Dostoevsky in Gaza

By: Sead Alić

Occasionally mentioning Jews in the entries of his Writer's Diary from 1873, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky encountered misunderstanding from Jewish intellectual circles in Russia. He had to address a topic that was both silenced and spoken about, which burdened Russian society in a way that was known even before Russia, and which continued in other environments and times to come.

The Jewish Question

He faced attacks he did not expect. Dostoevsky is a humanist, and the moral questioning of relations between individuals or peoples is one of his essential interests. By delving into the 'Jewish question' in Russia, he touched upon a problem that existed in many other environments/states, and which still exists today.

Of course, Dostoevsky initially stated that he did not intend to speak thoroughly about something like the 'Jewish question' because it requires both time and strength.

Yet, he could not help but occasionally delve into the fog of relations between Russians and Jews. As a humanist, writer, intellectual, man of the world – he had to answer one of the great (and for now still unresolved/lasting) questions about the relationship between the great monotheistic religions, the characters of people and nations shaped by those religions, and the political consequences arising from the confrontation of such politically organized characters stemming from fundamental religious determinants.

Interestingly, the attacks on Dostoevsky did not arise because of the writer's views on the possible usurious, exploitative relationship of Jews towards the Russian peasant (although Dostoevsky wrote most about this). The attacks were wrongly and unsubstantiatedly wrapped in the cellophane of condemning Judas' betrayal of Christ. They wanted to drown the great writer in the river of superficial Christian hatred towards Jews, viewing them as those who betrayed Jesus Christ and were responsible for his crucifixion. This was intended to avoid the deeper, and today we see, actually crucial issues.

This showed the superficiality, but also the cunning of these attacks. However, in the context of analyzing the insensitivity of Zionist settlers in Palestine and their criminal genocidal behavior, Dostoevsky's stance, his understanding of Judaism, and his identification of the roots of the problem, or rather the misunderstandings between Jews and the 'rest of the world', are more important to us anyway.

Dostoevsky tries to understand why Jews included him among their enemies. "It is difficult," Dostoevsky notes, "to find anything more pedantic, anything that strikes more than an educated Jew!" At the same time, analyzing the relationships, Dostoevsky realizes that this 'pedantry' is always directed in one direction. Its blade is sharp when attacking, and it turns into a victim when retreating.
Being a victim who strikes and conquers is a principle that has 'escalated' in the reality of Palestine, especially in its remnants, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Dostoevsky, of course, rejects any thought that he harbored hatred towards Jews in his heart. His friends from the Jewish people could testify to that, he says. But it is evident that the great writer caught the eye of individuals from the Jewish nation. Responding to their letters and theses, Dostoevsky tries to understand what lies behind these attacks, what is the source of the misunderstandings, and how the misunderstandings between the Russian majority and the Jewish minority in Russia can be reconciled.

From today's perspective, it seems like someone trying to calm the Holocaust industry in its attack on European banks, in its conquest of capital that will go to Holocaust victims in the smallest part and to institutions that will operationalize the principle: be a victim, shoot and kill, conquer and remain a victim, in the largest part. This is unfortunately another killing of Holocaust victims, another bringing of Jews into an unenviable situation. It is only a matter of time before public opinion awakens, horrified by its own silence and the deception served to it by the tangle of media, politics, and the war industry.

However, the mere posing of the 'Jewish question' in Russia and Dostoevsky's decision to comment on the relations between Jews and Russians speaks of a kind of continuity. Within the framework of the relationship of Jews towards other faiths, and even nations, there is clearly some nucleus that thought must penetrate to remove the causes of the disease. The great Dostoevsky senses certain contradictions in the character of individual Jews, in Judaism as a faith, or in the politics that arise from them.

"Something is rotten..." Shakespeare once sang. The opinion is to dissect the rot and discover the source of the infection. In doing so, one should not pay attention to labels and judgments of mercenaries. Opinion has always been destined to bear the burden of its contemplation on unprotected shoulders.

Characteristic of the Century

Dostoevsky sees a possible reason for the attacks against him in the potential use of terms such as 'Jew', 'Jewishness', 'Jewish empire'... Thus, there is a fundamental difference between the Jewish religion and its manifestations in real life. Or is it perhaps that in Jewish sacred scriptures there is a nucleus of misunderstanding that has surfaced throughout history and grown as a problem. In any case, it was still possible to distinguish between a believing Jew, or his faith, and a kind of banking-usurious craft to which Jews were partly condemned, but from which they did not desist even when other faiths joined this form of business.

