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COUNTER-STATE AND POLITICAL ZIONISM

Nation and History: Israeli Historiography between Zionism and Post-Zionism, by Yoav Gelber. : Vallentine Mitchell, 2011. 352 pages. $32.95 paper.

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Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: student who uncovered the massacre of Rawidowicz, Kaplan, Kohn, by Noam in the village on . Pianko. Bloomington: Indiana University The saga culminated in the cancella- Press, 2010. x + 277 pages. $25.95. tion of Katz’s top-grade degree and a failed attempt to expel Professor Ilan Reviewed by Ephraim Nimni Pappé from University (see JPS 30, no. 3 [2001], pp. 5–39). Zionism: One or many? Obsolete? Gelber sees post-Zionism as under- Irreconcilably divided? Ethnocentric? mining the “scienti!c” character of Is there a Zionism compatible with Israeli scholarship. What is this con- nondiscrimination of Palestinians? tamination? “The postmodern and These two books, Nation and History: other post-theories that had swamped Israeli Historiography between Zionism the campuses of Western and and Post-Zionism by Yoav Gelber and the USA since the late 1970’s” (p. xii). Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: How do they contaminate Israel? “Is- Rawidowicz, Kaplan, Kohn by Noam raeli faculty staff who returned from Pianko, present opposite points of view, sabbaticals or from their PhD or post- one backward looking and abortive, doctoral studies abroad imported these the other forward looking, expressing crazes to the Israeli academe” (p. xii). hope for change. Both are grounded What follows is a long and amateurish in historical discussions with consid- discussion of epistemology and his- erable relevance to the present. Both torical research, ending with the pe- draw legitimacy by adhering to a Zionist destrian axiom that historical research dream. The two opposing dreams, how- approximates “the truth” (p. 27). The ever, negate each other. second chapter, “The Impact of the Postmodern Gospel and Its Apostles on Yoav Gelber and the Disastrous Roads the History Discipline,” is a long tirade Taken of dubious value. Under the heading of Gelber presents a feeble defense of “Postism [sic],” Gelber claims that after Zionist orthodoxy in a book riveted the enlightenment, people considering with hyperboles. The Hebrew ver- themselves enlightened “seek peace of sion is “History, Memory and Propa- mind in horoscopes, Indian worship ganda” (Historia, Zikaron v’Ta’amula), cults and drugs” (p. 30). He argues that a !tting title for the English version, “like religious faith, postmodernism too; the book is copiously adorned takes a deterministic view of the world. with slogans. Gelber’s book was born It is fatalist denying free will and offer- out of the Teddy Katz thesis contro- ing absolution” (p. 31). versy, which seriously undermined The third chapter is a denunciation the prestige of Haifa University. Gel- of oral history, an attack on methods ber provides his interpretation of the that today are seen as uncontroversial. disgusting affair under the suggestive Gelber acknowledges that Palestinian subheading, “Prostituting History: The refugees shaped their memories around Tantura Blood Libel” (p. 257). Katz, their places of origin and make pilgrim- whose !ndings Gelber refers to as a ages to what he calls “deserted” villages “blood libel,” was a Haifa University (p. 94). For Gelber, memory has a use- ful purpose, arguing that the past could also be a burden and drive people to expunge unpleasant memories, some- Ephraim Nimni is Professor of thing that !ts well with Israeli attempts and Ethnic Con#ict Resolution at Queen’s to expunge the . University Belfast, and Professor of The chapter “Jewish, Zionist, and Is- Comparative Nationalism at the University raeli Historiography” shows the old, of the Basque Country. He is the author discredited survivalist interpretation of of The Challenge of Post Zionism, (Zed Jewish history, whose episteme and ge- Books, London 2003), and National Cultural Autonomy and its Contemporary Critics nealogy are oriented to Jewish national (Routledge, London 2005). His new book, normalization in a . Here Multicultural Nationalism (Routledge) will nation, state, and security become the be published next year. teleological raison d’être for Zionism.

