{"id":493,"date":"1969-08-10T14:00:47","date_gmt":"1969-08-10T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matzpen.org\/english\/?p=493"},"modified":"2024-03-30T14:17:22","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T11:17:22","slug":"liars-%e2%80%92-moshe-machover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matzpen.org\/english\/1969-08-10\/liars-%e2%80%92-moshe-machover\/","title":{"rendered":"Liars \u2012 Moshe Machover"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This article was written in London, where the author has been living since September 1968. It was published in Matzpen 50<\/a>, August 1969. Translated from Hebrew by the author.]<\/em><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago I received a letter from a personal friend of mine in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cLately\u201d, he writes, \u201cthe press is full of attacks against you people. The style of the stories is very infuriating. In none of them, for example, have they seen fit to quote a single sentence from you. And without describing what you actually do the reports make it \u201cclear\u201d that you are traitors. Today, for example, Ma\u2019ariv<\/em> printed a report headed \u201cJews in the service of Fatah in London\u201d, in which it is said, \u201cDr. Machover will surely be very angered by me calling him a Jew\u201d. You know that in substance I do not share your views, but I am infuriated by the inflammatory tone of the stories; especially because after reading them you would either like to tear Dr. Machover to pieces or shrug your shoulders, but in either case you don\u2019t really know what he is supposed to have done\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Ma\u2019ariv<\/em> story mentioned in the letter \u2014 which is one of many in the same vein \u2014 was written by Gabriel Strassman, Ma\u2019ariv<\/em>\u2019s London correspondent, and was published on May 6, 1969. And, true enough, whoever read that story carefully and critically, as did my friend, realized at once that it contained absolutely nothing about the substance of what \u201cDr. Machover and his friends of the Matzpen group\u201d say in London. Indeed, the factual content of that story \u2014 as of all others of the same kind \u2014 is very meager. (And here I must add something that my friend could not have inferred from reading that material: even the few \u201cfacts\u201d that Mr. Strassman\u2019s story cites are distorted. For example, he mentions a meeting organized by the Arab students in London, and implies that I was one of the platform speakers there. Yet the truth is that I made no speech from the platform, but took part in the discussion that followed the speeches, in which also other Israelis participated from the floor, like me. The only difference was that I did not defend the official Israeli position, but utterly dissociated myself from it.)<\/p>\n

I am unable \u2014 even had I been so inclined \u2014 to enter into a debate with Mr. Strassman and the other authors of the inflammatory stories. There is simply nothing to debate about. At most, it would be possible to list several dozen more or less blatant factual distortions. But that would bore both the reader and me; and in any case it is unimportant. Because, in the best demagogic tradition, the facts (even the distorted ones) do not constitute the substance of the incitement, but only an embellishment designed to mislead the unguarded reader and lend the defamatory articles a credible air of \u201cfactuality\u201d. As my friend discovered on careful and critical reading, the main incitement is in the form of very general evaluations and allegations such as: what is said by the members of Matzpen abroad is \u201cpoisonous\u201d and \u201cserves the seditionists of al-Fatah.\u201d<\/p>\n

So a debate is not called for. Neither is it necessary to give a detailed account of what we do say, because what we say abroad is exactly the same as what our comrades say in Israel, with which readers of Matzpen<\/em> are in any case familiar through reading this paper.<\/p>\n

Instead, it is much more interesting to consider the following question: Why is the Israeli press so enraged? Why is the Israeli establishment so indignant? What has caused this furious campaign of baiting, libel, and incitement?<\/p>\n

The answer is quite simple. The incitement campaign is a symptom, a cry of pain. The Israeli establishment has been wounded in a sensitive weak spot.<\/p>\n

Israel is not the only state that practices oppression and denial of rights of members of \u201cinferior\u201d peoples (or races); neither is it the only state located geographically in the midst of the third world and serving there as a partner and buttress of global imperialist powers. There are many examples of such states, some less bad, some worse: for example, South Africa. But South Africa does not expect to have the sympathy of world public opinion (let alone that of the international left). The rulers of South Africa have long been accustomed to the world\u2019s condemnation; and they can also afford to thumb their noses at it. They rule over a rich industrialized country that does not depend on charitable funds or American subsidy. On the contrary, the present regime of South Africa enables the huge American and British capital invested there to extract fat profits. Therefore those racists are not too bothered by the world\u2019s antipathy. And the rest of the world for its part has long been used to seeing South Africa in its true light. For the South African press is printed in European languages that can be widely read abroad, and the whole world can easily read it and witness the depth of moral and political vileness of its dominant ideology.<\/p>\n

