Guy Yedwab

Victoria Anderson

11/16/06

Milk, Honey, and Shit

I am an Israeli-American. Whether I have wanted to or not, I have been linked to a two nations

with short and highly controversial histories. My Israeli heritage, which I hold very near to my heart,

has been very problematic for me, of late. The last time we were in the news was this summer, when

my proud nation decided to unilaterally invade the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Images filled the media of

Israeli rockets pounding Beirut apart, blasting bridges and apartment buildings and human lives into the

ground.

What does it mean to be a patriot in times like these?

I've often heard that patriotism is love for your country. Love is a word that could refer to many

complicated relationships; patriotism could mean anything. Somewhere in the idea of patriotism has

always lurked the idea that your country could be an example to the world, such as John Winthrop's

description of Boston in 1630 as “a city on the hill, [with] all the eyes of the people on us.” So can you

still feel patriotic love for a country whose acts have horrified you?

Beirut was a beautiful city once. Once upon a time she was dubbed the “Paris of the Middle

East.” Nowadays, she looks more like Paris under the Third Reich. Even worse, she looks like London

after the Battle of Britain. Who would know that only a year ago, everyone was talking about the bright

new future ahead of Lebanon? After the assassination of a head Lebanese official by Syria and the

withdrawal of Syrian troops, it looked as though Lebanon was going to see the first few moments if

independence, the first few moments of democratic self-determination. Like every moment of

optimism, the euphoria of last year's democratic flowering was followed by a dark spell as those

dreams were blasted to hell by efficient air strikes.

As an Israeli citizen, I find it difficult to stomach my own country's actions. My American

distance from the events places them in a very unpleasant context.

 The Middle East is, ironically, supposed to be the home of all the utopias of the Judeo-Christian

societies. Slightly over half of the world believes in one of the 'religions of the Book' (Judaism,

Christianity, Islam); each of them believes that something euphoric is fated to happen in the Kingdom

of Jerusalem. All three religions look back to a Garden of Eden which was the height of worldly utopia,

and which allegedly was in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the Middle East is one of the world's most

contentious hot-spots of warfare and religious strife. The western-style democracy installed by the

Jewish people had promised an alternative; that with democracy, the Israeli people could show by

example a utopian ideal of cooperation in a very land torn apart by radicalism. Can I ignore the

radicalism which has subverted the original dream of utopia and still love what is left of that utopia in

my country, or is that love beyond me?

In “Late Victorians”, Richard Rodriguez says that he has “never looked for utopia on a map.”

(Rodriguez 313). He is not referring to a religious utopia like Jerusalem or Mecca; rather, he is

referring to the utopia of American liberalism. He depicts the “lonely teenagers [who] still arrive in San

Francisco aboard Greyhound buses.” (Rodriguez 312). He depicts the migration of hispanics who

migrated “to California from Mexico” (Rodriguez 313). Especially, he depicts the arrival of

homosexuals to the Castro District. He says it “was the revolutionary place.” (Rodriguez 317). The

disaffected liberal movements flocked to San Francisco in the 1960s and 1970s, looking to remake the

city of San Francisco in their image. As he puts it, “San Francisco has entertained an idea of itself as

heaven on earth, whether as Cold Town or City Beautiful or Treasure Island or Haight-Ashbury.”

(Rodriguez 313). It is the Haight-Ashbury phase of 'heaven-on-earth' which fills the '60s and '70s, with

hippies, youth movements, and the gay rights movement.

While this, to Rodriguez, represents “the mythic American path toward optimism,” (Rodriguez

312), he parallels the dreams of the masses with the terrible reactions which shatter its perfection.

Starting from his description of a woman committing suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge, Rodriguez

brings in dystopian counters to the utopia that people see San Francisco to be. After discussing the

power of interior design to transform nature, using his painter as an example, he suddenly draws the
relationship between gays and nature into a sharp twist; the very painter who he has described as

'changing nature' disappears. “Someone told...[Rodriguez] that he has AIDS” (Rodriguez 316). Even

where gays seem to revel in their transformation of nature, in a city where that transformation becomes

“the highest form of art” (Rodriguez 316), they are still easily destroyed by that nature. The utopian

haven of Castro is cast into doubt when Rodriguez references the “ultimate gay basher” (Rodriguez

317), a City Supervisor who goes on a rampage and revolted against “the Castro revolution”

(Rodriguez 317). Even his closest friend, César, who Rodriguez seems to look up to—and who hopes

to add San Francisco “to the gates of Jerusalem” (Rodriguez 313) –“experienced agony” (Rodriguez

321) before he too died of AIDS.

But in the end, Rodriguez does not reject San Francisco. He does not reject San Francisco like

the gay men in “Pacific Heights or in the Richmond, [who] often spoke with derision of 'Castro Street

clones'” (Rodriguez 317). He contrasts his own pessimism with that of the youthful optimism which

still sees San Francisco as a utopia, but says “I do not believe that an old man's pessimism is truer than

a young man's optimism simply because it comes after.” (Rodriguez 312). In the end, he says of the still

optimistic San Franciscans that they have “learned to love what is corruptible.” (Rodriguez 323).

