Camila,

Thanks very much for this, it’s excellent!

I’m happy to go along with your themes, although I have to say that I’m 
still not too sure how far I agree that the representation of Zionism by the 
British left is per se relevant to the debate on an AUT boycott….

Plainly you’re right when you say that there are many different trends in 
Zionism itself and it has been represented as a number of different forms of 
repression by a number of different actors, often for the most cynical of 
political reasons. It might also be worth considering, however, how relevant 
it is to view the multiple experiences of Israeli citizens in terms of a 
Zionist/non-Zionist polarity; how are the experiences and understandings of 
the Ethiopian Falasha, for instance, to be compared with the wealthy New 
York Hassidim moving to Israel to provide support for the refusenik settlers 
in Gaza? Is shaping their understandings by using Zionism as a lense through 
which all Israeli experience must be viewed, really valid?

Attempts to portray Zionism as pathological and morbid in Russia/ex-USSR are 
as old and varied as the Okhrana’s forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of 
Zion and the construction of the Jewish doctors’ plot by Stalin in 1948-53; 
they continue through the activities of Vladmir Zhirinovsky, the Pamiyat 
party and any number of anti-semitic politicians, organizations and 
processes. The fact that anti-Zionism/anti-semitism are a constant running 
through the socio-political domain in Russia and elsewhere does not, 
however, deal with certain fundamental problems associated with Zionism and 
neither does it allow a willingness to engage with those problems to be 
lumped under the convenient banner of anti-Semitism.

Let’s be frank – the crux of the matter and the fate of the Palestinian 
people has been determined, since 1948, by a ‘force majeure’ application of 
the principles by which: “Modern Zionism fused the ancient Jewish biblical 
and historical ties to the ancestral homeland with the modern concept of 
nationalism into a vision of establishing a modern Jewish state in the land 
of Israel.”(What is Zionism? Anti-Defamation League website, 
http://www.adl.org/durban/zionism.asp) Since it is Zionism that directly 
equates the idea of a modern and explicitly Jewish state within the 
geographical confines of modern Israel, then how can it not be at least in 
part the practical expression of Zionism that physically and politically 
excludes a range of different people, from Christian and Israeli Arabs 
through to Muslim Palestinians? Is it or is it not the case, as Yesha'ayahu 
Ben-Porat made quite clear, that: "..it is the duty of the [Israeli] 
leadership to explain to the public a number of truths. One truth is that 
there is no Zionism, no settlement, and no Jewish state without evacuating 
Arabs, and without expropriating lands and their fencing off"? (Yedi'ot 
Aharonot 07/14/1972), cited in Nur Masalha's "A Land Without A People" 1997, 
p.98)

This exclusionary trait derives from an essentially schizophrenic character 
that permeates all of the Basic Laws on which the state of Israel is 
founded; the theoretical postulation of a democratic state with full respect 
for human rights and dignity, set against the practical implementation of a 
Jewish state. No-one reading the Basic Laws, that of Human Dignity and 
Liberty (http:/www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00hi0), Freedom of Occupation 
(http:/www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00hj0), or the draft for the law on 
Freedom of Religion  (http://www.irac.org/article_e.asp?artid=148) could 
conceivably claim that juridically or conceptually the state of Israel was 
racist, apartheid, or anything but progressive; and yet, each one of the 
basic laws contains a caveat; that the law be bound by: “the values of the 
State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” It is in that caveat and 
essential contradiction that the root of ‘anti-Palestinianism’ finds 
expression, I would suggest to you.

In a piece on the development of the state of law in Israel in 2000, 
ex-Deputy Attorney General Shlomo Guberman describes something of this 
dichotomy of attempting to establish a progressive constitution including a 
bill of human rights in a state where the essential character of that state 
is dictated by one religion, where he describes the failure of a universal 
Bill of Rights due to the refusal of the religious parties in the Knesset 
(Shlomo Guberman, The Development of the Law in Israel: The First 50 Years, 
19/6/00,
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Israel+at+50/Development+of+the+Law+in+Israel-+The+First+50+Yea.htm), 
concluding with the words: “How will the state's combined character as 
"Jewish and democratic" affect its functioning? Does "Jewish" stand in 
contradiction with "democratic," or does it complement it?” For others this 
dilemma is more urgent: "Israel must decide on the source of the authority 
of the Israeli state and society: either democracy or theocracy. The corrupt 
combination of state and religion has corrupted both the state and the 
religious establishment."(Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, Jerusalem Post, Oct 
7, 1999).

Even for the religious parties and those Israeli citizens the schizophrenic 
nature of the state and the basis for Zionism itself is not clear; for those 
who claim that the only constitution of the state is the Torah, there are 
those who state firmly that the Torah was never intended to be the word of 
law (Nomos): “The designation of the Torah by nomos, and by its Latin 
successor lex (whence, ‘the Law’), has historically given rise to the sad 
misunderstanding that Torah means legalism.” (Encylopaedia  Judaica, quoted 
in John K. McKee, Torah As Constitution, 16/6/04 
http://www.tnnonline.net/two-housenews/torah/ constitution/). Such 
contradictions lead many Jewish communities, never mind aberrant Marxists, 
to question the existence of a Jewish state: "Zionism wants to define the 
Jewish people as a national entity ... which is a heresy." Rabbi Hirsch, 
Washington Post, October 3, 1978).

As for the right of a state of Israel to exist, for me this is so 
self-evident as to be a ridiculous question; any self-identified nation (if 
we define that, say, as a people having a common origin, tradition, and 
language and capable of forming or actually constituting a nation-state 
(Merriam-Webster online) that wishes to declare nationhood has that right, 
and certainly the massive growth in the number of states recognized by the 
UN since the last war is a physical and political embodiment of that right – 
the problem comes, as always, with the hegemonic spatial expression 
associated with that claim, particularly acute in the case of Eretz Israel. 
If there are internal disputes between branches of Judaism over whether 
there can be a Jewish state or not then that’s entirely a matter for them – 
how that state is expressed spatially and politically is a matter for 
everyone and, for my money, subject to certain universal human rights, the 
same ones that had such a problem gaining acceptance by the Knesset.

The apparent contradiction in my previous post concerning worker solidarity 
only exists, then, if Israeli workers insist that their identity and 
citizenship is inextricably bound to a territorial interpretation of the 
historical polity of Israel, which all versions of Zionism (I believe I’m 
right in saying) insist on. If the insistence on superior rights of 
residence, citizenship and political organization ordained by God are done 
away with (in other words the essential schizophrenia of the currently 
constituted Israeli state is resolved in favour of democracy) then of course 
there can be co-operation – but that democratic resolution is a sine qua 
non.

And in the meantime, however Israel and Zionism are referred to or refer to 
themselves, the daily reality of Palestinians is: "I don't sign orders to 
destroy the houses of Jews, only of Arabs" (Haim Miller, deputy mayor of 
Jerusalem, Yediot Aharonot, 7/2//98). It’s the public hero-worship accorded 
to Baruck Goldstein, who murdered dozens of Palestinians praying in the Tomb 
of the Patriarchs on 25/2/94, and whose memorial reads: “Here lies the 
saint, Doctor Baruch Kapal Goldstein, blessed be the memory of the righteous 
and holy man, may the Lord revenge his blood, who devoted his soul for the 
Jews, Jewish religion and Jewish land. His hands are clean and his heart is 
clear. He was killed as a martyr of God...”


Cheers,

Jon