I was prompted to write this brief note from Israel, by Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar’s recent article about the real situation in the Middle East, while Gaza is being crushed. In fact, a few days ago I posted a rather similar analysis of the “operation” in my Hebrew blog. Bakhtiar points out correctly, that the mainstream media generally depicts the “conflict” in the Middle East in terms of Israel vs. the Arabs; whereas, for a while now, Israel has very loyal allies in the region, Egypt, Jordan and some of the rich Arab emirates and principalities. Bakhtiar also correctly points out that all those allies share one trait in common, a strong divide between the government, which serves as puppet of US-Western interests, and the people, who are generally oppressed and not allowed to share the wealth of their country or their indigenous aspirations and culture. Most of them have therefore drifted towards religious popular politics, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Israel, under US guidance, successfully pushed the Palestinians to the same desperate social structure, the “westernized and corrupt Fatah” or “evil Hamas,” without any choices between. Therefore, it successfully enlisted the other Arab states to join its war against Hamas, namely, against the Palestinians. Up to this point, I am in full agreement with Bakhtiar’s analysis. But this is precisely where the story begins for me and ends for Bakhtiar (and American readership).
The missing part in this analysis is obvious, and that is the domestic structure of Israel, and its own response to what is correctly described as the American-Western interest in the region. Bakhtiar falls into the banal trappings of denial and propaganda that stretch a parallel between Israel and “the US-West,” as if we, the Israelis, are a bunch of Marine soldiers stationed in the Middle East. The sad truth is, however, that the bright analysis of the situation of Egypt and the Ibn Sauds, applies verbatim to Israel. We, much like are neighbors, are a product of colonialism, new state that emerged from an artificial “Chess Board” of western looting. Does Bakhtiar assume that Israels’ cooperation (and in fact, faithful representation), with American oil interests is something we carry in our genes? Does it not occur that the somewhat unpleasant political realities in Egypt or Jordan apply here? Now we reach the taboo, the one behind which the Israelis bleed and suffer, as if they do it willingly. We also carry the moral condemnation.
I know this is a big taboo here, but if we decided to talk suddenly the truth, that of betrayal, let’s do it properly. The reason Israel is spared the analysis applied to Egypt is not coincidental, rather a product of another betrayal, one which is buried under mountain of unholy interests and social, economic divides, within Israel, and more so between Israel and the American Jewish community, progressives included. Do we not have the same Ibn Sauds over here, who make sure we serve western interests, while those who make sure it happens are nicely compensated? The fact of the matter is that nothing else can be true, because there is no difference between us, the Israelis here, and our neighbors, except the presence of a large Jewish diaspora in the USA, that does the job, not only economically, but by obscuring the realities of Israeli society, the poverty, the death toll, the mental toll and the political abyss we live in. Under that economic structure, language and consciousness are the first victims. So when Bakhtiar, or others here, have the decency to deconstruct the term “Arabs” to the real tokens of reality and suffering, he is able to pass the hurdle, without doing the same about “Israel.” So, I have to pose the question to him and others: what is the “Israel” that appears in the nice and righteous articles here? And where do I find my reality in the situation? And is it a coincidence that no authentic Israeli voice is allowed to challenge the spin?