Incidentally, THIS is a real peace activist with actual ideas.

He does not just point at the Jews and blame them.

The Kurds have suffered from Arab imperialism more than Israel has (because the Arabs actually won their wars against the Kurds) but less than the Africans.

Always interesting to read your articles. I get alot more history and a more interesting perspective than anything that the news organizations produce these days.

Keep it up!

Thanks!

I always hope that I can reach readers like you.

I'll have more on Kurdish history soon.

It's a very canny political move. If the Kurds get Israeli support, they can tell Iraq to stick it. Inviting Israeli citizens to take residence is a good option. Even Turkey might have to reconsider their position if they accidentally kill the region's most belligerent nation's citizens.

What I've never understood about Israeli Jews is that if this was really the case - that they would live outside of Israel if it was safe - why they don't move to a first world country. Israel isn't some backwater - the skills many residents possess would get them priority entrance to the English-speaking states. Then they'd never have to worry about rockets again.

What's the attraction to Israelis of living there, Leauki? Is it the common purpose of being monocultural and under siege? It's a heavily immigrant-based population, so it can't be some real connection with the land beyond a flexibly cultural one.

It has advantages, yes. But the Kurds are also very genuinely into multiculturalism. I have written about that before. They want a Kurdish state with minorities who speak their own languages. They want to live in mixed cities. That was a very clear message I got in Arbil. Everyone wanted me to see the Assyrian (Christian) quarter and see remnants of Jewish architecture in the city.

No, but they would worry about being defenceless in the face of whatever other attack there will be.

Before the Shoah many Jews in Europe were anti-Zionist for precisely the reasons you cite: living in the first world was possible and safe and there is no need to move into a region where non-Arab (and back then non-Turkish) peoples were persecuted and enslaved.

Then the Shoah happened and suddenly the vast majority of Jews understood why Jews have to have their own country with their own military providing their own security.

You also underestimate the cultural problems. People complain when Israeli ultra-right wingers suggest that Palestinian Arabs could live in Egypt (when in 1948 they decided that they wouldn't want to live with Jews). But often the same people see no problem with deporting millions of middle-eastern Jews to far-away places like Europe or America.

It was difficult but possible to make Aramaic- and Arabic-speaking Jews into Hebrew-speaking Israelis. But to adapt to a completely foreign culture would prove more difficult. Israel is not very different from other middle-eastern countries. It took the best from western culture from its European elite, but remained a middle-eastern country.

I do not believe that anti-Jewish sentiments in the west would suddenly stop if Israelis left the middle-east for America and the Commonwealth. People, especially liberals (and I am not sorry for saying this) still need a scapegoat for the evils of the world and midde-eastern Jews, who are both Jewish and foreign, are the ideal scapegoat for everything.

And the Arab world, without any Jews, would become even more anti-Semitic. Even today the most anti-Semitic among Arabs and Muslims are found in countries where there are no Jews and where there have never been any Jews, in that order of strength.

In Iraq the Arabs in the south, who have never met Jews and who live in a region where Iraqi Jews have never lived even before the 1930s, are more anti-Semitic than the Arabs in the north. And finally, the (Sunni) Arabs from Baghdad and the Kurds from Mosul and Arbil, where Jews lived until the 1950s are the least anti-Semitic.

Thus removing Jews from the middle east would simply make the problem worse.

We have to learn to live together, not to teach each other that whoever hates the most can keep the land. I do not wish to make an area Jew-free just because one big nation claims that it cannot co-exist with Jews. What will we do when the Jews are gone and the Arabs remember that they also cannot live with black Africans, Kurds, Assyrians and/or Berbers? (Fact is, they already persecute, murder and enslave those peoples. Removing the Jews from the picture would solve the smallest conflict and leave the other peoples without hope. Where would Sudanese blacks flee if not to Israel? Who would train and support the Kurdish anti-terrror police, if not Israel? Who would protect Christian holy sites in Jerusalem if not Israel?)

Israel is not only the religious home of the Jewish people, it is also the guarantee that Jewish survival does not depend on the good will of the host country. We have tried the alternative for 2000 years.

Parts of the Jewish population in Israel have been there for over 3000 years (the "settlement" in Hevron is one of those old seats). And it is a real connection with the land. Jerusalem and the surrounding land is mentioned in most Jewish prayers and for the last 2000 years famous Jewish authors have lived in Israel whenever possible. Maimonides resided in Israel. Even Gaza has mostly Jewish famous people.

The Arab population of Israel is also heavily immigrant-based (mostly from Egypt). And those who moved into Israel in the 20th century (when the Zionists created a booming economy) hardly have a deeper connection with the land than immigrating Jews.

