    To Sit in the Dark- Gilad Atzmon

    A talk at the SOAS Palestinian Society 23.4

    http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/

    I am sure that some of you are familiar with the old Jewish joke: What
    does it take for a Jewish mother to change a light bulb? Then
    impersonating an elder Jewish mother, applying a high pitch east
    European accent you spit it out: ”no vorries I vill sit in the dark”. As
    it seems, the Jewish mother embodies the essence of modern Jewish
    existence. To be a Jew is to sit in the dark, to be a Jew is to be a
    victim and to enjoy your symptoms. If we analyse this bizarre tendency
    in the light of Freud’s pleasure principle, we might mistakenly deduce
    that the Jewish mother find pleasure in inflicting pain on herself. Some
    may even diagnose the Jewish mother as a mythical masochistic figure. In
    fact, it is the other way around, The Jewish mother doesn’t enjoy her
    own suffering at all. The Joke is supposed to reveal a very different
    message. The Jewish mother, instead of improving her general state of
    being, rather than enjoying reading the ‘Jewish Chronicle’ in the light,
    she voluntarily offers to sit in the dark, she gains satisfaction
    initiating some remorse feeling amongst the Other, whoever the Other is.
    Usually it is her beloved kind (son) but it can as well be her partner,
    the neighbour, the social worker, the Swiss banker or even the United
    Nations. The Jewish mother vill sit in the dark as long as someone there
    is happy to feel guilty for her sitting in the dark.

    To be a proper Jewish mother means to daily exploit the entire victim
    vocabulary. But it isn’t really the Jewish mother, as it seems, victim
    mentality is occupying the hard nucleus of modern Jewish identity. As we
    all know many of those who call themselves Jews are far from being
    religious. Some are even atheists. Many of our Jewish friends are far
    from being Zionist (at least that’s what they say), some are even anti
    Zionist, but then once a Jew drops his victim status he becomes an
    ordinary boring being. To be a Jew is to believe in the holocaust, to be
    a Jew is to believe in a historical narrative constructed around endless
    merciless sagas of persecution and harassment. To be a Jew is to believe
    that all that suffering is far from being over, in fact a new holocaust
    may be re-launched tomorrow morning, why tomorrow, today, this very
    minute. To be a Jew is set oneself in a state of self imposed paranoia.
    Thus, to be a Jew is to believe in ' us and them' rather than in just
    ‘being amongst others’. To be a Jew is to believe that anti Semitism is
    an irrational tendency intrinsically symptomatic to gentile existence.
    But who are the Gentiles? Ladies and gentleman, the Gentiles are the
    human family, thus I would deduce that to be a Jew is to believe that
    the human family behave irrationally at least when it comes to Jews.

    But then, what is so appealing in being a ‘victim’, I assume that most
    people would be embarrassed when being blamed for victimising themselves
    or even suspected to be paranoid. Somehow, this wouldn’t happen with
    most Jews. A Jew would be offended when being suggested that he is
    victimising himself. Moreover, an accusation as such would be perceived
    by him as a clear anti Semitic assault not to say a form of a ‘holocaust
    denial’. When it comes to Jewish common self-perception, victim is not
    an act, it is rather a state of being. Within the contemporary Jewish
    word view, the Jews are the only real ultimate genuine sufferers. If
    this is not enough, the fact that they are ‘the true real and only
    genuine sufferers’ is now legally imposed. To suspect this very fact may
    result in a court case. For instance, in case you happen to be a new
    historian and you may doubt some facts to do with the latest Nazi
    Judeocide, you probably find yourself behind bars or just removed from
    your academic post.

