The Fate of Zionism : A Secular Future for Israel & Palestine

Rating:
Summary: A false prescription
Review: An interesting book with several flaws. `The Fate of Zionism' calls on the extremists to put down their words and weapons and find compromise. Typical of the rabbinical theories of Israeli statehood the author calls on the creation of a secular state based on the `original' intent of the founders like Ben-Gurion and Golda. The problem is the author is selective in his choosing of statements by Gurion. While Gurion did condemn the occupation of the West bank he did not believe the Israel should be forced to tolerate a terrorist state of Palestinians, instead Gurion proposed that Jordan occupy Palestine so as to keep the terrorists in check.

The author ignored the essentially Jewish non-secular nature of the founders of Israel. From Hertzl who yearned for `Der Judenstat' to Ben Gurion who was happy to see rest on Sabbath(whether or not he actually `kindled a fire' on the holy day) to Golda Mier who declared `it is more objectionable for an orthodox soldier to eat from a non-kosher kitchen then for the secular Jew to eat Kosher food'. The founders yearned for labor Zionism not secular Zionism. Secularism means the separation of church and state to such a radical degree that no mention of religion can be made at the state or educational level. This was not the intent of Ben-Gurion in creating an `all Jewish' Histadrut(labour organization) or when he created an all Jewish army or when he emphasized the creation of Jewish `facts on the ground'. Gurion was obviously more obsessed with creating a homeland for ethnically Jewish people, but they still had to be Jewish, practicing or not.

Unfortunately a secular Israel(if by secular the author wants what we have here in the USA where no sense of religion is introduced in school) is not Israel. Israel without a Jewish majority is not Israel, and without a Jewish majority and a Jewish army the Jews of Israel will be in worse Peril then the Jews of Europe in 1939. This is a fact that the author does not seem to grasp in his argument for the creation of a terrorist state in the west bank.

Rating:
Summary: A false prescription
Review: An interesting book with several flaws. 'The Fate of Zionism' calls on the extremists to put down their words and weapons and find compromise. Typical of the rabbinical theories of Israeli statehood the author calls on the creation of a secular state based on the 'original' intent of the founders like Ben-Gurion and Golda. The problem is the author is selective in his choosing of statements by Gurion. While Gurion did condemn the occupation of the West bank he did not believe the Israel should be forced to tolerate a terrorist state of Palestinians, instead Gurion proposed that Jordan occupy Palestine so as to keep the terrorists in check.

The author ignored the essentially Jewish non-secular nature of the founders of Israel. From Hertzl who yearned for 'Der Judenstat' to Ben Gurion who was happy to see rest on Sabbath(whether or not he actually 'kindled a fire' on the holy day) to Golda Mier who declared 'it is more objectionable for an orthodox soldier to eat from a non-kosher kitchen then for the secular Jew to eat Kosher food'. The founders yearned for labor Zionism not secular Zionism. Secularism means the separation of church and state to such a radical degree that no mention of religion can be made at the state or educational level. This was not the intent of Ben-Gurion in creating an 'all Jewish' Histadrut(labour organization) or when he created an all Jewish army or when he emphasized the creation of Jewish 'facts on the ground'. Gurion was obviously more obsessed with creating a homeland for ethnically Jewish people, but they still had to be Jewish, practicing or not.

Unfortunately a secular Israel(if by secular the author wants what we have here in the USA where no sense of religion is introduced in school) is not Israel. Israel without a Jewish majority is not Israel, and without a Jewish majority and a Jewish army the Jews of Israel will be in worse Peril then the Jews of Europe in 1939. This is a fact that the author does not seem to grasp in his argument for the creation of a terrorist state in the west bank.

