> > http://www.juancole.com/2010/07/7984.html > > The Closing of the Zionist Mind > > Posted on July 30, 2010 by Juan > > It finally happened. The Jerusalem Post has declared archeology itself > anti-Semitic. > > To tell you the truth, I am frankly worried about some of my > colleagues who are committed Zionists having difficulty in dealing > with reality in the wake of the severe difficulties facing the Zionist > project in historical Palestine. > > Caroline Glick?s inaccurate and angry attack on me in the Jerusalem > Post reminded me again of why I am anxious about the Closing of the > Zionist Mind. > > Glick is actually alleging that anyone who practices critical history > of the ancient world or the Middle East in general is thereby an > anti-Jewish bigot. Glick, from Chicago, was a captain in the Israeli > army and a judge advocate-general during the first Intifada or > Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, > which the Israeli army brutally crushed. She seems to be going off the > deep end, having made herself notorious with the sick satirical video > ?We Con the World,? which made fun of the civilian aid workers killed > by Israeli commandos on May 31 of this year (and which appears to have > had some backing from the Israeli government itself). > > I don?t know if Captain Glick ever was not a zealot, but the > bitterness and extremeness of her comments are now to the point of > irrationality. > > It is not just she. I?ve been at conferences where committed Zionists > in the audience would afterwards approach me and, with a sort of > glazed look in their eyes, give me a little set speech, then abruptly > walk away. I initially always think they want to have a discussion. > They don?t. They want to engage in some sort of strange ritual speech > to exorcise the doubts I raised. They want to tell me off and then > escape before I can reply. > > One time some Orthodox students approached me at a conference to say > that in their reckoning, Israeli settlers on the West Bank had almost > never done any harm to anyone and maybe in total had killed 14 > persons, for which they were sorry. I was frankly outraged. I mean, > what world did these university students live in? Had they never read > even one academic book on the effects of the Israeli Occupation on the > Palestinians of the Palestinian West Bank? Why invent fairy tale > statistics, and what is with the passive aggressive ?apology?? There > is something wrong with this way of thinking, and it is a kind of > group think that reinforces itself in small, tight, communities of > discourse. > > Last month, I was at a conference where a prominent academic at a > prominent university gave a whole series of set speeches on various > occasions.. Hamas is a terrorist organization that says it will never > negotiate with Israel. Iran is near to being able and willing to nuke > Israel. It was like a series of mantras to ward off any real, critical > thought. When I told the person he was being essentialist, he was > taken aback, then in a passive aggressive way, said he ?hoped? that > what I was saying was true. It is so weird dealing with people who are > supposed to be critical thinkers by trade who, when it comes to > Israel, suddenly exhibit all the originality of a mynah bird. And they > don?t let you get a word in edgewise once they start. And they > constantly imply, with body language and innuendo, that you are > misinformed or actively lying. > > Other strange features of this discourse are the disregard for any > evidence that contradicts the set talking points, unwillingness to > seriously reconsider positions in the light of such evidence, the > repetition of key phrases in an impenetrable way, the allegation that > critics said things they never said, and insistence on demonizing the > source of the alternative evidence. > > I got exactly the same treatment in the 1970s from Maronite Christians > in Lebanon and in the 1990s from pro-Milosevic Serbs, and recognize > the condition. It is Failing Nationalism Syndrome (FNS). > > Not all national projects succeed. There are by some counts 5000 > ethnic groups in the world of a sort that could be the basis for a > nation-state, but there are only about 190 countries. Some political > projects, such as French Algeria (dominated by colons or colonists as > a privileged group) or a Christian-dominated Lebanon, get going but > just don?t have staying power. Algeria is now an almost wholly Muslim > country, and Christians in Lebanon, while still powerful and numerous, > are probably down to less than a third of the total population. But if > we went back in time to 1935, we could sit