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Letters

Vol. 6 No. 5 · 15 March 1984

From Barry Shenker

SIR:Professor Edward Said is one of the Palestinians’ most eloquent spokesmen. The call in his review article (LRB, Vol. 6, No 3) for both Palestinians and Jews to recognise the validity of each other’s national identity is timely and welcome. However, one basic weakness runs throughout the article. This is demonstrated first by the tragi-comic story of ‘Jewish sheep’, of which he makes so much. My inquiries show that the facts are not as Professor Said would have us believe. The Israeli Sheepraisers Association does not exclude Arabs. In the early days of Jewish agriculture in Palestine it was called the Association of Jewish Sheepraisers in Israel (and why shouldn’t any group form any association it wants?). Since then the word ‘Jewish’ has been dropped and Arabs have been invited to join: to state that they are deliberately excluded is patently false. Nor was there any attempt to charge a fee on ‘Jewish sheep’. The Ministry of Agriculture spent millions of shekels to step up immunisation checks. In order to recover part of the cost they requested the Sheepraisers Association to tax their members, who, as said, are almost entirely in the ‘Jewish sector’ (their usual phrase). The immunisation service is specifically for all sheepfarmers, Jewish and Arab, but the latter are not required to pay. Now, whether Professor Said was wilfully mischievous or was simply misled is immaterial. The point is that according to his preconceived notions about Israel the story made sense; it ‘proved’ what he already ‘knew’, even if totally false. Incidentally, Professor Said accuses others of sloppiness yet himself refers (twice), in connection with the sheep, to ‘Never Shalom’, surely the most unlikely of names for a Jewish-Arab co-operative venture! The real name is Neveh Shalom, Oasis of Peace.

Any Israeli reading Professor Said’s assertion that the Western media are biased in favour of Israel and indulge in some kind of self-imposed censorship would exclaim that exactly the reverse is true. Israelis and Palestinians are equally convinced that their case is inadequately presented in the media; that their misdemeanours are disproportionately pounced upon, while the other side’s are glossed over; and that blatantly inaccurate statements are made. The difficulty with Professor Said’s article is that for all the cogency of his arguments he himself does precisely these things. It may be that he is simply attempting to provide balance, as he sees it, to pro-Israeli/anti-Palestinian sentiment in the West, but in so doing he creates an imbalance of his own. He also contradicts himself. He claims, in effect, that the Western media turn a blind eye to Israeli wrongdoing. Yet he refers to the nightly scenes we viewed on television of the carnage in Lebanon during the Israeli invasion. The extent of the coverage and of the invective directed against Israel hardly suggests censorship or pro-Israel bias.

Professor Said proceeds to argue that ‘the Palestinians’ have long accepted the principle of partition of the land west of the River Jordan. Who precisely accepted this principle? Professor Said is on record as endorsing the PLO as the ‘sole, legitimate representatives’ of the Palestinian people and their Covenant. In the latter, they specifically and categorically deny that the Jews are a nation (they are a religious grouping) and that Israel has a right to exist; they say that only Jews who have lived in Palestine since before ‘the Zionist invasion’ (usually understood to mean 1917) can remain. No one from the Palestinian leadership has rejected these notions. At times they accept the idea of a Palestinian mini-state on the West Bank – but then only as a first stage to Israel’s ultimate liquidation. None of this is even discussed by Professor Said. Whatever the extremism, inflexibility and lack of sensitivity shown by some Israelis, Professor Said would have us believe that none of these exist amongst the Palestinians. Surely his task is to condemn them on both sides, rather than accusing the one side and condoning the other, even if only by omission.

Two final examples of this. He refers to Israeli violation of human rights in the West Bank. To the extent that such violations exist, any condemnation that he voices is justified. Yet, if he believes, as he appears to, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be removed from the wider Arab-Israel conflict, why no reference to human rights in the Middle East generally, where Syria in particular has one of the worst human rights records in the world? He also refers to books by Mikdadi and by Clifton and Leroy on the siege of Beirut. They are compelling books and both include references to or photographs of the massacres of Palestinians in the 1976 civil war. Surely Arab inhumanity to the Palestinians and Palestinian slaughter of Palestinians are to be condemned at least as much as anything the Israelis have done? Professor Said tells of the 20,000 who died in 1982; nothing of the 40,000 who died in 1976.

