Could there be an Israeli Martin Luther King? The regressive effect of identity politics on Israeli society and the “peace camp”

Eva Illouz Could there be an Israeli Martin Luther King? The regressive effect of identity politics on Israeli society and the “peace camp”

Eva Illouz

While many Western democracies were fought by abolitionist and former slave founded on the basis of universalist Harriett Tubman in 1863. The collective constitutions (or morphed into that state), was formed by a group of African-American Israel, which was envisaged by its founding lesbians to differentiate themselves from fathers as a homeland for Jews, has been an mainstream feminist emancipation groups. ethnic project from the very start. Therefore, Because these women were lesbian and while in Europe and the US multiculturalism black, they claimed their needs and struggles was a form of democratization of the polity, were different and should be addressed in Israel it is universalism that represents as such. the only way to overcome tribalism and ethnic-nationalism. The upshot is that Israeli “[A]s children we realized that we were identity politics often only reconfirmed different from boys and that we were treated the preexisting ethnic character of the differently – for example, when we were told state. The Israeli case illuminates a larger in the same breath to be quiet both for the interesting fact: that identity politics do sake of being ‘ladylike’ and to make us less not take the same form or have the same objectionable in the eyes of white people. effects everywhere. While they contributed In the process of consciousness-raising, to the democratization of American society, actually life-sharing, we began to recognize in Israel identity politics have had deeply the commonality of our experiences and, regressive effects, pitching proponents of from the sharing and growing consciousness, identity against supporters of peace and to build a politics that will change our advocates of religion against secularists. lives and inevitably end our oppression… We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our What are Identity Politics? liberation are us. Our politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters and Identity politics is a broad term that has our community which allows us to continue swept up liberal polities from the late 1970s our struggle and work. This focusing upon and especially from the 1980s and on. our own oppression is embodied in the concept of identity politics. We believe that One of the first documents to invoke the the most profound and potentially most term is the Combahee River Statement radical politics come directly out of our written by African-American women in 1978, own identity, as opposed to working to end concerning a struggle to free 750 slaves somebody else’s oppression.” [1]

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This short passage contains most of the in one’s own identity, where identity is major components of identity politics. a set of hard properties – fixed, known Perhaps the key sentence is this: “We realize and stable. If identity stems from groups that the only people who care enough about uniquely defined and different from us to work consistently for our liberation are others, this logically entails In Israel identity״ us. Our politics evolve from a healthy love that my identity divides me for ourselves…” This sentence contains three from others: others cannot politics have features or beliefs central to identity politics: fight in my name, nor can I do it for them. This is because had regressive → The lesbian-black group does not count we can neither understand effects, pitching on others to defend their interests. Their nor represent the particular proponents of existential position and interests are experiences and positions of identity against so particular and different from other each other. Identity is precisely supporters mainstream groups that they have come what makes someone a of peace and to embrace a view of political struggles member of a unique tradition, advocates of as lacking the capacity to identify with memory and social location. causes other than one’s own. However religion against ״lofty political ideals may be, they will The upshot is that a universalist secularists reflect the specific social identities and policy of liberation is at best interests of the groups that formulate ineffective and at worst a sham. For them and will therefore be inadequate proponents of identity politics, universalism in representing the social experience of contains and hides its own identity, covers other groups; the identity of the majority and imposes it on members of minority groups.

Identity politics in Israel These claims were quickly formalized״ never connected to a broad and theorized by new disciplines such as ,women’s studies, post-colonial studies ״ universalist agenda queer studies, and ethnicity studies, → Self-love is no longer a psychological justifying the claim that political struggles state but a political declaration. Why? of minorities were anchored in historical Because self-love is viewed as a practical identities. Identity politics started off as a response to the political evil that minority distinctly American phenomenon but quickly groups suffer from – lack of respect. This spread to the rest of the world, among other is a subtle shift from traditional notions things through the institutional mimesis of justice. Not only equality but also of academic organizations. The concept respect is now demanded from political was uncommonly suited to the American institutions. Respect concerns the self, polity, which conceived of civil society as a makes psychological demands on social patchwork of communities, each defending structures and settles more easily with their right to cultural autonomy. It stood in social injustice once the subjective sharp contrast to other democratic polities, conditions for the experience of lack of which had premised citizenship on a model self-respect are satisfied; of universal human rights, as was the case in French Republicanism. → The logical result of these new politics is that struggles cannot be waged for others. It is easy to understand why the late Arthur Political struggles must be grounded Schlesinger issued stern warnings against