Somehow, they still manage to find some redeeming qualities in the city which seems so filled with

death and agony. The city is not perfect to them; even in San Francisco, which would pride itself on its

tolerance, lurks the face of the homophobic city supervisor. Still, they have love for the city—a sort of

patriotic pride that keeps them fighting for their utopian dream even when it is confronted by the

sorrowful dark side that it must have. Is this what patriotism is, to love the city for what it could be

even as they must see what it is?

This must be my sort of patriotism, because in spite of everything I know about both Israel and

America—whether it is Abu Ghirab or bulldozing in Gaza—has not turned me away from the countries

which gave me my roots.

Rodriguez's San Francisco is not the only utopian dream fraught by cruel reality. Very recently, I

had the distinct pleasure of touring the United Nations Headquarters on the East River. Having seen, in
my own country, the ravages of unchecked nationalism, I look forward to the day that a world

government balances the concerns of nation against nation, people against people, to prevent the

widespread death and destruction such as that which the Lebanese have just suffered through. It

instilled within me a sense of pride that I was part of a generation taking part in the great new

experiment; a sense of pride which was quickly stolen from me when I came before the bronze bust of

Count Bernadotte. Count Bernadotte was a United Nations mediator who was sent to resolve the Israeli

War of Independence (known as the Great Catastrophe in the Arab nations). An Israeli group of

terrorists, known as the Lehi, killed him for even suggesting that Jerusalem should belong to the world,

rather than to Israel. My stomach bottomed out, churning. For a brief moment I had hoped that it wasn't

true, that someone else's radicals had killed that utopian dream. I had come to accept that there were

hateful radicals in my country now—couldn't I still believe that when the country had been founded,

there had still been principles I could still love—the principle of justice for all peoples, for instance?

Unfortunately, reality in the past has its ugly side just as it does today.

The history taught to us in our youth is often given to us in the most rose-colored of lenses. As

Americans, we learn that America was founded as a place for people to come together and worship

freely and equally. It is only later in our lives that we bring into context the brutal single-mindedness of

the Puritans, or slavery, at our country's roots. America was funded on the back of Thomas Jefferson's

famous principle “that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their creator with an inalienable

right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” How then, do we lose our innocent love of him when

we realize that he held slaves?

Our patriotic love comes from our agreement with the ideals that we see represented. For

America, we respect our country's personal freedoms, its defense of the common man in the face of

tyranny. In Israel, we look to Israel as a haven of peace for the Jews, where cultural violences like the

Holocaust can become a thing of the past. Standing in the lobby of the United Nations, I could see and

hear their own ideals: that of a worldwide justice, where nations can face each other equally and

peacefully. This has not been the case. More often than not, the United Nations has proven ineffectual
in its pursuit of justice. Many of its institutions face stone-walling and difficulties in the pursuit of their

justice; and they can only react to past offenses.

For instance, the International Court of Justice in the Hague is in the position of listening to the

continued trial of the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal, as related by Lawrence Weschler, in his essay

“Vermeer in Bosnia.” They listen to the horrors which were committed in Bosnia by the Serbian

government, day in and day out. It is beyond the scope of my comprehension how they can continue to

believe in justice while hearing story after story about its failure. If anyone had to listen to tales of how

“'[war criminal Dusko] Tadic...is alleged to have supervised the torture and torments of a particular

group of Muslim prisoners, at one point forcing one of his charges to emasculate another—with his

teeth” (Weschler 339), they might never again be able to believe in the goodness of man. What's worse,

the judge, Antonio Cassesse, does not even see these horrors as being any more than “one judge's daily

fare.” (Weschler 339). The post-script indicates that this trial was one of many (“By the end of 2003,

ninety-two individuals” Weschler 351), but at the same time, he was only one of the few war criminals

“whom the Tribunal has actually been able to get its hands on up to this point.” (Weschler 338). Even in

this one instance of genocide, the Serbian persecution of Muslim Bosnians, justice seems entirely

circumspect and limited in scope. Tadic, whose crimes are beyond my ability to stomach, was

sentenced with “twenty-five years” (Weschler 351). A punishment, but certainly nothing which sets

down a clear warning to history that immortal phrase which captures the spirit of anti-genocide

movements: “Never again.” Worse yet, other regions with their own genocides have even more limited

justice; Sudan and Rwanda are merely the first two examples of a long list of genocidal failures.

The United Nations is charged with the resolution of these problems. If no other government or

body in the world will take charge, it is the job of the United Nations to take charge. But in Bosnia, it is

NATO which first intervened to end the genocide; in Sudan, the badly undermanned AU. Rwanda saw

no intervention at all. How does one continue to have faith in a body which cannot show any progress

in one of its most critical missions; one of the missions which is of value to greater numbers of people

than most organizations ever effect? How does Judge Cassesse show up to his job every day,
undergoing story after story of brutality and horror, and still seem to believe that the United Nations is

anything more than a miserable failure?

