It bears repeating: Eric Hoffer on Israel
It was written in 1968, and perhaps you are familiar with it: Eric Hoffer’s piece on what he referred to as the “peculiar” position of Israel.
Hoffer’s essay is not only still astoundingly pertinent today, but it’s also notable for its brevity and clarity. So I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to present it here in its entirety, as food for thought.
ISRAEL’S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)
The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese–and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts and Jewish resources.
Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
[Via Pajamas Media.]
[ADDENDUM: Change “the Arabs and their Russian backers” in Hoffer’s essay to “the Arabs and Iranians and their (fill in the blanks) backers.”]
neo-neocon wrote: Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese–and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab.
It is simply not true that Israel is the only country for which such demands are made.
Consider the Cuban-Americans in Miami, many of whom left after the Cuban Revolution in 1959. The government of Cuba expropriated their property. Most of these Cuban-Americans plan to go back to Cuba and lay claim to their former property once they succeed in defeating the current Cuban government. The Arabs who had to leave Palestine are doing exactly the same thing as these Cuban-Americans, in my opinion.
Yo, Pete:
and the Cuban-Americans will have exactly as much luck getting their property back as the Arabs have had with theirs. Spoils of war, and possession being 9/10 of the law, and all that.
Stumbley: The funny thing is that the neocons, by and large, tend to support the Cuban-American claims. This shows a double standard: when the expropriator is a political “enemy” (such as Castro’s Cuba), the reaction of the neocons is of one kind; when the expropriator is a “friend”, such as Israel, the reaction is of another kind.
This shows that opportunistic politics, rather than principle, is what is guiding the neocons.
—
Pete, saying that Cuba is a typical communist state with all the lack of freedom that goes with it doesn’t equate to thinking that Cuban ex-pats are right about their specific goals. I don’t even know what their specific goals are. I imagine they differ a bit between individuals.
Can you show that most, or even some, expect to return to Cuba and be *given* back their property?
Synova, here you go:
“Americans have fresh memories of the Mariel boatlift in 1980, when Mr Castro allowed thousands of people to leave the island.
On the other hand, many exiles believe that after Mr Castro is gone, they will automatically be able to return to Cuba – and hope they will be able to renew acquaintances with relatives and reclaim property they left behind after the revolution.”
BBC News
July 12, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/world/americas/1435437.stm
Synova: See also:
“The Caribbean Basin Fund also has been researching companies that had property confiscated by the Castro government, and which might be able to reclaim those assets in post-Castro Cuba. ”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206748,00.html
Fox News, Aug 2, 2006
of course, those Cubans could actually demonstrate their loss, specifically… and would presumably be doing this in a court of law with words, rather than in a market place or pizza parlor or nightclub with a bomb-vest.
“[ADDENDUM: Change “the Arabs and their Russian backers” in Hoffer’s essay to “the Arabs and Iranians and their (fill in the blanks) backers.”]”
I think that’s “the Syrians, Hizb’allah (party of god), the Palestinians, and thier Iranian backers”.
Douglas: So ask Israel to give the Arabs whose property was taken over in 1948, and who had to leave, to give them their day in the court of law. Israel refuses to do so.
There’s a clear case of double standard going on here. One set of standards for Israel, another for Cuba. This is a hypocrisy that neocons must face up to, if they have any spine.
There are a few MAJOR differences between the Cubans and Arabs. 1. A large majority of those Arabs left their land. They planned to come back, but only once Israel was destroyed. They also initiated the war.
2. The Cubans became productive members of the society they joined. (The Arabs have kept the Palestinians from ever having decent lives in their countries with the exception of Jordan. The Palestinians have accepted this treatment and look what they did in Lebanon years back.
The piece people seem to miss is that these Arab countries were also made up by the west and these countries keep trying to wipe out Israel. Israel did not attack them for a bigger slice.