Thursday, January 3, 2008
Gilad Atzmon -
The Tzabar and the Sabbar: A Refection on Memory and
Nostalgia
Zionism is a total
disaster. It is a colonial, expansionist, nationalist philosophy based on racial
chauvinism. Those who take its precepts to the letter have been robbing the land
of the indigenous Palestinian people in the name of the Jewish people. It is
regarded by many of us as a major threat to world peace. Its devoted supportive
lobbies around the world call for more and more bloodshed in the name of
'liberalism', 'democracy', 'freedom' and even in the name of the
'Judeo-Christian' alliance. Yet, Zionism, and we better admit it, has managed to
do something that even God has failed to do: it united the Jews. Zionism has
become the Jewish symbolic identifier.
In a recent paper of
mine, The Politics Of
Anti-Semitism, I explored the
role of Zionism as the cultural identifier of the contemporary Diaspora Jew. I
argued that Zionism has managed to win its ideological foes by offering a
transparent collective structural set of symbolic identifiers. Rather than
ideology and politics, it was a Zionist fetish and Hebraic paraphernalia that
made Zionism into a success story. Accordingly, it established a language
(Hebrew), it provided the Jew with a concrete geographical orientation
(Eretz Israel), it conveyed an image of a culture (the new
Hebraic folklore), it even managed to present a false image of political and
ethical polarity (left and right). If the founders of Zionism set about to save
the Diaspora Jew from his anomalous condition, we then have to confess that it
has fulfilled its mission. Zionism's success has nothing to do with its
ideology, politics or even with its devastating practices. Clearly, not many
Jews understand what Zionism stands for (ideologically, politically, ethically
and practically) . Not many Diaspora Jews openly succumb to the Zionist school of
thought nor to its non-ethical praxis. Instead, they subscribe to 'Israeli
folklore', the odd Hebrew word, the falafel and the humus which they mistakenly
identify with Israel (rather than Palestine). They sing along to Israeli music
whether it is Hava
Nagila,
Yafa
Yarkoni or
Yeuda
Poliker. For those who fail
to see it, 'Israeli culture' is a direct product of the Zionist project.
Clearly, modern Hebraic culture has managed to hijack the world of Jewish
symbolism. Zionism established a new form of Jewish tribal
belonging.
Yet, as much as
Zionism conveys a cultural success story within the Jewish Diaspora discourse,
it is rather meaningless as far as Israelis are concerned. The
Tzabar, native-born Israeli Jew, does not benefit at all from
Zionism being a structural set of symbolic identifiers. In fact, the
Tzabar doesn't need to identify with any symbolic structure
based on geographical aspiration. He or she is born into a self-sufficient brand
i.e., Israeliness. Similarly, the Tzabars
do not need the Hebrew language as a means of identification, they use it as a
means of communication. Nor does the Tzabar need a geographical orientation, he or she is orientated
by birth. The Tzabar
doesn't even subscribe to Israeli folklore, in fact, most Israelis can't stand
Israeli folklore and they by far prefer foreign pop, rock, Turkish and Greek
music and even some wild free jazz.
As funny as it may
sound, that which is taken by the Diaspora Jew as a structural symbolic
identifier, i.e., the Hebraic fetish, means very little to the Israelis. By the
same token, as much as the Diaspora Jew subscribes to 'Israeliness', that very
'Israeliness' means very little to the Israelis. This shouldn't take us very
much by surprise: the notion of 'Americanism' means far more to non-Americans
than it does to Americans. Similarly, the tendency to drop the odd French word,
a habit that is apparently so common amongst British or American
pseudo-intellectual s, is a reflection of a similar fetish. 'Frenchness'
attributes very unique meaning to those who know only very little about France.
Yet, not a single French person thinks that speaking French is something
astonishingly clever. Likewise, the Diaspora Jew may use the odd Hebrew word to
ascertain his tribal belonging, however, it would take more than just a single
Hebrew word for the Israelis to feel at home on a stolen land, namely
Palestine.
Memory and
Nostalgia
"I am a human being,
I am a Jew and I am an Israeli. Zionism was an instrument to move me from the
Jewish state of being to the Israeli state of being. I think it was Ben-Gurion
who said that the Zionist movement was the scaffolding to build the home, and
that after the state's establishment it should be dismantled." Ari Shavit's interview with Avrum
Burg Interview: Leaving the Zionist Ghetto, Haaretz.