PEACEMISM | What Happened to the Israeli Peace Camp? 3/11 Could there be an Israeli Martin Luther King? Eva Illouz the politics of identity, seeing in them danger Identity Politics in Israel of fragmentation and disunity. Groups can find infinitesimal ways to gather around The Israeli model of citizenship started off common histories and memories, some real as quasi-republican: public virtue, frugality and some invented, thus breaking away from and commitment to democratic principles other groups also struggling to have their were guiding forces of this model in Israel rights recognized. This makes it difficult of the 1950s. It excluded the Arabs that to rally around broad common causes. remained within the borders of the newly Given the ways in which women had been established state, but for Jews presented treated as subalterns in socialist movements itself as a meeting point, an action plan for and the fact that few or no heterosexuals, forging new Israeli citizens. at least initially, defended and fought for the case of homosexuals, Schlesinger had The majority of the “Yishuv” – the people who overstated his point. Some groups needed fought for the creation of the Jewish state to particularize in order to affirm their – were secular Ashkenazis (i.e. of European universal rights. Yet his bleak prognosis descent). Their secularity was the result of would have proven poignant in the Israeli a process of European modernization that context, where identity politics attained a had started before Jewish nationalism per different meaning: because universalism se. Zionism represented a great historical has never been entrenched in Israel’s main compromise between cultural and religious institutions, identity politics only reproduced assimilation in Europe, on the one hand, the particularism and exclusions enshrined and the desire to renew Jewish identity, in the Israeli conception of citizenship. on the other. All or most of Israel’s national Identity politics in Israel never connected emblems, the rhetoric of returning to to a broad universalist agenda, as was the Zion and the public calendar were heavily case for women’s, gay or African-American borrowed from religious symbolism (for struggles in the United States. To better example, in the flag, the two blue stripes understand the influence of identity politics represent a tallit or prayer shawl, and both on Israeli society, we need to take a look at sides of the split Red Sea that the Hebrews the Israeli model of citizenship.

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Zionist leaders in Latrun, following the Agatha operation in 1946

