Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Tony Judt: Israel's ethnic myth, Zinn's "People's History" on TV Sunday

From: Sid Shniad

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/77859566-e398-11de-9f4f-00144feab49a.html

Israel must unpick its ethnic myth

By Tony Judt
Financial Times : December 8 2009

What exactly is "Zionism"? Its core claim was always that Jews represent a
common and single people; that their millennia-long dispersion and suffering
has done nothing to diminish their distinctive, collective attributes; and
that the only way they can live freely as Jews - in the same way that, say,
Swedes live freely as Swedes - is to dwell in a Jewish state.

Thus religion ceased in Zionist eyes to be the primary measure of Jewish
identity. In the course of the late-19th century, as more and more young
Jews were legally or culturally emancipated from the world of the ghetto or
the shtetl , Zionism began to look to an influential minority like the only
alternative to persecution, assimilation or cultural dilution. Paradoxically
then, as religious separatism and practice began to retreat, a secular
version of it was actively promoted.

I can certainly confirm, from personal experience, that anti-religious
sentiment - often of an intensity that I found discomforting - was
widespread in left-leaning Israeli circles of the 1960s. Religion, I was
informed, was for the haredim and the "crazies" of Jerusalem's Mea Sharim
quarter. "We" are modern and rational and "western", it was explained to me
by my Zionist teachers. But what they did not say was that the Israel they
wished me to join was therefore grounded, and could only be grounded, in an
ethnically rigid view of Jews and Jewishness.

The story went like this. Jews, until the destruction of the Second Temple
(in the First century), had been farmers in what is now Israel/Palestine.
They had then been forced yet again into exile by the Romans and wandered
the earth: homeless, rootless and outcast. Now at last "they" were
"returning" and would once again farm the soil of their ancestors.

It is this narrative that the historian Shlomo Sand seeks to deconstruct in
his controversial book The Invention of the Jewish People. His contribution,
critics assert, is at best redundant. For the last century, specialists have
been perfectly familiar with the sources he cites and the arguments he
makes. From a purely scholarly perspective, I have no quarrel with this.
Even I, dependent for the most part on second-hand information about the
earlier millennia of Jewish history, can see that Prof Sand - for example in
his emphasis upon the conversions and ethnic mixing that characterise the
Jews in earlier times - is telling us nothing we do not already know.

The question is, who are "we"? Certainly in the US, the overwhelming
majority of Jews (and perhaps non-Jews) have absolutely no acquaintance with
the story Prof Sand tells. They will never have heard of most of his
protagonists, but they are all too approvingly familiar with the caricatured
version of Jewish history that he is seeking to discredit. If Prof Sand's
popularising work does nothing more than provoke reflection and further
reading among such a constituency, it will have been worthwhile.

But there is more to it than that. While there were other justifications for
the state of Israel, and still are - it was not by chance that David
Ben-Gurion sought, planned and choreographed the trial of Adolf Eichmann -
it is clear that Prof Sand has undermined the conventional case for a Jewish
state. Once we agree, in short, that Israel's uniquely "Jewish" quality is
an imagined or elective affinity, how are we to proceed?

Prof Sand is himself an Israeli and the idea that his country has no "raison
d'etre" would be abhorrent to him. Rightly so. States exist or they do not.
Egypt or Slovakia are not justified in international law by virtue of some
theory of deep "Egyptianness" or "Slovakness". Such states are recognised as
international actors, with rights and status, simply by virtue of their
existence and their capacity to maintain and protect themselves.

So Israel's survival does not rest on the credibility of the story it tells
about its ethnic origins. If we accept this, we can begin to understand that
the country's insistence upon its exclusive claim upon Jewish identity is a
significant handicap. In the first place, such an insistence reduces all
non-Jewish Israeli citizens and residents to second-class status. This would
be true even if the distinction were purely formal. But of course it is not:
being a Muslim or a Christian - or even a Jew who does not meet the
increasingly rigid specification for "Jewishness" in today's Israel -
carries a price.

Implicit in Prof Sand's book is the conclusion that Israel would do better
to identify itself and learn to think of itself as . . . Israel. The
perverse insistence upon identifying a universal Jewishness with one small
piece of territory is dysfunctional in many ways. It is the single most
important factor accounting for the failure to solve the Israel-Palestine
imbroglio. It is bad for Israel and, I would suggest, bad for Jews elsewhere
who are identified with its actions.

So what is to be done? Prof Sand certainly does not tell us - and in his
defence we should acknowledge that the problem may be intractable. I suspect
that he favours a one-state solution: if only because it is the logical
upshot of his arguments. I, too, would favour such an outcome - if I were
not so sure that both sides would oppose it vigorously and with force. A
two-state solution might still be the best compromise, even though it would
leave Israel intact in its ethno-delusions. But it is hard to be optimistic
about the prospects for such a resolution, in the light of the developments
of the past two years.

