Namib
2009-02-12 12:38:16 UTC
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-nightmare-of-netanyahu-returns-1547608.html
This is a man calling for the violent re-occupation of Gaza to "liquidate"
its elected government. This is a man who says he will "naturally grow" the
West Bank settlements. This is a man who says he will "never" negotiate over
Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights, or control of the West Bank water
supply.This is a man who says establishing a Palestinian state would leave
Israel with, "an existential threat and a public relations nightmare
reminiscent of 1938 Czechoslovakia". This is a man who Yitzhak Rabin's widow
said helped create a climate of hate that led to his murder.The political
beneficiaries of Operation Cast Lead have been Israel's hard-right. The
opinion poll numbers have surged for Netanyahu's Likud and for the even more
extreme Avigdor Lieberman. They say the only problem with the 23-day bombing
of Gaza - killing 410 children, and hugely strengthening support for Hamas -
is that it did not go far enough. The world urgently needs to look at these
individuals - and ask how this came to pass.The key to understanding
Netanyahu lies with his father, Benzion. He is a distinguished scholar of
medieval history who believes the world is eternally and ineradicably
riddled with genocidal anti-Semitism. When he arrived in British Mandate
Palestine, he declared that the majority of Jews there were naïve and
idealistic. They had to immediately seize the entire Biblical land of
Israel - taking all of the West Bank and stretching right into present-day
Jordan. There could be no compromise, ever, with the Arabs, who only
understand force. The man he calls his mentor, Abba Ahimeir, described
himself proudly as "a fascist".Today, Benzion's son routinely compares
dealing with the Palestinians to dealing with the Nazis. He can only
understand their anger as a resurfacing of Europe's irrational, murderous
hate. He insists they have no right to a share of the land because they
"stole" it - in 636AD. Accordingly, Netanyahu rubbishes every peace
initiative offered by Israel. His reaction to Yitzhak Rabin's decision to
sign the mild and moderate Oslo accords with Yasser Arafat reveals the depth
of his opposition to compromise. He warmly addressed crowds that chanted
"Rabin is a Nazi" and "through blood and fire, Rabin shall expire". He
called the former prime minister "a traitor", shortly before Rabin was
murdered by a Jewish fundamentalist who agreed.The other person who has
surged ahead in the polls - and looks likely to be Netanyahu's coalition
partner - is Avigdor Lieberman, a Russian ex-nightclub bouncer who says the
model for dealing with the Palestinians should be Vladimir Putin's 1990s
bombardment of Chechnya, which caused the death of a third of the entire
population. He wants the political parties elected by Israeli Arabs to be
criminalised, snapping that they should be dealt with "like Hamas".Perhaps
even more depressing than their rise is the flat and flat-lining response
form the other parties. Both Kadima and Labour militantly defend the
blockade and bombing of Gaza, not least because their leaders - Tzipi Livni
and Ehud Barak - led the charge in Cabinet. Even Barak has picked up the
comparison to Putin and started approvingly quoting the new Tsar of Russia.
The brave pro-peace parties like Meeretz are shunted far to the margins of
the debate.How did this happen? It is essential to remember that the
Israelis didn't end up in the Middle East out of a wicked desire to colonise
and kill, as some people now gleefully claim. They are there because they
were fleeing genocidal Jew-hatred. That doesn't justify a single crime
against a single Palestinian - but if we forget this, and the unimaginably
vast trauma that lies behind it, we cannot understand what is happening
now.Over the past few months, I keep returning to an extraordinary essay
written by the great Israel novelist Amos Oz in 1982. The Likud Prime
Minister Menachem Begin had compared the Palestinian leadership to Adolf
Hitler, so Oz wrote: "You display an urge to resurrect Hitler from the dead
so you may kill him over and over again each day... Like many Jews, I feel
sorry I didn't kill Hitler with my bare hands. But there is not, and there
never will be, any healing for the open wound. Tens of thousands of dead
Arabs will not heal that wound. Because, Mr Begin, Adolf Hitler is dead. He
is not hiding in Nabatiyah, in Sidon, or in Beirut. He is dead and burned to
ashes."Israeli society consists, Oz says, of "a bunch of half-hysterical
refugees and survivors". The 2,000-year trauma of the blood libel, the
Inquisition, the pogroms, Auschwitz and Chelmno and the Gulag Archipelago,
have produced a distorted vision, where every shriek of pain directed at
Israel can sound like the rumble beginning in the massed crowds at
Nuremberg. This means that Israel is missing opportunities for peace. Even
much of Hamas - an Islamist party I passionately oppose - is amenable to a
long ceasefire along the 1967 borders. That isn't my opinion; it is the view
of Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet.
He told the Israeli Cabinet before the bombing of Gaza that Hamas would
restore the ceasefire if Israel would only end the blockade of the Strip and
declare a ceasefire on the West Bank. Instead, they bombed, and the offer
died.The former head of Mossad, Ephraim Halevy, says that Hamas, "will have
to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" if only
Israel will begin the path of compromise. This would drain support for
rejectionists such as Osama Bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and make it
easier to build international coalitions.Instead, too many Israelis -
imprisoned by their history - seem determined to choose the opposite path:
of Netanyahu and Lieberman and ramming an endless alienating boot on to the
throat of the Palestinians. It doesn't have to be like this. We can only say
to them with Amos Oz, as urgently as we can: Adolf Hitler is not hiding in
Gaza City, or Beit Hanoun, or Hebron. Adolf Hitler is dead.
