Post-Zionist Critique on Israel and the Palestinians Part I: the Academic Debate

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TITLE Post-zionist critique on Israel and the Palestinians part I: The academic debate

AUTHORS Pappé, I

JOURNAL Journal of Palestine Studies

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Post-Zionist Critique on Israel and the Palestinians: Part I: The Academic Debate Author(s): Ilan Pappe Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Winter, 1997), pp. 29-41 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2537781 . Accessed: 28/03/2014 10:32

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ILAN PAPPE

Thisthree-part article describes changes in how Israelis-scholars,writers, poets,film makers, and otherson Israel'scultural scene-view themselves and the "Other." Part I presentsthe scholarly debate on Israel'spast and presentthat laid thegroundwork for the transformationof the cultural discoursedescribed in thesecond and thirdparts. The debate,launched by newfindings in theIsraeli archivesand encouragedby an ideology criticalof Zionism,also was influencedby sociopoliticaland economic changesin Israelisociety in thewake of theOctober 1973 war. Te various aspectsof thepost-Zionist critique-the challenge by the "newhistorians" and "criticalsociologists" not onlyof theZionist interpretation but also of the role of Israeli academia in providingthe scholarly underpin- ningsof thisinterpretation-are examined.

DURING THE LAST DECADE, Israeliuniversities have become the venue fora lively debateon Israelihistory and sociology.Lately, the debate has been transferredto the public arena througharticles in the mainstreampress and even has been treatedin the broadcastmass media.Moreover, a look at othercultural arenas and mediareveals that the debate has extendedbeyond academia into the arts- films,poetry, and literature.The mostobvious characteristic of thisdebate is the willingnessof a considerablenumber of IsraeliJews to reassess the way the "Arab"is perceivedand treatedin past and presentIsrael. It should be men- tioned,however, that the debate has notattracted anyone beyond the "chattering and writingclasses" of Israelisociety; it is an elitistexercise, albeit with wide implicationsfor the society as a whole. The academicdebate in Israelabout Zionism began in the 1980swith the appearanceof a numberof scholarlyworks presenting images of pastand present Jewishsociety in Palestinethat were stronglyat odds withthe Israelipublic's self-imageand collectivememory. The works challenged the most sacred "truths"of Zionismand questionedtheir validity for the present generation. The authorsof theseworks also criticizedthe role playedby thecountry's academic institutionsin shapingthe Zionist self-image and theZionist interpretation ofthe Palestinereality. Directly and indirectly,they deconstlucted the worksof those

ILAN PAPPE, professorof politicalscience at HaifaUniversity and academichead of the Institutefor Peace ResearchGivat Haviva, is theauthor of TheMaking of theArab-Israeli Conflict,194 7-1951, among other works.

Journalof PalestineStudies XXVI, no. 2 (Winter1997), pp. 29-41.

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who dominatedIsraeli academic writing on Palestine'shistory and contemporary Jewishsociety. These scholarshave been in thepublic consciousness long enoughto be re- gardedas a culturalphenomenon in Israel.The local presscalls themthe "post- Zionist"scholars, a termnot all ofthese scholars accept.1 Nonetheless, as thisis a handyconcept for describing the essence of what they are doing,we shallapply it broadlyin thisarticle not onlyto all thosewho have revisedor criticizedthe workof themainstream Zionist academic community in Israelbut also to artists, novelists,and othersusing a new culturaldiscourse. The termpost-Zionism is a hybridof anti-Zionistnotions and a postmodernist perceptionof reality. It has become a convenientterm that groups together Zion- istand anti-ZionistJews in Israeliacademia and politics.In thescholarly world, the termsanti-Zionist and Zionist are largelya matterof self-definition:Among thisgroup, the works of thosewho declarethemselves Zionist are generallyas antagonistictoward Zionism as thoseof authorsopenly calling themselves anti- Zionist.It is importantto notethat the "post-Zionist" scholars or "newhistorians" or "new sociologists"are notthe first to challengethe Zionistversion of Israel's past and present.Their precursors, however, were mostlyon theleft, members of thecommunist party or fringegroups such as MAPAM.The ideologicalorien- tationof these last, coupled with the fact that they were not historians or sociolo- gistsby profession(Israel Shahakand BennyBeit-Hallahmi, for example, are professorsof chemistryand psychology,respectively), made it easy to dismiss theirfindings as mereclaims of political activists beyond the pale of thenational consensus.In contrast,the "new historians"and "new sociologists,"as scholars accreditedby officialacademia to researchand teachthe country's past, were the firstto challengethe conventionalthinking from within the system. As forthe "postmodernist"part of theequation, it derivesfrom the tendency among some of the groupto view the presentsituation in Israelas a phase in which most of the Zionisttruths have collapsed but thereis no sign of what would replacethem. Thus, to borrowpostmodernist discourse, they have decon- structedthe realitybut are unable to reconstructit. Some of thesescholars become more confidentabout the futurewhen theyenvisage the creationof an Israelirather than a Jewishstate: a statefor all itscitizens. Most, however, confine theirassessment of the future to a longcivil and culturalwar between the various componentspolarizing and composingIsraeli society. Chronologically,the postmodernist critique appeared only after the debate on the 1948 war had erupted-a debatethat was purelypositivist in natureand did notinvolve any serious metahistorical or theoreticaldiscussion. Hence, we begin our surveywith the "new history"of the 1948 war.

