Jim W.

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Uri Avnery The Deep Rift

By Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor (http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/dean/) on July 24, 2016

Israel has converged into one large rift

by Uri Avnery, and Gush Shalom, Tel Aviv
[ Editors Note: My my, Uri digs down into the bedrock of the Zionist
Tower of Babel, a people divided by religion, culture and ethnicity who
generally only like their own kind, but are presented as the worlds home
for Jews. Its not true of course. Israeli Jews would prefer the Diaspora
send money, maybe visit from time to time, and then go home.
New people are always a pain in the behind, wanting to tell the oldsters
what they have been doing wrong and how to fix the country. Not many
are interested in doing that in Israel running it yes, but fixing it no.
Uri and his Gush Shalom people certainly would fix it by making

Uri has come a long way from

his days as a messenger for the
Irgun

peace with the Arabs and redirecting the ghastly, never-ending

state of war situation into building a prosperous peacetime one. So far that has remained a
mirage, and more so for the Palestinian natives and the old time pre-Zionist Orthodox Jews.

But nobody can criticize Israel and its disparate people better than Uri, because he knows them inside an
out. This piece was great fun to read. Enjoy, as I surely did Jim W. Dean
(http://www.veteranstoday.com/sta-writers/) ]
_____________
First published July 23, 2016 (http://zope.gushshalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1469209537/)
The State of Israel was still young, when two famous comedians produced a short act. Two Arabs
stand on the seashore and curse a boat carrying new Jewish immigrants.
Next, two of the new immigrants stand on the seashore and curse a boat carrying new immigrants from
Poland. Next, two immigrants from Poland stand on the seashore and curse a boat carrying new immigrants
from Germany. Next, two immigrants from Germany stand on the seashore and curse a boat carrying new

immigrants from North Africa. And so on

Perhaps this is the story of all immigration countries, like the US,
Australia, Canada et al. But in Israel, with a nationalist ideology which
includes all Jews (and excludes all others) this is a bit odd.
The new Jewish community (called the Yishuv) in what was then
Turkish Palestine was founded mainly by immigrants from Russia.

Uri getting gassed by the militant

Zionists Jews gas Jews in Israel.

Before that, there was a small Jewish community consisting of ultraOrthodox Jews from Eastern Europe and another small community of
Sephardic Jews. These were descendants of Jews evicted from Spai
(Sepharad in Hebrew) in the early 15th century. Many of them were
quite rich, since they owned the only valuable property in the country:

land.
It was the Russian immigration before World War I that shaped the Yishuv for generations. A large part of
Poland belonged at that time to Russia, and was included in the Russian immigration wave. One of these, a
young man called David Green, changed his name to Ben-Gurion.

In the 1920s, a wave of Jews from the newly independent and anti-Semitic Poland filled the ranks of the Yishu

When my family came from Germany to Palestine in 1933 it was this Russian-Polish community
they found here. The Germans were treated with contempt by the old-timers, who called them
Jeckes no one knows for sure where that came from and were routinely cheated.
This was quite a reversal of roles: in Germany it was
the local Jews who treated the less-civilized immigrants
from Poland and Russia Ost-Juden with contempt.

The old Palestine is remembered by few

All this did not concern us, the children of that era. We did not want to be immigrants, and not German, Poles
or Russians. We belonged to a new nation coming into being in this country. We spoke Hebrew, a very vivid
language woken from the dead. We wanted to be farmers, pioneers.
We created a new ideal type, local, indigenous. He was nicknamed Sabra, the local cactus plant, prickly
outside, sweet inside. This plant could be seen all over the country, though originally it was imported from
Mexico.

Our idea was to get rid of all the attributes of the different Jewish communities and throw everybody into
the melting pot, from which they would emerge as new-born Hebrews, a new race deeply rooted in the soil of
this country.

On our 18th birthday we rushed to the British District Officer in order to change our foreign names into Hebrew
ones. Who wants to go through life with a German or Russian name?

By the end of the 1930s, the new terminology unconsciously adopted by everybody made a cle
distinction between Jewish and Hebrew. We dreamed of a Hebrew State, joined the Hebrew
underground and spoke about Hebrew agriculture, Hebrew industry and the future Hebrew
army. Jews were abroad: the Jewish Diaspora (generally called the Jewish Exile), the Jewish
religion, the Jewish tradition.

This usage was natural or self-evident. We were bus

building something completely new. We thought about th
Diaspora Jews with condescension. Some tiny groups
even preached a complete break with the Jews abroad and their history.
AIPAC is the Diaspora Jews, important only for how
they can serve Israel

But the Sabras had no patience with all this ideological nonsense. Even the word Zionism became a synony
for nonsense dont talk Zionism meant stop uttering highfaluting phrases.
We were busily, and quite consciously, creating a new Hebrew culture poetry, literature, dance, painting,
theater, journalism, reflecting our new reality in our new homeland.

Then came the Holocaust. When its full monstrosity became undeniable, in 1944, a wave of remorse swept th
Yishuv. But by then we were already busy with creating the state in the making.

When the State of Israel was officially declared, in the middle of the 1948 war, we were about 650,000 Jews in
the country. Within a few years, we brought in hundreds of thousands, then millions, of new immigrants.
From where? A few hundred thousand were brought from the camps in Europe, where the pathetic remnants
the Holocaust were waiting. But the great majority came from Islamic countries, from Morocco to Iran.

