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| The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem visiting Nazi Germany |
By Barry Rubin
Submitted by Tom Ifrach
It’s ironic how the West has adopted the narrative of the very people who caused so much disaster in the Middle East. There are two reasons: The ignorance of the Western “experts” and the domination of the radical interpretations that made the mess in the first place.
Here’s a example. In a paper just published by Harvard, somebody named Neil Lewis (where do they find these people to write about Middle East issues who know nothing about them?) argues that the idea the New York Times is biased against Israel is a myth. Not just a partially right or exaggerated claim. Oh, no, it’s completely ridiculous! If anything, he writes, the New York Times–as a radical-controlled British university think tank did a while ago regarding the consistently anti-Israel BBC–is really too biased in favor of Israel! No doubt Mr. Lewis is destined for a fine, well-financed career. Look for his future articles featured in…the New York Times. Oh, wait, what a coincidence! He’s already a New York Times writer! Ah, brave new world that has such people in it!
Isn’t this a conflict of interest? After all, if Lewis criticized the newspaper he would be criticizing himself and his colleagues, even conceivably endangering his future. Who suggested getting a New York Times reporter to analyze the fairness of that newspaper? And yet there is something fitting about it since mass media journalists believe only they can judge the aptness of their coverage. Some decades ago perhaps that was conceivable but in those days there were such things as professional ethics, the belief in the effort to be as objective as possible, the idea that reporting should be to present the news rather than opinion and an ideological agenda, and all those other “old-fashioned” ideas.
Having written scores of specific articles documenting this bias in great detail, I know the Harvard is is one more triumph of ideology over serious scholarship. Some have pointed to the things that Lewis’s paper ignored and twisted but my attention was drawn to a wonderful example of special pleading and historical ignorance so common when it comes to bashing Israel and apologizing for Palestinian intransigence. And there’s a big surprise and irony here that I’ll explain in a moment.
Lewis writes:
“The anniversary of the founding of Israel is an occasion for official joy in the country. But for many Arabs, it is instead commemorated as the `nakba’’ or catastrophe, the time when half the region’s Arab population—estimated at between 700,000 and 800,000—had fled or were driven out. Exactly what happened remains a heated debate.”
“‘Part of the appeal of the term `nakba’ for Arabs is certainly the hope that it may provide some rhetorical and moral counterweight to the emotive terms `Holocaust’ and `Shoah’ (Hebrew for “catastrophe.’’). It has been in use among Arabs since 1949, according to one expert.”
“The word does not, however, make its first appearance in The Times until 1998 in an article that was part of a series examining Israel on its 50th anniversary. `Nakba’ which has become a familiar term on university campuses because of the considerable support in such places for the Palestinian cause, subsequently appears in The Times’s news pages only a few dozen more times.”
Lewis’s footnote about that expert reads: “The term `nakba’ was used beginning in 1949 by Arabs after it was part of the title of a book by Constantine Zurayk, a professor at the American University of Beirut, said Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University.”
Thus, Lewis implies that because it didn’t use the word “nakba” until 1998 that proves the Times was pro-Israel and ignored the Palestinians’ plight. Like so much said about the Arab-Israeli conflict it is remarkable how absurd this argument can shown to be in less than 150 words. Here they are:
Everyone who ever lost a war is unhappy about it and suffered. Does the Times discuss the “nakba” of the Confederacy, the Germans in World War One and Two, the Japanese in World War Two, and so on through every modern conflict? Should it speak of Communists’ mourning at the fall of the Soviet bloc? Lewis implies that the Times never discussed the fact that the Arabs were unhappy they lost in 1948 or that there were Palestinian refugees or that they claimed all of Israel. Every week, perhaps several times a week, for a half century or more this information has been published in the Times. The only thing the Times didn’t do–but has “corrected” for quite some time by using the “nakba” concept–is to present Israel’s creation as a tragedy and to imply Palestinian suffering was totally due to Israeli actions. Finally, Palestinian “nakba” commemorations are relatively recent, designed by the PA as propaganda exercises. Why recent? Because the PLO would never seek pity from the West but rather presented itself as heroic warriors headed for victory.
But the man who coined the use of the word “nakba” in this context had views quite different from Lewis, the Times, the PA, the campus anti-Israel demonstrators, and the revolutionary Islamists.
Constantine Zurayk was vice-president of the American University of Beirut. His book was entitled The Meaning of the Disaster. Here’s the key passage:
“Seven Arab states declare war on Zionism in Palestine, stop impotent before it and turn on their heels. The representatives of the Arabs deliver fiery speeches in the highest government forums, warning what the Arab states and peoples will do if this or that decision be enacted. Declarations fall like bombs from the mouths of officials at the meetings of the Arab League, but when action becomes necessary, the fire is still and quiet, and steel and iron are rusted and twisted, quick to bend and disintegrate.”
