Occupied Minds

Arthur Neslen

Description

How are Israelis able to see themselves as victims while victimising others?



Israel's founders sought to create a nation of new Jews who would never again go meekly to the death camps. Yet Israel's strength has become synonymous with an oppression of the Palestinians that provokes anger throughout the Muslim world and beyond.



Arthur Neslen explores the dynamics, distortions and incredible diversity of Israeli society. From the mouths of soldiers, settlers, sex workers and the victims of suicide attacks, Occupied Minds is the story of a national psyche that has become scarred by mental security barriers, emotional checkpoints and displaced outposts of of victimhood and aggression.



It charts the evolution of a communal self-image based on cultural and religious values towards one formed around a single militaristic imperative: national security.
Introduction

1. Into The Kur Hitukh

2. Soldiers And Sabras

3. Strangers In The Land Of Their Fathers

4. Strange Orthodoxies And Quantum Secularities

5. Believers And Apostates

6. The Home Front

7. The Forgiven And The Forgotten

8. Business As Usual

9. Across The Green Line

10. Away From Zion

Glossary

Index

Sujets

• Israel
• Personality
• Psychology

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 mars 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783719297
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Occupied Minds
A Journey through the Israeli Psyche
Arthur Neslen
 
 
First published 2006 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Arthur Neslen 2006
The right of Arthur Neslen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN  0 7453 2366 9 hardback
ISBN  0 7453 2365 0 paperback ISBN  9781783719297 ePub ISBN  9781783719303 Kindle
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Printed and bound in the European Union by
Gutenberg Press Ltd, Malta
 
 
 
 
 
 
For Baha
 
 
 
 
 
 
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
Rabbi Hillel
 
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1
Into the Kur Hitukh
EZRA LEVY: No particular place to go
RAFAEL KATZ: A greater sense of security
ALEM GETACHEM AND CONOJO AMARA: Our real name should be Jews
DAVID WEIZMAN: Happy as a Jew in France
DIMITRIS AND OLGA: They teach them to hate us
2
Soldiers and Sabras
MAJOR YA’ACOV ‘KOOKI’ BAR-EL: Sometimes you feel as if you are the lord of this country
DOV YIRMIYA: The era of the wall and the tower
ROMAN RATHNER: Defence of the motherland is absolute
‘SAMMY’: Just a good soldier
YEHUDA TAJAR: From the depths I call out to you
3
Strangers in the Land of their Fathers
RABBI SHLOMO KORAH: I am nothing and nothing that hurts me counts
LIMOR: The fear that someone will recognise me
SHARON REGINIANO: I am the actor
ELISHEVA BAR YISROEL: No fear in Dimona
RAFI SHUBELI: The sun had to reverse
4
Strange Orthodoxies and Quantum Secularities
RABBI SHMUEL ELIYAHU: Like a switch had been clicked
RAHEL: There is a chain
ARIK ASHERMAN: Then we’re the oldest
YOSSI BEN YOSHIM: Everybody is the Messiah
MOSHE, YISROEL AND CHAIA HIRSCH: The roots of faith
YONATAN AND NA’AMA HERWITZ: A big plate of scrambled eggs
5
Believers and Apostates
UDI ADIV: Suddenly I found myself alone
LARISSA TREMBOVLER: We have no counter-experiment
NATIVA BEN YEHUDA: On the tombs of very old people, evil will be sad
MORDECHAI TSANIN: The Pope may speak Hebrew, but he will not be a Jew
MATAN COHEN: Beside the honey, you have the sting
6
The Home Front
ALONA ABT: A fish can’t live out of water
LIAD KANTOROWICZ: The person who doesn’t really exist
SAAR UZIELI: A society needs this kind of valve
SIGAL HAIMOV: Amputees of the soul
CLINT FINKELSTEIN: Where is your guard?
DINA PELEG: My little Holocaust
7
The Forgiven and the Forgotten
DANIELLA KITAIN: You can’t weigh pain
HAIM WEINGARTEN: The soul is in the blood
RONI HIRSCHENSON: Two graves
ARNOLD ROTH: Part of the same flow
MALKI ROTH: The meaning of time
8
Business as Usual
BARRY CHAZAN: Meaning making
AMRAM MITZNA: Don’t trust anyone
YAFFA GEVA: Work enables life
ITZIK NEVO: The movement decided for us
TANJA G: She’s in parties
NITZANA DARSHAN-LEITNER: This is a nation that wants a war
9
Across the Green Line
ESTHER LILLENTHAL: A foothold to hang on to
HANAN PORAT: We have nuclear weapons to prevent another Holocaust
ADAM BEN ZION: Intelligence is a dirty business
THE WIEDER FAMILY: Waiting for a miracle
RABBI MENACHEM FROMAN: To love my Palestinian neighbours
10
Away from Zion
YARON PE’ER: Something we lost along the way
Glossary
Index
 
