Zionism and the Tragedy of the Palestinian People (2001)

Published in L’Ernesto: Rivista Comunista in July 2001. The “World Conference against Racism” in Durban, South Africa which Losurdo references here promised to be a historical event of consequence, but reading in hindsight we must understand that any such hopes were more or less dashed by the attacks on the World Trade Center in “9/11” shortly afterwards, and the multiple invasions that followed.
 — R. D.

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Contents

• The “Angry Slaves” and the Peddling of “Complexity”
• Zionism and Colonialism
• Zionism and Racism
• The Trees and the Forest
• The Anti-Zionist Cause of Palestinians and the Cause of Progressive Jews

The “Angry Slaves” and the Peddling of “Complexity”

At the “World Conference against Racism” in Durban, South Africa, three thousand non-governmental organizations from all over the world fiercely condemned Israel for its national oppression and racial discrimination of Palestinians — its brutal military repression did not fall short of “acts of genocide.” The official delegations, however, turned out to be more timid. The European Union’s persistent complicity with Israel robbed the final document of much of its strength. And, yet, perhaps for the first time in history, the capitalist and imperialist West was forced to stand on trial; was forcefully confronted with the pages of its history that it constantly tries to erase — from the Black slave trade to the martyrdom of the Palestinian people. The unseemly withdrawal of the American and Israeli delegations further deepened the isolation of those who are now the perpetrators of horrific crimes against humanity and the worst enemies of human rights. ^[1]

This is an achievement of extraordinary importance. And yet, even on the left, there was no shortage of those who pursed their lips in disapproval.

Lecturing the Palestinians, these would-be teachers urge them to moderate their tone: “Yes, criticism of Israel may be fair, but why bring up Zionism, why go as far as accusing them of racism?” In his time, Fichte ^[2] mocked the facile attitude of those decrying the “excesses” of the French Revolution, expressing contempt for those who, standing safely on the sidelines and continuing to enjoy all the comforts of life, presumed to preach morality to the “angry slaves” determined to shake off their oppression. Not content with dispensing a lesson in morality, today’s Teachers of the Palestinian People intend to impart a lesson in epistemology as well: to impeach Zionism as such — they claim — means losing sight of the “complexity” of this political movement, which is characterized by comprising different tendencies within itself: right, left, and even left-wing-socialist and revolutionary orientations.

In truth, if the methodology recommended here were followed consistently, it’s not only Zionism that we would all be forced to keep silent about. In 1915, Italy’s intervention in World War I was described by some as explicitly expansionist and imperialistic, but others considered it a contribution to the cause of the triumph of democracy and world peace. Nevertheless, at least as far as communists are concerned, the good intentions and democratic (and even revolutionary) sincerity of some followers of “democratic interventionism” should not cast any doubt on the fact that this was an imperialist war.

Let’s look at another example. There is no doubt that colonialism in some cases took on an explicitly exterminationist character (think particularly of Nazism, but also, even earlier, of the elimination of Australian Aborigines and other ethnic groups), but at other times it stopped short of the threshold of genocide. In the late nineteenth century, the West’s colonial incursions into Africa sought justification in terms of seeking the liberation of Black slaves, whereas a few decades later Hitler promoted the colonization of Eastern Europe with the explicit goal of procuring the mass of slaves needed by the Aryan “master race.” While the Third Reich, in the course of its expansionist march, extolled the purifying and regenerative virtues of war, at other times colonialism did not hesitate to celebrate itself as a decisive contributor to the cause of perpetual peace (for example, on the occasion of the joint expedition of the great powers to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in China). ^[3] It would be wrong to ignore the “complexity” of the historical phenomenon investigated here and its internal differences, but this cannot then prevent us from passing judgment on colonialism as such: even in the manifold and varied character of its manifestations, colonialism is synonymous with plunder and exploitation; it has involved war, aggression and the large-scale imposition of forms of forced labor to the detriment of colonial populations even when it has claimed to be moved by the humanitarian intent of promoting the realization of perpetual peace and the abolition of slavery. This remains the case even if some political figures or ideologues of the great powers of the West sincerely believe it was guided by good intentions!

Zionism and Colonialism

It’s not by chance that I chose the example of colonialism. It immediately brings to mind the following question: Is there any relationship between Zionism and colonialism? There is no doubt that what characterizes Zionism, even in light of a multiplicity of component parts, is an unequivocal watchword: “A land without a people for a people without a land.” ^[4] We are in the presence of the classic ideology of the colonial tradition, which has always considered res nullius — no man’s land — the territories it conquers or occupies, and always tends to attempt to reduce indigenous populations to negligible sizes. In addition to ideology, from the colonial tradition Zionism also borrows practices of discrimination and oppression. Well before the establishment of the State of Israel as such, while settling in Palestine, as early as World War II, the Zionists planned the deportation of Arabs. Edward W. Said draws attention to the unequivocal program laid out in late 1940 by a leader of the Zionist movement, Joseph Weitz: “It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country”; “There is no room for compromise on this point”; “there is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer them all.” ^[5] And, to the extent anyone can cast doubt on the prominent Palestinian intellectual, we should keep in mind that, in October 1945, after the end of World War II, by which time these plans had become very concrete, Hannah Arendt strongly condemned “the transfer of Palestine Arabs to Iraq.” ^[6]

Here, with graceful euphemism, she describes it as a “transfer” instead of deportation. However, three years later, Arendt accurately describes the terrorist violence being unleashed against the Arab population. Here is the fate reserved for Deir Yassin:

“This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 [1948], the New York Times reported, terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants — 240 men, women and children — and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem.”

