March 15th: Approaching Purim and Shabbat Zachor
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
I am not a fan of Edward Said. I think that his literary theory—which has grown like kudzu into international politics and sociology and pretty much everything else –is responsible for many of the world’s intellectual woes. Nonetheless, even the wrong can be occasionally right.
Said, the late Professor of Literature at Columbia, taught that Western writers often try to see the Orient (a term for non-Western countries and cultures) from an Occidental/Western point of view—and that, in doing so, they misunderstand the peoples and cultures of Asia. If we (Westerners) want to accurately analyze the Orient, we need to see it in their (non-Western) terms, categories, social mores, etc. Orientalism is the fallacy that occurs when we foist our sensibilities or Weltanschauung onto non-Westerners and mispresent them and their cultures.
A case in point is our thinking about the Arabs and their resistance to the State of Israel. Many of us think that Arabs are “just like us: if we are nice to them, then they will be nice to us.” So, from the 1920s, various Western and Jewish thinkers have proposed sharing the Middle East and assigning Jews and Arabs their own areas. This initial thought came in the League of Nations’ Mandates to re-organize the disintegrating Ottoman Empire. Lots of land was given to the Arabs (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt), and a little bit of land (Palestine) was given to the Jews. Considering the percentage of native Jews in the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922), the area of Palestine was much smaller than proportional, but, when the Arabs protested, more than half of Palestine was removed from the Mandate and given to the Arab Hashemite Tribe. This resulted in the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan (the part of Palestine across (east of) the Jordan River). Still, the Arabs objected, so the United Nations tried a further division in the 1947 Partition Plan. Some areas of a diminished Palestine were assigned to Jews, and other areas of this diminished Palestine were assigned to Arabs. This too was unacceptable to the Arabs, and, the day after Israel declared itself a state, five Arab armies invaded.
Though many years have passed, the story has been remarkably consistent. Western types keep trying to offer land to the Arabs in a dizzying variety of peace packages, and the Arabs keep rejecting them. Sometimes, they even accentuate their rejection with an intifada.
A brief geographical note: on October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel from Gaza, a territory owned and ruled by Arab Palestinians for eighteen years.
The months since October 7 have seen a number of speakers rise to celebrity status for their passionate, well-reasoned, and insightful defense of Israel. Those of us battered by the international crusade against Israel are often comforted and inspired by the likes of Eylon Levy, Bari Weiss, and Douglas Murray. New to me—though not new to the situation—is Einat Wilf, an academic, former diplomat, and former Member of Knesset. Dr. Wilf has been a dyed-in-the-wool Israeli peacenik, laboring with Shimon Peres in the peace process and in the Labor Party and eventually realizing the error of her ways. She sees the origins of the current situation in the last days of the Ottoman Empire and in the failed British attempt to work the Mandate and set up ethnically-based nation states. Among her most insightful finds is a 1947 statement by the British Foreign Secretary—an anti-Semite named Ernest Bevin—explaining why Britain has been unsuccessful: “His Majesty’s Government have thus been faced with an irreconcilable conflict of principles … For the Jews, the essential point of principle is the creation of a sovereign Jewish State. For the Arabs, the essential point of principle is to resist to the last the establishment of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine.”
Think about this. Bevin’s 1947 review of the thirty-year British experience in Palestine explains pretty much everything that has happened between Israel and the Arabs for more than a century. The Jews want a Jewish State and will do whatever they can to make it happen. The Arabs oppose any kind of Jewish State in “Arab territory” and will do anything they can to stop it.
That is why every offer of “land for peace” with the Palestinians has been rejected by the Palestinians. That is why Yasser Arafat rejected a Palestinian State on the West Bank and in Gaza and with East Jerusalem as its capital—and immediately started the Second Intifada. That is why eighteen years of Palestinian autonomy in Gaza led to the October 7 invasion of Israel and massacres of Israelis. That is why Hamas is happy to “sacrifice” their Arab human shields, and that is why current calls for a ceasefire are subterfuges for reloading and re-arming. For the Arabs, “From the River to the Sea” is not a call for peace; it is a call for annihilation.
Thinking that they are “just like us” is Orientalism—foisting our image of reasonableness on a population whose guiding principles are offended by the very existence of a sovereign Jewish State. For them, it is a point of racial, cultural, and cosmic principle to destroy any Zionist entity, and thus offers of land and autonomy are beside the point. Thinking that the Arabs will be assuaged by anything other than the dismantling of Israel is an Orientalist fantasy, one that will fail again and again and again.
This is not racism but history. As Dr. Wilf explains, the long-standing Arab/Muslim attitude toward Jews is that we should be weak, deferential, and never in charge. This had been the Jewish survival strategy from around 200 CE, and it was the strategy of Jews during the years when Islam was created and came to dominate much of the world. However, since the 1800s, the notion of Jewish Self-Defense has risen, and we Jews have made ourselves powerful and autonomous. What used to be a Jewish fantasy expressed in the Purim story of Esther and Mordecai has become a reality. Today’s Jewish presence is one traditional Muslim and Arab sensibilities cannot accept.
Do we wish that there were no enemies? Do we yearn to sing Kumbaya as we hold hands with our neighbors? Inshallah! However, we have enemies—self-declared enemies who oppose us, who wish us harm, and who will not be deterred by territorial compromises. They are out to destroy Israel and any non-acquiescent Jews. We either stand firm, or we give up.
“Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear. Therefore, when the Lord your God grants your safety from all your enemies around you, in the land of that the Lord your God is giving you as a hereditary portion, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!” (Deuteronomy 25.17-19)