THE POSITIVIST CHALLENGE: THE "NEW HISTORLANSw MainstreamZionist historiography in Israelcontinues to subscribeto an im- possible combinationof positivistand ideologicalapproaches to history:The facts,based on archivalmaterial, are employedto provethe moral validity of the

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Zionistclaims. The positivistapproach means thatthose researching the country'spast and presentignore methodological or theoreticalquestions that might affecttheir confidence in thescientific truth of Zionism.Moreover, their research is pureelite analysis-the deeds of theelite are documentedin thearchives and theirversion of eventsis takenas an objectiveand truthfuldescription of fact. This mixtureof ideologicalparadigm, scholarly ethnocentricity, and empirical bookkeepingdid notbegin to be challengeduntil the 1970swith the revisionist historiographyofthe 1948 war, the memory of which still shapes theIsraeli self- imageand nationalmyths. Beforethe appearanceof the new works,the 1948 war and the Mandatory period as a whole were treatedexclusively within the universitydepartments teachingZionist history. For thesedepartments, the events of 1948were thecul- minationof the teleological process of redemption and renaissanceof the Jewish people. The role of the historianwas limitedto reconstructingthis miracle that had begunwith the awakening of the national movement in the1880s and ended withthe 1948 "warof liberation"against the British. It shouldbe notedthat the Israeliterminology of the war is constructedcarefully so as to conferupon Zion- ism the equivalentstatus of a thirdworld liberationmovement-hence a war againstthe Arabscannot be mentionedin thiscontext. Indeed, the two terms used forthe 1948 war do not indicateany directconflict with the Arabs: "inde- pendence"from the British (Azma'ut) and "liberation"from the yoke of the Dias- pora (Shihrur). Thisdoes notmean, of course,that the "Arabs" do notappear in Zionisthisto- riographyof the 1948 war. When the story of the 1948 war or thepreceding years of theMandate is told,researched, or taught,the Arab side is mentionedas yet anotherhardship with which the Jews had to cope. The messagethroughout the storyis clear:The Jewsin Palestinewon againstall odds. The imbalancethey describebetween the fewJews and themany Arabs was neverso clearas in 1948 when,according to theirversion, the community, consisting of manyHolocaust survivorswho could barelyfight, was facedwith a hostileBritish government and a unitedArab world preparingfor a war of annihilation.The victoryas presentedin thetraditional historiography was miraculousand was won thanks to the ingenuityof David Ben-Gurionand the heroismof the soldierson the ground.The historianswere leftwith the task of recreatingthis heroism on the battlefieldwhile analyzingthe tacticaldecisions taken at that and other junctures.2 The taskof describingand analyzingthe Arab side of thestory was entrusted to theIsraeli orientalist establishment. On thewhole theorientalist scholars were moreneutral in theirresearch than their colleagues in the"Jewish departments," butmost of them seemed not to be interestedin thePalestinians or the1948 war. Eventhe most prominent among them, Yehoshua Porath, who providedthe first balanced Israeli view of the Palestinians,never wrote about 1948; while he minedthe archives until the year 1939, he lostinterest and sympathyin his next academicworks.3 The fewIsraeli orientalists who did writeabout the 1948 war avoideddealing with the nakba as a humanor nationaltragedy and showed no

