Yonatan Geffen's Instagram account
Yesterday, Israeli poet Yonatan Geffen published a poem on Instagram dedicated to the courage of Ahed al-Tamimi. It was a simple poem, not even terribly controversial at first glance. But oh did it rankle the Israeli far right. Avigdor Lieberman in highest dudgeon, immediately called for Geffen and his poetry to be banned from the only media outlet over which he has any control, Army Radio. He even gratuitously called Geffen a “drunk.” Although any self-respecting hard-drinking Russian who calls another man a drunk as an insult ought to take a look at his own habits first. Lieberman also demanded that Geffen himself be banned from on-air interviews:
The 17 year-old girl did something ‘terrible’
When the proud Israeli officer
Invaded her home once more,
She slapped him in the face.
She was born into this [Occupation] and in her slap
Were fifty years of Occupation and humiliation.
And on the day when the story of the battle will be told
You, red-haired Ahed [al] Tamimi,
Like David who slapped Goliath
Will be in the same company
As Joan of Arc, Hannah Senesh and Anne Frank.
Ah yes, comparing a histrionic Palestinian child who strikes at the heart of Israeli manhoood to the likes of Hannah Senesh and Joan of Arc…that will land you in hot water in today’s Israel.
Really, it’s a fairly innocuous song. But it raises the hackles of Israeli patriot-enforcers, who attempt to extract their pound of flesh from the poor victim. You cannot stray from the national consensus without paying a price. Solidarity is demanded. Deviance will be punished. Chances are Geffen will apologize and return to the straight and narrow Israeli path and never stray from it again.
This is not the first time Geffen has run afoul of the Israeli thought-police. In 2015, an unknown assailant attempted to beat the crap out of him (a standard Israeli way to handle ideological disputes) for opposing Netanyahu’s re-election.
The Israeli attorney general responded to Lieberman: not so fast:
“The legal authority to determine the content that the station will broadcast is reserved for the professional employees of the station,” the statement read. “Of course, these statements do not legitimize the content of [Geffen’s] outrageous remarks.”
Liberman then hit back at the attorney-general, saying “I am guided by the law of common sense, which transcends any bureaucratic directive.” Liberman said he “rejected outright the position of the attorney-general.” In response, early Tuesday evening, Mandelblit sent an official letter to Liberman reminding him that he does not get to decide which laws to follow. “Needless to say,” he wrote, “the legal opinion of the attorney-general regarding this law is binding.”
Something similar happened to Chava Alberstein, who wrote a beautiful song ostensibly about the mythical goat in the Passover song, Had Gadya. It was actually a sly, devastating attack on Israeli Occupation. For her troubles, she was banned from Israeli media for a decade and went into self-chosen exile.
[Comment deleted: commenter banned. After numerous warnings about comment rule violations you’re now banned.]
The Ha’aretz headline in English read that Lieberman was frustrated because Geffen had compared Ahed Tamimi to the Anne Frank, implying that the Israelis are like the Nazis.
While it is a comparison often rejected, how can “never again” be achieved if one witnesses videos on the internet of Israeli soldiers (military footmen) keeping Palestinian children in small cages (like the ones used for dog kennels), retweeted by international journalists of repute — or worse — and, while the trajectory of such actions worsens with each year?
If the world wasn’t watching, would the far-right of Israel have already committed to something dastardly for a people they commonly refer to as mere animals (or lesser) often and in more than just words? When does the comparison become appropriate? When the “secret deals” are finally made to affix a pattern rendering a permanent solution?
The first instance of Hitler’s acts could have been prevented if the world acted sooner. That is the lesson I draw from “never again”. Not simply reactivity, but pro-activity.
Soli
Lieberman is a strange dude. He seems to always declare extreme measures but has he ever been successful?
He used to be Bibi’s man and maybe there are things that Bibi want kept quiet so he ‘keeps him on a short leash’.
Aside from that it seems he suffers from non compos mentis{ petit mal}.
“The first instance of Hitler’s acts could have been prevented if the world acted sooner. That is the lesson I draw from “never again”. Not simply reactivity, but pro-activity.”
Are you actually making a comparison between Hitler and Israel?
Is that all that interests you?
As long as Israel is not as bad as Hitler, all is fine?
[Comment deleted: if you ever post such hate-filled, evidence-free drivel again you will be moderated. And read the comment rules. If you don’t understand why you broke the comment rules then perhaps you don’t belong here. And of you do, don’t do it again.]
“Their culpability for anti-semitism is in their soul{at least most of them IMO} so they are involved in ‘conflicting interests’.”
I quit reading your filth after I read that. You should be ashamed of yourself. It is sad that the Israeli public includes so many ill informed young people. It makes me despair of the future.
“Certainly the EU is not capable of being a mediator for the so called ‘peace process’. Their culpability for anti-semitism is in their soul{at least most of them IMO} so they are involved in ‘conflicting interests’.”
