Owen Hsieh – 02/03/2025
Diary of a Crisis: Israel in Turmoil
Saul Friedländer
304 pages / September 2024
Verso Books
Introduction:
Saul Friedländer is a historian of repute, having
previously written an acclaimed history of the holocaust, The Years of
Persecution, 1933–1939 (1997) and The Years of Extermination,
1939-1945 (2007). In Diary of a Crisis he writes about a year in
Israeli politics from January to December 2023, commenting on the protests
against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, with a latter section added which is
devoted to October 7 and its aftermath, while the first section contains some
interesting insights on the protest movement which was underreported and little
understood in the west. The section on October 7 is politically problematic and
ends up uncritically repeating IDF talking points and propaganda, all while the
IDF is on a rampage throughout Gaza.
Protests against Judicial Reforms:
The aging Friedländer writes from the vantage point of
his home in France, complaining that he is too old and infirm to fly there and
see events in person. His book is therefore lacking first-hand material,
comprised of observations and notes he has taken from watching the news and
reading the Hebrew language press from abroad.
In its first half, discussing Netanyahu’s
proposed Judicial reforms and the protests they engendered, Friedländer writes in his introduction:
I knew what political fanaticism
is, and I know that Netanyahu was desperately attempting to get rid of the
indictments that would land him in jail. His new alliances would allow him to
subvert the judicial system to a point that would make it subservient to the
political majority in power and thus allow him to dodge the sword hanging over
his head.
The Judicial reforms sought to implement the
“reasonableness bill” which removed the power of the Supreme Court (and lower
courts) to cancel government decisions interpreted to be "extremely unreasonable", while
simultaneously weakening the ability of the Supreme Court to review or throw
out laws - by enabling a simple majority in the Knesset (parliament) to
overrule the courts. There was also a push for greater control over the
appointment of judges.
These reforms were slated to be implemented while
Netanyahu faces trial for three separate cases of corruption: Case 1000, Case
2000, and Case 4000, which include allegations of bribery, fraud, and breach of
trust. These charges could lead to a potential sentence of 10 years in prison.
Many saw the Judicial reforms as an attempt to shield Netanyahu from
prosecution.
A typical entry for each day’s events is 150
words, supporting the protestors. Friedländer’s diary entries contain wry
observations and pithy snippets taken from the news of the day which give a
good picture of the tenor of Israeli politics at the time:
Excerpts from a typical series of entries are as follows:
Saturday, January 21:
Some 130,000 anti-Netanyahu
demonstrators took the streets in Israeli cities, 100,000 of them in Tel Aviv.
Saturday, February 4:
The number of protestors in Tel
Aviv (40,000) was not up to that of previous weeks but there were many more
demonstrations all over the country.
Monday, February 6:
Three things are quite
bothersome regarding the protest movement: the lack of leadership, the
quasi-total exclusion of the Palestinian issue, and the danger of again having
a majority of Ashkenazim facing the great mass of Sephardim. Avoiding this trap
should be an important aim of those who organise the demonstrations.
Saturday, March 5:
Thirty seven out of the forty
reserve pilots of an elite air force unit will not report for training in
protest against the judicial initiative. This kind of abstentionism is rapidly
spreading to other units. Minister of Defence Gallant is worried enough to call
for immediate talks.
Saturday, March 25:
The protests against the
judicial overhaul are spreading to the army conscripts. Thousands of
demonstrators in front of Defence Minister Gallants house….Massive protests all
over the country.. ..Gallant has called for the [Judicial] overhaul to be
paused. According to him, the rift has penetrated the army and there is an
immediate and tangible threat to Israel’s security.
October 7:
These paint the picture of a revolutionary
situation. The first series of reports on the protests against the judicial
reforms was completed and appeared in the German language press before a second
section was added after October 7, capitalising on the massive wave of interest
and hunger for knowledge that appeared after the attack. Friedländer writes from October 7 to Dec 13,
but while the first section of the book was vibrant, bringing a lot of new
information to light on the character of the mass protests, his writing on
October 7th sometimes descends to the level of a rant and shows elements of Friedländer’s untrammelled bias.