However, the land of Israel is very similar to Kurdistan and Egypt and Morocco and all the places middle-eastern Jews lived before the rise of Arab nationalism. There certainly is cultural connection to the middle east.

An American from Iowa probably also feels somewhat at home in Minnesota and would perceive a difference between moving from Iowa to Minnesota and moving from Iowa to China. It's the same for middle-eastern Jews. (European Jews are a minority in Israel, even including the more recent Russian immigrants.)

I can imagine that Iraqi Jews might move back to Kurdistan and live there, if the Arabs give in and allow it. But I don't see the Arabs giving in and agree that they can live with Jews anywhere. I think it is more likely that they will demand that even more of the middle-east become Jew-free and western liberals will likely agree with them and demand the same. The Arab position of the past 100 years is clear: no Jews in Arab states, no Jewish state next to Arab states, no peace with Israel, no talks with Israel. Before that position changes fundamentally, there is nothing anybody can do to create peace in the region. (And that attitude has to change not only towards Jews but also towards all the other non-Arab peoples.)

And I know from what I hear from Sudan and other places, that the hatred for non-Arab peoples continues, even with the Jews gone. You don't want to be black, gay, Jewish, Christian, or Kurdish in an Arab state. But you can be any of these things in Israel and now Kurdistan. (And apparently there are many people who want to be Arabs in Israel and Kurdistan, judging from immigration records and numbers of naturalisations in Jerusalem whenever the city is under discussion.)

Cacto,

Nizo explains this fairly well from a (gay) Palestinian Arab perspective:

http://nizos.blogspot.com/2008/07/on-zionism-arabs-and-democracy.html

Especially note these very true observations which might answer your questions:

Israel needs a measure of conflict with the neighbouring countries to stay buoyant. Talk of peace is nice, but low intensity conflict with an Arab "other" helps unify and solidify the ranks despite differences (and disparities). The ethos of Israel (and of the Jews in general) is survival in the face of perpetual enmity. Without thousands of years of anti-Semitism, Jews in their present form wouldn't exist, most would have fully assimilated into their respective societies through intermarriage and other means.

It is true. Jews (and Israelis) thrive on being different, being their own, and being hated. It has nothing to do with what or who they are, but with the simple fact that due to the hatred they remained Jews. How many other small nations from 4000 years ago still exist despite being hunted down every few hundred years to a core of a few ten thousand at worst?

I would differentiate between the authentic Zionist core who came to rebuild the perceived "old country" and maintain their national identity along with humanistic values and with what eventually developed as a result of circumstances and human nature (think of Immanuel Kant's "twisted timber of humanity") .

Nizo differentiates between authentic Zionism, which is a noble philosophy based on widely-admired humanistic (and socialist) values and what Zionism had to become to protect its constituents.

(I particularly enjoy how Nizo answers all questions in ways that the interviewer didn't expect. Instead of hearing from the poor Arab refugee who was oppressed by evil Zionists, he had to listen to Nizo's more differentiating answers.)

Interesting. I'm familiar with the basic concept behind Nizo's view - hatred of the Other is a very popular unifying technique, particularly in the Middle East - but I'm still enough of a fan of Machiavelli to think it depressing, disappointing and ultimately counterproductive.

I'm tempted to think of sociocultural Judaism as a lifestyle that does not tolerate compromises, but that doesn't fit well with the early Arab-ruled experience where Jews seemed to live fairly peaceably alongside Middle Eastern Christians and Arab Muslims.

In any case, I can't muster much sympathy any more. If you choose to live in the Middle East, for whatever reason, you choose to live in a world built on hate and fear. It's not somewhere I think we'll see much light from over the next few decades, but it would be nice to be wrong.

You don't seem to be familiar with what Nizo actually said. He didn't say anything about "hatred of the other". You remind me of the interviewer in Nizo's article. You seem to be desperately trying to find something mean to say about Israelis or Jews.

A common enemy and the prospect of certain death does unify a people, but that has absolutely nothing to do with hatred. Hatred is something irrational, not the logical outgrowth of being a target of somebody else's hatred. The Jews (and others) in the Nazi concentration camps were certainly "united", but what united them was their certain destiny, not their hatred for Germans.

This is the first stanza of a (Christian) prayer authored by a concentration camp inmate:

Wunderfully protected by good powers,
Without fear we wait for what might come.
God is with us in evening and morning
And most assuredly on every new day.

It's symbolic for his experiences. (The author died two weeks after writing the prayer.)

