Source: Bruce's MidEast Soundbites

Why a Return of Palestinian refugees to Israel will never happen and should never happen

By Philip Mendes

Last month a small group of Australian Jews signed a petition coordinated by anti-Israel extremists Antony Loewenstein and Ned Curthoys rejecting their right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s Law of Return, and instead demanding that Israel accept the return of “seven million Palestinian refugees from around the world”. This argument that Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war are entitled to return to their former homes and land inside Israel is a staple diet of the pro-Palestinian lobby including the vocal group, Australians for Palestine, with which the petition convenors are associated.

There are, however, a number of overwhelming historical and contemporary arguments against such a return. The exodus of the 600-700,000 Palestinians occurred in the context of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Three groups contributed to this tragedy: the Palestinian Arab leadership who attempted to destroy the Jewish State of Israel at birth; the Arab States who invaded Israel in an attempt to assist the Palestinians; and Israel which expelled many of the Palestinians for fear that they would constitute a hostile ‘fifth column’ that would undermine their defence of their borders.

On the cessation of hostilities in December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 194, which has often been cited by the pro-Palestinian lobby as supporting an unconditional return of the Palestinian refugees. In fact, the resolution was clearly conditional, and formally linked to acceptance of the earlier UN partition resolution creating both Jewish and Arab states in Palestine, and a negotiated peace. The resolution stated that ‘the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return’.

In practice, both the Palestinian leaders and the Arab governments initially rejected the resolution precisely because it implied recognition of Israel’s legitimacy. The anti-war journalist Martha Gellhorn undertook a series of interviews with Palestinian refugees, published in the Atlantic Monthly in October 1961, which suggested that most wanted revenge, rather than to live in peace with the Israelis.

Prior to the 1967 Six Day War, Palestinian right of return rhetoric was used to deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and so provide a rationale for the Arab refusal to recognize the State of Israel. However, following the 1967 war, the international debate shifted from questions about the legitimacy of Israel within the Green Line borders to questions about the legitimacy of a Palestinian State in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. The subsequent political contest for or against a two-state solution explicitly assumed that any resolution of the Palestinian refugee tragedy would be addressed within the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. There could be two states or there could be a Palestinian right of return, but there could not be both. It was instructive that the Oslo Peace Accord signed by Israel and the PLO in 1993 did not mention Resolution 194.

Palestinian demands for a right of return of the 1948 refugees were, however, formally revived during the ill-fated Camp David negotiations of July 2000. The Palestinian delegation argued for the right of every Palestinian refugee to return home in accordance with UN Resolution 194. They also called for an immediate timetable for the return of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon to the Galilee.

In response, the Israelis denied any historical or moral responsibility for the Palestinian refugee exodus, and refused to recognize any right of return. This anti-right of return position is shared by the entire Israeli political spectrum including prominent peace activists such as Amos Oz, David Grossman, and A.B.Yehushua. They believe (as do many diaspora Jews including the author) that the Palestinians are entitled to at least partial compensation for the injustice of 1948 by securing a sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip alongside Israel. But only a tiny handful of Israelis would share the views of Loewenstein and Curthoys that the rights of Palestinian refugees can only be achieved by suppressing the rights of Israeli Jews.

The prominent revisionist historian Benny Morris, who had vigorously challenged the official Israeli view that the Palestinians had left voluntarily at the behest of Arab leaders in 1948, succinctly argued in an interview with the left-wing Tikkun Magazine in March 2001 that any right of return would lead to the ‘physical destruction’ of Israel. According to Morris, ‘A country divided between Israelis on the one hand and on the other Palestinians who had returned and were filled with anger not only at the way they had been treated in the past but also at not finding their villages or homes available – that country would quickly become ungovernable. Each individual Jew living in the country would be facing a real physical danger’.

