Explaining Why Zionism Cannot Be Considered As a Racist Ideology Between 1897 and 1948
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Explaining Why Zionism Cannot be Considered as a Racist Ideology Between 1897 and 1948 Student name: Patrick Landwehr Student number: 2405768 University: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Tutorial Education: Middle Eastern Studies Dr. Ronit Nikolsky Date: 24-11-2016 Total words: 7498 Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2 Chapter 1 Defining Racism .................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2 Ideology, Attitudes, and Practices .......................................................................................... 9 Chapter 3 Zionism and the Arab Question 1897-1948 ......................................................................... 12 3.1 The Zionist Ideology and its Aims ............................................................................................. 12 3.2 Zionist Attitudes, Practises, and Arabs ....................................................................................... 13 3.3 Jewish Immigrants and the Purchase of Arab Land .................................................................... 16 3.3 The Biltmore Conference and the Biltmore Programme............................................................. 20 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 22 Bibliography......................................................................................................................................... 24 1 Introduction “A society that endorses a 40-year occupation of another people cannot be a liberal one. A society that discriminates against 20 percent of its population because they are not Jews cannot be described as progressive. The problem in Israel is not the role of religion or tradition; it is the role of Zionism, a very clear ideology of exclusion, racism and expulsion. This ideology allows the army to play a significant role in most of the domestic and foreign policies, and it is probably right to say that Israel is not a state with an army, but an army with a state.”1 The above words from Ilan Pappé, a well-known Israeli scholar and a social activist, emphasise that Zionism can be considered as an exclusive and a racist ideology. His sentences are an example of the ongoing debate among academics whether Zionism can be considered as a racist kind of worldview. In the political arena, the words “Zionism” and “apartheid” are still frequently used by politicians, United Nations officials, and human rights activists critical of the Israeli policy towards the non-Jewish Israeli citizens and the Palestinians in the occupied territories.2 So, although this resolution has been revoked in 1991, on November 10, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379 which “Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”3 Pappé’s sentences and Resolution 3379 exemplify that Zionism was labelled as a racist ideology. However, there is a prior assumption that Zionism is a racist ideology by its’ very nature, is problematic. First, this view of essentialism needs to be nuanced because this perspective does not take into account the different forms that existed within Zionism throughout its history. Whilst most of the Zionist movements had in common that they were seeking political independence for the Jewish people, this aspiration is not per se racist; on the contrary, “all the 1 Apostolis Fotiadis, ““occupiers cannot also be liberal”: An Interview with Ilan Pappe,” The Electronic Intifada, June 21, 2008, accessed September 3, 2016, https://electronicintifada.net/content/occupiers-cannot-also-be- liberal-interview-ilan-pappe/7575. 2 Daryl Glaser, “Zionism and Apartheid: a moral comparison,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 26, no. 3 (May 2003): 403-321, accessed September 3, 2016, http://www.tandfonline.com.proxy- ub.rug.nl/doi/pdf/10.1080/0141987032000067264?needAccess=true, Human Rights Watch, “Israel/Palestine Events of 2015,” Human Rights Watch, 2015, accessed September 3, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n- africa/israel/palestine, and UN Watch, “UN confirms anti-Israeli prof for 6-year post investigating “Israel’s violations”,” UN Watch, March 23, 2016, accessed September 3, 2016, http://www.unwatch.org/un-nominates- anti-israeli-professor-6-year-post-investigating-israels-violations/. 3 UN General Assembly, “RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY DURING ITS THIRTIETH SESSION,” United Nations, November 10, 1975, accessed September 3, 2016, https://documents- dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/000/92/IMG/NR000092.pdf?OpenElement. 2 peoples have the right of self-determination” and this statement can be found both in article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and the Political Rights. 4 Even if we consider that the Zionist project has resulted in an undemocratic and ethnocratic Jewish state, this result does not necessarily make Zionism a racist ideology; the Israeli state could also have developed in a more democratic and egalitarian way5; secondly, the declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel, on May 14, 1948, made it clear: “it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”6 The above declaration and the aspiration of Zionism, to create a home for the Jewish people in Palestine, does not inevitably lead to the conclusion that the Zionist ideology has been intrinsically racist between 1897 and 1948; although the current policies of Israel inside the green line, such as the use of the Jewish National Fund and the Israeli Law of Return, can be considered as a form of repression or discrimination.7 The main problem is the use of the word “discrimination” or “racist” in this definition, as Yusef Gourani, a researcher and historian at Tel Aviv University, reminds us: “any discrimination against Arabs is not necessarily racist, just as any violent act against Jews is not necessarily a pogrom.”8 Given these points, this essay aims to evaluate why Zionism cannot be considered as a racist ideology. To characterise an ideology as racist, one has to be clear about what the exact definition of racism is. The difficulties and three key elements that define the extent of racism will be discussed in chapter 1. An understanding of a racism is necessary to comprehend the difficulties 4 United Nations, “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966 entry into force 23 March 1976, in accordance with Article 49,” The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, March 23, 1976, accessed September 3, 2016, http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx. 5 Arie Dayan, “The Debate over Zionism and Racism: An Israeli View,” Journal of Palestine Studies, 22, no. 3 (Spring, 1993), 99 www.jstor.org/stable/2537573. 6http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/declaration%20of%20establishment%20of%20stat e%20of%20israel.aspx 7 Dayan, “The Debate over Zionism,” 100. 8 Dayan, “The Debate over Zionism,” 100. 3 of the word ideology.9 Firstly, the different viewpoints of an ideology and practices within an ideological group and its members. Secondly, the praxis that follows from this ideology. The assumption that a certain ideology has a precise definition has to be nuanced and should be discussed before we look into a set of ideas that can be labelled as a Zionist ideology. This will be outlined in chapter 2. Varying versions of Zionism has resulted in there being no single monolithic or accepted ideology throughout the history of the Zionist movements. Despite these varieties, the largest organisation and influential one is the World Zionist Organization (WZO). The official resolutions of the Zionist congresses of the WZO, then named Zionist Organisation (ZO) from 1897 till 1960, can be considered as the main Zionist organisation. In 1897, the ZO set out the goals of this new political movement in the so-called Basel Programme. The content of the Basel Declaration can be considered as the official aims of the Zionist ideology. The three resolutions of this document will be analysed and compared to the definition of racism in Section 3.1 Section 3.2 examines how the relationship between Jews and Arabs had become worse and to what extent the Zionist attitudes and practices were responsible for the Arab grievances from 1917 till 1939. To find out how the ZO dealt with the Arab question in Palestine, the official declarations of the ZO in 1921 and 1923 are examined, also, the Aliyah’s, immigration to the land of Israel, will be discussed to discover if these new Jewish immigrants were driven by a Zionist ideology and which other factors were responsible for the movement of European Jews to Palestine. The eight points of the Biltmore Programme will be examined in Section 3.3. The content indicates a turning point in the