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The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent Paperback – April 1, 2004
by Roane Carey (Editor), Jonathan Shainin (Editor)
3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
4.0 on Goodreads
44 ratings
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The six-day war's seventh day / Michael Ben-Yair
-- The second half of 1948 / Tanya Reinhart
-- The key to peace: dismantling the matrix of control / Jeff Halper
-- Politicus interruptus / Uri Avnery
-- A betrayal of history / Avi Shlaim
-- A time of occupation / Adi Ophir
-- The champion of violent solutions / Avi Shlaim
-- J'accuse / Baruch Kimmerling
-- Tell the truth, Shimon / Gideon Levy
-- You can continue with the liquidations / Shulamit Aloni
-- A journey to Beit Jala / Yigal Bronner
-- An Israeli in Palestine / Jeff Halper
-- The enemy within / Neve Gordon
-- The war looks different abroad / Aviv Lavie
-- Break the mirror now / Ilan Pappé
-- After Jenin / Yitzhak Laor
-- Saying no to Israel's occupation / Ishai Menuchin
-- Red line, green line, black flag / Yigal Shochat
-- An open letter to Colonel Aviv Kohavi, brigade commander of the Israeli paratroopers / Neve Gordon
-- An open letter to Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Minister of Defense / Sergio Yahni
-- Why? / Assaf Oron
-- Ruling over a hostile population / Shamai Leibowitz
-- The hidden weapons factories / Amira Hass
-- The checkpoints of arrogance / Meron Benvenisti
-- Balata has fallen / Ze'ev Sternhell
-- Are the occupied protecting the occupier? / Amira Hass
-- A queue of bombers / Uri Avnery
-- On the eve of the war / Gideon Levy
-- In ramallah we founded Palestine / Ze'ev Sternhell
-- The people's war / Gideon Levy
-- Letter from Arafat's compound / Neta Golan, Ian Urbina
-- After the outrage and tears / Gila Svirsky
-- What kind of war is this? / Amira Hass
-- Hail, Caesar! / David Grossman
-- Interview with Ami Ayalon / Sylvain Cypel
-- A black flag hangs over the idea of transfer / Tom Segev
-- The turning point / Meron Benvenisti
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The Other Israel is an urgent and passionate intervention by Israeli citizens challenging the continued occupation of Palestinian territory and the failed policies of Ariel Sharon's government.
Against a backdrop of increasing violence on both sides, the book presents a broad range of dissenting voices that articulate practical, legal, and moral objections to the occupation. Written from within the throes of the unfolding tragedy, it includes contributions from journalists, novelists, activists, military reservists, and former government officials.
Needed now more than ever, this book challenges narrow American perceptions of public opinion in Israel, and will act as a catalyst in prompting vital debate about the future of Israel and the path to peace for all citizens of the Middle East.
Contributors include: Shulamit Aloni Uri Avnery Ami Ayalon Meron Benvenisti Michael Ben-Yair Yigal Bronner Neta Golan and Ian Urbina Neve Gordon David Grossman Jeff Halper Amira Hass Baruch Kimmerling Aviv Lavie Shamai Leibowitz Gideon Levy Yitzhak Loar Ishai Menuchin Adi Ophir Assaf Oron Ilan Pappé Tanya Reinhart Avi Shlaim Yigal Shochat Ze'ev Sternhell Gila Svirsky Sergio Yahni
Review
Needed now more than ever, this book challenges narrow American perceptions of public opinion in Israel, and will act as a catalyst in prompting vital debate about the future of Israel and the path to peace for all citizens of the Middle East.
Contributors include: Shulamit Aloni Uri Avnery Ami Ayalon Meron Benvenisti Michael Ben-Yair Yigal Bronner Neta Golan and Ian Urbina Neve Gordon David Grossman Jeff Halper Amira Hass Baruch Kimmerling Aviv Lavie Shamai Leibowitz Gideon Levy Yitzhak Loar Ishai Menuchin Adi Ophir Assaf Oron Ilan Pappé Tanya Reinhart Avi Shlaim Yigal Shochat Ze'ev Sternhell Gila Svirsky Sergio Yahni
Review
"This book proves once again that it is possible and even necessary to be critical of the policies of one's government without being considered a traitor." ―Daniel Barenboim
"These contributions spell out how and why Sharon's policies have disfigured the prospects for peace, while ravaging the economies of both the Occupied Territories and Israel. . . . Their voices have not received enough attention thus far. It is imperative that they do." ―The Washington Post
"A neat volume." ―The Economist
About the Author
Roane Carey is a senior editor at The Nation.
Jonathan Shainin is on the staff of The New Press.
Product details
Publisher : The New Press (April 1, 2004)
Language : English
Paperback : 224 pages
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Joanneva12a
5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars Is Not Enough!
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2003
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"The Other Israel" is truly a gem and will probably be the best read of the year. Not only for the historic perspective given, but also for the way these writers have literally bared their souls on a subject they feel so strongly about.
In today's oversimplified coverage of the Middle East conflict that we see on the media, "The Other Israel" will take you on a journey to places you've never been before, and may very well make you doubt what you once believed.
These 37 essays are a contribution by Jewish novelists, historians, journalists, activists, as well as several military officers who have refused to serve in the occupied territories. All who hope that their voices will be heard around the world, and especially by their own people who, like most in America, will have their perceptions shaped by what the government tells them, what they see on the media, and often more than not, what they don't see.
As a collective, the essays represent a growing discontented movement within Israel itself that questions the morality of the occupation, the mindset upon which it has endured, the terrible hardship on the Palestinian people, and the effect on Israeli society as a whole.
No longer able to ignore their moral convictions, and acutely aware of the turmoil beset both sides, these writers expose the failings of the past peace processes, the myths that have been perpetuated over the years, and the apartheid conditions the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has created. They condemn what the occupation has done to the moral fiber of their military, along with not only the price they pay as a society, but with their standing in the world community as well.
None of these essays are terribly long, and some are amazingly short. But they are sophisticated in that they manage to convey complicated accounts of history along with deep personal perspectives in a relatively short amount of space due to the exquisite writing. Almost all are haunting. Some are point-blank in your face accusations and I was caught off guard, but I witnessed more in these pages then any documentary video I've seen on the subject. If these pages don't strike some deep nerve within you then nothing will.
As you read, it will become apparent that these essays took much courage on the part of the writers, knowing full well that they might, at the very least, be labeled as `self hating Jews' and at the very worst, traitors by the hard right Zionist wing. The essays were written last year just falling short of the current roadmap process, but nonetheless will still give an incredible insight into what has been going on over there.
Often the writings depict the internal struggle within the authors themselves. On one hand there is a great need to be part of the greater Jewish solidarity, the wish for their country to live peaceably and prosper, while on the other as one essayist points out, the anguish that comes from "knowing all this, yet crying little, and keeping quiet too often."
