New Article: Jewish “Nakba” Day as Zionist HASBARAH
David Shasha
Jewish “Nakba” Day as Zionist HASBARAH
Once again, we have just witnessed Jewish “Nakba” day in Israel, and once again it is necessary to pull out Yehouda Shenhav’s definitive article “Spineless Bookkeeping: The Use of Mizrahi Jews as Pawns against Palestinian Refugees” to help explain things to the uninitiated:
Shenhav presents us with the crux of the matter:
The idea to equate Mizrahi Jews with Palestinian refugees was first cooked up by Bobby Brown, government advisor for diaspora affairs, and members of his office, along with representatives of organizations like the World Jewish Congress, the World Sephardi Federation, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Avi Beker, the secretary general of the Jewish Congress, and Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents, convinced Professor Irwin Cotler, a Canadian member of parliament and expert in international law, to join the campaign. An umbrella organization was established, called “Justice for Jews from Arab Countries.” However, it did not manage to garner much excitement for the campaign, including from among the Jewish world. The campaign failed to enlist a notable declaration from central Israeli politicians until recently. That’s not surprising. This campaign has a miserable history that should be internalized, because history can come in very handy.
Like so much of the activity regarding Mizrahi Jews in Israel today, the Jewish “Nakba” idea is closely tied to that country’s political needs and the ways in which it has been deemed necessary to find a counterweight to Palestinian demands in the international arena.
I have been tracking the issue for some time now and have written many articles on the matter.
Here is one from 2014:
Joyce Zonana has provided a native Egyptian Jewish perspective on the situation in her article “Telling Tales”:
So for those who might still not be aware of the ongoing propaganda campaign being waged by the Israeli government, the following article from The Jewish Voice reminds us of just how Arab Jews are being manipulated:
The article shows us how Arab Jews have become useful in the ongoing propaganda war against the Arab-Muslim world.
American Jewish Committee head David Harris has published an article in The Huffington Post which is written in the fictional voice of an Arab Jew, rather than actually being written by an Arab Jew:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/in-honor-of-jewish-refuge_b_13305628.html
I suppose that he could not find a qualified Arab Jew who could write such an article.
The AJC’s Whites-only approach to Jewish institutional leadership is exemplified by his organization’s choice of an Ashkenazi, Robert Silverman, as director of Jewish-Muslim relations:
http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=7oJILSPwFfJSG&b=9302337&ct=14820529
Silverman was a career professional at the US State Department where he brought his Ashkenazi-Orientalist perspective to our government’s Middle East policy.
It is worthwhile to note that Silverman has joined Rabbi Noam Marans, another Ashkenazi, in his Interfaith work for the AJC:
http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=7oJILSPwFfJSG&b=8479733&ct=12487965
The AJC announcement of Rabbi Maran’s appointment provides us with a window into just how this Ashkenazi incestuousness works. The idea that Arab Jews might be better qualified to represent the Jewish community to the Muslim world is not considered to be a valid option.
And then there is Henry Green, founder of something called Sephardic Voices, which was the subject of the following profile from Tablet magazine back in 2013:
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/130482/sephardic-stories-on-the-record
As the article, written by an Ashkenazi named Adi Schwartz, notes, Professor Green is not Sephardic. More than this we see prominent use made of the vile Sephardi-hater and Islamophobe Bernard Lewis to explain our identity.
Careful readers of the article will also note the presence of yet another Ashkenazi, Stanley Urman, who headed the group Justice for Jews from Arab Countries which was spearheaded by Irwin Cotler:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_for_Jews_from_Arab_Countries
Here is a clip from 2015 which features Urman making the “Two Nakbas” model explicit:
The speech is a perfect encapsulation of HASBARAH discourse as it applies to the Jews of the Middle East and the manner in which we have been co-opted by the Zionist discourse.
Notice that these discussions of Arab Jews are limited to the voices of Ashkenazi institutional professionals and academics.
The Arab Jewish tradition is filtered and processed through the White Jewish prism which is mediated by questionable figures like the odious Bernard Lewis, leading to a skewed understanding of our history and culture which has been designed to be perfectly aligned with HASBARAH Zionist values.