This is the old style of Arab discourse. Zurayk openly acknowledged the Arab states rejected all compromise, made ferocious threats, and invaded the new state of Israel to destroy it. For him, the “nakba” taught that they needed to modernize and democratize their system. Only thoroughgoing reform could fix the shortcomings of the Arabic-speaking world. What happened instead was another 55 years of the same thing, followed by this new era opening last year which will probably also bring a half-century of the same thing. Nakba has become the opposite of what Zurayk wanted it to be: Blaming your opponent rather than acknowledging your own shortcomings and fixing them.
What was a cry for reform and moderation has now become a call for revenge. If the Palestinian Arab forces had not begun preparing to launch war in 1946, led by the mufti, Amin al-Husaini, freshly returned from Berlin where he had been Hitler’s biggest non-European collaborator (details in the new book by myself and Wolfgang Schwanitz coming later this year) and using hidden Nazi-supplied weapons (1942) there would have been no nakba.
Oh, and does the “nakba”–using Zurayk’s own account–compare to the Holocaust murders of six million Jews by the Nazis and their willing collaborators? Well, the Jews didn’t have a state and they didn’t declare war on Germany and invade it with armies, nor did they threaten to wipe Germany off the map, bomb them, and commit genocide on the Germans.
If Arab states had made some compromise either to prevent Israel’s creation through flexible diplomacy or to accept a two-state solution there would have been no nakba.
If the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states had accepted the partition plan in 1947 there would have been no nakba. Instead of mourning Israel’s creation they would have been cheering Palestine’s creation.
The true “nakba” was the rejection of partition that would have created a Palestinian Arab state in 1948. Such a state would have already celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. No 1956, 1967, 1973, or 1982 wars; no refugees; no terrorism. Even today, this point has only been discussed in Arabic by a handful of brave, isolated, and ignored people.
In reality, the nakba resulted from an attempt to destroy Israel and yet is now used as the rationale for continuing to try to destroy Israel.
Yet the nakba concept of which Zurayk wrote was much broader, the Arabic-speaking world’s failure to embrace modernity, science, real democracy, an other such things. In that respect, every day is a nakba and 2011 was not the year of the “Arab Spring” but the year of renewing the nakba strategy. It is a self-inflicted nakba and the victims are the Arabic-speaking people themselves.
Like so much said about the Arab-Israeli conflict it is remarkable how absurd this can shown to be in less than 150 words. Here they are:
So because a Syrian writer produced a book whose title was ignored by Palestinians until the last few years, the West is guilty for not taking up its title decades before the Palestinians did! And because a liberal modernizer analyzed the defeat as the internal failure of Arab states, this should be to the benefit of nationalist dictators and Islamists who rule these states today.
What did Zurayk think about Zionism and its triumph? Here’s what he wrote:
“The reason for the victory of the Zionists was that the roots of Zionism are grounded in modern Western life while we for the most part are still distant from this life and hostile to it. They live in the present and for the future, while we continue to dream the dreams of the past and to stupefy ourselves with its fading glory.”
“To dream the dreams of the past and to stupefy ourselves with its fading glory.” Isn’t that precisely what the Nakba concept is used for today? To say: we cannot make a compromise peace because those horrible Israelis were so mean to us more than 60 years ago. We are victims. We want revenge. We dream of total victory.
And those dreams and that stupefying guarantees failure for the Arabs, and most of all the Palestinians, today.
If Zurayk were alive today he’d be an Arab liberal fighting radical Islamism. Zurayk wanted the Arabs to learn from their mistakes. How does that stand in the context of 2012? How soon will it be before we’re hearing of the Egyptian, Lebanese, Libyan, Syrian, and Tunisian “nakba”? Or how about the Palestinian nakba when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup? One day we might even hear about the multiple “nakba” pattern caused by the refusal of the PLO and PA to make a compromise agreement with Israel leading to a two-state solution and full peace.
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by Professor Paul Eidelberg
Sent as an email with no link:
Were you outraged on June 14, 2009 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without Knesset or public debate, endorsed the creation of an Arab-Islamic state in Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish civilization?
If not, then you were probably not outraged by the terror perpetrated by the Netanyahu government against small Jewish outposts in this divinely-promised land of the Jewish people. Doesn't the word “terror” describe a government that sends black-shirted thugs in the wee hours of the morning to uproot a small Jewish community and traumatize its women and children in the process?
Do you think there is a non-violent way of expelling the 350,000 Jews that live in Judea and Samaria? Do you think these Jews are mere cattle, that they will passively abandon Judea and Samaria and leave their homes and schools, their farms and factories, to be occupied by their Arab enemies and thus make Netanyahu’s projected Palestinian state economically viable?
Those of you who think otherwise and who are not intimidated by Israel’s headless and heartless government may be encouraged by an event that took place in the Land of Israel back in 1920, an event that redounds to the honor of many Jews, secular and religious. And since these Jews were then subject to British rule, their noble conduct shines all the more brilliantly when contrasted to the servile behavior of Israel’s government.