Morris’ comments emphasize that any large-scale return of 1948 Palestinian refugees to Israel would be likely to bring civil war and enormous bloodshed rather than Israeli-Palestinian peace and reconciliation. The only sane and dignified solution to the refugee tragedy is the resettlement of all Palestinian refugees with compensation as either full citizens in the neighbouring Arab countries in which most have lived for over 60 years, or alternatively as citizens of a new Palestinian state to be established alongside Israel in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Photo source: Independent Jewish Voices Canada

By Philip Mendes

As discussed in my previous article on this website, it would appear on the surface that anti-Zionism has become a growing and significant phenomenon in Jewish life. However, in reality, anti-Zionists remain a tiny, marginal and generally detested group within Jewish society.

A key strategy used by Jewish anti-Zionists is to form coalitions with other Jews, who are critical of Israeli policies but do not necessarily share their anti-Zionism, in order to expand their potential support base. For example, the formation of the Independent Jewish Voices group in the UK, which includes prominent anti-Zionists in its Steering Group, attracted considerable attention. But the IJV is not formally an anti-Zionist group.

The founding statement of the IJV could easily have been written by non-Zionists and/or Left Zionist supporters of the mainstream Israeli peace movement. The statement urged a universal upholding of human rights in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, an equal concern to achieve peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians, a rejection of racism directed against Jews or Arabs or Muslims, an open and free debate on Israeli policies, and a negotiated peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

Arguably just as important was what the statement did not say. It did not articulate the anti-Zionist view that Israel was a racist and colonialist state that should be destroyed. Nor did it argue that only Palestinian and not Israeli national and human rights should be respected.

Nevertheless, the IJV did emphasize the importance of prioritizing universalism over what it defined as a narrow Jewish ethnocentrism, arguing that its views would “reclaim the tradition of Jewish support for universal freedoms, human rights and social justice”. But noticeably the IJV did not explain via any religious or cultural terms the specifically Jewish basis of these universal values.

The Australian debate has largely mirrored the UK debate. The Independent Australian Jewish Voices (IAJV) group was formed in February 2007 as a virtual carbon copy of the IJV.  However, the group does not formally exist as an organization. It has no constitution, no membership list, no established procedures for deciding organizational views or strategies, no official policy positions, and no elected leadership. Nevertheless, most of the media construct IAJV as a traditional political group with recognized spokespersons.

The IAJV has pursued a similar strategy to the British IJV of forming broader coalitions with more moderate critics of Israel. The founding statement of the IAJV, for example, which was signed by over 500 Australian Jews, condemned violence by both sides, and urged recognition of the legitimate national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians including Israel’s right to exist and the Palestinians’ right to a homeland.

The statement also specifically defended the right of Jews to criticize Israeli actions without being labeled as disloyal or self-hating Jews by Jewish establishment organizations. It advocated the protection of universal human rights for all groups in the Middle East, and condemned racism against Jews and all minority groups. Noticeably, the statement did not incorporate any anti-Zionist statements calling for Israel’s destruction, but nor did it make reference to any specific Jewish values or beliefs.

The IAJV also issued a statement during the January 2009 Gaza conflict which was signed by over 200 Australian Jews. This statement criticized the Israeli attack on Gaza as disproportionate both in terms of the firepower used and the resulting civilian casualties, and also condemned the associated Israeli blockade.

However, the statement also acknowledged Israel’s right to protect its civilians from rocket attacks, and urged an end to attacks on civilians by both Israelis and Palestinians. The statement did not include any anti-Zionist rhetoric challenging Israel’s existence, but nor did it suggest any specifically Jewish rationale for the views expressed.

On another occasion, however, the convenors of IAJV revealed their true colours when they canvassed support from the signatories of their founding statement for a pro-Palestinian advertisement in The Australian which implicitly called for the destruction of Israel. This action provoked a backlash from other left-wing Jews. For example, the non-Zionist Australian Jewish Democratic Society, which supports Israel’s existence but vigorously opposes the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, dissociated itself from the IAJV and the advertisement, citing its extreme inflammatory and one-sided language.

A number of the IAJV convenors formally reject Israel’s existence. Antony Loewenstein calls himself an anti-Zionist Jew who advocates Israel’s transformation into a bi-national state. Sara Dowse, who serves as editor of IAJV’s opinion and letters page, uses the time warp argument. She acknowledges that Jews have a right to live in the biblical land of Israel, but then adds that there is no need for a “Jewish state in that land”. Dowse doesn’t seem to be aware that Israel has already existed for 61 years. Elsewhere, she recommends that Israel be transformed from a specifically Jewish state into a homeland where some Jews can continue to live.