Professor Said is too serious a writer to be dismissed lightly. His arguments are sophisticated and perceptive. However, as he points out regarding Chomsky, the methodology of the argument is part of the argument itself, and unless he is aware of his own contribution to the imbalance he rightly condemns, his case will be weaker than it need otherwise be.

Barry Shenker
London Nl

Vol. 6 No. 6 · 5 April 1984

From Edward Said

SIR: Mr Barry Shenker (LRB, Vol. 6, No 4) has the remarkable knack of first missing, then conceding, some of my points. I didn’t say that the separation between Jewish and Arab sheep was ‘tragi-comic’, but that it was ‘trivial’, indicating how detailed the separation between Jew and Arab inscribed at the very heart of Israeli society. Mr Shenker’s historical excursus on the Association of Jewish Sheepraisers leaves him curiously unable to deny the accuracy (one typo excepted) of the report I quoted from, just as his research doesn’t turn up such truths about Israeli society as the fact that Israel is the only state characterising itself officially as the state, not of its citizens (which include over six hundred thousand Arabs), but of ‘the Jewish people’, that Palestinians in Israel have the juridical status only of ‘non-Jews’, that over 90 per cent of Israeli land is held in perpetuity for ‘the Jewish people’, thus excluding Arab ownership, that only Jews are allowed the Right of Return to historic Palestine – and so on. These things put the story of Jewish sheepraisers in a more correct context than Mr Shenker’s selective historical research might allow.

As for what I said about the media, Mr Shenker once again misses the main point, which is not that the media are biased against Palestinians, but that even when endless TV pictures are shown of Israelis bombing refugee camps, the political meaning of the pictures doesn’t translate into the idea of a Palestinian homeland with a narrative of expulsion and exile behind it. Instead of discussing that observation – and Mr Shenker, otherwise a rational and humane correspondent, becomes at this point a programmed instance of what Chomsky calls ‘the supporters of Israel’ – he treats us to ritual attacks on the Palestinian Charter and the PLO, and on Palestinian intellectuals for failing to mention the slaughter of Palestinians by Palestinians. Although I criticised aspects of Palestinian and Arab behaviour and regretted as well as deplored the violence, none of this has anything to do with the facts that a. Israeli treatment of Palestinians since 1948 is a moral and political crime far exceeding anything ‘the supporters of Israel’ come close to admitting, and b. ‘the supporters of Israel’ tend in general to overlook the regular actions and pronouncements of Israeli policy-makers who usually enact what they say, e.g. Roni Milo (head of the Likud’s Knesset group) on 3 January 1984, in Ma’ariv: ‘we have not given up our right to the East Bank of the Jordan.’ It is Israel (not the Palestinian Charter) which destroyed Palestinian society, and which repressively occupies the West Bank and Gaza, the Golan Heights, and South Lebanon. These are instances of human-rights violations (for which Mr Shenker’s chaste ‘to the extent that they exist’ is hardly warranted) that are worthy of attention quite on their own: but, as I said, they are facts that too often don’t really seem to matter in discussions of the problem.

Edward Said
Columbia University, New York

Vol. 6 No. 9 · 17 May 1984

From Peter Parker

SIR: Mr Shenker believes Professor Said is mistaken about discrimination against Palestinians in Israel’s Association of Sheepraisers (LRB, Vol. 6, No 5). But if he wants his opinions to be taken seriously, he will have to do better than require us to trust in his unnamed sources. In Israel? In the Government? A special adviser on Palestinian affairs? Or a member of the Association of Sheepraisers? Did Mr Shenker check what he was told with Palestinian shepherds? Perhaps he never thought of doing so; maybe he does not know any? As it happens, he does not tell us. He claims to know that ‘Arabs have been invited to join the association,’ but he does not say when, or how many; or whether they were only invited to join around the time the association was persuaded by the Israeli Government to become a vehicle for levying a form of taxation.

Incompetent reporting or propaganda? Either way inquiries this scrupulous do not inspire confidence. Sure enough, when Mr Shenker moves on to criticise Professor Said for not condemning violations of human rights by Arab governments, he ducks the symmetrical obligation that falls on him vis-à-vis Israel. All he says is: ‘To the extent that such violations exist, any condemnation that he [Professor Said] voices is justified.’ Here Mr Shenker’s allegedly excellent sources fall silent. Does he accept that violations of human rights occur in Israel or not? Mr Shenker stays mum, so we do not know whether he adds his voice in condemnation, or merely would add it if he were better-informed.