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James
5.0 out of 5 stars Israeli Patriotism Reaches Heroic Levels In This BookReviewed in the United States on April 29, 2003
Finally, a book written by insiders in regard to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Certainly a rare find. This book is actually a compilation of papers/essays/letters written by numerous authors all of Israeli Jewish decent. Noted authors include Uri Avnery who fought in the '48 war and served in the Knesset, Ishai Menuchin who is a Major the Israel Defense Forces reserves, Dr. Yigal Shochat who served as a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force during the War of Attrition, as well as numerous well-known and published professors of Political Science, all of whom teach at universities across Israel.
The book subverts many myths about Israeli politics in the OPT, but it does not do so in a black and white manner as so many other books do. It is a critical analyses of how certain decisions by those in power are creating a threat not only to Israeli citizens within Israel proper, but also a to Israel's democracy itself. This book criticizes key flaws in Israeli politics in regard to the Palestinian issue and provides solutions in their place; rather than simply attack Israel for all it's worth.
In addition to the logical, critical, thought-provoking, Jewish-perspective information this book provides, it also serves to effectively undermine anti-Semitic attitudes towards Israel. Many other books simply criticize Israel without providing alternate solutions given from Israeli Jewish perspectives.. those types of books end up in the hands of some anti-Semites who use the text (most often taken out of context) as metaphorical ammunition. This book is no such source for such idiocy.
To criticize one's own government is nothing new, but to do so in such a well-articulated manner, without ostracizing 1000s of years of Jewish culture, and all the while defending democracy while putting your public reputation on the line is not only genius; it's heroic. Read this book!
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Jacky Pratt
5.0 out of 5 stars So many brave writersReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 19, 2004
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This book is a mixture of very encouraging - because so many Israelis are prepared to write disapprovingly of their government - and also distressing, because things are so bad.
As I read it, I felt massive guilt at how little I really know about life for Palestinians and how Israel treats them. The book is a great education, and hopefully will inspire others to take action. If you want to understand the situation better, and want that glimmer of hope from reading that some Israelis' hate their governments actions, do read it.
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Lynnie Mac
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May 3, 2024
Perhaps even more timely now than when it was published in 2002. This is an important collection of Israeli voices who bring their unique love and passion and wisdom to the topic of Palestinian liberation and Israel-Palestine peace. It’s full of the nuanced, rational perspectives that you will now be beaten in the streets—even in American streets—for maintaining. They must be maintained nonetheless.
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Mark
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May 2, 2019
Righteous Jews
by Mark Chmiel
for Hedy Epstein
A reflection on Roane Carey and Jonathan Shanin, ed., The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New York: The New Press, 2002).
1.
When I came back from Palestine after working with the International Solidarity Movement for ten weeks, I was invited to give many talks on my experiences there – at churches, civic forums and universities. Because I had just witnessed some heart-breaking and grim realities, I often included as a meditation in these presentations the following reflection from George Steiner, a Jewish literary and cultural critic. In 1967 Steiner addressed a group of Jewish intellectuals on the meaning of Jewish values in a post-Holocaust world. He spoke with characteristic gravity:
"I’ve made it clear in my own work a thousand times that I agree with Elie [Wiesel] about the absoluteness, the ontological horror of the catastrophe [of the Holocaust]. But I’m also a man, and a million Indonesians — this is the latest good estimate — were massacred in cold blood, and without America moving. It was very convenient; they were allegedly Marxists. This happened within the last six months. Massacres are also going on right now, and, if I cannot comprehend how men in this room did not move in 1940 or 1941, I am not sure I can comprehend why I do not move now when certain things are going on in Asia, at the very moment when I’m speaking. This evening we’ll go to our friends, to our dinners, to our good sleep, while torture is going on and many human beings are being burned alive. And the great difference is this: it is at least conceivable that when the first news got through about Auschwitz — and there is some evidence on this — there was not actually in the minds of those who heard it the possibility of believing it; it seemed outside the categories of understanding. We who come after know that whatever the news is, it may be so. Whatever the massacre, the torture, the children being burned now in our name — it may be so. . . I think it is our job as Jews, if anywhere in the world human beings are being burned alive, to ask ourselves: How can we sit still?"
After these talks, sometimes, a few people – Jewish and non-Jewish – would come up to me and say about Steiner’s question, “That doesn’t just sound like a Jewish vocation. Human beings should not sit still.” A point well made.
2.
Roane Carey and Jonathan Shanin’s collection of short articles, The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent, calls to mind the ethical impatience of George Steiner in a world marked by political atrocity. It is a valuable record of Israeli Jews who denounce with words and oppose with actions the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These men and women refuse to sit still and accompany Palestinians in the most excruciating and dangerous of situations as well as refuse to serve in the occupied territories. Since many people in the United States are subject to a line of thought that equates criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism, this book makes for eye-opening and, ultimately, inspiring reading. Mohandas Gandhi stated that non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty (see Gandhi on Nonviolence, edited by Thomas Merton, p. 56). These Israelis – including historians, journalists, a former Knesset member, a deputy mayor of Jerusalem, novelists, attorneys, philosophers, doctors, among others – follow this principle of Gandhi and make a deep option for life and justice, for both Palestinians and Israelis, as they see their well-being inextricably woven together. Are these Israelis to be condemned, in toto, as “self-hating Jews” for refusing to close their eyes? Are they to be derisively categorized as “traitors” for insistently calling attention to Ariel Sharon’s bellicosity? Are these officers and soldiers “cowards” for their decision to face ostracism and scorn for following their consciences?
Consider these cullings from the book that reveal what motivates and agitates these dissidents.
