Reflections on Zionism

I wrote the article below in 2012; I am republishing it to mark Yom Ha’Atzma’ut; Israel’s 78^th anniversary, which starts on the evening of April 21 this year, and which includes officially honoring a rabbi whose name has literally become the word in Hebrew for flattening Palestinian dwellings, l’zarbev.

It is an interesting artifact from a time not that long ago when Zionism seemed benign. Even though some of today’s corruption was already visible, we could realistically believe (I did) that the whole enterprise hadn’t been corrupted. If I had written it today I’d be much less mild in my jibes and more unambiguous about Zionism’s sins; both historically and currently, and of course more explicit about its effects on Palestinians. The article focused almost solely on Israel and Israelis; something which, in my view, can’t legitimately be done anymore in any discussion of Zionism.

Obviously the word itself has gone through a huge transmogrification in terms of how it’s used - and the magnitude of the sins it’s accused of, some of which are false and ridiculous, of course, but others are real and painful to those of us who hoped and even believed it could have gone in a very different direction.

Israelis should have followed my advice 14 years ago; things might have worked out differently. There are good histories of Zionism, but one cannot write one today and ignore what has been happening in its name for years in both the West Bank and Gaza. Zionism turned out to be open-ended; had Israelis ended their quest for “Zionist fulfillment” in 1948 and concentrated on building up the country they had and not the one they fantasized about, they could have built an admirable state, in ways it sadly – and brutally - isn’t today.

Zionism Had an Honorable Career; Time for Retirement

© Paul Scham 2012

The Zionist movement was officially founded by Theodore Herzl at the First Zionist Conference in Basel in 1897. It was based on an offbeat, truly crazy idea: that Jews would return to the land their ancestors had left almost 2000 years before and found a secular, modern state. Among many improbable 19^th century nationalisms, this was one of the most improbable of all. Nevertheless, the State of Israel was proclaimed a mere 51 years later. Zionism had succeeded.

When the Zionist movement was founded the majority of Jews still lived in Eastern Europe and suffered various forms of prejudice and discrimination, the Holocaust was not even imaginable, and the most famous living Jewish soldier was Alfred Dreyfus, who had recently been convicted of treason against France based on a forged document. Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon were unconceived and inconceivable. And Palestine had been ruled by the Ottoman Turks for almost five centuries. To put it mildly, Herzl’s issues were very different from ours.

Nevertheless, today, 64 years after Israel’s founding, the Zionist movement still appears to be around, though the meaning of the term itself has become more obscure. No one in years has been able to give a satisfactory definition of a “Zionist”. For most supporters of Israel “Zionism” means maintaining Israel as a Jewish state (but what a “Jewish state” is, is still anything but clear). For most Israeli Jews, it means, in effect, being a patriotic Israeli. For religious Zionists it means settling and not relinquishing an inch of God-given Eretz Yisrael, and perhaps expelling non-Jews. For many others around the world, however, “Zionism” is a racist, colonialist ideology whose main goal is to oppress Palestinians and to commit a variety of other nefarious activities.

For years, the use of the term “Zionism” in a non-historical context has rankled me. Movements succeed or fail but in either case their programs go stale. This is even more the case for highly ideological movements like Zionism. If they hang around after their shelf life expires they run the serious risk of becoming meaningless to both their adherents and their enemies. I’d argue that that’s been the case with Zionism at least since 1967, perhaps even longer.

The analogy I like to use is the New Deal, a movement over 30 years younger than Zionism. Like Zionism, the New Deal was based on a highly flexible set of principles that changed with events but kept its eye on the prize. In its case, that meant ending the Great Depression and implementing sufficient economic and social restructuring to prevent a new one. Most historians agree it worked. But was anyone after 1940 a New Dealer? New Deal principles and ideas have been resurrected but in the context of new movements. So should it be with Zionism.

Of course there are those that benefit from the maintenance of Zionism as a semi-official ideology of the State of Israel. Chief among them are the functionaries of the “Zionist institutions”, e.g., the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish National Fund and others. Since 1948 they have been best known to Israelis as dumping grounds for failed or superannuated politicians. They have largely served as conduits for money and for large Diaspora donors to attempt to exert some control over use of the funds they have given. Few Israelis and fewer Diaspora Jews know or care what they do but they keep on going. Occasionally though they make headlines, such as when the JNF attempts to keep Arab citizens from Israel from purchasing land in certain communities because the land is held “in trust for the Jewish people”. This is a concept harking back to a pre-state ideology that should have no place today. The Supreme Courts strikes down the rules but the institutions keep going.

Zionism has a rich past which should and does provide Israelis with both history and legends regarding the founding of the state. It also, again, provides plenty of grist for those less admiring of Israel in theory, or reality, or both. But the Zionism of a hundred years ago should not be seen as providing today’s solutions.

Every few years one organization or another announces a renewal of Zionism and invites a new group to make aliyah. Aliyah is a concept that predated Zionism and will survive it. There are a variety of reasons that Jews make aliyah, ranging from honest enthusiasm for the task of building a Jewish state (religious or secular) to hope of economic improvement, to out-and-out flight for one’s life. But aliyah is now a personal decision; Israel does not need aliyah to survive as the Yishuv did in earlier times.

Retiring Zionism to the status of a movement of the past will not solve anything. It does not mean giving up on the Jewish state or changing its direction. But I think it would herald a long-due recognition that the State of Israel is free to choose its course based on current issues and realities, and that the giants of the past are and should not be our guides, or our judges.