israel. Now the Promised Land became an actual destination, and the
return to Zion a practical political plan.
3.
What is the founding myth that the West kept before its eyes for two
millennia? What did they see in the streets, on signs, in books, in
churches, in the symbols of their governments? What was it that
Westerners saw from birth to death? A crucified Jew.
With
the advent of the Haskalah, and all the more so that of Zionism, the
Jews sought for the first time in centuries to leave the role
Christianity had prescribed for them -- to serve as a living example of
the truth of the Christian faith and as human fodder for the
re-enactment of the crucifixion, through the terrible violence used
against them -- and re-enter history. The Jews came down from the cross
and sought to live among those who had seen them, up to that time,
through the founding myth of the crucified Jew. As we saw in the
previous century, the attempt failed, ending in unprecedented disaster.
With
Zionism -- the completion of the process of coming down from the cross
-- the Jewish people's future changed. Jesus came down from the cross,
wrapped himself in his prayer shawl and went back to being a Jew from
the Galilee, leaving his empty image behind in Europe. The establishment
of the State of Israel was a profound disruption of Christian Europe's
founding myth. As if it were not enough that Jesus came down from the
cross, he also went back to his ancient homeland and took up arms to
keep from being crucified again. Even if the power of religion had
waned, the myths through which it shaped the culture of the European
nations had not. They remained the basis of thought and action, and they
are the basis of the current anti-Semitic and anti-Israel acts such as
the boycott against us, the efforts to delegitimize us and the attempt
to put blame parallel to that of the Holocaust upon us.
The
fight against our possession of those parts of Israel that are the most
important to our identity as an ancient nation is a fight against the
return to Zion. It is a struggle against the normalization of the Jew
and attempt to "clean up" -- to put the Jew back on the cross so as to
return to the old order. From this perspective, the Palestinians are the
spearhead of the global fight of those who oppose the return to Zion.
From such a profound perspective, the recent agreement in Geneva can
also be seen as sacrificing the Jews for peace and quiet.
But
even as the Europeans think they are getting peace and quiet, they are
on the verge of a crisis. A mighty force has implanted itself in Europe
-- tens of millions of non-Christians unwilling to adopt Western
culture. In an act of historical irony, Europe expelled the Jews and
Muslims came instead. Now, Europe stands helpless. The institution of
political correctness has left it powerless and has paralyzed the West's
early-warning system there. The decline of the West that Oswald
Spengler wrote about in the 1920s is in full force. Once the West has
declined and fallen, Spengler wrote then, the fellah waits to take over.
But
for Israel, all is not lost. The West, too, has a mighty force -- tens
of millions of people who understand that the danger they face affects
not only the Jews, but also their very existence as a civilization. In
this fight, Israel serves as a front-line post against the collapse of
the West. Non-acceptance of the calls for boycott and refusal to wear
the new badge of shame are moral imperatives for every decent human
being. The dispute over the Land of Israel has nothing to do with
territory. If it did, we would have resolved the conflict long ago. This
is a fight over identity. The return to Zion is not our hope only; it
is the hope of the entire free world.
Guest Comment:
Boycotting
Israel has deep meaning to the survival of Western civilization. So for Israel, being hammered from all sided, all is not
lost. The West, too, has a mighty force -- tens of millions of people who
understand that the danger they face affects not only the Jews, but also their
very existence as a civilization. In this fight, Israel serves as a front-line
post against the collapse of the West. Not accepting and not complying with the
calls for boycott and the refusal to wear this new badge of shame are moral
imperatives for every decent human being. The dispute over the Land of Israel
has nothing to do with territory. If it did, Israel would have resolved the
conflict long ago. This is a fight over identity and genetic hate for Jews. The
return to Zion is not the Jewish nation's hope only; it is the hope of the
entire free world.
לחרם על ישראל יש משמעות עמוקה להישרדותה של הציביליזציה המערבית. אז לישראל, שהולמים
בה מכל צדדים, לא הכל אבוד. למערב, גם לו יש כוח אדיר - עשרות מיליוני אנשים
שמבינים שהסכנה שעומדת בפניהם משפיעה לא רק על היהודים, אלא על עצם קיומם כציביליזציה.
במאבק הזה, ישראל משמשת כעמדה קדמית נגד קריסתו של המערב. לא לקבל ולא להענות לקריאות
לחרם והסירוב ללבוש את תג הבשוה החדש הזה הם ציוויים מוסריים לכל אדם הגון. המחלוקת
על ארץ ישראל אין לה כל קשר לשטח. אם כן, ישראל הייתה פותרת את הסכסוך לפני זמן
רב. זהו מאבק על זהות ושנאה גנטית ליהודים. השיבה לציון היא לא תקוותו של העם היהודי
בלבד; היא תקוותו של כל העולם החופשי כולו.
Nurit Greenger
No comments:
Post a Comment