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understandingof itssignificance for the Palestinianside.4 Instead, they focused on the politicaland militarymaneuvering in the Arabworld outsidePalestine beforeand afterthe war. Similarly, when morerecent generations of orientalists dealtwith the PLO, they did not(with the notable exception of Moshe Shemesh) take1948 as a startingpoint. The Palestiniansof 1948were erasedfrom the aca- demicscene in Israel.5 The absence of thePalestinian tragedy from the Israeli historical account was indicativeof a moregeneral Israeli orientalist view. The historiographicalview of thePalestinians up to the 1980swas monolithicand based on stereotyping.The local populationin thelate Ottoman period was mentionedonly in passingas a marginalcomponent in thegeographical panorama of thepromised and empty landwaiting to be redeemed.From 1948 until 1967, the Palestinians mostly were ignoredas an academicsubject matter: here and therethey were mentionedas refugees.Since 1967,they have been depictedas terroristsand a threat,though notan existentialone. Buteven in thisportrayal, the Palestinians have notbeen grantedan independentrole, being shown instead as pawns withinan all-Arab conspiracyto annihilatethe Jewish state. There was a reasonfor this: Recognition of an independent(even ifsmall and weak) nationalgroup fighting for its rights would contradictthe Zionistself-image of underdogor the Zionistmyth of the "fewwho had miraculouslybeaten the many."The heroicZionist story of 1948 also would be in gravedanger if another Zionist claim-that the Palestinians fled and did not fight-wereto be integratedinto it. If the Palestiniansran without fighting,then what was so heroicabout 1948? And even ifthe story told is notof Palestinianheroism, it still would be one of Palestiniantragedy. The bestway to deal withthis predicament, academically, was simplynot to deal withthe Pales- tinianside of thestory and, ifpossible, not to deal with1948 at all. The firstnotable change in thissituation occurred wllen some Israeliacadem- ics became willingto treat1948 as a subjectmatter, analyzing both sides of the storyand notshrinking from viewing critically the behaviorof all concernedin theconflict. The resultwas a historiographicalpicture very different from the one thatcontinues to be conveyedin theeducational and culturalsystems in Israel. The new pictureadopts major chapters in thePalestinian historiographical narrative,but also adds elementsof itsown. The new portrayalwas made possibleby theopening of thearchives dealing withthe 1948war followingthe thirty-year rule of declassificationin Israel,Brit- ain, and the UnitedStates. But the scholarswho delved intothe archivesalso were guided by a post-Zionistideology and perception.In Israel,the research took place in the decade followingthe 1978 declassification-inother words, it tookplace duringthe Lebanon war and theintifada. Indeed, the nonconsensual war in Lebanonand the Palestinianuprising created a clear-cutdistinction between Israel's peace-orientatedcamp and the insularexpansionist "national" camp (as the Likudhas definedits political bloc). Thus,the scholarswho went throughthe newlydeclassified material did so aftertheir confidence in their country'sconduct already had been shaken.

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Moreover,the intifadaopened a new chapterin the Israeli-Palestiniandia- logue,conducted mainly by scholars.Surprising as thismay sound, this dialogue acquaintedmost of the Israelischolars writing about theircountry's past who were notconnected to radicalpolitical groups with the historical version of their Palestinianacademic counterpartsfor the firsttime. For manyof them,this en- counterbrought the firstrecognition of the scholarly meritof what hitherto had been regarded as sheerprop- Frmn sa~ doas aganda. Unpleasantand at timesshocking chapters in N the Israelihistorical narrative were exposed. Above all,br. Israelischolars became aware of thebasic contradiction r f betweenZionist national ambitions and theirimplemen- f tationat theexpense of the local populationin Palestine. , 4d a w Finally,the articulation of a clearnational sense of iden- tityamong the Israeli Palestinians, who playeda crucial role in remindingthe public of the existenceof a counternarrative,helped to shape the "post-Zionist"agenda of Israeliacademia as well. In some cases, the recognitionof theother side of thestory, to thepoint even of adoptingit as the trueside of the story,was the resultof a certainideological stance; in othersit was theconsequences of adopting a postmodernmultinarrative approach to history,and in stillothers it was both. The challengersbecame knownas the"new historians" after a termcoined by one of them,Benny Morris.6 But this term, borrowed from the "new history"in Europe,was misleading.The "new history"in Europe was an interdisciplinary effortto place diplomaticand elitehistory in a widersocial and noneliteperspec- tive.The Israeli"new historians," in contrast,dealt only with elite analysis of politics and, like their mainstreampredecessors, adhered to a positivist methodology.For thisreason, they more aptly should be describedas revision- ists,in themanner of the revisionist school in theAmerican historiography on the cold war. Taken together,the works of the "new historians"undermine the Zionist claim thatthe Jewish community in Palestinewas in dangerof annihilationon theeve of the 1948war. The worksdescribe a fragmentedArab world unable to supportthe inferiorparamilitary Palestinian groups in theirbattle for post- MandatoryPalestine. They show how, when the Arab League eventuallysent forcesto thebattlefield on 14 May 1948,they were notmore numerous than the Israelitroops and also were poorlytrained and considerablyinferior in theirop- erationalcapabilities on theground.7 They demonstrate that an importantfactor explainingthe Jewish success on thebattlefield was the tacitunderstanding the JewishAgency had withTransjordan whereby the Hashimites, in returnfor their promisenot to enterthe Jewish state, were allowed to takeover the West Bank withouta singleshot being fired.8Jewish success on the diplomaticfront was attributedto a rarecooperation between the two warringsuperpowers in 1947, witheach forits own reasonssupporting the Zionistcause againstthe Palestin- ian. Generallyspeaking, the Zionists succeeded in persuadinglarge segments of worldpublic opinion to linkthe Zionist cause withthe Holocaust. Against such a

