Israel: Port In A Storm

I’m taking this opportunity to recommend again this useful Harold Myerson piece on Jewish immigration to Israel. The short version is Jews fleeing murderous antisemitism in Europe, before, during, and after World War II, had nowhere else to go. They went to either escape imminent Nazi extermination or to get out of the European countries whose populations indulged that extermination. Nobody could blame them.

Why Israel? Nowhere else was available, particularly the U.S.A., as Harold recounts. Because frankly back then the U.S. population sucked, it was if you will a nation of moral reprobates, a shithole country, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt reflected that.

A similar story surrounds immigration of the Mizrahi Jews from North African and Mideast countries. Gotta leave, nowhere else to go.

My point is that Israel became the destination purely out of practical need. There was no underlying spiritual or ideological magnetism involved. Jews worldwide had thousands of years to ingather in Israel but by 1800 there were, according to Israeli historian Tom Segev (paywalled), fewer than 7,000 in Israel. And many fewer Arabs than presently, by the way. Lots more open space.

The dearth of immigration short of practical considerations of survival changes how the legitimacy of Israel can be viewed. Of course Israel isn’t going away, and never will. For the sake of world peace, it is not good to permit the flagrant violation of national sovereignty, regardless of the nations involved. So a two-state solution is the only ethical choice, its realistic possibilities notwithstanding. I’d say it is also less unrealistic than any other option.

The immediate steps to go in that direction, just for starters: cut off all U.S. aid to Israel, seat a Palestinian delegation in the U.N., pursue all available legal sanctions against Israeli government leaders, get a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, get relief and reconstruction resources into Gaza, facilitate Palestinian immigration to the good old U.S.A. (because immigration is good). None of this necessarily stops the Netanyahu regime in its tracks, but there ain’t nothin’ else.

I previously linked something here to validate the premise that Israel is a colonial project, but it’s not worth digging up. Of course it was! And it’s irrelevant, just another brick to throw and undermine Israel’s legitimacy. It may satisfy some juvenile Marxoid urge to raise the banner of anti-imperialism. It is a valid aspect of the historical record, in and of itself. But the real key to Israel’s legitimacy was proposed above: the case for world peace.

What of anti-imperialism? Any such struggle is over-shadowed by the dominance of authoritarian regional and international super-powers. You can choose a side, as many deluded lefts do on behalf of the Russian state (and its vicious oligarchy), or you can try to stay above the fray and advance the ideals of peace, human rights, and social-democracy. I go for Option B.