The Unfit

by Aron Trauring

Recently, an inteview appeared in Ha'aretz with the well-known "new" historian Benny Morris. Morris has often been castigated by the right in Israel for exposing the atrocities of the Israeli army in the 1948 war. After all, it is part of the propaganda narrative of Israel that the Palestinians left their homes because the surrounding Arab states encouraged them too, promising them they will soon return after the Arab armies "drove the Jews into the sea." This depiction lays the blame of the Palestinian refugee crisis squarely on the Palestinians and the Arabs, leaving Israeli Jews blameless.

Morris and other's like him, using previously unpublished documents, showed that during the war Ben Gurion and the Zionist leadership implemented a deliberate policy of driving the Palestinians out of their homes through fear and intimidation. And now, in an upcoming book, Morris research indicates that things were even worse than his original research indicated.

Here's Morris:


As always in human conflicts, the facts are more complicated than the simple narratives either side likes to repeat. Nonetheless, Benny Morris the historian has reached is clear conclusion, beyond a doubt:

"Transferist" is just a mild way of saying that Ben Gurion encouraged a policy of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinian claim that the Jewish state was born in sin has been greatly reinforced by Morris' research.

One would think that Morris would be repelled by the brutal behavior of the nascent Israeli army during Israel's war of foundation. But with shocking honesty and candor, Morris says:


I urge you all to read the entire interview. It certainly is an eye-opener. And to his credit, Morris does not mince words. Unlike many Israelis and their Jewish supporters who hide behind hypocritical rhetoric, Morris speaks clearly and openly about what he believes. In fact, I would argue that he is an impassioned spokesperson for what the vast majority of Israelis and their Jewish supporters believe. And that precisely is what is so apalling. 

Essentially, in this interview Benny Morris says:

1. We committed and continue to commit horrible crimes against the Palestinians to create the "Jewish" state.
2. These crimes are justified, since the founding of the state of Israel is the supreme value.
3. Besides, Arabs and Palestinians are sub-human savages so they deserve to die.

Essentially Morris is rehashing Jabotinsky's famous polemic the Iron Wall. Morris' unique contribution is to:

• Document the fact that the crimes committed by the Zionist founders of the State of Israel were far worse than Israeli propaganda tried to make out
• Explicitely add the sub-human argument (point 3). Jabotinsky was more liberal, and did not relate to the Arabs as sub-human "barbarians," even within his colonial world-view

If we abstractly state Morris' position, his argument is this: as a member of group X, I am justified in committing genocide against group Y because I know group Y is out to kill me. The premise of my justification is the "well-known fact" that group-Y are irredeemable, bloodthirsty savages capable of the most heinous crimes against humanity. Hence I justifiably conclude that I my pre-emptive act of genocide is morally justified self-defense. In any case I am killing evil people who are basically sub-human, so what I am doing is really not such a bad thing at all.

If you accept this argument as valid, then now substitute X = German and Y = Jew. In fact, if you substitute the word "Jew" for "German" and "Arab" for "Jew" in the interview, it sounds quite a bit like one Goebbels would have given. Interestingly, like Morris, the Nazis used the American slaughter of the indigineous population as justification for their own policies against the Jews. Do you still think it's a valid argument?

You might argue that in the Nazi's case, the premise is false. That is, Jews did not present a mortal threat to Germans, whereas the "evil, blood-thirsty Arabs" are such a threat to Jews. However, if you accept Morris' argument as valid, then the Nazis can at best be called misguided, but never immoral. Because whatever the truth of the matter, the Nazi's honestly believed that the Jews presented such a threat to Germany and that Jews are sub-human savages. Therefore, using Morris' argument, they were morally justified in their pre-emptive policy of genocide against the Jews.

On the flip side, can Morris be 100% sure about his analysis of the Palestinian's intentions and their moral worth? In fact, as I have noted elsewhere, there is a striking parallelism between the moral arguments of the Israeli army and the Hamas. Applying Morris' argument, the Hamas would be justified in calling for genocide against Israeli Jews.

