By Brian Klug, JNews Blog
Saturday, 29 January, 2011 - 17:45
In our last post, Eyal Clyne described his experience of an ‘Opinion Soup’ held on 25 October 2010 at the JCC for London. Speakers included Howard Jacobson, Brian Klug, Antony Lerman and Melanie Phillips. Brian Klug responds:
Dear Eyal,
It is good of you to invite my response. My first response is that I am glad you have put me in my place! I mean this quite literally: you put me in my place (England) and you in yours (Israel). Israel, you insist, is “my country, not theirs”. I insist too. Here is how I put it in my very first essay on the subject: “Israel is not my country and I am not its citizen” (‘A time to Speak Out’, Jewish Quarterly, Winter 2002-3).
When I got to the end of the first part of your piece I had a similar experience of deja vu. You point out that “there is no such thing” as a shared identity of interests, etc., among Israelis, and you ask: “How can anyone ‘support Israeli interests’ if Israelis themselves are disputed over what these interests are …?” Compare with the following: “Israel is not a monolith and Jewish Israelis do not form a single bloc … The divisions pit Israeli Jew against Israeli Jew. Consequently, not only do I not feel under an obligation, as a Jew, to show solidarity with Israel, but there is no such thing as ‘solidarity with Israel’ : it is a sentimental illusion.” (Ibid., emphasis in the original.) We even use the same phrase: ‘no such thing’!
And yet I think you are right to lump the members of the panel — and the audience — together and to talk about all of us as ‘they’. For, whatever our differences, we were all speaking as Brits — whereas you were listening as an Israeli. In a way, in saying this, I am applying the analysis you give in the second part of your piece: if your Israel-Jewish sociologist “can’t not-be Israeli”, so the British-Jewish speakers, myself included, can’t not-be Brits.
However, there is a curious tension between the third part of your piece and the first. In the first, you are indignant: about non-Israeli Jews who speak about Israel as though they have a stake in the country. But in the third part you, as it were, enfranchise the Jews who live around the world, authorizing their interest in Israel. Of course there are (you point out) “gaps between Israeli and other Jews” in relation to the state. But no longer is this the gap between reality and fantasy.
As I see it, the complexity in the structure of your piece — especially the tension between the first and final parts — reflects the complexity in the real world. For, when it comes to Israel and Palestine, fantasy is an integral part of reality. Take the question of Jerusalem. In reality, it is about the lives of people who live there or work there. So, it is a question that belongs, primarily, to Palestinians and Israelis. Other people can take an interest in the question, but this is secondary. Fundamentally, it is not their question. Except that it is — because this is a city whose reality overflows the limits of the interests of its inhabitants. The point does not apply to Jews alone. The entire Muslim world feels that it has a stake in Jerusalem — not a material stake but a fantastic one. Were it not for this, control of the Haram al-Sharif would not be such a sensitive issue. In Muslim communities too there are panel discussions “filling a city hall to the brim” where the local speakers objectify ‘Israelis’ and ‘Palestinians’. Yes, Israel is your country, not mine, nor theirs. But, unlike my country, yours is Holy or Magical — not only for people who are religious. That’s as much a fact, a given, as “the actual Israel” to which you refer.
When I try to put myself in your shoes, I find it utterly understandable that you felt the way you felt at that event in Hampstead Town Hall. You’re right: the topic of the meeting was supposed to be about being Jewish and feeling shame, but the conversation was about Israel. So, how do you think I felt? I’ll tell you — and I’ll be as forthright as you are in your blog. I am fed up with discussions about Jewish issues gravitating towards Israel. I am tired of Israel taking up all the oxygen. I feel indignant about Israel claiming to be ‘the state of the Jewish people’, claiming to represent me. I wish it could see itself as its own state, pursuing its own good for its own people: the Israelis. Israel is indeed your country, not mine. I insist on it. And since you insist on it too, I suggest that we both continue to press the point, insisting on a parting of the ways — even though it’s not going to happen.
Be well,
Brian
‘A Time to Speak Out’ is Chapter 1 in Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life, London : Vallentine Mitchell, 2010.
