A Sephardi Zionist in Wonderland:
Jews and Arabs at the Dialogue in Toledo, Spain
Daniel J. Elazar
On July 3-4, 1989, I attended a conference on "Jews of the
Orient and Palestinians: A Dialogue for Arab-Israeli Peace"
sponsored by the Foundation for Peace Studies and International
Relations (FEPRI), a Spanish academic institute, and held in
Toledo, a famed seat of that special Jewish-Muslim-Christian
synthesis which characterized the Golden Age of Spain.
(The organizers and most of the participants were under the
misapprehension that the Jews' golden age in Toledo occurred under
Muslim rule. In fact, it came after the Christian reconquest of
the city when Jews fled to Toledo to escape the persecutions of
the Muslim fundamentalists who had seized power in Andalusia).
In organizing the conference, FEPRI was assisted by two
French Sephardic groups. One, Perspectives Judeo-Arabes, is a
left-wing group whose prominent personality is Simone Bitton, an
Israeli of Moroccan background who left Israel twelve years ago
to live in Paris. The other, Identite et Dialog, is a more
moderate group that seeks dialogue with the Palestinians without
in any respect denying the authenticity of Jewish peoplehood,
Zionism, and the Jewish claim to Israel. Its president is Andre
Azoulay, originally from Morocco. They were assisted in
mobilizing an Israeli delegation by Shlomo Elbaz of HaMizrach el
HaShalom (East for Peace), a moderate Sephardi peace organization
in Israel. On the Arab side, the PLO provided a delegation.
The conference ostensibly was organized to foster
an intellectual and cultural dialogue between Jewish and Arab,
principally Israeli and Palestinian intellectuals and academics.
It was explicitly presented as not being for political
discussions. I doubt if any of us who chose to attend had any
illusions that matters would not quickly slide into political
discussions despite the declared intentions. There never was any
doubt that the Palestinians would reflect the views of the PLO,
since their delegation consisted principally of politicians and
functionaries. The Israeli delegation, consisting principally of
activists, intellectuals, academics, and rabbis, contained a
range of viewpoints but leaned toward the pro-Palestinian side of
the political spectrum. Virtually all were Sephardim, of Indian,
Iraqi and Yemenite background as well as North African, Balkan
and Eretz Israeli. A majority actually were descended from the
Spanish exiles of 1492.
I chose to attend because I had a commitment from the
organizers that the delegation would be as balanced as possible
and I felt that it was necessary to assure that there would be
some participants who would speak out in the name of the Israeli
mainstream. As one who has pursued peace in our region since
1967 and believes that a political solution is necessary, I was
also curious to see how these dialogues, of which this was one of
several, were unfolding. Finally, as a Sephardi, I liked the
idea that for a change we would be the spokesmen for the Israeli
side rather than the usual spokesmen in such matters, who have
always been overwhelmingly Ashkenazi. Indeed, the Israeli
delegation that went was probably the broadest and best balanced
of any of the meetings to date. Even though it, too, was tilted
to the left, in the Sephardic way it sought to be inclusive
rather than exclusive.
The Jews from outside Israel who attended were almost all from
the left, while the non-Palestinian Arabs were mostly writers and
intellectuals from Syria, Egypt, and North Africa living in
France. (It seems that it is safer to be an Arab writer in Paris
than back home.) While I cannot say that I was surprised by the
results, it is fair to say that I was at least somewhat
disappointed, but I did learn something as well. First of all,
the conference was a powerful demonstration of how all Jews --
Sephardim and Ashkenazim -- are really alike. Today, a generation
after the great migration to Israel, Sephardim also have their
own self-hating leftists and "bleeding-hearts" just like the
Ashkenazim.
I am handicapped and have some problem walking distances or
climbing steps. For many years I have discovered that this
handicap is a good litmus test of what people really are like.
Almost without exception those people who are so wrapped up in
saving the world do not have any time to help individual human
beings, while those who have more modest expectations of what
they or others can do to transform the human condition usually
find the time to be considerate of one of its members. This
definitely turned out to be the case in this gathering. The
world-savers paid no attention to my problems, even in moments of
obvious need. Only those who had more moderate expectations and
were not so busy jockeying for position to deliver their message
found the time and had the inclination to be attentive to a
fellow human being.