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This is the regime of truth that U.S. Jewish welfare organizations. This shapes Gelber’s objectivity: historiciz- changed with the cancellation of pre- ing Judaism articulates the aspiration ferred immigration status for escapees of “normalizing” it, political Zionism is from Communism after the collapse of its latest advocate. Examples are drawn the Soviet Union. Political Zionism was exclusively from Europe, rendering in- interested in persecuted only inso- visible and subsuming non-European far as they became laborers and troop- Jewry into this master narrative. It fur- ers in the settlement of Palestine and ther controls the plurality and diver- Israel. sity of Judaism in a disciplined notion Gelber’s work is not well known of normality. Not only Arab and Sep- outside Israel, but his most signi!cant hardic Jews are absent, but so are other citation in English relates directly to Jewish religious and national projects. the above. In 1979, Gelber published Gelber explains how Baer and Dinur, in English an article with the title “Zi- builders of the Israeli state-oriented ed- onist Policy and the Fate of European ucational dogma, inherited a vision of Jewry” in the journal Yad Vashem Stud- “The Jewish People” as a living organ- ies, which is dedicated to the memory ism (p. 107). Through these arguments of those who perished in the Nazi geno- the indebtedness of political Zionism to cide. Here Gelber published what was Völkisch movements of Central Europe, hitherto an unknown statement of Is- from which inherited its rael’s founder, David Ben Gurion, who organic vision of the nation, becomes said in 1938: apparent (see Sternhell, 1998, pp. 55, 332). With statehood, all rival interpreta- If I knew that it would be possible to save all tions of Jewish history and Zionism be- the children in Germany by bringing them over came integrated into political Zionism. to England, and only half of them by transport- ing them to Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for Chapter 5, “Post-Zionism and Jewish the second alternative. For we must weigh not Nationalism,” returns to Gelber’s obses- only the life of these children, but also the his- sive topic, polemicizing on post-- tory of the People of Israel. (Ben Gurion, in ism, repeating interminably the claim Gelber, 1979, p. 199) that Jewish nationalism is political Zi- onism and ignoring the impact of alter- Gelber claims that the Zionist movement native forms of Jewish nationalism and before World War II removed itself from Zionism. Gelber adds, for a change, an rescue attempts of endangered Jews if interesting re#ection. To the existential these were not connected to Palestine, distress of the Jewish masses in East- citing the refusal of Israel’s !rst presi- ern Europe, there were only two solu- dent, Chaim Weizmann, to attend the tions: emigration to the or Evian Conference (Gelber, 1979, p. to Palestine. Disregarding that displaced 199). President Roosevelt called the Jews also migrated elsewhere, Gelber’s Evian Conference in 1938 to consider dichotomy raises an interesting point, the resettlement of Jews persecuted by and the Achilles heel of political Zion- Nazis. The conference ended in failure, ism. From the 1920s, when alternatives something that remains the curse and existed, displaced Jews did not migrate mark of Cain on Western democra- to Palestine except for a small number cies. BBC correspondent Christopher of idealists. The majority of those who Sykes corroborates Gelber’s argument, migrated to Palestine from the 1920s indicating that the attitude of Zionist did so for lack of choice. This was the organizations was one of hostile indif- case of Soviet Jews with exit visas to ference, as they “did not want Jewish Israel during the cold war; their actual settlements outside Palestine to be suc- destination was the United States as it cessful” (Sykes, 1965, p. 228). granted refugee status to escapees from It sounds incredible that Gelber’s the Soviet Union. Most changed course Yad Vashem article was published in a on arrival to Vienna, the transit point. journal devoted to commemorating vic- These refugees were vili!ed by the Zi- tims of the Nazi genocide. He does not onist press and organizations, calling utter the mildest criticism of Ben Gu- them dropouts (Noshrim), creating a rion’s lack of compassion. On the con- rift between the Zionist movement and trary, Gelber’s apologetic contextual

