Reply to an Egyptian letter-writer

Originally published November 19, 2003

An Egyptian asks: Why am I a Zionist?

I received a letter from an Egyptian named Heba yesterday. I’m afraid I don’t know gender of Egyptian names.

Hi Meryl, hope this email makes it past the trash can. I have a few questions here to ask, which are sent in good will and not meant to be offensive, so I hope they don’t come out that way. First, I would really like to know why you defend Zionism so much? I know the history of the Holocaust and other acts of persecution of Jews all over the world, but if you conceive that Jews have a right to create an independent state, don’t you think the Palestinians should have that right too? I fail to see how a people who have been subjected to so much torture and prejudice over the years can allow themselves to subject others to it.

In your critique of the Guardian’s article on the Turkey bombings you made fun of the author because she wrote of how the Jews there felt and what they thought, while the actual Jews who lived there obviously felt otherwise. So, my point is, what’s happening to the Palestinians and what’s reported is not a bunch of lies, I am Egyptian, living here in the Middle East, and I have met and known too many Palestinian refugees to know for fact that it isn’t so. For heaven’s sake, I had a classmate with a scarred arm because of a bullet shot at her when she was 3 years old by an Israeli soldier- that was of course right before her parents moved here to Egypt.

So, what I’m saying is that I would really like to understand Zionism and Zionists. For instance, you’re American, so your country and state is the U.S. so why do you need another country to call your own? Judaism is a religion like any other religion and can be practiced any where like any other religion, and if Jews aren’t allowed to do that then they should fight for their right to do so and not move somewhere and start a state. So what I want to understand, from a seemingly intelligent and well read person, is why you support Zionism, because I have met Jews who don’t.

This has been a bit too long, I apologize. Hope I don’t get some sarcastic thrashing on your website.

Let’s take the points one at a time, and Heba, I’m not sarcastic to people who are looking for straightforward answers.

First, I would really like to know why you defend Zionism so much? I know the history of the Holocaust and other acts of persecution of Jews all over the world, but if you conceive that Jews have a right to create an independent state, don’t you think the Palestinians should have that right too?

Zionism originally was the movement for the establishment of a Jewish state. It is now the movement in support of the continued existence of the State of Israel. I defend Zionism because I believe that Israel has the right to exist. My belief in and support of Zionism has nothing to do with the palestinian state. They are two separate issues. My belief is that when the terrorists stop murdering Israeli children in their beds and stop blowing up innocent Israelis in restaurants, then I might turn my discussion toward a palestinian state. Not before. Not until. However, let’s not forget that when the United Nations partitioned the old British mandate of Palestine, the Jews said, “Well, that’s less than we wanted, but we’ll take it.” The Arab nations, including Egypt, declared war on the Jews. And many Arabs and Muslims insist today that Israel does not have the right to exist.

… what’s happening to the Palestinians and what’s reported is not a bunch of lies, I am Egyptian, living here in the Middle East, and I have met and known too many Palestinian refugees to know for fact that it isn’t so. For heaven’s sake, I had a classmate with a scarred arm because of a bullet shot at her when she was 3 years old by an Israeli soldier- that was of course right before her parents moved here to Egypt.

Actually, much of what is reported from the ground in the West Bank are lies. I can send you a link to a film of a palestinian “funeral” where the “mourners” dropped the body and the body jumped up and ran off. The lies of the “Jenin massacre” have been exposed time and again. The biggest lie of all is that Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount—which Muslims call Al-Aqsa—started the latest Intifada. I’m not saying your classmate wasn’t shot. But I suspect that Israeli soldiers weren’t targeting her, and in fact, many palestinians turn out to have been shot by their own people—not by Israeli soldiers. Of course, Israeli government sites and Israel press sources are regularly ignored and demonized by the Arab press. I don’t know how you feel about them as sources, but an independent press—one that is not subject to government restrictions—is far more worthy of trust in my mind.

Note that I am not saying that life isn’t awful for the palestinians. But they’re the ones who harbor the terrorists among them, who honor the murderers of babies, who name soccer stadiums and streets after mass murderers, and who, when polled by their own pollsters, overwhelmingly approve of suicide bombs as a legitimate weapon against Israelis. We have a saying here: You reap what you sow. Bullets don’t fly for no reason. And far fewer innocent Palestinians have been killed than have been reported.

