If an American politician will propose to
return Texas or San Diego to Mexico, would a Mexican professor
call him “a racist who wants to get rid of Hispanics” or just
bless this initiative?
Oops!
A response to
Saree Makdisi’s The Rise of Avigdor Lieberman,
By Israel Shamir
Israeli and Palestinian politics are often
misinterpreted by zealous supporters of various parties
overseas. So many well-meaning American Jews and Arabs write
about events and developments in our country basing their views
on their Sunday school lessons or on their prejudices. But even
for a man used to misunderstanding, the piece by Professor Saree
Makdisi called The Rise of Israel's Avigdor Lieberman
with an additional title The Ethnic Cleansing Party Outpaces
Likud takes the proverbial cherry. I am sure Professor
Makdisi is very knowledgeable regarding William Blake, his main
field of study, but he should learn more of the area he presumes
to write about. An Arab (or a Jewish) name and origin is just
not a substitute of actual knowledge of Israeli politics. As a
Russian Israeli writer living in Jaffa with its mixed
population, and nor a supporter neither a voter of Yisrael
Beiteinu (YB), I feel it is my duty to correct his most
obvious errors.
Makdisi claims that “Avigdor Lieberman,
leader of YB, is the real winner of the Israeli elections
and a potential kingmaker”. The reality is very different:
Lieberman’s party has a great difficulty to enter any coalition,
neither it is sought by Olmert or Peretz, the leaders of the
biggest Israeli parties. Far from being “a potential kingmaker”,
Lieberman is an outsider, and there are big chances that he will
squander the voices given to him by the Russian Israeli voter by
remaining in fruitless opposition. The Israeli mainstream media
refers to him and to his party with all the warmness usually
reserved for Hamas. Being a Russian, he just does not qualify to
be a serious player in Israeli politics. So much for being a
winner.
Practically every word in Makdisi’s piece is
misleading. He says that Lieberman’s party “outpaced Likud”.
What rot! Not only YB with its 11 seats did not outpace Likud
with its 12 seats, but more to the point, Likud crashed, ceased
to be a major party, and became a middling party, on a par with
three ethnic parties, Russian YB (11 seats), Moroccan Shas (12
seats) and the Arab block (10 seats). Thus it is not that YB
overtook Likud, but rather, Likud has collapsed.
Even less substantiated is Makdisi’s weird
claim that YB is a “racist party” and for them, “non-Jews are
not welcome”. As a matter of fact, the YB is the least Jewish
nationalist party in the Knesset outside the Arab block, as it
is the party of the Russian, heavily non-Jewish community in
Israel. At least half of the Russians in Israel, and thus many
of YB voters, are just not Jews, and do not regret it. The
voters of YB stand for equality of Jews and non-Jews, for civil
marriages as opposed to the religious ones, for termination of
Rabbinic dictat, for non-kosher restaurants, and they intermarry
with the Israeli Palestinians at least as often as with the
Israeli Jews. YB does not support the mad idea of “transfer” or
mass expulsion of Native Palestinians, as Makdisi claims.
Makdisi makes much of Lieberman’s plan to
correct the borders of Israel and calls it “ethnic cleansing”.
He writes: “Lieberman proposes that the state's borders be drawn
in such a way that Jews are placed on one side of it, and as
many Arabs as possible on the other. Lieberman's solution may
seem a little less inhumane [than expulsion], but it is just as
racist.” He is apparently unaware that this was the idea of the
partition of Palestine approved by the UN on November 29, 1947.
In 1948, the Jewish state seized some parts of the proposed
Palestinian state, including Jerusalem Corridor, Jaffa, Western
Galilee and the Wadi Ara area. Lieberman called to return the
Wadi Ara area to the future Palestinian state. Mind you: he did
not call to expel the Arab dwellers of the area, but to
surrender the whole area with its population to the neighbouring
state. This is hardly “an ethnic cleansing” idea.
Suppose an American politician will propose
to return Texas or San Diego to Mexico. Would a Mexican
professor call him “a racist who wants to get rid of Hispanics”
or just bless this initiative? If a French politician would
propose to return Alsace to Germany, should the German papers
curse “a racist who wants to rid France of German-speaking
Alsatians”? The answer is obvious: while ethnic cleansing, i.e.
separation of people from their land (like the one perpetrated
by Israel in 1948, as correctly stated by Makdisi) is
unacceptable, transfer of a territory with its dwellers from one
sovereignty to another one is quite a normal and standard
procedure in the law of the nations.
Personally, I am not in favour of the
so-called “two-states’ solution” and would prefer one state with
equal rights for all the dwellers of Palestine/Israel, but
meanwhile this idea has too few supporters, and Palestinian and
Israeli leaders are still trying to turn our small country into
two states. The borders between the twain should be established
by negotiations, and the Partition Line of 1947 is certainly the
most legitimate starting point for such negotiations. Instead of
condemning Lieberman’s proposal we may regret its limited
character. Not only Wadi Ara, but Western Galilee, from Nazareth
to Acre, were supposed to belong to the Palestinian state. A
friend of Palestine should support their return, not object to
it. Moreover, I live in Jaffa, predestined by the UN decision to
become a part of the Palestinian state, and annexed by the
Jewish state in 1948. I would fully support transfer of Jaffa
with all its residents (including myself) back into Palestinian
sovereignty, if Lieberman were to propose such a step.
Makdisi complains that
Lieberman was born in Moldova and still has all the rights in
Israel, as opposed to the native population. This does not sound
convincing when said by a Lebanese who lives in the US and
enjoys all the rights including professorship in an American
university, while the Native Americans languish in their
reservations.
However, the Lebanese
experience of Makdisi could help him to understand the secret of
Lieberman. His party is an ethnic party of the Russians, like
the Socialist Party of Lebanon is a party of the Druze, or our
Communist party is (predominantly) an Arab party, or our Meretz
is a party of wealthy Ashkenazis. All other features of these
parties are provisory and can change with circumstances. The
Russians are probably the most sympathetic to the Native
Palestinians group in Israel, and there are many organisations
(notably in Nazareth and Jaffa) that work to strengthen these
ties.
If this is the case, why YB
is described as “racist” and why, despite its electoral success,
the party is kept well outside of the pinnacle of power? I can
venture an explanation. The Jewish state is ruled, from its
murky beginnings in 1920s until today, by a single group of
Polish Jews whose recent ancestors were born between Pinsk and
Minsk. This is our Mayflower. They fight off attempts of other
groups to share power. They fought the German Jews and kept
their Liberal Party well outside. They fought the Sephardi Jews
when they formed their Shas party, and many Israelis remember
1999 elections call “Anybody but Shas”. Now they fight the
Russians. In Israel, they say that the Russians are not Jews, in
their propaganda abroad they say the Russians are racist (rather
a racist saying, too). Demonisation of these rising groups is
just a tool of the ruling elite. The solution of our problems
lays in union of the oppressed groups, including Russians,
Moroccans and Native Palestinians, for full equality and better
power-sharing. This is regrettable that Prof Makdisi did not
understand the plot behind the accusations, and supported the
“divide and rule” device of the Israeli elites.
Israel Shamir,
Jaffa
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