What is left for the
Tzabar to identify with? Not much, so it seems: the land on which he lives
belongs to some other people. The food which makes him feel at home (humus and
falafel) is hijacked from those same other people, i.e., the Palestinians. The
language which he employs when he is emotionally moved (either very happy or
very angry) is Arabic and it is borrowed again from - guess who? - the very same
?other people?, the Palestinians. The home in which he dwells was built by those
other people?I think you know who they are, yes, the
Palestinians.
It is rather
apparent that the core of the Hebraic cultural realty, the slang, the food, the
blue sky, the sea, the desert, the spring and the autumn, the hills and the
valleys, the olive trees all belong to the land (Palestine) rather than the
swelling apartheid State that seized it momentarily
(Israel).
What could the
Israelis do to escape their fragmented unauthentic reality in which everything
that may look like 'home' actually belongs to those 'other
people'?
Those who visit
Israel learn the answer just a few minutes after they land in Tel Aviv:
cosmopolitanism and Western liberal glamour is the Israeli answer. The Israelis
deal with their hopeless craving for authenticity by multiplying the symptoms of
their inherent detachment.
New visitors to Tel
Aviv are occasionally astonished by the cultural multiple choice the town is
there to offer. Tel Aviv is indeed one of the most 'open' cities in the world.
You can find every Western fashion brand and American food chain there. Every
rock star and pop act integrates Israel into its world tour schedule. In some of
Tel Aviv's leading restaurants you can have Sushi for a starter, Hungarian
Goulash as a secondo, French entrecote for the main course and Baklava for
desert. I learned recently that Tel Aviv is not only a 'sex attraction' but as
well the next 'gay capital of the
world'. This is indeed
very encouraging to learn that in between the humus and the falafel the Tzabar
can grab a sashimi and indulge in some highly advanced socio-erotic activity
according to his very personal choice. This may as well be the ultimate form of
freedom that the 'Jews-only State' can offer: cosmopolitanism soaked in some
advanced Western libidinal liberalism.
Yet, Israel, the
libidinal, liberal, 'only democracy in the Middle East' is engaged as well in
some very different sinister practices. In spite of the Israelis embodying the
ultimate manifestation of Western broadmindedness, in spite of their 'culinary
openness', they are also starving millions of human beings to death, namely the
Palestinian people. In spite of the fact that the Israelis invested some real
effort into turning Tel Aviv, their cultural capital, into a 'town with no
boundaries', Gaza City is a now a boundary with no town. It is a huge
concentration camp, held back by repeated curfews and shattered by constant
artillery barrages and military raids. Israel has turned Palestinian towns into
large urban prisons that are surrounded by barbed wire, watchtowers and guard
posts.
We are left to ask
ourselves, how is it that the people who are so immersed in 'cosmopolitanism',
'multi-culturalism' and Western liberal ideology are so sinister towards the
indigenous population of the land? How should we fit the exclusive inclination
towards segregation reflected by a gigantic apartheid wall together with the
liberal self-image peppered with 'culinary openness'? How do we fit the devious
tactics employed against the Palestinians together with the poetic Israeli
self-image of being an enlightened humanist nation? How do we fit the 'Israeli
Shalom seeking' together with 'security walls'?
We may have to admit
that we are dealing here with a severe form of fragmentation that is on the
verge of collective Schizophrenia. I would argue that here we are confronting an
inevitable collision between 'Memory' and 'Nostalgia'.
Memory is realised
as the ability to store, retain and retrieve information. Memory refers to the
factual recognised past and its actual interpretation. Nostalgia, on the other
hand, is the wish of returning to the 'native land'. Nostalgia is usually
accompanied by the fear of never seeing it again. To a certain extent, Nostalgia
is the yearning for the unfulfilled past.
The clash between
Memory and Nostalgia is of the essence of the Israeli fragmented reality. The
Tzabar is torn between the inclination to see himself as the
protagonist in the serial episode of 'Sex and the City', as much as his memory
takes him to his last visit to London, Paris, New York and Tokyo. Nostalgically,
he is back in the Ghetto, surrounded by 'security walls' and soaked in chicken
soup.
The yearning for the
Ghetto could be explored in what the Israelis regard as 'Shalom
seeking'. Though Shalom
is often translated into 'peace', it has almost nothing in common with peace.
When Israelis talk about 'Shalom' they do not refer to reconciliation, harmony or the
transformation of their society into an ecumenical community based on universal
values. When Israelis seek 'Shalom' what they mean is (their) 'security'. This is why
Israelis and their supporters in the West interpret 'unilateral disengagement'
as a 'Shalom
seeking' move. While peace refers to the genuine search for love, harmony and
brotherhood, Shalom means pretty much the opposite: separation and segregation.
