Auschwitz and the Palestinians: Christian Conscience and the Politics of Victimization

Sheldon Wolin S. , “Violence and the Western Political Tradition,” in Hartogs Renatus Artzt Eric (editors) Violence: Causes and Solutions (New York: Dell, 1970), p. 31.

Sartre Jean-Paul , Anti-Semite and Jew (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), p. 79.

For example, see Said Edward W. , Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979); and Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage, 1980), parts 1 and 2.

Sartre , op cit, note 2, p. 69 (emphasis in the original).

Habib Gabriel , “A Statement,” in Fleischner Eva (editor) Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1977), pp. 417–419.

For instance see Timmerman Jacobo , The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon (New York: Vintage, 1982); Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: Israel, the United States, and the Palestinians (Montreal: Black Rose, 1984); and David Gilmour, Dispossessed: The Ordeal of the Palestinians (London: Sphere, 1982).

Violating international law, in various ways, has been a distinctive feature of the Jewish State since its creation in 1948. For example, see the damning evidence assembled in Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle, in the meticulous papers by Mallison W. Thomas Mallison Sally V. Cattan Henry Quigley John Adams Michael in Abu-Lughod Ibrahim (editor), Palestinian Rights (Wilmette: Medina Press, 1982); and in the devastating report of the MacBride International Commission, Israel in Lebanon (London: Ithaca Press, 1983).

That Israel is a ruthless State is recognized even by Jewish writers: Rokach's Livia Israel's Sacred Terrorism (Boston: AAUG Press, 1982); and Maxime Rodinson's Israel and the Arabs (London: Pelican, 1982), both provide extensive evidence about Israel's penchant for lawless, criminal conduct in its relations with the Arab world.

Fackenheim Emil L. , The Jewish Return into History (New York: Schocken Books, 1978), Chapters 2, 3, 10, 14 and 17 in particular.

This term, borrowed from Alan Davies, is used here in the ordinary sense to mean flesh and blood Israel, with the usual limitations which disfigure such existence. Davies assigns a different meaning to this term; see his “Response to Irving Greenberg” in Eva Fleischner, op cit, note 5, p. 60.

Fackenheim , The Jewish Return into History, op cit, note 9, pp. 56, 212–213, 216; and Emil L. Fackenheim, To Mend the World (New York: Schocken Books, 1982), pp. 280, 304.

Fackenheim , ibid, pp. 284–285, 303–304.

Fackenheim , op cit, note 9, pp. 38, 54.

While it is true that Arab leaders have frequently threatened to bring Israel to its knees, the Israelis know full well that this flamboyant rhetoric is nothing more than a psychological cover for the humiliating losses that Arabs have suffered time and again in their military encounters with Israel. In any event, the Arab battle, as the Jewish writer Boaz Evron recognizes, “is a rational struggle against a real enemy whose power indeed threatens the larger part of them, an enemy which has already caused over one million of their brothers to flee their homes.” This struggle has nothing to do with Auschwitz or liquidating the State of Israel; see Evron “The Holocaust: Learning the Wrong Lessons,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. X, No. 3, Spring 1981, p. 25.

Fackenheim , op cit, note 9, pp. 129–130.

Fackenheim , op cit, note 11, p. 303 (emphasis added).

This theme recurs centrally in many of his writings on this topic. For example, see op cit, note 9, Chapters 3, 14 and 17.

On Zionist exclusivism, see the incisive analysis by Mazrui Ali A. , “Zionism and Apartheid: Strange Bedfellows or Natural Allies?,” Alternatives, Vol. IX, No. 1, Summer 1983, pp. 73–97. For a critique of the moral basis of Zionism, see my essays, “Hegel and Revisionist Zionism,” Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4, Fall 1984, pp. 296–303; and “Hannah Arendt on Political Zionism,” Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3, Summer 1986.

Orr John B. , “Theological Perspectives on the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” in Beling Willard A. (editor), The Middle East (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1973), pp. 338–341.

Fackenheim , op cit, note 9, pp. 37–39.

Orr , op cit, note 19, p. 339.

Cohen Morris R. , “Tribalism or Liberalism,” in Taylor Alan R. Tetlie Richard N. (editors), Palestine: A Search for Truth (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1970), p. 72.

See Chomsky , op cit, note 7, Chapter 3; cf Claudia Wright, “No, no, no, no, no,” in the Middle East International, February 22, 1985, pp. 6–8.

Pawlikowski John T. , What Are They Saying About Christian-Jewish Relations? (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), p. 111.

Rodinson , op cit, note 8, p. 321.

Whatever the differences between them on particular points, they do not disagree, essentially, on the basic themes of the ruling Christian argument articulated in these pages.

Pawlikowski , op cit, note 24, p. 111.

Bennett John , “Further Thoughts on the Middle East,” Christianity and Crisis, September 18, 1967, p. 205.

