Sunday, January 11, 2009

Tribalism

The Jews are a tribe, at least what is left of us. In the ruthless competition for space that is tribal warfare, the Jews lost out early on, and were dispersed and would have disappeared like many other tribes, if it were not for the strong identity of our culture, religion and memory of our own country.
Tribal warfare underlies the National wars of the twentieth century. Was not Hitler appealing to the tribal instincts of the German people when he invoked Gotterdammerung and Aryan mythology. Even Stalin (of Georgian origin) did not shrink from adopting "greater Russian patriotism" to support his control of the USSR. In the Balkans, the hatreds of Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbians and Muslim Bosnians have stoked the fires of tribal wars for centuries.
In the nineteenth century a more liberal and universalist view developed, namely that all nations are made up of mixed tribal groups and we have to learn to live with each other, and democracy gives us the best way of doing that. This view was both propounded by and supported by a large proportion of Jews living in Central Europe and elsewhere. However, it was not adopted by the tribes they lived amongst, Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Lithuanians, etc. and so when the opportunity arose they turned on the Jews and murdered them.
The alternative view of a Jewish future was not to depend on other tribes for our safety, but rather to fight for our own native country, namely Zionism. Zionism has been a success, Israel now has a population of over 6 million Jews and a flourishing State and economy. We are caught in a tribal war with a segment of the Arab people that call themselves Palestinians. Although this is a relatively new designation, it allows them to consider themselves a tribe. In tribal wars the usual process is that you kill as many of the enemy as possible, in order to wipe out their numbers and prevent them ever being a threat again. That's what was done to the Jews time and time again, and this was the attitude in the Balkans quite recently, for example the massacre of Muslims at Srebrenice. But, in its wars in the 20th and 21st centuries, Israel has made every effort to avoid civilian casualties. Nevertheless, when fighting a terrorist army embedded within the civilain population, civilian casualties are unavoidable.
Now you get a clash between the liberal Jews in the West, who believe in universalist values, are against war and bloodshed, and hold these views partly because they want to fit into the prevalent culture where they reside, a form of camouflage, and the Jews of Israel who see war with our enemies who want to destroy us as a necessity. We are no more blood thirsty than they are, Israel is also a "western" state with the same basic values. But, give me a break, we have to fight these bastards, and if they choose to fight with their women and children by their side, and if they choose to brainwash their children that Jews are their enemies to be fought, then if they are killed in the fighting or in the crossfore, then so be it! That is the price that they have to pay for wanting and trying to kill all of us.
Many may speculate on what Israel will have gained by this war, as if it could have been avoided after 8 years of trying to avoid it, including withdrawing all our people and soldiers from Gaza and accepting continuous rocket bombardment. But, one thing that hopefully will come from it is a recognition by our enemies that we don't intend to go easily. We have survived so far and we intend to continue.

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