Heinrich Böll Stiftung Tel Aviv 4/11 Could there be an Israeli Martin Luther King? Eva Illouz walked through as written in the Book of has come to characterize the Israeli polity. Exodus; the blue and white colors are derived While trying to create a new nation and from the Bible as well, where they are people, Zionism displayed an astonishing mentioned in several instances). Despite the lack of imagination in the boundaries it secular character of the Zionist movement, drew for this group, in deciding who is in Zionism not only borrowed heavily from and who is out – in short, in deciding on religious images and symbols but made citizenship. To create a new Jewish Israeli religion present in the establishment of collective, it needed both to exclude the the state itself. natives of the land (local Arabs) and to find a binding common denominator for diverse Far from negating religious Judaism (as Jews who came from various cultural and is sometimes claimed), Zionism made socio-economic backgrounds. surprising concessions to it even before The secular state turned to the The Israeli ״ -the creation of the state, thus offsetting body that had defined the out the possibility of creating a secular and group boundaries of Jewishness state paved the inclusive citizenship. In 1947, founding for the last thousand years or so: way even more father and first prime minister David Ben the rabbis. for the ethnic- Gurion wrote a famous letter to Agudat nationalism that Israel, the organization that represented Compare this with the ways has come to Ashkenazi orthodox Judaism, committing in which the Abbe Sieyes, a characterize the the state to four key points: Observing the committed Roman-Catholic Israeli polity ״ Sabbath; Kashrut in the newly-founded priest, defined citizenship during military; rabbinical control of personal- the French Revolution: “I picture status laws; and autonomy for the religious the law as being in the center of a huge education system. globe; all citizens, without exception, stand equidistant from it on the surface In the same way the state and occupy equal positions there” (quoted ,in Brubaker, French Politics and Society ״ was thickly Jewish, it was also p. 35). Anything that smacked of privilege -including the Church) would be non) ״thickly Ashkenazi civic according to this new conception In practice, the incorporation of Jewish of citizenship. Sieyes wanted to erase the religion into state institutions went old ways of belonging to French society, further and deeper than these already the society of three estates. He imagined major concessions. More significantly and an entirely different citizenship in which dramatically: the 1950 Law of Return grants all citizens regardless of class, religion or automatic citizenship to anyone defined as ethnicity would stand equidistant from the a Jew: “Every Jew has the right to come to law. Sieyes’s model of citizenship marked this country as an immigrant.” But when a radical rupture with the past, as it was the question arose as to who was entitled equal and inclusive. The Zionist founding to define Jewishness, the rabbis – and more fathers of Israel, on the other hand, were precisely, orthodox rabbis – took charge of far more ambivalent toward the past: they the complicated and unsettled matter (in were eager to forget the immediate past 1958-59). of the Diaspora, but revived the ancient past of biblical sovereignty in order to find In doing so, the Israeli state paved the way a common culture. The connection to the even more for the ethnic-nationalism that distant biblical past was motivated, to

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be sure, by the need to forge a national The Exclusion of Mizrahim consciousness, but it ultimately prevented the formulation of a universalist conception In the 1950s, Jews of Middle Eastern and of citizenship, which would include not only North African origins flocked to Israel from Arabs but also, and tragically, other Jews – Arab countries and were immediately the latecomers to the state, the Mizrahim excluded from significant areas of social or Jews who originated in Arab countries. power. Yemenite, Moroccan and Iraqi Jews who joined the state were not housed in Thus, while the connection between urban centers – and were thus deprived nationalism and religion is not a necessary of the wealth and access to culture which one (see the French case), in the Israeli these centers provided. Located in peripheral case, this connection shaped and dictated, areas to which the socialist/Ashkenazi through a combination of political strategies, state allocated little or no cultural and a habitual and unconscious deference to educational resources, they became a religion and, through the attempt to create severely discriminated group. Having been a culture rooted in the Bible, a thick national classified by the Ashkenazi Zionists who identity: only through ethnic identity would received them as “Mizrahim” (Easterners), citizens stand equidistant to the law. This they were bestowed an identity that was created a quasi-equivalence between radically different from that of the Western Jewishness and Israeliness and left little and Eastern European Jews. space between the two (contrary to classical/ secular models of liberal citizenship). As The history of these Mizrahim, who later there was little or no universalist and secular turned fundamentalists in founding the basis for citizenship, it gave one ethnic ultra-orthodox party Shas, is curiously group – Ashkenazis – supremacy over all similar to that of the workers who were other groups – Arabs and Jews that migrated brought to European countries to help to Israel from Arab countries (Mizrahim). build or rebuild infrastructures such as the Maghreban workforce in France, colonial Because secular Ashkenazim denied populations in England or the Turks in״ Germany. Like their European counterparts, Mizrahim the possibility of a secular Ashkenazi Zionists allocated working-class identity, the only way to gain traction jobs to Mizrahim and classified them as a in the public sphere was as a religious single entity radically foreign to their own aspiring identity, Western and secular. Theirs ״ movement was an inferior and primitive intelligence, Because the Israeli state was not secular culturally backward and pre-modern, and (its governing elites were, but not its most of all, religious – and therefore doubly institutions), it was not universalist. foreign to the would-be progressive secular Secularism is not often discussed in terms state. of universalism, but the former is a quasi- condition for the latter as non-secular Yet there is an irony here: the religiosity of states tend to have a thick identity that Jews who came from Arab countries was excludes those who do not belong to the in fact far more modern and modernizing primary ethnic group. In the same way the than that of their Ashkenazi counterparts, state was thickly Jewish, it was also thickly the ultra-orthodox “Agudat Israel” with Ashkenazi – in the control over most or all which the Zionist establishment had made centers of power. such far-reaching compromises. What