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explanation that the Zionist project was within it, political Zionism. As the vic- in danger sinks even further the moral- torious hegemon, political Zionism ity of political Zionism. It shows that disarmed alternative interpretations, it was more concerned with creating making the state model with a Jewish Israel than with the survival of endan- majority the only “realistic” one. For gered Jews. In his refutation of Idith example, Ahad Ha’am is widely known Zertal’s groundbreaking book, Israel’s in Israel because there is a street in his Holocaust and the Politics of Nation- name in every city. Few realize that if hood (2005), which accused political his ideas succeeded, there would be no Zionism of behaving inhumanely and Jewish state. cynically manipulating Jewish refugees Pianko’s aim to revive nonterrito- for its own statist ends, Gelber replies, rial understandings of Zionism becomes “Had the Zionist Leadership taken this then a counter-hegemonic project as course, it is likely that no Jewish state much as it is a counter-state project. would have arisen” (p. 216). No Jewish Though some of post-Zionism’s detrac- state perhaps, but what about saving tors (Hazony, 2000) argue the roots of millions of Jewish and, indeed, Pales- contemporary post-Zionism rest with tinian refugees instead? The negation the early forms of counter-state Zi- of the !ts also into the onism, unfortunately Pianko did not Manichean model of political Zionism. connect with this important counter- Gelber writes, “Zionism could not ex- hegemonic trend. pand without negating the Diaspora, as Pianko’s !rst chapter, “Breaking the a revolutionary movement it had to rise Sovereign Mold,” goes directly to the up against the existing order it sought point, using as a reference a speech to change—and this order was the Dias- of the Israeli Zionist novelist A. B. pora” (p. 156). Yehoshua (a fellow-traveler of Gelber), who Pianko calls a “Zionist provoca- Noam Pianko and the Roads Not Taken teur.” Yehoshua, with characteristic For Pianko, the perception that Zi- “!nesse,” infuriated his U.S. Jewish au- onism builds a Jewish nation state and dience by claiming that he would not negates the Diaspora was not the in- cry if Jews were to disappear from the evitable outcome of Zionist ideals. Diaspora (the inverted mirror image After World War I, leading Jewish in- relation between political Zionism and tellectuals attempted to rede!ne Zion- anti-Semitism). Like Gelber, Yehoshua ism against the nation-state paradigm. expressed a narrative of Jewish na- Pianko’s book is devoted to analyzing tionalism that elevated the state as the in light of contemporary events these highest expression of Jewish life and roads not taken. If these roads had been the culmination of Jewish history. It taken, they would have obviated much seems that Pianko was suf!ciently in- suffering, displacement, and bloodshed censed to ask, “What would an alterna- of Jews and Palestinians. Thus Pianko’s tive to Yehoshua’s vision look like?” (p. book is important, not because the 3). From his irritation, Pianko bequests roads were not taken but because these to us an impressive tour de force of the models could inspire a radical recon!g- ideas and projects of counter-state Zi- uration of Jewish Diaspora politics, as onists, one that—in sharp contrast to well as a recon!guration of relations be- Gelber’s tirade—is elegantly argued, tween Israelis and Palestinians. Follow- meticulously researched, and situated ing Pianko’s terminology, I would call in a contemporary context. Follow- this the “Diasporization of Israel and ing Pianko’s logic, the Jewish home- Palestine,” though Pianko limits himself land could not be an ethnic state. This to Jewish Diasporas. point was systematically explored by Although some might be surprised one of Pianko’s counter-state Zionists, by Pianko’s understanding of Zionism, Hans Kohn, the prominent scholar and there is some justi!cation for this. I founding father of the academic study have discussed in detail elsewhere (see of nationalism. Nimmi, 2003, pp. 119–21), that follow- The !rst counter-state Zionist dis- ing 1948, all forms of Zionism were in- cussed by Pianko is Simon Rawidowicz. corporated into the victorious faction He confronted Ben Gurion on naming

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the state “Israel,” arguing that term can- and nonterritorial forms of community not belong exclusively to Palestine’s organization as well as autonomous Jews. Rawidowicz castigated Ben Gu- institutions that could help build a bi- rion for making the term “Israel” an ar- national state. Palestine’s government bitrary geographical entity devoid of would take the form of a multitier bi- cultural identity and advocated instead national organization, recognizing for a decentered Jewish national life. cultural, religious, and linguistic differ- Rawidowicz argued, prophetically, that ences and encouraging intergroup co- in ignoring the fundamental principles operation. His blueprint for Palestine of Jewish thought, political Zionism was invoked local elements resembling the emulating the inequalities implemented Ottoman millet. On this, he went be- by nations that victimized Jews in the yond many contemporary advocates of name of national unity. a one-state solution. The second counter-state Zionist is According to Pianko, Kohn be- Mordecai Kaplan, who argued that cur- lieved that the presence of two national rent concepts of nationalism are decep- groups was a blessing, because it would tive because they assume an identity allow building a state that would avoid between nation and state. This makes the destructive failures of European na- it impossible for stateless nations to be tionalism. For Kohn, a binational state considered. Instead, Kaplan advocated in Palestine was not a compromise dic- a Zionism compatible with multination tated by circumstances. It was an ex- states. The , Kaplan emplary model to usher the transition wrote in 1929, was like a foreign body from nation states to multination states; in the system of Jewish revival, causing counter-state nationalism was, for Kohn, irritation and liable to set up a danger- an important protection against the ex- ous poison. clusivist threat of ethno-national sover- The third and most important of Pi- eignty. This has contemporary relevance anko’s counter-state Zionists was Hans and needs to be explored in detail. Kohn, a proli!c writer and renowned Kohn !nally grew disillusioned with scholar of nationalism. After migrating Zionism, migrated to the United States, to Palestine, Kohn grew disillusioned and became a leading international with mainstream Zionism and began to academic. campaign for a binational state. He be- lieved that Palestinians had no antipathy Can Counter-State Zionism Diasporize to Jewish settlers, only a (well-founded) Israel-Palestine? fear that Jews would take over Palestine. The concluding chapter of Pianko’s He argued that Palestinians should be book is pregnant with thought-provok- reassured on this by limiting immigra- ing ideas. He claims, with some jus- tion and recognizing Palestinian national ti!cation, that counter-state Zionists rights: “Jews and Arabs would then build opted for subverting mainstream politi- a binational federation with complete cal thought on the link between nation cultural autonomy” (Pianko, pp. 152–53). and state through the speci!c lens of Kohn opposed the idea that Jews Judaism. This included the subversion had historical rights over Palestine and of mainstream political Zionism’s goal was not interested in establishing a of a sovereign Jewish nation state, but Jewish majority in Palestine. Kohn was the implications of this remain ambigu- different from other Zionist leaders ous in Pianko’s argument. However, he in that he dialogued with Palestinians notes that counter-state Zionists wanted and wrote for both Zionist newspapers to replace, not emulate, post-1948 and the Palestinian newspaper Filas- Zionism. tin. Kohn was inspired by the model But post-1948 Zionism was contami- of National Cultural Autonomy of the nated by the Nakba. Counter-state Zion- Austrian socialists Otto Bauer and Karl ists opposed political Zionism because Renner (see Nimni, 2005). He pro- they had the foresight to realize, follow- duced a blueprint for a model of non- ing the painful Central European Jewish territorial autonomy in a binational experience, that political Zionism’s goal state, devolving signi!cant power to of an ethnic state would ineluctably lead the local level and building cantonal to the Nakba. The process of destroying

