Antecedents to today's talk of "Palestinian rights" in how Reconstruction was described

Sar Shalom

I finally got to start reading Eric Foner's Reconstruction, through which I learned of W. E. B. DuBois' Black Reconstruction in America. One of the topics of DuBois' work is the Dunning school's historiography of Reconstruction which was responsible for generations of Americans believing that Reconstruction was simply a tool for corrupt northerners to prop up incompetent negroes to which DuBois' contemporaries could happily say goodriddance. An example of DuBois' struggle with the zeitgeist at his time, from Chapter XVII "The Propaganda of History," and some commentary of how his struggle parallels our struggle with the zeitgeist of the Palestinian narrative:

Herein lies more than mere omission and difference of emphasis. The treatment of the period of Reconstruction reflects small credit upon American historians as scientists. We have too often a deliberate attempt so to change the facts of history that the story will make pleasant reading for Americans. The editors of the fourteenth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica asked me for an article on the history of the American Negro. From my manuscript they cut out all my references to Reconstruction. I insisted on including the following statement:

White historians have ascribed the faults and failures of Reconstruction to Negro ignorance and corruption. But the Negro insists that it was Negro loyalty and the Negro vote alone that restored the South to the Union; established the new democracy, both for white and black, and instituted the public schools.

This the editor refused to print, although he said that the article otherwise was "in my judgment, and in the judgment of others in the office, an excellent one, and one with which it seems to me we may all be well satisfied." I was not satisfied and refused to allow the article to appear.

Just as the intelligentsia of DuBois' time refused to challenge its narrative about the freedmen being a bunch of incompetents, today's intelligentsia refuses to challenge its narrative about the uppity Jews dispossessing the native Palestinians so as to revive their abandoned and forgotten kingdom. Unlike American Reconstruction for DuBois, Middle Eastern reconstruction for us is a matter of the present and not just history. Thus, instead of historical works ignoring parts of the past complicating the desired narrative, today the news media, as documented by Matti Friedman, ignore events of the present that complicate their precious narrative.

War and especially civil strife leave terrible wounds. It is the duty of humanity to heal them. It was therefore soon conceived as neither wise nor patriotic to speak of all the causes of strife and the terrible results to which sectional differences in the United States had led. And so, first of all, we minimized the slavery controversy which convulsed the nation from the Missouri Compromise down to the Civil War. On top of that, we passed by Reconstruction with a phrase of regret or disgust.

In most western discourse about the Middle East today, the role of the Holocaust is rightly recognized as justifying the need for a Jewish homeland. However, such discussion invariably devolves into questions of how much the "innocent" Palestinians should pay for the sins and crimes of Europe. What such questions ignore is the 13 centuries of the Pact of Umar in general and the half-century before the First Aliyah in the Levant and Arab resistance to the Yishuv in particular. Having whitewashed the Arab/Muslim crimes against Mizrahi Jewry out of our history, it is now permissible to publicize questions if Middle Eastern reconstruction should be brought to an end now the way American Reconstruction was ended 138 years ago.

But are these reasons of courtesy and philanthropy sufficient for denying Truth? If history is going to be scientific, if the record of human action is going to be set down with that accuracy and faithfulness of detail which will allow its use as a measuring rod and guidepost for the future of nations, there must be set some standards of ethics in research and interpretation.

If, on the other hand, we are going to use history for our pleasure and amusement, for inflating our national ego, and giving us a false but pleasurable sense of accomplishment, then we must give up the idea of history either as a science or as an art using the results of science, and admit frankly that we are using a version of historic fact in order to influence and educate the new generation along the way we wish.

Now we get to the reason for why history was censored in DuBois' day. Today we recognize that allowing Jim Crow to emerge at the end of the 19th century is a stain on our nation's history. In DuBois' time, the stain would have been ever more real as Jim Crow was a present reality then. However, if the alternative to Jim Crow could be shown to be a perversion of justice, then Jim Crow could be tolerated as at worst the cost of righting a grave injustice and making it happen would have been a truly noble act. Such is also the case with Middle Eastern reconstruction. If it can be shown that the uppity Jews are guilty of unspeakable, unprovoked crimes against humanity, then giving them their comeuppance would not be such a terrible act. In fact, it would be a noble one. If the result of doing so is the reinstatement of the Islamic equivalent of Jim Crow, then it is at worst the unfortunate cost of seeing that justice is done. Such are the stakes of the narrative war.