Like their overseas counterparts, Australian Jewish anti-Zionists and their supporters also tend to exaggerate their level of support.  For example, ABC journalist Gary Bryson claimed that “Both within Israel and throughout the Diaspora, more and more Jews are demonstrating their concern about what’s being done in their name in Israel and Palestine”. Yet Bryson made no distinction between the small group of six mainly anti-Zionist Jews he interviewed and the much larger number of Jews who are critical of Israeli policies. He also failed to provide any verifiable evidence to support his assertion.

One of his interviewees, John Docker, similarly claimed that “increasingly Jews around the world… are beginning to think that Zionism in Israel is a terrible mistake”. Docker relied solely on anecdotal communications for this assertion. Loewenstein argues that an increasing number of anti-Zionist Jews around the world are challenging Israel’s actions, but provides no estimate of their actual numbers.

Dr Philip Mendes is the co-editor of Jews and Australian Politics, Sussex Academic Press, 2004. This article is an edited version of a much longer paper he presented to the Limmud Oz conference in Sydney on 8 June, 2009.

By Anthony Frosh

In the current political discourse of the Jewish Diaspora, we often see the Zionist camp pitted against the anti-Zionist camp.  This dyad is of course a gross reduction of the diversity of opinion on (and relationship with) Israel to be found within our community.

For starters, amongst the Zionists there is an enormous range of opinion and attitude.  For example, there are those whose rule of thumb is to support the policies of the democratically elected Israeli government (regardless of which party is in power), and there are those who are willing to be critical of the government, whether their criticism comes from the right or (more often than not) from the left.  There may well be diversity of political opinion amongst the anti-Zionist camp as well, although I am less aware of it. (Editor’s note: Perhaps someone out there would like to write an article on this).

However, there is one position (or non-position, as it may better be described) that is rarely acknowledged.  And this is what I like to call the non-Zionist position.

There is a huge difference between anti-Zionism and non-Zionism.  Allow me to illustrate with a description of some genuine non-Zionist Jews that I know.  They celebrate the Shabbat, they celebrate the festivals, and they participate in Jewish life-cycle events, but they do not concern themselves with Israel or Middle-East politics.  Typically, they do not have any interest in geo-politics.  They frequently have not even visited Israel, and do not send their children to youth movements or Israel programs.   However, their reasons for not visiting Israel have nothing to do with a boycott; rather, it is simply disinterest.  In fact, it is disinterest that most characterizes their relationship with Israel, or lack thereof.   They don’t kvell over Israel’s successes, but they also do not feel shame, nor defensiveness, about Israel’s perceived failures.

Most importantly, while they might be disinterested in Israel, they are probably even more disinterested in Palestinians, complaints by anti-Israel NGOs, and the whole boycott Israel movement.  Theirs is a Jewish identity that predates modern Zionism, and hence also has nothing to do with anti-Zionism.  Despite the fact I myself fairly strongly identify with Israel and Zionism, I have no problem at all with the true non-Zionist position.  I cannot say the same for the anti-Zionist position.

For whatever reason (and this is somewhat of a side-point), almost all the genuine non-Zionists I know are not of Ashkenazic background.  This could be due to random chance or some other selection bias, but I suspect that there is something that makes Jews of Ashkenazi background more likely to take on a Zionist or anti-Zionist position.  Perhaps it is because the Occidental diaspora was typically a more foreign and hostile land to the Jewish people than the Oriental diaspora, at least prior to the development of Arab nationalism and later Islamic fundamentalism well into the 20^th century.  This reality, as well as the fact that the nation-state idea grew out of Europe, is why modern Zionism developed initially out of the European capitals, and not Iraq, Persia, Morocco, Egypt, or Syria etc.

Acknowledging that not all Australian Jews fall into Zionist or anti-Zionist camps would better represent the true diversity of the community. In addition, it suggests that not all Jewish organizations need to take a position on Zionism.