For instance, you’re American, so your country and state is the U.S. so why do you need another country to call your own? Judaism is a religion like any other religion and can be practiced any where like any other religion, and if Jews aren’t allowed to do that then they should fight for their right to do so and not move somewhere and start a state.

I don’t need another country to call my own. I’m an American and quite happy to remain one. That doesn’t mean I can’t support Israel in fact and in principle. But there are also more than five million Israeli Jews who do have Israel as a country to call their own. Many of them are descended from Jews who were forced out of the Arab nations after the establishment of the State of Israel. It’s not so easy to practice Judaism wherever we want to, and fighting for our rights is what we’re doing in Israel. Because the world hasn’t had a sterling record to date in protecting Jews’ right to worship as we please.

Your point here is a bit disingenuous. Judaism is a religion, yes. But Jews are also a people, a culture. It’s the most difficult part of trying to get others to understand what being Jewish entails. I can be an atheist and still be Jewish. Some people say I can convert to Christianity and still be Jewish. (At the very least, I was still born a Jew.) Perhaps if we never called ourselves Jews to begin with, if we had called ourselves Israeli for the past several thousand years, or perhaps if we called Israel “Jewland” or “Jewsylvania” or something like that, people would get that you can be a Jew and not be religious. Egyptians are mostly Muslim, but many are Christian, too. And while we’re on that topic: How many practicing Jews do you know of in Egypt? Did you know that it is illegal to practice anything but Islam in Saudi Arabia? When was the last new church built in Egypt? Did you know the laws there forbid a church to be built within a certain distance of a mosque, or if the locals object to it, or if the government decides that there aren’t enough Christians to support the building of a new church? Go ahead, try to get a new church built in Cairo.

Not so easy to practice a minority religion even in your own country, is it? Are you beginning to understand why Jews finally decided we needed a place to call our own? Judaism is not a religion like any other religion, because no other religion has been so victimized by so many different nations over so many thousands of years. And it still goes on today. Did you watch those Ramadan miniseries based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? More lies about the Jews, created by your country’s television studios.

[…] if Jews aren’t allowed to do that then they should fight for their right to do so and not move somewhere and start a state.

We didn’t move “somewhere.” We moved to the land of Israel, the land that had a continuous Jewish presence for three millennia. It was our homeland. Jews began to immigrate back in the 19th century, buying the land from local Arabs, who sold it willingly. But the Arabs decided at some point that they didn’t want to live in peace with the Jews anymore, and it was long before the Holocaust occurred. Did you know that the Jews of Hebron were massacred in 1929? I’m sure you’ve heard all about Deir Yassin, but not a word about Hebron except for what you hear today about the “settlers” in that town. Even the name, “Hebron,” is Jewish. Where do you think it came from? It’s a Biblical town, and until 1929, had a significant Jewish population.

So what I want to understand, from a seemingly intelligent and well read person, is why you support Zionism, because I have met Jews who don’t.

I see no conflict between being intelligent, well-read, and supporting Zionism, but I suspect again that your definition of the word does not match mine. Once more, a Zionist is one who supports the State of Israel as a homeland for Jews.

As for Jews who are not Zionists, I find them to be idiots. The echoes of the 1930s are being heard in the Europe of the 21st century and throughout the Muslim world.

I am pleased no end that I received a letter from an Egyptian who does not seem to hate me because I am Jewish, and who is interested in hearing a different viewpoint. But most of your countrymen don’t seem to think like you do, and if you’re a Muslim, most of your coreligionists don’t seem to have anything but hatred for me and my people. I read the English-language Arab press. The libels about “Zionists” are the same filth that was being spewed by Goebbels’ propaganda machine 70 years ago, only they simply called us Jews back then.

I would like nothing more than for Jews and Arabs to live in peace and prosperity. But there seems to be a problem on the Arab end with accepting the existence of a Jewish state in the neighborhood. As Imshin (an Israeli Jew) said some time ago, the Israelis aren’t going anywhere.

Time to get over it, accept it, and work out a peaceful solution.

Hope that helped, Heba, and thank you for your letter.