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claim,even able Palestiniandiplomats-and there were not many in thosedays- hardlycould win the diplomaticgame. Britain,for its part,joined the general global trend,and in February1948 even decided to supporta Jewish-Hashimite understandingto dividepost-Mandatory Palestine between themselves at theexpense of thePalestinians.9 The "newhistory" also challengesthe Israeli myth of thevoluntary exodus of Palestiniansfrom Palestine. Benny Morris was thefirst to argue,on the basis of the newlydeclassified documents, that many of the Palestinianshad been ex- pelled-althoughhe did not accept the Palestinianhistoriographical claim, first made by WalidKhalidi in 1961,that the expulsionwas partof a masterplan.10 Thisdifference of opinionshows thatthere is stilla gap betweenthe Palestinian nationalnarrative and the "new history.""1 One chapterin the "new history"version that is absentfrom the Palestinian narrativeis theclaim that there was a genuinewillingness on thepart of mostof theArab governments and whatwas leftof thePalestinian leadership to negoti- ate a settlementover Palestineafter the war based on Arabacceptance of the 1947 partitionrecommendation and the repatriationof the refugees.Israel is shownby the"new historians" as an intransigentand belligerentcountry unwill- ingto compromiseor even givepeace a chance(they single out the foreign min- ister,Moshe Sharret, as theonly one willingto exhaustthe opportunity for peace opened afterthe war).12 The "newhistorians" thus drew, in a purepositivist manner, what they believe was the truenature of the Israelibehavior, or rathermisbehavior, toward the Arabworld and thePalestinians in 1948.They drew a picturemost Israelis were not aware of,a picturethat provoked angry reactions from public figuresand presscommentators. Israeli policy before 1967 never before was depictedas ag- gressive,to say nothingof being at timesbrutal and inhumanand quite often morallyunjustifiable. Although none ofthe "new historians" dealt with the Israeli academiain theirworks, once thedebate became public they openly blamed the mainstreamacademia for concealing from the public these unpleasant chapters in the storyof 1948.

FUNDAMENTAL CRITIQUE OF ZIONISM: THE NEW SOCIOLOGISTS

The researchcarried out duringthe 1980son 1948 paved theway fora more fundamentalcriticism of Zionismand itsrole in theIsraeli academia. More accu- rately,the new research-orthe press and mediacoverage of it-made itpossi- ble for trends that in fact had begun earlier to registeron the public consciousness.Indeed, a new readinessto look intothe essence of Zionismhad been triggeredby the 1973 war,which caused thefirst cracks in Israel'swall of moralsmugness and self-satisfaction.More importantly, in the relative calm that followedthat war, tensions between Israel's multicultural and multiethnicfabric on theone handand the"melting pot" ideal ofthe founding fathers on theother came to thefore. Social and culturalundercurrents of dissatisfactionand antago- nismin Israelisociety erupted in theearly 1970s into a social protestagainst the

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evils inflictedby the stateon the deprivedJewish communities, mostly North Africanin origin.Young and vociferousactivists tried to emulatethe dissent voiced by AfricanAmericans and establishedin theearly 1970s their own Black Panthermovement. The movementrepresented a social demandfor a new and fairerdistribution of the economicresources of the countryand a sharein the definitionof itscultural identity. The protestersfailed to move theIsraeli Left but attractedthe attention of the Right, which skillfully manipulated their protest into a mass movementthat brought Menachem Begin to power in 1977.The Israeli Leftlost its natural constituency, but some ofits adherents in academiabegan to delve intothe movement'scauses. The Sephardicprotest movement was an internalsocial affair,and as such it engaged the interestof sociologists.These last not only soughtto reconstruct Israel'searly history, but also wereintrigued by thetheoretical and methodological implicationsof thedevelopment of a social protestmovement in Israel.The Sephardicsocial protestmovement coincided with a growingsense of national confidenceamong the Palestinians in Israel,and theircase fortifiedthe cases of otherswho feltexcluded from the Zionist historical narrative and whose chroni- cles had been distortedin schools and universitycurricula. Fromthe late 1970s onward,academics, with the help of historicalor sociological research,represented the causes of all the deprivedgroups as scientifi- callyvalid. They were less successfulas politicalagents of change in Israel:Their attemptto tie together,as theyhad in theirresearch, the plightof Palestinians, SephardicJews, and women(as a minoritygroup) so as to createa jointpolitical frontproved to be a totalfailure. It remained,nonetheless, a popularvision for themore hopeful members of theacademic protest movement. These develop- mentsmatured after the 1982 Lebanonwar. The public debate about thatwar seemed to encouragenovelists, film makers, playwrights, musicians, poets, artists,and journalistsjointly to constructa non-Zionistinterpretation of the past and presentreality. The sociologists'challenge, inspired by global and theoreticaldevelopments in the humanities,was morerelativist and postmodernistin nature.It reflected thedisenchantment characteristic of manyWestern academics with the fallacies and illusionscreated by "enlightenment,""modernity," and otherWestern con- ceptssignifying the triumph of science and logicover "uncivilized" notions from the non-Westernworld. The challengershere adopted the moreskeptical approach to truthand data,particu- o larlytruth and datarepresented within a nationalcontext tm.. e. ... * .. ... to by the eliteand the courtacademicians serving it.13 Is- . raeli academia is an integralpart of Westernacademia l n ha'. and it thus is not surprisingthat Israeli historians and sociologistsadopted the same interdisciplinary,skeptical, and subjectiveview towardtheir own history.It allowed them,as academics,to representthe Pales- tinian,the Sephardic, and thefeminist side ofthe story, much as Americanschol- ars wishedto representthe multiculturalreality of theirown society.

