Month: March 2012

Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Part II

~ Clarissa ~ 17 Comments

The reason why I decided to stick with Ilan Pappe’s book and keep reading it even after the “greedy Jews” started making a regular appearance is that I do think that there is an important story to tell here. I kept hoping that Pappe would finally get himself together, get over the “sly, tricky, exploitative Shylocks Jews versus simple-minded, hard-working and trusting savages Palestinians” dichotomy, and start discussing this issue with the seriousness that it deserves. This never really happened, however.

The greatest problem I have with the book is that Pappe chooses the culprit for the entire conflict from the start and then massages the story to fit his predetermined explanation. This culprit for the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is Zionism. In his rush to pile every possible evil at the feet of this particular bugbear, Pappe often makes himself sound not a little ridiculous. The following quote made me practically weep with laughter:

It was one British officer in particular, Orde Charles Wingate, who made the Zionist leaders realise more fully that the idea of Jewish statehood had to be closely associated with militarism and an army, first of all to protect the growing number of Jewish enclaves and colonies inside Palestine but also – more crucially – because acts of armed aggression were an effective deterrent against the possible resistance of the local Palestinians.

I really wonder how all those other countries figured out that statehood requires an army without this hugely crucial Orde Charles Wingate character, whoever he is.

What I find very curious about the discussions about the formation of Israel is how scandalized everybody gets because Israel followed the exact same nationalist journey as every single other nation-state in the world. A journey towards nationhood is always – and I mean, without exception, always, toujours, siempre – bloody, miserable, filled with lies, rewriting of history, xenophobia, etc. That’s the nature of nationalism.

Before you get to wave your flag and feel all warm and fuzzy about doing that, a lot of effort needs to be made to endow that piece of fabric with meaning. The more disparate the elements that go into your particular imagined community, the more blood needs to be spilled to make the myth of a nation mean something.

So what do we have in the case of Israel? People from all over the world come together to create a myth of a nation. These are people who have been hugely traumatized very recently and who see themselves (not unreasonably, I might add) as having been abandoned by the entire world to a horrible extermination and needing to fend for themselves. In their project of construction a nation, they use the same tools as everybody before them used: violence, ethnic cleansing, falsification of history, etc. What is so very surprising about this story? And more importantly, what makes these people’s journey towards nationhood worse than yours? Except for the fact that yours happened fifteen seconds before, of course.

I believe that the story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine needs to be told. But to tell it in order to condemn Zionism makes just as much sense as narrating the crimes of the Holocaust in order to condemn Hitler’s left pinky finger. Of course, the reason why nobody wants to look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of nationalism is that this would involve letting go of bashing the vile Jews (or the vile Arabs, whatever your personal preference is) for a moment and looking at how the nation whose flag you worship came into existence.

Why Do Some People Castrate Their Existences?

~ Clarissa ~ 51 Comments

I’m talking to an acquaintance about a middle-aged woman we both know. The acquaintance shares with me that the woman has finally divorced her abusive alcoholic of a husband.

“That’s good!” I say. “Now she can find a normal guy.”

“Oh no,” the acquaintance says. “She’s not that kind of a woman. He is the only man in her life. Even if he dies, she will not be looking for somebody else.”

“But why not?” I ask. “I have a feeling that she was never even marginally happy with him.”

“Of course not. She doesn’t even know what it means to be a woman,” the acquaintance explains. “But he is her husband, and that’s final. And I feel exactly the same way. This is an issue of personal psychology.”

“Or, rather, of psychiatry,” I respond.

“Maybe. But that is how we are.”

You are probably thinking that we are talking about religious, downtrodden women whose culture does not allow for remarriage. But that’s where you are mistaken. These people probably did not see the inside of a church (or any religious facility) once as they were growing up, and I can guarantee that they never read the Bible, the Koran, or any other religious text. They have more than one college diploma each and were always more than independent financially. Remarriage and divorce are completely acceptable in their culture.

We often assume that some people choose to castrate their existences (be it sexually, romantically, professionally, financially, or in any other way) because of their religion, their culture, their family conditioning – in short, the big, bad society. The truth, however, is that some people are simply terrified of life. Religion, family and society are excuses that they use to explain this terror. You strip all of that away, and the terror remains.

I have to confess that I’m pretty shaken up by this conversation. This is such an unapologetic, conscious self-immolation that it scares me. The encounter with the irrational in such a naked, unadorned form is terrifying. I can really understand why people protect themselves by repeating the “we are conditioned by society” mantra.

Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Part I

~ Clarissa ~ 6 Comments

I keep looking for a source of information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would at least try to depart from the “bad Jews/good Arabs” or “bad Arabs/good Jews” model. Both of these approaches are equally reductive and offensive. Still, I’m getting a feeling that nobody is even attempting to discuss the issue in any other manner. Initially, I had high hopes for Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine but I have to admit that the book has been a serious disappointment. I listed some of my objections to Pappe’s writing here but that was only the beginning.

For some incomprehensible reason, Pappe decided to alienate every Jewish reader – even the potentially anti-Israel and pro-Palestiane one – from the get go. It is hard for a Jewish person to remain open to a point of view that insistently equates the displacement of the Palestinian people from their villages with the Holocaust. I don’t see why it is so necessary to equate two such different events at all. The forcible removal of the Palestinians is a horrible, horrible crime and a huge tragedy. But it cannot even begin to compare to the Holocaust. Pappe tries to make the two tragedies similar by making it hard to figure out that the Palestinians were displaced from their villages without being killed. (It took me a while, for example, to realize that when Pappe says, “Village X was destroyed,” he is forgetting to mention that only the physical buildings were destroyed (or simply damaged), while the people were not.)

Ilan Pappe is altogether very careless about the Holocaust. He discusses it as a reality that has certain bearing on the actions of the international community. He says, for example, that after the Holocaust, any instance of ethnic cleansing in the world becomes impossible to conceal. This is a very strange statement to begin with, since the Holocaust was very obviously not an example of ethnic cleansing but of genocide. As Pappe explains at length, ethnic cleansing does not involve the mass murder of the displaced ethnicity while the genocide does. At the same time, there is no discussion in the book of how the Holocaust might have influenced the Jews. To the contrary, Pappe suggests time and again that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would exist in pretty much the same form had the Holocaust never happened.

For those who manage to keep reading the book even in the face of this cavalier dismissal of the Holocaust, Pappe brings out the argument that will surely convince any person who does not passionately hate the Jews as a group to stop reading. I am speaking, of course, of the trope of the greedy Jew.

For a while, the suggestion of Jewish greediness is made without the direct use of the word “greedy”. This allows a reader to keep convincing herself that she is being too sensitive and is imagining anti-Semitism where there is none. Until, that is, a story of “a greedy Tel-Aviv municipality” that sets out to steal the crop of oranges grown by hard-working Palestinians. And the story of the “monstrous villas and extravagant palaces for rich American Jews” that have been created because of “constructors’ greed” and that are disfiguring the architectural ensemble of Jerusalem. And many other stories of greedy, dishonest Jews who don’t create anything of their own but, rather, steal the fruits of the labor of others. (The words “exploit” and “exploitation” appear constantly in the text to describe the intentions of the Jews.)

(To be continued. . .)

P.S. I would very much like to avoid the third-grade level of discussion of this serious issue that such debates almost always slip down to. This is why I’m asking everybody to refrain from the egregiously unintelligent analysis of who was where “first” and whom “this land initially belonged to.” I have to issue this warning because I looked through the Amazon reviews of the book and this is all I have seen there.

Putin Is Elected President in Russia

~ Clarissa ~ 6 Comments

The moment Putin got elected as Russia’s not very new President, look what happened to my Stats page:

Usually I have one or two people per day alight on the blog in search of information on Putin’s Botox treatments. Today, it’s 75 already, and it is only 11 am here.

Russian people have a very unique relationship with their political leaders. They both love them and hate them passionately. They also find it very hard to let them go in any significant way unless they die. They have gone and voted for Putin, and now they will have a blast analyzing his photos and ridiculing his plastic surgery.

I’m sure there were a few falsifications during these presidential elections in Russia. At the same time, it is obvious that Putin won fairly, and that most people wanted him as president. On the one hand, there wasn’t a single viable alternative candidate because a true opposition in the country is non-existent. On the other hand, the people of Russia are not ready to let Putin go yet. They will now get a chance to play out their favorite role of eternal adolescents making fun with their online buddies of the strict father whom they both fear and adore.

Those Horrible Boys

~ Clarissa ~ 38 Comments

Those mean, horrible boys! They are sexist straight from the childhood while the good, patient girls are not sexist at all. See, for example, the following story:

A popular exercise among High School creative writing teachers in America is to ask students to imagine they have been transformed, for a day, into someone of the opposite sex, and describe what that day might be like. The results, apparently, are uncannily uniform. The girls all write long and detailed essays that clearly show they have spent a great deal of time thinking about the subject. Half of the boys usually refuse to write the essay entirely. Those who do make it clear they have not the slightest conception what being a teenage girl might be like, and deeply resent having to think about it.

