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Israeli history One people, endless opinions By Uri Avnery Tags: Avi Katzman, debates  Bemahloket: 60 imutim shehisiru et hamedinah (Up for Debate: 60 Debates that Stirred the Country), edited by Avi Katzman Am Oved, Osef Meitar and the Israel Historical Society, 415 pages, NIS 189 Shmuel Merlin, one of the Irgun operatives aboard the Altalena, and the first member of Knesset to represent the Herut faction, once said that Etzel (the acronym for "Irgun Tzvai Leumi," the pre-state militia led by Menachem Begin) was "the Jewish Agency's shooting agency." What he meant to say was that, despite the enmity between them, the Irgun was for all intents and purposes an arm of the mainstream Zionist leadership. Their disagreements centered around tactics, but in terms of basic approach, the differences of opinion between David Ben-Gurion and Ze'ev Jabotinsky were minimal. "Up For Debate" is a splendid collection wholly devoted to these arguments. From the dispute over the status of the Upper Galilee settlement of Tel Hai, before the fatal attack on it 1920 (oddly enough, the rightist Jabotinsky proposed evacuating the area, while the left insisted on defending it), all the way to the evacuation of Gush Katif in 2005, which was carried out by a man of the right, Ariel Sharon, the "father" of the settlements, fierce quarrels were waged in the country prior to and following its independence, some of which resulted in bloodshed. The book has a unique structure. It is comprised entirely of newspaper fragments, with one side's argument laid out on one page, and the opposing claim appearing opposite it. Editor Avi Katzman, a journalist, does not take sides, and the introductions are very short. Two short concluding essays appear at the end of the book, one written by Prof. Yoav Gelber and the other by Dr. Tom Segev. The newspaper-like format gives the reader a sense that the events are happening in real time, and highlights a rich variety of contradictory opinions, impassioned polemics and blaring headlines. However, the structure does limit the reader's ability to grasp the topic being discussed, because the events in question are removed from their historical context. One example is the debate over the "conquest of labor," the concept that Jews in the Land of Israel should do their own physical work. In 1934, newspaper clippings indicate that the Histadrut labor federation and the Zionist governing bodies both demanded the expulsion of Arab workers from the orange groves. The Jews who owned the groves objected, preferring Arab laborers, who were not only cheaper but more efficient. Yet the significance of this chapter in the history of the Yishuv extends beyond the internal disagreement, for underneath the surface lies the tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to exact a heavy price in blood even today, 75 years later. On the one hand, we have the Zionist ideal of transforming the Jews from a community of merchants and speculators into a nation of laborers who worked the land, as well as the need to create jobs for newly arriving immigrants. On the other side of the coin, the Arabs were driven out of the local economy, a development that for all practical purposes contributed to the total separation between Jews and Arabs, giving rise to the wedge of hatred between the two communities long before partition became a political fait accompli. The book lacks a chapter about another practice that played out concurrently, "land redemption," since at the time it was not at all controversial. The Zionist movement has always boasted of the fact that throughout the period leading to the state's birth, all land was acquired legally, so no one suffered any injustice. In a manner of speaking, this is true. In practice, though, the lands were bought from wealthy Arab absentee landlords, who lived in Jaffa, Beirut and Monte Carlo. After the property was bought, the Zionist institutions expelled the Arab tenants who had worked them for generations. The dirty work was carried out by the Turkish police, and later the British. On this land were established kibbutzim and moshavim, two vaunted institutions that realized the lofty ideal of a socialist society based on equality, one with no equal in the world. The Arab peasants had no place in this ideal. Battle lines The 60 most contentious disputes in the book (only six of which transpired before I came to the country, at age 10) galvanized us to the depths of our souls. Behind these disagreements, though, hides one historical truth that cannot find expression in the book: In actuality, the Jewish people were always more united than any other nation in the world. True, there were jokes that poked fun at the Jews' penchant for discord, those along the lines of "two Jews, three opinions," and also the one about the Jew who washes up on a desert island and immediately builds two synagogues -- one to pray in, the other to "never set foot in." But the truth is that hundreds of years of persecution in Christian Europe conditioned the Jews to stick together when confronted by the gentiles. When there were disputes, they centered on issues of tactics, problems linked to matters of religion and state, and personal-partisan intrigues. There was never any real argument within the Zionist movement over the crux of the ambition to establish a Jewish state on as large a swath of land as possible while pushing out as much of the non-Jewish population as was possible. As such, beyond the individual squabbles described in the book, the Hebrew press was always united about the national struggle. This