Is Zionism a Failed Ideology?
Daniel Lazare | 20.10.2003 22:47 | Anti-militarism | World
"In Israel, Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset, recently warned that if Israel wishes to preserve what little democracy it still has, it must either withdraw to its pre-1967 boundaries or grant full citizenship to the approximately 3.5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories, a step that would spell the virtual end of the Jewish state...."
The One-State Solution by Daniel Lazare: The Nation: October 16, 2003
This question will strike many people as absurd on its face. Israel, after all, is a nation with an advanced standard of living, a high-tech economy and one of the most formidable militaries on earth. In a little over half a century, it has taken in millions of people from far-flung corners of the globe, taught them a new language and incorporated them into a political culture that is nothing if not vigorous. If this is failure, there are a lot of countries wishing for their share of it.
But consider the things Israel has not accomplished. In his 1896 manifesto The Jewish State, Zionism's founding document, the Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl predicted that such a country would be at peace with its neighbors and would require no more than a small professional army. In fact, Zionist settlers have clashed repeatedly with the Arabs from nearly the moment they began arriving in significant numbers in the early twentieth century, a Hundred Years' War that grows more dangerous by the month. Herzl envisioned a normal state no different from France or Germany.
Yet with its peculiar ethno-religious policies elevating one group above all others, Israel is increasingly abnormal at a time when almost all other political democracies have been putting such distinctions behind them. Herzl envisioned a state that would draw Jews like a magnet, yet more than half a century after Israel's birth, most Jews continue to vote with their feet to remain in the Diaspora, and an increasing number of Israelis prefer to live abroad. Israel was supposed to serve as a safe haven, yet it is in fact one of the more dangerous places on earth in which to be Jewish.
Israel was also supposed to have been the final answer to "the Jewish question," an issue that is as old as--and has virtually defined--modernity itself. Herzl emphasized again and again that hatred and competition would melt away once Jews removed themselves from their increasingly reluctant host countries, returned to their ancient homeland and took their place as separate but equal members of the international community. Yet anti-Semitism is mushrooming in the Muslim world and, based on anecdotal evidence, may be undergoing a resurgence in Europe and the United States. Is this because the world is intrinsically anti-Semitic and is therefore always looking for an excuse to bash the Jews? Or does Zionism bear responsibility in any way for the upsurge?
There is no doubt that the approach to such questions, especially in the United States, has reached a turning point. The collapse of Bush's farcical "road map," the Berlin wall that Israel is building deep inside Palestinian territory, the threats to exile or even assassinate Yasir Arafat and now the extension of hostilities to Syria--the old consensus is crumbling under the impact of such developments, and it is now possible to say things that would have been verboten only a few months ago.
In Israel, Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset, recently warned that if Israel wishes to preserve what little democracy it still has, it must either withdraw to its pre-1967 boundaries or grant full citizenship to the approximately 3.5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories, a step that would spell the virtual end of the Jewish state.
Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, has pronounced the two-state approach "inapplicable" to the problem of Israel and Palestine and is calling for a single binational state based on Arab-Jewish equality. In the United States the historian Tony Judt, declaring the Middle East peace process a dead letter in The New York Review of Books, says that the very idea of a Jewish state has become an "anachronism" in a multicultural world in which citizenship is increasingly separated from race, religion and ethnicity. "In today's 'clash of cultures' between open, pluralist democracies and belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-states," he adds, "Israel actually risks falling into the wrong camp."
This question will strike many people as absurd on its face. Israel, after all, is a nation with an advanced standard of living, a high-tech economy and one of the most formidable militaries on earth. In a little over half a century, it has taken in millions of people from far-flung corners of the globe, taught them a new language and incorporated them into a political culture that is nothing if not vigorous. If this is failure, there are a lot of countries wishing for their share of it.
But consider the things Israel has not accomplished. In his 1896 manifesto The Jewish State, Zionism's founding document, the Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl predicted that such a country would be at peace with its neighbors and would require no more than a small professional army. In fact, Zionist settlers have clashed repeatedly with the Arabs from nearly the moment they began arriving in significant numbers in the early twentieth century, a Hundred Years' War that grows more dangerous by the month. Herzl envisioned a normal state no different from France or Germany.
Yet with its peculiar ethno-religious policies elevating one group above all others, Israel is increasingly abnormal at a time when almost all other political democracies have been putting such distinctions behind them. Herzl envisioned a state that would draw Jews like a magnet, yet more than half a century after Israel's birth, most Jews continue to vote with their feet to remain in the Diaspora, and an increasing number of Israelis prefer to live abroad. Israel was supposed to serve as a safe haven, yet it is in fact one of the more dangerous places on earth in which to be Jewish.
Israel was also supposed to have been the final answer to "the Jewish question," an issue that is as old as--and has virtually defined--modernity itself. Herzl emphasized again and again that hatred and competition would melt away once Jews removed themselves from their increasingly reluctant host countries, returned to their ancient homeland and took their place as separate but equal members of the international community. Yet anti-Semitism is mushrooming in the Muslim world and, based on anecdotal evidence, may be undergoing a resurgence in Europe and the United States. Is this because the world is intrinsically anti-Semitic and is therefore always looking for an excuse to bash the Jews? Or does Zionism bear responsibility in any way for the upsurge?
