The War of Ideas in the Middle East

Editor's note: Saleema told us to post "My father, the hero," an astonishing post by Amina, A Gay Girl in Damascus, from two days back, and it being the internet, we've grabbed a lot of the post. Please read the full post at her site. It describes a nighttime visit from the "security services," two men in their 20s in leather jackets. Amina, who is an out lesbian, and her father go to the door. 

"Really?" my father interrupts. "My daughter is a salafi?" he starts laughing. "Look at her: can't you see that that is ridiculous? She doesn't even cover any more ... and if you have really read even half of what she has written, you know how ridiculous that is. When was the last time you heard a wahhabi, or even someone from the brotherhood say that wearing hijab is the woman's choice only?"
he pauses, they don't say anything.
"I did not think so," he goes on. "When was the last time you saw one of those write that there should be no religion as religion of teh state?"
Again nothing.
"When was the last time you saw them saying that the gays should be allowed the right to marry, a man to a man or a woman to a woman?"
Nothing.
"And when you say nothing, you show," he says, "that you have no reason to take my daughter."
They say nothing. Then one whispers something to the other, he smiles.
"Uh huh," the man says, "so your daughter tells you everything, huh?"
"Of course," my father says.
"Did she tell you that she likes to sleep with women?" he grins, pure poison, feeling like he has made a hit. "That she is one of those faggots who fucks little girls?" (the arabic he used is far cruder ... you get the idea)
My dad glances at me. I nod; we understand each other.
"She is my daughter," he says and I can see the anger growing in his eyes, "and she is who she is and if you want her, you must take me as well."
"Stupid city-fuckers," says the same guy. "All you rich pansies are the same. No wonder she ends up fucking girls and kikes" (again, the Arabic is much rawer ,,,)
He steps twoards me and puts his hand on my breast.
"Maybe if you were with a real man," he lears, "you'd stop this nonsense and lies; maybe we should show you now and let your pansy father watch so he understands how real men are."
I am almost trembling with rage. My dad moves his head slightly to tell me to be silent.
"What are you?" he says. "Did the jackal sleep with the monkey before you were born? What are your names?"

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Two great pictures at Kabobfest, 1 and 2, of Egyptian protesters getting on the Palestinian issue. And other news from the Arab uprisings:

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At the end of one of my first journeys to the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2004, I endured a shocking experience at Ben-Gurion Airport. I never imagined that Israeli security forces would abuse a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, but they held me for five hours, and strip-searched and cavity-searched every part of my naked body. The only shame these security officials expressed was to turn their badges around so that their names were invisible.

The only conceivable purpose for this gross violation of my bodily integrity was to humiliate and terrify me. But it had just the opposite effect. It made me more determined to speak out against abuses by the Israeli government and military.

Yet my own experience, unpleasant as it was, is nothing compared to the indignities and abuses heaped on Palestinians year after year. Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is based not on equal rights and fair play, but on what Human Rights Watch has termed a “two-tier” legal system – in other words, apartheid, with one set of laws for Jews and a harsh, oppressive set of laws for Palestinians.

This, however, is the legal system and security state AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee) will defend from May 22-24 at its annual conference. And, despite this grim reality, members of Congress will converge to hail AIPAC and Israel . The Palestinians’ lack of freedom is bound to be obscured at the AIPAC conference with its obsessive focus on security and shunting aside of anything to do with upholding fundamental Palestinian rights.

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What happened to my utter joy at the Egyptian revolution? Where is my feeling that it was going to sweep away the injustices in the Middle East and American foreign policy, and ravish the U.S. too in a wave of Arabophobia? Well it's still there.

Last night at the 92d Street Y in New York, a group of Arab intellectuals had a tremendous conversation about the cultural and political changes in the Arab world that are slowly but surely rocking the universe. I want to take my hat off right here to the 92d Street Y for staging the event. And Pen World Voices for setting up the panel. The 92d Street Y is a Zionist organization. It will brook no criticism of the Jewish state; and don't worry, I will get to the horror of these intellectual conditions in a subsequent post, because even last night’s conversation plays a role in this destitution that is threatening all our lives.