The event is recorded by Dr. Joseph B. Shechtman in his biography of Vladimir Jabotinsky, parts of which shall now be quoted and paraphrased.
At the end of 1919, Jabotinsky formed the Jewish Defense Corps (Haganah) in reaction to Arab violence. On April 4, an Arab mob, inflamed by anti-Jewish speeches, began attacking Jews in Jerusalem. “Soon Jewish blood was shed and the mob rushed into the Jewish quarter to kill and to pillage, shouting: “El Dowleh ma’ana (the government is with us).”
“Instead of assisting the victims, Arab police either adopted a passive attitude or joined the attackers. The pogrom lasted two days and resulted in five Jews and four Arabs killed, 211 Jews and 21 Arabs wounded; two Jewish girls were raped.”
The only part of Jerusalem affected by the riots was the Jewish quarter in the Old City, where Orthodox Jews refused to permit Jabotinsky’s Jewish Self-Defense Corps to operate. All other quarters of the City were guarded by Jewish patrols, with the result that not one casualty occurred in these areas.
“Hardly was the pogrom over when the British administration started reprisals against the Jewish defenders of Jerusalem.” Twenty Haganah members were arrested, including Jabotinsky. The men were brought into an interrogation room, where they were surrounded by Arab guards with Turkish lashes in their hands.
On the order of the judge (an Australian captain), an Arab secretary started the investigation by addressing Jabotinsky in Arabic: “What is your name?” There was no answer. The question was repeated in French: “Votre nom, Monsieur?” No answer. Finally in English: “Will you please tell me your name?” No answer.
The judge lost patience, banged on the table and angrily shouted: “Why don't you answer?”
Turning to the judge, Jabotinsky said quietly but firmly: “Your honor! I shall not answer a court secretary who belongs to the tribe of the murderers whose attacks upon innocent people, coupled with pillage and raping, are still going on beyond these walls. Furthermore, I shall answer no questions unless they are asked in Hebrew, my language, the language of the Land of Israel and the language of my nineteen comrades.”
“There are no nationalities in the Court; there are only officials,” the judge sternly admonished him.
“If this is the case, I shall not reply to this official,” was the composed answer.
“Take him out of the room,” ordered the judge.
This was quickly done. But the remaining prisoners firmly clung to Jabotinsky’s policy. The Court adjourned. Two hours later they were summoned again; a Jewish sergeant, speaking English and Hebrew, was in the secretary’s chair and his opening question was in Hebrew: “Mah Sh’meicha?” (What’s your name?).
But this is not all. We read in the sequel: “The Jews of Jerusalem learned that Jabotinsky and his comrades ... were committed for trial, on Sabbath, April 10th. The same day, three hundred-eighty members of the Defense Corps who had not been arrested, signed a petition to the Court declaring themselves at one with the twenty arrested men and asking to be tried together with them.
“Simultaneously, in all synagogues signatures were collected under a petition expressing full solidarity with Jabotinsky and stating that, although the signatories had not been in a position to participate in the Self-Defense Corps, they would have done so, had it been possible. The Illustrious Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Rav Kook, was the first to sign the petition and authorized its signing on the Sabbath by others.
“Two thousand five hundred Jews signed, among them three hundred women who stated they had been urging their husbands, brothers, sons to join the self-defense. The petition was submitted to the Military Court, but was disregarded.
Jabotinsky and his comrades were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude—this, for defending Jewish life and Jewish honor against murderous and rapacious Arabs! Indignation seized the Jews in Jerusalem and the suburbs. Haaretz reported on April 20: “All the schools, institutions, shops, etc. are closed; nobody on the streets; no trading, no newspapers, nothing. A total strike.” The Rabbinate proclaimed the 26th of April a day of general strike, fast, and mourning, with the sounding of the Shofar in all synagogues in the country. (What would happen in Israel if such a strike were called today?)
When news about the vindictive sentence reached London, a storm of public indignation was aroused. Members of the House of Commons were embarrassed, for Jabotinsky had served as an officer in the British army during World War I, indeed, had organized the Jewish Legion that fought on the side of the allies.
On July 8th, the High Commissioner of Palestine, Sir Herbert Samuel, issued an amnesty for all those imprisoned in connection with the Jerusalem riots, including two Arab rapists! Instead of being exonerated as he had insisted, Jabotinsky and his comrades were placed on the same level as Arab rapists and pogromists! He bitterly protested, but in vain.
A bright episode in Jewish history was thus dimmed by what we now call “moral equivalence.” But the Jewish pride and courage displayed by Jabotinsky, his comrades, and his 2,500 supporters—let us again mention Rabbi Kook—should serve to inspire Jews today confronted, as they are, not only by bloodthirsty Arabs, but by a shameless and pusillanimous government at war with God and heritage of the Jewish people.