So in the case of Morris vs. Hamas, we are left with two sides to a dispute, X and Y, who both see the other side as blood-thirsty savages hell-bent in a genocidal war against the other tribe. If one side is right, then they are justified in genocide by Morris' arguments. Perhaps some neutral third party can be found to adjudicate the dispute? But who is to define that neutrality? Certainly if we go by UN voting patterns, Israel is in a bit of trouble, since besides the US and Micronesia, every other country in the world sees Israel as the agressor in the conflict. Benny Morris would not accept anyone who disagrees with him as a neutral oberserver. But even Morris must agree that no member of tribe X or Y, who are parties to the conflict, are in a position to make judgement on the validity of the premise. Benny Morris is an X in this case. So he is in no position to judge the validity of his premises, and certainly can't use this argument to ethically vindicate Israeli behavior.

Besides, the argument is inherently, ethically flawed. There never is justification for genocide, no matter what the provocation. The categorical imperative is a good guide here: would you want this argument to be applied universally? Obviously not, because it is likely you will find yourself on the wrong side of the X and Y equation. The deepest ethical flaw in the argument is that it makes some human beings (in this case the Palestinians) a means (to the end of a Jewish state), something which is inherently immoral by Kant's formulation, since a human being can never be a means.

Even on pragmatic grounds, if "Israel as the bedrock of Jewish survival" is the underpinning on which Morris rests his argument justifying Israel's crimes, then it is a very shaky foundation, to say the least. Israel has become the most dangerous place on the planet for Jews. Jews outside of Israel are much safer, better off economically and tend to be more liberal and open human beings. Israel as a totalitarian society, which it is rapidly becoming, presents the greatest threat to the survival of the Jewish people and the long and proud history of Jewish culture.

Hence logically, ethically and pramatically, Morris argument is fundamentally wrong. In fact, objective observation will lead you to conclude that throughout history and across the planet Morris' argument has always been used by every agressor to justify their crimes against another group. And in the context Morris is using this argument, it can only be characterized as fascism - an ideology that puts the State as the highest value. Morris is putting Zionism - the establishment of the Jewish state, as the supreme value that justifies every action of the Jewish people.

Morris would be horribly offended and insulted by the comparisons I am making here. But it would be intellectually dishonest to avoid them. Jews, having been part of a group that was on the Y side of the equation as Morris frequently notes in the interview, should know better than to spout such morally repugnant arguments. It is especially painful for me to see Jews trying to move over to the X side, and put another group in the Y category. Sadly, this too has many historical precedents.

The only thing I can say in explaining why Morris and so many other Jews are heading down the path of facism, is that many Jews whose parent's were Holocaust survivors suffer from something like a "battered child" syndrome. They are so traumatized by what their parents went through, they lose touch with humanity and are themselves willing to justify barbaric crimes. Understanding its psychological roots, does not justify such beliefs, nor does it in any way justify the criminal actions of Israelis.

Morris is also forgetting Niemoller's famous dictum. In the same week, an Israeli Jewish protestor was shot in the knee and 5 brave COs were thrown back in jail, for god knows how long. Once you start down this slippery slope of justifying ethnic cleansing and genocide, once we allow Zionism to become one more fascist ideology, you don't know where it will end. It starts with the Palestinian Arabs, then its the anarchists, then its the leftists...and yes, it will reach Benny Morris too.

Of course, many others Jews (Israeli and otherwise) have learned from their parents experience during the Nazi era, and are in the forefront of the battle for human rights and reconciliation with the Palestinians (e.g. Amira Haas of Ha'aretz). Not all Israelis, and certainly not all Jews, see the Jewish state as the supreme value of the Jewish people. There still are many wonderful good people in Israel - the 5 COs and their families are just some of these. The refuser groups, the humanitarian aid groups, their active and passive supporters - these and many, many more have not yet lost their humanity. Sadly the Jewish leadership in Israel and the diaspora has been hijacked by the worst sorts - the unfit. But hope is not yet lost.