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<Bold>Nation and History: Israeli Historiography Between Zionism

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<Bold>Nation and History: Israeli Historiography Between Zionism RECENT BOOKS 131 COUNTER-STATE ZIONISM AND POLITICAL ZIONISM Nation and History: Israeli Historiography between Zionism and Post-Zionism, by Yoav Gelber. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2011. 352 pages. $32.95 paper. JPS4103_08_Recent Books.indd 131 6/5/12 10:30 AM 132 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: student who uncovered the massacre of Rawidowicz, Kaplan, Kohn, by Noam Palestinians in the village on Tantura. 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 Haifa 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 Europe 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 Nationalism thing that !ts well with Israeli attempts and Ethnic Con#ict Resolution at Queen’s to expunge the Nakba. 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 Jewish state. Here Multicultural Nationalism (Routledge) will nation, state, and security become the be published next year. teleological raison d’être for Zionism. JPS4103_08_Recent Books.indd 132 6/5/12 10:30 AM RECENT BOOKS 133 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 Jews 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 Labor Zionism 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-Zion- 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 United States 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 JPS4103_08_Recent Books.indd 133 6/5/12 10:30 AM 134 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES 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.
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