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“Operation Magic Carpet” – Yemenite Jews immigrating to Israel- Source:Wiki Commons the Zionists took to be the religiosity of What later became Mizrachi fundamentalism Mizrahim was simply the effect of their did not precede the arrival of Mizrachim Orientalization by the Western-aspiring in Israel, but was the creation of state of Israel (Shenhav, Haaretz, 27.12.1996 their classification by the Ashkenazi Kazzom, Shochat). While Agudat Israel (the establishment, of their deep and wide organization with which Ben Gurion too discrimination from Israeli society, and easily compromised) was by all standards of their mimicry of Ashkenazi religious religiously extremist, anti-modern, ultra- groups, which gained traction and power orthodox – the religiosity of Jews born in in the political arena. Their adoption of Arab countries was far more accommodating fundamentalism was the direct outcome of of Western values, but because it was their Orientalization and social exclusion, associated with the Arab world and the and in effect made them claim power not in Orient, it was a source of cultural disgust. the name of universalist values, but in the name of a specialized identity niche within Religion became a negative marker of ethnic the broader identity niche of Ashkenazi identity and lower social class. That is why – Israelis. as Amnon Raz-Krazotkin states – Mizrahim could enter politics only as an ultra-orthodox This ethnic reading of the relationship of the religious party. Because the state was based Israeli state with religion suggests a double on the inferiority of Arabs, Arab Jews were particularity of the Israeli state: Jewish (thus associated with that inferiority. Because excluding its 20% Arabs) and Ashkenazi secular Ashkenazim denied Mizrahim the (thus excluding its 50% Mizrahim). This is possibility of a secular identity, the only because the state was neither universalist way to gain traction in the public sphere nor secular. was as a religious movement. Unbeknownst to them, Ashkenazis had paved the way for a social and cultural gap that would later morph into a political gap that is yet to be bridged.

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The Israeli Peace Camp as an cultural and ethnic privileges, the “peace Ethnic Camp camp” became marked as the camp of a specific ethnic, educational and social group. The Israeli left never fought for a universal conception of citizenship (even if Ben- This is aptly illustrated by an article Gurion extended citizenship to Arabs) published by sociologist Yehouda Shenhav because it was shaped rather by leftist in Haaretz in the mid-1990s, in which he ideas inspired by Russian socialism in its claimed that while the Israeli left fought for organization of production than by leftist Arabs and for peace, it gazed with disgust ideas in the spirit of liberalism, which upon Mizrahim. As sociologists would claim, bestowed rights and freedoms. Yet the a practice – whether cultural or political – Israeli left curiously adopted a peace agenda that excludes others and is the apanage of a that gave the appearance of universalism socially dominant group cannot effectively but de facto did not utilize the terminology recruit the same social groups it excludes, and moral discourse of universalism for all both symbolically and culturally. populations inside Israel. While the left’s identity politics were The “peace camp” became hidden from view and remained implicit״ marked as the camp of a specific under a veneer of superficial liberalism, Menachem Begin and the rightwing ethnic, educational and social (but still liberal) Likud began shifting Israeli politics into the strident gears of ״group identity politics. In a famous speech in The “Peace Now” movement was founded 1981, Begin proclaimed the Mizrahim, who in 1978 after 348 army officers and had been excluded from Israeli politics, were reserve officers sent an anguished letter “brothers” because they were Jews. to Menachem Begin, urging him to renounce Mizrahim had been entirely excluded The Israeli״ the settlement enterprise. The signatories from the political establishment were overwhelmingly and almost exclusively founded by Ashkenazim and could state paved the males of Ashkenazi descent. In fact, until now re-enter it as Jews. way even more recently, no Mizrahi ever participated in the for the ethnic- leadership of Peace Now. The movement For Mizrahim, left-wing socialism nationalism that was strikingly marked by its ethnicity as would have been the wrong Trojan has come to Ashkenazis had been the natural holders horse with which to enter Israeli of power and seemed to be its obvious society, as it was left-wing socialism characterize the ״ representatives. Peace became the cultural that had exploited them in factories Israeli polity marker and coat of arms of a specific social and fields and confined them in group, Ashkenazim, who – curiously enough settlements isolated from urban centers. – never considered that recruiting Mizrahim Galvanized by Begin’s acknowledgement of to their cause was important for both moral their presence and importance, Mizrahim and political reasons. Israel must be one entered politics as Jews, in fact as an ultra- of the few countries in the world in which orthodox party. They exacted power and the ideal of peace functioned as a status equality not from within the liberal tradition symbol and social marker, as a mark of but from the game of political coalitions distinction. Because peace and human that Israeli democracy enabled. rights have been, historically, promoted by a social group that has retained its class,