For us, they were all the same. Immigrants to be thrown into the melting pot, to become wonderful people like
us.

Almost no one paid attention to the huge change in the demographic composition of the Jewis
people caused by the Holocaust. Before, Oriental Jews were a small minority among the Jews.
After, they were a larger part by far. This was bound to change their consciousness.
A very few old-timers (myself included) warned that a new reality
had to be faced. That the ideals imported from Europe did not really suit
the Oriental immigrants. People like Ben-Gurion and his colleagues were
unperturbed. They were sure that things would sort themselves out by
themselves. Hadnt they always done so before?
Well, they didnt. The first generation of new immigrants from the East
(actually, Morocco is far to the west of us) was busy just making a living.
They also venerated Ben-Gurion. But the second generation started to
ask questions. The third is now in full rebellion.
The Zionist perception that all Jews are the same, with slight differences
of language and skin color, is anachronistic. The oriental Jews show
no inclination to being thrown into any melting pot. They are different in
almost all respects.
The melting pot is broken. Oriental Jews (often falsely called Sephardis)
are proud of their heritage. They rebel against European superiority.

Uri 1948 war. It gave him his

foundation for running for the Knesset
becoming its youngest member

This fight now dominates Israeli life. No area of life is exempt from
it. It is social, economic, cultural, political often hidden behind a different facade, but there all the time.

This is a social problem. Since most Europeans had time to attain some economic status before the arrival of
the Orientals, they are as a rule more affluent, They also are installed in most key economic positions. The
Orientals feel exploited, discriminated against, lower class.

Orientals are as a rule proud of being much more emotional, especially about national aairs.
They accuse the Ashkenazim (from an old, disused Hebrew name for Germany) of being coldblooded, less patriotic. Those who had changed their names were determined to revert to their
old Moroccan or Iraqi ones. Their adopted Hebrew names became suddenly symbols of
Ashkenazi tyranny.

They also have a very different attitude towards religion. Inhabitants of Muslim countries are generally modestly
religious, neither atheists nor fanatics. Jews from Islamic countries are the same. Few are very religious, but
even fewer would call themselves secular.

Ashkenazim are quite different. True, the ultra-Orthodox, anti-Zionist haredim (those who are afraid of God)
are mostly Ashkenazim, as are the Religious Zionists who come close to fascism. But the large majority of
Ashkenazim are secular, a polite way of saying atheist. Almost all the founders of Zionism were radical
atheists. Now the national-religious community in the country is rapidly gaining ground.

The tragedy of present-day Israel is not that there are so many divisions,
but that they all converge in one large rift.
The grandson of an immigrant from Morocco probably belongs to a lower social and economic class, is
moderately religious, and is a radical nationalist. That means that he is bitter against the old elites (who are
mostly Ashkenazi) , against the secular culture, against the leftists (who for him are all degenerate
Ashkenazim).
He is also a fan of certain Arab-hating football teams and a devotee of oriental music a genre which is
neither quite Arab nor quite Greek, but as remote from classical music as Teheran is from Vienna.
We have a country started by Atheists who claim God
gave them the land

This means, in political terms, that this person almost

certainly votes for Likud, irrespective of what the Likud
does.

Ahkenzis can point out to him that the Likud conducts a policy that is the very opposite of his vital interests, a
neo-liberal, anti-social policy that favors the very rich. He will not listen. He is bound to the Likud by a thousan
bonds of sentiment and tradition.
The same is true for the other side. The Left (what is left of it) will remain the party of the Ashkenazim, as will
Meretz. Their members constitute the old Elite, though they may depend on social security.

They will look down on the religious of all hues, listen to Beethoven (or pretend to), pay lip service to the twostate solution and curse Netanyahu who, of course, is as Ashkenazi as can be.
The present rift between Europeans and Orientals is not the only one, because when the melting pot came
crashing down, every part of Israeli society became autonomous.

The Arab sector of Israel more than 20% is practically separate. Arab citizens are represented in the
Knesset, but this week the Knesset adopted a law that allows 90 (out of 120) members of the Knesset to expe
any member. This is a direct threat to the deputies of the united Arab party, which now numbers 13 members.

The new immigrants from Russia (new means since 1989) live a life of their own, proud of the
Russian culture, looking down on us primitives, despising religion, hating socialists of any hue
and more than anyone else hating Arabs with all their hearts. They have their own ultranationalist party, led by Ivet Lieberman.
And then there are the ultra-Orthodox, who do not belong, who hate
Zionism and live in a world of their own, almost completely cut off.

Lieberman represents the fiercely Arabhating Russian pretend-a-Jews

For them the religious-Zionists are non-believers, condemned to

roast in hell.

This is the array, more or less. All sectors used to be united by the army (except the Arabs and the Orthodox)
which was a sacred institution until an Oriental soldier called Elor Azarya saw a wounded Arab attacker lying
on the ground and shot him point-blank in the head.
For the mass of Orientals, he is a national hero. For the army command and the mass of Europeans he is an
abomination. The split is becoming an abyss.
What can unite Israel now? Well, a good war, for example.
_________________

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