While peace means coming out of one's shell and opening one's heart to one's
neighbour, Shalom
means the erection of a 'security fence' and the emergence of some deep
collective loathing towards the rest of the universe.
Yet, this bizarre
Hebraic interpretation of the notion of Shalom is far from being an Israeli
creation. As I mentioned before, Shalom
expresses the nostalgic yearning for the European Ghetto.
Already in 1897, in
his famous speech to the First Zionist Congress, Max Nordau conveyed some real explicit longing for the 'long lost
Ghetto':
"'The Ghetto' was
for the Jew of the past not a prison, but a refuge.
In the Ghetto, the Jew had
his own world; it was to him the sure refuge which had for him the spiritual and
moral value of a parental home. Here were associates by whom one wished to be
valued, and also could be valued; here was the public opinion to be acknowledged
by which was the aim of the Jew's ambition?.Here all specific Jewish qualities
were esteemed, and through their special development that admiration was to be
obtained which is the sharpest spur to the human mind. ?.The opinion of the
outside world had no influence, because it was the opinion of ignorant enemies.
One tried to please one's co-religionists, and their applause was the worthy
contentment of his life. So did the Ghetto Jews live, in a moral respect, in a
real full life. Their external situation was insecure, often seriously
endangered. But internally they achieved a complete development of their
specific qualities. They were human beings in harmony, who were not in want of
the elements of normal social life. They also felt instinctively the whole
importance of the Ghetto for their inner life, and therefore, they had the one
sole care: to make its existence secure through invisible walls which were much
thicker and higher than the stone walls that visibly shut them in. All Jewish
buildings and habits unconsciously pursued only one purpose: to keep up Judaism
by separation from the other people and to make the individual Jew constantly
aware of the fact that he was lost and would perish if he gave up his specific
character."
Clearly, this old
speech expresses the current Israeli innermost desire.
For the Israeli,
living within 'security walls' is 'not a prison, but a refuge'. 'In Israel, the
Tzabar has 'his own world'. In Israel, the opinion of the
'outside world' has 'no influence', because it is the 'opinion of ignorant
enemies'. Nordau expresses the exact spirit that led Ben-Gurion half a century
later to say 'It doesn't matter what the Gentiles say, what matters is what the
Jews do.'
In his speech,
Nordau speaks about the spiritual asset of the Ghetto, which makes Jew feel
"secure through invisible walls which were much thicker and higher than the
stone walls that visibly shut them in." May I suggest here that it is this very
insight that explains the astonishing physical measures of the Israeli
'apartheid wall'? Yet, while Nordau referrers to 'invisible' walls, the Israeli
'defence wall' is rather visible and it is made out of grey reinforced
concrete.
As much as the
Israeli craves celebrating his imaginary cosmopolitan liberal reality, as much
as he wants to enjoy sex in a big city by recalling his short-term memory, the
nostalgic yearning drops him back into a bowl of steaming 'chicken soup' in a
very small Shtetl. He is longing for a 'secure' Jewish life and it is
this yearning that transforms the 'Jews-only State' into an inflammatory Ghetto.
Yet, unlike the old European Ghetto, where Jews were rather timid, our
contemporary Israeli Shtetl
is a belligerent, expansionist, nuclear superpower.
We may also have to
admit that the Tzabar has failed to generate a homogeneous reality in which a
new civilized being is reclaiming his place in humanity based on harmony and
peace. As much as Zionism was there to create a new authentic Jew, it led to the
emergence of a commune of fragmented beings shattered by the inevitable
collision between the short-term cosmopolitan memory and the tribal clannish
nostalgia.
The
Tzabar
and the
Sabbar
A friend who
returned from Palestine a few weeks ago was kind enough to share his impressions
with me. On his journey from Jerusalem to Ramallah he noticed that the Israelis
invested some real effort into turning the Israeli side the wall into an
'architectural feature'. In places it was largely tiled and decorated with
Jerusalem stone and with flowers, in other parts artists created some pastoral
imagery of landscapes, lakes and olive trees. The Israelis also raised the
ground near to the wall on their side just to make the wall look smaller and
friendly. However, once my friend crossed the checkpoint towards the Palestinian
side, the full disturbing physical scale of the wall was impossible to ignore.
He saw a gigantic grey concrete wall measuring eight to ten meters high now
invading the skyline of what is left of Palestine.