Tom Segev, one of the New Historians in Israel: Life in a society that is not being conducted in a manner that seems right to us, acts of wrongdoing, and sometimes even real war crimes perpetrated in our name arouse in us the need to at least leave behind a testimony that we were against it. Xiii
Ishai Menuchin, chairman of Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit,” the soldiers’ selective refusal movement in Israel): Being a citizen in a democracy carries with it a commitment to democratic values and a responsibility for your actions. It is morally impossible to be both a devoted democratic citizen and a regular offender against democratic values. Depriving people of the right to equality and freedom, and keeping them under occupation, is by definition an anti-democratic act. The occupation that has now lasted a generation and rules the lives of more than 3.5 million Palestinians is what drives me, hundreds of other objectors in the armed forces, and tens of thousands of Israeli citizens to oppose our government’s policies and actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. [124]
Adi Ophir, a philosopher: In this state one must focus on the Jewish victims and look aside, systematically and deliberately, every time Palestinian victims come into sight. The daily victims of closures and encirclements are not even mentioned. The other victims are dismissed with military rhetoric: they are objects of “targeted eliminations” or subjects of “collateral damage.” The blindness is systematic and contagious. [62]
Shamai Leibowitz, a lawyer: To maintain our rule we will have to continue to mete out collective punishment that often cruelly affects those who are not guilty. Among the steps we have taken is the enclosing of millions of human beings in their cities, towns, and villages. We often deny basic rights, such as the right to earn a living, to study, to move freely, to purchase basic necessities, to vote, to travel for medical care, to move sick or injured to medical facilities, etc. But most severe is that innocent civilians die. While this occurs in every violent conflict throughout the world, and throughout history, what is happening now is more than unintentional collateral deaths of civilians. Ruling over millions of people who despise your rule necessitates such deaths of youngsters, women, and elderly. [145]
Jeff Halper, coordinator of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions: If Palestinians are to be held accountable for their terrorist actions, then Israel must be held accountable for policies and acts of state terrorism (for example, attacks on densely populated civilian centers with F-16s and Apache gunships, disproportionate violence against civilian populations, collective punishment, assassinations, and the indiscriminate use of snipers). Israel must also be held accountable for the structural violence inherent in its occupation (house demolitions, land expropriation, settlements, destruction of agricultural land, monopolization of water supplies, impoverishment through economic closure, induced emigration, and all the other expressions of occupation). Like other human rights covenants, the Fourth Geneva Convention holds accountable individuals who have committed “grave breaches” of the Convention (Article 146). Yet, with the help of its own legal system and the connivance of the international community, Israel acts with absolute impunity vis-à-vis international law, and has thus far escaped accountability. [39]
Yigal Bronner, an activist with Ta’ayush (Arab-Jewish partnership): I haven’t seen the really devastating scenes of Jenin and Nablus. But what I saw, heard, and experienced – the child confined to his home for a month, the old lady running after the food truck, the men lying on the floor of the army vehicle, the soldiers humiliating my Palestinian friends at the roadblock – all that was quite educational. It allowed me to understand that what Israel has been destroying in Palestine is much more than the infrastructure of terrorism. It has been destroying the agricultural, educational, medical, and road infrastructure; it has been eroding goodwill and underlining whatever is left of the Palestinian desire for peace. It has been sowing hunger, poverty, humiliation, and hatred, all of which only serve to fortify the infrastructure of terrorism. [92]
Baruch Kimmerling, a sociologist: I accuse everyone who sees and knows all of this of doing nothing to prevent the emerging catastrophe. Sabra and Shatilla events were nothing compared to what has happened and what is going to happen to us. We have to go out not only to the town squares, but also to the checkpoints. We have to speak to the soldiers in the tanks and the troop carriers — like the Russians spoke to their soldiers when they were ordered to retake control in Red Square — before entry into Palestinian cities turns into a murderous urban warfare. And I accuse myself of knowing all of this, yet crying little and keeping quiet too often. [76]
Neve Gordon, professor at Ben-Gurion University: Many years from now people may ask (just as we wonder about other times and places) how it was that a whole population did not realize what was happening. 100
Gideon Levy, a journalist: (in an open letter to Shimon Peres): Have you actually seen the Qalandiyah checkpoint, even once?…Then you could go to the village of Yamoun and meet Heira Abu Hassan and Amiya Zakin, who lost their babies three weeks ago when IDF soldiers wouldn’t let their cars through the checkpoint, while they were in labor and bleeding. Listen to their terrible stories. And what will you tell them? That you’re sorry? That it shouldn’t have happened? That it’s part of the war on terror? That it’s shocking? That maybe it’s Shaul Mofaz’s fault and not yours? [81]
Ilan Pappé, professor of political science: How can people like myself, so alienated by their own society and so revolted by what it and its government are doing, be effective in changing local public opinion? It sounds like a quixotic exercise. But then I remember all the Jews who joined the ANC, the civil rights movement in the United States and the anti-colonialist movement in France. I remember the brave Iralisn and Spaniards who did not succumb to the lure of fascism, and I draw courage from all these examples to go on telling my own people, from within, to break the mirror that shows them a superior moral body. They must replace it with one that exposes the crimes they, or on their behalf their various leaders and governments, are committing against humanity and the Palestinian people. [115]
Ze’ev Sternhell, author of The Founding Myths of Israel: In colonial Israel, and more especially the Israel in which advocates of “transfer” sit in the government, human life is cheap – and therein lies the most serious danger to our future. A society in which dozens of children are killed as a result of army operation can easily lose its last remaining moral inhibitions. The fact that the Palestinians are also killing indiscriminately cannot absolve us of responsibility for what is going on in the territories. The killing of innocent people is gradually becoming a norm, and that norm is being implemented in the service of a goal that seeks to deprive another people if its freedom and its human rights: The Sharon government is turning the territories into one huge jailhouse, and is turning its citizens into wardens who are called upon to suppress a prisoner uprising. That was not quite the purpose of Zionism. [160]
Shulamit Aloni, a former Member of the Knesset: Whoever claims that the settlements are Israel’s catastrophe from a security and economic point of view is not an anti-Semite but a patriot. Whoever says that this government is committing crimes against humanity is not an anti-Semite but an honest and humane person. Whoever condemns the demolition of houses in Rafah and Jerusalem, opposes the provocative liquidations and fostering of ferment in the area so that we can avoid going to the negotiating table, does so out of love for their homeland. [87]
Neve Gordon: Ever since September 2000, much of the Israeli media, which had been well known for its critical edge, has turned into a government organ. For Israeli television viewers, Palestinian suffering is virtually nonexistent, while attacks on Jews are graphically portrayed, replayed time and again, thus rendering victimhood the existential condition of the Israeli Jew. The deeply rooted victim syndrome has been manipulated over the past year in order to rally the public around the flag. [102]
Jeff Halper: The army and police had their backs turned to us as they guarded the bulldozers and drills from the angry Palestinian crowd, including the frantic home owners who were about to see their life savings go up in dust. We quickly ran to the bulldozers and lay down in front of them. A symbolic action, to be sure, but one that created a scene and gave news photographers something to “shoot.” (Because we are Israelis, we have the privilege of being shot only be cameras.) For the soldiers our actions are simply stupid and incomprehensible, and they cart us away unceremoniously. We don’t bother to argue with them or explain to them; it is enough that we act as vehicles for getting the images of demolitions out to the world. Later, when the reporters talk to us, we can explain what is happening and why it is unjust and oppressive. Our comments will find their way into official reports; this evening the U.S. State Department officially deplored the demolitions, and we know that European and other governments take note. That is our role. Helplessness in the face of overwhelming force and callousness, yet faith that all of you, you know, will generate the international pressure necessary to end the occupation, once and for all. As an Israeli, and speaking strictly for myself, I have despaired of ever convincing my own people that a just peace is the way. Israelis may passively accept dictates from outside, but a just peace will not come from within Israeli society. [95-96]
Yitzhak Laor, a poet, novelist and playwright: The military logic behind [Israeli] behavior says: “We have the power and we have to exercise it, otherwise our existence is in danger.” But the only danger is the one facing the Palestinians. It is enough to destroy its social tissue, to starve dozens of villages, to induce high rates of infant mortality. The West Bank is going through a Gaza-ization. Please don’t shrug your shoulders. The one thing that might help to destroy the consensus in Israel is pressure from the West, on which the Israeli elite is dependent is so many ways. [120]
Amira Hass, journalist with Ha’aretz: Without cameras and outside observers, it’s as if these things never happened. [154]
Gila Svirsky, co-founder of the Coalition of Women for a Just Peace: Rather than analyze, this is a time to act. Here in Israel, the peace and human rights movement is working tirelessly on every imaginable front. Soldiers who refuse to serve the occupation are going to jail; convoys of food and medical supplies hastily collected have been distributed and more are being collected; human rights workers are risking their lives to monitor action; peace activists have braved hailstorms of tear gas and stun grenades in facing army checkpoints; foreign activists have served as human shields throughout the territories. In my history of activism, I can recall no parallel sense of urgency, in which lives and daily bread and being set aside to pursue a cause. But I also recall no parallel feeling that a calamity of our own making is unfolding before our eyes. I implore you to take action of your own. [183]
3.
