Let Them Eat Meat

Beilin is only able to arrive at the conclusion that Israel is turning itself into a “ghetto” by first introducing his version of Zionism. “The real dream of most of those who established Zionism at the end of the nineteenth century was to integrate into Europe.” Defining a political Zionism as contingent on a tacit acceptance of the West, a civilization that proved time and again hostile to its Jewish population, is to make an empty vessel out of Zionism. A state that denies the utility of walls around it or defenses for it, on the notion that barriers risk a return to ghetto life, denies Zionism’s basic belief in Jewish self-defense. The problem with this notion of course, is that Israel, by its very designation as a nation-state, cannot be a ghetto, which is a local phenomena, not a national one. A state has legal sovereignty, a state has elected officials with the tools to enforce the law, and a government has the ability to pool resources together for a common cause. A ghetto, on the other hand was a byproduct of living as a detested minority within a larger society, and more importantly, this minority was deprived the trappings of influence, real choice and basic human dignity. Israel as a Jewish State cannot in essence have a Jewish minority within. Nor, as long as it exists, can it simply shed the garb of sovereignty that remedies powerlessness of ghetto life.

The “ghetto” that Beilin seeks to construct and shove Israel into says less about Israel and much more about the radical left he represents. Beilin, by hijacking ghetto imagery to stylize a critique on Israel’s current diplomatic isolation, is not only attempting a distortion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but handcuffs Zionism to a neurotic desire for global approval. Are we to understand that a prisoner, wrongly accused, and forced to live out his existence in prison, should, once freed, define his behavior by the institutes that wrongly imprisoned him? Such is the nexus of Beilin's argument - that the prisoner may be free to exist outside the walls of the ghetto, but he must still live by its dictates. Stating that Israel is becoming a ghetto because it will not kowtow to foreign bodies’ distorted conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and face isolation because it refuses their solutions is dangerous. By defending itself from Palestinian-Muslim aggression, Israel is the very opposite of the court Jew and the ghetto he once inhabited. 

The real tragedy of the ghetto was not the limitation of the Jews’ right to movement, rather the crime was twofold: the prevention of the Jews’ ability to defend themselves from various injustices, and the arrested development of their own cultural aspirations. The ghetto was a means of control, from which an independent Jewish state by its mere existence, in whatever form, was to provide freedom from. To make a ghetto equivalency to Israel’s current diplomatic difficulties, is in effect to intone that the meat of pharaoh was better then the hardship of a liberated wandering. Both these arguments, ancient and modern, require a total rewriting of Jewish history and a fixation on the attrition of current adversities to make them seem both relevant and attractive.

Zionism, according to Beilin, is purely a physical edifice that has no animating spirit - it exists as a refuge from hate rather then a foundation for national progress. In his only animating statement on what Zionism actually is, Beilin writes, “The main importance of Israel in my view is that it is the only place in the world unconditionally open to Jews.” If that is all Israel is, or supposed to be - freedom without conscience, afloat but directionless, a sovereignty that exists only to exist, devoid of Jewish value, without Jewish purpose - then it spells out a short-lived national spirit. 

Israel is a democracy and as such it chooses it leaders by the will of its people. Not according to Beilin who writes, “the only possibilities for change are a strong American policy that leads both sides to peace, or waiting for the next elections.” Beilin’s inability to assimilate the Israeli electorate's overwhelming rejection of the nievete that propped up the Oslo process is the final stamp of irrelevance to his peace dogma. Such is the expanse of Beilin’s dubious comparison a pernicious and illusory need for global acceptance that comes at the expense of his fellow citizens' democratic voice. This is not the sort of Zionism Israel’s founders had in mind - to outsource its decision making to foreign nations and global opinion-polls.
 

The Jewish People are not an ordinary people, and, never have been - from their ancient ethno-religious orientation that disturbs European progressive post-nationalism, to the unprecedented experience of an ancient Jewish Commonwealth, beaten and exiled, returning to assert itself millennia later. Asking such a people to govern by global consensus denies the unique history and identity possessed by the Jews. Now that Israel is well established and its ability to defend itself assured, the battle today is over the hearts and minds of those who wield influence. In a democracy it is the people that hold the power. Beilin is aware of this, and employs his most effective rhetoric by evoking nightmarish scenes in Jewish history to galvanize a weary public to an appeasement policy that will curry global favor. The Jewish collective memory has a hold on its people and its past has always been subject to a multitude of interpretations and commentary; sometimes to the point that the commentary overtakes the actual events. It seems that in this case, Beilin has overstepped the blurry line between historical tragedy and rhetorical convenience. By conjuring up a deflated Israeli sovereignty, governed by foreign consensus, Beilin resonates in the same vein as those of old that cursed the desert and found comfort in cuisine.