[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] Harris-Gershon, Heritage Theft, and Symbolic Inversions (Michael Lumish)

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I said in my recent book review of Harris-Gershon's, What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, that I feel sorry for the guy.

There is no question that he and his wife, Jaime, went through something horrific.  She was almost killed, for chrissake.  But what makes things even sadder is that Gershon's main "take-away" from the 2002 bombing of Hebrew University is that everything is pretty much Israel's fault because Israel (and by implication, the Jewish people as a whole) are failing to live up to Jewish morality.

In Harris-Gershon's world Arabs seek to kill Jews because Jews are mean.  The check-points and the security barrier are not so much defensive actions on Israel's part, but ways to demean and demoralize the largely innocent "native" population.

I focus on Harris-Gershon in this piece not because of whatever small influence he may wield, but because his views are representative of the type of Jew that internalizes unjust Arab accusations and thereby welcomes the "Palestinian colonization of the Jewish mind", which is the seeing of the world through "Palestinian" eyes.

The last time that Barack Obama dared to show his face in Israel, he snubbed the elected officials of the Israeli people by refusing to speak to the Knesset, preferring to speak over their heads directly to Israeli college students, instead.  During that speech he made an eloquent case for the necessity of Jewish Israelis to try to see the world through "Palestinian" eyes.  What he did not recommend, however, is that the vast Arab-Muslim majority try to see things through the eyes of the tiny Jewish minority in that part of the world.

The reason that he made no such request is because he, himself, is entirely incapable of it and I doubt very much that such a notion would even occur to him.

Harris-Gershon's view of the conflict is similar to that of Barack Obama in the sense that they both consider Arabs as largely innocent victims of western and Israeli aggression.  They, and those like them, infantalize the great Arab-Muslim imperial nation.  Islam is one of the most successful and most aggressive colonial projects in world history and at its height challenged the historical legacy of even the great Roman Empire.

When Muslims conquered Judea and Samaria in the 7th century they were, you can be sure, entirely unapologetic.  They stole Jewish land and put the entire Jewish native population to either death or dhimmitude.  Head-chopping, needless to say, was quite popular then, too, as was, the traditional Arab-Muslim sport of pelting Jews with rocks, a past-time that was (and is) particularly popular among the kids.

In a 2013, New York Times piece by Jodi Rodoren entitled, In a West Bank Culture of Conflict, Boys Wield the Weapon at Hand, we read this:

It was Muhammad’s fourth arrest in three years for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and settlers. His five brothers — three older and two younger — have all faced similar charges. Last year, three Abu Hashem boys, and their father, were in prison at the same time.

“Children have hobbies, and my hobby is throwing stones,” Muhammad explained weeks before his most recent arrest. “A day with a confrontation is better than a free day.”

Children, indeed, do have hobbies and just as Muhammad and his brothers play "Army and Arabs" so most American boys, at least those of us born toward the mid-late twentieth century, sometimes played "cowboys and Indians" or played at war with either toy rifles or, more likely in my neighborhood, long sticks.

Basically it was just neighborhood kids chasing one another around and it was fun.  Of course, afterwards we did not seek to maim or injure any traditionally despised nearby minority.  The difference is cultural.   We simply were not raised to believe that other peoples were inferior, or subhuman, or the children of apes and pigs, and thus it never occurred to us to attack another community.  On the contrary, we were taught that our neighbors are our neighbors and that they should be treated with decency and respect as they do so with us.

The largely unspoken truth of the Arab-Israel conflict is that the source of the conflict is Arab-Muslim Koranically-based hostility toward the besieged Jewish minority and everything else flows from this simple overriding fact.

Those who wish to defend the honorable Arab-Muslim tradition of stoning Jews will say that we have it coming because Jews are allegedly oppressing our former oppressors.  What the western-left tells itself is that, of course, Arab youths pelt Jews with rocks because Jews deserve it.  In the progressive imagination, aggressive Jewish fascists marched out of Europe in the middle of the twentieth-century and drove the "indigenous" population off of the land that they and their families had cultivated for generations, if not centuries.

Pro-BDS western Jews like Harris-Gershon ultimately justify not only aggression against the small Jewish minority in that part of the world, but also explore and expand upon the types of propaganda techniques developed within the Soviet Union and the PLO under Arafat.