The only conclusion we can draw from the story is that boys are infected by sexism at a much earlier age than girls and that these boys will continue spreading sexism throughout their lives. Of course, the story acquires a completely different meaning if we consider the following:

1. “Male students are consistently less likely to graduate from high school with a diploma. Nationally, the gender gap in graduation stands at nearly 8 percentage points. Females also earn diplomas at higher rates within every racial and ethnic group examined, with the largest disparity (more than 13 percentage points) found among black students.”

2. Male students are much less likely to exhibit an interest in the Humanities subjects both at school and in college.

3. And as a professor of languages and literature, I can assure you that getting the very few male students we manage to attract to the Humanities to write anything on the subject where they need to imagine something quite impossible is a losing proposition every single time.

Conclusion: the suggestion that boys “resent” thinking specifically about what it means to be a girl is ridiculous. Boys generally do worse than girls in high school and they have less interest than girls in the Humanities disciplines in college. As an educator with over two decades of experience in teaching, I am convinced that the “deep resentment” these boys experience has nothing whatsoever to do with girls. Boys are socialized towards the “practical,” “useful” disciplines. As a result, an “imagine something outlandish” exercise is a task they see as a complete waste of time.

Let’s remember that the burden of being a provider for a bunch of other people and finding one’s gender identity through that is still almost exclusively male. Keeping that in mind, I’d also be quite resentful if, instead giving me an education that would allow me to be a good, reliable provider, my time would be wasted on the “imagine you are a big blue balloon” exercises.

Five Great Jews

~ Clarissa ~ 1 Comment

The great Jew #1 was King Solomon. He said, “The most important part of a human being is this” and pointed to his head.

The great Jew #2 was Jesus. He said, “The most important part of a human being is this” and pointed to his heart.

The great Jew #3 was Karl Marx. He said, “The most important part of a human being is this” and pointed to his belly.

The great Jew #4 was Sigmund Freud. He said, “The most important part of a human being is this” and pointed to his genitals.

The great Jew #5 was Albert Einstein. He listened to the other four guys and said, “You know, folks, it’s all relative.”

Sunday Link Encyclopedia and Self-Promotion

~ Clarissa ~ 12 Comments

Getting (and keeping) girls interested in science and math.

“Women’s intuition” and patriarchal veil-making.

A Purim giveaway organized by a fellow blogger.

“Don’t you miss the good old days, back when abortions in the USA happened about as often as they do nowadays, but thousands of women died every year?” Why isn’t anybody hearing people who make this important and obvious point?

“”All can agree that rape is a horrific act of violence that no one should ever undergo. But abortion after a rape robs an innocent victim of a very beautiful life.”” I had to read this statement five times before I finally managed to deduce who is supposed to be having this beautiful life in this kind of a situation. It’s scary that so many certifiable people are roaming the streets.

And this is how real Conservatives see Santorum: “Santorum increasingly brags about his working class roots.This is a terminological inexactitude. Working men and women are decent hard-working, law-abiding individuals. Rick Santorum  was born in the gutter, lives in the gutter, and is most likely to die in the gutter.” Didn’t I tell you that true Conservatives were very angry at the religious fanatics that are making the entire Conservative movement look bad?

Danny has written a great post on the Friend Zone.

In case you worship Canada as the place where crazed fanatics who despise women and abhor progress do not exist, read this unhinged set of ramblings documenting a fit of hysteria from a Canadian hater of freedom, life, and love. The moral of the story: the points of view manifested in the post are evidence of psychopathology that has nothing whatsoever to do with where the unhealthy person in question lives.

For those who loved the photos of baby turtles last week, here are more photos! My love of turtles borders on pathological.

And this is the street where I spent my youth, being studious and responsible. Or, to be more precise, boozing and partying. The bar on the second floor (where you can see people see on the balcony) is my favorite cigar and martini bar that makes 100 different martinis. I miss home, people.

How to survive jury duty while autistic.

“Many public choice schoilars – myself included – view many voters as being rationally ignorant – there is a negative return to becoming well-informed about political elections.. A few of my more sceptical colleagues at George Mason University – Bryan Caplan* foremost among them –  argue that many voters are rationally irrational and vote as though they are  simply stupid.”

A great post on the TMI. I agree completely that pulling a TMI on a person is a passive-aggressive method of manipulation.

I will not be writing on the Koran burning in Afghanistan but here is a good and detailed post on the subject instead.

Reflections on EcoNuttery. It’s sad to see essentially good causes overrun by fanaticism.

A great comic strip on personhood. I dislike comics passionately, but this one is good.

The 2012 Oscars and the Bechdel Test.

