Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Hasbara is a
dirty word. A really, really bad word.
As a writer I am sensitive to words, the way they are used
(or misused) and how they shape reality. Words describe reality but they also
create it, forming a perspective or mindset which influences behavior and as a
result, forms our experiences. Athletes know this, psychologists know this and
so do abusive people who use words to maintain power over others.
The word “hasbara” is a problem.
Hasbara is the word often used to describe the actions of
the pro-Israel advocacy movement. Hasbara is a word in Hebrew and it comes from
the root word “hesber,” explanation or “lehasbeer,” to explain.
The implication is that it is necessary to “explain” Israel
or Israel’s actions.
Is it necessary to explain France? Or America? Or Russia?
Even the English term “advocacy” is problematic. An advocate
is a lawyer who defends someone in court - defending the person accused of a
crime.
The demand for explanations or even the feeling that
advocacy is necessary is a mindset of guilt, as if we have done something wrong
and need to explain ourselves. The Jew, presumed guilty until proven innocent…
like medieval witch trials – throw her in the river, if she floats she’s a
witch (and as such must be killed), if she drowns she is “proven” innocent…
There are a number of examples of words others have
deliberately chosen as part of the propaganda war, designed to delegitimize the
Jewish people and undermine the future of the Nation of Israel (Palestine,
West
Bank, Wailing Wall….). The fact that so many have adopted this this
terminology, bringing it legitimacy, without thinking or through the (in my
opinion, mistaken) belief that there is no other option, exacerbates an
existing problem. “Hasbara,” on the other hand, is a word we chose and
a mindset we are perpetuating in the supposed effort to empower our people.
Have we gotten so used to the hate that we have accepted and
adopted as our own, the idea that we are guilty until proven innocent? After
centuries of proof to the contrary, do we still believe that a good enough
explanation will get us out of “punishment”?
After 2000 years of exile and 70 years of statehood, the
Nation of Israel, Jews around the world and even many Israeli Jews, are still
trapped in galut mentality. This is the thought process of the weak, of those
who must suffer in silence, hoping that the “civilized” will prevent our misery
from becoming too terrible.
While an understandable position for a People with no state,
guests in other people’s lands, this is not an acceptable position for a free
and proud nation. Even our enemies do not explain themselves. They boldly claim
victimhood, even when it is not true. They scream and accuse, with no shame - but
they do not explain themselves. Their “rights,” in their minds, are obvious and
need no explanation. Why should ours?
My right to life is not something that needs explaining, it
is obvious. My country not only has to a right to defend her citizens but has
an obligation to do so. No sovereign nation needs to explain this to anyone.
Hasbara is a dirty word because it is indicative of and
helps perpetuate galut mentality. We are no longer a subservient people, after
2000 years of exile it is time to behave according to who we are and what we
have achieved – the miraculous, what no other nation on earth has ever done
before – sovereignty in our ancestral homeland for the third time.
The strong do not explain themselves. No one respects the
weak. While some might pity the victim, even pity is not empathy and we, thank
God, are no longer at the mercy of the civilized.
Now it is only the prison of our own minds holding us back.