explains the roots of a contemporary phenomenon, whereby the media, including television, speaks in one language, uses the exact same terminology (a Jew is "murdered," whereas an Arab is "killed"), describes events from the same angle, highlights the same news stories while conversely downplaying or altogether ignoring others, as if there were just one editor overseeing all the newscasts and deciding what goes into the newspapers. It would suffice to recall an event from our recent past. On the first day of the Second Lebanon War, not one voice was heard criticizing the decision to go to war, which from the beginning was a foolish and unnecessary endeavor. Nonetheless, the controversies described in the book are riveting. One need only look at a few of the episodes and pictures to establish that: Poet Shaul Tchernikovsky on guard duty ready to "conquer labor" in Kfar Sava; an April 1933 procession of Beitar members, all dressed in brown uniforms, decked out in army boots and shoulder straps, reminiscent -- and not by chance -- of the storm troopers who conquered Germany just three months prior; and yes, the hideously dishonest statement issued by Ben-Gurion following Sharon's massacre of civilians in October 1953 in the village of Kibya. "We did a thorough check and it has become definitively clear to us that not even the tiniest army unit was absent from its camp on the night of the attack on Kibya." The operation was carried out, according to Ben-Gurion, by "Jewish refugees from Arab countries or the survivors of Nazi concentration camps." There are also Amos Oz's attack on the late Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who coined the phrase "Judeo-Nazi" in describing the first Lebanon War; and Amiram Nir's famous admonition to the news media during that same war, to "Keep quiet! They're shooting." One could put together a civics exam based on Katzman's book. Where and when were the following phrases first used, and who said what to whom?: "Where is Yossele?" "Allah have mercy on their souls," "With determination and sensitivity," "Black flag," "They're not nice," "Who gave the order?" "The Third Kingdom of Israel," "The rock of our existence," "Liberated land will not be returned," and more. Kastner and I Such a book cannot delve into the evolution of the Hebrew press. What a pity. As such, there is no mention in the book of, say, the revolution led by Ha'olam Hazeh, not only in its journalistic style but also in the language it employed. I was the editor of Ha'olam Hazeh at a time when 40 of the 60 events in question occurred, and we were involved in each affair up to our necks. I can't complain, though: The cover of "that certain weekly" (as Ben-Gurion liked to call it) appears numerous times throughout the book, ranging from stories on the sailors' rebellion (1951) to the Shin Bet affair (1984). But the book contains nary a trace of our major campaigns: "Screwing the Blacks" (1953), which for the first time exposed the shameful treatment suffered by Oriental immigrants; the "Hushistan Affair" (1955), which was the first major crusade against government corruption; the Asher Yadlin, Avraham Ofer and Ya'akov Levinson corruption affairs; the "kidnapped Yemenite children" story, and others. And, of course, our struggle in favor of the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, which we launched in 1953 and have not let up on to this day. I was personally involved in one of the state's bitterest and most dramatic episodes, the Kastner affair. One can cite this as an example of the problems inherent in the book's structure, namely its lack of historical background. The story's protagonist was a bizarre Jewish individual named Malchiel Gruenwald, who in 1952 published a newsletter in which he leveled a fantastic accusation against a low-level government bureaucrat and Mapai (Labor's omnipotent incarnation at the time) functionary. Kastner, claimed Gruenwald, had maintained close ties in Nazi-occupied Hungary with the heinous Adolf Eichmann, even aiding the SS officer in his quest to annihilate the Jews. I knew Gruenwald as a bore who had a regular hangout in a Jerusalem coffee shop and who occasionally published a newsletter that often contained outlandish accusations. Nobody took these pamphlets seriously. I myself would toss them into the trash without opening them. Kastner, however, worked in a government ministry, and hence the attorney general, Haim Cohen, insisted on filing an indictment for criminal libel against Gruenwald. Thus was opened Pandora's box. Some veterans of the Etzel and Lehi undergrounds, whose hatred for the Mapai leadership stemmed from the days of the "Saison" (the so-called "hunting season," when the Labor Zionist mainstream turned them over to the pre-state British authorities), supported Gruenwald, and even paid for his legal expenses. They hired a young attorney, Shmuel Tamir, to represent him. I knew all the main actors in the story: Gruenwald, Kastner, the attorney general, Judge Benjamin Halevy, and especially Tamir, with whom I had cooperated on past political trials. We worked together, he being responsible for handling the cases and I being the one to make sure the details were published in Ha'olam Hazeh. What united us more than anything was our opposition to Ben-Gurion's regime, although our motives differed. The trial got off to a sluggish start. The newspapers hardly paid heed to it, and only Ha'olam Hazeh dispatched a special correspondent to cover the daily proceedings. Our dramatic reports, however, forced the other newspapers to cover the trial, and public interest began to grow. Tamir had not an iota of