    When it comes to the unique case of the Jewish family, the Jewish mother
    strategies are found to be very effective. Sitting in the dark ‘pays
    off’. The Jewish mother maintains her absolute hegemony within the
    family cell. Consequently, the guilt ridden Jewish child (no doubt the
    real victim) will attend medical or law school just to keep his mother
    happy. He will bring home the highest possible marks just to ease her
    sitting in dark. By the time he finally realises that he himself had
    been the real victim, he his ready to join his father's business and in
    any case, he is too old to rebel. By now he himself becomes a victim and
    the rest of the world should feel guilty for him. But then, he is far
    from being happy, rather than being out there amongst others, he is now
    pushed back to the ghetto, tied for the rest of his life with a clannish
    knot. Funny enough, this is enough to make him a neurotic character as
    well an astonishingly good accountant or psycho-analyst.

    Looking at the Jewish family cell we see a successful operating machine,
    the parents volunteer to take-on some insignificant suffering, in return
    the guilt ridden young generation bring home excellent academic results.
    But then, this very mechanism goes far beyond the Jewish family cell or
    even the segregated Jewish community. In fact, post WW2 Jewish western
    affairs are based on the very same philosophy. This may as well be the
    hidden layer behind the current misleading contemporary presentation of
    the complementary Judeo Christian bond: The Judeo subject insists to be
    the ultimate victim and the Christian world is enthusiastically
    endorsing the opportunity to celebrate guilt. As bizarre as it may
    sound, in 1948, while the Israelis ethnically cleansed the Palestinian
    population, the ‘guilty’ West was sitting and praising ‘Jewish heroism’.
    Very much the same happened following the miraculous Israeli victory in
    1967. For many years, ‘guilt’ became the core of European parliamentary
    left blind support of Israel. As revolting as it may sound, the modern
    Jewish identity is copying the role of the Jewish elder mother and the
    European parliamentary left is taking the role of the Jewish guilt
    ridden toddler. Take a look at British contemporary politics: On the
    right end we find the Christian prime minister, Mr Tony Blair, the
    guilty Gentile, being the leader of once a socialist institute, he is
    now publicly supporting a bourgeoisie racist, nationalist, colonialist
    state, Michael Howard, on the very same end, being a secular Jew,
    wouldn’t bother to share with us some deep spiritual Jewish insights,
    instead, he is telling us about his Jewish grandmother, the Holocaust
    victim.

    Today I am talking about Jewish Identity. In practice, I am talking
    about Jewish identification, I leave out Judaism, or any reference to
    Jewish cultural heritage. I don’t even talk about the Jewish people.
    Instead, I ask what does it mean to be a secular Jew. I try to find out
    what Jewish secular people identify with when they call themselves Jews.
    I would argue that as far as contemporary Jewish identity is concerned
    two major ideological schools are offering a clear answer. One is
    Zionism and the other is Jewish lefticsm.

    Let’s start with the Zionist school.

    Following the 19th century European national awakening some Jews decided
    that Jewishness is actually a manifestation of nationalistic aspiration.
    Although European nationalism was intrinsically associated the patriotic
    subject with the land he dwelled on, Jewish nationalism was based on a
    mere fantasy. It associated the Jew with the land he was supposed to
    dwell on. The early Zionists' popular slogan at the time was: ‘land with
    no people for people with no land’. While many historians justly
    ridicule the above statement proving beyond doubt that the land of
    Palestine was in fact overwhelmingly occupied with indigenous
    Palestinians, the main problem with slogan has to do with the fact that
    People with no land can never establish a genuine nationalistic
    movement. Zionism was and still is, as groundless as, let’s say, an
    Italian claim for ownership of the land of England just because England
    was once a part of the Roman empire. Jewish nationalism was always an
    ideologically baseless utopian belief. It is an invalid nationalistic
    movement simply because the Jews are not a nation. More over even in
    their alleged ‘home land’, they are just about to become a minority. And
    yet, Zionism was a sign of a change, the Jews decided willingly to
    change their doomed fate, to become ‘normal’ people, people who love
    their land, people who engage with nature and live in nature. The
    Zionist Jew desired to redeem himself from the state of victimhood. The
    Zionist Jew desired to take his own fate in his hands. This reformed
    perception held till 1967, until then the Zionist Jew regarded himself
    as a proud self sufficient colonialist. Till 1967 the Holocaust had
    merely an instrumental role, it was something to capitalise on rather
    than a major tragic event. If anything, for my parents' generation, the
    holocaust was something to be ashamed of. The image of ‘cattle led to
    the slaughter’ filled them and even my generation with contempt towards
    anything that smelled like Diaspora. Tom Segev was very articulate in
    conveying the story of Israelis' disdain towards the ‘Seventh Million’
    (those who managed to survive the war). Needless to say that the current
    state of Israel clearly reveals how unsuccessful Zionism proved to be.
    The transformation of the Jewish people into a modern western civilised
    society failed completely. The Israelis are far from being attached to
    the land which they apparently shred with apartheid walls. Not only that
    Israelis didn’t manage to erect a civilised society, it is hard to think
    of any current modern state as morally corrupted and racially motivated
    as the Jewish state. And yet, Zionism was an attempt to transform the
    Jew into a dignified being, A strong, blond athletic productive subject
    rather than one who prefers voluntarily to sit in the dark.