Rating:
Summary: Adds nothing to the discussion
Review: Giving one star to Arthur Hertzberg's latest meditations on the Israeli-Arab conflict may be a little harsh. The book does, after all, support a two-state solution and Hertzberg does suggest that the United States should, very tactfully, pressure Israel to evacuate its West Bank settlements. And the book does start off with Hertzberg attending a 1967 Labour party conference which heard David Ben-Gurion's desperate plea that the conquered territories should be given back-and ignored it. But this book offers nothing valuable to the discussion. What it does say is uninformed and disingenuous. The print is large and the footnotes are few. Essentially Hertzberg argues that, while a two-state solution would be a good idea, the problem is that the Palestinians will not accept it. Hertzberg claims that Israel, and moderate liberal Zionists like himself wished to negotiate but were always rebuffed by the Arabs. I don't agree. Let's ignore the fact that Sharon has not only arrogated the right to choose which Palestinians he will negotiate with, but also the right to kill them. Let's leave aside the fact that when Hertzberg quotes a poll saying that two-thirds of Israelis would support a withdrawl of Israeli settlements he ignores the same poll saying that two-thirds of Palestinians would support a Palestine confined to the 1967 conquered areas.

The real problem is that a sincere negotiator seeks a certain limited empathy, or at the very least genuine curiosity about the other side. One tries to understand the opposing sides' arguments, and if one does not accept them one at least acknowledges their existence and makes an intellectually honest effort to refute them. There is almost nothing of that in Hertzberg's book. There is no real discussion of Palestinian society or its culture or its complexities; what we get are a series of threatening personifications. Hetzberg provides a standard brief liberal account of Israel which simply repeats its side of the story. He almost completely ignores the other side of the story on such issues as the British mandate, the willingness of Jews to migrate to Palestine, the nature of the 1948 war, the origins of the Palestinian refugee crisis, post-independence diplomacy or the six-day war. It is enough simply to list the many scholars whose existence he ignores: Donald Neff, Avi Shlaim, Norman Finkelstein, Rashdid Khalidi, Janet and Abraham Abu-Lughod, Idith Zertal, Peter Novick, Simha Flapan, Tom Segev..

There are other weaknesses. At one point Hertzberg attributes to Noam Chomsky opinions today that Chomsky held thirty years ago. He does not mention the fact that Palestinians make up a large majority of the dead of the second intafada. Hertzberg does mention such crimes as Deir Yassin and the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, but not the obvious fact that the people responsible or complicit in these and other crimes were not only not punished but won (and still win) high political office. He rightly supports a secular future for both Israel and Palestine, but his account of it is disingenuous and apologetic. There is no analysis of Palestinian chiliasm aside from an innate refusal to understand Israel. As for the problem of Israeli sectarianism Hertzberg suggests that after the 1967 war some Israelis adapted messianic beliefs and unhelpfully encouraged the settlers. He does not discuss the special privileges granted by the state to Orthodoxy, notwithstanding the fact that it represents only a minority of world Jewry, or the refusal to allow civil marriage. We see clichés such as the argument that there are so many countries worse than Israel. True, but we heard these arguments in the eighties when the Soviet Union and apartheid South Africa were still around. True, but Americans would not glibly tolerate Denmark or Costa Rica carrying out similar brutalities. True, but American aid supports Israel as it does not in Burma or Syria or North Korea. True, but the Syrian government does not come to my synagogue to solicit money from me. It is embarrassing that a rabbi should be so complacent. But then many American liberals believe that the best way to encourage liberalism among the Palestinians is to keep them under semi-permanent house arrest.

