XXV 29th May 2003
Watching wheat short and straight, with ears laden heavy, holding 38 to 42 grains each, and rapeseed standing shoulder high, gives a farmer a thrill of anticipation, which he knows can, alas, be destroyed in an afternoon - harvest like peace is a fragile thing. We are doing the last spraying against the small black bugs attacking the yellow flowers in the field of rapeseed, and getting ready to spray it with Roundup two weeks before cutting. This is not only done as a yearly spray against weeds, but also to stop the plant growing any more and to surrender remaining nectars to the seed itself which is maturing. Science of using herbicides comes into its own in spring, watching for weeds appearing, with often no more than few days to attack them before their weakest moment passes and they begin to be hidden from spray in our crops. It involves the farmer in walking the fields with eyes open for every sign of the enemiesʼ stealthy approach - and with that behind, the spring is the time of relaxation, time of furloughs, before summer labours.
Reading about the daily mayhem in the Middle East one does not pose the question whether it would have been better if Israel did not exist, because it exists and will be there. It causes a lot of trouble in the world, for its small size, but it served as a relief of a guilty conscience for the whole of Europe, not just for the Germans. It was however an invasion of another country, in a region where this has been a frequent occurrence, by Turks, Tatars, Hittites, Greeks, Persians, Romans or Jews themselves, which does not reduce the hurt done to the Palestinian people; but it is an established fact, even if by the right of conquest. Our instant European concern is why it has now become a feature in the War of Hegemony. When a Road Map for peace was signed by a group of nations, Condoleezza Rice visited Sharon, and a few days later Israelis massacred 15 Palestinians which effectively finished the Map. One can almost hear her ask for the deed, and Sharon answering: “but it will cost our peoplesʼ lives” to which she replies: “people must make sacrifices, we sacrificed 3000”. The Houstonids do not want peace, because it would dispel the propaganda of a War on Terror.
The challenge is for Europe to search for a peace there, without Americans, without fear of being accused of anti-Arabism or anti-Semitism and to stand strongly against perpetrators of mayhem. If a fair deal is accepted, it will make a new country of Israel, again a promised land that Moses saw. It may be small to house all 50 million Jews from the world, though not all are likely to want to come. But it is entitled to be populated by their own nationality, like French having France, or Britain being home for the British; and by civilized methods of immigration, purchase of land within its borders, bringing back the regional settlers, or by natural population growth, making it truly a land of the Israelis. They are entitled to create a state based on their nationals and their precepts, with a solid majority, by immigration, so long as it represents genuine nationals, who are part of the country and not itinerant citizens. The existence of such a state gives comfort to every Jew in the world of existence of a place where he or she can feel fully at home. The name Israel is rather heavily enshrined with race and religion, it is a little like calling a country a Republic of Jesus or of Vishnu, Judea may have been better, peopled by Judeans, because it is a geographical appellation, but it is Israel and peopled by Israelis.
Judaism is a unique religion in being racially based: it does not seek to convert a goy. This national orientation was necessary for a Wandering Tribe but will perhaps lose this sense for a living nation. Is it time to leave behind the feeling of living in a ʻhistorical warpʼ in a continuation of a ʻbiblical Gahannaʼ? Whilst in Britain stories of king Arthur may remain a poetic inspiration to the English, they are no part of modern state, and our masters do not sit, we hope, in a star chamber to make decisions at the midnight hour. The future of Diaspora, may also slowly change: the synagogue becoming a temple of religion - rather than home of: a nation without geography. The Diasporaʼs present exaggerated connection with Israel damages the traditionally progressive Jewish spirit, by supporting doubtful extreme policies of another state. The Israeli constitution asserting that every person of Jewish origin has the right to its citizenship does not seem to help
Meanwhile the exaggerated policies of retaliation, to what on comparison must appear as minor aggressions, often arising out of revenge, ought to be abolished, since no state can act with unlimited impunity even on the grounds of self-defence. All those who are fond of the great Jewish tradition and contribution to world culture should act now: to distance Israel from these extreme policies before Israel becomes a WMD of hate, spreading it in the region and beyond.
In summer 1948 I had a Jewish friend in Edinburgh doing science at the university, and a good pianist often playing Chopin for us, since his family came from Poland. We used to meet at the International club, opened for the first Edinburgh Festival, at the corner of Castle and Princes Street, and discuss Israel which was just funded. David had a theory: “that when the Egyptians were hard, Moses came to dis- rupt them, when Romans were uppity, Jesus came to confuse them, and when national powers were getting too much, Marx came to disable them, he maintained that: the Jews can always look after themselves!” Not too convincing - but ultimate power today in the hands of men like Kissinger or Wolfowitz or Greenspan, brings back Rooseveltʼs dictum, who while not an anti-Semite, said “that there are too many Jews in Harvard.” And American Jewish extremists write about Europeans as “anti-Semites, who having failed to complete the Final Solution - are trying to make good that failure by promoting it in the Middle East.” The American disposition - for a hegemonic solution - may coincide with ideas of a few madmen, for whom the destruction of Europe is of little consequence.
“The view of anti-Semitism as being eternal prevents the Jewish people from tackling it politically, in a balanced and open-minded way” writes Sharon Rose. But the new anti-Semitism, rising out of opposition to Israel, will fade gradually as that country regularises and regiments its politics with a Rabin philosophy. The word itself may become a misnomer, being slowly dropped and changed for anti-humanism, describing inbuilt hate of any group or minority, whether Jews, Germans, Arabs, Russians or Americans, making for a more democratic dictionary, to build love between nations and to fight against the ʻanti-humanism against the Jews.ʼ
