Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli national identity is more or less "authentic" or “legitimate” than the other because both are self-defined nationalisms adhered to by millions of people. The extent to which they are based on imaginary constructs—as all modern national ideologies ultimately prove largely to be—is meaningless in practice. Objecting to these mythologies is the political equivalent of complaining about the rain.
Translation: there is no such thing a "Palestinian nationalism". To prove that that really doesn't make a difference, Jewish nationalism doesn't exist either.
Here:
In the decades immediately preceding 1948, the word “Israeli” was totally unknown * and meant nothing, and the word "Palestinian” meant many things, but certainly not what it means today. Both of these national identities—the Jewish Israeli and the Arab Palestinian—are contemporary constructs * born of recent history...The analytical challenge is to recognize that while not all nationalist claims are necessarily equally valid (they may speak on behalf of very few people, for example, and not really have the constituency they claim), in some important senses they are, however, all equally invalid.
Idiot.
Oh, the author has been tweeting nonsensicals to me this past week as well as to other bloggers and this is the hint:
The pro-Israel voices objecting to these virtually self-evident observations seem unconcerned with defending the Israeli national identity, but obsessed with attacking the invocation of any heritage or tradition on which Palestinian nationalism can draw.
The impulse to negate the other seems overwhelming...These critics assume all aspects of Jewish and biblical Hebrew mythology, traditions and history automatically legitimize the Israeli national project. However, such claims were highly controversial among the Jews of the world for many decades, and are again being subjected to significant interrogation.
If there is any mythology, Islam is its most outlandish proponent. Jerusalem isn't mentioned in the Koran but El-Aksa is located there and Muhammed reached there, supposedly, how? Well, it went like this:
During the month of Rajab, the Prophet Muhammad made a night -time trip to the city of Jerusalem (isra’), visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and from there was raised up into heaven (mi’raj). While there, he came face-to-face with previous prophets and received instructions about the number of prayers the Muslim community should observe each day. Muhammad and his followers perceived this as a miraculous journey, and it gave them strength and hope that God was with them despite recent setbacks.
"Miraculous"?
The prophet prayed at the rock, if not to the rock, during what has been rendered as a miraculous night journey he undertook on a white flying horse (l-Buraq El-Sharif) from Mecca to Jerusalem about 10 years after he began receiving "revelations" that disciples later codified as the Koran.
That's not mythology?
And that idiot is Hussein Ibish is a senior research fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine and blogs at http://www.ibishblog.com/.
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* What is Ibish talking about? Doesn't he know:
One of the most important discoveries that relate to the time of the Exodus is the Merneptah stele which dates to about 1210 BC. Merneptah, the king of Egypt, boasts that he has destroyed his enemies in Canaan. He states: Plundered is the Canaan with every evil; Carried off is Ashkelon; seized upon is Gezer; Yanoam is made as that which does not exist; Israel is laid waste, his seed is not; (ANET 1969, 378).The word "Israel" here is written in Egyptian with the determinative for people rather than land (ANET 1969, 378 note 18). This implies that Israel did not have a king or kingdom at this time. This would be the time of the judges. The text also implies that Israel was as strong as the other cities mentioned, and not just a small tribe.
* See my Continuum of Presence.
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3 comments:
The use of the word Israeli is not a contemporary construct. The term in Hebrew for the people of Israel is exactly the same: yisraeli. The decision to translate this term one way when referring to the ancient people of Israel and another way when referring to the modern people of Israel is a decision of 20th century English speakers. But that doesn’t make the term Israeli a contemporary construct.
there are a number of glib, plausible falsehoods in the article that are probably deliberate lies, knowing Ibish, but may be simply errors due to ignorance. You can't be sure. That's one of the strengths of an Ibish.
He refers to the genetic issue. This has gotten quite a bit of attention within the field of genetic research and medicine. Shlomo Sand devotes a few pages to it in his anti-Zionist tract, and Ibish may be alluding to Sand in some places, as when he says that Jewish notions of Jewish history are being "subjected to significant interrogation." Indeed, much of the article seems to allude to Sand's claims. Sands distorts the genetic research in several ways, one of which is to ignore --as recall from reading that part of his book-- that researchers, Israelis and non-Israelis, Jews and non-Jews [Sand implies that they were all Jews and insinuates that they reached their results based on Israeli govt instructions]-- found a certain match or genetic affinity between Jews and Arabs and other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean peoples, and especially with palestinian Arabs and Armenians and Kurds. [let's not get too technical here]. As far as Ibish's claim that the subject has been neglected is concerned, outside of med & gen research journals, both Commentary and HaArets [in English] have run articles on the subject. The piece in Commentary was rather detailed and lengthy, although I found it unsatisfactory.
The tragedy of the Islamic conquests is that many people belonging to the conquered, subject peoples were converted to Islam, which happened in Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, etc. So it happened here too, in addition to conquering Arab tribes taking parts of the country and settling down, as well as Arab and other Muslim immigration over the century. The number of Jews in the country probably diminished most notably because of the Crusader massacres of Jews from about 1099 to 1115. Note that in countries where part of the native population converted, that islamized part of the population is more backward, more violent, etc., than the part who did not convert. [India vs Pakistan, for example].
Imperious Islam. I read recently on a Coptic Christian's twitter feed that some Islamists in Egypt suggested that the pyramids should be destroyed. Claiming and replacing other civilzations with totalitarian Islam is still a method of conquest. Is there a Islamic country where the preceding civilization has not been marginalized, even still brutalized?
That Ibish and many others would engage in this delegitimization of the Jewish people and Israel is no different than what Islam has done for centuries. It's surprising that more people can not see right through it.
Shelley
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