 |
 AfricaSpeaks Weblog
Rootswomen Weblog
Rootsie's Weblog
|
In solidarity for a free Palestine
Posted: Wednesday, August 21, 2002
By Steven Salaita, YellowTimes.org
For the first time in my life, I was disgusted to receive messages in support of the Palestinian people. It wasn't, of course, the support itself that irritated me; it is always uplifting and inspiring to hear from folks who covet justice and advocate the implementation of international law.
Rather, it was the context in which the purported support was expressed. Let me offer an example. One reader signed off with the line, "In solidarity for a free Palestine." A nice sentiment, right? Absolutely not. The previous sentence announced that "[i]f they don't soon clean up their act - in Palestine and everywhere else - these Zionists will suffer a fate that will make the supposed 'death of the six million' (unfortunately, that number seems far too small) look like a tea party!"
I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. The subject line, after all, read, "Those Fucking Jews!" Sadly, this way of thinking still exists in our world. It is gruesome and frightening, but not wholly anachronistic. I deplore it, though I don't like to publicly condemn it because, thanks to organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Simon Wiesenthal Center, condemnation of anti-Semitism is parlayed into uncritical support for Israel's ethnic cleansing. I refuse to oppose one form of racism in order to maintain another.
What spurs me to action is the statement, "In solidarity for a free Palestine." Wishing death on world Jewry will not save Palestine. Ridiculing the millions who died in the Holocaust will not, in any possible way, benefit humanity. It will perpetuate the hatred that affected ethnic cleansing in the first place. I'd like to remind readers that Zionist colonization is part of this continuum, not a movement in response to it.
This is all, in any case, beside the point. Articulating a desire to exterminate an entire ethnicity is pernicious beyond comprehension. It is counterproductive. It is despicable. It is terrifying. It is idiotic.
And it has no place in the free Palestine movement, either in the West or Middle East. Such idiocy was never part of Arab culture. It was invented and developed in Europe. Let them have it. When has an indigenous people ever benefited from mimicking Europeans?
As an ardent supporter of the Palestinian people, I would like to avoid statements like the one I received from a polite and otherwise perfectly reasonable reader in West Virginia: "I do recognize the double standard and hateful nature of the Yehudi." Or this one from another concerned citizen: "A truly frightening, evil race of people." My inbox is littered with similar observations.
It provides me a semblance of relief that Arabs and Muslims have never offered feedback of this nature. It would be dishonest, however, to suggest that anti-Semitism does not exist in the Arab world. It is expressed on the street, in newspapers, and at the government level. It needs to cease for obvious reasons, mainly moral but also strategic.
Another rarely mentioned reason it should stop is because it diverts Arabs from their cultural traditions. We have always been warm and generous. Our culture is unceasingly hospitable. Nowhere are guests treated more kindly than in the Arab world. We have an extraordinary history of tolerance and scientific inquiry.
But if we appropriate the philosophical underpinnings of colonialism, then we become colonialists. We will be no better than the Europeans who came and carved our borders. We will be worse than Zionists.
Arabs have serious problems to solve before we set our sights on liberating Palestine. There is a vibrant slave trade in Mauritania and the Sudan. There is political repression in Syria and Jordan. There is violent extremism in Algeria. (I wonder what became of Frantz Fanon's hope that the Algerian decolonial struggle wouldn't replace a French policeman with an Algerian policeman.) There is indentured servitude all over the Gulf. There is severe religious tension in Lebanon.
With all this, we expect to liberate Palestine? I don't think so. Please, let's not add Nazism to the list of impediments. Relying on our own brilliant social and intellectual heritage will suffice.
The messages I receive from domestic readers connote a different problem altogether. They are part of a recent phenomenon that has the potential to destabilize and discredit Arab America: The convergence of extreme-right logic with anti-occupation activity, a central feature of Arab American political culture.
A number of far-right racists, David Duke foremost among them, now invoke Israel's behavior as "proof" of inherent Jewish depravity. Extremist websites post articles critical of Israel from respectable publications, many with Jewish authors. The organizations' hatred of Jews is so strong that they are willing to employ Jewish voices in order to promote their agenda. Their naïveté is as striking as their stupidity.
Unfortunately, it gives credence to the Zionist assertion that Jews opposed to Israel's occupation are "self-hating." When Arab authors are used, it incites the notion that unprovoked anti-Semitism underlies our work. How are supporters of Palestine ever to make headway when the asinine claims made against our discourse by the Zionist mainstream are corroborated - without our knowledge or permission - by right-wing ideologues?
Zionists whore themselves to the religious right in order to receive their money and support, even though they know damn well what Protestant taxonomy has in store for the Jews. It is shameful. Now, they rely on the exploits of those who want them exterminated in order to justify their claim that criticism of Israel is an offshoot of Nazism.
We know this approach is dimwitted; but when we allow the extreme right to expropriate and employ our discourse, the approach works. We are, yet again, put in a position where we ignore the real issues because we are trying to convince everybody that we aren't anti-Semitic.
This is all in addition to the most crucial point: Duke's brand of anti-Semitism is in itself horrific. It has no place in any decent public forum. It has caused humanity unspeakable pain. We shouldn't think that it could never happen again. As long as dangerous ideas exist, there is potential for danger.
I therefore have two messages, one for Arab Americans and the other for anti-Semites who hitch their bigotry to my articles:
1) It is prudent for us to monitor what is said on our behalf and where our work is displayed when it is put into transit. We are already amid a public relations disaster in the United States. Zionists love exploiting that disaster; indeed, they helped create it.
John Ashcroft is trying to eliminate the few civil liberties we have left. The Patriot Act is perilous to all Americans, but aimed primarily at Arabs and Muslims. We don't need more reason to induce suspicion in fellow Americans. And we can't afford to have our good work hijacked by racists who despise us, but who abhor the Jews enough to use that work to supplement their abhorrence.
Let us then remain aware of the consequences of speaking. I am not merely paranoid. This problem is potentially serious.
2) It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. It is noble and necessary. It is anti-Semitic, however, to claim that Israel is the result of degenerate Jewry. This is what you do. I deplore that claim. I want nothing to do with it. I would rather embrace Zionism.
I repeat emphatically: I do not work on behalf of Palestine in order to antagonize or destroy the Jews. The Jews are my cousins. I have productive relationships and warm friendships with Jews. The Israeli government is my enemy. This fact does not give you the right to attach your hateful ideology to Arab America and attribute your insanity to us.
Your attitude nullifies humanity's potential for rapprochement. Your false support is transparent. Your incompetence is ubiquitous. Come to think of it, the only symbiosis among Jews and Arabs is the fact that our common enemy is you.
[Steven Salaita is completing an English doctorate at the University of Oklahoma, with emphasis on Native, Palestinian, and Arab American literatures. A West Virginian with Palestinian and Jordanian parents, he splits his time between the United States and the Middle East.]
 Printer friendly version
 Send page by E-Mail
|