It is a form of Jewish Orientalism that treats Arab Jews as inert objects being represented by Ashkenazim.
For those not familiar with Lewis and his dogmatic racial ideology, I have written an article that summarizes the basic issues:
It is not at all surprising to see Ashkenazim like Henry Green being presented in the larger context of Jewish Orientalism in a way that serves to undermine the integrity of the Arab Jewish heritage.
Green has also contributed to the Jewish “Nakba” HASBARAH discourse, co-writing an article with Israel’s Consul General to Florida and Puerto Rico, Lior Haiat:
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article117618183.html
The article shows us exactly how the Jewish “Nakba” is meant to counter Palestinian claims:
In an attempt to correct the narrative and recognize those refugees as part of the conflict, on June 23, 2014, the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) passed a landmark law designating Nov. 30 as Jewish Refugee Day. It brings awareness to the forgotten exodus and history of the region and recognition that there were two populations displaced, Palestinian and Jewish. Both were deemed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to be “bona fide” refugees.
I was particularly struck by the following part of the article which cites the words of the aforementioned Irwin Cotler, the guiding spirit behind the JJAC:
Irwin Cotler, Canada’s former justice minister, has called for this injustice to be rectified:
“When there is no remembrance, there is no truth; where there is no truth, there will be no justice; where there is no justice, there will be no reconciliation; and where there is no reconciliation, there will be no peace”.
Honoring these forgotten Jewish refugees, we hope, not only will bring awareness to the historical narrative of the Middle East but also spur those seeking peace and justice.
Sadly, Cotler’s words would be better applied to the forced De-Arabization process imposed on Mizrahi Jews by Israel’s Ashkenazi establishment, reflecting the shabby manner in which we have been for so long treated by the Zionists, who have turned us into second class citizens. We have seen Sephardic history and culture marginalized and stigmatized in an Israel modulated exclusively through European cultural lenses.
Israeli Mizrahim today know little if anything about the intellectual-literary heritage of the classical Sephardic tradition. The texts of this tradition are not widely available to the Israeli lay reader.
As we can see from the institutionalizing of Jewish “Nakba” Day, the complex process that led to the erosion of Jewish life in the Muslim world has been reduced to a simple reductive equation with Arab Anti-Semitism folded into the lachrymose Zionist narrative and its primitive Spartan impulses.
Things are so bad for the Arab Jewish heritage today that a special initiative had to be put forward to actually get Sephardic history and culture included in the Israeli school curriculum.
Unfortunately, the Biton Committee initiative represents a fusion of Mizrahi Jewish alienation with Far Right Zionist extremism.
I have collected my articles on the Biton Committee in a special newsletter:
We have indeed seen the nefarious way in which the Far Right Ashkenazi extremist Naftali Bennett and his Israel Beteinu party have co-opted the Mizrahi issue, and it is critical to note how that initiative is also connected to the Anti-Palestinian and Anti-Arab politics presented by Jewish “Nakba”:
As The Jerusalem Post article clearly states:
The committee also called to establish a National Day for Jewish Refugees from Arab and Islamic States to be marked annually in schools on November 30. This would include visits to museums and other enrichment activities.
It is this dystopian narrative, and not the Convivencia model endemic to the classical Sephardic tradition, that is the one being deployed by the Biton Committee in its attempt to bring our history and culture to the racist Israeli educational system.
I have discussed the mounting attacks on the Convivencia model in the following articles:
And I have presented a special newsletter in tribute to the late Maria Rosa Menocal who did so much to help promote the Convivencia model that is now under siege:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/davidshasha/KW533z-zbbw
The attacks on Convivencia can be directly connected to the larger HASBARAH discourse and its obsessive need to demonize the Arabs and Arabic civilization.
So it is that the current situation of Sephardic Jews is completely controlled by Ashkenazim and their institutions, seeking to manipulate our history for HASBARAH purposes, while at the same time rejecting any and all attempts at pointing out Ashkenazi racism against us and the way it is manifested in a Jewish discourse that cruelly excludes our voices and traditional values.
David Shasha