at cafes in Algiers or > Beirut and talk with these two about the future of their countries, > and the ones in Algiers would have said that Algeria?s fate was to > always be a part of France, and the Lebanese Maronites would talk have > talked about their majority being strengthened and about the > Phoenician identity of their country in the future. > > Since the government of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is > doing its best to run out the clock on a two-state solution, the only > two plausible outcomes in Israel/Palestine in the coming decades are > long years of dreary Apartheid or a one-state solution. It is not > plausible that the Israelis will be allowed to keep the Palestinians > stateless and without, ultimately, any real rights, forever. So > Zionists (Israel nationalists) are increasingly suffering from Failing > Nationalism Syndrome, and it is causing them to flail about saying the > strangest things. > > Let me take Glick?s weird screed section by section (she is replying > to my essay in Salon.com) > > ? One of the most prominent anti-Zionists today is Prof. Juan Cole > from the University of Michigan. > > Zionism is just Israel nationalism. Nationalism is of two sorts. It > can be a sane patriotism in which people take pride in their identity > and pull together to achieve national projects of self-improvement. Or > it can be an aggressive, expansionist, grasping and destructive > movement that exalts the in-group over out-groups and disadvantages or > damages the latter. The second sense of the word ?nationalism? was the > more common in the 19th and the early 20th century. > > So, I am not an anti-Zionist in principle (and it is weird that Glick > would accuse me of being one), since Israel nationalism is fine with > me as long as it is of the first sort. Any nationalism of the second > sort, I roundly denounce, whether adopted by Jews, Arabs, or > Melanesians. It is the virulent sort that Closes the Mind. > > ? Part of being a successful anti-Zionist involves claiming that Jews > have no right to the land of Israel. So to be a good anti-Zionist, one > needs to deny Jewish history. > > To this end, in March Cole published a piece of historical fiction in > the Salon online magazine. > > Titled ?Ten reasons why East Jerusalem does not belong to Israel,? > Cole mixed half truths with flagrant lies to justify his denial of > Jewish history and belittlement of the Jewish rights. > > Cole wrote, ?Jerusalem not only was not being built by the likely then > non-existent ?Jewish people? in 1000 BCE, but Jerusalem probably was > not even inhabited at that point in history. Jerusalem appears to have > been abandoned between 1000 BCE and 900 BCE, the traditional dates for > the united kingdom under David and Solomon.? > > This assertion is so mendacious that it takes your breath away. As > anyone who has actually been in Jerusalem can attest, it is all but > impossible to be physically present in the oldest areas of the city > and not bump into relics dating from between 1000 and 900 BCE.? > > Glick is the one who is out of touch with reality. She cannot bump > into a single monument from the period 1000-900 BCE in today?s > Jerusalem. The position I hold is what is called the ?Copenhagen > school? or ?biblical minimalism,? and it is a perfectly respectable > academic movement. I think all archeologists and historians would hold > it if some were not religious believers in the Bible. It is people > like Capt. Glick who are politicizing archeology and tampering with > science. > > There is no evidence for a monotheistic cult in Canaan in the period > leading up to 1000 BCE. Monotheistic Judaism appears to have been > invented in the Babylonian exile or perhaps a little before, and the > fables of a great kingdom of David and Solomon were woven together > then. The Assyrians were the gossips of the ancient world and they > wrote down everything that happened in their clay tablets, and even > talk about minor Arab queens in the Hijaz, and they didn?t know > anything about a magnificent kingdom of David and Solomon with > palaces. If these figures existed at all, I suspect they just had > really, really nice tents, not golden palaces (which by the way have > not been found despite what ideologues like Glick assert). Historical > Judaism was a reformation of Canaanite religion over a period of time. > (Some readers asked me who I thought was carried off to Babylon in the > first place, and the answer is simple: Canaanites, perhaps those of a > certain religious cult, but very possibly not the sort of monotheist > depicted in the Bible). > > ? Cole?s allegation is the