Israel has no rich natural resources. The Israeli establishment does not rely on exploiting diamond and iron mines but on exploiting the sympathy of world public opinion. (To be precise, this is its second most important mainstay; the first one is the common interest of imperialism and Zionism, but this lies outside the topic under discussion here.)<\/p>\n

The State of Israel holds the world record in balance-of-trade deficit. The deficit is covered by an enormous flow \u2014 unparalleled in size and the length of time during which it has kept flowing \u2014 of money from outside. A major part of this money comes in the form of tax-free donations. This is how it works. A Jew in New York, for example, donates $1,000 to the United Jewish Appeal. The US Treasury recognizes this as a \u201ccharitable\u201d donation, free of income tax. Had that $1,000 not been paid to the UJA, most of it (say $770) would have had to be paid to the Treasury [In 1969 the top rate of US federal income tax was 77 percent]. It follows that in reality only $230 are donated by the donor, while $770 are donated by the US government.<\/p>\n

This arrangement \u2014 which exists also in other Western countries \u2014 depends on two conditions. First, the treasury department of the country in question must recognize the donation as \u201ccharitable\u201d; second, the Jewish donor must prefer the UJA to other appeals for charity. If local public opinion will turn its back to Israel, both of these conditions would be put in doubt. The treasury department would find it difficult to resist public pressure and continue recognizing donations to Israel as \u201ccharity\u201d; and many Jewish donors \u2014 who also form part of public opinion, and influence it as well as being influenced by it \u2014 would prefer donating their money to other causes, such as animal welfare.<\/p>\n

Now since the June war, the true face of the Israeli authorities has been uncovered, and the world\u2019s sympathy is progressively vanishing. Of course, the main cause for this is not the “failures of Israeli hasbarah<\/em>” [literally “explanation”, a Hebrew term for the systematic zionist propaganda] or the “hate propaganda of the al-Fatah inciters and their Matzpen helpers” \u2014 but simply the facts themselves. For example, the fact that Israel plays thoroughly the role of occupier \u2014 the whole world smiles ruefully at the pious \u201cliberal\u201d pretensions of various occupiers \u2014 and shows very clear signs of having an appetite for annexations.<\/p>\n

How far has this gone? Take one example. Piet Nak is a Dutch docker, an ordinary person, but a very brave one, as well as what is known in Israel as \u201cRighteous among the Nations\u201d. During the Nazi occupation he organized a movement of strikes and demonstrations against the deportation of Jews to extermination camps.<\/p>\n

At present he is the secretary of the Dutch Palestine Committee, devoted to mobilizing support for the Palestinian struggle; and he makes public appearances and declares that a few years ago, when he agreed to accept an honorary citizenship of Israel, he was still unaware of the true nature of its policy, whereas now he thinks that Moshe Dayan is Nazi-like.<\/p>\n

Should we then be surprised by the furious rage of the Israeli establishment?<\/p>\n

As I pointed out, the change in public opinion is not mainly due to some kind of deliberate propaganda. It is stupid to believe that a tiny handful of dissident Israelis staying abroad is able \u2014 even with the greatest effort \u2014 to cause such a great change of public mood. But we, this handful, can easily do something quite simple: we can translate into European languages the thoughts of the Israeli establishment, as they are published in Hebrew, in the Israeli press. In doing this we topple one of the natural defensive walls behind which the establishment used to hide from the world\u2019s scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Who, in the great wide world, can read Hebrew? Which important international paper would bother publishing a detailed survey of what is printed in the Israeli press?<\/p>\n

It seems that up till now Israel has been able to indulge in a luxury that is not available to other states of its kind: it could manage a domestic public opinion inflamed by nationalist and militarist preaching, by a chauvinist press that utters in a nonchalant tone stuff that would horrify every decent person around the world \u2014 and at the same time conduct abroad pious propaganda wrapped in a cloak of humanist values. These two propaganda worlds are separated by the natural barrier of language. And the Israeli correspondents of the world press \u2014 the great majority of whom are Zionist Jews \u2014 do little to breach this barrier. But now this handful of Israelis turn up and publish translations of what is printed in the Israeli press. This too causes the establishment great pain, and it reacts hysterically.<\/p>\n

We do not wish to exaggerate the importance of our public educational work, but we are convinced that it is not only absolutely legitimate, but also good for the hygiene of Israel\u2019s internal political life: let those who conduct racist and chauvinist propaganda in Israel know that what they say is being heard abroad. We shall go on translating.<\/p>\n

\"ISRAC

Especially hysterical is the incitement and haranguing issued by those Israeli journalists who are in the habit of wrapping themselves in a cloak of \u201cdecency\u201d and even \u201cprogressiveness\u201d, and who like to pretend that they are not quite happy about the Israeli establishment.<\/p>\n