A Word on Hatred From the Angry Arab

Written by Chris Floyd

Friday, 02 January 2009 10:31

In the midst of the anguish and emotion sparked by Israel's savage assault on Gaza, we would do well to mention this post from Professor As'ad AbuKhalil, whose "Angry Arab" site is essential for anyone trying to get a full picture of what's really going on in the Middle East. AbuKhalil writes:

On Hate.
I had written this post on hate back in the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006. I still believe in it of course. Political anger and rejection of Zionist colonization of Palestine is acceptable and imperative, but not hate -- not on racial, religious, or ethnic grounds.

[Here is his 2006 post]:

I was thinking about us Arabs who are watching a savage Israeli war on Lebanon on live TV. I have been thinking about hate. Just yesterday, I read a column by the confidante of Rafiq Hariri (that corrupt politician who put the foundations of the construction not of Lebanon but of the Israeli/American/Saudi conspiracy in Lebanon), Faysal Salman, writing in As-Safir. And the column was a very vicious anti-Jewish babble. I really think that we should avoid the pressures to succumb to hate. I always cite Richard Nixon when he gave that rambling address at the White House before leaving after his resignation. He said, I am paraphrasing: Your enemies don't win, until you hate them. And when you do, you destroy yourself. Hate is not a constructive energy, not politically and certainly not personally. I am not here preaching a message of Christian or hippie "love." Political anger is justified but that has to be articulated in a rational and humane manner. We can't, or shouldn't, allow Israel and its crimes to make us worse as human beings, especially when we criticize the Zionist project on humanitarian grounds.

These are wise words. One sees many angry comments directed at "The Jews" for what is happening in Gaza. But The Jews are not bombing anyone in Gaza; the Israeli government is. That does not make every Jew in the world somehow complicit in these war crimes. Or should every American be placed in the dock at The Hague with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and all the other perpetrators of the even larger and more savage war crime carried out in Iraq [not to mention the torture regime and other evils]? To rail against The Jews en masse for the actions of some Jews is as pig-ignorant as, say, condemning every person with black skin for the crimes of one ghetto gang, or every Muslim for the act of a single extremist group, or indeed, condemning every white person for the crimes of the Gangster-in-Chief, George Bush.

The structures of power make these crimes possible -- structures inhabited [and supported] at all times by specific human beings, individuals responsible for their actions, operating of their own free will. [For much more on this theme, see the excellent new essay by Arthur Silber here.] They are not possessed by some kind of racial or ethnic ectoplasm or in-built evil that directs their activities. All structures of power must be monitored with fierce diligence, and denounced and opposed when the individuals directing the particular structure commit evil acts. This applies across the board, in all societies, all ideologies, all countries, all historical eras. AbuKhalil's words are worth repeating: "Political anger is justified but that has to be articulated in a rational and humane manner. We can't, or shouldn't, allow Israel and its crimes to make us worse as human beings."

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ed hardy said:

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