Among the Intellectualoids/Arab Fashions at the Nation
Ehrenkrantz, Louis
AMONG THE INTELLECTUALOIDS by Louis Ehrenkrantz Arab Fashions at the Nation No one more staunchly defended Israel prior to 1960 than the 'Nation magazine, and no one has more visibly abandoned...
...No matter...
...In 1949, the Nation identified Israel with anti-imperialist forces...
...Why, the PLO of course...
...Like my wide ties, support for Israel is no longer fashionable...
...In 1950, the Nation recognized that Israel's image was being tarnished by the spurious issue of Arab refugees...
...That is another reason why the Arab states insist on the return of Arab refugees instead of coming to their aid...
...No longer does it find the dislike of Israel to be the result offerees beyond Israel's control...
...An examination of the Nation's handling of the Middle East reveals that the facts as the Nation chronicled them in the past are ignored now because the conclusions drawn are no longer respectable...
...Freda Kirchwey wondered whether the silence of the organized Christian religions in the face of Moslem looting of holy places in Jerusalem might be caused by "a deep, unconscious anti-Semitism, or by a still deeper feeling of identification with Western imperialism...
...Setting aside the preposterous comparison of an economically crippled country like Israel with a European state, one cannot help noting that Israel's "success," achieved despite the persistent military and political opposition of its neighbors, automatically places it in the position of the privileged villain...
...Which one is that "secular...
...In 1978, the responsibility for the refugees has been dropped from the Nation's vocabulary, and replaced by the desirability of a "secular" Palestinian state...
...The Nation's current attitude towards Israel presumably stems from a concern for that embattled country...
...The magazine singles out Israel for condemnation for trading with South Africa because the other countries that do so "do not depend on international public opinion for their survival to the extent that Israel does," and the Nation would not want Israel to lose international support: "Israel's broad visible relations with a country that systematically oppresses the majority of its population cannot but play into the hands of those who do equate Zionism with racism...
...All of the 500,000 non-Jews in Israel (15 percent of the population) have the same civil rights granted to Jews...
...Marie Syrkin noted that: Mr...
...The Nation no longer worries about Israel's isolation by speculating on the "deep-seated anti-Semitism of the Western world," as it did in 1949...
...assuring us in the Nation that it is Israel who represents rich imperialistic power, while the impoverished Arab states are underdogs: "Israel at the economic level of a European state, is rich and powerful by the standards of the region even in comparison with Saudi Arabia, basically still a Third World country with a reported average life expectancy of forty years and a scattered population that is largely illiterate...
...Kai Bird and Max Holland note that Israel's 1978 invasion of southern Lebanon was, "not surprisingly, blamed [by Israel] on the PLO...
...Then, in the December 11 issue, the Nation observed that "into the web of political rethinking has come an unprecedented wave of American Jewish criticism of Israeli policies and attitudes...
...Then, if we do not have peace (read: if Israel is wiped off the face of the Middle East), at least we will know whose "moral position" was superior...
...If only Israel could see the light, she would cooperate in the establishment of this secularity, for it is these "secular trends" that are "so necessary to guarantee Israel's long-term security...
...Not only do Arabs vote in Israel, they are even elected to the Israeli parliament...
...However, justice does not so conveniently repose in the middle...
...Moreover, PLO terror is legitimized...
...Today, believing that Israel must behave in such a way as to make the world accept it, the Nation takes the position it criticized in 1950...
...Chomsky acknowledges Arab hostility and terror only insofar as they "continue to provide excuse and opportunity" for Israel's projected resettlement of the Arab peoples...
...And although the fact is privately acknowledged by virtually everyone, no one has clearly told the Arabs that these refugees can never be returned to Israel...
...But one important test of any "liberal" state lies in the treatment of its minorities...
...On February 14, 1976, Irene Grendzier wrote that the American Jewish establishment has suppressed any questioning of the Zionist position...
...But the basic facts in the Middle East have not changed since the Nation so clearly endorsed Israel...
...In the Nation's revised history, Nasser becomes a decent statesman who was willing to accept the Jewish state, but changed his mind as the result of an Israeli raid in the Gaza strip in 1955...
...The fault now lies with Israel's inability to be "flexible" towards the Palestinians...
...The Nation recognized, even in the 1950s, the potential economic power of the Arab states, as when it quoted an Arab economist: "The Jews have their desert, we have our oil...
...But the facts don't matter...
...That "suppression" couldn't have been nearly so monolithic as Grendzier would have us believe if it was followed by a "wave of American Jewish criticism...
...In November 1956, the Nation could favor Internationalizing Jerusalem, because anxiety about Jewish sectarian control was "mostly hypocritical buncombe...
...In both issues of the Nation y Israel came out second best, and the acceptable line was toed: Israel, the imperialist power, must give way to the wave of progressive secularism...
...Today, Israel is pilloried for the same actions that she was praised for by the Nation in the 1950s, and by the same kind of liberals who rendered praise...
...Chomsky refers to our "veil of alleged moral concerns and idealistic support for freedom and democracy" and states that "American support for Israel corresponds to perceived Israeli strength and usefulness...
...How many Arab states are that liberal...
...American military aid "slows this development...
...Israelis today are characterized as opposing a secular Palestinian state, the implication being that Israel is some sort of sectarian, authoritarian state...
...Then, "if the Arabs still refuse peace, Israel can defend its moral position before the world...
...Who then is the hero...
...Now, in 1978, we hear Noam Chomsky Louis Ehrenkrantz, who writes for various literary journals, is publisher of the Cultural Watchdog Newsletter...
...only the acceptability of the idea of Israel has changed...
...I suppose this is a fair example of objectivity -an attempt to mediate reasonably between two conflicting claims, each not without merit...
...If the reasons that led to the creation of Israel are accepted as valid, why endanger the young state's viability by introducing a large, potentially hostile minority into its heart...
...the struggle to suppress the secular trends in the Middle East is being fought with American weaponry...
...In September 1951, the Nation was decrying the State Department's proclivity for "Arab appeasement...
...Where once the Nation understood America's affinity for Israel because it was "a land with so basic a sense of morality," as Al Rosenfeld pointed out in 1950, today our allegiance is seen as a subterfuge for self-interest...
...The Arab expectation that Israel's economic collapse will provide the victory not achieved on the battle-field is unconcealed...
...AMONG THE INTELLECTUALOIDS by Louis Ehrenkrantz Arab Fashions at the Nation No one more staunchly defended Israel prior to 1960 than the 'Nation magazine, and no one has more visibly abandoned her cause since then...
...No governmental authority has yet reminded them, however, that the Arab refugee question was created by the Arab states themselves and by their war...
...In 1951, the Nation noted that "at every stage of every discussion the Arab states inject the issue of the Arab refugees...
...Bilby [author on New Start in the Near East) suggests that Israel accept another 200,000 Arab refugees...
...Bilby admits Israel's desperate economic plight and the bellicose intentions of her neighbors, but he recommends this course as a matter of equity...
...Such a number, in addition to the Arabs that have already returned, would constitute an Arab minority of close to 400,000 or one-third of the total population of the tiny Jewish state...
...The PLO "has approximately the status and legitimacy of the Zionist Organization in 1947," says Chomsky, because both the PLO and the "Zionist Organization" were fighting for the legitimate resettlement of refugees who were displaced by a foreign power...
...But the Nation reported in 1950 that, "Everyone who witnessed the puzzling phenomenon of the Arab exodus knows that they were not driven out by the Jews but fled in a mass panic deliberately stimulated by their leaders...
...Today, that anxiety is acceptable...
Vol. 12 • March 1979 • No. 3
