Zooish Conspiracies: Conclusion

The Irrationality of an Israel-Hating Jew

In Part I of this series, I began to address extensive anti-Israel claims relating to the animal kingdom made by Irus Braverman, a professor of law at the University at Buffalo, in her article “Wild Legalities: Animals and Settler Colonialism in Palestine/Israel” from Political and Legal Anthropology Review, subsequently incorporated into her book Settling Nature: The Conservation Regime in Palestine-Israel. In Part II and Part III, I addressed her claims about Israel’s reintroduction of Mesopotamian fallow deer being an act of “violent settler colonialism.” In Part IV, I addressed her claims about camels, and in Part V, I addressed her claims about eagles and goldfinches. This post continues and concludes the critique. I would like to thank Dr. Simon Nemtzov, Wildlife Ecologist & Head of International Relations at the Israel Nature & Parks Authority, for his assistance. The full article will be posted online in the Knowledge Base at www.BiblicalNaturalHistory.org.

Culture and Conservation

A Bedouin with a cheetah and her kitten, shot in Iraq in 1925

Braverman claims that while Israeli conservationists see themselves as acting for the good, they are actually doing otherwise with their “regime”:

“Although Israel's nature conservation regime—its “wild legalities,” in the descriptive sense of this term—perceives itself as justified for its good faith efforts to protect and save wildlife, this nature regime ends up reinforcing the violence that is at the root of this region's ecological peril.”

Yet the ecological peril in Israel is occurring for the most part due to the exact same reason that ecological peril occurs worldwide: the growth of human population. If by “violence” Braverman refers to the increase in population due to Jewish immigrants (themselves fleeing violence and ethnic cleansing in Europe and Muslim lands), then it is wrong to ignore the simultaneous enormous increase in the Palestinian population, from a few hundred thousand two centuries ago to around five million today.

The increase in human population harms nature in Israel as it does everywhere. But it is made even worse by traditional Arab practices of hunting wildlife, which Israel is trying to limit. Braverman claims that this is debasing Palestinian culture, and she even coins a term for it:

"I refer to this perception of moral superiority in conservation management, which is often juxtaposed with a demeaning approach toward the native’s barbaric lack of care, as ‘ecological exceptionalism’.”

The traditional Arab culture of hunting is acknowledged and respected in Israel. Back in 1955 when the new Wildlife Protection Law was being debated in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), there were strong voices to outlaw hunting in Israel altogether because it is not a part of Jewish tradition. In the end, the new law passed with regulations establishing hunting seasons and hunting areas and legal game species (like in most countries), and this was seen by the majority Parties in the Knesset as a way to honor and accept the Arab hunting traditions into Israeli law. Hunting is still allowed in Israel, but like in most countries, it is limited.

Yet the INPA (Israel Nature and Parks Authority) has to try to protect nature, even though there are sometimes sensitive cultural issues. The INPA cannot just let the natural world be destroyed due to cultural traditions. The same thing happens with Palestinians picking wild zatar or other protected plants for traditional uses. There were attempts by the INPA to allow small levels of personal use of these plants for traditional uses (and not commercial levels of harvest). But these did not work, and so the INPA continues to enforce the nature protection laws without exceptions.

The same is true for the trapping of wild animals for sale as food, traditional medicine, or exotic pets, which is rampant throughout the Arab world. Four Palestinian biologists, from universities in Bethlehem and Nablus, have documented this for 79 species of local vertebrates in the West Bank.^[1] Visiting markets in the main cities of the West Bank (Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, Jericho, Nablus, Ramallah, and Salfit), they found everything from sparrowhawks to golden eagles to gazelles to porcupines. They note that such animal trade is a particular problem in the Middle East, and they urge for stronger measures against illegal animal trade and creating greater environmental awareness.^[2]

The attitudes and efforts that Braverman condemns as being demeaning and a function of “settler colonialism” are actually normative conservation attitudes and efforts which are also found with Palestinian conservationists and with Arabs in other countries. They may go against the traditional practices of many people, but there’s nothing “settler colonialist” about them. It’s simply a conflict between longstanding practices of human exploitation of nature, and modern recognition that in light of the growing human population, such practices are increasingly harmful and should be changed.