Source: https://pacificaforum.org/wildcat/jagainstz.html

by Philip Mendes

In the last five years, close to ten major books have been published on Jewish anti-Zionists and other Jewish critics of Israel. Specific Jewish groups promoting one-sided critiques of Israel such as the Independent Australian Jewish Voices have been established in many Western countries.

Yet in reality, anti-Zionists remain a tiny, marginal and generally detested group within Jewish society. There is no serious pro or anti-Zionism debate within most Jewish communities. The only debate occurs within the minority of Jewish groups who identify with the ideological Left, and even there anti-Zionists arguably constitute a small minority. (I deliberately omit here the small number of ultra-orthodox Jews who adhere to anti-Zionist views. Their unique perspective necessarily belongs in a separate analysis.)

Jewish anti-Zionism is not a new phenomenon, but rather fits clearly into a long-term political tradition whereby some far left-wing groups persuade Jewish members to exploit their own religious and cultural origins in order to vilify their own people. There were Jews who defended the 1929 pogroms in Palestine, and there were Jews who endorsed Stalin’s anti-Jewish campaigns in the early 1950s. Today there are Jews who support the most extreme Palestinian political demands against the Jewish state of Israel.

I distinguish between Jewish anti-Zionists and other Jews who are critical of Israeli policies but nevertheless support Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state. I define contemporary anti-Zionism as a view which regards Israel as a racist and colonialist state which should be eliminated in favor of an Arab state of Greater Palestine – sometimes disingenuously called a secular state – in which Israeli Jews would continue to exist as at best a tolerated religious minority.

Jewish anti-Zionists reject any notion of ethnic or religious solidarity with Israeli Jews whom they regard as inherently evil oppressors. Rather, their sympathies and loyalties lie with the Palestinians whom they construct as defenseless victims.

Prior to the Holocaust, Zionism existed as a minority movement throughout most of the Jewish world. It has been estimated that even in Poland, for example, only 25-30% of Jews supported Zionism during the two inter-war decades. Many Jews appear to have regarded Zionism as an extremist movement with utopian, if not politically dangerous, objectives. Ideological opposition to Zionism was particularly strong from three sources: Orthodox Jews, socialists including particularly Bundists and reform and assimilated Jews.

However, following the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel, Jewish opposition to Zionism largely vanished. Religious Jews gradually came to see Zionism as a fulfillment, rather than contravention, of Jewish religious destiny. Many Bundists and socialists remained critical of Zionism’s negation of the Jewish Diaspora, but in practice offered strong support for the State of Israel.

Today, many Jewish leaders argue that Diaspora Jews should unite in support of Israeli policies. This unified support is seen as enhancing Israel’s international standing. Conversely, Diaspora Jewish criticism of Israel is depicted as dividing the Jewish people, and giving heart to those who wish to harm the State of Israel. This attitude is dominant in English-speaking Jewish communities, and has been reflected in constant attempts to censor or silence the minority of Jews who do not unconditionally support Israel.

However, recent studies suggest a more fluid and diverse Jewish identity amongst the younger generation. There is some evidence that whilst younger Jews do assume a continuing close relationship with Israel, they may differ from their parents in that some are more willing to be critical of Israeli policies in the same way that they are critical of specific Australian government policies.

In contrast, Jewish anti-Zionists reject any intrinsic connection between Jews and Israel, and seem to apply a virtual time warp framework whereby the 1947-48 debate about whether or not to create Israel is yet to be resolved. Additionally, their pride in prioritizing universal values over tribal loyalty seems to involve adopting extreme political positions that regard most Jews as the enemy.

Conservative Jewish commentators, who often fail to distinguish Jewish anti-Zionists from those Jews who are critical of specific Israeli policies, have often argued that Jewish critics of Israel are self-hating Jews. Self-hatred is an alleged psychological condition which involves members of despised low-status racial, religious or sexual minority groups identifying with the values and prejudices of the majority group and internalizing their stereotypes.

Significant Jewish self-hatred may have existed in particular historical and political contexts when Jews seeking to assimilate into modern societies were confronted with demands to abandon any behavioural characteristics that distinguished them from the majority culture. However, it is hard to make an empirical case for Jewish self-hatred today given the absence of significant anti-Semitism in most Western societies.

