From The Philosopher CXII No. 2 Autumn 2024
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| A section of wall dividing Jewish and Palestinian areas in the West Bank |
Deconstructing the Zionist Myth
Review article by Paula Stanyer.
Shlomo Sand is clear eyed about the current situation in Israel. And in Israel–Palestine: Federation or Apartheid? he seeks to challenge those who offer solutions based on two separate states, believing this to be both unrealistic and at odds with events in Israel since the 1967 war. Instead, he sees Israel already as a binational state, only one in which one people completely dominate the other. Whilst he says that the situation is not exactly identical to that of apartheid South Africa between 1948 and 1992, he thinks that it is, in principle, very similar not least because it is based on the complete separation between two human groups that live side by side.
Shlomo Sand is clear eyed about the current situation in Israel. And in Israel–Palestine: Federation or Apartheid? he seeks to challenge those who offer solutions based on two separate states, believing this to be both unrealistic and at odds with events in Israel since the 1967 war. Instead, he sees Israel already as a binational state, only one in which one people completely dominate the other. Whilst he says that the situation is not exactly identical to that of apartheid South Africa between 1948 and 1992, he thinks that it is, in principle, very similar not least because it is based on the complete separation between two human groups that live side by side.
For Sand, the day to day reality in the West Bank recalls, broadly, other colonial situations of the recent past. Specifically, the European colonisers almost always enjoyed the civil rights offered by the metropolis from which they and their ancestors had descended, even though their colonies were not legally annexed to it, and it was simply assumed that they would live like this for decades, alongside native peoples deprived of citizenship and fundamental human rights.
Despite himself being a former advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian problem, today Sand, Professor Emeritus in History at the University of Tel Aviv and author of other books deconstructing Israel including The Invention of the Jewish People and The Invention of the Land of Israel, argues that the lives of Jews and Palestinians are so intertwined that today it is simply not possible for the former to decide to separate themselves from the latter.
This calm yet compelling account surveys the ever growing demographic and economic integration, including the building of settlements in the West Bank and the founding of the Ariel University in the West Bank. Sand looks cooly at what he sees as the indulgence provided by the West to Israel due to European guilt over the Holocaust and Islamophobic attitudes which result in an inability to understand either the true state of affairs let alone to accord Palestinians a right to be treated as citizens with equal status. He is sharply critical of those that are blind to the situation of Palestinians and continue, in his view, to prattle on about ‘two states for two peoples’. On the contrary, Sand sees many obstacles to any agreement between the two sides above all that so many Israelis insist that an egalitarian, democratic state would pose a threat to Jewish identity. However, in Israel-Palestine: Federation or Apartheid? Sand sets out his new conviction that the only solution to the problem is a binational confederation for Israel/Palestine. After all:
At the heart of the book is an effort to explain and justify his move away from the two-state solution towards instead that of a bi-national federation that would be based on one person one vote, collective rights, equality and a respect for human rights. Even though such a vision seems unattainable at the moment, Sand argues that Israel today is de facto a binational state as both Jewish and Palestinian populations are intertwined physically and economically.
Much of the book is a careful examination of two visions of Zionism – one that regards Zionism as the creation of a spiritual homeland for Jews throughout the world and one which requires the creation of a nation state for Jews. The former view was articulated by Ahad Ha’am, a rabbi who visited Palestine and foresaw that the early treatment of the local population by Jewish Pioneers would lead to conflict. Ha’am argued for bi-national arrangements as did Arthur Ruppin, a German Zionist proponent of pseudoscientific race theory, who saw the local population as deriving from ancient Hebrew peoples. The latter saw the need to reach some sort of modus vivendi with the Arabs since the idea of the transfer of Arabs to some other place was unrealistic.
‘With the passing years, Israel has continued to consolidate its hold on the occupied territories. Thousands of Israelis have set up home close to indigenous villages and Palestinian towns. They have acquired a great deal of land at low prices and that has become the property of the new settlers, for whom a whole network of roads are exclusively reserved. Severe oppression and denial of the basic rights of the local population have engendered violent resistance which in turn has fuelled ever harsher repression.’Sand starts by challenging the reader to question the central aim of Zionism to create a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. He disputes the idea that Jews have an historic right to the land of Palestine and instead argues that there already is a bi-national state, just not one based on equality and human rights. Quite the reverse: Israel is a state where one people have domination over another in a way that is reminiscent of the domination practised in colonies throughout the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century.