Real Eyal Clyne’s original post here.
Brian Klug responds to Eyals Clyne’s post ‘When Jews speak about Israel in London’
Dear Eyal,
It is good of you to invite my response. My first response is that I am glad you have put me in my place! I mean this quite literally: you put me in my place (England) and you in yours (Israel). Israel, you insist, is “my country, not theirs”. I insist too. Here is how I put it in my very first essay on the subject: “Israel is not my country and I am not its citizen” (‘A time to Speak Out’, Jewish Quarterly, Winter 2002-3).
When I got to the end of the first part of your piece I had a similar experience of deja vu. You point out that “there is no such thing” as a shared identity of interests, etc., among Israelis, and you ask: “How can anyone ‘support Israeli interests’ if Israelis themselves are disputed over what these interests are …?” Compare with the following: “Israel is not a monolith and Jewish Israelis do not form a single bloc … The divisions pit Israeli Jew against Israeli Jew. Consequently, not only do I not feel under an obligation, as a Jew, to show solidarity with Israel, but there is no such thing as ‘solidarity with Israel’ : it is a sentimental illusion.” (Ibid., emphasis in the original.) We even use the same phrase: ‘no such thing’!
And yet I think you are right to lump the members of the panel — and the audience — together and to talk about all of us as ‘they’. For, whatever our differences, we were all speaking as Brits — whereas you were listening as an Israeli. In a way, in saying this, I am applying the analysis you give in the second part of your piece: if your Israel-Jewish sociologist “can’t not-be Israeli”, so the British-Jewish speakers, myself included, can’t not-be Brits.
However, there is a curious tension between the third part of your piece and the first. In the first, you are indignant: about non-Israeli Jews who speak about Israel as though they have a stake in the country. But in the third part you, as it were, enfranchise the Jews who live around the world, authorizing their interest in Israel. Of course there are (you point out) “gaps between Israeli and other Jews” in relation to the state. But no longer is this the gap between reality and fantasy.
As I see it, the complexity in the structure of your piece — especially the tension between the first and final parts — reflects the complexity in the real world. For, when it comes to Israel and Palestine, fantasy is an integral part of reality. Take the question of Jerusalem. In reality, it is about the lives of people who live there or work there. So, it is a question that belongs, primarily, to Palestinians and Israelis. Other people can take an interest in the question, but this is secondary. Fundamentally, it is not their question. Except that it is — because this is a city whose reality overflows the limits of the interests of its inhabitants. The point does not apply to Jews alone. The entire Muslim world feels that it has a stake in Jerusalem — not a material stake but a fantastic one. Were it not for this, control of the Haram al-Sharif would not be such a sensitive issue. In Muslim communities too there are panel discussions “filling a city hall to the brim” where the local speakers objectify ‘Israelis’ and ‘Palestinians’. Yes, Israel is your country, not mine, nor theirs. But, unlike my country, yours is Holy or Magical — not only for people who are religious. That’s as much a fact, a given, as “the actual Israel” to which you refer.
When I try to put myself in your shoes, I find it utterly understandable that you felt the way you felt at that event in Hampstead Town Hall. You’re right: the topic of the meeting was supposed to be about being Jewish and feeling shame, but the conversation was about Israel. So, how do you think I felt? I’ll tell you — and I’ll be as forthright as you are in your blog. I am fed up with discussions about Jewish issues gravitating towards Israel. I am tired of Israel taking up all the oxygen. I feel indignant about Israel claiming to be ‘the state of the Jewish people’, claiming to represent me. I wish it could see itself as its own state, pursuing its own good for its own people: the Israelis. Israel is indeed your country, not mine. I insist on it. And since you insist on it too, I suggest that we both continue to press the point, insisting on a parting of the ways — even though it’s not going to happen.
Be well,
Brian
‘A Time to Speak Out’ is Chapter 1 in Being Jewish and Doing Justice: Bringing Argument to Life, London : Vallentine Mitchell, 2010.
Real Eyal Clyne’s original post here.