Approval Rate for GOP Among Women Takes Nosedive. We do have the right to vote these days, Messrs. Romney and Santorum. Maybe it’s a good idea to keep that in mind. Or not, because you have lost this election already.

What a talented blogger this is: “Organics were good. Walking was good. Cloth diapers were good. Doing things the way they had been done for hundreds of years was good. Conventionally grown food, driving, disposable diapers, industrialization, was all bad. The framework served several purposes: it served as a secular moral code, and it allowed me to feel good about myself when I adhered to it. . . And it wasn’t because I was anti-science exactly. It was that I needed my heuristic to work. Because how else would I know how to live?” The entire post is fantastic. I highly recommend.

A really brilliant takedown of Rush Limbaugh’s recent outpouring of hatefulness: “As for you, Limbaugh, you are society’s intellectual garbage can.  Nothing but shit spews from that anus that you call a mouth.  Nothing you have ever said is of any societal worth, and I hope you end up alone and miserable.  Of course, you never will.  There is no shortage of conservative idiots to listen to your stupidity.  They don’t believe in birth control, after all, and so they are producing large hordes of offspring who are just as slack-jawed and stupid as their parents.” I really like this passionate and direct style of writing.

Finally, a good, informative post on rape, consent and disability.

A great deconstruction of Libertarian arguments. Insightful and funny.

And what did I tell you? Reasonable Conservatives are horrified at what their party has been turned into by crazy folks.

And the post of the week is definitely the following: “The Supreme Court did not grant women the right to an abortion. Nor did any of the other men in various parliaments and legislatures around the world. Abortion is. It always has been, and always will be. It is as much a fact of life as menstruation, masturbation, and sex. . . Men have not “given” it to us, nor can they take it away.”

P.S. The link encyclopedia looks a lot better and is easier to use in this new template, don’t you think?

What Makes You an Adult

~ Clarissa ~ 12 Comments

The way you know that you have reached adulthood is when you say for the first time: “I messed up. I am very sorry. I am ready to accept the consequences and I will do what I need to do to make things better.”

A student came up to me last week and said, “I can’t hand in the composition because I haven’t written it. If you will be willing to accept it after the spring break, I will really appreciate that, but if not, I completely understand.”

Then, another student approached me and said, “I didn’t write the composition because you refused to help me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I wrote you an email asking for help, and you never responded.”

For me, it is a point of honor to respond to students’ emails the moment I receive them. I go out of my way to make myself available to students who ask for help. Which is why the suggestion that I dismissed this person’s email made me hot behind the ears.

“You had a month to write this composition,” I told the student. “You see me in class twice a week. You and I have spoken outside of class on two occasions. Only this morning, we exchanged several messages. Yet, you never mentioned any email or the problems you were having with this assignment.”

“Well, I don’t know,” the student said, as the words “I’m such a lousy liar” pulsated on her forehead in huge neon letters. “I asked you for help, and you refused.”

An adult realizes that antagonizing the person you are interacting with by inventing a veritable calumny (because that is how I see a suggestion that I refused to help a student) is a very stupid way to proceed. By placing the blame onto the other individual by accusing them of your own screw-up brings the momentary relief of not needing to admit your mistake. However, you always end up paying a high price for this meaningless avoidance of discomfort. People lose all respect for you and nobody takes you seriously any longer.

It is sad to see people who are well into their twenties but who still employ the kindergarten strategies of saying, “I didn’t do this bad thing, and even if I did, it’s all your fault because you made me do it. And if you didn’t make me do it, then somebody else did because it cannot possibly be my fault.”

Placenta-Eating-Advocates

~ Clarissa ~ 21 Comments

I just encountered the expression “placenta-eating-advocates” in a blog post. I’m hoping against all hope that “placenta” is some kind of a tofu-like substance. Or a fruit. Somebody needs to tell me that placentas these advocates are eating are not actual placentas.

I’d research this but I haven’t been feeling too well today and I’m afraid I will throw up.

Ukrainians Rule

~ Clarissa ~ 10 Comments

Did you, people, know that the famous video game Metro 2033 was developed in Ukraine? I should have guessed immediately because who else but a Ukrainian can fantasize about a nuclear strike devastating Moscow? (It’s a joke that my Russian husband really appreciated, so there is no need to get scandalized.)

It’s good to see that Ukrainians can create products that become popular all over the world. We all remember, I hope, that the first computer and the first computer network were created in Ukraine, right? And I also hope we remember that “Ukraine” does not require the definite article and the accent falls on the second syllable. I can’t tell you how tired I am of “the ÚK-raine.”

In the meanwhile, Russia is conducting Putin’s elections. (Yes, of course, Putin will win, what did you think?)