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The "new sociologists,"so to speak,were not criticalof theirpredecessors' worksolely on thebasis of the"facts" they presented. They also feltthe need to reassessthe basic paradigmsthese scholars employed. They pointed to a contra- dictionbetween the mainstream Israeli scholars' contribution to nationbuilding and the university'smandate to promotepluralized and criticalresearch. The "new sociologists"were a morediverse group thanthe historians.Some were morerelativist, some were moreanti-Zionist. Probably for the sake of conven- ience,the sociologist Uri Ram labeled them"post-Zionists."14 Commonto all thesechallenges was theunderlying assumption that collectivememory officially was constructedthrough the educationalsystem and the media.This assumption began to be voicedin theearly 1970s at HaifaUniversity, whereIsrael's mainstream sociologists were accused of employingmethodolo- gies thatsuited the Zionistideological claims on the land and theJewish people.15The trendcontinued in theearly 1980s, with more established sociologists, such as BaruchKimmerling and YonathanShapiro, exposing, via domination and co-optationtheories, the dictatorial and arbitrarynature of theJewish political systemthat developed duringthe Mandatoryperiod.16 These workschal- lenged the mythadopted by Israeli historiansof Zionismthat their leaders' actionshad been motivatedby altruisticsocialist and liberalideologies-as stillis claimedby the leadinghistorians of Zionismin Israeltoday.17 The mostsignificant contribution to thenew way of thinking,however, was the applicationof a colonialistperspective to the historicalstudy of Zionism.In this,Israel's new sociologistscame even closerto thePalestinian narrative than the new historianshad. The theoreticalperspective allowed themto look at Zi- onismas a colonialistmovement without being accused ofadopting unvarnished thePalestinian discourse.18 Gershon Shafir reconstructed early Zionism-despite such particularismsas theabsence of a propermother country, the marginal role playedby capitalistprofit and loss considerations,and themovement's nationalist discourseand motivation-asa typicalcolonialist movement in a colonialist era.19Others followed suit, employing theories and methodologieshitherto ig- noredby theirpeers that substituted and substantiateda more blunt ideological claim.

THE NEW WAVE OF CRITICISM

Followingthese works, the next wave of scholarsopted to deal notonly with historyand sociologybut also withmetahistorical and theoreticalquestions. Therefore,they wrote not only about the past and theofficial historiography, but also aboutmainstream academia's reactions to the"new history." They were im- pressedby the harshnessof the reactions,and indeed,the reactionshad been harsh.Two of the mostprominent Israeli scholars condemned the challengeas signifyingthe end of academicdiscourse in Israelaltogether.20 At that stage, one can note a growing tendencyamong the "post-Zionist"scholars toward postmodernist(i.e., relativist)historiography and multicuturalistinterpretations of thesocial realityin Israel.The veryrecent corpus focuses-as indeeddoes the

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publicdebate-on therole of academiain constructinga Zionist historiography and sociology.This new wave of scholars,who can be categorizedas decon- structionistin methodology,aims at exposingthe role playedby the academic establishmentin the nation-buildingprocess at the expense of freedomof thoughtand self-criticism.For example, these scholars, focusing on officialtexts, the contentof museums,ceremonies, school curricula,and nationalemblems, have drawnattention to theway in whichthe dominant Ashkenazi group and its narrativehas excised othersfrom the nationalmemory.2' Here, some of the scholarsemployed Edward Said's critiqueof Western Orientalism. The worksex- posed thesociological, anthropological, and historiographicaldiscourses used in research on "Arabs'-whetherIsraeli Palestinians,Egyptians, or Sephardic Jews.22The verygrouping of Palestiniansand orientalJews as one subjectmatter,as has been done by Shlomo Swirskiand SammySmooha, is contraryto everythingZionism and Zionistacademia ever stood for.23 Othersexposed therole played by Israeli academia in providingthe scholarly basis forthis act of repressionand forserving as the scholarlytribunal that un- conditionallyhad acceptedthe governmental axis of inclusionand exclusion.24 Of particularimportance is the workof Uri Ram,who has examinedhow the Israeli sociological establishmentanalyzed Israeli society in the past. Ram showed how Zionistsociologists elaborated theories to fitnotions such as the "ingatheringof the exiles"and the "meltingpot." These theories,which contra- dictedthe reality of a heterogeneousmultiethnic and multiculturalsociety, were used to crushany oppositionto thedomineering Eastern European culture that mightcome fromcompeting cultural directions, such as theone broughtby Jews immigratingfrom Arab countries.25 The injectionof moraland ethicalquestions into scholarly research on Zion- ism and Israelopened theway fora new examinationof the Holocaustand its impacton Israelisociety. This researchso farhas been of a morepositivist nature,sending scholars back to the archives,but it has involvedas well an ideological stance thathas touched the most sensitivenerves of Jewishsociety. Particularattention is beingpaid to theway thelocal Jewish leadership behaved duringthe time of the Holocaust. In Tom Segev'sThe Seventh Million, for example, we finda local leadership,on thevery eve of the Holocaust,interested in savingonly Jews who were willingto immigrateor who were physicallyand mentallycapable ofcontributing to thesuccess of the community. In IditZartal's FromCatastrophe to Power,we discoverthe lofty and dismissiveattitude of the sabrastoward the survivorsand theirplight, an attitudethat was to leave deep scarsin the souls of thosewho survivedthe Holocaust and got to Palestine.26 No less sensitivea subjectto be dealtwith recently is Israelas a militaristic society.Although there is no directcorrespondence between militarism in the conventionalEuropean historical sense and theIsraeli case,27 the militaristic na- tureof Israelisociety has two aspects:its actual influence on the country'sconduct, and the way securityconsiderations are exploited for the sake of discriminatorypolicies.