Rating:
Summary: Adds nothing to the discussion
Review: Giving one star to Arthur Hertzberg's latest meditations on the Israeli-Arab conflict may be a little harsh. The book does, after all, support a two-state solution and Hertzberg does suggest that the United States should, very tactfully, pressure Israel to evacuate its West Bank settlements. And the book does start off with Hertzberg attending a 1967 Labour party conference which heard David Ben-Gurion's desperate plea that the conquered territories should be given back-and ignored it. But this book offers nothing valuable to the discussion. What it does say is uninformed and disingenuous. The print is large and the footnotes are few. Essentially Hertzberg argues that, while a two-state solution would be a good idea, the problem is that the Palestinians will not accept it. Hertzberg claims that Israel, and moderate liberal Zionists like himself wished to negotiate but were always rebuffed by the Arabs. I don't agree. Let's ignore the fact that Sharon has not only arrogated the right to choose which Palestinians he will negotiate with, but also the right to kill them. Let's leave aside the fact that when Hertzberg quotes a poll saying that two-thirds of Israelis would support a withdrawl of Israeli settlements he ignores the same poll saying that two-thirds of Palestinians would support a Palestine confined to the 1967 conquered areas.

The real problem is that a sincere negotiator seeks a certain limited empathy, or at the very least genuine curiosity about the other side. One tries to understand the opposing sides' arguments, and if one does not accept them one at least acknowledges their existence and makes an intellectually honest effort to refute them. There is almost nothing of that in Hertzberg's book. There is no real discussion of Palestinian society or its culture or its complexities; what we get are a series of threatening personifications. Hetzberg provides a standard brief liberal account of Israel which simply repeats its side of the story. He almost completely ignores the other side of the story on such issues as the British mandate, the willingness of Jews to migrate to Palestine, the nature of the 1948 war, the origins of the Palestinian refugee crisis, post-independence diplomacy or the six-day war. It is enough simply to list the many scholars whose existence he ignores: Donald Neff, Avi Shlaim, Norman Finkelstein, Rashdid Khalidi, Janet and Abraham Abu-Lughod, Idith Zertal, Peter Novick, Simha Flapan, Tom Segev..

There are other weaknesses. At one point Hertzberg attributes to Noam Chomsky opinions today that Chomsky held thirty years ago. He does not mention the fact that Palestinians make up a large majority of the dead of the second intafada. Hertzberg does mention such crimes as Deir Yassin and the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, but not the obvious fact that the people responsible or complicit in these and other crimes were not only not punished but won (and still win) high political office. He rightly supports a secular future for both Israel and Palestine, but his account of it is disingenuous and apologetic. There is no analysis of Palestinian chiliasm aside from an innate refusal to understand Israel. As for the problem of Israeli sectarianism Hertzberg suggests that after the 1967 war some Israelis adapted messianic beliefs and unhelpfully encouraged the settlers. He does not discuss the special privileges granted by the state to Orthodoxy, notwithstanding the fact that it represents only a minority of world Jewry, or the refusal to allow civil marriage. We see clichés such as the argument that there are so many countries worse than Israel. True, but we heard these arguments in the eighties when the Soviet Union and apartheid South Africa were still around. True, but Americans would not glibly tolerate Denmark or Costa Rica carrying out similar brutalities. True, but American aid supports Israel as it does not in Burma or Syria or North Korea. True, but the Syrian government does not come to my synagogue to solicit money from me. It is embarrassing that a rabbi should be so complacent. But then many American liberals believe that the best way to encourage liberalism among the Palestinians is to keep them under semi-permanent house arrest.

Rating:
Summary: Good account of the most pressing problem in the Middle East
Review: It's hard to believe that a self-proclaimed Zionist could write a balanced book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Hertzberg somewhat succeeds. Hertzberg provides a brief history of both his beliefs and solutions regarding the conflict, and describes the problems and virtues of both the Jewish and Palestinian sides. But, as you might expect, there are problems with his account.

1) He describes himself as a moderate Zionist who supports the two-state solution, and he elaborates in his book the various problems that have prevented resolution to the preeminent conflict in the Middle East. Herzberg distances himself from the hard-line, messianic Jews who seek to rule over all of Palestine, but at the same time, he fails to properly address the encroachment of settlements in the West Bank that are often supported and created by the hardliners. In his discussion of the proposed security fence between Israel and the West Bank (the fence had not started construction during the writing of the book), he does not give an opinion regarding what should be done about the settlements that were illegally established in the Palestinian territory.