academic equivalent of Louis Farakhan?s > claim that white people are devils planted on earth by aliens. As an > anti-Zionist anti-Semite, it was just a matter of time until Cole > traveled into the fetid swamp of denying the historical record to > facilitate his false claim that Jews are not a people and therefore > are bereft of rights as a nation to our national homeland. > > I don?t know where she found a quote by me saying that the Jews are > not a people. She doesn?t actually seem good with like, evidence. But > peoples anyway are not eternal essences. They are formed over time. > All I am saying is that her timeline for the formation is off by > several hundred years. > > Anyway, if Israel nationalism depends on the Bible?s stories of David > and Solomon being historical, then kiss it goodbye. But note that my > point in the Salon article was not that Israelis had no right to be in > Israel but rather that they have no right to expel all Palestinians > from Jerusalem (Yes, that is what Israelis of Glick?s stripe are > doing). Glick?s shouting is designed to cover up an ongoing set of > crimes against someone else, by painting herself the victim of, > horror, biblical minimalism of an academic sort. > > And note Glick?s segue from calling me an ?anti-Zionist? to calling me > an ?anti-Semite? because I won?t accept the bible at face value as a > privileged text without some kind of supporting evidence (and in the > face of contrary such evidence). I?ve gotten so I really don?t care > about being called a bigot by people who are very obviously bigots. > And I am afraid that pretty much everyone is getting that way, which > is a shame. Because the history of anti-Jewish bigotry in the West is > cosmically ugly and should not be trivialized. > > ? And why shouldn?t he cover himself in anti-Semitic muck? So far, the > stench has brought him great success. The very fact that I felt > compelled to write an essay explaining why anti-Semitism is > anti-Semitism and why anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism is depressing > proof that anti-Semites have been wildly successful in whitewashing > their bigotry.? > > I?m still looking for evidence of anti-Semitic muck in anything I?ve > written, as opposed to just practicing history. And, I?m glad she > thinks me a success, but lets face it, I?d have gone much further in > conventional life if I hadn?t gotten on the wrong side of strident > fanatics such as she. But, I was never interested in a conventional > career. I have a sneaking admiration for Hunter S. Thompson that I > doubt very many deans share. > > ?What makes contemporary anti-Semitism unique is its purveyors? great > efforts to hide its very existence. Their motivation is clear. Outside > the openly genocidal anti-Semitic Muslim world, most anti-Semites are > self-described liberals who claim to oppose bigotry. For these people, > pretending away their prejudice is the key to their continued claim to > enlightenment. > > And so the likes of Oliver Stone publish clarifications. > > And Cole invents history. And the Europeans blame Jews and Israel and > Zionism when Jews inside and outside Israel are assaulted and killed. > > And I am sorry I wrote this column. > > Because an audience that demands an explanation of why evil is evil is > an audience that has already sided with evil.? > > If all that ranting makes sense to anyone, they should please explain > it in terms that sane people can understand. Some of it is just guilt > by association and conspiracy thinking. > > Glick let slip at the end what is really going on. She is a cultist, > who sees the world as black and white, good and evil. She and her > movement are pure good. Those who oppose anything it does, including > Apartheid, are evil. > > And since the world will increasingly oppose Israeli Apartheid against > the Palestinians, we are in for lots more furious rants and character > assassination like Glick?s. > > The Closing of the Zionist Mind, so evident in Glick?s weird column, > is dangerous because a cult-like, black and white mindset is the first > prerequisite for a turn to violence and it makes compromise and > flexibility impossible. But what the Mideast needs more of is > reasoned, humane, complex openness to change, to negotiation, to > seeing the Other as human. Glick is foreclosing that process, and in > so doing is helping dig the grave of Israel as we know it. > > Luckily, most Israelis I know are nice people and Glick is not > representative, so maybe I?m wrong to see a trend here as opposed to > just a supremely annoying and ignorant individual. >
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