Gaddafi's Jew-hatred has been turned against him, and does not bode well for prospects of Libya coming to terms with its past - says Andrew Engel in The Forward:
Through Mustapha, I interviewed Antar Abdul Salaam al-Beiri, commander of the 300-strong group Amir Katibat Misratah, one of Misrata’s militias. Al-Beiri had a good grasp of Libya’s fluid dynamics. He spoke of the need for democracy, for closer relations with the international community and for a return to normalcy after Qaddafi s 42 years of eccentric rule. He was sharp and reasonable, someone I could envision assuming a position of authority in the new Libya. As the talk ended I turned the tables on him, asking if he had any questions for me, curious to see if I would receive a question more revealing than his answers. He immediately asked, “Did you know that Qaddafi was originally not Libyan?” Mustapha grimaced, but then asked with a knowing grin, “Where was he from?” Beiri proudly responded, “He was originally Jewish.”
Many of the Libyans I met reminded me of missionaries committed to spreading the word that Qaddafi was and always would be alien to Libyan soil. It was almost as if the taxi driver, Mohammed and the brigade commander — by invoking two of the Arab world’s greatest evils, Zionism and colonialism (by the hands of the Italians) — had accomplished an amazing feat of disassociation between themselves and the man who ruled them for most of their lives, as if they were saying: “You know, Qaddafi was not one of us. A Libyan could not have done what he did.” It was a refusal to come to terms with Libya’s own past. Even a dictator, after all, requires popular support from some segments of society to rule for more than four decades.
Benghazi, our final destination and epicenter of the revolution, was Libya’s first liberated city and, as a result, felt the most normal. My contact there, Wahbi Kwaafy, a man in his late 20s, was married to a French woman and had worked with journalists on the front lines. He arranged interviews with members of the brigade that found Qaddafi. Kwaafy adamantly wanted to make it clear that a Benghazi brigade had found Qaddafi while members of a Misrata brigade were responsible for his abuse and death, a distinction lost in the frenzied reporting following Qaddafi’s capture.
Kwaafy drove me around Benghazi as we chilled out to local rap music. He spoke highly of the emerging hip-hop scene, noting that “before the revolution, it was dangerous to rap and no one could live off of it. Now, it is possible.” The music contained similar epithets directed toward Jews. Kwaafy took me to Liberation Square (formerly Martyr’s Square), where, on October 23, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of the Libyan Transitional National Council, declared Libya’s liberation. Kwaafy explained that large flags belonging to NATO coalition forces had been flown there, but the Islamists objected. They instead attempted to fly an Al Qaeda flag, but then the locals objected. Now the square is populated with smaller coalition flags and hundreds of pictures of the dead. But next to the square is the courthouse, where at the beginning of October, Islamists successfully flew Al Qaeda’s black flag.
Opposite the courthouse, on a building belonging to the February 17 Revolution Coalition, as the alliance that converged against Qaddafi is known, was considerable graffiti related to the ousted dictator, with Stars of David and swastikas abounding. One drawing depicted him stealing the people’s money. Just as Kwaafy was explaining that Libyans had no problem with Jews, only with Zionism, I glanced at a wall that was sprayed with the words “Moammar ibn Yehudia,” “Moammar is the son of Judaism.” Anti-Semitism, widely recognized as politically incorrect and morally untenable, is often replaced with anti-Zionism for cover, but the writing on the wall was clear.
When I raised the unsuccessful return of Libyan Jew David Gerbi, Kwaafy said: “Right, I’ve heard about him. I think he was a crazy Tunisian Jew or something.” In fact, Gerbi’s family fled Libya following the 1967 War. Gerbi, who was 12 at the time, eventually settled in Italy with his family. But he never forgot his native land. When the rebellion broke out, Gerbi, a Jungian psychologist, lobbied on the rebels’ behalf with South Africa, which had a frosty view of the rebellion and a rotating seat on the United Nations Security Council that made its view important. South Africa eventually voted for the resolution passed by the Security Council authorizing NATO to protect citizens in Libya. Later, Gerbi treated rebels suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in a Benghazi hospital.
In October, Gerbi returned to Tripoli to reopen the historic Dar Bishi Synagogue. In response he was nearly lynched while praying there. Hundreds of Libyans protested his presence in Tripoli and Benghazi on the eve of Yom Kippur, with placards that read, “There is no place for Jews in Libya.” His endeavor ended under threat of death and with a return flight to Rome on an Italian military plane.
“It’s easy to get rid of Qaddafi the person, but much more difficult to get rid of the Qaddafi within,” Gerbi told The Jerusalem Post.
Even if Qaddafi had Jewish ancestry, his completion of the ethnic cleansing of Libya’s Jews, his support for terrorism against Israel and Western targets and his backing for Palestinian fighters against Israel during the Lebanese Civil War (my driver to Benghazi from Misratah was in fact stationed in Lebanon to provide military assistance) defies any claim that he identified or practiced as a Jew.
Libyans today may find it convenient to participate in an act of collective scapegoating and denial, a refusal to admit that one of their own could rise to such power only to demean and dominate his own people. But a country unable to come to terms with its history may find itself incapable of building the successful, inclusive democracy it has promised the world. While Libyan interim government officials have said that Gerbi’s timing was too soon, a simple cross-country trip tells me that, at least in my generation, there never will be an appropriate time for Libyan Jews.
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An American Jew in Damascus
I am convinced that Jew hatred always turns against the hater.
ReplyDeletesuzy vidal