The post title is, of course, meant ironically. What does Israel have to teach the U.S., except how to be a better national security state? How to sacrifice rights for security, liberty for surveillance, privacy for intrusion? How to replace the striving for peace for a state of perpetual war.
We’ve learned so much from Israel on this score. In the midst of the Al Qaeda airplane bomb threats involving the Shoe Bomber and a others, Israeli security consultants and their media enablers plastered the airwaves with encomiums to Israel’s purported airtight airline security program. There were billions at stake of course since every major world airport contracts with firms to devise and implement security protocols. For a few months, Israel was smelling pretty good on that score. Until people started realizing that Israel’s so-called security gold standard came at the expense of anyone with dark skin or an Arab name. Stories began to circulate of Shin Bet agents working on behalf of El Al who were turning away flyers simply because of their skin color (South Africa). This little incident almost lost the Israeli airline landing rights in the country. In other words, one of the bedrock principles of the Israelis is racial-profiling. The equivalent of: if you’re Black, get back; white outa sight!
Further, while Israeli airport security may protect flyers who succeed in getting aboard an Israeli airline, many of the principles used derive from Israel’s Occupation regime and its draconian treatment of the Palestinians. Israel’s claim of excellence in this area derives from its permanent war footing against the Palestinians. If you look for enemies everywhere, you will eventually find one (along with many you will offend with false positives). Israel is quite good at identifying and nabbing enemies. If it can’t do that, it makes new enemies to fill the quota (cf., Turkey).
Similarly, Israel was the first nation to develop drones, which it uses both to spy on its Arab neighbors and assassinate undesirable Palestinians. U.S. counter-terror strategy embraced drones with a vengeance, and its now pretty much the sole component of our relationship with the Arab-Muslim world. Ask the average Middle Easterner what’s the first word he or she thinks of when you say “USA” and undoubtedly it will be “drone.”
A related concept which the U.S. already used before Israel’s model was offered to us was targeted killing. We have a long history of assassinating our foreign enemies. But in the past we reserved such treatment for those who were our most formidable foes. We didn’t bother assassinating mere thorns in our side. But Israel taught us a lesson here as well. Israel, of course, targeted the creme de la creme of enemy militants like Ghassan Khanfani, Sheikh Yassine and Salah Shehadeh. But it didn’t stop there. Since the first Intifada (perhaps even earlier) it assassinated rank and file militants on their way to launch a rocket. No target became too small or insignificant. And of course as the circle of targets widened and the sheer numbers of attempts increased, the numbers of Palestinian civilians killed rose as well.
The U.S. has adopted a similar approach to Al Qaeda and other Islamist insurgencies we’ve taken on: of course we want the bin Ladens and Zarkawis, but we’ll take the mid-level and even low-level guys as well. The number of potential targets grew. Ways in which you were added to the list were haphazard, not vetted with care or caution. And of course, the numbers of civilians who’ve died is astronomical: at least 2,500 according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Of the 3,000 killed, only 4% were confirmed Al Qaeda members and a few hundred were militants affiliated with other Islamist cells. The rest: civilians.
I was reminded of this when I read, Big Brother’s Liberal Friends, an excellent skewering of the “liberal” NSA warriors Michael Kinsley, Sean Wilentz and George Packer. Each has published their own smear of Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden.
But this summary of the value of the Snowden expose was the money quote for me:
…Not only are America’s overseas interventions problematic by themselves, but they are also increasingly undermining domestic liberties. Intelligence efforts that are supposed to be focused abroad turn out to have sweeping domestic consequences. It’s impossible to distinguish intelligence data on domestic and foreign actors. Security officials in various countries can work together across borders to circumvent and undermine domestic protections, actively helping each other to remake laws that restrict their freedom of operation. And at home, officials can use these new arrangements to work around and undermine civil rights. This commingling of domestic and international politics is complex and poorly understood.
This struck home in considering the debilitating effects of the Israel Occupation on Israeli society itself. It’s commonly believed that Israelis put up an Iron Wall between themselves and their Palestinian neighbors. And to a great extent this true. Israelis will not learn much about what happens day to day inside Palestinian society, unless it concerns terrorism, a security threat, or war. They will hardly meet Palestinians, nor socialize with them. And if such things do happen, Israeli extremists make sure that Palestinians know, on pain of assault or worse, that they’re not welcome among Jews.
