Rethinking Zionism

May 3, 2004 7:54 PM

Rethinking Zionism."Although embattled nationalistic movements are a commonplace, no nationalistic cause is as entwined with the larger issues and fault lines of global politics as modern Zionism is. Not least, the crisis of Zionism has implications for the ability of America to achieve its policy goals in the Middle East and in its wider confrontation with Islamic militancy."
posted by Ty Webb (22 comments total)

great piece...thanks.

It's a problem. Israel has, as he says, helped tons of people by the very fact of its existence, and at the same time can only exist as it is now by oppressing tons of other people. The cost of Israel existing may be too high.

But, even those of us that are very very critical of Israel's policies and actions are glad it's there, just in case (that "a minute from midnight" thing). I think he glosses over that fear and its strength, and how it underlies support for Israel, even in those of us that don't really support Israel. Just because things haven't gotten bad for us here doesn't mean that they never will. History has taught us that much. If there had been an place to escape to (as one of the people the author talked to said), then millions wouldn't have perished. And most of those millions felt about their countries as we American Jews do now. (It's funny that the author doesn't mention our shameful turning away of many potential refugees pre- and during WW2.)

I'm sure Paris will come and insult me now.
posted by amberglow at 9:39 PM on May 3, 2004

Israel is the 21st century's South Africa. In the end, it will move away from Zionism, or it will not survive.
posted by SPrintF at 9:56 PM on May 3, 2004

Any ideology that bases itself in the supremacy of one 'type' of person is not compatible with the 21st century. That being said, ideologies shift and adapt all the time, and most modern Zionists probably don't buy into the ethos of the originals, who had to be extreme just to get their idea off the ground.
posted by cell divide at 10:12 PM on May 3, 2004

One of the things that bothers me about this article is that understates the legacy of anti-semitism in America. Now certainly America didn't have any pogroms like Europe... but still Jews were kept out of the old boy network of yacht clubs, were discriminated in the professions and had quotas for University admissions. From my readings of Jewish American recollections from the 1930s, there were some beaches that banned Jews and also there were some people who thought that Jews had horns.

Also, the South Africa comparison has its flaws .. but if you don't see that, I probably won't convince you of it anyway.
posted by gregb1007 at 10:13 PM on May 3, 2004

tangentially related: "How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons" today's required reading.
posted by specialk420 at 11:11 PM on May 3, 2004

SprintF, I wouldn't go so far as to call Israel a new South Africa just yet. This article from the Guardian gives another perspective on the matter. [Do not treat Israel like apartheid South Africa]

I do think that as more time passes though, Israel is going to have to make some very hard decisions as to how it will progress into the future. The Arab population within the country is growing at a much faster rate then the Jewish population. At some point, there will be an Arab majority within Israel. I think at that point, things will become even more complicated then they are now. Can Israel exist in the future as a Jewish state and home for the Jews while being a democratic state. I personally don't think it can. I believe at some point, Israel is going to have to grant the Jewish people within the country rights above and beyond those who are not Jewish living in the country.
posted by chunking express at 12:03 AM on May 4, 2004

...and at the same time can only exist as it is now by oppressing tons of other people.
I'm not so sure about that, Israel existed fine during 1948-1967 when Egypt and Jordan were in control of Gaza/West Bank. There's no reason to believe why it couldn't exist without occupying these territories. If anything the occupation is a financial drain on Israel and something most Israeli's (besides the settlers most of whom are complete crackpots who I have little support for) would like to get out of if they could do so in a way that allows Israel to exist securely.

Israel is the 21st century's South Africa.
Please. If Israel was this cetnury's South Africa, then South Africa from it's inception must've had voting rights for all it's citizens, a free press and an independent judiciary. If you want to look at a better example of this century'sApartheid cast your eyes to Saudi Arabia where women only got the right to vote no less than 2 months ago and are still officially discriminated against in numerous other ways, not to mention the fact that freedom of religion, press and movement are still under heavy government control.
posted by PenDevil at 12:20 AM on May 4, 2004

Actually, Nelson Mandela has compared the situation of the Palestinians to apartheid. Given the fact that Mandela spent 27 years in prison for his fight against an apartheid state, I think he has the right to make the link. That being said, any "apartheid" practiced by Israel (if we accept the term) appears to be less severe than in South Africa, although I would argue that it's more a matter of degrees than a fundamental difference in categories. It also does not excuse the many human rights violations perpetrated by Arab regimes in this world.
posted by jonp72 at 1:30 AM on May 4, 2004

Actually, Nelson Mandela has compared the situation of the Palestinians to apartheid.

Nelson Mandela has also repeatedly and publicly stated that the United States ignored the UN when going to war in Iraq because Kofi Annan is black. With all due respect, anyone who says that is pretty clearly off his rocker. Kofi Annan deserves our respect for his past, but he's certainly not infallible when it comes to politics.
posted by gd779 at 8:20 AM on May 4, 2004

Israel existed fine during 1948-1967 when Egypt and Jordan were in control of Gaza/West Bank. There's no reason to believe why it couldn't exist without occupying these territories.

But there's no hope of that ever happening, at all. I can't imagine anything short of a regional war making Israel go totally back to pre-67 borders.
posted by amberglow at 8:40 AM on May 4, 2004

Just because they won't do it amber doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do... I really fear that Israel has driven itself in self-righteous indignation into a dead end from which there's no escape. Without some major compromise on Israel's part - which returning to the 1967 borders would be about the right magnitude - I really don't expect there to be an Israel in 20 or 30 years, at least not a Zionist Israel.
posted by JollyWanker at 9:14 AM on May 4, 2004

At some point, there will be an Arab majority within Israel.

There WAS an Arab majority in Israel. They were kicked out of their homes by Israeli stormtroopers in the middle of the night and banished from their homeland.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:37 AM on May 4, 2004

It's time to dust off some of the old Israeli peace movement's theories, starting with Uri Avnery. Avnery has long discussed the difference between anti-zionism and anti-semitism.

Avnery wrote a book back in the 1970s called "Israel without Zionism." He defined himself as a "Hebrew Nationalist" and felt that as such he was ready to acknowledge and negotiate with Palestinian nationalists about a future bi-national state of Israel. The argument is based on a strict historical background (not surprising, Avnery was born in Germany in 1932.) The essence of his argument is:

Zionism was the last European national movement. Israeli colonialism, too, has come 200 years too late. So it is perhaps natural that the challenge of adopting a new national outlook comes rather late. But in the end, I hope, the Jewish Demographic State will be replaced by the Israeli Democratic Republic, for the welfare and security of its citizens.
posted by zaelic at 10:36 AM on May 4, 2004

I know there was an Arab majority. I'm aware of the history of the country. I'm well aware that the Palestinian people are the largest group of refugees in the world. I'm not trying to defend Israel. I disagree with almost everything they do politically, now and in the past.

The only point I was trying to make was that although Israel isn't practice apartheid type politics now, at some point in the future I imagine it will have to. I don't think it can exist as a true democratic state. Especially with its treatment of the Arabs within its borders, and outside its borders. I imagine that if there is ever an Arab majority in the country again, which is inevitable unless Israel does some horrible things, the country will need to change drastically.
posted by chunking express at 10:38 AM on May 4, 2004

Sorry, chunking, that anger wasn't directed at you. I'm just astonished that this piece of injustice has yet to be rectified. If memory serves, the U.N. resolution directed as Israel to let the Palestinians return (or offer monetary compensation for those wishing to stay abroad) is the single most re-ratified resolution in U.N. history.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:48 AM on May 4, 2004

Thanks to everyone for keeping this thread civil.

Also, the South Africa comparison has its flaws

Of course it does, but though there are significant differences between the discrimination faced by Israeli Arabs and the much more overt variety faced by South African blacks, the goals in both cases are the same: repression and political disenfrachisement. Claims that Israeli Arabs enjoy "full rights" as Israeli citizens are simply false.

"Israel’s 970,000 Arab citizens are subject to Israeli law and are accordingly entitled to the same social and civil rights as other Israelis. They do not, however, enjoy those rights in full, because they are not Jewish. According to a UN report, there are 17 laws involving discrimination against Arab citizens. They include the Law of Return, which automatically grants Israeli citizenship to Jews, whereas Arab citizens who marry non-Israelis are refused the right to family reunification ; the laws preventing Arab parties that do not recognise the Jewish character of the Israeli state from participating in elections ; the 1945 emergency legislation, which allows the confiscation of Arab land (only 10 % of the immovable property owned by Arabs before 1948 is still in Arab hands) ; and the education law, which has the promotion of Jewish culture and Zionist ideology as one of its declared aims. The Arab population is also discriminated against in public services, since Arab towns are allocated much smaller budgets than Jewish towns."
posted by Ty Webb at 11:10 AM on May 4, 2004

From my readings of Jewish American recollections from the 1930s, there were some beaches that banned Jews.