    The alternative Jewish ideological answer to Zionism is provided by the
    Jewish left thinkers. On the surface it sounds poetic and peaceful but
    in practice it is at least as devastating as Zionism. The left Jew would
    roll his eyes up and state with sheer defeat that “it was Hitler rather
    than Moses who made him into a Jew”. Basically, it is the Other, the
    Gentile, who makes the Jew into a Jew. As funny as it may sound, most of
    those righteous Jews would argue in the same breath that the
    Palestinians should enjoy the right of ‘self determination’. I do ask
    myself how is it that when it comes to themselves, those left Jews are
    far from being generous. Somehow, so it appears, the left Jew is
    reluctant to self determine himself. Apparently, for the left Jew, WW2
    has never ended, day by day, they are all defeated by Hitler or more
    generally speaking by the Gentile world. But isn’t this an absurd
    proposition? In fact, there is no Gentile world. Gentile world is in
    itself a Jewish invention. Gentile people do not identify themselves as
    ‘non Jews’, there are far more interesting predicates to embrace. Hence,
    we can clearly see that Jewish lefticsm is in itself a form of ‘sitting
    in the dark’ it is an exercise in victim practice. In short, like the
    Jewish mother they are sitting in the dark (probably not too far from
    their mothers). They are self appointed victims. Thus, we must admit
    then that it is not Hitler who turned them into Jews. They are Jews
    because enthusiastically, they endorse the Jewish identity. They prefer
    to be victims. It is their own preference not to change the light bulb.

    But then why is it necessary? Surely the Jewish leftist knows that these
    days he can express his calling without presenting any ethnic traces, we
    are supposed to live in a multi cultural society. Your voice is supposed
    to be heard regardless of your ethnic origin, your religious background,
    your sexual preferences or any other social grouping. I would argue that
    the voluntarily tendency to sit in the dark is the new Jewish religion.
    It is a sophisticated ideological mechanism that makes the Other, the
    Western Gentile, feel unwelcome or inferior in any political discourse
    to do with Palestine. In practice it locates the humanist Jews in the
    centre of Palestinian affairs. But then, in practice it serves Israel
    with an ideological and moral body armour. As soon as those humanist
    Jews become recognised as a genuine voice for Palestine we learn from
    them that one state solution is utterly impractical. Somehow, for them,
    the Jewish cause is slightly more important than the Palestinian one. In
    the end of the day the Jews really suffered.

    The victim strategy is the latest and most sophisticated form of Jewish
    supremacist segregation. Not only that I surround myself with walls, I
    even make the other feel guilty for me building those walls around
    myself (by the way, I don’t know whether you are aware of the bizarre
    fact that within the Israeli discourse it is the Palestinians that are
    blamed for the Jews building the apartheid wall). You can take from the
    Jew his religion, you can take away the chicken soup you can even put
    ‘sea fruit’ on his plate but once you take away the victim tendency, the
    Jew isn’t a Jew anymore. Once you lift the colossal threat of Hitler
    then the Jew becomes an ordinary boring being. Let me tell you, this is
    not going to happen.