OP-ED: Zionism’s restless dilemmas
By BRIAN HOROWITZ
Zionism was put into action by two imperatives: escape the violence of pogroms and a call to return to Palestine, the land of our forefathers. In real time Zionism was conceived in the age of nationalism, the end of the 19th century, when Jews in Eastern Europe primarily Godless, sought a political response to the deepening economic, social, political, and ideological crisis by imagining a Jewish national home: a political and geographical construct with elements of sovereignty.
Inevitably influenced by Hegel and the theories of national purpose exalted throughout the European continent, Jews were optimistic that a state in Palestine could be a salve for many ills, in particular anti-Semitism.
To a large degree the early giants, Herzl, Nordau, Ahad-Ha’am and Weizmann turned out to be right. The few Jews who settled in Eretz Israel rather than in America built a community that served as a model for Jews everywhere. They brought economic life to a backward part of the Turkish Empire, and then under the British Mandate they realized collective farming in the Kibbutzim, built the dynamic city, Tel Aviv, and vitalized the Hebrew language (no small feat).
The nearly half a million Jews who lived in Palestine were saved from the Holocaust and Israel provided a home for thousands of refugees after World War II from Europe and from Middle Eastern countries.
The Jewish community grew and became strong, it prevailed in the War of Independence in 1948 against five Arab countries. Later it was even able to fight wars of aggression as well as grow in size and power. After the victory in 1967, it began an occupation of the Arabs of the Westbank and Gaza, and expanded settlements of Jews into those areas.
The original contradictions were only barely concealed. The first was that the Jews had been a persecuted people and were now persecuting others. Put in another way, the land that they wanted for their state, could never be owned completely without destroying the other people that lived on it. Additionally, over the longue durée, nationalism and statehood could only be attractive goals if accompanied by ideals of pluralism and universalism.
Could a Jewish state be universal? In what sense could a national movement overcome or eliminate its national purpose?
The Jewish state could not cope with either of these goals and over time the abyss between the goals and reality in Israel has widened. In today’s Israel more and more Jews seek their life’s mission in Judaism, not Zionism, and many are uncertain about the morality of settling the Westbank even in the face of relentless terror.
In the U.S., a growing number of American Jews are uncomfortable with the Jewish state, which they view as immoral. Unfortunately those of college age among the most dissatisfied.
Instead of abandoning the Jewish state, I propose that we try to help. Although it was once a no-no to interfere in Israel’s internal affairs, things have changed; Zionism is in need of repair. We should attempt to influence Israel’s political course, demand better treatment of the Palestinians, and ask the Israeli government for more consultation with Jews in the diaspora.
Nonetheless, we Jews ought not to give up on what Zionism can give; we should seek to return to its original idealism, while weighing these goals against the need for security. Involvement in Israel may be unpleasant, tawdry, and certainly hard, but the attainment of a state after a nearly 2000-year hiatus brings unremitting obligations to help fulfill Zionism’s promises.
Brian Horowitz is the Sizeler Family Professor of Jewish Studies at Tulane University. He wrote this opinion piece in opposition to a controversial piece in Haaretz titled “We’re American Jewish Historians. This is Why We’ve Left Zionism Behind.”