But let's not talk about Jews, let's talk about Arabs, and let me celebrate the important ideas that were expressed last night. They were ideas about the universality of the human experience, the chain of ideas and spirit that unites western culture to the Arab world, and the incredible leadership that young Arabs have demonstrated in breaking all our minds out of horrible prejudice, the prejudice that has built an iron wall across the Arab world, from Palestine to Iraq.

And so let me get to the argument. I am going to quote four disputing Arab intellectuals, after Jake Weisberg, the deft moderator, got out of the way, and the intellectuals got to fight. The argument began over a simple issue: Why did we leave the Arab world? For three of the intellectuals had left. One lives in Holland, one in Paris, one in New York. Only Issandr El-Amrani, of the Arabist.net (and LRB on Libya), lives in the Arab world.

I will begin with Rula Jebreal, and her explaining why she left Palestine and Egypt.

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Shortly after Hamas won Parliamentary elections in 2006, I wrote an essay that addressed frequently asked questions about the Hamas election victory. I thought now would be a good time to link to it (read the full essay here), given that it looks like Hamas and Fatah have finally closed a unity deal -- to remind people what got us here in the first place.

It should go without saying, but this should not be read as a personal endorsement for Hamas. It’s nothing more or less than a description of the atmosphere in Palestine in 2006.

An excerpt:

Why is Hamas popular?

After the results were announced, many in the West were worried that the Palestinians had elected a rejectionist terrorist organization and that the will of the Palestinian people was endless warfare or even collective suicide.

But polls consistently reveal that a solid majority of Palestinians are anxious for a negotiated peace with Israel based on international law, and that most desire a secular democratic state alongside a sovereign Israel. So why was there so much support for an Islamist movement?

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Our friend Elliot had this comment on a post on Christian Zionism the other day. We're trying to break out comments from time to time.

Many Orthodox Jews are not believers. That's where Jews are different to Christians. Orthodox Judaism is also a lifestyle.
Commenter Michael W. is right. There is a large contingent of Orthodox Jews who very fervently believe that the exile is over. The hardcore of that group are the ideological settlers of the West Bank.
And as for eee, the fact that the mainstream ultra-Orthodox (commonly known as "black hats" or "black skullcap") no longer openly oppose the State of Israel does not mean that they believe the exile is over. They still say all the traditional prayers mourning the exile and have added nothing to the liturgy to indicate that anything has changed.
To the extent that there is an ultra-Orthodox dogma, they still believe in the exile. And for the reasons Craig Nielsen gives in the article.

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This is interesting. AB Yehoshua writes at Haaretz that the conflict remains unresolved because it is unprecedented in human history. John Mearsheimer has said the same thing: the special relationship is unprecedented, indeed for reasons that touch on Yehoshua's reasoning. But Gilad Atzmon, whom I generally avoid here, seizes on Yehoshua's point, to explore the borderless national and religious identity issues:

According to Yehoshua, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not really about territorial issues. “Territorial issues can be resolved” he says.  “In our conflict, both sides, struggle over national identity of the whole country.” Yehoshua offers here a very interesting insight that cannot be uttered within the boundaries of the Left discourse. For both parties, especially the Palestinians, he says,  “it is unclear what is the size of the people it is up against, is it only the Israelis or is it also the Jewish Diaspora as a whole.” Yehoshua raises here an issue I myself have been stressing for years. It is far from being clear to anyone (including  Israelis and Jews) where Israel ends and the Diaspora starts. It is also far from being clear where the Israeli ends and the Jew starts. I guess that for most contemporary Jews it is even far from being clear anymore where Zionism ends and Judaism starts. In the contemporary Jewish world there are no clear dichotomies. We are dealing with a spineless elastic metamorphic identity that shapes itself to fit every possible circumstances. This may explain how come the Jewish state can dually operate as an oppressor and a victim simultaneously.

[click to continue…]

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