ProMosaik interviews Paul Eisen about Israeli Militarism

Hi all,

 

happy to publish this interview I had with Paul Eisen about Israeli Militarism.

Please read and share it and send us your comments about it. 

If you agree with him or not, listen to this JEWISH voice..

The important thing is to read everything and to have an opinion about everything. 

 

Thank you very much

Dr. phil. Milena Rampoldi

Editorial Team of ProMosaik e.V. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, here are some suggestions:

1.     Israelis are brought up to believe that military strength is the only option to destruction. אין ברירה) “There is no alternative” is a phrase inculcated into every Israeli from birth)

2.     This ties in very well with ancient Jewish notions of innocence and victimhood. It’s  part of being Jewish to believe that you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong and the whole world is against you.

3.     Worth a separate mention is the notion that current Israeli militarism chimes in well with deep-seated Jewish feelings of triumphalism. There is nothing quite so thrilling as suddenly standing up and bashing the bigger child who has been bullying you. Ordinary Jews feel this all the time and never more so than in June 1967 when (we were told) little Israel (we were told) stood up and miraculously (we were told) defeated ou much more powerful (we were told) enemies. The fact that most of this was utter nonsense as indeed is much of the whole Jewish story of victimhood has little bearing on the Jewish and Israeli psyche.

 

But it should also be said that, irony of ironies, the Israelis aren’t all that wrong because  a lot of these delusions are self-fulfilling. Israelis are living on stolen land and have behaved disgracefully, not only to the Palestinians and entire Arab and Muslim world but also to the whole world. Deep down, they must know this and they’d have to be pretty dumb not to realise that nobody much likes them. They’d also have to be pretty stupid not to realise that, at the end of the day, there aren’t that many Israelis or Jews and if the world really got together it would make pretty short work of the famed IDF. No wonder they’re paranoid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever gave you the idea that Judaism is a religion of peace? Christianity and Islam are indeed religions of peace – in their official ideology that is, though by no means always in practice – but Judaism doesn’t even make such a claim. You only have to look at our religious texts to know that.

 

Judaism seems to me to be about surviving (and winning) in the real world and the relative absence of hypocrisy (amongst ourselves that is) in this matter is something that gives Jews a great deal of comfort. We look at the non-Jewish world babbling on about love and peace while, all the time waging hate and war, and we say to ourselves: Well, at least we don’t pretend.

 

But to address your question: you certainly can’t change Israel’s view by babbling on about so-called peace. The Israelis are like everyone else, they will change their behaviour only when they have to. Hamas, last summer and Hezbollah in 2006 have shown us the way in this regard. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn’t familiar with the film and all I’ve been able to do is to watch a couple of clips. A film like that can certainly inform people and may incrementally open people’s eyes but, at the end of the day, Israeli aggression will end when the options close down.

 

Because I’m a Jew and also because I have loving family in Israel and also because I dislike suffering (even of the guilty), I would prefer that these military defeats will be of a homeopathic nature i.e. they will be small enough so as not to cause unnecessary suffering on ordinary Israelis but certainly large enough to cause them to change their ways.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, we have to stop pussy-footing around. Wishful thinking about the nature of Judaism does not favours to anyone, including Jews. The Israeli weapon lobbies are just part of the wider Israeli/ Zionist lobby which itself is just part of Jewish power which goes way beyond Zionism and Israel. It is Jewish power which needs to be confronted – again, as carefully and compassionately as possible – and the first step is to name it for what it is – i.e. Jewish. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d never heard of this lot so I googled them. I’m sure they’re well-intentioned but they seem to be just tinkering around, part of the I-wish-Israel-wouldn’t-behave-quite-so-badly-and-stop-embarrassing-me-in-front-of-my-friends brigade. I wish them well but my guess is they will achieve nothing.

 

As I said, I was not familiar with ACRI and my first reaction was not to even bother to look them up and this itself is a measure of the way these organisations are seen. In fact the entire Zionist left and indeed all the ‘good’ Jews currently in the solidarity movement are, at best impotent and at worst, either gatekeepers or part of a controlled opposition. The fact that their actions are, in the main, well-intentioned and their motivations so hard to understand is a great part of what makes them so effective in creating confusion – and this Jewish ability to confuse everyone (including themselves) is, itself, an important component of Jewish power.