For instance, see Pawlikowski, op cit, note 24, Chapter 5; Rosemary Reuther, “Anti-Semitism and the State of Israel: Some Principles for Christians,” Christianity and Crisis, November 26, 1973, pp. 240–244; and Alan Davies, Anti-Semitism and the Christian Mind (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), Ch. IX.

Davies , ibid, p. 177; cf Pawlikowski, ibid, p. 111.

Reuther , op cit, note 29, p. 243: cf John Bennett, op cit, note 28, p. 205; John Pawlikowski, “The Middle East Conflict: A Christian Perspective,” Worldview, July-August 1969, pp. 12–14; and “Anti-Zionism = Anti-Semitism: Fact or Fable?,” Worldview, January-February, 1976, pp. 15–19.

See Kazziha Walid W. , Palestine in the Arab Dilemma (London: Croom Helm, 1979), especially pp. 15–16, 106–107.

Ibid, p. 16.

Rokach , op cit, note 8; cf Chomsky, op cit, note 7, Chapter 7; and Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht, The Fate of the Jews: A People Torn between Israel Power and Jewish Ethics (New York: Times Books, 1983), particularly Chapter VII.

Chomsky , op cit, note 7, Chapter 3.

Reuther , op cit, note 29, p. 242.

Fackenheim , op cit, note 9, pp. 38–39, 213–217.

Davies , op cit, note 29, p. 176; cf Rosemary Reuther, op cit, note 29, pp. 79–91; and William L. Reese, “Christianity and the Final Solution,” Philosophical Forum, Vol. XVI, Nos. 1–2, Fall-Winter, 1984–85, pp. 138–147.

Cited in Chomsky , op cit, note 7, p. 100 (emphasis added). Chomsky also points out that this view was shared by US Intelligence; cf Henry Cattan, “The Question of Jerusalem,” in Fosse Erik (editors), “Israel and the Question of Palestine,” Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 7, Nos. 2 and 3, Spring/Summer 1985, pp. 142–143.

Cited in Chomsky , op cit, note 7, p. 100.

Ibid, (emphasis added).

Reuther , op cit, note 29, p. 79.

Arendt Hannah , The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Meridian, 1958), p. 7.

Arendt Hannah , Anti-Semitism (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968), p. vii.

Reuther , op cit, note 29, p. 89.

Yerushalmi Yosef , “Response to Rosemary Reuther,” ibid, p. 104.

Ibid, p. 99.

Katz Jacob , From Prejudice to Destruction (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 7; cf Katz, “Misreadings of Anti-Semitism,” Commentary, July 1983, pp. 39–44.

For an excellent synopsis, see Rodinson Maxime , “The Western Image and Western Studies of Islam,” in Schacht Joseph Bosworth C. E. (editors), The Legacy of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 9–62; cf Edward Said, Orientalism, and his Covering Islam (New York: Pantheon, 1981).

For example, see the articles by Pawlikowski and Reuther, op cit, note 31, cf Michael Novak, “The New Anti-Semitism,” Commonweal, December 21, 1973, pp. 310–327.

For a taste of the views of Eckhardt and Flannery, see, respectively, “Again Silence in the Churches,” in Christian Century, July 26 and August 2, 1967, and “Anti-Zionism and the Christian Psyche,” in Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1969; for Flannery's most recent pronouncements, see George Weller, “ADL before the gates of Rome,” Middle East International, July 12, 1985, p. 17.

Pawlikowski , op cit, note 31, p. 17. For a learned account of the Muslim disposition to Jews, see Fazlur Rahman, “Islam's Attitude Towards Judaism,” Muslim World, Vol. LXXII, No. 1, January 1982, pp. 1–13.

Davies , op cit, note 29, p. 163.

Nasr Seyyed Hossein , Ideals and Realities of Islam (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), p. 29; cf pp. 18, 22, 33.

Daniel Norman , Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1960).

Ibid, Introduction and Chapters VIII-X, especially pp. 1–8, 264–267, 271, 274–275, 302–307.

For a critical discussion of these themes, see my essay “Under Western Eyes: Islam and the Arab Orient,” in Ismael Tareq (editor), Canadian-Arab Relations (Ottawa: Jerusalem Publishing House, 1984).

Coward Harold , Pluralism: Challenge to World Religions (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1985), p. 22. This book contains an unprejudiced and sensitive discussion of the central tenets of Islam.

Though approximately 20 percent of Palestinians are Christian, they are usually described as Muslims by Christian writers. But the more fundamental point that is invariably ignored by Western Christians is that the Palestinian national movement is proudly secular and passionately opposed to religious or ethnic sectarianism: its declared political aim is a liberal democratic Palestinian State equally open to Palestinian Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Rahman Fazlur , “Islam's Attitude Towards Judaism,” Muslim World, January 1982, p. 10.