The Immorality of the Jews

Michael L.

{Cross-posted at the Elder of Ziyon and Jews Down Under.}

The recent firebomb attack by "extremist Jewish settlers" resulting in the death of 18-month old Ali Dawabsha, combined with the recent attack on the Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem which saw the  murder of 16-year old Shira Banki, has Israeli-Jews nervous, sad, and introspective.

Many in the West will tell you that Israeli-Jews are deeply immoral people.  The Yishuv, after all, marched on the indigenous Palestinian population in 1948, driving between 600,000 and 700,000 innocent people from their homes and causing al-Nakba (the Catastrophe) which has, in large part, influenced Palestinian culture and politics ever since.

The Zionist Occupation of the Indigenous Palestinian People

Israeli-Jews are deeply racist toward Arabs who they oppress in a great variety of ways.

Jews humiliate the local Arabs by forcing them to go through check-points.  Israeli soldiers often use Palestinian children as human shields during military operations.  The Israeli-Jews continue settlement expansion and perpetually steal Palestinian land which they crisscross with "Jews Only" roads.  While settlers enjoy swimming pools their Palestinian neighbors are robbed of water by the Israeli Occupation Authorities.

The IDF targets journalists and peace activists - even murdering Rachel Corrie, a young American from the Pacific Northwest who fought for Palestinian-Arab rights and dignity.  For her troubles she was intentionally run-over by an IDF bulldozer, killing her.

Furthermore, the Security Wall (or Apartheid Wall) separates Palestinians from villages, farms, and ultimately employment, thus serving to further impoverish a people already poverty-stricken due to Zionist aggression.

Given the atrocities and war crimes regularly committed by Israeli-Jews against their Palestinian neighbors, is it any wonder that so many on the Western-Left have concluded that Israeli-Jews are immoral?  Is their any wonder that anti-Zionism and the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS) is gaining steam?  Furthermore, not only has much of the rest of the world concluded that Israeli-Jews - who represent about half the world's population of Jews - are immoral, but even the Israeli-Jews themselves are starting to believe it.

Crying in the Press

One need only survey some of the current introspection playing out in the Israeli and Jewish press to see that Israelis are losing faith in their own humanity.

In the Israel Hayom newspaper in Israel we see these headlines:

"Thou shalt not kill" by Nadav Shragai in which he is convinced that the murder of the toddler says something about the nature of Israeli-Jews and wherein he fears that the affliction of violence and hatred is now spreading among the Jews.

In "Fighting our inner racist", by Ran Reznick, we learn that homophobia and xenophobia are running amuck among Israeli-Jews.

In "A shameful day for Israel"  by Times of Israel editor David Horovits, he begs the people and the government that mere regret is insufficient and such regret must be matched with action.

Media personality and Israeli politician, Yair Lapid's contribution is "We are at war" and he thinks that the enemy comes from within.

In Ha'aretz, hard-left Gideon Levy is convinced that "We all torched the Dawabsheh family".

And, also it must be considered, if the Israeli-Jews are as immoral as even they are coming to believe, what does this tells us about their diaspora Jewish supporters all around the world?  Nothing good, I am afraid.  If Israeli-Jews are committing atrocities against the local Arabs then diaspora Jews are complicit in willingly supporting such atrocities and are, thereby, themselves morally compromised.

And then there is this:

The Truth

On Sunday in Israel, Imad Abu Sharikh was hospitalized after a severe beating.  We read:

Abu Sharikh told police he was heading to the mosque when three "right-wing extremists" attacking him, shouting "filthy Arab, expel all the Arabs!" 

The report quickly made the rounds in the Israeli and Palestinian media, along with pictures of a bloodied and battered Abu Sharikh.  The claim that he had been the victim of a racist attack by Jews was particularly sensitive, coming just two days after the death of Ali Dawabsha in an attack believed to have been carried out by Jewish extremists Friday. 

The leader of the Arab Joint List party MK, Ayman Odeh, rushed to issue a condemnation and blame right-wing "incitement."

There is only one little problem, however.  Sharikh lied:

But while Abu Sharikh's wounds were indeed real, his story quickly proved to have been fabricated

Police soon arrested the three suspects - all of whom were Arab residents of the city.

Not only did he lie, he lied specifically to defame Jews in order incite violence against us.

