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LIVING WITH THE CONTRADICTION
Uri Avnery
Ha'aretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spag es/1081740.html
April 28 2009
Israel
I didn't read the Haaretz editorial of May 14, 1948, on the day it
appeared. In fact, I saw no newspapers at all then.
My unit - B Company of the 54th Battalion of the Givati infantry
brigade, later to become the "Samson's Foxes" company - was stationed
at Kibbutz Hulda, near the dining hall, which was off-limits to us. On
that Friday, the ban was lifted for a few hours so we could listen
to David Ben-Gurion's speech declaring the establishment of the state.
The truth is that we, the soldiers on the front, couldn't have cared
less. To us it seemed an insignificant event. The state had existed
in practice for some time and existed everywhere we won. We knew that
if we won the war, there would be a state and that if we were defeated
there would be no state - and that we would not be around, either.
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We were told we would be going into action that night. Our mission:
to conquer the village of Al-Qubab, between Ramle and Latrun. It
looked like a tough operation. We were immersed in preparations,
such as cleaning our rifles.
Still, I went to the dining room. I was curious about one thing: the
name of the new state. Judea? Hebrew State? State of Jerusalem? When
Ben-Gurion reached the words "which is the State of Israel," I left. I
knew the rest would be blah blah.
The truth is that the Haaretz editorial also now strikes me as blah
blah. It's a collection of all the cliches of the time. Still, it's
touching, because it reminds us of what we believed in then. For
many of us, the article generates a so-called cognitive dissonance:
on the one hand, what we felt then; on the other, the truth as we
know it today.
For the combatants and the entire Yishuv, as the Jewish community
in Palestine was known until 1948, it was an existential war, pure
and simple. The slogan was "No alternative," and we all believed
this without question. We fought with our backs to the wall. The
enemy attacked us from all sides and our families' lives were in
danger. We believed that we were few, very few, and poorly armed,
facing a sea of Arabs.
Indeed, the Palestinians (who were called "the gangs") controlled all
the roads in the first half of the war, and in the second half the
Arab armies reached the Jewish population centers, encircled Jewish
Jerusalem and approached Tel Aviv. The Yishuv lost 6,000 young people,
out of a population of 635,000. Entire age groups were almost wiped
out. Countless acts of heroism were performed.
We left no Arabs behind our front line, and the Arabs did likewise. In
the circumstances of the time, that seemed an obvious military
need. Soldiers in those days didn't think in terms of "ethnic
cleansing," a term that didn't yet exist. We had no understanding about
the true balance of forces between us and the other side. The Arabs
seemed to be a vast force. We didn't know that the Palestinians were
split internally, that they were incapable of uniting and creating
a countrywide defense force, that they had no leadership and lacked
serious arms. Afterward, when the Arab armies entered the war, we
didn't know they were incapable of cooperating among themselves and
that it was more important for them to beat one another to the punch
than to strike at us.
More and more people now understand the full implications of the
Nakba, the huge tragedy of the Palestinian people, and of all the
individuals who lost their homes, land and most of their homeland. The
war songs from the period evoke what we felt and thought as the events
unfolded. A vast chasm stretches between the emotional reality of
that time and the objective truth we know today.
There are people who see the war of 1948 as a diabolical scheme by the
Zionist leadership, which intended all along to expel the Palestinians
from the entire country and turn it into the Jewish state. Those who
subscribe to this opinion compare it to the actions of the present-day
settlers, who are dispossessing the Palestinians of the remainder of
their land, and whose actions besmirch the pioneer past. Religious
zealots and fascist hooligans, self-styled successors to the pioneers,
are twisting the true intentions of that generation, and the actions
of the Israeli army in the Gaza war besmirched the deeds of the 1948
fighters. As a member of the Givati Brigade of the time, I am unable to
feel any sense of belonging to or identification with today's Givati.
How then is it possible to reconcile the contradiction between our
intentions and feelings at the time, when we established the state
and paid for it with our blood, pure and simple, and the historic
injustice we inflicted on the other side? How is it possible to sing
about the hopes and dreams of our youth, and at the same time recognize
the terrible wrongs? How can we sing wholeheartedly the battle songs
of that war without disavowing the cruel tragedy of the Palestinian
people we fomented?
A few weeks ago, Barack Obama told the Turks they must come to terms
with the massacre of the Armenians by their forebears, and in the
same context noted that the Americans, too, must acknowledge the
murder of the Indians by their ancestors.
I think the same is possible in regard to the disaster we brought
on the Palestinians. It is necessary for our mental health as a
nation and as human beings, and it is the first step toward future
reconciliation. We must admit and recognize the consequences of our
actions and repair what can be repaired, without disavowing our past
and youthful innocence.
We have to live with the contradiction, because it is the truth of
our lives.