Recently at our Friday morning meditation at the Center for Theology and Social Analysis, one of our members, Marty King, shared an excerpt from Jesuit priest and anti-nuclear resister Daniel Berrigan’s Ten Commandments for the Long Haul, a book first I read with fascination when I was an impressionable college senior back in the early 1980s. The passage that stuck with Marty read as follows:
"[People] also ask frequently: 'Where does your hope come from, how do you keep going?' Which seems to me a serious question, but composed out of insufficient evidence, a question having about it a certain immodest aura, which I’m being invited to stand under. (Should one stand under a light he did not kindle?) I like Philip’s typically laconic answer: 'Your hope is where your ass is.'
As in the case, I judge, of those who sit in. Or, in another version: “Your hope is where your feet are” (as in the case of those who march). But hardly ever, in my experience, is one’s hope where his head is. Passing strange, to think of it, that those whose heads are presumably screwed on straight, should ask me, 'Where is your hope today?'
Passing strange, and strangely true. Hope dwells in the posterior, or in the hands and feet. But hardly ever in that noblest of human members, whose functions, we are told, are to speculate and ponder and envision and calculate and predict and do all those things named by us, properly human. But in fact, so tragically and often: improperly inhuman."
The Other Israel should embolden us, render us more thoughtful, not only about the situation in Israel/Palestine, but about our responsibility as citizens of and religious practitioners in the United States, the global hegemon. For as we learn of what risks these Israelis are taking to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people under siege, we can extend ourselves – our posteriors, our hands, our feet – in the direction of ethical clarity and social insecurity. In so doing, we can make our own the conviction of Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva:
I have two enemies in all the world,
Two twins, inseparably fused:
The hunger of the hungry and the fullness of the full.
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Samantha
394 reviews
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October 16, 2023
It was an interesting time to read this - about two weeks before the widespread violence in Israel.
Despite it being dated, I feel like it's an even more relevant read now, at a time when people on social media are searching for teams to try to make sense of what's happening. I can see people working through it, trying to simplify it, whittle it down and meme-ify it.
This collection is the opposite of that - it is as nuanced and complex as the subject deserves. Many of these essays were written by intellectuals who love Israel but oppose some of the actions of their government over the last two decades. It is a love letter to Israel in that it contains visions of what they want it to be, and policy changes they want to see to alleviate the conflict.
It's a take not often heard in mainstream media. I may read it again this week.
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Ariela
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November 11, 2014
Disclosure: I love Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé and mostly read this because they wrote things in it.
This book is a little out of date (it feels weird and misdirected being angry with Sharon when he's dead) but still relevant.
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"The Other Israel" is truly a gem and will probably be the best read of the year. Not only for the historic perspective given, but also for the way these writers have literally bared their souls on a subject they feel so strongly about.
In today's oversimplified coverage of the Middle East conflict that we see on the media, "The Other Israel" will take you on a journey to places you've never been before, and may very well make you doubt what you once believed.
These 37 essays are a contribution by Jewish novelists, historians, journalists, activists, as well as several military officers who have refused to serve in the occupied territories. All who hope that their voices will be heard around the world, and especially by their own people who, like most in America, will have their perceptions shaped by what the government tells them, what they see on the media, and often more than not, what they don't see.
As a collective, the essays represent a growing discontented movement within Israel itself that questions the morality of the occupation, the mindset upon which it has endured, the terrible hardship on the Palestinian people, and the effect on Israeli society as a whole.
No longer able to ignore their moral convictions, and acutely aware of the turmoil beset both sides, these writers expose the failings of the past peace processes, the myths that have been perpetuated over the years, and the apartheid conditions the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has created. They condemn what the occupation has done to the moral fiber of their military, along with not only the price they pay as a society, but with their standing in the world community as well.
None of these essays are terribly long, and some are amazingly short. But they are sophisticated in that they manage to convey complicated accounts of history along with deep personal perspectives in a relatively short amount of space due to the exquisite writing. Almost all are haunting. Some are point-blank in your face accusations and I was caught off guard, but I witnessed more in these pages then any documentary video I've seen on the subject. If these pages don't strike some deep nerve within you then nothing will.
As you read, it will become apparent that these essays took much courage on the part of the writers, knowing full well that they might, at the very least, be labeled as `self hating Jews' and at the very worst, traitors by the hard right Zionist wing. The essays were written last year just falling short of the current roadmap process, but nonetheless will still give an incredible insight into what has been going on over there.
Often the writings depict the internal struggle within the authors themselves. On one hand there is a great need to be part of the greater Jewish solidarity, the wish for their country to live peaceably and prosper, while on the other as one essayist points out, the anguish that comes from "knowing all this, yet crying little, and keeping quiet too often."
102 people found this helpful
HelpfulReport
James
5.0 out of 5 stars Israeli Patriotism Reaches Heroic Levels In This BookReviewed in the United States on April 29, 2003
Finally, a book written by insiders in regard to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Certainly a rare find. This book is actually a compilation of papers/essays/letters written by numerous authors all of Israeli Jewish decent. Noted authors include Uri Avnery who fought in the '48 war and served in the Knesset, Ishai Menuchin who is a Major the Israel Defense Forces reserves, Dr. Yigal Shochat who served as a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Force during the War of Attrition, as well as numerous well-known and published professors of Political Science, all of whom teach at universities across Israel.