There is no hatred there. And you won't find much hatred for Germans in Israel either; or for Arabs for that matter.

The Jews who actually hate Arabs tend to be immigrants from Russia who have had no experiences with Arabs. Those Jews who fled Arab countries and lost many of their families to, what shall we call them, the "resistance" and lost their property rarely hate any Arab outside the nationalist regimes. Unfortunately the same thing is not true for the Arab side. When Hamas or the PLO fire rockets at Jewish kindergardens it is clear that they do not hate the "Zionist regime", but the Jewish children the Zionist regime was set up to protect.

I have no idea where you got any of these views from.

The time you are referring to was one of Turkish rule, not Arab rule. And the golden age of peaceful co-existence was over 700 years ago. In the last few hundred years there was always friction between the Arabs and all the other nations in the Ottoman Empire.

That's why the Kurds were gased by the Arabs once the Arabs were in power in case you were wondering. That's why Arab nationalists made a pact with Hitler.

If you think that middle-eastern Jews chose to be born in the middle-east you have another thing coming.

As for your "world built on hate and fear", I think you have a weird prejudice against the middle east which I cannot quite comprehend. The rest of the world is not much better or much more civilised than the middle-east. The worst anti-Semitic violence happened in Russia and western Europe and was from there imported into the Arab world. English-speaking countries have been an exception, so far. But I can see the anti-Semitism growing in the UK and the US too.

Perhaps Jews chose to live in the middle-east because in the middle-east the main enemy is very weak compared to Germans or Americans?

In my experience the worst anti-Semites are also rarely middle-eastern but people from the west. (It always seems to me as if Sweden, for some reason, suffers more from the Zionist oppression than everybody else in the world.)

In Iraq I was not afraid to identify as a Jew. In London I would be more careful.

My Iraqi butcher knows my religion. But I wouldn't tell a left-wing "peace activist" on the street. It's too dangerous.

I did write a long post, but I decided against it. Basically, this is why I can't argue with you:

I'm just not as pessimistic as you about the future. I don't think there'll be another Holocaust for Jews. You do. It's a major difference, and I suspect it's why we'll never be able to agree about Israel and the nature of the Middle East.

You see warrior Israel as a saviour, and I just see another squabbling state who refuses to compromise, one of dozens in the region.

From these starting points, I suspect we'll just end up going round in circles like we always have, so let's not.

What exactly makes you believe that there cannot (or won't) be another Shoah? Is it the thousands of people screaming "Jews into the gas" or "Death to the Jews"? Is it the large number of countries that want to erase Israel from the map (after expelling or killing their own Jewish populations)?

I am a realist. That's all.

Historically, when people screamed "Death to the Jews", that is what followed. I have no reason to assume that this suddenly changed, especially when I see that people are currently trying to kill Jews and destroy Israel.

When exactly did Israel do anything at all that would legitimise the statement that it "refuses to compromise"???

I don't care as long as I and my people survive.

If it were up to me, Israel would finally refuse to compromise.

But you, my friend, have a tendency to see evil where there is none.

I see evil among people who dress in dark black, wear masks, and chant songs that wish for my death.

You see evil among ordinary people just because they are Israelis. And at the same time you wonder why I could possibly be pessimistic about the prospects of Jewish survival without Israel to protect them.

If you had read Nizo's text and not immediately thought that he was talking about hatred among Jews, I wouldn't be as worried. But the undercurrent is clear: you and other automatically add an assumption that Jews are a bit more evil than other people.

And that's the problem. It has always been the problem.

Israel is and has been a saviour. That's why Sudanese refugees flee to Israel. It's not a fantasy, it's the brutal reality.

Can you tell me where exactly in the middle-east non-Arab peoples have lived peaceful lives or at the very least survived without losing tens of thousands to Arab attacks in the last hundred years?

If you, like me, find that ONLY the Jews had such luck, you will understand what Israel means to me.

I'll give you a hint: Morocco is the only place in the middle-east where non-Arab peoples have lived in peace. But they are not allowed to teach their own language in schools, form political parties, or decide whom they want to befriend and whom they don't. Everywhere else it's worse, except in Israel where the non-Arab people fought back and won.

Ask a Christian and/or black Sudanese what they think about Israel. Ask a Kurd. Ask yourself why Lebanese Christians allied with Israel. Ask the separatists in Somalia why they want an alliance with Israel. For the oppressed Israel is a symbol of freedom. And for the wealthy and powerful Israel is a symbol of evil uncompromising imperialism.

And I'd rather be supporting a country that is hated by the powerful and adored by the oppressed than vice versa.