How a bestseller helped shape US support for Israel

The novel Exodusthe story of Leon Uris on the foundation of israelbecame a fixture in Jewish homes when it was published in 1958. With its dark blue spine and simple title written in a stylized Hebrew font, it gained the importance of a ritual objectlike the menorah which is used once a year to Hanukkah and memorial candles lit in glass jars on the anniversary of the death of a loved one. The over 600-page book was a fundamental marker of Jewish identity, viewed with a mixture of respect and pride.

However, its importance went far beyond the Jews. The book has become a international bestsellerlargest in the United States since blown away, translated into 50 languages. When in 1960 the successful film of Otto Preminger “Exodus”, the story has taken on mythical proportions. After all, Paul Newman played the hero, Ari Ben Canaan, a sabra, chiseled, blue-eyed Superman, and the lithe blonde Eva Marie-Sainte to his beloved American, whose evolution from skeptic to supporter of the Jewish cause reflected the emotions of millions of sympathetic viewers.

The sharp, maudlin theme music, with its pointed political lyrics (“This land is mine, God gave me this land”) served to underscore the conflict’s uncompromising Jewish perspective on how (or even if) to divide Palestine after the departure of the British in 1948. The Jews, so long persecuted, had a right to the land. The Arabs, portrayed as smelly, dishonest and violent, only embarrassed them, even though they too had lived in this same land for centuries.

Those of us who grew up in the post- Exodus we assimilate this story as if it were a biblical extension. read the new book Eric Alterman, We Are Not One: A History of America’s Struggle Against Israel (“We Are Not One: A History of the American Struggle for Israel”), we realize this was no accident. Journalist and English teacher, Alterman argues that Uris set out to write an unabashedly pro-Israel morality tale. And not only that: the Israeli government worked with him and with Preminger to facilitate the novel and the film, building fictional roads and towns, providing thousands of unpaid extras for the exuberant mob scene when war was declared. israeli independencereviewing and shaping the book and screenplay.

Alterman writes that David Ben-GurionPrime Minister at the time, thought that, as “propaganda piecethe book “is the greatest thing that has been written about Israel.”

I grew up in a house with Exodus on the bookshelf; I memorized the lyrics to the main song; he believed the account to be the truth, if not the whole truth. Although my parents were not devout Zionists, they raised us to love Israel and to fear – but not hate – its enemies.

Therefore the critical deconstruction of Alterman from the mythology of the Exodus left me restless. To what extent had he taken mere propaganda for fictional truth? Commitment to Israel – political, religious, cultural – is seen by many contemporary Jews as a central aspect of their identity, a marker of communal pride, and it is difficult to criticize the country’s makeup when the existence of Israel has always seemed so right, so deserved. .

Alterman’s well-researched book is the latest example of a more skeptical re-examination of the complex relationship between Diaspora Jews and their spiritual homeland. The work dismantles the idea that the American support for Israel it’s just picking the good guys over the bad guys. The rise of a far-right government in Jerusalem has accelerated self-examination, forcing a drastic reconsideration of what Zionism means and renewing concern about whether a Jewish state can become truly democratic.

Just as many white Americans are finally acknowledging how racial inequality has been built on the foundations of this nation, we now wonder if the same is true for Israel, and if a truly pluralistic state -between Arabs and Jews, secular and religious- is even possible.

In an often cynical tone, Alterman describes the dynamic between the United States and the emerging Jewish state of Israel, whose leaders were able to cajole, argue and even manipulate to get what they wanted from Washington, which it s be it a generous arms package or a vote to reject another hostile UN resolution. Israel’s astonishing victory in the six day war of 1967 reinforced the efforts of lobbyists by reinforcing the narrative of the Exodus – the feeling that David was forced to defeat Goliath – while covering up the injustices of the Palestinian occupation.

But there’s a reason the narrative can continue to exert its magical appeal. Tribal mythologies have a deep purpose, a unifying force, in this case, uniting Jews when they disagree on many other things.

The story of Exodus it was manipulated by politicians and propagandists, yes, but it is so ingrained because it gave voice to latent feelings of pride and dedication. Believing in a narrative that placed Israeli justice above Palestinian grievances enabled American Jews to forge a community identity and resolve any tension between the nation they resided in and the other nation they wished to support. What double fidelity? The United States and Israel share the same democratic values; to take the side of one is naturally to take the side of the other.

Alterman does not hesitate to point out the absurdity of this “nationalism from a distance”, as he says himself: “The relationship between the American Jewish community and Israel represents a unique political achievement, but the most extraordinary thing is that this commitment Nationalist is dedicated to a country that few American Jews have ever lived in, where a language is spoken that very few speak and many have never even visited.

All of this is embarrassing. But other ways in which loyalty to Israel is understandable and deeply rooted are overlooked. For centuries the Jews sought to Jerusalem to pray, a reflection of the spiritual attraction of a holy land. Today, half of the world’s Jews live in Israel, which is surrounded by countries and peoples doomed to its destruction: are their co-religionists living in the most powerful nation on Earth supposed to leave them?

A reading of the title of this book questions the very notion of the Jewish people, that “we are a”. But Jews feel obligated to take care of each other – Jewish law states “kol Yisrael arevim zeh the zeh: all of Israel is responsible for others – although this obligation, like other ethical norms, is difficult to fulfill.

With growing disdain, Alterman details how successive US presidents have tried to pressure Israel to reduce Jewish settlement on land that should be part of an eventual Palestinian state, only to cave in to the efforts of US “pro-Israel” lobbyists. “, aided by evangelical Christians. . This dynamic reached a boiling point in 2015, when the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahufiercely opposed to the presidential nuclear agreement barack obama with Iran to consider it a “historical mistake” that would promote terrorism and regional instability. For a tense few months, it appeared that Israel, the smallest and most dependent nation, was leading the charge against its biggest patron by winning the support of its American allies.

But this confrontation also exposed the growing rift between the two largest Jewish communities in the world. While leaders of American Jewish organizations sided with the Israeli government, the majority of American Jews supported the deal and Obama. And Obama won.

NOW American Jews increasingly criticize the Palestinian occupation, who turned 55, and the unequal treatment Arab citizens receive inside Israel. Criticism of the current government is also growing among US-born intellectuals in Israel, both in the political center and on the right; even writers like Yossi Klein Halevi there Hillel Halkin they recognize that the existential challenge to their beloved country now comes from within, from forces that seek to exert Jewish dominance at the expense of a pluralistic democracy.

“Israel had never been in a situation like this,” Halkin said.

What these authors express, and what is too often missing in clinical and critical writings on this subject, is the deep anguish felt by those who are terrified that this near-miraculous experience of Jewish sovereignty is beginning to unravel. to do. The “Leon Uris version of Israel’s history,” which elevates the Jewish narrative and denigrates the Palestinian narrative, and to which Alterman refers throughout his book, is not so much wrong as it is incomplete. This work, and that of others, helps American Jews gain a fuller and truer understanding of that history, but as they grapple with Israel’s evolution, they must struggle with their attachment to age-old beliefs which, like all tribal mythologies, are still good for something.

Jane EisnerA regular contributor to Book World, she is director of academic affairs at the Columbia Journalism School. He is writing a book on Carole King.

Source: The Washington Post

Continue reading: