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
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