The book subverts many myths about Israeli politics in the OPT, but it does not do so in a black and white manner as so many other books do. It is a critical analyses of how certain decisions by those in power are creating a threat not only to Israeli citizens within Israel proper, but also a to Israel's democracy itself. This book criticizes key flaws in Israeli politics in regard to the Palestinian issue and provides solutions in their place; rather than simply attack Israel for all it's worth.
In addition to the logical, critical, thought-provoking, Jewish-perspective information this book provides, it also serves to effectively undermine anti-Semitic attitudes towards Israel. Many other books simply criticize Israel without providing alternate solutions given from Israeli Jewish perspectives.. those types of books end up in the hands of some anti-Semites who use the text (most often taken out of context) as metaphorical ammunition. This book is no such source for such idiocy.
To criticize one's own government is nothing new, but to do so in such a well-articulated manner, without ostracizing 1000s of years of Jewish culture, and all the while defending democracy while putting your public reputation on the line is not only genius; it's heroic. Read this book!
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Jacky Pratt
5.0 out of 5 stars So many brave writersReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 19, 2004
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This book is a mixture of very encouraging - because so many Israelis are prepared to write disapprovingly of their government - and also distressing, because things are so bad.
As I read it, I felt massive guilt at how little I really know about life for Palestinians and how Israel treats them. The book is a great education, and hopefully will inspire others to take action. If you want to understand the situation better, and want that glimmer of hope from reading that some Israelis' hate their governments actions, do read it.
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Lynnie Mac
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May 3, 2024
Perhaps even more timely now than when it was published in 2002. This is an important collection of Israeli voices who bring their unique love and passion and wisdom to the topic of Palestinian liberation and Israel-Palestine peace. It’s full of the nuanced, rational perspectives that you will now be beaten in the streets—even in American streets—for maintaining. They must be maintained nonetheless.
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Mark
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May 2, 2019
Righteous Jews
by Mark Chmiel
for Hedy Epstein
A reflection on Roane Carey and Jonathan Shanin, ed., The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent (New York: The New Press, 2002).
1.
When I came back from Palestine after working with the International Solidarity Movement for ten weeks, I was invited to give many talks on my experiences there – at churches, civic forums and universities. Because I had just witnessed some heart-breaking and grim realities, I often included as a meditation in these presentations the following reflection from George Steiner, a Jewish literary and cultural critic. In 1967 Steiner addressed a group of Jewish intellectuals on the meaning of Jewish values in a post-Holocaust world. He spoke with characteristic gravity:
"I’ve made it clear in my own work a thousand times that I agree with Elie [Wiesel] about the absoluteness, the ontological horror of the catastrophe [of the Holocaust]. But I’m also a man, and a million Indonesians — this is the latest good estimate — were massacred in cold blood, and without America moving. It was very convenient; they were allegedly Marxists. This happened within the last six months. Massacres are also going on right now, and, if I cannot comprehend how men in this room did not move in 1940 or 1941, I am not sure I can comprehend why I do not move now when certain things are going on in Asia, at the very moment when I’m speaking. This evening we’ll go to our friends, to our dinners, to our good sleep, while torture is going on and many human beings are being burned alive. And the great difference is this: it is at least conceivable that when the first news got through about Auschwitz — and there is some evidence on this — there was not actually in the minds of those who heard it the possibility of believing it; it seemed outside the categories of understanding. We who come after know that whatever the news is, it may be so. Whatever the massacre, the torture, the children being burned now in our name — it may be so. . . I think it is our job as Jews, if anywhere in the world human beings are being burned alive, to ask ourselves: How can we sit still?"
After these talks, sometimes, a few people – Jewish and non-Jewish – would come up to me and say about Steiner’s question, “That doesn’t just sound like a Jewish vocation. Human beings should not sit still.” A point well made.
2.
Roane Carey and Jonathan Shanin’s collection of short articles, The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent, calls to mind the ethical impatience of George Steiner in a world marked by political atrocity. It is a valuable record of Israeli Jews who denounce with words and oppose with actions the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These men and women refuse to sit still and accompany Palestinians in the most excruciating and dangerous of situations as well as refuse to serve in the occupied territories. Since many people in the United States are subject to a line of thought that equates criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Semitism, this book makes for eye-opening and, ultimately, inspiring reading. Mohandas Gandhi stated that non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty (see Gandhi on Nonviolence, edited by Thomas Merton, p. 56). These Israelis – including historians, journalists, a former Knesset member, a deputy mayor of Jerusalem, novelists, attorneys, philosophers, doctors, among others – follow this principle of Gandhi and make a deep option for life and justice, for both Palestinians and Israelis, as they see their well-being inextricably woven together. Are these Israelis to be condemned, in toto, as “self-hating Jews” for refusing to close their eyes? Are they to be derisively categorized as “traitors” for insistently calling attention to Ariel Sharon’s bellicosity? Are these officers and soldiers “cowards” for their decision to face ostracism and scorn for following their consciences?
Consider these cullings from the book that reveal what motivates and agitates these dissidents.