One of the foremost of such tactics is in the theft and symbolic inversion of Jewish history and heritage.  These include, but are not limited to, the following toxic themes (or memes):

The Jews are the New Nazis.

The "Palestinians" are suffering a "Holocaust" at the hands of Jews.

Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto.

Jesus was the first "Palestinian shaheed."

The Hebrew Temples never resided in Jerusalem.

The Jews are not a people, merely a religion.

Anne Frank would wear a keffiyah, today, and support Arab elimination of Jewish sovereignty.

The "ancient Palestinians" have been around longer than anyone else on the planet, including the Chinese.

Zionism is Racism.

And on and on and on.

And now Harris-Gershon informs us that the Arabs of Gaza have their own special version of 9/11, as well.

He writes in a piece for Daily Kos entitled, "Gaza's 9/11" – High-Rise Apartment Tower Toppled by Missile Strikes

In what Palestinians are calling "Gaza's 9/11," an 11-story apartment complex housing approximately 50 families was brought down by multiple missile strikes yesterday in what The New York Times has characterized as an "audacious" escalation...

Obviously, Palestinians are referring to this as "Gaza's 9/11" due to the intentional destruction of a high-rise building, and the similar optics. It is worth noting, however, that over 2,000 people were (and have been) killed in both the September 11 attacks and Israel's assault on Gaza during the past month. In this regard, Palestinian journalist Mohammad Omer wrote to Americans that "your 9/11 is our 24/7."

I point this out because the tactic of historical and symbolic inversion is one of the great under-discussed aspects of the Long Arab War Against the Jews of the Middle East.   All Harris-Gershon is doing is employing a familiar tactic, but doing so in a way that will not work and probably in a way that he is not even conscious of.  I very much doubt that Harris-Gershon even realizes that heritage theft and symbolic inversions are part of Arab war tactics.

In truth, his effort was rather lame and he probably knows it.  Even some of his fellow "Kossacks" recognize this.

From the comments:

Ummm no (2+ / 0-) 

Sorry, but there is no real comparison between 9/11 and this except that innocent people were killed. I cannot imagine making this comparison. I used to like reading your diaries, including the ones critical of Israel. I cannot stomach it anymore. This is way too far.

by mole333 on Sun Aug 24, 2014 at 01:55:37 PM PDT

mole333 is an old-timer at Daily Kos and is perhaps less influenced by current anti-Zionist trends within his ideological camp.

Gaza's 9/11??? (3+ / 0-)

Are you smoking something?

Did Al Qaeda give warning to the people in the Pentagon or the World Trade Center????

One more example of the diarist's open support for Hamas against Israel in this war. He is a really good propagandist.

by charliehall2 on Sun Aug 24, 2014 at 01:20:54 PM PDT

charliehall2 is one of the few remaining pro-Jewish / pro-Israel participants left on Daily Kos.  He is a good man and he means well, but one of the main problems with progressive-left pro-Israel activism is its general reluctance to play offense.  Progressive Zionists generally play a reactive game and thereby are perpetually back on their heels.  Charlie is no exception, from what I can tell.

The WRECK list (5+ / 0-)

It's an embarrassment to this web site that this disgraceful diary is on the rec list.

Others have eloquently ripped apart the "Gaza's 9/11" insanity, so I'll just go with the quick, obvious difference that al-Qaeda actually intended to kill as many innocent American civilians as possible, whereas Israel intended to kill as few as possible (and thus killed zero) shown by the warnings it gave.

David Gershon owes an apology to kos for this one.

by slipper on Sun Aug 24, 2014 at 11:36:51 AM PDT

If you look at many of the other comments you will see that most "Kossacks" in the discussion actually praise Harris-Gershon.  What I think is that he, as we say in the United States, jumped the shark.

The point to bear in mind, however, is the tactic.

The Jihadi project is an attempt to replace the Jewish people on Jewish land.  We see this every time they display a map that blots out the small Jewish homeland in favor of "Palestine."

Heritage theft and symbolic inversions are under-noted tactics that we must be aware of.

I do not know if Harris-Gershon is conscious of this tactic, but conscious or not, he clearly uses it as a weapon toward his own people.

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Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 8/31/2014 03:00:00 PM