Acknowledgements
If every book is a collaborative process, this one was a near-commune at times, but without the support and encouragement of Natalie Groissman, Amir Hallel and Ktzia Allon, it would look very different. My family in Israel, particularly Ava Carmel and Sheila Levenkind, were also there for me when I needed them and I’ll always be grateful for the warmth and friendship of Tanja G and Shahar and Adi, whose parties and Shabbat suppers picked me up when I was on my last legs.
Every project needs a patron, and without the faith shown in me by my publishers, and particularly Dave Castle, this one would never have got off the drawing board. Of my London friends, Rachel Shabi was more inspiring than she knew while Armen, Chris, Dan, Dave Watson, Jessica and Matt all helped keep me cheerful while I was on the road.
Many others gave me assistance along the way, particularly Akiva Orr, Daniella, Ido, Idith Zertal, Inigo, Itzik at the New Israel Fund, Lior, Linda Benedikt, Michal, Miri Krassin, Rafi, Roland, Seumas, Tania, Tirza, Yehudit Iloni and all the Israeli anarchists who lent me a hand or a book. I’m particularly grateful to Smadar Lavie, whose fascinating interview I was sadly unable to include. I will always owe a debt to the people who let me interview them. I hope that their humanity shines through.
If the photos in the book tell a story, it will be one that includes Max Reeves in Shoreditch and Janice Jim in Ontario who were generous in sharing their camera skills with me. While editing in Toronto, Kim, Ellie, Tim and Robert Priest were all supportive beyond the call of duty, as were all my Canadian family. More than anyone, though, my final thanks are reserved for Diana, Chaim and Esther Neslen to whom I owe everything and for whom words will never say enough.
The opinions expressed in this book are those of the interviewees, and not necessarily those of the author or publisher.
 
Introduction
In 1970, Golda Meir addressed the Knesset in a debate over the ethnic nature of Israel’s nationality laws. ‘More than anything else in the world, I value one thing,’ she said, ‘the existence of the Jewish people. This is more important to me than the existence of the state of Israel or of Zionism, for without the existence of the Jewish people, the others are neither necessary nor can they exist.’ 1
There was a sense then that Israel depended on Diaspora Jewry for its life blood. In the cheder I went to as a child, teachers who had made aliyah would come back enthusing about the wonderful advances Israel was making for us all. Sometimes, they would speak about Israel’s creation as a kind of cosmic payback for the Holocaust or a miraculous resurrection of the Jewish people. But when talking of Judaism and Zionism, even they understood the difference between cart and horse.
By 2005, the tables had turned to the extent that Tony Bayfield, the leader of Britain’s Movement for Reform Judaism, could write that, ‘If the state of Israel were to cease to exist… Judaism would, I believe also cease to exist, except perhaps for a tiny remnant of Jews.’ 2 For Jews like Bayfield, the unrelated phenomena of diaspora assimilation and rising Palestinian birth rates meant that Zionism was no longer protecting the religion and culture of the Diaspora. It had become the religion and culture of the Diaspora and so much for two thousand years of history.
I grew up in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, with parents who held to the traditions of the Bund, a secular and anti-Zionist Jewish socialist party that once was the mainstream of East European Jewish life. In those days, it was still possible to find a space in the Jewish community for such a perspective. Today, Israel has come to dominate Diaspora existence and anyone defining themselves as Jewish has to do so in relation to it. I wanted to write about Israeli Jewish identity to analyse the construct that was coming to define the Diaspora. The subject fascinated me, not just because I felt that Israel’s actions in the occupied territories were tearing the Diaspora apart but because I wanted to turn the spotlight back on those who were creating the context within which I, my family, my history and culture were being understood.
Shortly after the Second Intifada began, I went to a picket of a shop that was illegally stocking goods made by settlers in the occupied territories. A passing Israeli woman harangued the demonstrators. She was angry with the other picketers, but when I told her that I was Jewish she became incandescent and shouted that she wished my forebears had been killed in the Holocaust. I’d previously only heard such comments from neo-Nazis and wanted to fathom how another Jew could say such a thing. What I found in Israel was that a self-righteous tornado had been unleashed, within which, such comments only constituted a tail-end. The storm rages across the occupied territories, deep inside the 1949 armistice line and within Israelis themselves. But its full force is felt by Palestinians.
During my first visit in March 2003, Tel Aviv was gripped by war fever. Gas masks were flying off the shelves, and a travel agent near my hotel had put mock adverts in his window advertising tickets to Baghdad on the back of a US F1–16 fighter plane for $5. ‘Next year, Tehran $3! 2005, Gaza $1!’ his sign read. The clamour for war was everywhere, even if the fear of suicide bombings on busses was driving well-heeled Israelis to use Arab-driven sherut taxis. On one sherut I took to Jerusalem on the eve of war, an Israeli radio station was playing songs tailored to the mood of the moment. One, a version of Chumbawamba’s ‘Tub Thumping’ had a rewritten chorus that went something like, ‘Just knock him down, shoot him in the head, there’s another dead Iraqi boy.’ The Israeli Jews on board laughed out loud and then sang along with the next number, a version of the Beach Boys’ ‘Barbara Ann’ with the new chorus: ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb Iraq.’ I left Israel the next day.
When I was seeking accommodation in Tel Aviv before I returned in June 2004, a prospective agent sent a stormy email regarding a client’s property. ‘Please do not feel off