Tom Segev, one of the New Historians in Israel: Life in a society that is not being conducted in a manner that seems right to us, acts of wrongdoing, and sometimes even real war crimes perpetrated in our name arouse in us the need to at least leave behind a testimony that we were against it. Xiii
Ishai Menuchin, chairman of Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit,” the soldiers’ selective refusal movement in Israel): Being a citizen in a democracy carries with it a commitment to democratic values and a responsibility for your actions. It is morally impossible to be both a devoted democratic citizen and a regular offender against democratic values. Depriving people of the right to equality and freedom, and keeping them under occupation, is by definition an anti-democratic act. The occupation that has now lasted a generation and rules the lives of more than 3.5 million Palestinians is what drives me, hundreds of other objectors in the armed forces, and tens of thousands of Israeli citizens to oppose our government’s policies and actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. [124]
Adi Ophir, a philosopher: In this state one must focus on the Jewish victims and look aside, systematically and deliberately, every time Palestinian victims come into sight. The daily victims of closures and encirclements are not even mentioned. The other victims are dismissed with military rhetoric: they are objects of “targeted eliminations” or subjects of “collateral damage.” The blindness is systematic and contagious. [62]
Shamai Leibowitz, a lawyer: To maintain our rule we will have to continue to mete out collective punishment that often cruelly affects those who are not guilty. Among the steps we have taken is the enclosing of millions of human beings in their cities, towns, and villages. We often deny basic rights, such as the right to earn a living, to study, to move freely, to purchase basic necessities, to vote, to travel for medical care, to move sick or injured to medical facilities, etc. But most severe is that innocent civilians die. While this occurs in every violent conflict throughout the world, and throughout history, what is happening now is more than unintentional collateral deaths of civilians. Ruling over millions of people who despise your rule necessitates such deaths of youngsters, women, and elderly. [145]
Jeff Halper, coordinator of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions: If Palestinians are to be held accountable for their terrorist actions, then Israel must be held accountable for policies and acts of state terrorism (for example, attacks on densely populated civilian centers with F-16s and Apache gunships, disproportionate violence against civilian populations, collective punishment, assassinations, and the indiscriminate use of snipers). Israel must also be held accountable for the structural violence inherent in its occupation (house demolitions, land expropriation, settlements, destruction of agricultural land, monopolization of water supplies, impoverishment through economic closure, induced emigration, and all the other expressions of occupation). Like other human rights covenants, the Fourth Geneva Convention holds accountable individuals who have committed “grave breaches” of the Convention (Article 146). Yet, with the help of its own legal system and the connivance of the international community, Israel acts with absolute impunity vis-à-vis international law, and has thus far escaped accountability. [39]
Yigal Bronner, an activist with Ta’ayush (Arab-Jewish partnership): I haven’t seen the really devastating scenes of Jenin and Nablus. But what I saw, heard, and experienced – the child confined to his home for a month, the old lady running after the food truck, the men lying on the floor of the army vehicle, the soldiers humiliating my Palestinian friends at the roadblock – all that was quite educational. It allowed me to understand that what Israel has been destroying in Palestine is much more than the infrastructure of terrorism. It has been destroying the agricultural, educational, medical, and road infrastructure; it has been eroding goodwill and underlining whatever is left of the Palestinian desire for peace. It has been sowing hunger, poverty, humiliation, and hatred, all of which only serve to fortify the infrastructure of terrorism. [92]
Baruch Kimmerling, a sociologist: I accuse everyone who sees and knows all of this of doing nothing to prevent the emerging catastrophe. Sabra and Shatilla events were nothing compared to what has happened and what is going to happen to us. We have to go out not only to the town squares, but also to the checkpoints. We have to speak to the soldiers in the tanks and the troop carriers — like the Russians spoke to their soldiers when they were ordered to retake control in Red Square — before entry into Palestinian cities turns into a murderous urban warfare. And I accuse myself of knowing all of this, yet crying little and keeping quiet too often. [76]
Neve Gordon, professor at Ben-Gurion University: Many years from now people may ask (just as we wonder about other times and places) how it was that a whole population did not realize what was happening. 100
Gideon Levy, a journalist: (in an open letter to Shimon Peres): Have you actually seen the Qalandiyah checkpoint, even once?…Then you could go to the village of Yamoun and meet Heira Abu Hassan and Amiya Zakin, who lost their babies three weeks ago when IDF soldiers wouldn’t let their cars through the checkpoint, while they were in labor and bleeding. Listen to their terrible stories. And what will you tell them? That you’re sorry? That it shouldn’t have happened? That it’s part of the war on terror? That it’s shocking? That maybe it’s Shaul Mofaz’s fault and not yours? [81]
Ilan Pappé, professor of political science: How can people like myself, so alienated by their own society and so revolted by what it and its government are doing, be effective in changing local public opinion? It sounds like a quixotic exercise. But then I remember all the Jews who joined the ANC, the civil rights movement in the United States and the anti-colonialist movement in France. I remember the brave Iralisn and Spaniards who did not succumb to the lure of fascism, and I draw courage from all these examples to go on telling my own people, from within, to break the mirror that shows them a superior moral body. They must replace it with one that exposes the crimes they, or on their behalf their various leaders and governments, are committing against humanity and the Palestinian people. [115]
Ze’ev Sternhell, author of The Founding Myths of Israel: In colonial Israel, and more especially the Israel in which advocates of “transfer” sit in the government, human life is cheap – and therein lies the most serious danger to our future. A society in which dozens of children are killed as a result of army operation can easily lose its last remaining moral inhibitions. The fact that the Palestinians are also killing indiscriminately cannot absolve us of responsibility for what is going on in the territories. The killing of innocent people is gradually becoming a norm, and that norm is being implemented in the service of a goal that seeks to deprive another people if its freedom and its human rights: The Sharon government is turning the territories into one huge jailhouse, and is turning its citizens into wardens who are called upon to suppress a prisoner uprising. That was not quite the purpose of Zionism. [160]
Shulamit Aloni, a former Member of the Knesset: Whoever claims that the settlements are Israel’s catastrophe from a security and economic point of view is not an anti-Semite but a patriot. Whoever says that this government is committing crimes against humanity is not an anti-Semite but an honest and humane person. Whoever condemns the demolition of houses in Rafah and Jerusalem, opposes the provocative liquidations and fostering of ferment in the area so that we can avoid going to the negotiating table, does so out of love for their homeland. [87]
Neve Gordon: Ever since September 2000, much of the Israeli media, which had been well known for its critical edge, has turned into a government organ. For Israeli television viewers, Palestinian suffering is virtually nonexistent, while attacks on Jews are graphically portrayed, replayed time and again, thus rendering victimhood the existential condition of the Israeli Jew. The deeply rooted victim syndrome has been manipulated over the past year in order to rally the public around the flag. [102]
Jeff Halper: The army and police had their backs turned to us as they guarded the bulldozers and drills from the angry Palestinian crowd, including the frantic home owners who were about to see their life savings go up in dust. We quickly ran to the bulldozers and lay down in front of them. A symbolic action, to be sure, but one that created a scene and gave news photographers something to “shoot.” (Because we are Israelis, we have the privilege of being shot only be cameras.) For the soldiers our actions are simply stupid and incomprehensible, and they cart us away unceremoniously. We don’t bother to argue with them or explain to them; it is enough that we act as vehicles for getting the images of demolitions out to the world. Later, when the reporters talk to us, we can explain what is happening and why it is unjust and oppressive. Our comments will find their way into official reports; this evening the U.S. State Department officially deplored the demolitions, and we know that European and other governments take note. That is our role. Helplessness in the face of overwhelming force and callousness, yet faith that all of you, you know, will generate the international pressure necessary to end the occupation, once and for all. As an Israeli, and speaking strictly for myself, I have despaired of ever convincing my own people that a just peace is the way. Israelis may passively accept dictates from outside, but a just peace will not come from within Israeli society. [95-96]
Yitzhak Laor, a poet, novelist and playwright: The military logic behind [Israeli] behavior says: “We have the power and we have to exercise it, otherwise our existence is in danger.” But the only danger is the one facing the Palestinians. It is enough to destroy its social tissue, to starve dozens of villages, to induce high rates of infant mortality. The West Bank is going through a Gaza-ization. Please don’t shrug your shoulders. The one thing that might help to destroy the consensus in Israel is pressure from the West, on which the Israeli elite is dependent is so many ways. [120]
Amira Hass, journalist with Ha’aretz: Without cameras and outside observers, it’s as if these things never happened. [154]
Gila Svirsky, co-founder of the Coalition of Women for a Just Peace: Rather than analyze, this is a time to act. Here in Israel, the peace and human rights movement is working tirelessly on every imaginable front. Soldiers who refuse to serve the occupation are going to jail; convoys of food and medical supplies hastily collected have been distributed and more are being collected; human rights workers are risking their lives to monitor action; peace activists have braved hailstorms of tear gas and stun grenades in facing army checkpoints; foreign activists have served as human shields throughout the territories. In my history of activism, I can recall no parallel sense of urgency, in which lives and daily bread and being set aside to pursue a cause. But I also recall no parallel feeling that a calamity of our own making is unfolding before our eyes. I implore you to take action of your own. [183]
3.