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Palestinian communities and building (2006) argues, the negation of (politi- an ethnocentric state in its place echoed cal) Zionism is the negation of anti- events in Central Europe and severely Semitism, and a key ingredient in the tarnished the morality of political Zi- persistence of the Palestinian question, onism. Michael Mann’s bestseller, the counter-state Zionism, has the potential Dark Side of Democracy (2005), vindi- to break the vicious circuit. cates counter-state Zionism, showing that the con#ation between ethnos and REFERENCES: demos is a powerful trigger of ethnic cleansing. However, Pianko falls short Gelber, Yoav. “Zionist Policy and the of seeing this with regard to the State of Fate of European Jewry (1939–42).” Israel. He does understand that state na- Yad Vashem Studies XIII (1979): tionalist rhetoric has led to expansion- 169–211. ism, aggressive homogenization, and Hazony, Yoram. The Jewish State: The ethnic cleansing, yet the connection to Struggle for Israel’s Soul. New York: Israel remains unclear. This must be ad- Basic Books, 2000. dressed if Pianko’s argument is to avoid Mann, Michael. The Dark Side of falling into contradictions. His plea for Democracy, Explaining Ethnic a renewal of counter-state Zionism and Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge a decentering politics of recognition University Press, 2005. of minority communities is refreshing, Massad, Joseph A. The Persistence of but oriented to reinvigorating counter- the Palestinian Question: Essays on state Diaspora Zionism. While this is an Zionism and the Palestinians. London important goal, it is partial and insuf- and New York: Routledge, 2006. !cient. Pianko must take his argument Nimni, Ephraim. “From Galut to forward to “diasporize” the state that T’fusoth: Post-Zionism and the claims to be the state of all Jews, and Dislocation of Jewish Diasporas.” In decenter its constituent communities, as E. Nimni, ed., The Challenge of Post- earlier counter-state Zionists demanded. Zionism. London: Zed Books, 2003. A reinvigorated counter-state Zionism Nimni, Ephraim. National Cultural must explore its synergies with Israeli Autonomy and Its Contemporary post-Zionism and with other historical Critics. London: Routledge, 2005. non-Zionist forms of Jewish autonomism Roshwald, Aviel. “Review of Noam such as the Jewish Bund, which Pianko Pianko’s Zionism and the Roads Not has neglected. Taken.” Journal of Israeli History 30 Zionism has unleashed its artillery (2011): 104–106. against Pianko. In his 2011 article, Aviel Sternhell, Zeev. The Founding Myths Roshwald disingenuously argues that of Israel: Nationalism, , Palestine’s binational state would be “a and the Making of the Jewish State. Belgium with bazookas” (p. 105). It is Princeton: Princeton University Press, mystifying that a scholar of nationalism 1998. does not understand that these “bazoo- Sykes, Christopher. Cross Roads to Israel: kas” are the corollary of promoting eth- Palestine from Balfour to Bevin. nic cleansing. Contrary to Roshwald’s London: Collins, 1965. dubious assertions, the counter-state Zertal, Idith. Israel’s Holocaust and the diasporization of Israel could bring con- Politics of Nationhood. Cambridge: structive hope where there is despair. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Through the colonial encounter, Zion- (See review in JPS 35, no. 3 [2006]: ism is now inextricably linked to the 123–124.) question of Palestine. As Joseph Massad

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