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The Shas Party

Shas is a Hebrew acronym for the Sephardic Educated Jews – philosophers, “Guardians of the Torah”. The party was mathematicians, poets and physicians founded in 1984 and like other ultra- – were partners in that civilization, orthodox parties was headed by a rabbi. Its alongside their Muslim counterparts. ideology was of a strain of Judaism that most When European Jews were subject Jews of Arab countries did not know. Shas to daily persecution, forced to live in had a social vocation and provided services ghettoes, expelled from country ,From the outset״ and resources to its constituency (for after country while facing the example, a government-funded education terrible Inquisition, Jews (and Shas was a system). It never stood or aimed to stand Christians) in Muslim countries for larger universal values. It was from the enjoyed full rights.” sectorial party that outset a blatantly sectorial party, which functioned more functioned more like a lobby than as a In a somewhat patronizing way, like a lobby than party with a political platform based on Avnery expressed his frustration as a party with a values of social justice. Despite the wide at the fact that Mizrahim did not political platform discrimination against Mizrahim, they never view themselves as entrusted with based on values of invoked a universalist language of justice, the mission to function as a bridge social justice ״ but rather operated as an interest group between Arabs and Jews, and to redistributing resources to itself through renew the marvelous fusion of various positions in government. civilizations of the medieval Spanish Golden Age. But he was right: Mizrahim never tapped At first, Shas followed a moderate policy into universalism and acted instead as an on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after its interest group, because they reflected the leader Rabbi Yosef declared that lives were identity politics of the Ashkenazim who had more important than land. But as the party never been truly bothered by their massive held that Jewish life was, after all, superior exclusion of such large group of people and to non-Jewish life, it quickly moved to the even felt entitled to it. right, adopting a reactionary political agenda that opposed gay and women’s rights. Other minority groups followed suit, most notably gays and women. Israel enjoys a The late Uri Avnery, a veteran left-wing relatively gay-friendly environment and activist, expressed his own disappointment: has passed a series of laws that make it significantly more progressive than its “I had great hopes of the second or third neighbors. There are several gay advocacy generation of Mizrahim remembering that organizations and the community can its forebears were an integral part of the mobilize the media successfully when Islamic Golden Age, that they would act as their rights are jeopardized (as was the a bridge between the new Hebrew nation case with the 2018 law prohibiting state- and its Palestinian neighbors and the entire funded support for technologically-assisted Muslim world. It seemed natural to me for childbirth). Yet it is quite interesting to Mizrahim to recall their glorious heritage, note that while gay people constitute a the time when Jews in Iraq, Spain, Egypt and natural left-wing constituency, there has other Muslim countries were full partners never been a declared alliance with the in a flourishing civilization – while most peace movement in the country. Nor did Europeans were still savages. the community create organizations that