Recently at our Friday morning meditation at the Center for Theology and Social Analysis, one of our members, Marty King, shared an excerpt from Jesuit priest and anti-nuclear resister Daniel Berrigan’s Ten Commandments for the Long Haul, a book first I read with fascination when I was an impressionable college senior back in the early 1980s. The passage that stuck with Marty read as follows:
"[People] also ask frequently: 'Where does your hope come from, how do you keep going?' Which seems to me a serious question, but composed out of insufficient evidence, a question having about it a certain immodest aura, which I’m being invited to stand under. (Should one stand under a light he did not kindle?) I like Philip’s typically laconic answer: 'Your hope is where your ass is.'
As in the case, I judge, of those who sit in. Or, in another version: “Your hope is where your feet are” (as in the case of those who march). But hardly ever, in my experience, is one’s hope where his head is. Passing strange, to think of it, that those whose heads are presumably screwed on straight, should ask me, 'Where is your hope today?'
Passing strange, and strangely true. Hope dwells in the posterior, or in the hands and feet. But hardly ever in that noblest of human members, whose functions, we are told, are to speculate and ponder and envision and calculate and predict and do all those things named by us, properly human. But in fact, so tragically and often: improperly inhuman."
The Other Israel should embolden us, render us more thoughtful, not only about the situation in Israel/Palestine, but about our responsibility as citizens of and religious practitioners in the United States, the global hegemon. For as we learn of what risks these Israelis are taking to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people under siege, we can extend ourselves – our posteriors, our hands, our feet – in the direction of ethical clarity and social insecurity. In so doing, we can make our own the conviction of Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva:
I have two enemies in all the world,
Two twins, inseparably fused:
The hunger of the hungry and the fullness of the full.
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Samantha
394 reviews
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October 16, 2023
It was an interesting time to read this - about two weeks before the widespread violence in Israel.
Despite it being dated, I feel like it's an even more relevant read now, at a time when people on social media are searching for teams to try to make sense of what's happening. I can see people working through it, trying to simplify it, whittle it down and meme-ify it.
This collection is the opposite of that - it is as nuanced and complex as the subject deserves. Many of these essays were written by intellectuals who love Israel but oppose some of the actions of their government over the last two decades. It is a love letter to Israel in that it contains visions of what they want it to be, and policy changes they want to see to alleviate the conflict.
It's a take not often heard in mainstream media. I may read it again this week.
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Ariela
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November 11, 2014
Disclosure: I love Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappé and mostly read this because they wrote things in it.
This book is a little out of date (it feels weird and misdirected being angry with Sharon when he's dead) but still relevant.
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counterpunch
SEPTEMBER 17, 2002
The Other Israel, a Review
BY BILL CHRISTISON - KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
The Other Israel:
Voices of Refusal and Dissent
by Kathleen Christison
former CIA political analyst
A very close friend, non-Jewish, recently told me that, although she does not sympathize with much that Israel has done to the Palestinians in the last few months, she generally supports Israel in the conflict because so many of her friends are Jewish, and many of them are deeply worried about Israel’s existence in the face of Palestinian depredations. I refrained from asking her at the time, but the question still haunts me, just which Jews she is supporting. Are they her friends who apparently do represent the mainstream of American Jewry these days, who ignore Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and think of Palestinians only as terrorists, Israelis only as victims, and the Palestinian intifada as another pogrom, with no root causes other than Jew-hatred? Or are they perhaps those Jews who send hate mail to any who criticize the Israeli occupation and who threatened death to the family of Adam Shapiro, a young Jewish man from Brooklyn who daily risks his life to protect Palestinians under Israeli siege in the West Bank? Or, at the other end of the spectrum, are they those Jews–Israelis and Americans–who know clearly what the occupation is, what it means to Palestinians and what it does to Israel, and have been courageously speaking out against the murderous policies of the Israeli government?
Editors Roane Carey, copy chief at The Nation magazine, and Jonathan Shainin, a staffer at The New Press, have gathered a collection of articles by over two dozen of those clear-eyed, courageous Israelis in a new book, The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent. Carey also edited The New Intifada: Resisting Israel’s Apartheid, published a year ago, which still stands as perhaps the only accurate depiction of the Palestinian uprising, its root causes, and the failures of U.S. and Israeli policy that led to it. As with that earlier book, this one is particularly well edited and, unlike many edited collections, is uniformly well written and on point.
This is the story of Israel’s war against the Palestinian nation as told by Israelis who oppose it–who oppose their country’s oppressive policies and fear that they are destroying not only the Palestinians but Israel itself. These Israelis have shown themselves uniquely able to see past the national myths that blind most Israelis to their own misguided polices and sustain the blind faith of Israel’s American friends in another myth, that of Israel’s enduring “goodness.” Beginning with a foreword by journalist and historian Tom Segev and an introduction by former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis (the only non-Israeli in the collection), the book gathers articles by 28 contributors, including novelist David Grossman; commentator Meron Benvenisti; historians like Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe; academics like Jeff Halper, Baruch Kimmerling, Neve Gordon, and Ze’ev Sternhell; Haaretz journalists Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, who both have a long record of reporting on the daily reality of the occupation for Palestinians; several military officers who have refused duty in the occupied territories; and activists such as Uri Avnery and Gila Svirsky. Avnery, Halper, Gordon, and several others of the authors are frequent contributors to CounterPunch.
Just about everything you ever wanted to know about the occupation, about Israel’s efforts to consolidate its control, about its treatment of the Palestinians, about its long-range goals, is here, frankly laid out without excuses or rationalization, without spin. Anthony Lewis begins with an introduction that baldly defines Israel’s policy as the permanent assertion of control over and colonization of the occupied territories–a policy that he says guarantees both Palestinian hatred and Israeli insecurity. The Israeli writers take the same direct approach: Michael Ben-Yair, a former Israeli attorney general, asserts that after 1967 Israel “enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society” and thus transformed itself from a moral society to one that oppresses another people.
