I recently read a book by Michel Warschawski, entitled On the Border. A middle-aged Japanese activist who’s lived in Israel for many years recommended it to me. We had found much in common, as like me her children are half Moroccan-Israeli. As my suspicion had it, On the Border turned out to be a work written by quite a radical. My friend is a writer on a radical newspaper operating in Japan, and her Facebook updates would sometimes raise my eyebrows for want of ‘objectivity.’ (Though maybe my objectivity is in part because I haven’t seen as much suffering as she…)
Nevertheless, I reckon it was about time for me to read literature by a prominent anti-Zionist Israeli. Here are some of my reflections:
• Regardless of my own politics, it was invigorating to read about Michel’s youthful days as a Matzpen activist. I wondered whether my own youth would amount to anywhere close to his frenetic buzz disseminating leaflets and demonstrating on streets all over Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Reading about Michel, I felt respect for his deep hope and trust in international solidarity against oppression the world over. I wouldn’t say I’m on board with his ways, but I don’t need to agree in order to respect.
• I was troubled that Matzpen activists already faced ostracism in the 1970s. Some even decided not to have children to spare them a life of social exclusion. Though I tend to associate suffocation of political thought in Israel with recent years, maybe it’s an occurrence universal to all places and ages. Or maybe it was greater in Israel then than now, coinciding with the anti-Marxism sweeping the ‘Free World.’
• I learned to refrain from reflexively thinking most leftists are disconnected from the Israeli mainstream. How would I know this to be true with just hearsay and popular opinion? Throughout his life, Michel seems to have thought deeply about how to engage the larger Israeli society. Moreover, his concern for Israel felt strong and genuine to me. For example, it seems his heart yearned to find those Palestinians who, though few, wanted reconciliation and coexistence with Israelis from the bottom of their heart—that is, not just as pragmatism, as accepting a ‘necessary evil,’ or for gaining the world’s sympathy. He opined that Feisal Husseini was one such person.
• I appreciated how Michel endeavored hard to have more Palestinians comprehend Israel: how not everyone is a soldier obstructing Palestinian liberation; how most Israelis have nowhere to go than Israel, unlike those of classical colonialist states; how they’d never accept the refusal of their rights to sovereignty and self-defense as a people that survived Auschwitz.
• I reflected on the line between understanding and sympathizing with those committing terrorism, whether the DFLP, PFLP, or Hezbollah. I felt Michel was much too ready to support DFLP and PFLP fighters, and he described Hezbollah as having fought bravely against Israel during the Lebanon War. If Michel was intending his work for a broad readership, why did he leave out thorough explanations about how his moral compass pointed him to his opinions? How are we from outside his fold supposed to understand?
o For example, why does he make it sound like the DFLP’s murder of twenty-four child hostages at Ma’alot was Israel’s fault?
• With very little respect for Prime Minister Rabin, Michel contends that Rabin didn’t actually try hard to dismantle settlements. Why, then, was he assassinated? Again, while challenging mainstream beliefs, he does not help us understand the information unfamiliar for us “untrained folk.”
• I thank Michel for alerting me to secular Israelis’ lack of understanding for the religious and ‘traditional’ Jewish communities of Israel—the Mizrahim and Haredim. He characterizes the division as becoming an Iron Curtain. On one side, secular Jews (mostly Ashkenazim) desire a modern and secular state as the early Zionists did, as well as participation in a neoliberal world economy. On the other side, there are mostly Mizrahim who still live in developing towns and villages in the country’s periphery or in poorer areas of Tel Aviv. Skeptical of the free market and cosmopolitanism, they desire a return to their Jewish roots and to family values.
In all this, it seems extremely unlikely that Israel will make peace with the Palestinians without first making peace with itself. How will Israelis of different sectors join forces in pursuit of peace, if they have disdain and distrust toward each other? I thank Michel for opening up my eyes to criticize those who don’t dare to bridge this yawning chasm, and for giving me a sense of urgency that, without such bridging, Israel will increasingly suffer collisions between its neoliberalism and its messianic Jewish fundamentalism and nationalism.
I am appreciative that my friend urged me to read On the Border because it did for me two things at once. First, it gave me the inspiration to be more dynamic and connect with more people on the ground. In parallel, it gave me increased clarity about how a society (in this case Israel) can be analyzed from a distance, and about how one’s activism should be strategic in making an impact within a larger context. I worry deeply for Israel and Palestine, so I’m glad Michel Warschawski’s work helped afford words to my feelings about this place.
The Medford Pact 