For example:
On Anti Semitism in the British Labour Party and
Western Europe generally:
Wednesday, November 15:
After being presented to
Congress, a video recording of the Hamas attack on October 7 was screened to 70
members of both Houses of the British Parliament. In both cases, the incredible
brutality of these images made a deep impression. However, there are 650
members in the House of Commons alone and more than 750 in the House of Lords.
It is probable that no member of the Labour Party attended the screening … The
negative (or shall we say, somewhat negative) attitude toward Israel and, often
toward Jews, in the UK nowadays remains puzzling.
Thursday, November 16:
The rise of antisemitism in
western Europe and the US shows that hatred of Jews was merely dormant since
World War II and the Holocaust, and that any pretext can revive it. This hatred
is being amalgamated with social conflicts that have nothing to do with it.
Jews are portrayed as oppressors, either directly oppressing the Palestinians
or using the money they have supposedly accumulated to oppress any possibly
disadvantaged social group. Antisemitism certainly is the oldest hatred, and it
does not end.
We can only infer from this that
the Labour Party of Britain, seemingly did not attend the screening of
the Oct 7 documentary, as they, like their compatriots in Western Europe, are
not immune to the world’s oldest hatred: beholden to an irrational, immutable
antisemitism.
Friedländer’s invective is particularly charged
here as it comes shortly after Corbyn was removed as British Labour leader and
expelled from the party in 2020 after facing spurious charges of Anti-Semitism
– he legitimises this witch hunt after the fact.
Hamas base beneath Al-Shifa hospital:
Tuesday, November 7:
We only know that IDF ground
forces are fighting in the heart of Gaza city, near Al Shifa hospital.
Ironically, the hospital was built by Israeli architects in the 1970s, when
Israel was occupying Gaza. But the tunnels beneath the hospital were not built
by Israel.
Friday, November 10:
Israel is convinced that Hamas
tactically established its headquarters in tunnels under the hospital compound,
and that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief, is holed up there. Time will tell, but
in the meantime civilians are getting killed.
Friday, November 17:
The New York Times and the
Guardian both express doubts today about the evidence provided by the IDF
regarding Hamas’s military activity at Al-Shifa Hospital. Apart from the corpse
of Yehudit Weiss, which was found near the hospital, and the weapons and uniforms
that supposedly belonged to Hamas fighters, the IDF uncovered a shaft with
steps leading down to tunnels that could not yet be explored because of the
danger of booby traps. Only such hard evidence would justify the Israeli
incursion into the hospital with its thousands of patients and refugees.
Friday, November 18:
The New York Times has confirmed
that the IDF has lowered a camera down the opening of the tunnel uncovered
under Al-Shifa. At the bottom of a short flight of stairs, there was a short
passage of approximately fifteen meters leading to an armoured door with a slit
through which to fire weapons, but only from the inside out.
Repeating and defending the IDF’s claims about
Al-Shifa is probably one of the most egregious aspects of the book:
If Hamas had a military base beneath Al-Shifa
hospital it would lend support to the idea that it’s a legitimate military
target and justify the IDFs incursion. Despite his frequent invocation of the
New York Times reportage, borrowing their credibility to lend credence to his
claims, the evidence of a Hamas command building beneath Al-Shifa Hospital was
always flimsy.
After occupying the hospital for a number of
days, and being pressured by the international community to justify their act,
it has been suggested that the IDF were planting evidence inside the building.
According to CNN reporters:
An IDF video on November 15
showed a military spokesperson touring the facility, during which an AK-47 gun
is seen behind an MRI machine. Fox News and the BBC were subsequently granted
access to the hospital. In their reports filmed after the IDF clip, two AK-47
guns are visible in the same location. It is unclear where the second assault
rifle came from. [1]
Planting the guns behind an MRI machine was a
clumsy move. It's implausible as MRI machines use high-powered magnets to
generate medical imagery. Metal objects are strictly prohibited around MRI
equipment.