My very modest problems were nothing compared to those of
Israel among so many members of this group. The most vocal
Jewish representatives seemed to be competing with each other
fawning over the PLO delegation and beating their breasts with
regard to Israel's past and present. These included people
capable of getting up and denying the realities of Jewish
history, denouncing Zionism and apologizing profusely to the
Palestinians for mistreating them from the beginning of the
Zionist enterprise to the present, just as we have come to expect
from the Ashkenazi-dominated left.
Dr. Ella Shohat, an Israeli now teaching cinematography at New
York University who nevertheless came as part of the Israeli
delegation, made it clear that to her the Palestinians and
Sephardim were in the same boat when it came to Ashkenazi
persecution, that the Sephardim were forced by the Zionists from
the Arab countries where they lived without any problems, to
Israel no less than the Palestinians were forced by the Zionists
from their homes. The Palestinians, of course, had suffered
more. Nissim Kalderon, another Israeli lecturer in
cinematography from Tel Aviv University (is cinematography the
new home of the self-hating Jewish left?) spent his time
attacking the Zionist enterprise from day one. They were only
exceeded in their vehemence by Simone Bitton, (also in film) who
called the Israeli government "fascist" in her opening remarks,
and Elie Beida, a Syrian/Lebanese Jew now also living in France
who blamed all the woes of the world, especially his own, on the
evils of Zionism. These were the extremists.
Most of the Jews who spoke at the meeting were simply what
Americans call "bleeding-hearts" so uncomfortable over the
present situation of the Palestinians that they must attribute
all fault to the "mean old Israeli government" and its
supporters. They did not reject Zionism or Israel's right to
exist but spent their time criticizing Israeli government policy.
The Palestinians, by contrast were disciplined and unbending.
The same message came forth from their group, sometimes harshly,
sometimes forcefully without being harsh, and sometimes in a more
conciliatory tone, -- that the Palestinian and Jewish experiences
have been symmetrical and now is the time for a compromise around
a two-state solution and then there will be peace. As one
accustomed to Jewish gatherings where every opinion is expressed
whether it is appropriate for the time and the place or not,
their discipline was overwhelming. Not only did the discipline
stand in stark contrast to the Israeli delegation but the
Palestinians never admitted to doing anything wrong or reflected
on whether they might have done or be doing something
differently. They never took any responsibility for what had
happened to them. In one absurd case, one Palestinian writer
stated that the only reason that no Palestinian state had come
into existence in 1947 was because the Stern gang of present
Israeli Prime Minister Shamir (as he described LEHI) assassinated
Count Bernadotte. He seemed to have no notion that the
Palestinians had rejected partition and resisted the
establishment of a separate Palestinian state and in this were
joined by the rest of the Arab world. The discussions of why the
Jews in the Arab lands left were similarly self-serving and
unbending.
The writers and intellectuals among the Arabs were the worst.
Whereas the politicians and functionaries at least pursued a
relatively moderate tone, the writers and intellectuals attacked
Israel and Zionism as if they were the devil personified. Thus,
ironically, the conference was less polarized because the
Palestinians did not live up to advance billing in the
composition of their delegation.
Despite the impression given by certain of the Israeli and
other Jewish speakers, with one or two exceptions, most of the
Israeli delegation behaved responsibly. Shlomo Elbaz gave a
beautifully balanced opening presentation directed toward the
stated goal of the conference and Dr. Maurice Roumani of
Ben-Gurion University talked of the relationship of the Jews from
the Arab lands with Israel and with Arabic culture with honesty,
sensitivity and balance. Israeli writer Sammy Mikhael was
furious with the self-hating Jewish leftists. Many were appalled
by the rigidity of the Palestinians and the unseemly statements
of their Jewish colleagues.