Tanya Reinhart, an academic and commentator, follows with the conclusion that, 54 years after Israel’s creation and 35 years after its occupation of the territories, nothing has changed in the Israeli polity. Two approaches compete for predominance today, as they did in 1948, she contends. The choice is between apartheid, which is the left’s preference and was the basis of the Oslo peace process, and the mass expulsion of Palestinians, as occurred in 1948, which is the plan of Ariel Sharon and the right wing. But, Reinhart says, because nations today don’t openly start wars to grab land, it has been necessary for Israel to manufacture a case showing that the Palestinians are unwilling to live in peace and threaten Israel’s very existence. Ehud Barak built that case after the Camp David summit collapsed two years ago, and conditions are now ripe for executing Sharon’s plan–“the second half of 1948,” as Israel’s chief of staff now openly calls it.
Leading peace activist Jeff Halper, who founded and heads an organization opposing Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes, presents a detailed analysis, with maps, of how Israel worked to assure its continued control over the territories throughout the peace process. Israel never intended to relinquish control voluntarily, Halper says, and so it developed “a matrix of control.” During the years of the peace process, this system allowed Israel to hide the reality of the occupation by lowering its military profile and relinquishing control over the Palestinian population, while in actuality maintaining control over the land, dominating every aspect of Palestinian life, and portraying any Palestinian opposition as aggression against which all repressive measures were justified to assure Israeli security. He provides facts and figures on land confiscated, trees uprooted, homes demolished, industrial wastes dumped, numbers of settlers and settlements, miles of Israeli-only roads, and dollars of U.S. funding.
Moral philosopher Adi Ophir contributes a pointed essay on why most of the Israeli left, having anesthetized themselves to the occupation, have been able to turn against the Palestinians and ally themselves with the Israeli right since the intifada began. The part of the left “that quickly slid to the right,” he says, “had never internalized the fact that the occupation is the point of departure; that ending the occupation is a condition of reconciliation–not vice versa.” Few Israelis, Ophir writes, ever grasped “the intensity of the expectations” that the Oslo agreement had engendered among Palestinians, nor the intensity of their frustration when Oslo proved to be a vehicle not for ending but for perpetuating the occupation regime.
Several other contributors make the same point about Israel’s obliviousness to the Palestinians and the impact of the occupation on them. A former military officer and physician observes that, if there are no terrorist attacks, “we don’t even remember that the Palestinians exist.” In a second article, Halper laments that “Israel is a self-contained bubble with a self-contained and exclusively Jewish narrative.” As a result, he says, “I find it impossible to convey to my own people, my own neighbors (good people all), what occupation means, why they should feel responsible and resist with me.” He has despaired of “ever convincing my own people that a just peace is the way.”
These are strong indictments of Israeli self-absorption and myopia–and of the myopia of Americans and U.S. policymakers who follow Israel’s lead unquestioningly–but they are shared by virtually every writer in this collection. None is very optimistic about the future. Historian Ilan Pappe says he draws courage from past examples of Jewish solidarity with independence and civil rights movements, and he urges Israelis “to break the mirror that shows them a superior moral body,” but there’s little hint of optimism in his call.
In fact, the book is at once deeply discouraging and very heartening. On the one hand, it is clear from reading these tales of increasing Israeli violations of human and national rights that the situation is a long way from improving, the conflict a long way from resolution. The general tenor of discourse in both Israel and the U.S. indicates, moreover, that these voices still constitute only a tiny minority. On the other hand, the very fact of this book with its numerous contributors is a welcome sign of change perhaps coming. Here is a large enough collection of noted Israelis that they cannot simply be dismissed as self-hating Jews or left-wing kooks. It is encouraging that this wide array of concerned individuals from a wide field of interests have not only not succumbed to the disillusionment that has silenced most of the Israeli peace camp but have begun to attract others to their cause. The numbers of reservists refusing duty in the West Bank and Gaza grow daily; the number of Americans desirous of hearing the real story of the occupation grows slowly.
The book carries an undeniable authority that should make readers take notice. Those who try to deflect criticism of Israeli policy by crying anti-Semitism cannot credibly do that when there are so many thoughtful Israelis who feel as these writers do. Those who charge that criticism endangers Israel’s security, that anyone who criticizes Israel does not care whether it survives, cannot credibly do that when the critics are Israelis for whom Israel’s survival is a vital personal interest. These articles also put the lie to the soothing assurances of Israel’s American apologists–political commentators, Israeli supporters throughout the country, and even policymakers–who attempt to deflect criticism by insisting that Israel longs for peace, wants and has long tried to give the territories to the Palestinians, but that it is Palestinians who cannot be satisfied just with a part of Palestine and have launched a campaign of terror to destroy Israel.
Whether this dissent in Israel has an impact on policy there or in the U.S. remains to be seen. One would hope that this book itself will have an impact, although in his introduction, Segev notes that voices of dissent are often cynically exploited by Israeli leaders to demonstrate how good Israel is, how often it examines its conscience, how often it is pained by what it must do to guarantee Israel’s existence. Israelis call this “shoot and cry”; apparently, as long as you wring your hands, anything goes. As a result, says Segev, dissenters end up, paradoxically, facilitating the perpetuation of the occupation and expansion of settlements. Meron Benvenisti concludes that, no matter what influence his own and others’ dissent has and no matter when the conflict ends, no one will win. There are never any victors in intercommunal conflicts, he says–only losers, all nursing horrific memories, profound hatred, and “the bitter taste of missed opportunities.”
The importance of this book is that it tells an entirely different story from the one monopolizing discourse in the United States. Carey and Shainin write in an editors’ note that the book is an act of solidarity with those Israelis brave enough to risk their compatriots’ ostracism, as well as a recognition of their contribution. They deserve this tribute. There are no better spokesmen for all that is good in Jewish humanism and Jewish thinking–for, as the editors say, “the cause of decency.” If the conflict is ever resolved, it will be through the efforts of these activists and people like them.
Kathleen Christison worked for 16 years as a political analyst with the CIA, dealing first with Vietnam and then with the Middle East for her last seven years with the Agency before resigning in 1979. Since leaving the CIA, she has been a free-lance writer, dealing primarily with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her book, “Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy,” was published by the University of California Press and reissued in paperback with an update in October 2001. A second book, “The Wound of Dispossession: Telling the Palestinian Story,” was published in March 2002. Both Kathy and her husband Bill, also a former CIA analyst, are regular contributors to the CounterPunch website.
Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. Kathleen Christison is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession.
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