My own inclination, then, would be to focus elsewhere. If the Jews of Europe
and North America took their distance from Israel (as many have begun to
do), the assertion that Israel was "their" state would take on an absurd
air. Over time, even Washington might come to see the futility of attaching
American foreign policy to the delusions of one small Middle Eastern state.
This, I believe, is the best thing that could possibly happen to Israel
itself. It would be obliged to acknowledge its limits. It would have to make
other friends, preferably among its neighbours.

We could thus hope, in time, to establish a natural distinction between
people who happen to be Jews but are citizens of other countries; and people
who are Israeli citizens and happen to be Jews. This could prove very
helpful. There are many precedents: the Greek, Armenian, Ukrainian and Irish
diasporas have all played an unhealthy role in perpetuating ethnic
exclusivism and nationalist prejudice in the countries of their forebears.
The civil war in Northern Ireland came to an end in part because an American
president instructed the Irish emigrant community in the US to stop sending
arms and cash to the Provisional IRA. If American Jews stopped associating
their fate with Israel and used their charitable cheques for better
purposes, something similar might happen in the Middle East.

The writer is University Professor at New York University and director of
the Remarque Institute

***

From: Voices of a People's History <peopleshistory@mac.com>
Date: December 7, 2009 7:28:14 PM PST
To: Undisclosed recipients: ;
Subject: The People Speak on History, Sunday, Dec. 13


Dear friends and family,

On Sunday, December 13, at 8 PM Eastern and Pacific / 7 PM Central, THE
PEOPLE SPEAK -- the long awaited documentary film inspired by Howard Zinn's
books A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's
History of the United States, which I co-edited -- will air on History.

I hope you will tune in. More details are at
http://www.history.com/peoplespeak

I've also included more detailed information about the air date,
soundtrack CD, and DVDs below for those of you who want to find out more or
who can pass along this information to others. Thanks!

Best,
Anthony

*

On Sunday, December 13, at 8 PM Eastern and Pacific / 7 PM Central, THE
PEOPLE SPEAK -- the long awaited documentary film inspired by Howard Zinn's
books A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove,
Voices of a People's History of the United States -- will air on History.

Tune in!

More details are at http://www.history.com/peoplespeak

ABOUT THE PEOPLE SPEAK

Using dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and
speeches of everyday Americans, the documentary feature film THE PEOPLE
SPEAK gives voice to those who spoke up for social change throughout U.S.
history, forging a nation from the bottom up with their insistence on
equality and justice.

Narrated by acclaimed historian Howard Zinn and based on his best-selling
books, A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove,
Voices of a People's History, THE PEOPLE SPEAK illustrates the relevance of
these passionate historical moments to our society today and reminds us
never to take liberty for granted.

THE PEOPLE SPEAK is produced by Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore,
Anthony Arnove, and Howard Zinn, co-directed by Moore, Arnove and Zinn, and
features dramatic and musical performances by Allison Moorer, Benjamin
Bratt, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Robinson, Christina Kirk, Danny
Glover, Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, David Strathairn, Don Cheadle, Eddie Vedder,
Harris Yulin, Jasmine Guy, John Legend, Josh Brolin, Kathleen Chalfant,
Kerry Washington, Lupe Fiasco, Marisa Tomei, Martín Espada, Matt Damon,
Michael Ealy, Mike O'Malley, Morgan Freeman, Q'orianka Kilcher, Reg E.
Cathey, Rich Robinson, Rosario Dawson, Sandra Oh, Staceyann Chin, and Viggo
Mortensen.

Buy the SOUNDTRACK, featuring new songs from THE PEOPLE SPEAK by Allison
Moorer, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Exene Cervenka, Jackson
Browne, John Doe, John Legend, Lupe Fiasco, P!nk, Randy Newman, Rich
Robinson, and Taj Mahal.
http://www.peopleshistory.us/news/people-speak-soundtrack-CD-on-Verve

A two-disc special DVD set of THE PEOPLE SPEAK will be out in January!
More details soon at:
http://www.thepeoplespeak.com

NEW AND UPDATED edition of a source book for THE PEOPLE SPEAK just
released:
Voices of a People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn and
Anthony Arnove
http://www.sevenstories.com/book/?GCOI=58322100808900

Sign up at http://www.thepeoplespeak.com

Join The People Speak on History on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/thepeoplespeakonhistory

Follow us on Twitter @vph and @HISTORY_Daily

MORE INFORMATION

http://www.PeoplesHistory.us
http://www.facebook.com/Voices.Live
http://www.HowardZinn.org
http://www.facebook.com/HowardZinn

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