Small flames: a response

Jonny Steinberg wrote a one-sided and misleading article in Business Day 17 July headed "Small flames of empathy in a wind of subjugation" (http://www.monitoringsa.com/PDFS/2008_07_17_326926.pdf). David Saks responded with an effective letter on 18 July and I have just submitted a letter of my own, reproduced below. It only scratches the surface of the issues raised in Steinberg's article but it is the best one can do under the circumstances.

"Jonny Steinberg’s verbal brilliance obscures the intellectual and ethical poverty of his piece in Business Day, 17 July (Small flames of empathy in a wind of subjugation). Does he imagine that only his small band of self-styled progressives and activists are capable of feeling empathy or that the ordinary Israeli kid, compelled to police the West Bank, enjoys the dirty work of survival?

Steinberg assures us that he was “moderately well informed” before leaving on his deliberately selective tour of the West Bank/Israel but where is that is revealed in his writing. Where, for instance, does he ask why it was necessary for the Israelis to go to the extraordinary expense and trouble of creating a “vein-like network of roads” for the exclusive use of the settlers, whereas Israeli Arabs are free to travel where they like within Israel?

If he had enquired, he would have discovered that it was because the young Palestinian boys with “bullet belts slung over their shoulders” had murdered over a 1000 Israelis in the early years of the Intifada, and that Jewish settlers in the West Bank would suffer a similar fate without the roads, checkpoints and barriers.

Ah, says Steinberg (and his clones) at this point: “if the Israelis simply vacated the West Bank this “subjugation” would not be necessary. The hate, systematically incalcated into the minds of Palestinian and many Arab and Muslim children of the region, would dissipate and peace would descend on the Middle East”.

Would that were true. The Israelis tried to leave in 1999/2000 when the West Bank had been prospering economically, growing by leaps and bounds demographically and with its health and mortality figures showing the benefits of cooperation and relative peace. The answer was the Intifada and its consequences.

They cannot leave because Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran, and others less overtly, have made it clear that any “retreat” on the part of Israel is but a step on the road to total “liberation”. Or does Steinberg’s information conveniently end before he reaches this point in the narrative?

Steinberg’s perspective is revealed in his last paragraph where Israelis are implicitly enjoined to nurture the “little bridges being built”, not simply out of a common humanity, but because when American dominance happily ends they may need the supposed goodwill of their enemies.

Jews have suffered the tenderness of strangers for more than 2000 years of statelessness, which is precisely the reason why Israel was created. Steinberg may wish to reflect further on this while he enjoys the hospitality of the City University of New York."

Mike Berger

Checkpoints and dire necessity

The Israel Policy Forum is a leftwing, pro-Zionist organisation based in Washington DC. In a recent post (http://www.ipforum.org/Printer.cfm?Rid=2587) they express their concern over redundant checkpoints on the West Bank, which no longer serve a useful purpose but magnify the humiliation and resentments of Palestinians living there.

We need not suppose deliberate ill-will on the part of the IDF to understand that bureaucratic inertia and stupidity can allow this sort of thing to happen. The remedy is in the hands of Israelis primarily, who must insist that "security" or "inertia" is not used to justify unnecessary brutality and unethical behaviour. We in the diaspora, who do not face the 3 year army stint and other demands carried by Israelis, must bear this in mind when criticising Israeli actions.

At the same time, the diaspora is part of the global Jewish nation which Israel needs as much as it needs Israel. Hence, as committed world citizens of Israel, we also have a right and obligation to express our views, especially on matters relating to Israel's ethical and security position. We hope that these views will be conveyed by the Israeli Embassy to Israel and that they will support those Israeli citizens who wish to ensure that Israel lives up to to its own best ideals.

To get some idea of the potential existential threats facing Israel see http://www.shalem.org.il/print-article/?aid=335.

Both sites in this post can be reached by copying the addresses in blue and pasting into the address window of your browser.

Mike Berger