Palestine: "Politicide" or Peace?: Arab Strategies and Israel's Response. . Yehoshafat Harkabi (original) (raw)
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The publication of these two volumes within the same year-and they were not alone-is evidence of the growing field of Israel studies. Both of the volumes are collections of original essays by prominent social scientists and historians, and both volumes focus on the increasing cleavages, stresses and strains in Israeli society. The volume by Kemp, Newman, Ram, and Yiftachel has a distinct conflict perspective, while that by Dowty cannot be pidgeon-holed into any single theoretical or ideological framework. The volume by Dowty seeks to reconcile universalist and Jewish traditions in Israeli life; the volume by Kemp et al. has an underlying universalistic perspective, and many of the essays display little appreciation of Jewish tradition. Space and time limitations render it unfeasible to discuss the 15 essays in the former and the 11 in the latter. Indeed, there is food for thought in each. Israelis in Conflict has a definite post-Zionist cast to it, in both the subject matter of the majority of its essays and, even more clearly, in the language and perspective in which these and the larger society are described and analyzed. The authors of the articles, most of whom are social scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, argue that the notion of an Israeli corporate social identity is a creation of the dominant element in Israeli society whose objective is to silence the marginalized groups, such as Bedouins, Palestinians, new immigrants, Palestinian women, and black African workers, among others. In the main, these groups, then, are the subjects of the articles. The concluding article, by Uri Ram, places the growing divisions, conflicts, and challenges in theoretical perspective, and he proposes a "glocal" model-the term and concept emerged during the 1990s, and points to the significance of both global and local elements-to analyze the developments which have reshaped Israeli society since the 1970s. For the first several decades of Israeli statehood, Ram avers, the "rhetoric of nation-building and state-formation in Israel incorporated a self-image of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." From the onset, according to him, this was actually "a pretension" and one that, by the 1970s, became increasingly difficult to maintain because of increasing intra-Jewish conflicts between adherents of secular liberal law and Halakhah, as well as international struggles between Israeli Jews and Arabs on issues of basic civil rights. Since the 1970s, Israeli nationalism has been pulled, changed and shaped by two diametrically opposite trends, neo-Zionism and post-Zionism. The former emerged in the 1970s and has, as its core, the settlers and their supporters among the right-wing nationalists. It is, Ram asserts, "exclusionary, nationalist and even racist and
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1992
As for the use of military force, a noteworthy shift toward a more dovish position within Labor took place, of course, during the war in Lebanon, as the national mood changed after the siege of Beirut, and the raids on Sabra and Shatilla. Labor party leadership including Rabin and former Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur was against the air strike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. During the 1991 Gulf War some one hundred members of the Knesset, including many Labor representatives, signed a letter to former Prime Minister Begin thanking him for his decision to destroy the reactor ten years earlier. In his concluding chapter on the move to the left Inbar observes that, as is commonly the case among voters everywhere, Israeli public opinion often goes along with the elite rather than influencing them. Likud over time has shifted toward the center, as Begin's acceptance of the Camp David Accords and peace with Egypt, demonstrates, along with the modified policy of settlement in "Judea," "Samaria," and Gaza after the first National Unity Government was established in 1984. Again the reader needs to keep in mind that the author regards "hawks," "doves," "left," and "center" as relative terms applied to a specific polity. Shamir is center compared to right-wing members of Likud such as Ariel Sharon and others who have called him on occasion "weak, indecisive and timid," "a dangerous man who can never be forgiven for anesthetizing the people," "a rotten apple," "a con man," and the unkindest cut of all, "a short man on the basketball court." To the right of Likud are several cabinet coalition parties. Inbar argues that the move leftward that he perceives in the 1980s results from a lack of consensus in the country over what to do with the territories. He maintains that it is quite clear that the public wants to disengage from the Arabs of the territories and that Labor's policy for a permanent agreement involving a territorial compromise has the largest following with the public and in the Knesset. He sees Labor, despite its electoral decline over time and its continuing internal struggles, as still a major force in Israel with a potential for leading the country in war and peace. Inbar's study is a significant and readable book that is well documented and organized. It is a thoroughly scholarly study that deserves serious consideration by those interested in war, peace, and security issues in Israeli politics.
