From the Archives: Israel’s violence then and now
JVL Introduction
In this article from 2024, Mike Scialom describes how his Jewish Egyptian father’s life was turned upside down by the creation of the Israel state. His family had been part of the immigration to Egypt following the opening of the Suez Canal. Israel’s foundation broke the trust that had existed between Jews and Egyptian Arabs, their assets were sequestered and they had no choice but to leave. The extended family left Egypt but to anywhere but Israel. Mike views his own family story as a rarely acknowledged tragic consequence of the act of the “psychopathic terrorist” founders of Israel. It binds him to the region, to supporting Gazans like his mentee Aminha, and to repeating his father’s story:
People like me — if there are any who have a similar story— have to speak out. We can’t sit in silence. We know the truth. We embody the truth. We are the product of the past and have to talk about it. To not talk about it is to be complicit. It’s true that the creation of the state of Israel created hundreds of thousands of Arab victims, but they also created victims like my father, who barely spoke of what happened to him.
TB
This article was originally published by Medium on Fri 17 May 2024. Read the original here.
Born and raised in Egypt, my Jewish-origin father never recovered from the creation of the state of Israel
Zionism has always been a terrorist organisation and its victims include Jews and Judaism
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Mike Scialom, you’ve added to my understanding of how complex history of the Jewish people is, thank you. I will remember your words.
I wanted to express more about how I felt reading your words but I can’t find the right words myself; I hope that other people reading this article can
Having heard Avi Shlaim speak many times I can understand where you are coming from. A rapidly increasing number of Jews are distancing themselves from the settler-colonial state founded and maintained by violence.
Despite having my awareness drawn to Israeli propaganda as early as 1967 by Jewish friends (thank you Mr & Mrs Cohen), and knowing from first hand accounts of West Bank harassment in the early 2000s, I unconsciously all to easily gave way to the normalisation of the ongoing developments, Trump’s Abraham Accords from 2023. A catch up on wider history and European involvement has been vital. Thanks Mike Scialom for adding to this and to JVL for reposting.
It should be noted that the Nasser regime in Egypt was also a consequence of the creation of Israel in 1948. Nasser took part in the ensuing Arab-Israeli War and emerged from it thoroughly disillusioned, partly by the cruelty of the Israelis and, above all, by the corruption of the Arabs. With a handful of officers, he founded the Free Officers Movement, which seized power in Egypt in 1952. These officers were undoubtedly full of good intentions, but were incompetent at running a country or an economy. This incompetence quickly turned into a dictatorship, a dictatorship justified by the existence of an enemy: Israel.