There is no doubt that the approach to such questions, especially in the United States, has reached a turning point. The collapse of Bush's farcical "road map," the Berlin wall that Israel is building deep inside Palestinian territory, the threats to exile or even assassinate Yasir Arafat and now the extension of hostilities to Syria--the old consensus is crumbling under the impact of such developments, and it is now possible to say things that would have been verboten only a few months ago.
In Israel, Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Knesset, recently warned that if Israel wishes to preserve what little democracy it still has, it must either withdraw to its pre-1967 boundaries or grant full citizenship to the approximately 3.5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories, a step that would spell the virtual end of the Jewish state.
Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, has pronounced the two-state approach "inapplicable" to the problem of Israel and Palestine and is calling for a single binational state based on Arab-Jewish equality. In the United States the historian Tony Judt, declaring the Middle East peace process a dead letter in The New York Review of Books, says that the very idea of a Jewish state has become an "anachronism" in a multicultural world in which citizenship is increasingly separated from race, religion and ethnicity. "In today's 'clash of cultures' between open, pluralist democracies and belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-states," he adds, "Israel actually risks falling into the wrong camp."
Daniel Lazare
Comments
Hide the following 2 comments
The 'Palestinian' Zionist
21.10.2003 00:27
--------------------------------------------------------
A Palestinian turns from radical Muslim to true Zionist.
--------------------------------------------------------
It may sound like an oxymoron, but it's an apt description of Walid Shoebat, a would-be terrorist who now lives in the Bay Area.
In a recent appearance before Berkeley's Bridges to Israel group, Shoebat donned a kippah and proudly proclaimed Ani Tzioni - I am a Zionist - in Hebrew.
Shoebat's talk to a group of about 40 people, took place in the offices of Berkeley's Congregation Netivot Shalom. Bridges to Israel, founded locally by Seymour and Hilda Kessler, is not affiliated with the synagogue, but some of its members are.
Shoebat, 42, hails from Beit Sahour, outside of Bethlehem. He is the son of a Palestinian Muslim father and an American Christian mother. His great-grandfather on his mother's side was the mayor of Eureka in Humboldt County, while his grandfather on his father's side was friendly with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseni, who allied himself with Adolf Hitler.
Shoebat's parents met in the United States, married and moved back to the West Bank. Once there, his father took away his mother's passport. Though she tried escaping several times, she was unable to.
As a young man, Shoebat participated in some political activities - including putting a Palestinian flag on top of a mosque and throwing rocks on Jews praying at the Western Wall.
Shoebat was chosen for a special mission: to deliver a loaf of bread with some explosives inside to the Bank Leumi branch in Bethlehem.
These actions landed him in jail, where he encountered some militants who chose the 16-year-old for a special mission: to deliver a loaf of bread with some explosives inside to the Bank Leumi branch in Bethlehem.
"At the last minute I got terrified to death," he said. "I knew that I didn't want to, and threw it on top of the roof. Fortunately no one got hurt."
In another incident, he "almost lynched an Israeli soldier." The soldier was trying to catch a child who threw a rock at him, and Shoebat and others descended upon the man, inflicting injuries before the victim was able to escape.
When he was 18, he came to the United States and became an activist in Chicago, fund-raising for the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
But Shoebat is a completely different person now. If he could, he would like to meet that soldier, he said. "I would like to seek his forgiveness for this. It's something on my mind for a long time that I want to clear up, and I don't know how to go about it."
The transition began after Shoebat married a Christian woman, and in trying to prove to her that Islam was the true path, he began reading the Bible to prove to her how wrong she was.
"In 1993 I started looking into my enemy's book, the Tanach," he told the Bridges to Israel gathering, "and I came to the conclusion that the Jewish people are the most peaceful people on earth."
Now he is a Christian, whose love for Israel and the Jewish people is genuine.
"I come to you out of love for your people and your Bible, to say my people are wrong. The Arabs and Muslims are wrong.
"The Jew has the right to return to his land. Does this make me a fanatic? Fine!"
His beliefs have strained his relationship with his family. "My own father wants to kill me," he said. At a family reunion several years ago, he was told he must have been brainwashed by the Jews. Fundamentalist Muslims have said he must die because he abandoned Islam, he added. But this doesn't sway him.
While he works as a computer programmer, his real purpose now, he said, is to spread what he sees as the truth.
"That's my mission now - to go to Americans and churches and anywhere I can go and explain God's plan for the state of Israel, and how God intended Israel to be a light unto the nations, and how all of our hatred toward Israel is really evil."
When asked later why he didn't have more sympathy for his people's struggle for a homeland, Shoebat said if more Palestinians understood the Jewish claim to the land, as is told in the Bible, they too would be swayed.
"When I examined what I've experienced and documented the facts, I came to the emphatic conclusion that I was throwing rocks without ever listening to the Jewish cause," he said. "I made my conclusions about Israel as an occupier without ever learning Israel's history.
"Why would I carry a rock or a club and hit a soldier on the head? Because I was indoctrinated in the mosque and the school.
"I never learned about the Jewish connection to the land," he concluded. "But the reality is, this is simply a people and their desire to come home."
Walid's website
Walid Shoebat - from Jihadi to Zionist
Yes, Zionism has failed
21.10.2003 04:18
For more information on what Jews think of zionism, visit the sites below.
www.Jewsnotzionists.org
www.jews-for-allah.org
dony