The video that we do have access to, after a vertical tunnel was found while IDF bulldozers were breaking down walls in one part of the hospital complex, shows:
Throwing doubt on the veracity of the clip, one
analyst has suggested that “the video is actually clips of two different
tunnels spliced together.” [2]
By its own admission, while occupying Al-Shifa,
the IDF killed 90, interrogated 300 and arrested 160 persons, including top
hospital medical staff. [3]
Of those killed, it has
been reported that many were extrajudicial executions of unarmed persons [4]
This transformed Al-Shifa into the site of one of Gaza’s largest mass graves after their departure:
Photos of Al-Shifa show the aftermath of the
siege with extensive damage to the building facade, with the majority of its
medical equipment burnt and destroyed and internal walls blown up, rendering
what was once the largest and most important referral hospital in Gaza
unusable.
 |
By uncritically repeating claims about tunnels
beneath Al-Shifa hospital, Friedländer has helped legitimise and defend these
repugnant acts by the IDF.
On Fuel Deliveries:
The New York Times writes that
Hamas has stockpiled enormous quantities of fuel and provisions in anticipation
of a protracted war, even as the population in Gaza lacks the essentials. The
organisation’s constant demands for fuel was just camouflage: it seems to have
all it needs for a long war stored along hundreds of miles of tunnels.
Here Friedlander is essentially solidarizing
himself with the Israeli extreme right who campaigned against fuel deliveries
to the enclave to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe during the war, allying
himself with those who use the slogan: “Fuel equals weapons.”
On calls for a Ceasefire:
In his musings, Friedländer is seemingly for
…tactical pauses in military
operations that would allow more humanitarian aid to get to the population,
without necessitating a general ceasefire that would seriously hamper pursuit
of Israel’s objectives.
The external challenge has
already been mentioned. It is the growing pressure for humanitarian pauses,
which may turn into a ceasefire that allows Hamas to regroup and replenish its
arsenal.
The trouble is that Israel
cannot let Hamas survive with its 1988 charter (revised in 2017) advocating the
destruction of the Jewish state, as it will, in one way or another, repeat its
murderous attacks.
Again, Friedländer solidarizes himself with the
Israeli right-wing forces who have opposed the calls for a general ceasefire
and campaigned for shorter pauses in the fighting where they did occur.
Conclusion:
Considering all this, it’s odd to think why Verso
Books would have published Friedländer’s
unfiltered stream of consciousness writings which contain a barrage of
right-wing maxims which fundamentally disagree with its stated aims. To give
one example: Verso has taken up the defence of Corbyn as a cause célèbre,
against charges of antisemitism which were used to unseat him and install
Starmer, while simultaneously publishing accusations of antisemitism inside the
British Labour Party. This is the character of a very confused, to put it
mildly, support campaign.
Highlighting his contrarian views, Friedländer
notes in his acknowledgements:
I wish to thank Verso for
agreeing to publish the book, notwithstanding our, hopefully small, differences
of opinion.
From this, one surmises that the decision to
publish the book through the “socialist” press was made purely for commercial
considerations.
We can also note that Diary of a Crisis
was announced the same month that Verso declared its dire financial position
and a threat to its existence after its UK distributor declared bankruptcy with
an outstanding debit of £1 million for book sales stretching back to January! [5]
To end, while it’s a legitimate subject to
examine the links between the mass protests against Netanyahu Judicial Reforms
and October 7, Friedländer’s book undermines
itself. Where the first section of Diary of a Crisis contained a lot of new and
interesting information about the character of the mass protests against
Netanyahu, the second component on October 7 and after is tainted by its repeated use of right wing misnomers
and doggerels as Friedländer is unable
to recuse himself of his own antipathies. Friedländer winds up repeating IDF talking points uncritically –
as a trained historian of the Holocaust he does understand how to think
critically and interrogate source material – so he should know better. Why then has Friedländer written a diary whose post-October
7 portion can be attributed to a political hack? Friedländer is a lifelong Zionist but has been
active in the leftist “Peace Now” movement in Israel. Yet when faced with what Israelis consider an
existential crisis Friedländer abandons
any sense of compassion for the Palestinians and the critical attitude of a
good journalist with which the diary began. The result is a diary that contradicts
itself - a diary turned upside down. Shame on Friedländer and shame on Verso.
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/20/what-israels-video-of-hamas-tunnel-under-al-shifa-tells-us
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