katalog-overlapping voices - Ritesinstitute

Vienna statement
Yoav weiss
1. coming to vienna i felt my identity as an israeli,
in which the Jewish component plays a rather
minor role, change. i abruptly became aware of my
delicate position in austria: had i been here 70
years ago i would likely have been exterminated
like a rat. But here i am, in the land of hitler and
freud, of wittgenstein and mozart and klimt and
the anschluss. and the german language of which
we in israel learn only very specific terms: achtung!,
Raus!, aktion, transport, “arbeit macht frei”,
Buchenwald, fuehrer, etc.
the landscape, the architecture, the food … everything
is so european, so familiar from holocaustmemorial-day-afternoon-movies
on tv. i understand
that this is my conditioning. i know that
‘arbeiten’ just means ‘to work’ and that Buchenwald
is just a forest of beech trees; that the people
i see around me are not the people who murdered
my grandparents’ generation; but i sense
my israeli-ness taking a back seat to Jewishness.
i recently found a letter written by ephraim gover, a
Jewish Palestinian soldier in the British army. it expresses
in a way my feelings visiting vienna. the letter,
to his family in Palestine, is dated June 21, 1945:
slowly slowly we came out of the alps toward the low
hills. around us: German austria. we reached Klagenfurt,
about 70 km. from the border. the city is almost
undamaged. the situation isn‘t great: many
stores are closed, there are lines for food. But there
is a German ambiance, and German people are continuing
their normal life. on the banks of the big lake
there are beautiful resorts. Germans are sitting on
the lawns, sunning themselves and enjoying life.
when i see this i am overcome with rage, impotence
and envy: our murderers are free, well
dressed and live in the bosom of their families
while we drift around a europe cursed by their
“pretty” actions. it is difficult to walk in the street
and hear everyone speaking their cursed tongue,
to see their cool quiet faces and their self-confident
pride, as if they were the lords of this land.
one cannot see in their faces any hint of embarrassment
or remorse.
once i was sitting on a tram-car next to a young German
who was comfortably reading a book. i couldn‘t
bear it and stepped on his foot. he looked up and
when he saw who i was, got up and left.
gover was killed on march 26, 1948 at age 21 in
israel’s war of independence also known as the
nakba.
2. in israel, the political spectrum ranges from the
ultra-right wing racists from the settlements tapuach
and kiryat arba to the liberal-right-of-centre
likud party which wants an iron fist but also peace,
to the centre-left labour party which wants peace
but also an iron fist, to the Zionist left-wing which
wants peace and no iron fist at all, to the non/post/
anti-Zionist left which wants a solution to the conflict
which would include territorial concessions,
right-of return and equal rights for israel’s Palestinian
citizens. this is the visible spectrum. however,
beyond it, invisible yet palpable, is the Palestinian
spectrum of the pragmatic nationalist Plo,
the somewhat less pragmatic religious hamas, to
the absolutely fanatical islamic Jihad and others.
thus my artwork and my politics would place me
to the left, maybe extreme left, of israeli politics
but actually in a fairly central position if one takes
the whole spectrum into account.
3. the israeli foreign ministry and its diplomats often
claim that criticism of israel and its policies visà-vis
the Palestinians is an expression of latent
anti-semitism [a claim i always thought ridiculous:
what better way to avoid criticism than to accuse
the critics of anti-semitism]. however, in austria i
have heard from a number of people, not necessarily
Jews or Zionists, that some of the criticism
of israel has roots in the traditional european antisemitism
and i take it on faith that this is true.
so, just as my identity shifted as i arrived in austria,
my politics change their meaning. my strenuous
opposition to the occupation springs from a deeply
patriotic source. i simply don’t think that israel can
exist for long – politically, economically, culturally,
spiritually – while the albatross of the occupation
hangs about its neck. But if this work ends up fuelling
anti-semitic currents in austrian society then
perhaps it is better not to show work at all. on the
other hand, there must exist in europe a forum of
legitimate opposition to israel’s policies.
4. if indeed criticism of israel’s policies toward the
Palestinians is an outlet for anti-semitism, then it
is proof that history has a bitter and ironic sense
of humour. had anti-semitism in general and the
vicious liquidation of europe’s Jewry under the nazis
not made europe uninhabitable for Jews; the
Jews would not have migrated to Palestine. in her
book “land and Power” anita shapira writes that
if anyone in Palestine had said in 1938 that within
ten years there would be a Jewish state, they would
have been regarded as hallucinating. it is clear that
the holocaust directly precipitated the nakba.
i am not writing this to absolve israel or the Zionist
movement of its responsibility, but to say that europeans
must take a long and careful look in the
mirror before using the Palestinians’ suffering as
an excuse for an anti-semitic agenda.
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