But regardless of the Israeli effort to insulate itself from Palestinians, the Occupation seeps into Israeli life. Of course the crushing burden of tens of billions of dollars spent on security related to Occupation weighs down the economy. The everyday oppression meted out by young Israeli soldiers at checkpoints and the like is transferred when they return home. The brutality and violence forced upon them by virtue of the role they play does not stay at their military posts. It enters into their relationships with friends, family, colleagues, etc. That’s why thousands have followed the completion of their military service with pilgrimages to drug dens of India and elsewhere. They’re trying to medicate their pain and work themselves into an insensate stupor.
While Israel calls itself a democracy, it enforces an apartheid system in the West Bank. This a system in which rights don’t exist, in which security is god, and all other issues take second-place. Justice, such as it is, is meted out by military judges who care little about the niceties of civilian rule of law. The hatred at the root of Occupation is also transferred by Jews to their fellow Palestinian citizens. If residents of the West Bank are the enemy, why shouldn’t Palestinian citizens of Israel as well? How are they any different? They look the same, talk the same, act the same. They all hate us. So we see fellow Israeli citizens demonized as if they were alien. The discrimination and intolerance which even Pres. Reuven Rivlin has acknowledged this week, becomes a just sacrifice for the sake of security.
Occupation establishes a hierarchy of power in which the soldier stands at the apex and the Palestinian sits at the bottom. The soldier is god, the civilian is an animal (the words of the Israeli boys themselves who man checkpoints). These are attitudes one can see in Israel itself. The average citizen accepts abridgement of his or her rights for the greater good. Power is willingly handed over to the elite and figures of authority, those who know better. The bargain is made assuming that the bosses have the common man’s best interests at heart. But we know how that bargain goes, and how easy it is to break that bond of trust.
Oligarchs are offered the keys to the kingdom and all the coin of the realm. The system is jury-rigged for them and by them. Sure, the common man or woman may protest as they did during the Tel Aviv social justice protests. Hundreds of thousands then marched for their rights. The elites shivered a bit, but weren’t worried. They patiently waited out the storm knowing things would revert back to the norm.
In this, they had the model of Israel’s economic treatment of the Palestinians. The latter have no independent economy. They are under Israeli control. Israel turns the tap on and can turn it off as well. In this system, Israel is the oligarch and the Palestinians are the hapless consumer subject to the whims of the financial elite.
In this sense, those at the J14 protests who complained that Occupation must be separated from the economic demands of the largely Israeli Jewish audience, made a fatal mistake. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in Bilin, Qalqilya or Ramallah doesn’t stay there. It mutates and migrates to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Beersheba.
Another sickness afflicting Israel is corruption. It exists on a massive scale from the top to the bottom. It’s more subtle than in third-world countries where its endemic and overt. But it prevails everywhere. Every politician of any significance, every police commander is on the take in one way or another.
Part of this phenomenon derives from the overwhelming impact of the military on society. It, and its budget is sacrosanct. There is hardly any oversight. Generals and politicians may quibble about a program or a billion here or there. But everyone knows in the end, the boys can’t be let down. We must sacrifice everything for them. We must give them everything they need.
In such a system, abuse is rampant. Budgets are inflated. Weapons systems are touted because they line the pocket of some defense contractor to whom someone owes a favor. Generals are promoted not for their acumen, but due to who their allies are.
That is what is leading Israel down a path to authoritarianism. Whatever democracy there once was is gone, or almost disappeared. Strong men (and they are largely men) rule. The security services, whether police or Shin Bet, have the run of the place. There are no constraints on their actions. Even Israeli Jews are subject to their whims.
This is yet another model Israel may be offering the U.S. The question is whether this is what we will become, as seems likely based on the national security agenda of Bush and Obama. Or whether, we have the strength and fortitude to roundly reject what Israel has to offer.
I have always wondered if this trend was purely home grown or if it was imported from the Soviet-union. There is no reason why Jews from there should not have brought the culture of corruption with them which plagues the present states of the former Soviet-union. One only have to look at Ukraine to see how bad it can end up.
For some practical insight into corruption practices from the Soviet-union.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n23/peter-pomerantsev/diary
Poul,
I wish such actions were imported! Unfortunately, abuse of power and pleasure at degrading others seems to be a worldwide phenomenon. When it targets a specific group, it breeds the hatred and despair that only hopeless impotence can,
Typo: Ghassan Kanafani. Apart from being a militant in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Kanafani was the chief-editor of the PFLP newspaper, and known as Palestine’s probably best known author of short stories (his ‘Men in the Sun’ has been translated to dozens of languages, and made into a film, his collection of short stories “All that is left for You” and his “The Little Lanter” that he wrote for his niece Lamis for her 9th birthday. Lamis was killed with Ghassan Kanafani on that morning July 8th 1972 when the Mossad blew up his car in Beirut. His Danish wife Annie, and his two kids, Fayez and Leila, were on the balcony of their appartment. Annie still lives there. God bless his memory.