I thought about it
for a while. I basically reflected about Nordau's notion of the Ghetto and his
duality between 'prison' and 'refuge'. And I grasped that as much as the
Israelis are inclined to lock the Palestinians behind walls, the Israeli
apartheid wall was also nothing less than a self-inflicted imprisonment that the
Jewish State imposed upon itself. Within the Zio-centric discourse set by
Nordau: prison equals refuge.
Consequently, the
Tzabar is nothing less than a tragedy. He was doomed to failure. The
Tzabar was there to erect the new Hebraic Ghetto, he was there
to repair the trauma of abandonment of the old Jewish Ghetto which was a result
of European enlightenment and the trend towards Jewish emancipation. The
Tzabar was set to become a new 'civilized being'. Indeed
mission impossible, it aimed simultaneously towards two polar opposites:
universalism as well hardcore tribalism. Apparently, the seeds of the Israeli
apartheid and the foundations of the 'security wall' were established already in
the First Zionist Congress.
However, as much as
the Tzabar exposes himself as an aggressor and as a self-inflicted
historical tragic entity, it is pretty clear that not many people fully
understand the conceptual and ideological depth behind that deeply charged word,
namely Tzabar. The Hebrew word tzabar
is derived from the Arabic word
Sabbar
, which is the name for the
'prickly pear cactus'
that is scattered all over rural Palestine. The allusion is to a tenacious,
thorny desert plant with a thick hide that conceals a sweet, softer juicy and
tasty interior. Israeli-born Jews who call themselves Tzabars
are there to insist upon regarding themselves as 'tough on the outside, yet
sweet and tender on the inside'.
The Memory of
Land
This very image of
the Israeli native Jew as a duality between 'toughness' and 'sweetness' is now
reflected in the topography of the region. The prickly walls that shred
Palestine into Bantustans are there to protect the sweet juicy image of
'cosmopolitan' Tel Aviv. Tragically, the landscape of shredded Palestine is now
a reflection of the Tzabar self-image and an extension of his identity. Israeli
aggression towards its neighbours together with self-proclaimed righteousness is
nothing but a reflection of the 'tough and the sweet'
fantasy.
Seemingly, Israelis
insist upon regarding themselves as 'sweet and juicy'. At the end of the day,
self-loving has made it into the Jewish common stereotype more than a while ago
(as opposed to self-hating, a quality that is attributed solely to the odd
Jewish humanists and thinkers). Yet, out of Israel, some people share some
serious doubts regarding the sweetness and the juiciness of the Israeli and the
Tzabar. We have recently learned that Israeli ministers and IDF officers are now
formally advised to refrain from making overseas journeys just to avoid arrests
for crimes against humanity.
However, there is
something that even the majority of the Tzabars
don't know. It is all about the symbolism of the cactus they are so happy to be
called after. This very prickly pear cactus, actually symbolises the Israeli
robbery of Palestine.
The
Sabbar cactus is actually one of the last remnants of old
Palestine on the ground. The Sabbar
cactus grows in proximity to areas of human settlement, it is nourished by human
waste. The Sabbar
was an integral part of the
Palestinian villages' rustic landscape. It was an inherent part of the Palestinian life cycle.
Though Israel has managed to erase the traces of the entirety of pre-1948
Palestinian villages and rural life, the Sabbars
came back soon after. Wherever you see a cactus in this land, you are more than
entitled to deduce that a Palestinian village, farm or a house had been wiped
out. The Sabbars
are indeed prickly. Yet, their spikes are pointing at the Tzabars
who colonise the land and erased its history in the name of Jewish
history.
For Palestine (the
Land) and Palestinians (the People), the Sabbars are far from being nostalgia,
they are subject to short memory and a lively present. They are there on the
stolen land craving for the Palestinian Falahs
who nourished them all throughout history. They are there on the land
maintaining the history of the Palestinian villages. They are there loaded with
fruit, awaiting Palestinian kids to come and grab their
pears.
As much as the
Tzabar proclaims to be 'tough and sweet', the
Sabbar is there to depict the facts on the
ground:
Palestine is a piece
of Land, Israel and the Tzabar
are just another passing moment in a phantasmic Jewish heroic phase. This phase
is now entering its final stage and it will be coming to an end very
soon.
The musician,
writer and activist, Israeli-born Gilad Atzmon, lives permanently in Great
Britain, where he defends the cause of the liberation of the Palestinian people.
His most recent novel is My One and Only Love and his most recent recording is
Refuge. His site is http://www.gilad. co.uk.