Furthermore, we have no idea who killed Ali Dawabsha.  It might have been Jews, but why would we be so quick to rush to judgment without significant evidence?   We were told that this was a "price tag" attack and that the word "revenge" was scrawled in Hebrew on a wall of the house.  Well, can we think of any reason why a Palestinian-Arab might ever want to commit violence against another Palestinian-Arab?  Is it possible that someone else in the Land of Israel may know enough Hebrew to scrawl a few words on a wall, besides a Jew?

Is it even possible that the culprit was a non-Jew?  According to what I read in the media they seem to have largely concluded that they know that the savages were Jewish.  Just how do they know this?

I do not know if Jews are innocent of this heinous crime and that is not what I am arguing.  What I am arguing is that you do not know either, but if one insists upon laying blame at Jewish feet with virtually no evidence, what does it say about ones inclinations toward Jews?  And what does it mean that so many Jews are eager to go along with it?

The Narrative

As for the narrative above concerning Israeli-Jewish crimes against the "innocent indigenous" population, it is pure bullshit, as we say in the United States.  It is the "Palestinian Narrative" comprised entirely of wild exaggerations and straight-up lies.  It is the kind toxic anti-Zionist / anti-Jewish gibberish that many on the Left, and within academe, love to fling around like confetti.

What is true, however, is that this so-called "Palestinian narrative" of perfect victim-hood is having its intended effect on much of the rest of the world and thereby, inevitably, upon the tiny Jewish population.  The Jews are among the most self-reflective people on the planet.  This is generally a good thing, but it is not always a good thing.  All virtues have their corresponding vices and the corresponding vice of "self-reflection" is paralysis and self-doubt.

The truth of the matter is that most peoples in the world are considerably more savage than are the Jews.  I apologize if that sounds self-congratulatory, but one need only take a quick gander at the neighborhood around Israel to determine the truthfulness of the claim.  But only the Jews fret to the degree that we do.  We are now convincing ourselves, with much encouragement in the Muslim world and the West, to think that the rare acts of political violence by random Jews represents some sort-of terrible stain on the Israeli Jewish soul.  There are all sorts-of "well-meaning" people who want to help the Jews overcome our alleged Nazi-like inclinations and they are perfectly happy to smack us over the head with a shovel in order to teach the lesson.

One thing is certain.  If the Palestinian-Arabs had one one-hundredth the inclination toward moral self-reflection as do the Jewish people the conflict would have been long over.

Arabs throw molotov cocktails at Jews practically on a daily basis in Israel.  Sometimes they throw them at houses, sometimes that throw them at cars, and sometimes they throw them at cops.  And sometimes they kill people.  When that happens do the Palestinian-Arabs, as a people, publicly choose to reflect upon their misgivings and misunderstandings of others?

I do not think so.

Handing out sweets to children, and dancing in the streets, in order to celebrate the murder of Jews is not the behavior of someone engaged in moral self-reflection.

The Jewish people, however, including most particularly, Israeli Jews, have nothing to apologize for.

If anything, as a people perpetually under siege by a much larger hostile majority, they are the ones who deserve the apologies.

Daily Kos: Hating All Things Jewish

Michael L.

Many in the progressive-left do not merely despise the Jewish State of Israel, but pretty much all things Jewish.  Thus it is not the least bit surprising that their hatred for AIPAC is only exceeded by their hatred for Israel, itself.

A recent "diary" by "gobacktotexas" is entitled, Finally! Obama 'Hit[s] back hard at AIPAC'.

Finally!  At long last Barack Obama is hitting back at those Jews hard!  Well, thank God for that.  We can't let those uppity Jews get too comfortable, now, can we?

According to the New York Times:

President Obama had a tough message for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, the powerful pro-Israel group that is furiously campaigning against the Iran nuclear accord, when he met with two of its leaders at the White House this week. The president accused Aipac of spending millions of dollars in advertising against the deal and spreading false claims about it, people in the meeting recalled.

So Mr. Obama told the Aipac leaders that he intended to hit back hard.

The following comments beneath the Daily Kos piece give an indication of just how "progressives" feel about the single most important pro-Israel / pro-Jewish organization in the United States.

I can't understand how any human being would have trouble understanding that. AIPAC and Israel WANT the United States to go to war with Iran, period.

by MargaretPOA on Sat Aug 08, 2015 at 05:35:17 AM PDT 

The Jewish warmonger theme is an oldy but a goody.

Yes, Israel and AIPAC want war for no other reason than that Jews are warmongers.

We want war because we like war, period.  Besides, sometimes we profit from wars.  So there is that, as well.  Its a twofer!