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Concerningthe first, the scholars mainly are interestedin explainingthe present militaristiccharacter of Israelas a productof itshistory. In orderto do so, theyhad to relyheavily on positivisthistorians such as BennyMorris, who had minedthe military archives of both1948 and the 1950sto recordaccurately and painstakinglythe aggression and offensesof theIsrael Defense Forces. The "re- taliation"policy of the 1950s (Israeliswere broughtup on the myththat Israel neverinitiates or provokeshostilities) is describedby Morrisas a brutaland ag- gressiveform of Israeliexpansionism.28 What one mightcall the "new political scientists,"meanwhile, provided analyses in whichIsrael, far from being merely actedupon in theregional context, was verymuch an actorand initiator.Instabil- ityand conflictin theMiddle East now wereattributed not solely to "Arabradical- ism"or "Arabintransigence," but to Israeliactions as well.29 The otherside of the same coin has led bold youngscholars to slaughter Israel'smost sacred cow: "securityabove all." Here we meetthe new political scientistswho rejectgovernment explanations that security and nationaldefense considerationswere responsible for North African Jews being pushed to thegeo- graphicaland social marginsof the society, or forthe imposition of an apartheid regimeon the Palestinianswho had remainedin Israel.30The policywas exposed as racistand nationalist.As mentionedbefore, most of these scholars drew parallelsbetween the attitude toward Sephardic Jews and PalestinianIsraelis. Ed- ward Said's Orientalisminfluenced many of themto treatIsraeli society as a whole as an "Orientalist"one.31 Anotherdevelopment is a growinginterest not only in thehistorical but also in thepresent status of Palestinians in Israel.Critical works on thesesubjects have been writtenbefore; what is new is boththe expansion of the critical assessment ofArab-Jewish relations in thestate and thegrowing number of Palestinianaca- demicsin Israel willingto addressthese issues. In the past,given the general attitudetoward Palestinians, it must have seemedsafer to thefew Palestinians in academia not to approachsuch problematicsubjects as recentPalestinian history.(It is noteworthythat the number of Palestinians teaching in Israeliuniversi- tiesis stillvery small, no morethan twenty staff members out of nine hundred).32 The recentwave has been even less acceptableto themainstream academia thanthe positivist revisionism of the "new historians." Indeed, the findings of the latter,particularly (and in a way exclusively)of BennyMorris, eventually even were acceptedby a growingnumber of historians.The neutralterminology he used (such as the 1948 war,expulsion, and so on) has been absorbedinto the publicdiscourse on 1948.His moregeneral reference to Israel'soriginal sin was less acceptable.33Nonetheless, the exposure of Israeli academia to pluralismand multiculturalismis legitimizing an academicdebate on the essence of Zionism, carryingpermissible debate beyondthe focuson the single(albeit crucial and formativein the country'shistory) chapter of 1948. Still,every attempt to discussthe essence of Zionism-eitherby revisitingthe earlyyears of themovement or criticallyanalyzing the society today-has been denouncedas a typicalintellectual exercise on thepart of self-hatingJews in the