But still, in the United Nations, while I was taking the tour, there was still a spirit of hope and

optimism that clings to every word the workers there speak, to every sign and every document which is

produced there. In San Francisco, both at the end of Rodriguez's essay and today, there is still a spirit of

hope and optimism; the gays were not cowed in the face of the homophobes or in the face of AIDS.

And I still have some hope and optimism that the Israel which has come to be a threat to the lives of the

innocent will one day be able to look its fellow nations in the eye without relying on phrases like

“collateral damage” and “cost of war.” We all still have love for our dreams, even if the realities our

dreams live in are disturbing, horrifying, and deeply disheartening. Perhaps that is one of the signs of

the patriot; that he dreams even while awake.

As Shakespeare famously wrote in A Midsummer Night's Dream, “The course of true love never

did run smooth.” (Shakespeare 343). So long as people are willing to love the ideal, whether in a

country or in a loved one, they will always feel the effect of imperfections. Will Eno's Thom Pain

(Based On Nothing) is the presentation of a man in the midst of confusion; reality has caught up to an

idyllic relationship, and he is practically traumatized by its end. He gives a single, concise description

of the entire relationship at one point, saying:

“Love, period, full stop, probably. Unless you're very happy or have a very
good imagination, you can't imagine how happy [we] were. [we] were
close. Not fully there. But close...[I] did not love too much, nor too well,
but with too much sweat, shit, and fear, with too many long words, too
many commas” (Eno 34).

Everything seems perfect, and yet it quite obviously is not. He is absolutely aware of every

imperfection, and it is those imperfections which lead to his loneliness now. He does not deny the

imperfect qualities of it, but at the end of the play, he says, “We might have had something together.

Wouldn't that have been nice. Off go the animals, two by two.” (Eno 36). At one point, after describing

how she first appeared to him, he suddenly looks offstage, saying, “Sometimes you look off
somewhere. There's something you want to see. You expect this almost operatic moment to happen in

your life, you expect something to appear.” (Eno 33). He clearly still has love for her, and wishes she

was with him. Yet his wistfulness belies the fact that it was he who left her. At the end of the play, he

says, “Love. I was lucky in it, once. Wrote a note saying, 'Thank you kindly, leaving now, key is under

the doormat.' I had my reasons, none of them good. Wanted to leave her before I was left. She wanted it

that way, or would, soon enough. Maybe.” (Eno 36).

But despite the fear and the imperfections, it is clear that the man is still in love. And despite the

terror, horror, and ineffectualness that Judge Cassesse sees every day as part of his job as a judge, he

still seems to love the idyllic order that the Vermeers represent to him; the “'centeredness, [the]

peacefulness, [the] serenity'” (Weschler 339) which he still believes in. Lawrence Weschler himself still

believes in the “freedom, autonomy, fairness, and love,” (Weschler 339) that the paintings represent.

And Rodriguez sees San Franciscans who have learned “to love what is corruptible,” (Rodriguez 323),

while he, the “barren skeptic” (Rodriguez 323) can only watch; Rodriguez's essay oozes with the desire

to love San Francisco the way that all the other dreamers he knows can.

As I was finishing this paragraph, I happened to look over at the news. Israel has begun

bombing the Gaza Strip again, less than three months after the last assault. In the process, they have

killed several members of the Palestinian Red Crescent society, affiliated with the International Red

Cross society. I feel a sense of dread in my gut as I try to remind myself of the dream of a home free of

genocide and conflict for Jews that Israel was supposed to represent. I probably will never live to see

the day when peace comes in total, and where we put aside our arms. When Itzhak Rabin, Prime

Minister and former Commander-in-Chief of the military first negotiated peace with the Arab Nations

in the seventies, he was duly assassinated for his 'betrayal'—not by the 'enemy,' but rather by our own

fanatics.

Fanatics are men who are also deeply in love with their own ideals; their answer for the

imperfection, however, is a violent exorcism. They see themselves as removing tumors of reality from

the utopian dream that they are bringing. They have not learned “to love what is corruptible”
(Rodriguez 323), but they have learned to fight and die for what they believe in. They disregard all

costs, all consequences; their ideal is worth any price. They love with one heart, and one mind; single-

mindedly. They are not interested in the question of what it means to be a patriot; they have come to the

conclusion that they must lash out at whatever disturbs the perfection they think they almost have,

fighting vainly against the tide of history the way that the City Supervisor lashed out at the gays within

his reach, without any real hope of destroying the Utopia of Castro. And yet these men are part of my

own country, the country which I hope will one day be ideal.

What does it mean to be in love when what you are in love with is not and can never be exactly

what you love it for? What does it mean for me to be an Israeli-American, my feet astride two countries

with equally contestable histories; two histories of democratic ideals and two histories of oppression

and wrong roads?

What does it mean to be a patriot in times like these?