You know what? (5+ / 0-)

There are some individuals in our government who actually do have compromised loyalties with regards to different interests. Most of them are on the Republican side of the aisle. Schumer is ostensibly one of ours and has all but come out and admitted that his loyalties are torn when it comes to foreign policy.

by beltane on Sat Aug 08, 2015 at 07:10:58 AM PDT

Ah, so Chuck Schumer disagrees with Barack Obama on the deal and this means that his loyalties are compromised.  Got it.

I despise doing more for Israel's protection until they make an effort to act like a civilized state and act considerate of their neighbors instead of stealing land and committing genocide.

I'm all for Israel receiving their own sanctions.

by mjd in florida on Sat Aug 08, 2015 at 07:31:57 AM PDT 

So, Israel, unlike its neighbors, apparently, is uncivilized.  Judea does not belong to the Jews, but to the conquering Arabs.  And Jewish Israelis are committing "genocide" against someone.

mjd in florida is a true progressive friend of the Jewish people.

He or she had also this to say:

Can you imagine how sick it made me last summer to see young Israelis partying on blankets on a hill to watch the bombs dropping on the helpless civilians in Gaza?  It was as if they were watching a rock concert.

I've fucking it had with the MIC, AIPAC right-wingers in our country.  Move your own kids to Israel and send them all off to fight their own selfish and genocidal wars for greed.  I'd rather make peace with Iran.

by mjd in florida on Sat Aug 08, 2015 at 04:22:40 AM PDT

Well, they're Jews!  Naturally they love violence and seeing people suffer.  Or it could be that after two years of rocket fire into southern Israel giving their children PTSD they were happy to see their government do some fighting back on their behalf.

But, no, they were just cheering on a Jewish genocidal war against the innocent indigenous population which was undertaken for no other reason than financial gain.  You know how those people are, after all.

I worry Netanyahu & current AIPAC is damaging (32+ / 0-)

American people's good will for Israel

If the government of Israel can rein in Netanyahu's rank partisan meddling in American politics, perhaps the trust and kinship the people of the U.S. feel for the people of Israel won't be broken irretrievably.

by eztempo on Sat Aug 08, 2015 at 02:27:11 AM PDT

eztempo is deeply concerned about the well-being of Israel and maybe someday, after the Israelis have apologized and made amends for something, then perhaps the American people will again look kindly upon the Jews of the Middle East... but not until they tend to their moral conscience.

The knowledge that the AIPAC crowd regards these young Americans as expendable tools in their political ambitions makes me physically ill.

by beltane on Sat Aug 08, 2015 at 06:14:48 AM PDT

That's right.  All those Jews in AIPAC look upon the children of their fellow Americans as nothing more than cannon fodder in the service of Jewish Supremacism... clearly.

How aware are they of this? (8+ / 0-)

I'm sure your sons will give all they have to defend the United States of America. But to fight and die for Israel -- especially Netanyahu's Israel -- would be a tragic waste of young lives. I hope your sons and their classmates are never in such a position. But thanks to Chuck Schumer, they're that much closer.

by Buzzer on Sat Aug 08, 2015 at 06:28:36 AM PDT 

No foreign power has ever fought a war for Israel, yet they continue to claim that Israel drags the US into wars for their own nefarious reasons.  Never mind that Ariel Sharon actually advised George W. Bush against attacking Iraq, they still tell one another that that was a war for Israel.

Current AIPAC? (11+ / 0-)

AIPAC has always been a right-wing hate group.

by Warren2016 on Sat Aug 08, 2015 at 06:21:52 AM PDT

Right-wing hate group?  Such pleasant people these "progressives" are.  So AIPAC is a hate organization like, say, the Klan or the Westboro Baptist Church. 

In any case, as you can plainly see, it is a river of contempt flowing out of progressive-left venues aimed squarely at Jewish well-being.  Criticism is one thing, but defamation is something else entirely.  One cannot defame Israel or AIPAC in the most vicious and outrageous terms possible and then turn around and claim to actually be a great friend to the Jewish people.

Uh, no, you are not.  So sorry.

The Syrian dead and basic human ethics

Michael L.

Sometimes the best posts are very brief and to the point.

The Elder has such a piece entitled, 5000 killed in Syria every month.

And that, really, is all you need to know.

According to conservative scholar, Daniel Pipes, the total dead from the Arab-Israel conflict between 1950 and the early part of the twenty-first century is around fifty-one thousand people, ranking it number 49 among significant conflicts in terms of war dead.  My understanding is that about two-thirds were Arab and one-third Jewish.