2) One of Hertzberg's main topics of discussion revolves around Palestinian identity and nationalism. Did the Palestinians regard themselves as such or just as Arabs before the Zionist movement, or did they become Palestinians as a reaction to the Zionist movement? Hertzberg spends a number of pages concerning this issue, and he seems to come to the latter conclusion thereby implicitly weakening the Palestinians reasons for both statehood and return to present-day Israel.

3) Although he is very critical of terror tactics employed by various Palestinian terrorist groups, he fails to be critical enough of Israeli reprisals and consequent deaths of many innocent Palestinians.

4) He does not appropriately criticize either Yasir Arafat or Ariel Sharon for their various mistakes and crimes in perpetuating the conflict.

Those are just some of the problems I have with Hertzberg's book, but there are also several positives. He correctly identifies the US as the major player in mediating the conflict and supports American involvement in realizing the two-state solution. He casts aside religious reasons for the existence of Israel and relies instead on secular and humanitarian reasons - he argues that Jews needed to escape persecution from pogroms and the pre- and post-Holocaust atrocities to establish a homeland where they could live as a "normal" nation rather than argue that Jews have a divine right to inhabit their ancestral homeland.

There are, of course, many other discussion points, good and bad, for this book. Finding a well-balanced account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is difficult, but this book is pretty well-balanced for a self-proclaimed Zionist who is obviously biased.

Rating:
Summary: Needs More Thought!!
Review: This is a good review of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. It addresses the problem from both sides, and from the side of the Arab world also. Some of his assertions are particularly interesting, including the apparent fact that there were no Palestinians before Israel became a possibility after the Balfour declaration . . . until then these people were just Arabs. His solutions to the problem left something to be desired. Essentially he says that there is no solution to the conflict, and presents measures which are contradictory to one of his theses. He notes that when push comes to shove, a population will favor social issues over economic ones, however his solutions are basically economic solutions. He should have given the same level of thought to solutions to this problem as he did to the origins of the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading
Review: While there are a few things about this book that I disagree with very strongly, I still think this book has many good points to make.

Let's get the bad stuff over with first. Hertzberg, a very knowledgeable person, thinks that although a genuine peace between Arabs and Israelis is not possible, we ought to have an imposed peace. A peace imposed by the United States! No, not a peace. A ceasefire, in which we'd stop Israel from its "creeping annexation" of the West Bank! And use our troops to enforce it, rather than try to use any diplomatic options that might avoid committing American soldiers in such a manner.

In my opinion, taking Hertzberg's advice literally is not a good idea here. Having the US enforce a cease-fire would risk getting our soldiers attacked by the Arabs, no matter where the lines were drawn. I think American policy in Iraq in 2004 would look positively brilliant by comparison.

Still, this book is worth four stars. Let me tell you some of the good points the author does make:

1) Israel is basically secular, not dominated by religious leaders as many of its detractors imply.

2) Zionism is not colonialism, nor is it racism.

3) Many Western "liberals" act as if Israel's existence were "the worst outrage that exists today in the world," when in fact it is not even the biggest issue in the Arab world.

4) The antizionism of the British newspaper, the Guardian, and the French newspaper, Le Monde, is simply "disgusting."

5) Israel is not simply a US colony, unable to stand up by itself.

6) Those Westerners who demand the destruction of Israel will gain nothing from it. Certainly, they will not achieve peace, even if they succeed in destroying Israel.

7) Many attacks on Israel are really proxy attacks on the United States. Noam Chomsky's attacks on the United States are particularly "intolerable." By the way, Hertzberg does us a service by tracing a little of the history of Chomsky's views about Israel.

8) A partition of the former British Mandate of 1946 will not work. A "two-state solution," something Hertzberg has advocated for the past 35 years, will not work. This is an amazing concession to reality by Hertzberg, and I am impressed that he would not merely realize it but admit it.

I actually recommend this book.