Pictures of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails

In 1942, during the German occupation of Tunisia, a 31-year-old landowner, Khaled Abdul-Wahab, risked his life to save 24 people of two Jewish families from the Nazis. Of the 100,000 Jews who lived in Tunisia at that time, 5,000 were sent to the labour camps, where at least 46 died. Abdul-Wahab, who died in 1997, is now hailed as the ‘Arab Schindler’ after the German industrialist, Oskar Schindler, saviour of Jews in occupied Poland, whose life is the subject of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Abdul-Wahab has become the focus of a campaign to have the title of “righteous among the nations” conferred on him. This is a special honour reserved by Israel for gentiles who had helped rescue Jews from the Nazis. Of the 20,000 names that have been so far accepted by Yad Vashem, the body that selects candidates for this honour, more than 60 are Muslims, mostly Albanians and Bosnians. Abdul-Wahab is the first Arab who has been recommended for this list by the Jewish historian, Robert Satloff.

The case Satloff makes for Abdul-Wahab’s inclusion is unimpeachable. It is not only fortified by the testimony of Anny Boukris, whose family was saved by Abdul-Wahab, but also by Satloff’s conviction that such a move would help both Arabs and Israelis overcome a familiar blind spot. Satloff argues that by honouring Abdul-Wahab, Israel would be able to lessen the virulent anti-Semitism of the Arab world. The Arabs would realize that “they were willing to help their Jewish neighbours” in the past, an understanding that would go on to foster a new attitude among the Jews as well.

Since violence between Israel and Palestine spirals out of control at the drop of a hat, such a domino effect of good sense is unlikely to spread across the Middle East if Abdul-Wahab finally finds a place in the pantheon of Holocaust heroes. There may be sound ethical logic in honouring Abdul-Wahab, but the prevailing anarchy in the Middle East is likely to keep such a gesture firmly locked within the realm of liberal fantasy. Even more crucially for Israel, honouring an Arab would amount to conceding moral ground to Palestine and, by extension, a very different kind of territorial ground as well: after all, any resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine hinges significantly on ethical and historical claims on land.

Israel’s decision to acknowledge Abdul-Wahab would also deal a blow to the ultra-orthodox Zionist project that has guided it since the devastating Six-Day War of 1967. Israel has not only sought to define itself in terms of the historical injustice suffered by the Jews but has also tried to perpetuate its victimhood to justify the systematic disempowerment of the Arab majority in Palestine. Having put the Arab world under a convenient blanket of anti-Semitism, Israel passed the Nakba bill — criminalizing the commemoration of the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 — in its first Knesset reading. This was Israel’s way of upholding Jewish suffering as being more valid and authentic than Palestinian misery, thereby making its atrocities on the latter defensible. It set off a trend of competitive victimhood with Palestine that would become central to Israel’s self-definition, its raison d’être.

The narrative of Jewish suffering — first in Europe, then in Palestine — is profoundly inscribed into the fabric of the Israeli State. This history is so deeply embedded in the body politic of Israel as to scarcely allow any alternative version to complicate the question of justice. Yet justice has no basis without a notion of truth, however disturbing it may be, and Israel is far from ready to face the ground realities. There is steady encroachment of land in East Jerusalem as Israel continues to build settlements defying an agreement with the United States of America. A draconian order to prevent ‘infiltration’ has been recently amended from its original 1969 version to allow the military to deport anyone they please from occupied West Bank. So the number of homeless Palestinians goes up every day, thanks to a devious law that abets a virtual genocide.

Although the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, did apologize to the US president, Barack Obama, for announcing plans to extend housing projects on the eve of Joe Biden’s visit, the apology is more an acknowledgment of Israel’s strategic blunder than a genuine expression of regret. But in spite of Biden’s magnanimous affirmation of friendship with Israel, after all it had done to humiliate him, Obama has refused to soften his position, being justifiably irked by the impasse in the Middle East.

Into his second year in office, Obama is yet to extract any information from Iran regarding its supposed nuclear programme. Israel and Palestine are heading towards an untenable two-state solution, with no hope of ever approaching any understanding on land sharing. Although the US was so far reluctant to act as a mediator, Obama is unwilling to brook any further delay in the Middle East. The US’s prolonged dilly-dallying in the Israel-Palestine conflict has already cost it billions of dollars apart from eroding its credibility with the Islamic world. Obama is perhaps the first US president to have made a causal link between stability in the Middle East and security at home. Tied to both these parameters is the safety of US soldiers fighting the war on terror.

Having armed Israel with state-of-the-art weapons to counter the homemade artillery of the Hamas, the US is caught in a limbo over its allegiance to Israel and imperative to secure the lives of its troops. So exceptional times have brought forth an exceptional outburst from President Obama. With Israel apparently shaken, this could be the ideal opportunity to step up pressure on it to recognize Abdul-Wahab’s contribution. It is improbable that the ultra-right coalition, led by Netanyahu’s Likud Party, would ever succumb to it. But then, Israel is full of surprises, and politicians there do go a long way to stay in power. The former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was once described as “a post-ideological leader”, after his ostensibly centre-left Kadima Party revealed a chameleon-like capacity to change colours.

If push comes to shove, Israel may just accept Abdul-Wahab into its hall of fame. But such a move, if it transpires, would give little basis for hope. For Israel, which has failed every test of sincerity with its unrelenting assault on Palestine, a symbolic gesture has no effect on the world of realpolitik. A defeat in an ethical battle of wills is easy to concede so long as the real war out there remains firmly under control.