‘…for fifty-six years, million so of Palestinians have been living under a military regime, being deprived of civil, legal and political rights. Worse still, Palestinians under occupation have to live side by side with the colonisers in what is becoming ever more obviously an apartheid system. They were forbidden to live in the settlements; they are allowed only to work in them. They are forbidden to marry Jews and cannot apply for Israeli citizenship. Many Palestinian workers cross their old borders every day, to come and work in poor conditions in the Israeli economy, and must return to their homes before nightfall.’Shlomo Sand himself was born in Austria in 1946, the son of Polish survivors of the Holocaust who emigrated to Jaffa in 1948. In due course, Sand would even fight as a member of the Israeli army in the Six Day War. In the preface to the book he recounts his journey as a political activist from 1967 when his anti-colonial beliefs initially favoured a two-state solution – an Israeli State for all citizens both Jewish and Arab and an independent Palestinian republic alongside it.
At the heart of the book is an effort to explain and justify his move away from the two-state solution towards instead that of a bi-national federation that would be based on one person one vote, collective rights, equality and a respect for human rights. Even though such a vision seems unattainable at the moment, Sand argues that Israel today is de facto a binational state as both Jewish and Palestinian populations are intertwined physically and economically.
Much of the book is a careful examination of two visions of Zionism – one that regards Zionism as the creation of a spiritual homeland for Jews throughout the world and one which requires the creation of a nation state for Jews. The former view was articulated by Ahad Ha’am, a rabbi who visited Palestine and foresaw that the early treatment of the local population by Jewish Pioneers would lead to conflict. Ha’am argued for bi-national arrangements as did Arthur Ruppin, a German Zionist proponent of pseudoscientific race theory, who saw the local population as deriving from ancient Hebrew peoples. The latter saw the need to reach some sort of modus vivendi with the Arabs since the idea of the transfer of Arabs to some other place was unrealistic.
And so, Sand tirelessly examines and rejects the Zionist myth of exile and the linked notion of the return of Jews to the land of Israel after 2000 years of wandering. Despite this myth often being portrayed as an historical truth based on a mix of Biblical and archaeological evidence, Sand argues that it is simply false. But even were it to be correct, that would not be sufficient justification to take over a land inhabited by others.
By contrast, the competing vision for Israel of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist idea, was political based on the national state even as the very notion of ‘the land of Israel’ was an invention. As Donald Sasson sums up Sand’s view set out in his earlier book The Invention of the Jewish People, the ‘Land of Israel’ is barely mentioned in the Old Testament and when it is mentioned, it does not include Jerusalem, Hebron, or Bethlehem. In fact, as far as the Bible goes, ‘Israel’ only consists of Samaria, the region that is today’s northern Israel. There never was a united kingdom including both ancient Judea and Samaria
The second myth that is exposed is that at the time of early Jewish migration, the land was empty and uncultivated. It is this failure to fully acknowledge the existence of the local population that led some Zionists to give prophetic warnings that Jewish nationalism would inevitably lead to ‘a state armed to the teeth with enemies all around’. Likewise, the philosopher Hannah Arendt saw a Jewish state as a ghetto surrounded by a hostile environment – a Spartan state permanently at war with others.
Israel–Palestine: Federation or Apartheid? traces the binationalist and imperialist arguments through the 20th century to the present revealing the complexity and plurality of Zionist thought and challenging the notion that there is a single strand of Zionist belief. In the process, Sand focusses on Arab thinking through from 1891 to today including attitudes to early Jewish migration, the foundation of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and on to the Oslo Accords.
The book ends, however, by saying that if, today, there is still no answer to the question of future of Israel, it is still up to each of all of us who are concerned for the future of the children and grandchildren of the region to continue pressing, even if in the dark and even if against hope, for respect for those so much-denied, so much-trampled principles of equality and human rights. This is an important and informative account that challenges readers to rethink their assumptions.
Israel-Palestine: Federation or Apartheid?
by Shlomo Sand
Polity Press 2024
ISBN 9781509564408 • 254 pages • Paperback • £15.99