Much of this came out only after I made my statement in
which, while calling for peace, I pointed out Israel need not
apologize for being a state, that the experience of Jewish
history, including the experience of the Jews of Spain and
Toledo, had demonstrated to us that no matter how harmonious
relations between peoples were from time to time, in the end, as
a small minority, the Jews had always suffered from being unable
to control our own destiny, that the dynamic Jewish culture of
the twentieth century owed its character to the impact of
Zionism, even when people were unaware of that fact, and that any
Israeli-Palestinian dialogue would have to be based upon the
Palestinians' recognition of the right of the Jewish people to
self-determination, not only the right of Israel to exist as a
state. This last point is particularly important since the
Palestinian peace offensive has tried to avoid any such
acknowledgement, continuing in the belief, as stated by one or
two of the more extreme Palestinian representatives at the
conference, that Judaism is merely a religion and has no national
character.
My statement was received about as I expected it would be.
Any number of Israelis and some of the other Jews there as well
came over to me to thank me, indicating that they were with me.
In that respect, what we might call ordinary Sephardic militants
in Israel are also Jews like all other Jews and were appalled by
what some of their colleagues were doing. The Jewish extremists
ceased talking with me.
The worst offenders in all of this were the diaspora
leftists, particularly those who had once lived in Israel. You
could palpably feel their perceived personal histories being
reinterpreted in grand historical terms. With no anchor in
Israel, they needed to show no responsibility toward their
people, much less the state. They, along with the Arab
intellectuals, consistently falsified history, not necessarily
cynically, but with the passion of true believers for whom only
their theories of Palestinian nationhood mattered.
In falsifying history, the two Spanish professors who spoke were
the worst, more pro-PLO than the PLO representatives themselves.
One not only denied the legitimacy of any Jewish claim to the
land, (although he recognized that Israel was now a reality) but
lauded the rediscovery of Palestinian nationhood. For him the
Palestinians had been a nation from time immemorial, but had lost
their national consciousness until recently.
In most cases Palestinian nationalism was treated as a relatively
new phenomenon, even when an effort was made to treat the name
Palestine as the original name of the land. (For example,
because my family has long lived in Jerusalem I was listed as
being from a Palestinian background and all those born in Eretz
Israel before 1948 were listed as having been born in Palestine
or "Mandatory Palestine.") A reading of the transcript of the
Palestinians' historical analysis and that of their friends would
lead to a whole new mythic history. Two people even presented it
as such, arguing that the Palestinians needed that myth.
Given the picture of this encounter which, from the reports I
have received was not really different from any of the other
so-called dialogues that Jews and Arabs, Israelis and
Palestinians have engaged in over the past months, even years,
what are the prospect for peace? I am still hopeful that
prospects exist. The Palestinians were careful not to reject the
Shamir plan as a step toward that goal, (though of course they
did not endorse it). I did come away with the feeling that the
PLO has moved in the direction of peace -- for its own purposes,
of course, but for the first time it might be possible to
negotiate a peace with the Palestinians.
All the fawning and breast-beating of certain members of the
Israeli left does not do us any service in the cause of peace.
But the Palestinians themselves understand that these are not the
people who will make peace. They exploit them as part of their
peace offensive. Indeed this whole meeting and the way it was
structured had much of this exploitation about it. These Jews
are used as "shills" to attract media attention to the
presentation of the latest PLO peace initiative.
The problem is that the PLO is becoming more demanding as our
leftists become more accommodating, often giving them more than
they have dared to ask for. We all know that foreign relations
in democracy is difficult because negotiations have to be public
and the divisions within the democratic negotiating party are
visible to the party on the other side. If the latter is able to
maintain a united front by less than democratic means, this gives
them an advantage.
Things are even more difficult when Jews are involved since
we have yet to learn the minimum of self-restraint and
self-discipline that goes with statesmanship. After seeing
Toledo I have even less wonder at the fact that Prime Minister
Shamir often takes such a hardline position when it is his task
to counteract the false impressions given by a tiny but very
vocal minority with regard to Israel's intentions. In essence he
has to remind the world and the Palestinians over and over again
that whatever intellectuals of the peripheral left may say at
these kinds of international gatherings, the government sits in
Jerusalem and that is where the real center of power is and will
remain and it is the government with whom peace must be made.