There is little if any benefit to be gained today by individual Jews who express dislike or distaste for other Jews. Moreover, they are likely to earn almost universal detestation from their fellow Jews. In contrast, I would argue that any serious analysis of Jewish anti-Zionists and their beliefs needs to concentrate on their political rather than Jewish or psychological motivations.

Most Jewish anti-Zionists appear to propose two key reasons for rejecting Zionism and Israel. One is that they view Jews as only a religious rather than ethnic or national group, and they reject states based on religion as racist, undemocratic, and contrary to the liberal values of the Enlightenment. However, this argument is wishful thinking since it erroneously assumes that Jews are not a nation. In fact, most Jews today perceive themselves to be a nation who are just as entitled as any other group to national self-determination.

This argument also appears to confuse ethnicity and nationalism with race and racism. Most Jews would arguably define themselves as part of a Jewish people with common cultural characteristics and beliefs. However, this Jewish people or nation incorporates enormous variation in terms of language, religious beliefs, and racial origins. There are Ashkenasi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and so on. The common factor is not religion per se given that an increasing number of Jews are secular, but rather shared beliefs, values and identity. Overwhelmingly, this includes a close identification with Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.

A second argument from Jewish anti-Zionists is that universal values and human rights should always take priority over what they label as the narrow tribal loyalty associated with Jewish support for Israel. This is, however, a very partial application of universal rights. Most Jewish anti-Zionists do not seek to protect the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians, but are only concerned with defending Palestinian rights.

In addition, few if any Jewish anti-Zionists offer positive reasons for publicly claiming a Jewish identity, and most appear to have little or no interest in or knowledge of Jewish history, values and culture. They also deny any sense of solidarity with other Jews, and present no positive vision for restructuring Jewish communal activities. Nor do they identify with any poor or disadvantaged groups within Jewish society. Their rejection of Zionism and Israel appears to be a purely negative emotion.

There is also little evidence of any existing commitment to Jewish communal life. A number of other UK Jewish leftists have pointed out in relation to Independent Jewish Voices, for example, that most of their spokespersons have actively distanced themselves from the Jewish collective. I would therefore argue that there is little if anything that is authentically “Jewish” about their anti-Zionism unless they also demonstrate a significant positive commitment to Jewish life. In contrast, many Jewish Left groups, which are critical of Israeli policies but still support Israel’s existence, seem far more genuine when they align their criticism of Israeli policies with specific Jewish religious and spiritual values and morality.

In offering this criticism, I am not ruling out the possibility of an authentic Jewish anti-Zionist group based on traditional Bundist principles. Bundist groups still exist today in a number of countries based on a solid commitment to Jewish culture and ethnicity in the Diaspora as a key component of their identity. These groups have largely come to terms with the centrality of Israel to contemporary Jewish life, but still maintain their distance from Zionist-inclined activities. However, their critique of Zionism (which they mostly call a non-Zionist rather than anti-Zionist perspective) forms an insignificant component of their overall Jewish activities. In contrast, most Jewish anti-Zionists today seem obsessed with attacking Zionism at the expense of any positive Jewish identification.

In the past, Jewish anti-Zionists were largely dismissed by the political mainstream as eccentric freak shows at best, and self-hating Jews as worst. However, they have arguably achieved greater traction in recent years for three reasons. One is their smart use of the internet to spuriously imply the existence of serious divisions within Jewish communities over Israel. Secondly, they have shrewdly marketed themselves as “the” alternative Jewish voices even though their voices are neither authentic nor representative.

The other factor is that the Jewish debate over Israel has changed. Many younger Jews do not automatically endorse the positions of a particular Israeli Government, and wish instead to debate the merits of particular policies or actions. Yet mainstream Jewish institutions are often reluctant or unwilling to accommodate open debates where the strength of Jewish support for various positions on Israel could actually be tested.