This is a man calling for the violent re-occupation of Gaza to "liquidate"
its elected government. This is a man who says he will "naturally grow" the
West Bank settlements. This is a man who says he will "never" negotiate over
Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights, or control of the West Bank water
supply.This is a man who says establishing a Palestinian state would leave
Israel with, "an existential threat and a public relations nightmare
reminiscent of 1938 Czechoslovakia". This is a man who Yitzhak Rabin's widow
said helped create a climate of hate that led to his murder.The political
beneficiaries of Operation Cast Lead have been Israel's hard-right. The
opinion poll numbers have surged for Netanyahu's Likud and for the even more
extreme Avigdor Lieberman. They say the only problem with the 23-day bombing
of Gaza - killing 410 children, and hugely strengthening support for Hamas -
is that it did not go far enough. The world urgently needs to look at these
individuals - and ask how this came to pass.The key to understanding
Netanyahu lies with his father, Benzion. He is a distinguished scholar of
medieval history who believes the world is eternally and ineradicably
riddled with genocidal anti-Semitism. When he arrived in British Mandate
Palestine, he declared that the majority of Jews there were naïve and
idealistic. They had to immediately seize the entire Biblical land of
Israel - taking all of the West Bank and stretching right into present-day
Jordan. There could be no compromise, ever, with the Arabs, who only
understand force. The man he calls his mentor, Abba Ahimeir, described
himself proudly as "a fascist".Today, Benzion's son routinely compares
dealing with the Palestinians to dealing with the Nazis. He can only
understand their anger as a resurfacing of Europe's irrational, murderous
hate. He insists they have no right to a share of the land because they
"stole" it - in 636AD. Accordingly, Netanyahu rubbishes every peace
initiative offered by Israel. His reaction to Yitzhak Rabin's decision to
sign the mild and moderate Oslo accords with Yasser Arafat reveals the depth
of his opposition to compromise. He warmly addressed crowds that chanted
"Rabin is a Nazi" and "through blood and fire, Rabin shall expire". He
called the former prime minister "a traitor", shortly before Rabin was
murdered by a Jewish fundamentalist who agreed.The other person who has
surged ahead in the polls - and looks likely to be Netanyahu's coalition
partner - is Avigdor Lieberman, a Russian ex-nightclub bouncer who says the
model for dealing with the Palestinians should be Vladimir Putin's 1990s
bombardment of Chechnya, which caused the death of a third of the entire
population. He wants the political parties elected by Israeli Arabs to be
criminalised, snapping that they should be dealt with "like Hamas".Perhaps
even more depressing than their rise is the flat and flat-lining response
form the other parties. Both Kadima and Labour militantly defend the
blockade and bombing of Gaza, not least because their leaders - Tzipi Livni
and Ehud Barak - led the charge in Cabinet. Even Barak has picked up the
comparison to Putin and started approvingly quoting the new Tsar of Russia.
The brave pro-peace parties like Meeretz are shunted far to the margins of
the debate.How did this happen? It is essential to remember that the
Israelis didn't end up in the Middle East out of a wicked desire to colonise
and kill, as some people now gleefully claim. They are there because they
were fleeing genocidal Jew-hatred. That doesn't justify a single crime
against a single Palestinian - but if we forget this, and the unimaginably
vast trauma that lies behind it, we cannot understand what is happening
now.Over the past few months, I keep returning to an extraordinary essay
written by the great Israel novelist Amos Oz in 1982. The Likud Prime
Minister Menachem Begin had compared the Palestinian leadership to Adolf
Hitler, so Oz wrote: "You display an urge to resurrect Hitler from the dead
so you may kill him over and over again each day... Like many Jews, I feel
sorry I didn't kill Hitler with my bare hands. But there is not, and there
never will be, any healing for the open wound. Tens of thousands of dead
Arabs will not heal that wound. Because, Mr Begin, Adolf Hitler is dead. He
is not hiding in Nabatiyah, in Sidon, or in Beirut. He is dead and burned to
ashes."Israeli society consists, Oz says, of "a bunch of half-hysterical
refugees and survivors". The 2,000-year trauma of the blood libel, the
Inquisition, the pogroms, Auschwitz and Chelmno and the Gulag Archipelago,
have produced a distorted vision, where every shriek of pain directed at
Israel can sound like the rumble beginning in the massed crowds at
Nuremberg. This means that Israel is missing opportunities for peace. Even
much of Hamas - an Islamist party I passionately oppose - is amenable to a
long ceasefire along the 1967 borders. That isn't my opinion; it is the view
of Yuval Diskin, the current head of the Israeli security service Shin Bet.
He told the Israeli Cabinet before the bombing of Gaza that Hamas would
restore the ceasefire if Israel would only end the blockade of the Strip and
declare a ceasefire on the West Bank. Instead, they bombed, and the offer
died.The former head of Mossad, Ephraim Halevy, says that Hamas, "will have
to adopt a path that could lead them far from their original goals" if only
Israel will begin the path of compromise. This would drain support for
rejectionists such as Osama Bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and make it
easier to build international coalitions.Instead, too many Israelis -
imprisoned by their history - seem determined to choose the opposite path:
of Netanyahu and Lieberman and ramming an endless alienating boot on to the
throat of the Palestinians. It doesn't have to be like this. We can only say
to them with Amos Oz, as urgently as we can: Adolf Hitler is not hiding in
Gaza City, or Beit Hanoun, or Hebron. Adolf Hitler is dead.