I think the photo on Issam Bayan’s Facebook is from the documentary “Check-point” (2003) by Israeli film director Yoav Shamir.
http://www.yoavshamirfilms.com/#!checkpoint/c145m
Everyone should see this at least once, it simply turns your stomach inside out, after seeing I came to think of a new word ‘goyimitude’, I later found out it was already invented 🙂
The short version (60 min) is available on youtube with French, Spanish and German subtitles, I didn’t find any English version. The long version (90 min) is available on Dailymotion with French subtitles, the x-tra 30 min is worth it, well, it’s just 30 minutes more of daily nonsensical humiliations.
Typo: The Little Lantern [al-Qandil as-saghir]. Dedicated to Lamis
http://www.rimalbooks.com/productinfo.php?id=77
From Gideon Levy’s interview with Sergeant Furer, the autor of Checkpoint Syndrome:
“Furer is certain that what happened to him is not at all unique. Here he was – a creative, sensitive graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, who became an animal at the checkpoint, a violent sadist who beat up Palestinians because they didn’t show him the proper courtesy, who shot out tires of cars because their owners were playing the radio too loud, who abused a retarded teenage boy lying handcuffed on the floor of the Jeep, just because he had to take his anger out somehow. “Checkpoint Syndrome” (also the title of his book), gradually transforms every soldier into an animal, he maintains, regardless of whatever values he brings with him from home. No one can escape its taint. In a place where nearly everything is permissible and violence is perceived as normative behavior, each soldier tests his own limits of violence impulsiveness on his victims – the Palestinians.”
More:
http://www.haaretz.com/twilight-zone-i-punched-an-arab-in-the-face-1.106307
And here is an English translation of Sergeant Furer’s book:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/checkpoint_syndrome.pdf
Thanks for the links.
Thanks for the links too. I read it and felt rather sick afterwards. Obviously real actions are worse than fantasies, but the fantasies included were very disturbing. Can duty at a checkpoint, and pressure from your surroundings really cause such actions and thoughts? I am horrified by the idea.
Thank you Deir Yassin. I ordered the documentary today. I intend to get some people together to watch it.
When will the GIANT wurm turn?
“This may be the greatest mystery of all: the relations between Israel and the U.S.A. They are everything but logical. We have a protégé that humiliates its patron power and a power that grovels in front of its protégé; a power that acts against its own interests and a president who acts contrary to his worldview. We have a protégé whose dependence on the power grows with its effrontery and a power’s unbelievable weakness in the face of its protégé’s brazenness. It’s a wild sado-masochistic game, in which it is not clear who is the slave and who is the master, which is the power and which is its protégé.
Nothing can fully explain this phenomenon, certainly not in its current dimensions. No Israeli government has permitted itself to disregard the American administration with such impudence as the current one. No American administration has received the spitting in its face as submissively as this one. No other ally in the world, including the European powers, has dared to act so explicitly against the United States’ positions. All this is happening with Israel isolated in the world and dependent on the United States’ mercy, while its policy endangers American and global interests.”
Gideon Levy
“What does Israel have to teach the U.S., except how to be a better national security state?”
What an absurd generalization! You see nothing about Israel or Israeli society except what you wish to condemn. And it was only a few weeks ago that you accused me of “willful blindness to nuance”.
DJF,
What does Israel have to teach the US?
So, I don’t understand. Why does Israel have elections, a government, a judicial system, a military, a free press (BTW, something the Palestinians don’t have with Abbas in the 12th year of a 4 year term and Hamas will shoot anyone who threatens their regime)
Why would Israel just not fire everyone and have you or any of it’s critics run the country? I mean you don’t live there, don’t speak the language, don’t know the culture but you seem to think that you know better than all Israelis what they should do.
You are contemptuous of Boogie, Netanyahu and pretty much anyone in the Israeli government, but these people live there, they have sacrificed their whole life for the country. Can you name ONE positive thing you have done seeing as you claim to be a Zionist and want what’s best for Israel? All I see in reading your column and Twitter for the past few years is negative, negative and more negative.
You claim to be about Tikun Olam yet you denigrate any publication or person that does not align with your viewpoint. I mean, should the only opinions people read be those you agree with? I don’t agree with most of what you say, but I read your articles and those of Mondoweiss and Counterpunch.
What kind of credibility do you have with Israelis at all?
@ Ron Temis: A “free press?” One in which reporters are not just threatened with prosecution for reporting, but actually arrested, convicted & imprisoned: for the crime of practicing journalism. Even international NGOs judging press freedom rank Israel much lower than western democracies. As for Abbas, the reason he can’t hold an election is not his own fault. Israel itself prevents an election in Palestine by its siege of Gaza. Palestine cannot govern itself because of Israeli intrusion & meddling.
So I don’t speak the language? And that’s how I translate Hebrew articles regularly and read the Hebrew press every day?? Don’t be an ass. Don’t know the culture? Again an ass. I lived in Israel two years & have followed Israeli society closely for nearly 50 yrs. I’ll take my knowledge of Israeli culture & match it with yours or any Diaspora Jew in a heartbeat. If you can’t name a single positive thing I’ve done as a progressive Zionist, I won’t be the one to relieve you of your blindness.
As for “negative, negative, negative:” Israel is in deep shit, my friend. Hosannas & pats on the back are NOT what Israel needs. Did Isaiah, Jeremiah & Amos gives Israel’s high fives? Or did they remonstrate and thunder against injustice??
In fact I only denigrate publications that are bad. Even I sometimes quote & link to publications whose general editorial slant is at odds with mine. I judge based on quality & not based on prejudice.
As for Israeli credibility: my blog is ranked 10,000 among Israeli websites. That’s pretty damn good. If you compare that with other lefty blogs you won’t find nearly the same readership in Israel. So wrong again I’m afraid.
I’m about to moderate you for general nastiness & distemper. So I put you on notice. Another false comment like this will earn you moderation.
Ah, the old, moderated and face banning for criticism. You make me laugh, using Google Translate is not speaking or understanding Hebrew. Living as a tourist in Israel 40 years ago is not knowing the culture one bit. You would not understand even one sentence of a current Israeli TV Show or satire or comedy or documentary, never mind intent or nuance. You have NO CLUE what the IDF is like.what their soldiers think, feel and act. NOTHING.
Right, Abbas controls the WB by force and brooks no dissent because of Israel and Hamas can’t allow democracy because of Israel.
Finally, you compare yourself to the prophets.
The thing is, I spend my time worrying about the fate of the Yazidis and Kurds, who are being butchered by your friends, I don’t give a fuck about you.
@ Ron Temis: Normally, I would simply ban someone publishing such a comment & never approve it before doing so. But because you’re such an utter jackass & used such foul language to boot, I want readers to know you by your poison.
If you’d bother to read the About pg of this blog you’d know I have an MA in Comparative Literature & my specialization was Hebrew literature. I studied one undergraduate, & one graduate yr at Hebrew University on Givat Ram. All lectures were delivered in Hebrew & my papers were written in Hebrew. I’m a fluent speaker & writer of Hebrew. I’ll put my knowledge of Hebrew against yours any day of the week, haboob.
I never compared myself to the Prophets. I only noted your lack of knowledge of Jewish sources & traditions.
As for worrying about the Yazidis, before 3 months ago you wouldn’t have known a Yazidi if one fell on you. You only know Yazidis because you hate Muslims.
Hence you are banned.
What we can learn from Israel… Yael Shahar has an article on Haaretz entitled “Why the world is catching on to the Jewish emphasis on education.” How incredibly self-centered and obnoxious. Whence comes this narcissism? The Jews didn’t invent education.
Below are just a few of a plethora of quotes from Plato on education. Countless more are available from other Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese writers.
“Nowhere in the world should education be despised, for when combined with great virtue, it is an asset of incalculable value.” – Plato, Laws
“Good education and upbringing, when they are preserved, produce good natures, and useful natures, who are in turn well educated, grow up even better than their predecessors, both in their offspring and in other respects….” – Plato, Republic
“But you meet with the desires that are simple, measured, and directed by calculation in accordance with understanding and correct belief only in the few people who are born with the best natures and receive the best education.” – Plato, Republic
“Next, I said, compare the effect of education and of the lack of it on our nature to an experience like this: Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling….” – Plato, Republic, Book VII, intro to Analogy of the Cave
“The good education they have received will make them good men, and being good they will achieve success in other ways, and even conquer their enemies in battle.” – Plato, Laws
Temis’s critique was of course based on absurd premises which are that you have to actually live in a country and speak its language to criticise what is going on there. So one had to speak Russian and live in Siberia to criticise the Gulag; speak Afrikaans and live in Transvaal to criticise apartheid; live in North Korea and speak Korean to criticise its cruel detention camps. Etc.