Rethinking Zionism Political Affairs Article, 2006
click here for related stories: Middle East 2-07-06, 8:51 am A comrade who is a sophisticated Marxist-Leninist asked me recently to try to deal with the question of "Zionism" theoretically. His point, which is a good one, was that criticisms and condemnations of Israeli policy and general attacks on "Zionist" ideology are routinely condemned as anti-Semitic by supporters of those policies. At the same time, there are both neo-Nazi and other anti-Semitic groups in Europe and the U.S and rightist groups in Middle Eastern countries, including the Palestinian group Hamas, who for different reasons have cloaked anti-Semitic ideology and policies in anti-Zionist rhetoric. • Previous message: [lbo-talk] Dems force Hackett out of race • Next message: [lbo-talk] Rethinking Zionism • Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] More
American Journal of International Law, 1993
In 1897 Zionism emerged as a European-wide political move ment with the first World Zionist Congress held in Basle, Switzer land, where Theodor Herzl, an editor of the influential Viennese paper, Neue Freie Presse, had emerged as a leader. Herzl's 1896 pamphlet Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews) had called for a Jewish state in Palestine, and its publication in Vienna made a great impact. Not surprisingly, Zionism had its strongest following in Russia, but even there it was only one of several nationalist currents in Jewry.2 Despite the difficult circumstances of life, most Jews remained in Eastern Europe and of those leaving most still preferred the United States. 3 In Palestine, an Arab-populated country under the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, Zionist immigrants set up agricultural settlements on pur chased land. "From the very beginning," wrote Ariel Hecht, an Israeli analyst of land tenure in Palestine, "it was clear to the leaders of the Zionist movement that the acquisition of land was a sine qua non towards the realisation of their dream."4 Land was not acquired in a random fashion. The effort, wrote Israeli General Yigal Allon, was "to establish a chain of villages on one continuous area of Jewish land.'0 The Arabs, soon realizing that the immigrant's aim was to establish a Jewish state, began to oppose Zionism.6 As early as 1891 Zionist leader, Ahad Ha'am, wrote that the Arabs "understand very well what we are doing and what we are aiming at."7 In 1 90 1 the World Zionist Organization formed a company, the Keren Kayemeth (Jewish National Fund), to buy land for Jewish settlers.8 According to its charter, the Fund would buy land in "Pal estine, Syria, and other parts of Turkey in Asia and the Peninsula of Sinai."9 The aim of the Fund was "to redeem the land of Palestine as the inalienable possession of the Jewish people."10 Fund director, Abra ham Granovsky, called "land redemption" the "most vital operation in establishing Jewish Palestine."11 The Fund's land could not be sold to anyone and could be leased only to a Jew, an "unincorporated body of Jews," or a Jewish company that promoted Jewish settlement. A lessee was forbidden to sublease.12 Herzl considered land acquisition under a tenure system that kept it in Jewish hands as the key to establishing Zionism in Palestine. "Let the owners of immovable property believe that they are cheating us," he wrote, "selling us things for more than they are worth. But we are The British Connection 5 not going to sell them anything back."13 The Fund thus kept land as a kind of trustee for a future state.14 The Fund purchased large tracts owned by absentee landowners. Most of this land was tilled by farmers whose families had held it for generations with possessory rights recognized by customary law. Re grettably for many of these families, in the late nineteenth century Turkey had instituted a land registration system that led to wealthy absentees gaining legal title to land, often by questionable means. After this occurred, the family farmers continued in possessionas tenantsand considered themselves to retain their customary right to the land, although that was no longer legally the case.15 At the turn of the century the better farmland in Palestine was being cultivated. In 1882 a British traveler, Laurence Oliphant, reported that the Plain of Esdraelon in northern Palestine, an area in which the Fund purchased land, was "a huge green lake of waving wheat."16 This meant that the Fund could not acquire land without displacing Arab farmers. A delegate to a 1905 Zionist congress, Yitzhak Epstein, warned: "Can it be that the dispossessed will keep silent and calmly accept what is being done to them? Will they not ultimately arise to regain, with physical force, that which they were deprived of through the power of gold? Will they not seek justice from the strangers that placed themselves over their land?"17 An element of the Zionist concept of "land redemption" was that the land should be worked by Jews. This meant that Arabs should not be hired as farm laborers. While this policy was not uniformly implemented, it gained adherence. In 191 3 Ha'am objected to it. "I can't put up with the idea that our brethren are morally capable of behaving in such a way to men of another people ... if it is so now, what will be our relation to the others if in truth we shall achieve power?"18 But Herzl viewed the taking of land and expulsion of Arabs as complementary aspects of Zionism. It would be necessary, he thought, to get the Arabs out of Palestine. "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.. .. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."19 Some Zion ist leaders advocated moving Palestine Arabs to neighboring coun Israel as a Fact 89 draw its support for Israel's membership in the United Nations and warned against any further idf offensives.20 Under that pressure Ben-Gurion withdrew the idf from Egyptian territory and canceled plans to take Gaza and the Sinai.21 At the same time Ben-Gurion withdrew the idf from southern Lebanon, where it had penetrated. The Litani River, an important water source, flowed through southern Lebanon. General Yigal Allon criticized Ben-Gurion's decision to withdraw, complaining that the Index Aaland Islands, Abdiilhamid II (sultan of the Ottoman Empire), 7 Abdullah (emir of Transjordan, King of
Israel Affairs Israel's policy towards its Arab minority, 1947-1950
In the absence of preconceived strategies -despite several pre-state attempts to prepare blueprints for tackling the Arab problem -Israel's early Arab policy was shaped in a process of trial and error, fluctuating between ideological aspirations and good intentions (or wishful thinking) and the needs on the ground: the 1948 war and its consequences, the wide-open borders and regular infiltration, and the fear of a second comprehensive war with the Arab states.