In The Back Of My Mind
I have been perusing my friend Amos Elon's great book about the Jews of Germany, The Pity of It All, whose narrative culminated in a sorrowful look at Weimar. I confess that re-reading those later pages is not a good idea just now.
Avigdor Lierberman's Yisrael Beiteinu Party is surging; the centrist parties are all finding ways to say they will work with him. Tonight, one of my dearest and oldest friends in Jerusalem--the owner of the Old City's most wonderful antique store, the scion of one of East Jerusalem's most admired families--told me he could not come to our home for a family celebration because he was stopped by police (with his son) at Jaffa Gate this morning and told he could not enter. "I'm afraid somebody will say something, and I'll have to answer, and that will ruin your party," he said. By the way, his old family mansion, confiscated in 1948, is a few blocks from my home, in Baqa. He has to pass it every time he comes to visit, yet he has never made me feel anything but welcome in this, his city. "I have never seen things this bad."
Here is what Elon has to teach us about Weimar in the late 1920s, or at least what we derive from his vivid narrative:
- There was a national consensus, left over from a generation of war, that the people has suffered deadly, degrading blows which must never be suffered again; a people encircled by mortal enemies and nervous about internal traitors infected with a naïve liberalism; a people grieving for the dead, bonded by blood and sorrow and an ancient myth of transcendence.
- Even leaders in the "center" of German politics appealed to this consensus, believing that the demagogues who appealed to it most stridently, violently, tearfully, would remain marginal and controllable nuisances. But rightist activists were up and coming, disproportionately youthful, hardened by combat, exhibiting discipline but scoffing at laws, creating chaos and then clamoring for order.
- Given Weimar's sad consensus, disunity seemed the main danger, but maintaining order seemed the charge of prestigious military leaders, who were accustomed to command in a state of siege. Some had mentored the law-breakers and praised their sincerity. They certainly were willing to go along with those who argued about the need to find a solution to the threat of internal enemies.
- Politicians of the left, in contrast, were considered mere opportunists, too distant, petulant and cosmopolitan to do any ordinary worker much good--especially when the common good was being sacrificed to a freer market economy, booming intermittently because of foreign loans and shifting markets, but allowing manifest disparities of wealth, and finally burdened by depression and unemployment.
- The disparities were between, on the one hand, unemployed (or near-unemployed) workers, half-educated, half-pious, prudish, feeling deprived at the family table, and, on the other, an élite, over-educated, over-sexed, well-connected, too-conspicuously enjoying luxurious stuff and decadent, worldly art.
Wow. Yes there sure are parallels as far as I can see. Scary.
I guess I have to go order the book from Amazon.
February 7, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for pointing out that the rise of fascist political movements are never inevitable. They can be stopped. Would a show of force been necessary, though? Or perhaps just some organization and rhetorical bravery from the left would have helped. Seems like a big problem is the left's tendency to assume that people will ultimately make the rational choice and so we don't worry about the extremists from the right until they, I don't know, do something crazy like blow up a federal office building.
February 7, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The rise of extremism in Israel has occurred under an international environment wherein the world's superpower has acted as a lapdog preventing any serious consequences resulting from such extremism. The lapdog waking up and starting to truly act in its OWN interest will not silence or shut down Israeli extremists, of course, nor prevent their continued fearmongering for votes. But, if such a wake-up does happen, those extremists will no longer have Washington at their beck and call. This is a huge difference from the situation in late Weimar Germany.
February 7, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Avishai: The parallels you draw are apt.
This is indeed a disturbing election and, if projections hold true, one that seems destined to seriously undermine any efforts at reconciliation. According to today's NYT: "Even the parties on the ideological left have avoided any mention of peace, not wanting to sound naïve in the belligerent atmosphere that has swept much of the country since the Gaza offensive. The television campaign ads of the Meretz-New Movement Party mostly railed against the danger to society presented by Mr. Lieberman and environmental hazards like traffic jams."
Just two small things I'd like to point out:
First, you justly note the national consensus in Germany of "a people encircled by mortal enemies." Unlike post-war Germany, the Israeli view that they are surrounded by mortal enemies is not an unreasonable one. Hitler, on the other hand, focused German anger on a group of loyal citizens, the jews, who posed no threat to Germany, playing upon centuries-old stereotypes and murderous prejudices. This is not to justify the racism of a Lieberman, merely to note that it is not coming from the same place.
Second, I don't believe Lieberman's goals can be equated with those of the Nazis.
Nonetheless, you raise important and disturbing parallels.
February 7, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
On second thought, I'd like to dissasociate myself from this comment. I'm just hoping that this is some kind of aberration and not an expression of Israeli popular will.
February 7, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prediction: Lieberman will be prime minister within the next three election cycles.
Occupation and fascism go hand in hand. The next generation is ready to move the ball forward to the goal of ethnic cleansing.
What is happening in Israel is what naturally evolves when the group in power sees themselves as the "superior race" and is not willing to let go of the delusion that brings entitlement and privilege. During such times there will always be a preoccupation of what to to do with the "inferior other". The need becomes more urgent when there is resistance against the oppression.
Before emancipating blacks, Abraham Lincoln was at first a proponent of resettling them to Africa, Texas or Florida. - Link - For the US it took a civil war to free the slaves.
How will Israel go about resolving its Master-Slave karma? Confucius said that wisdom comes in three ways. The superior way is through contemplation. The middle way is through imitation. The inferior way is through experience.
Israel can contemplate her predicament and see the way forward to a bi-national state as it is too late for the two state solution. Israel can imitate and learn from the USA or South Africa. Or Israel will have to learn the hard way via experience. The ascendancy of Lieberman shows that Israel has chosen the long, painful and inferior way to resolving her problem.
February 7, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really hate any comparison of Israeli policies to the Nazis. It is a grotesque comparison. Though for some time it seemed that there were some interesting parallels between what occured during the Wiemer Republic and modern Israeli politics. I have avoided such a comparison because it is too close to concluding Israel is going in the same direction as the Germans did. No one knows what is going to happen in Israel. But Avishai is brave to bring up this comparison with the Wiemer Republic. The point should be that when minority extremist parties like Lieberman's are given any legitamacy (playing as they do on people's fears and prejudices) then the possibility of some horrible outcomes should be seriously considered.
February 8, 2009 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suggest re-reading, for good measure, also William Shirer's memoirs of Germany in the 1930s. It is time to get over the idea that the Germans who brought Hitler to power were unusual. They were people like you and me, alas, and eventually did awful things out of fear, and spite, and garden variety ignorance: the desire not to look foolish, the desire for sincerity, the desire to prove loyalty. Racism is just the flip of wanting desperately to bring family affections into civil society. Think of Sarah Palin, for God's sake.
The question is not whether Lieberman is Hitler; presumably, he will never be given the chance to become everything he might become. It is enough that he already sounds like, say, Milosovicz, his racism is resonating, and the conditions for ethnic cleansing are ripening--precisely because the center's vision--its creepy focus on the "demographic problem" and confused, conformist notion of what a "Jewish state" is--sounds like Lieberman without the guts and integrity.
February 8, 2009 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Professor Avishai, thank you for having the courage to speak truth to taboos. I much admire your daring and righteous indignation, however politically inconvenient this may be for so many.
February 8, 2009 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bernard A says:
The above describes the human condition throughout the world.
February 8, 2009 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
And how is Lieberman really different from Thomas (suck on this) Friedman?
Is this what you get when you honor a Joshua?
February 8, 2009 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
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