In the relations between Jews and Russians, Dostoevsky recognizes worldly problems. Like Marx, he brings them down from heaven to earth. He tries to identify the fundamental problems of the society of that time and sees them in economic relations that made some richer and others poorer. Dostoevsky connected the phenomenon of Judaism with the situation the Russian peasant found himself in. He tried to suggest that the peasant tolerated the uniqueness of the Jews' faith and customs, but did not experience similar understanding from the Jews. He felt that in matters of exploiting the poor, there was a dimension not recognized in Christian teachings, which stemmed from certain aspects of Jewish teachings.
He also tried to explain: “Perhaps they attribute such a 'hatred' to me because I sometimes call a Jew a 'zhid', a Judean. But, firstly, as far as I know, it is not particularly offensive, and secondly, as far as I remember, I used the word 'Judean' only as a word denoting a certain idea: 'Judean, Judaism, Judean empire – and the like'. Thus, a certain concept, a tendency, a characteristic of the century is denoted.” .

It is precisely this 'characteristic of the century' that will develop into a global force and which today governs all segments of the networked society. The issue of exploitation is thus deeply embedded in the biblical text, in commandments of a religious nature, in the decision that a Jew cannot practice usury on his brother but can on others. The root lies in that stance. With that directive, Jews excluded themselves from the brotherhood of peoples and decided to view others as 'non-humans'. Because, if we are all from one God, and some are not your brothers, then it only means that some divine tribes are not tribes of humans but 'non-humans' or animals.
This, in turn, sheds light on the behavior of trained Zionist uniforms in Gaza. These mercenaries who play with an entire people not only kill, they abuse, torture, rape, imprison and imprison. They treat Palestinians like animals. As in all previous crimes of all imperial powers, all those who were killed had to first be 'reclassified' as lower beings. It was a way to deal with the remnants of one's own morality.
'Characteristic of the century' – it sounds both powerful and provocative.

It will turn out that Dostoevsky was not the only one who thought this way. It will also turn out that such identification of the problem served Jews to shape concepts with which they produced themselves as victims. Truth hurts, and when it is spoken aloud, it hurts even more. That truth can cause revolt, even crimes. These crimes cannot be justified in any way, but they also demand that the roots of all evils be understood.

Thus, the Nazis committed terrible crimes against the Jews. Genocide. The Holocaust. What happened will historically halt the questioning of the reasons for the growing rejection of Jews. After the Holocaust, any questioning of Judaism and its relationship to usury/interest, capital accumulation, takeover of media and culture, takeover of the 'moral vertical' – will be stopped. The Holocaust was committed against the Jews, and from then on, everyone will remain silent except the Jews.
But this great injustice to the Jewish people will be manipulated later. The fact is that the 'Jewish question' was attempted to be solved in Europe by a crime against the Jewish people. And this is the guilt for which Europe today sprinkles itself with ashes and cannot make just decisions regarding the Zionists' treatment of Palestinians. A terrible crime was committed against the Jewish people. But it has once again been shown that a victim of a sadist, if they do not realize their situation, easily falls into the trap of becoming a sadist themselves, and this is precisely what is happening in Palestine.

The Holocaust should not prevent us, as free intellectuals, from contemplating the historical development of the 'hatred' that Jews have felt towards themselves throughout history. On the contrary, it imposes on us the obligation to understand the views of authors, especially if they are great and significant to world cultural history like Dostoevsky. One should also not forget that Jews need self-awareness of their own religious-economic platform, which is today the axis of evil. This axis has its exhibition space in Palestine.

Every liberation of the world today must begin with the self-liberation of the self-awareness of Jews.

With his theses in the Writer's Diary, Dostoevsky clearly touched upon something that perhaps should not have been touched. And there should be no such topics for an intellectual. The wound is open, and evil blood has flowed from it. If this wound had been discussed more, streams of blood would not be flowing in Palestine today. If the analyses of Dostoevsky, Karl Marx, or Wilhelm Marr had been taken seriously, the world would not be threatened by World War III today. And it is here. The big players are at the gambling table. They are watching each other and trying to figure out who is bluffing.

To be continued...