At a graduation ceremony of a kindergarten, sponsored by a women’s charity organization in the West Bank town of Anabta, preschoolers wearing uniforms and carrying toy guns performed a song routine. A picture of PLO founder, Yasser Arafat is visible on stage.
Here is an excerpt of one of the songs these little kids performed:
“On the mountains, behind the hills, within the valleys – you will be defeated, you will be defeated. Whether you come by land, by sea, or by air – you will be crushed, you will be crushed. If you stretch your hand, it will be chopped off. If you just look with your eye, it will be gouged out. The defeated army will be too terrified to come back. We come for you before, and woe betide you if we come back again. You come to this land alive, but you will leave it as body part. On the mountains, behind the hills, within the valleys – you will be defeated, you will be defeated. Whether you come by land, by sea, or by air – you will be crushed, you will be crushed.”
…It is past due for Presidents Obama, Hollande, Prime Minister Cameron, and Chancellor Merkel to tell the Palestinians: If you actually want your own state, then prove- to your Israeli neighbors in word and deed– that Palestinians are finally ready to tell their young that a state means embracing peace, not preparing for the next war.
Wow. That song that Palestinian preschoolers sang curdles my blood. It’s just pure hate. Jews would never say anything like that.
I mean, sure, we do pray three times a day in the Amidah: “And for slanderers let there be no hope; and may all Your enemies be cut down speedily. May you speedily uproot, smash, cast, down, and humble the wanton sinners — speedily in our days. Blessed are you, HaShem, Who breaks enemies and humbles wanton sinners.”
Little Jewish kids recite those words.
What exactly is the difference between what Jews pray three times and what these Palestinian kids sang?
At the end of the morning prayers (Shacharit), Jews say the Six Remembrances, including:
“You shall remember what Amalek did to you on the way, when you went out of Egypt, how he happened upon you on the way and cut off all the stragglers at your rear, when you were faint and weary, and did not fear G‑d. [Therefore,] it will be, when the L‑rd your G-d grants you respite from all your enemies around [you] in the land which the L‑rd, your G‑d, gives to you as an inheritance to possess, that you shall obliterate the remembrance of Amalek from beneath the heavens. You shall not forget!”
So if the Palestinians repeated this prayer but substituted “Jews” and “Israel” for “Amalek”, would that be hate speech? How does this prayer sound now? “You shall remember what the Jews did to you on the way, when you went out of Egypt, how he happened upon you on the way and cut off all the stragglers at your rear, when you were faint and weary, and did not fear G‑d. [Therefore,] it will be, when the L‑rd your G-d grants you respite from all your enemies around [you] in the land which the L‑rd, your G‑d, gives to you as an inheritance to possess, that you shall obliterate the remembrance of Israel from beneath the heavens. You shall not forget!”
“Amalek” is a flexible moral category that Jews sometimes use as a shorthand for their enemies.
Wikipedia notes: “In the religious teaching of Meir Kahane (1932 – 1990), Amalek is a mythical enemy of Israel, embodied in different actual enemies throughout Jewish history. Since God and the Jewish people, according to Kahane, are ontologically related, the contemporary enemies of Israel are allegedly threatening existence of God himself. In the contemporary meaning, “Amalek” refers to the hostile Gentiles who are to be revenged for the near annihilation of Jews and their God, or calls for the analogous actions in future. Metaphysics of Kahane, borrowed from the earlier Jewish authors (Judah Halevy, Abraham Isaac Kook), provided justification for the radical movement known as Kahanism, presently banned in Israel.”
How about when Jews chant “Death to the Arabs“? Is that hate speech?
I have no problem with Jews chanting “Death to the Arabs” and I have no problem with Arabs and Muslims chanting “Death to the Jews.” Any healthy strongly identifying Arab or Muslim is going to have negative feelings about Jews, in part because they have a Jewish state on land that Arabs and Muslims believe belongs to them. Any healthy strongly identifying Jew is going to have some negative feelings about Gentiles, particularly Arabs and Muslims. A strongly identifying Jap is likely to have some negative feelings towards Koreans and Chinese and strongly identifying Koreans are likely to dislike Japan and strongly identifying Chinese are likely to dislike Japan.
An Orthodox Jewish friend the other day told me, “You know Aussies. They hate everyone who isn’t Aussie.” Well, that’s largely how it goes for all strongly identifying in-groups. They tend to have negative feelings about outsiders in proportion to how strongly they identify with their own in-group.
I don’t think Jews or Palestinians are wicked for having enemies. Every strong in-group identity carries with it increased suspicion of outsiders. As a Jew grows in his Judaism, he typically develops more negative feelings about outsiders, just as when a Muslim grows in his Islam, he also typically develops more negative feelings about outsiders, just as when Aryans grow in their Aryan identity, they typically develop more negative feelings about outsiders.
Every group has enemies. Every group has a victimology. Every victimology has a nationalism. Every nationalism contains the capacity for genocide.