The American ruling class tout themselves as the descendants of those Europeans. They also dropped two atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg). In recent memory, they wiped out countless Iraqis and left birth rate defects soaring — all on lies. Woops! (And no one went to jail…)
So, even though your logic here is a little jaded from the get-go, that fellow humans possess “lesser souls” than yours (yet can interbreed making them your complete equals… woops, again!), it also is quite contradictory. Not to mention, the founders of Israel and even Netanyahu have some of that European “soul” in them as well. They also had ancestors who intermarried.
Otherwise, how do you end up with a Pollock renamed from Milekowski with skin that couldn’t survive a hot desert sun in the Middle East at the tip of Africa? Magic?
It’s not true that everyone has anti-Semitism inborn in them who isn’t of the tribe. It’s true, however, that some will get angry irrationally at innocents who are part of a group that has elites who commit wrongs upon others. Or, if they discover a “code of conduct” that dictates a war of sorts for domination of all “others”.
Soli
Oh no, a third rail. I would never touch that. I didn’t even do the electric slide at Bar Mitzvahs (yes I did).
Rather, your question should be, Marty: “Is Israel causing people to draw comparisons between their actions and that of Hitler’s?”
What you are conflating is the tragedy of the Holocaust with Hitler’s actions prefacing it and otherwise. The Holocaust is what, IMHO, shouldn’t be compared with other things; for example, the Armenian genocide, the English imposed Iranian famine, the Holodomor, African-American slavery, the colonization of Palestine, etc.
Evil, rather, is fungible, on the other hand, and should not be placed on a pedestal. For example, is the illicit organ trafficking trade, the violation of human rights in the atomic weapons testing during the Korean War and beyond, the human trafficking still ongoing, or the Rwandan/Cambodian/Bosnian genocide comparable to any acts of the Nazis? I would say so and so would international courts, which render them all in the vein of war crimes.
Are their victims’ plights worthy of comparison? No, I would say each should be respected in their own right.
The proclivity to throw out these arguments deflects from the underlying point: Israel is committing war crimes against the Palestinians. It places them in a category with the Nazis, even though they may not be exterminating the Palestinians industrially at this very moment. And that evil is a slippery slope. Did or did not the “Final Solution” occur during Hitler’s last year(s)? It happened rather briefly and quickly, and the prelude to it could have been stopped well before 1939.
IMHO, like the proverbial “nuclear clock”, the date in Palestine is now 1936. It doesn’t seem to be getting any better, but worse. The US has evangelical Armageddon nuts driving its agenda. They have no mind for saving even an innocent Palestinian. Either it’s time to be polite and behave in accordance with your dictates, or it’s time to do something. I firmly believe in “never again”. Do you?
Soli
[comment deleted: off-topic. Read the comment rules very carefully if you haven’t already done so. Comments must be specifically & directly related to the post. If your comment is not, it is off-topic.]
@Marty
If you see confrontation in every face you encounter, you will self-fulfill your own prophecy out of paranoia and this siege mentality. So long as you generalize against groups, you will always be proved wrong by the exceptions. If you don’t believe the exceptions don’t exist — that even the best of the “other” is still bad — then your prejudice per se, and the mentality it causes, will likely spawn the so-called hatred that you so seek.
I see zero critiques of Mosaic exegesis abound, and really a lot of complaints about criminality and political wrongdoings when it comes to Israel.
Are Palestinians unworthy of salvation to you?
Anyone who conflates such critiques of political and criminal wrongs against religious Jewish communities everywhere hasn’t read the prohibitions in the Balfour Declaration. Even in their madness of handing this document to Lord Walter Rothschild, the British government knew there would be wrongs done upon 1. indigenous Palestinians that 2. would prejudice the rights of Jewish communities everywhere. And so they barred it, even terming it as being “clearly understood”.
I don’t even see Netanyahu wearing a yarmulke, do you? Yes, some can morph religion to suit their political or criminal purposes, but that’s by distortion and misappropriation by abstraction.
Marty, it seems that your brand of religion has made you mentally ill. I do not care how long ago some person said something bad about non-Jews. Whenever he lived, he was a prejudiced dumb-ass, and not exactly a sage that should be revered for his insight in human nature.
What worries me more than anything, is that in Israel people like you get to carry guns and use them on defenseless Palestinians. With your SS mindset against the people your country robbed of their land, they are as much at risk as a little Jewish boy in a ww2 ghetto.
I wish you could get therapy.
@ Soleimani Khan: You just said the Holocaust ‘shouldn’t be compared to other things’ & then proceeded to compare Israel to the Nazis and the Final Solution. At least remain consistent! These sorts of comparisons, unless very carefully articulated make my skin crawl. I suggest you tread carefully.
“Chances are Geffen will apologize and return to the straight and narrow Israeli path and never stray from it again.”
GEFFEN APOLOGIZES FOR COMPARING TAMIMI TO ANNE FRANK
BY AMY SPIRO JANUARY 28, 2018 13:08
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Culture/Geffen-apologizes-for-comparing-Tamimi-to-Anne-Frank-540016
You sure called that one right.
Thank you Richard. It is a singularly courageous poem about a singularly courageous young woman who knew should could have been shot for her action. I wish I understood Hebrew so I could have appreciated the poem in its proper cadence.