Peter Parker
London SW13

Vol. 6 No. 11 · 21 June 1984

From Daniel Gruenberg

SIR: Professor Said refers readers to Lenni Brenner’s Zionism in the Age of the Dictators for evidence that ‘Shamir’s Stern Gang treated with the Nazis’ (LRB, Vol. 6, No 3). It is not disputed that Jewish Zionists negotiated with the Nazis in efforts to arrange the emigration of Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe. Those who suggest this was criminal collaboration with the Nazis unwittingly imply that extermination of the Jews was preferable to their emigration to Palestine. Brenner’s allegations concerning the Stern Gang were based, both in his book and in the Journal of Palestine Studies, on an anonymous (unsigned) document, the original of which is not available for inspection by historians and forensic experts. To give credibility to his allegation that the rescuing of European Jewry ‘was secondary to the Zionist leaders’, Brenner in his book deleted from the text of the ‘document’ the paragraph which stated: ‘The liberation of the Jewish people once and for all is the objective.’

Daniel Gruenberg
Hampton Hill, Middlesex

From Baruch Rosen

SIR: I come from places where the English is most foul and the mutton is most fresh, so I should ask you to forgive my language. While passing through London I bought your paper – a most pleasant experience. But it seems your readers have been exposed lately to a lot of sheep dip (which is the Arabic-Jewish equivalent to hogwash) concerning sheep-Arabs-Jews. It seems one of your readers has been asking for ‘data’ and I wonder if Professor Said, Mr Shenker or Mr Parker (the one asking for ‘data’) would know an Awassi from a local English sheep and what they would do with said sheep-growing data.

First, an aside: what is called by the previous writers the ‘Israel Association of Sheepraisers’ includes goats in many cases: in Israel only Jews will in general grow only sheep. Arabs in the north will grow sheep and goats and in the south will grow goats only – a very interesting breed of highly-adapted desert goat. So much for the goats.

Now for the politics. Arab and Jewish herders are first of all herders and then, if at all, politicians. Arabs, Jews, Scots, Welsh, Bretons – people of the land – will join all kinds of association only if they can get something for it. In Israel, Arabs have joined – and play a major role in – the tobacco-growers’ association and the olive-growers’ association; they also participate in fruit and vegetable associations. There they get (as they should) their money back from the system. Arabs and, for that matter, many clever Jews refuse to join the IAS because registration means taxation. For the last four thousand years, shepherds in the Near East have been fighting the taxman: those sheep lists from Knossos in Crete are nothing but a record of how the Bronze Age taxman living in a Bronze Age palace was trying to screw the hut-living shepherd. And the fight still goes on. By law, all sheep and goats in Israel have to be slaughtered in a government-supervised place: but not even 20 per cent of the sheep and goats have the dubious honour of going to their last resting-place (the shawarma spit) through these official channels, because there they would meet the income-tax man and the VAT man and the land-tax man and, worst of all, some over-educated Jewish or Arab vet who will declare them (what an insult) unfit for human consumption. Politics have nothing to do with shepherds joining or not joining the IAS: the normal shepherd’s ancient and well-justified fear of registration is the basis of it.

These shepherds, by surviving and prevailing in the land, have done more towards achieving the common human Arab-Jewish goals than all the hypocritical outsiders. In the end, there will be peace between us Palestinian Arabs and Jews in much the same way that your England now is the product of Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Normans and Indians and Blacks. This will of course irritate Professor Said, the university man, and Mr Parker, who would like to see justice done, even if in the end it will mean – God forbid, if only for the sake of the sheep – the quick justice of radioactive desert. If the people jointly beat the taxman they will also beat these advisers, surely.