In this limited debate, advocates of two states are sometimes at a relative disadvantage. Their position is complex and based on balancing various competing political tensions and dilemmas. They support both Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself against external violence and terror, and the creation of an independent Palestinian State based on an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

In contrast, Jewish anti-Zionists offer a neat and simplistic analysis based on constructing Israel as evil and the Palestinians as victims, and advocating the end of Israel. This black and white sound-bite, however ill-informed and unconnected to reality, seems to be appealing to some sections of the media.

Dr Philip Mendes is the co-editor of Jews and Australian Politics, Sussex Academic Press, 2004. This article is an edited version of a much longer paper he presented to the Limmud Oz conference in Sydney on 8 June, 2009.

By Anthony Frosh

Malcolm Fraser’s whitewash of Hamas in The Age (August 11^th 2009) is a cheap and desperate attempt to maintain a modest public profile.  Not only is his Hamas advocacy piece poorly written, but it is almost completely lacking in substance.  It demonstrates the fact that Fraser has only the most superficial grasp of the complex issues that plague the Middle East.  So fraught is his article with both misunderstandings and reifications that it is difficult to know where to begin. Let’s go through some of the more absurd paragraphs.

Paragraph 3:  Fraser writes that “Israelis believe that Muslims generally will not accept the fact of Israel’s existence.” Is Fraser not aware that some Israelis are Muslims, or of Israel’s longstanding diplomatic relationship with Turkey? Most Israelis, and certainly Israeli policy-makers, are not so ignorant as to categorise the world’s entire Muslim population as a single entity, even though Fraser evidently is.

Paragraph 5:  Fraser writes that the actions of Israel’s (alleged) nuclear program “promote proliferation and have clearly influenced Iran” (My emphasis). Clearly? It’s not clear to me, and Fraser provides no evidence whatsoever. Even Ahmadinejad is not using this feeble excuse to justify Iran’s nuclear program.

Paragraph 6:  Fraser complains that criticism of Israel often leads to charges of anti-Semitism.  I think the incidence of this is overstated, and to the extent that it is true, this is because criticism of Israel frequently comes from anti-Semites.  Furthermore, Fraser’s complaint is fast becoming the catch-call of the anti-Semite.

Paragraph 8: Fraser writes that “Hamas won a legitimate democratic election.” Here is where Fraser really reveals himself to have a poor grasp of the realities of the conflict. Voting alone does not a democratic election make. Without freedom for people to express themselves or the ability to campaign on a freely chosen political platform, an election can hardly be described as “legitimate” democracy. Fraser sadly diminishes the meaning of the phrase.

I could go on, but we encourage tighter word limits at Galus Australis than they do at The Age, so allow me to jump ahead to some of the juicier bits…

3^rd last paragraph: Fraser writes “If there were agreement on the boundaries of a Palestinian state, Israel would have no problem about recognition.”  I can see it now: wealthy Saudi tourists spending their not-so-hard earned petro-dollars in the fashionable boutiques of Dizengoff St, and lazing on the beaches of Eilat.  And Fraser, like most of the 1967ers, fails to explain why these particular armistice lines are the most appropriate ones to use as final status borders.  Exactly what is so morally superior about these particular boundaries, compared to any of the other boundaries that have existed throughout the last century?

Final two paragraphs: Fraser writes that Israel is the source and inspiration for fundamentalist terrorism, and worse than that, he writes of successive Australian governments being afraid of “the Jewish lobby.” The best turn of phrase that I can think of to describe these two paragraphs is that Fraser has done a Michael Backman. Clearly The Age has learnt nothing from that affair.  I tried to source a comment from the Jewish lobby on this issue, but it seems no such actual entity exists.

Other than an easy way to get attention, I’m not sure why Fraser is writing about Israel, Jews, and Hamas.  I guess he just lacks the courage to write an article on how we should establish formal diplomatic relations with the Bali bombers.

For any readers out there who feel annoyed by Fraser’s article, spare a thought for Jimmy Carter.  I spoke to him on the phone today*, and he was positively irate.

“Malcolm Fraser is pathetic! A 1970s head of government criticising Israel and the Jewish lobby, embracing terrorist groups such as Hamas, all just to get his profile back in the public eye? That’s my routine – tell that old fool to get his own act!”

* Editor’s note: none of the telephone conversations quoted in this article actually took place outside of the author’s imagination.