[WCUSP] al-Jazeerah article- re: Arthur Neslen ("Occupied Minds...")

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

JDodd wrote:  
Hi All,
This is someone I have never heard of.... any  glimmer of hope?
A  way out of the Gaza crisis
_http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D6B63C28-F631-4DA5-A76F-9014523ABCD6.h
tm_ 
(http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D6B63C28-F631-4DA5-A76F-9014523ABCD6.htm) 

 
 ========================   
Anti-Zionist, pro-Israeli

By Jill  Cartwright
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/735648.html
Mon., July 10,  2006 
Tamuz 14, 5766

British Jewish journalist Arthur Neslen doesn't  feel
comfortable being in Israel - and not because of the
stifling heat.  Rather, his discomfort stems from
political and ideological reasons. It  wasn't easy, he
says, to follow a path that led to a situation where he
is  in effect living here and "accepting benefits as a
Jew over an indigenous  population that has very few
rights."

Neslen, 38, was the London  correspondent for Al
Jazeera.net, the only Jew on staff, and for the  last
five years was the international editor of the leftist
magazine Red  Pepper. He is currently in Tel Aviv
writing for The Economist's Web site and  for several
other international publications, and is also promoting
his  new book, "Occupied Minds: A Journey Through the
Israeli Psyche," published  by Pluto Press in March.

Before embarking on writing the book, Neslen had  never
set foot in Israel, but it had always been a fixture in
his life, he  says, from early childhood, through
university and into his professional  life. "I couldn't
ignore the impact Israel and the politics of  Zionism
were having on my life and on the life of Jews in the
Diaspora" -  a Diaspora, he adds, whose identity is
rapidly disintegrating and which is  clinging
desperately to Israel for survival.

"Diaspora identity is  eroding," Neslen says matter-of-
factly. "Both because of Zionist politics  and because
of demographic reality." With the increase in
assimilation and  decrease in anti-Semitism, Israel has
become the totem around which all Jews  gather. "After
all," he continues, "apart from religion and a
beautiful  but atrophying culture, what else is there?
The one thing people can always  revert back to,
especially in the media age, is Israel. The way of
playing  out the psychodrama, not just in communal terms
but even family terms, is  Israel."

But talking critically about Israel in the Diaspora  has
become impossible, he feels. The terms of the debate
have become so  emotive, so visceral, so "completely out
of control" that one of the leading  motives behind
writing his book was to turn the spotlight back on
Israel,  back to those who were creating the context
within which he, his family, his  history and culture
were being understood. "The only way I felt I  could
provide a critique," he says, "was to hold up a mirror
of Israeli  society to the Diaspora.?

Settlers and sex workers

That mirror is  "Occupied Minds," a collection of some
50 interviews with Israelis, conducted  between 2003 and
2005. Neslen chose his subjects carefully and fairly  to
represent a broad cross-section of Jewish Israeli
society, from  settlers to sex workers, soldiers to
social workers.

He spoke with  Labor politicians such as Amram Mitzna,
right-wing rabbis such as Safed Rabbi  Shmuel Eliyahu,
and teenage anarchists; even Larissa Trembobler (wife
of  Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin?) has her
say. ("I think she's  misunderstood," Neslen admits,
hastening to add, "very confused, but  misunderstood.")

His journey took him from talks with  Holocaust
survivors, displaced immigrants, typecast Mizrahi
actors,  depoliticized DJs to parents such as Daniella
Kitain, whose son was killed in  the Lebanon helicopter
tragedy, and Arnold Roth, whose daughter was  murdered
in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem.

The result makes  for compelling reading. Moving,
passionate, sometimes desperate, but always  deeply
personal accounts. Some are in-depth, others just one-
page  vignettes; stories of loss, stories of faith,
stories of suffering, all  clearly presented alongside
black-and-white pictures of the interview  subjects, as
if the reader can almost hear them speaking. That is
exactly  the impression Neslen was aiming for.

"I wanted to make the book as  unmediated as possible,"
he explains. "I wanted to allow a direct  relation
between the reader and the person being interviewed.
And in that  sense I think [the book is] as objective as
it can be, even when it was  dealing with people whose
views I utterly detest."

Of which, he admits  when pushed, it seems there are
quite a few.

But the book is  definitely not a leftist rant against
Israel and what emerges is not a crass  statement
against the country's politics, but rather a very real
picture  of the human complexity that clamors for
attention on this small piece of  land.

"I tried to humanize people," says Neslen, "and I did
want to  humanize Zionism. If you can't humanize your
enemy, you become the enemy. And  I do see political
Zionism that starkly - as an enemy."

There are no  Israeli Arabs interviewed in the book. Why
is that? "It's a book specifically  about Israeli Jewish
identity. If you start talking about Israeli  identity,
I think you have a problem. Many Palestinian citizens
of Israel  would not define themselves as Israelis; they
would call themselves  Palestinians. Some wouldn't; they
would call themselves Israeli Arabs, but  for me to take
that position and say you are Israelis is making  a
statement I wasn't prepared to make."

Neslen's original intention  had been to end the book
with an interview with "some stoned Israeli on a  beach
in India," someone who had lost any connection with
Jewish identity.  "That would be the coup de grace of
Bundist polemic," he explains, "Zionism  as a modern-day
Golem that has destroyed the very people it was created
to  protect." However, he dropped the idea as it was
"too overt." Anyway, he  says, "I couldn't afford the
plane ticket."

Instead the book closes  with comments by Yaron Pe'er, a
musician and Sephardic Jew, who plays on the  beaches of
Ras a-Satan in Sinai with fellow artists from Cairo  and
Lebanon, who have gathered to "drop their used skins
and learn from  each other." It is an interview of
wistful optimism for a future without  discrimination,
divisions and the drive for material things.

"I wanted  to end the book on an optimistic note," says
Neslen. "I am anti-Zionist, but  I'm pro-Israeli and I
would like to see a situation where Israeli Jews  were
able to live here in peace, freedom and security."

Neslen, who is  single, was born in Ilford and has lived
all his life in or around London.  His father is
Canadian and his mother is from South Africa, a place
he  never wanted to visit "for the same reasons" he
never wanted to visit Israel  - "that I would be
benefiting from someone else's misfortune  and
participating in their oppression."

He studied sociology at  Manchester University and after
graduation went on to become the London  correspondent
for AlJazeera.net.

What was it like being the only Jew  working at the Al
Jazeera Internet site? "I enjoyed working there.  They
treated me very well and I never personally experienced
any  anti-Semitic comments. There were a couple of times
when I felt other writers  were going too far and I
complained to the editors about them and their  stories
were removed."

Such as? "One writer would refer to the  separation wall
as the 'Holocaust wall,' which is obviously  just
preposterous, and also tended to go out of his way to
get quotes from  everyone he interviewed comparing
Israelis to Nazis. My complaints almost  always resulted
in his reports being cut, taken down or  otherwise
amended.

"My editors at Al Jazeera were always fair and in  fact
interfered less with my copy than at other places I
have worked - and  were very understanding about my
taking Jewish holidays  off."




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