Conclusion: A Jewish Zooish Conspiracy Theorist

In the bottom line, Braverman’s article is not just mistaken and wrong; it’s simply bizarre. She takes conservation practices which are the norm in every part of the world, and which are even found with Palestinian and Arab conservationists, and claims that when done by Zionists, they are actually part of a secret Jewish conspiracy to commit “violence” against Palestinians. She accuses Israeli conservationists of being driven by a political agenda, when it is obvious that it is actually she who is driven by a political agenda.^[3] How are we to understand such a thing?

Fortunately, Braverman herself sheds light on her behavior. In an autobiographic article, “Renouncing Citizenship as Protest: Reflections by a Jewish Israeli Ethnographer,”[4] Braverman says that while she was living in Israel and serving in the Israel Defense Forces she became greatly disturbed at the level of hatred for Israelis by Palestinians. Ultimately she decided that there was justification for it, and “wanted to shed the burden of everyday privileges that have accompanied my identity as a Jewish Israeli citizen.” After leaving Israel for America (which also makes her uneasy, due to the historical and current crimes of the US), she says it became increasingly important for her “to write about the occupation as a form of resistance to it.”

The phenomenon of Jewish Israelis turning into anti-Zionists is not uncommon. Some will see this as people arriving at the truth against personal bias. Others will see it as being a continuation of a phenomenon that has occurred for many centuries, of Jews that turned into fierce opponents of the Jewish People. The psychological aspects of this have been discussed in academic literature,^[5] and today, there are even some Jews that go as far as denying the Holocaust or the Hamas atrocities of October 7th, and who proudly declare themselves to be “self-hating Jews.”^[6]

Alas, it seems that Braverman’s drive to denounce the existence of Israel led her to fabricate false and bizarre accusations regarding wildlife conservation. Her claims provide an extraordinary example of how hatred for Israel, even by an Israeli Jew, can lead to strange conspiracy theories, and demonization of things that are perfectly normal elsewhere in the world and acceptable for everyone except Jews.^[7] Such writings should have no place in society.

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^[1] Elias N. Handal, Zuhair S. Amr, Walid S. Basha, Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, "Illegal trade in wildlife vertebrate species in the West Bank, Palestine," Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity, Volume 14, Issue 4 (2021), pp. 636-639. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.japb.2021.07.004.

^[2] In another paper by two of the same Palestinian biologists and others, they likewise lament hunting that takes place due to traditional but false and damaging myths, and encourage education to combat this. Handal, E.N., Qumsiyeh, G.H., Hammash, S.Y. and Qumsiyeh, M.B. (2019) “Status and Conservation of the Striped Hyena (Hyaena hyaena) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank).” Jordan Journal of Natural History (JJNH), 6, 11-18.

^[3] Also disturbing is that while Braverman constantly asserts a scheming and nefarious subcontext to the INPA’s actions, it is actually she who acted dishonestly. Writing about why she did not renounce her Israeli citizenship in light of her belief that Israel is an illegitimate state, she notes that she took advantage of her Israeli status to gain the trust of Israeli conservationists for her interviews: “…it is precisely through the privileging schemes of this regime that I have obtained the trust of and justified my access to military officials and courts, Jewish settlers and settlements, officials from the Jewish National Fund, and government institutions and archives.” A number of Israeli conservationists that Braverman interviewed subsequently told me that when they agreed to give of their time to her, they had no idea of her real agenda.

[4] Irus Braverman, “Renouncing Citizenship as Protest: Reflections by a Jewish Israeli Ethnographer,” 44 Critical Inquiry 379 (2018) pp. 379-386.

^[5] For an academic study of the psychological issues involved, see Sander L. Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990).

^[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hating_Jew.

^[7] Her article perfectly fits all three of the "three Ds" test of antisemitism, formulated by Israeli human rights advocate Natan Sharansky in order to distinguish antisemitism from legitimate criticism of Israel: Delegitimization, Demonization, and Double standards.