to each its own: assimilation/annihilation/racism?

~!@!~
THIS
exclusive
attention to "one's own,"
however, when in a subaltern situation simply
does not have the same political meanings
as it would have when Jews
[or other] are dominant
politically.

In
Israel,
where power is virtually
exclusively concentrated in Jweish hands,
this practice has become a monstrosity,
whereby an egregiously disproportionate portion
of the resources of the State of Israel is devoted to the welfare
of only one segment
of the population.

A further,
somewhat more subtle and symbolic example,
is the following:
That very practice I mentioned before
of symbolic expression of contempt for places of worship
of others
becomes darkly ominous
when it is combined with temporal power
and domination, i.e.,
when Jews have power over places of worship
belonging to
others.

To
cite one
example among many:
It is this factor, I would claim,
that has allowed the Israelis to turn the central Mosque of Beersheva
into a museum of the Negev
and to allow the Muslim cemetery of that city
to fall into
ruins.

Insistence
on ethnic speciality,
when it is extended over a particular piece of Land,
will inevitably produce a discourse not unlike the Inquisition
in many of its
effects.

We already see
a certain nearly inexorable logic
at work here.

Thus
the declaration of a Jewish State has led,
because of its [inevitable and only partly willed]
violence toward the Palestinians,
to a Palestinian
counter-discourse of desire
for a Palestinian
State.

We thus
have now an acting out
of precisely the theory that Balibar exposed of postulating the necessity
of ethnic/cultural separation behind closed borders
in order to prevent the cultural mixing
that leads to
violence.

In their
rightist forms,
these arguments call for expelling
the Other.

In their
liberal forms,
these arguments call for the formation of two states
that are sealed off
from each other.

BOTH
are racist
programs.

~!@!~

My argument is
that capturing Judaism in a State
transforms entirely the meanings of its
social practices.

Practices which
in Diaspora have one meaning -
e.g., caring for the feeding and housing of Jews and not "others" -
have entirely different meanings in a situation
of political hegemony.

E.P. Sanders
has gotten this just right:

More important
is the evidence
that points to Jewish pride in separatism.
Christian scolars habitually discuss the question under implied heading
"What was wrong with Judaism
that Christianity
corrected?"
Exclusivism is considered to be bad,
and the finding that Jews were to some degree separatist
fills many with righteous pride.
We shall all agree that exclusivism is bad
when practiced by the dominant group.
Things look different
if one thinks of minority groups
that are trying to maintain their own
identity.
I have never felt
that the strict Amish are iniquitous,
and I do not think that,
in assessing Jewish separatism in the Diaspora,
we are dealing with a moral issue.
[The moral issue would be the treatment of Gentiles in Palestine
during periods of Jewish ascendancy.
How well were the biblical laws to love the resident alien {LEV 19:33}
observed?]"

~!@!~

The
inequities - and worse -
in Israeli political, economic, and social practice are not aberrations
but inevitable consequences of the inappropriate importation
of a form of discourse of intimacy and resistance
to the claims of others,
from a situation in which Jews were a dominated minority to one in which
they are a dominating majority and in which power,
concern, freedom, and resources have all to be
aggregate.

In the final {?}
mydistories on this subject,
I wish then to begin to articulate a notion of Jewish identity
that recuperates its genealogical moment -
family, histiry, memory, and practice -
while at the same time
problematizing claims to autochthony and indigeneity
as the material base of
Jewish identity.