This reminds me of a story. Many years ago, there was a Jewish shepherd boy and an Arab shepherd boy. Now the Arab boy was a much better shepherd in every way, but what impressed the Jewish boy most was that the Arab boy had succeeded in training his ewes: every time they saw the Arab boy coming they would stand in line, almost like soldiers, with their backs to him and lift their tails in the air in a most peculiar way. So the Jewish boy asked the Arab boy to show him how he could train his Jewish ewes to perform the same trick, and the Arab boy said: ‘No problem, it is a joy to teach this trick and a great joy to learn this trick.’ And so the Arab and the Jewish boy were training their sheep together and a great joy it was for all: Arab, Jew, man and beast. But then Lawrence of Arabia came and he looked on the Arab boy and liked him and he told him that he would teach him some better trick and so Lawrence of Arabia took the boy and enlisted him in the Arab Legion and the rest is modern Middle East history.

By the way, what is Professor Said teaching his Jewish colleagues in the university? Are his teachings as conducive to peace as the above? If Mr Parker is interested in sheep-growing in Palestine-Israel he can write to me at 26 Kaplonski Street. Will you, Mr Parker, or are you interested in shawarma only? I am also interested in human and sheep rights.

Baruch Rosen
Pitah-Tikwa, Israel

Vol. 6 No. 12 · 5 July 1984

From Barry Shenker

SIR: Peter Parker (LRB, Vol. 6, No 9) questions my credibility. He asks me to support my assertion that there is no discrimination against Arab sheepfarmers in Israel and goes on from there to ask what I really know and believe about Israel. I did not quote chapter and verse in my first letter since that letter was already rather long. Now Mr Rosen (Vol. 6, No 11) wants to know if I can tell the difference between an Awassi and an English sheep. Well, since they insist … I was myself a sheepfarmer in Israel for eight years, had close relations with the Sheepraisers’ Association, and had frequent contact with Arabs as workers, traders and shepherds. Against this background I was alerted to the inherent absurdity of the claim that Arabs are discriminated against as regards immunisation of their sheep. It would be utterly ridiculous for the Israeli Government to immunise some sheep and not others. Even if we attribute only selfish motives to the Israelis, it would still make no sense to discriminate and thereby endanger all sheep in Israel. Incidentally, a senior member of the Sheepraisers’ Association is an Arab and he has been active in helping Arab sheep-farmers.

Two anecdotes illustrate my argument. A recent report tells of the Israeli Government, at its own expense, moving four thousand Arab-owned sheep from the Negev to the centre of the country to save them from drought. And on a personal note: we used to graze our sheep on public land near the local wadi. One day some Bedouin shepherds appeared and began grazing the same land. We were afraid of depleting our already limited grazing land still further, although the greatest fear of any livestock farmer, spread of disease, was uppermost in our minds. We politely asked them to move on. They, equally politely, refused. We asked the police if we could in law have them moved, on the grounds that we had prior grazing rights. The police replied that neither they nor we had any standing in the matter; and that was that – we made other arrangements until they left. These are hardly tales of discrimination, and they indicate the kind of problems which Israeli sheepfarmers, Jewish and Arab, have to deal with, and do deal with amicably and with good will.

However, it is clear that Mr Parker’s criticisms have a wider scope. He asks if I believe there are human rights violations in Israel. Of course there are! Nor do I need special sources to know that. All I have to do is read the Israeli daily press, which, if you are looking for criticism of Israel, will give as much as you want. What Mr Parker fails to realise is that there are also issues of proportionality and of context. Just because I commit occasional parking offences does not put me in the same criminal category as the Yorkshire Ripper. To put Israel in the same category as other countries which not only have far worse human rights records (in fact Israel’s compares favourably with that of most countries in the world) but are fundamentally totalitarian, despotic and often racist is, to put it mildly, the height of imbalance. This was my criticism of Professor Said: many people are prepared to see Israel as the incarnation of evil while ignoring or smiling indulgently at the worst kinds of brutality and discrimination in neighbouring states. Of course there are individuals, institutions and government bodies which display racism in Israel (name me one country where this doesn’t apply). There are, equally, many individuals, institutions and government bodies actively working for the welfare of all segments of the population and attempting to combat any violations of human rights. Nor is extraordinary research required to know this. Israel’s democracy, despite many flaws, allows all this to happen publicly. A determined press, parliamentary parties, voluntary organisations, an independent judiciary, a powerful and independent Histadrut – these permit vociferous expression of wide-ranging views and campaigns which allow for the negative to be publicly aired and for justice to be done. Only a fool would pretend that Israel is perfect: but only the blind cannot see that Israel is a democracy at all levels, and for all sections of the population.

Barry Shenker
London N1