Uri Avnery
Ha'aretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spag es/1081740.html
April 28 2009
Israel
I didn't read the Haaretz editorial of May 14, 1948, on the day it
appeared. In fact, I saw no newspapers at all then.
My unit - B Company of the 54th Battalion of the Givati infantry
brigade, later to become the "Samson's Foxes" company - was stationed
at Kibbutz Hulda, near the dining hall, which was off-limits to us. On
that Friday, the ban was lifted for a few hours so we could listen
to David Ben-Gurion's speech declaring the establishment of the state.
The truth is that we, the soldiers on the front, couldn't have cared
less. To us it seemed an insignificant event. The state had existed
in practice for some time and existed everywhere we won. We knew that
if we won the war, there would be a state and that if we were defeated
there would be no state - and that we would not be around, either.
Advertisement
We were told we would be going into action that night. Our mission:
to conquer the village of Al-Qubab, between Ramle and Latrun. It
looked like a tough operation. We were immersed in preparations,
such as cleaning our rifles.
Still, I went to the dining room. I was curious about one thing: the
name of the new state. Judea? Hebrew State? State of Jerusalem? When
Ben-Gurion reached the words "which is the State of Israel," I left. I
knew the rest would be blah blah.
The truth is that the Haaretz editorial also now strikes me as blah
blah. It's a collection of all the cliches of the time. Still, it's
touching, because it reminds us of what we believed in then. For
many of us, the article generates a so-called cognitive dissonance:
on the one hand, what we felt then; on the other, the truth as we
know it today.
For the combatants and the entire Yishuv, as the Jewish community
in Palestine was known until 1948, it was an existential war, pure
and simple. The slogan was "No alternative," and we all believed
this without question. We fought with our backs to the wall. The
enemy attacked us from all sides and our families' lives were in
danger. We believed that we were few, very few, and poorly armed,
facing a sea of Arabs.
Indeed, the Palestinians (who were called "the gangs") controlled all
the roads in the first half of the war, and in the second half the
Arab armies reached the Jewish population centers, encircled Jewish
Jerusalem and approached Tel Aviv. The Yishuv lost 6,000 young people,
out of a population of 635,000. Entire age groups were almost wiped
out. Countless acts of heroism were performed.
We left no Arabs behind our front line, and the Arabs did likewise. In
the circumstances of the time, that seemed an obvious military
need. Soldiers in those days didn't think in terms of "ethnic
cleansing," a term that didn't yet exist. We had no understanding about
the true balance of forces between us and the other side. The Arabs
seemed to be a vast force. We didn't know that the Palestinians were
split internally, that they were incapable of uniting and creating
a countrywide defense force, that they had no leadership and lacked
serious arms. Afterward, when the Arab armies entered the war, we
didn't know they were incapable of cooperating among themselves and
that it was more important for them to beat one another to the punch
than to strike at us.
More and more people now understand the full implications of the
Nakba, the huge tragedy of the Palestinian people, and of all the
individuals who lost their homes, land and most of their homeland. The
war songs from the period evoke what we felt and thought as the events
unfolded. A vast chasm stretches between the emotional reality of
that time and the objective truth we know today.
There are people who see the war of 1948 as a diabolical scheme by the
Zionist leadership, which intended all along to expel the Palestinians
from the entire country and turn it into the Jewish state. Those who
subscribe to this opinion compare it to the actions of the present-day
settlers, who are dispossessing the Palestinians of the remainder of
their land, and whose actions besmirch the pioneer past. Religious
zealots and fascist hooligans, self-styled successors to the pioneers,
are twisting the true intentions of that generation, and the actions
of the Israeli army in the Gaza war besmirched the deeds of the 1948
fighters. As a member of the Givati Brigade of the time, I am unable to
feel any sense of belonging to or identification with today's Givati.
How then is it possible to reconcile the contradiction between our
intentions and feelings at the time, when we established the state
and paid for it with our blood, pure and simple, and the historic
injustice we inflicted on the other side? How is it possible to sing
about the hopes and dreams of our youth, and at the same time recognize
the terrible wrongs? How can we sing wholeheartedly the battle songs
of that war without disavowing the cruel tragedy of the Palestinian
people we fomented?
A few weeks ago, Barack Obama told the Turks they must come to terms
with the massacre of the Armenians by their forebears, and in the
same context noted that the Americans, too, must acknowledge the
murder of the Indians by their ancestors.
I think the same is possible in regard to the disaster we brought
on the Palestinians. It is necessary for our mental health as a
nation and as human beings, and it is the first step toward future
reconciliation. We must admit and recognize the consequences of our
actions and repair what can be repaired, without disavowing our past
and youthful innocence.
We have to live with the contradiction, because it is the truth of
our lives.