My mother and her parents weren't allowed to go to some beaches as late as the 50s.
posted by callmejay at 11:40 AM on May 4, 2004

And beachclubs/country clubs too. Don't forget Wall Street, and investment banking, and law firms. It's only recently that there isn't overt discrimination against us here--something the author glosses over.

Jolly, you may be right about Israel not existing in 20-30 years in its present form. The thing is how bloody and horrifying it'll be getting to a better one.
posted by amberglow at 11:50 AM on May 4, 2004

A friend recently made an interesting comparison to Zionism. He re-wrote history a little bit:

"Right after the (US) Civil War, a large flotilla of Confederate soldiers and civilians left the United States and sailed to Ottoman Palestine. This small force of good soldiers was able to carve out an enclave and capture Jerusalem from the Turks. The Turks were otherwise occupied and the expatriates' "New Jerusalem" was quickly fortified against eventual Turkish attack.
When the attack finally came, it was swiftly and decisively beaten.
This new Christian country then grew and prospered, surviving WWI and WWII. But since that time, the Arab Moslem nations have become its bitter enemy, claiming rights to its territory descending from the Ottoman Empire, and the reclaiming of Jerusalem as a spiritual center for Islam.
The New Jerusalem Christians have repeatedly beaten back their Arab neighbors attempts at conquest, and they steadfastly refuse to embrace Islam and dictatorship as their creed.
The Arabs demand that the accumulated wealth of New Jerusalem is theirs by right, and that they will only be satisfied with the complete destruction of the Christians; the same Christians who oppress Moslems all over the world through spies, saboteurs and secret plots, or so they say.
Though at times, the Arabs have been willing to compromise by taking only half of New Jerusalem and killing half of its people. Or just let Arabs and Moslems rule over you, and we will be fair. Because we are always fair."

I just thought it was an interesting mental exercise.
posted by kablam at 5:21 PM on May 4, 2004

Saudi Crown Prince: 'Zionism is Behind Terrorist Actions in the Kingdom... I am 95% Sure of That'
posted by homunculus at 7:18 PM on May 4, 2004

I can't pretend to understand much of anything about the Jewish People, but I would expect more from a group that has been persecuted so much in recent history (actually, and not so recent history). When I look at Israel it makes me sad, because there seems to be so much hypocrisy and irony in everything the state is doing. The way they treat the Arabs as second class citizens is deplorable. As is the way they act in the occupied territories. I hope that they change direction in their policies. The way the state acts now only helps to alienate moderate Arabs.
posted by chunking express at 10:10 PM on May 4, 2004

there's an oft-repeated canard about arabs in israel threatening demographically to eventually wrest control from the jews because they currently reproduce more rapidly. this is an excellent example of how people conduct sloppy arguments, and use factoids in improper ways. furthermore, such fuzzy concepts allow americans to believe that israel does what it does, and that the u.s. just sort of watches.

if a palestinian state were to be established by u.s. pressuring israel, and that state was funded by the u.s., with monetary incentives on both sides to remain relatively peaceful, it is possible to believe that arabs within israel might, over the course of 2-3 generations, be allowed to prosper to the extent that their reproduction may stabilize, as all demographers know it does for any minority that becomes enfranchised and allowed decent education and economic advancement. we all are aware that it is u.s. policy to encourage hardliners in israel, hardliners who do not represent majority israeli sentiment on most issues; the u.s. supports them because of its strategy of control for the greater middle east.

and here we come to nelson mandela's viewpoint: apartheid was tacitly approved of by europe and the u.s. because those powers benefited greatly from s.a. exports using black exploitation labor. from the black perspective, western policy seems designed to keep african states in turmoil. this is directly analogous to western policy in the middle east, with israel as the focus of arab nationalist resistance just as s.a. was the focus of black african nationalist resistance. in both cases, from the nonwhite perspective, the goal seems to be: prevent nonwhite resource owners from their due free trade, infiltrate regimes, install military bases, prop up corrupt leaders, sell weapons, etc.

now, are there many western leaders or policy makers who see themselves this way? probably none. so it's a problem of perspective, certainly. but just as with the imf and debt restructuring, whatever the intentions, there are incontrovertable effects of western policies which are dictated more by bureaucratic and institutional inflexibility and lack of imagination, accountability and humanitarianism than by any real desire to keep nonwhites oppressed.

we know israel is not the equivalent horror that s.a. was, just as we know that u.s. crimes and failures in iraq are not as bad [so far] as they were in vietnam. but such comparisons illuminate, for many, how little has changed in the overarching western [white] policies.
posted by mitchel at 10:04 AM on May 5, 2004