PEACEMISM | What Happened to the Israeli Peace Camp? 9/11 Could there be an Israeli Martin Luther King? Eva Illouz officially represent Arab and Jewish gays Conclusion under a single umbrella. Thus, the term “identity politics” hides vastly Ofri Ilani summarized this aptly in a 2018 different political situations. In the US, identity article in Ha'aretz: politics resonated with the cultural patchwork envisioned by the American polity, which “[T]he LGBT agenda is no longer identified was always united around key values such as with the old and despised form of left-wing the constitution and belief in the American politics. LGBT people aren’t old elites and dream (access to social mobility). It was this aren’t regressing. On the contrary, theirs peculiar mix of belief in the Constitution and is an up-to-date identity with young and in one’s own community that formed the dynamic brand values. It’s attractive mainly uniqueness and power of US identity politics. among the young generation, whose support for the left is nonexistent. It’s an aesthetic In Israel, there never were “constitutional” politics that requires no concessions. The universalist values to serve as the basis demand to end the occupation, or demands for further democratizing the social bond. put forward by feminists and socialists, In other words, identity politics in Israel call for significant concessions by the differ significantly from those of minority possessors of power and resources. The groups in the US, which occasionally formed LGBT demand for equality requires nothing coalitions and alliances between themselves in return.” and appealed to the universalist rhetoric.

The Israeli LGBT movement Martin Luther King opened his famous “I Have״ acts more like an interest a Dream” speech with a direct invocation of the white founders of the Constitution: group than to promote a “Five score years ago, a great American, in universalist rhetoric of rights whose symbolic shadow we stand today, .signed the Emancipation Proclamation ״for all disenfranchised groups This momentous decree came as a great Indeed, LGBT politics are a lifestyle politics beacon light of hope to millions of Negro centered around protesting and boycotting slaves who had been seared in the flames anything that smacks of homophobia. In of withering injustice. It came as a joyous that sense, the LGBT movement acts more daybreak to end the long night of captivity.” like an interest group than to promote Martin Luther King was referring to Abraham a universalist rhetoric of rights for all Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which itself disenfranchised groups. The same holds referred to the constitution: “Four score and true for the Israeli Women’s Network, which seven years ago our fathers brought forth is the main institution promoting equality on this continent, a new nation, conceived for women. Over the years, the network’s in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition board has been careful not to voice opinions that all men are created equal.” on divisive political matters such as the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and has Israel is still waiting for its Martin Luther acted only to defend the cause of women. King, but even if it found one, he or she would not know how to voice their call for justice, which is by definition always universalist.

[1] (Zillah R. Eisenstein (1978), The Combahee River Collective Statement)

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Eva Illouz Sociology professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Eva Illouz was born in Fez, Morocco, raised and educated in France and then later in Israel and the United States. Currently, she is a full professor in the Department of Sociology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem and Directrice d’Etudes at the EHESS in Paris.

Her research interests include sociology of the “Outstanding Researcher Award” of culture, sociology of emotions, sociology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (given capitalism, and the effect of consumerism to one researcher among 1200). In 2009, and mass media on emotional patterns. Illouz was chosen by the German newspaper, Illouz is the author of 12 books about Die Zeit, as one of 12 philosophers most diverse topics that include romantic love, likely to “shape the thought of tomorrow”. Oprah Winfrey, culture, capitalism and the In 2012 she was chosen by the French crystallization of the psychological culture magazine Le Point as a leading French during the 20th century, the industry of woman intellectual and in 2013 received happiness, and the process of unloving, or the Ann aliese Maier Award International withdrawing from relationships. Several of Award for Excellence in Scholarship. In her books have won International awards 2018 she received the EMET prize in Israel (from the American Sociological Association; as well as the French Legion d’Honneur for from the Societe Alpine de Philosophie; The her academic achievements. In addition to Annaliese Mayer Award from the Humboldt her scholarly work, she writes for Le Monde, Foundation). Her books have been translated Der Spiegel, Die Zeit and Ha’aretz on various into 17 languages. subjects such as literature, politics and social affairs. In 2004, she was invited to deliver the Adorno lecture series in Frankfurt, Germany. In 2009 she was also awarded

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