I wonder if I might ask a question: “Do you feel accepted by your nation, your land, your peer group?” For most of you, that’s an irrelevant question, stupid even.
What would you say then to a friend of mine, a Yorkshirewoman, who moved to another town twenty odd years ago and not so long ago told me, with a touch of irony, that she was now finally accepted because the baker had waved to her for the first time ever, as he’d driven by?
Cutting closer to the chase, last year I was nominated for the American weblog awards in the UK section, largely on the strength of American and British votes but a certain lady left a comment at this site, saying: “Oh, are you a UK blogger, James?” Nice putdown.
Going way back in time, to the 4th class/year/form, I always thought I was one of the lads but one day I was bumped off top spot in our weekly class tests by a girl called Gail and I was mightily p---ed off because she’d been given help with the last test. To be honest, a tear or two crept from the eyes.
At lunch break, out I went to play football with the lads but no one was passing it to me so I just took it and tried for goal myself. Even my own supposed mate wouldn’t tell me what was wrong later but from that day forward, there was a coolness from my peers.
Now, leave aside these trivialities and look at a people who not only haven’t managed any peer acceptance in 5000 years but they’ve also put up with pogroms, oppression, putdowns and all sorts of unpleasantries – anyone know the story of Clifford Tower in York or about the Volga River pogroms?
Forever seen as foreigners and usurpers in their own homeland, taken captive and deported, they’re quite logically going to develop a jaundiced view of life, wouldn’t you think? The word that springs to mind, regarding the attitude they’re likely to develop is “intransigent”.
Unpleasant to deal with but understandable, all the same.
I’ve had two interfaces with the more extreme members of this community, one for three years and one for two weeks. In the former, one month the gentiles’ salaries were not in the bank but the Jewish ones were. Our money had been used to pay for the new chandelier in the synagogue.
In the latter case, I was staying, during the holidays, in a cottage on a hillside and a group of Jewish children passed by, singing Top 100 hits. Suddenly, a voice cried out from behind for them to stop and a man ran up, circling them like a sheepdog and exhorting them to start chanting a Hebrew song instead and so they went, all the way down to the fields below.
Most of the Jewish families I knew were just your average family, “more English than the English”, a statement which would upset them because they
were English, in their eyes. This is the thing, isn’t it – non-acceptance of who they are and what they believe in? That then causes an attitude problem in them and confirms the worst suspicions of the non-Jews around them who’ve been fed a diet of hostile folklore all their lives.
Cf the Irish question.
Things stick in the memory and my father always told of how, in the war, he stood on the banks of what might have been the Jordan and on one side were the Jewish settlements, with irrigated land and crops and on the other – desert and Arabs. Blame my dad, not me, for that story. Either way, it sure affected those soldiers and they were far more pro-Israel after it.
Looking at it from the Palestinian point of view, there they were, minding their own business and doing sfa with the place, when along came dispossessed Jews from Europe and man, these people were intransigent in a big way. From 12% of the local population to some enormous number, these Jews posed an enormous threat.
For a start, there was the worldwide caliphate to consider, the goal of every intransigent Muslim and they, the Palestinians, were right in the heart of it. But a different loyalty was also tugging at them at the same time – the nature of being Arab and all it entailed, with a long and glorious past.
With the various mandates in the area, a new idea had also sprung up – that of nationhood. Iraq became Iraq, Persia and Egypt already were, the Lebanon and Syria became distinct.
So, torn all different ways and observing what, to them, were foreign powers imposing a Jewish state on them, they were likely to become intransigent. It was beyond the pale to cast an eye across this vast Arab Muslim caliphate, a source of great pride and to see this ancient blot on the landscape return – the hated Jew. And not only return but right in the prime piece of real estate they suddenly wanted.
All the time, their own holy book speaks of finding Jews hiding behind trees in the end times and killing them, along with other choice scriptures. What chance any sort of accommodation with the Jew? Parts of the Talmud are equally revealing.
The instant Israel formed, wham – virtually the whole Arab world attacked in force, once, twice, three times, even on a religious holiday. Having refused to accept the two state solution, they preferred war and in war, territory gets taken which could never have been taken in peace time.
Then they turned around and cried, “Usurper!”
The Arab leadership must shoulder a large portion of the blame for this. Yes, the life of the Palestinian is dire but look at the intransigence of Hamas, which only stirs up the intransigence of the Jews, which stirs up the intransigence of Hamas and so it goes on. Stop the rockets and see what happens, whether things become better in Gaza.
In a condition of peace, see if Israel continues to choke the border crossings or oppresses the Gaza residents. Let’s not you or I speculate but let’s just see what happens. Let’s see how Hamas spends its billions in aid – on Iranian weapons to wipe Israel off the face of the map or on the living conditions of their own people.
I’d say as long as those nutters are in charge, putting innocent Palestinians in the firing line for their own purposes, as with Hezbollah in the Lebanon, then the Palestinian cause will never be served.
At least Fatah offers some sort of hope for a lasting peace. At least there is a way forward for cooperation on irrigation, on food supplies, on housing, on a reasonable lifestyle.
Let it just happen.