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serviceof the enemy.This positionhas been expressedwith particular vehe- mence in the publicdebate in Israelon post-Zionismin recentyears.34 It is noteworthythat the oppositionhas not come fromthe Rightin Israel, whichhas a verylimited representation in theIsraeli academia, but from the Zi- onist Left.Although this Left accepts criticismof post-1967Israel, the period 1882-67is offlimits. Critics of post-Zionismcould be heardin the past voicing strongopposition to thecontinued Israeli occupation of theterritories seized in the 1967war. This protest, however, far from being anti-Zionist, was based on a strongcommitment to consensualZionist positions; it was thiscommitment that kept the ZionistLeft from accepting the fundamentalPalestinian positions on centralquestions such as thefate of the1948 refugees or thefuture of Jerusalem as long as thePLO remainedfaithful to itsstrategic concepts. This positionwas institutionalizedwhen the Peace Now movementcame intobeing in 1978,first as a lobby for peace withEgypt and then makingan impressiveeffort against Israel'sLebanon war duringthe Sabraand Shatilamassacre in 1982.The move- mentremained active throughout the intifada, became idle and muteduring the Rabinyears, but has been givennew lifeunder the Netanyahuregime. It should be stressedthat the movement'sreaction to the Lebanonwar and laterto the intifadadid not deviatefrom the Zionistperception of reality.More specifically,Peace Now's criticismwas and remainsdirected only against post- 1967 Israelipolicy; its main concern has been thispolicy's effect on Israelimo- rale and morality.Many academics gravitated toward the movement,but their affiliationdid not cause any change in the mainstreamscholarly works on the past and presentsituation in Israeland Palestine.Still, it was, as we shall see, a beginningfrom which others, in particularfilm makers and playwrights,would continueand develop theirown post-Zionistview of lifein Israel.It was only when anti-Zionistpositions, such as the ones held foryears by the Communist partyin Israel,were adopted by academics that fundamental changes occurred in theway Israelisperceived the "Arabs" or the"Palestinians," or indeedthe whole Zionistproject. The presentationof the Palestinian and Israeliin thelocal Israelimedia serves as an excellentexample of the Peace Now predicament.As we shallshow in the second partof thisarticle, the press, paradoxically, conserves the old prejudices and imagesof Israeland the Palestinianswhile at the same timeserving as the channelthrough which the findings and views criticalof Zionistinterpretations are conveyedto the public.It was throughthe press thatthe public became awareof the growing critique of Zionism among the different groups comprising theculture-producing community in Israel.Most of thesegroups have remained withinthe limitedcritique of Zionismtypified by Peace Now, butthey contrib- uted to the declineof theZionist myth and truthno less thantheir more radical and anti-Zionistcolleagues inside and outsidethe local academia.

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NOTES

1. The Israelisociologist Uri Ram pro- 9. See Ilan Pappe, Britain. vided themost extensive explanation of 10. See Walid Khalidi, "Plan Dalet: thisconcept in his The ChangingAgenda Master Plan for the Conquest of Pales- ofIsraeli Sociology:Theory, Ideology and tine,"in Middle East Forum, November Identity(New York:State University of 1961, reproduced with a new commen- New YorkPress, 1995). taryin JPS 18, no. 1 (Autumn 1988), pp. 2. A detailed descriptionwas pro- 4-70. vided in Ilan Pappe, "The New Historyof 11. See Morris,Refugees. For a discus- the 1948 War,"Theory and Criticism,3 sion on the differencebetween the two (1993), pp. 95-114 [in Hebrew]. narrativesand my own position that ac- 3. YehoshuaPorath, The Emergence cepts that there was a master plan, see of thePalestinian-Arab National Move- Pappe, The Making, 203-43. ment,1918-1929 (London:Frank Cass, 12. These claims are made by Morris 1974) and ThePalestinian Arab National and Pappe in particular. Movement,1929-1939 (London:Frank 13. Uri Ram representsthis approach; Cass, 1977). see Uri Ram, ed., Israeli Society. Critical 4. See forinstance Yoseph Nevo,"The Perspectives (Tel Aviv: Brerot,1993), in- Palestiniansand theJewish State, troduction [in Hebrew]. 1947-48"in We WereLike Dreamers, Y. 14. Ibid. Wallach,ed. (Tel Aviv:Masada, 1985) [in Hebrew]and recentlyItamar Rabi- 15. Ibid., 18-25. novich's,The Road Not Taken.Early 16. A notable example is Sami Arab Negotiations(New Yorkand Ox- Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict ford:Oxford University Press, 1991), (Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress, whichignores the Palestinian side of the 1978) and Yonathan Shapira, "The Histor- storyaltogether. ical Origins of Israeli Democracy" in 5. Moshe Shemesh,7he Palestinian Israeli Democracy Under Stress,Ehud Entity,1959-1974: Arab Politicsand the Sprinzak and LarryDiamond, eds. (Boul- PLO (London:Frank Cass, 1988). der: Lynne Rienner, 1993). 6. Fourmajor works were firstmen- 17. This approach is particularlyevi- tionedin thiswave: SimhaFlapan, 7he dent in Anita Shapira, Visions in Conflict, Birth of Israel (New York: Pantheon, (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1988) [in Hebrew]. 1984); Benny Morris,The Birth of the 18. See Uri Ram, "The Colonization Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 Perspective in Israeli Sociology," inJour- (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, nal of Historical Sociology 6, no. 3 (Sep- 1988); Ilan Pappe, Britain and the Arab- tember 1993), pp. 327-50 and Gershon Israeli Conflict,1948-1951 (New York: Shafir,Land, Labor and the Origins of Macmillan,1988); and AviShlaim, Collu- the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, sion Across theJordan. King Abdullah, 1882-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- The Zionist Movement, and the Partition versityPress, 1989). ofPalestine (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988). 19. Baruch Kimmerling,Zionism and To theseone can add UriBar-Joseph, The Territory.The Socio-TerritorialDimen- Best of Enemies. Israel and Transjordan sions of Zionist Politics (Berkeley: Uni- in the War of 1948 (London: Frank Cass, versityof CaliforniaPress, 1983), and 1987);Michael J. Cohen, Palestine and Shafir,Land. the Great Powers, 1945-1948 (Princeton: 20. Moshe Lissak in an interviewin PrincetonUniversity Press, 1982); and Davar, 18 March 1994; and Yaakov Katz Tom Segev, 1949. The FirstIsraelis (New in an interviewin Ha Aretz, 18 November York:Free Press, 1992). 1994. 7. Ilan Pappe, The Making of the 21. On museums see Tamar Katriel, Arab-Israeli Conflict,1947-1951 (New "RemakingPlace: CulturalProduction in York:I. B. Tauris,1992), pp. 102-35. an Israeli Pioneer SettlementMuseum," 8. Almostall thenew historiansmen- Historyand Memory 5, no. 2 (Fall-Winter tionedin endnote6 have dealtwith this 1993), pp. 104-35; and Ariela Azoulay, tacitunderstanding, referred to by'Avi "WithOpen Doors: Museums and History Shlaimas a "collusion." and the Israeli Public Space," 7heory and