Between 1949 and 1976, the Red Chinese under Mao killed around forty million people.

40 million.

Ponder that for a moment, if you will.

Part of the problem that we have is that our opponents seem to have no sense of ethical proportionality.

They claim to stand for social justice and universal human rights, yet it is the Jews that they spit hatred towards.

How many are dead in the Syrian conflict?

Between two hundred and three hundred thousand within just the last few years,

A "Statement of Interest"

Michael L.

I find myself increasingly curious about this tussle between the PA-PLO and the Manhattan federal court.  Eric Tucker has an article in the Times of Israel in which he records the response of the victims to the possibility that the Obama Justice Department might intervene on behalf of the murderers of Americans.

According to attorney for the prosecution, Kent Yalowitz, "The Palestinians got a fair trial. The judgment was foreseeable, and they can afford to pay it over time.”

Indeed.  But what if they simply do not want to?  Given the fact that these heinous murderers have lost the trial the judge has required that they post bond pending appeal and, thus far, they have failed to do so.

In response to inquries concerning a possible US government "statement of interest" in the case, the Justice and State departments put out a joint statement:

“While we cannot comment on the substance of any possible filing, any filing would be a statement of the interests of the United States and not on behalf of the PA or any other party."

This is essentially a lie.  If the US government intervenes it will be on behalf of an Obama administration ally, the PA-PLO.  To suggest that bolstering the well-being of a terrorist organization that relishes the murder of Americans is in the interest of Americans is both irrational and mendacious.

In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch the plaintiffs requested that the government stay out of the matter:

“It causes us great pain to know that our Government might attempt to undermine the judgment in our case without taking into account the very real ability of the PLO and the PA to pay the judgment over time and stand accountable for their crimes,” the letter states.

There must come a point wherein clarity begins to prevail.

The truth is that the PA-PLO is an enemy to the Jewish people, an enemy to the Israeli people, and an enemy of the United States and the West.  They danced in the streets when the World Trade Center came down in Manhattan.  While we were mourning our dead they were handing out candy to their children and rejoicing in the comeuppance of the Great Satan.

{I lost one of my neighbors growing up that day.}

Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the PA-PLO is entirely counterproductive to the national self-interests of Americans, Israelis, and the entire western world.  It was ex-US president Jimmy Carter that initially bolstered the career of PLO chieftain Yassir Arafat and we've been stuck with these guys ever since and they certainly are not helping anything.

How is it possibly in the best interest of the American people to support an organization that calls for the murder of Jews and Americans?  What kind of honest cooperation can we possibly expect from a group that names schools and public squares after the murderers of innocent civilians?

It is long past time for the US government to acknowledge the fact that the Oslo "peace process" is over.  It is done and it is now time to move on.

In my opinion, at this point the US should stay out of Israeli affairs vis-à-vis the internal Arab problem.  (Happy, Shirlee? )  Siding with terrorists against Jews - which seems to be an Obama administration forté - only makes things worse, but one would think that would be obvious.

If the US files a "statement of interest" on behalf of the PA-PLO it will do so this coming Monday, August 10.

I wonder, if it does so, will consistent American Jewish supporters of this president, such as Volleyboy1, continue their support?

The willingness to acknowledge a mistake is a sign of character.  While I have no character whatsoever, I am willing to acknowledge the mistake that I made when I voted for Barack Obama in 2008.  It was a mistake on my part and I was wrong to have made it.

I am pleased to discover that my old acquaintance, fizziks, from the Daily Kos "glory days," seems to have drawn similar conclusions.  In a piece entitled, I Was Wrong. On The Biggest Issue of Our Time, he writes:

There you have it.  I was wrong back then.  The biggest threat was not that we would over-react to terrorism.  It turned out that we would seriously under-react to terrorism, and begin the process of equivocating about it, and therefore ultimately surrendering to it.

I was wrong, as well.  I also concerned myself more, after 9/11, with potential American overreaction to political Islam, rather than with the rise of political Islam, itself.

Many of us made that mistake, but not everyone has the integrity of fizziks to acknowledge that mistake in public.

If the US intervenes in this lawsuit on behalf of the PA-PLO then it means we unquestionably have a government, under Barack Obama, that favors the enemies of Jews and the enemies of Americans.

Progressives and Democrats can justify it anyway they like, but that is the bottom line.