proof to corroborate Gruenwald's claims, which were based on rumors and innuendo that floated back and forth among Hungarian immigrants. Nonetheless, he cast his line in the water, hoping to pull up something of substance. When the prosecution submitted a large pile of documents, he wearily went over the pages without batting an eye. Then, his eyes latched onto a remarkable piece of text. In one of the documents, Kastner is said to have reported to one of the Mapai's senior officials that he, Kastner, had gave testimony during the Nuremburg trials on behalf of a top-ranking SS officer by the name of Kurt Becher. With Kastner on the witness stand, Tamir wore him down over the course of a few days. Then, he asked him a question: Is it true that all SS officers are criminals? Kastner replied in the affirmative. If so, is it true that it is forbidden to testify in favor of such a criminal? Kastner was compelled to agree. Then, Tamir whipped out the document submitted by the prosecution and asked: Is it true that you testified on behalf of the SS officer Becher? Silence gripped the courtroom. Judge Halevy, who until that moment had treated Tamir with a certain level of contempt, turned his blue eyes toward Kastner. At that moment, Tamir had become his hero, and would remain so the rest of his life. In his verdict, the judge ruled that Kastner had "sold his soul to Satan." That phrase would cost Kastner his life. The main issue in the case revolved around "goods for blood," Eichmann's 1944 proposal to halt the mass slaughter of the Jews in exchange for a large number of trucks. He offered to send a Jewish emissary to then neutral Istanbul, where he would make contact with a representative of the Zionist leadership. Eichmann pledged that if the Zionists agreed in principle to the deal, he would immediately stop the deportation of Hungary's Jews to the death camps. The logical move would have been to agree to meet with the emissary, to send him back to Budapest with a message for Eichmann that he had an agreement in principle, and thus to buy time. This could have saved the lives of 10,000 Jews per day. But the Zionist leadership enticed the emissary, Joel Brand, one of Kastner's associates, to meet with them in British-controlled territory. There he was arrested, and the trains to Auschwitz continued unloading their cargo. The main question is this: Was Eichmann's proposal a serious one? Tamir did his best to try to persuade the public that this was just a Nazi ruse, and that Kastner was a willing collaborator to it just so he could save a few of his friends. For my part, I believed then (as I believe now) that the opposite is true, that this was an attempt by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, to negotiate with the Allies. If the first assumption is correct, then Kastner was a traitor. If the second assumption is true, then Kastner was a saint, and the Zionist functionaries, particularly Teddy Kollek and Moshe Sharett, must bear serious responsibility for foiling him. After the verdict, which in essence accepted the first scenario, I asked to meet with Kastner. I came to his home and told him: You must decide, one way or the other. Either you place the responsibility on the shoulders of the Zionist leadership, or you must assume responsibility. Kastner was convinced. He began dictating to me his version of events so that I could publish it in the magazine, and I transcribed his words on the spot with my little typewriter. While I was typing, however, there was a ring at the door. A few of Kastner's friends showed up and began speaking with him in Hungarian, a language I didn't understand. Then Kastner said to me: "Hand me the pages. I can't do this. Mapai on one side and Tamir on the other will simply crush me." I gave him the typed-up pages and didn't publish a thing. The Mapai-run government appealed the verdict, and the justices of the Supreme Court exonerated Kastner on all counts but one, that he had given testimony on behalf of an SS officer. (Becher, of higher rank than Eichmann, was the man in charge of expropriating Jewish property. Kastner testified that in the last stage of the war, Becher had helped him to save Jews.) The vindication, however, came too late. Before it, in March 1957, Kastner was murdered at the entrance to his home. To this day there are those who firmly believe that he was a traitor, and others absolutely convinced that he was a hero, a righteous role model for a generation. There remains just a faint echo of all these events in the newspaper clippings that appear in the book. After getting all this off my chest, I want to offer my wholehearted praise for "Up for Debate." Leafing through its pages moved me, and brought back a flood of memories, as I found myself reintroduced to these chapters that galvanized our lives as individuals and as Israelis. It brought a smile to my face as I thought, "Oh, right, that's exactly as I remember it," or "I'd completely forgotten about that." The book also left me thinking about what might have been if this or that episode had ended differently. Above all, the book contains excellent work, exacting and unbiased, in the spirit of the slogan of "that certain weekly" from way back: "Without Fear, Without Bias." Uri Avnery was editor of the weekly newsmagazine Ha'olam Hazeh from 1950 to 1990. Haaretz Books Supplement, August 2008 Bookmark to del.icio.us   Facing off in Gaza Bitter infighting in Gaza may bode ill for Israel's truce with Hamas. Syria's frequent flyer Assad went to Iran to explain rather than excuse peace talks with Israel.

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