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Criticism,4 (1993), pp. 79-96 [in 29. These include Ben-Eliezer, Emer- Hebrew]. gence; ShulamitCarmi and Henry Rosen- 22. On Israeli Orientalism,see Azmi feld, "The Emergence of Nationalistic Beshara, "On the Question of the Pales- Militarismin Israel," InternationalJour- tinian Minorityin Israel," Theoryand nal of Politics, Culture and Society 3, no. Criticism,3 (1993), pp. 7-21; Gil Eyal, 1 (1989),pp. 5-49; AvishaiErlich, "Israel: "Between East and West: The Discourse Conflict,War and Social Change, in The on the Arab Village in Israel," Theoryand Sociology of War and Peace, Colin Criticism,3 (1993),pp. 39-56; and Dan Creightonand MartinShaw, eds. (London: Rabinowitz, "OrientalNostalgia: The Macmillan,1987), pp. 121-43;and Baruch Transformationof the Palestinians into Kimmerling,"Patterns of Militarismin 'Israeli Arabs,"' 7heory and Criticism,4 Israel,"Archieve European Sociologie 34 (1993),pp. 141-52. (1993),pp. 196-223. 23. Smooha already had viewed these 30. Yagil Levy, "A MilitaristicPolicy, positions in the late 1970s (see Smooha, InterethnicRelationship and Domestic Ex- Israel), as did Sara Kazir and Shlomo pansion of the State: Israel 1948-1956," Swirskiin "Ashkenazim and Sephardim: 7heoryand Criticism,8 (1996),pp. The Making of Dependence," in 203-24 [in Hebrew]. Mahbarot le-Mehkar ve-Bikoret1 (1978), 31. Ella Shohat, Israeli Cinema. East/ pp. 21-59 [in Hebrew]. Westand the Politics of Representation of "new 24. Many the sociologists" (Texas: Universityof Texas Press, 1989). have contributedin this vein to Ram, 32. Among them Azmi Bishara, Aziz Israeli Sociology. Asad Ghanim, Majid al-Haj, Nadim 25. See Ram, Changing Agenda. Faisal, Rawhana, Khail Rinnawi,Ahmad Saadi, 26. Tom Segev, 7he Seventh Million and others in an ever-growing (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989); and Idit Zartal,From Catastrophe to Power community. (Tel Aviv: Keter, 1996) [In Hebrew it is 33. See for instance "A Symposium on called 7heJews' Gold]. Post-Zionism,"Ha'Aretz, 15 October 27. See Uri Ben-Eliezer, 7he Emer- 1995. gence of Israeli Militarism.,1936-1956 34. At one point a public debate was (Tel Aviv: Chrikover,1995) attended by over 700 people at Tel Aviv 28. Benny Morris,Israel's Border Universityin July1994. See the condem- Wars: Arab Infiltration,Israeli Retalia- nation by Shlomo Aharonson in "The tion, and the Countdown to the Suez New Historiansand the Challenge of the War (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993). Holocaust," Ha'Aretz, 24 June 1994.

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