Despite the indignation of the vast majority of the Jewish population,

“the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.” ^[7]

There’s no doubt that some component parts and individual members of the Zionist movement do not behave in this way, and that in any case some of those who promote the founding of the State of Israel are Zionists with a long leftist history behind them; nevertheless, no communist or democrat would think of justifying the behavior of German Social Democracy at the outbreak of and during World War I by invoking the great popular struggles conducted by that party in the past, and the international prestige it had thus accrued.

So, let us take a closer look at the Zionist left, relying again on the analysis and testimony of Arendt. She, too, refers to the “social-revolutionary Jewish national movement,” but here is how she characterizes it: these are circles certainly committed to the pursuit of collectivist experiments and a “rigorous realization of social justice within their small circle,” but are otherwise ready to support “chauvinist claims.” On the whole, we are in the presence of “a most paradoxical conglomerate of radical approach and revolutionary social reforms domestically, with outmoded and outright reactionary political lines in the field of foreign politics, that is, the relationship of the Jews to other nations and peoples.” ^[8] Throughout its history, the communist movement has always refused to consider this “conglomerate” as leftist; in fact, it has always branded it with the name of social chauvinism. There is so little that merits being called “left” in this interweaving of expansionism (to the detriment of colonial peoples) and communal spirit (invoked to rally the waging of war), that a major Jewish personality even sees in it precisely one of the reasons for a resemblance between Zionism and Nazism. ^[9]

Zionism and Racism

And so we come to the crux of the matter. To the dunces who are outraged at the accusations of racism levelled at Zionism one can contrast Victor Klemperer’s example of secularism and intellectual courage referenced above. Himself having been forced into hiding to escape persecution and the Third Reich’s “final solution” for the Jews, he does not hesitate to speak of Herzl’s writings and ideology as having “Very great affinity with Hitlerism,” “sometimes precisely [Hitler’s] words, his fanaticism.” ^[10] An even more radical conclusion is considered: “Herzl’s racial theory is the Nazi’s source, not the other way around.” ^[11] What unites Nazism and Zionism, however, is an “emphatic Americanism” ^[12] — namely the myth of a Far West to be colonized, virgin territory that the Third Reich seeks in Eastern Europe and Zionism in Palestine. Doesn’t Herzl himself explicitly refer to the model of the “Far West”? ^[13] The only clarification is that the Zionists intend to proceed with “the great object of taking possession of this land” in a way that leaves nothing up to improvisation. ^[14]

Hannah Arendt comes to a conclusion not very different from Klemperer’s. Spurring the Deir Yassin massacre was an explosive “admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority.” ^[15] Assuming “the language of all extreme nationalists,” Zionism is explicitly configured as “pan-Semitism.” ^[16] But why should pan-Semitism be better than pan-Germanism? Herzl is obsessed with keeping Jewish cultural and ethnic identity firm: does he not himself declare that Zionism will find in antisemites “our most reliable friends” and in “the antisemitic countries our allies,” due to their shared commitment to avoid contamination between peoples different in soul and essence? ^[17] From this, Arendt comes to a radical conclusion: that Zionism “is nothing else than the uncritical acceptance of German-inspired nationalism.” Herzl likens nations to “biological superhuman personalities”; Zionism holds the nation to be “an eternal organic body, the product of inevitable natural growth of inherent qualities.” ^[18] Thus, once again, the reference to “German-inspired nationalism,” loaded with “biological” motifs, leads us back to Nazism or, at least, to the basic ideology which the Third Reich would inherit and radicalize.

I have so far used articles and speeches written by Hannah Arendt prior to her anti-communist and anti-Marxist turn at the outbreak of the Cold War. It’s interesting, however, that even by 1963 the philosopher has lost none of her desecrating power. At the Eichmann trial, “the prosecution denounced the infamous Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which had prohibited intermarriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and Germans.” And yet, at the very moment this indictment is delivered, similar legislation is in place in Israel so that “no Jew can marry a non-Jew.” And that’s not all. “Rabbinical law” entails a whole series of discrimination on ethnic grounds: “children of mixed marriages are legally bastards (children of Jewish parentage born out of wedlock are legitimate), and if one happens to have a non-Jewish mother he can neither be married nor buried.” Above all, Arendt draws attention to the enthusiasm that Herzl’s work aroused in the war criminal at that time: a required read of “Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat [The Jewish State], the famous Zionist classic” converted Eichmann “promptly and forever to Zionism.” ^[19]

Perhaps the expressions of both Klemperer and Arendt herself can be charged with polemical exasperation and oversimplification: it is, after all, difficult to attribute to Zionism ambitions of planetary domination and radical reversal of the course of history (in a reactionary sense), both of which play a central role in Hitler’s ideology and political program; moreover, there is no equivalence between racism and “counter-racism” (i.e., racism in reverse), and in Zionism the one and the other turn out to be inextricably intertwined. More balanced turns out to be another prominent Jewish personality, historian George L. Mosse, who also draws attention to the fact that Zionism thinks of the “Jewish nation” in the naturalistic terms propagated by the murky “Germanic ideals” that spread from the late 19th century onward, playing a not insignificant role in the process of ideological preparation of the Third Reich. ^[20]

Reasoning and discussion on this subject should continue, but the cries of scandal raised at the Durban Conference are intended precisely to prevent reasoning and discussion.

And yet, at least one point is already sufficiently clear. Regarding the concrete form taken by Zionism, the social and “racial” relations prevailing in Israel today, we can listen to Jews of democratic orientation — highlighting, additionally, that they’re not themselves extremists, seeing as they publish their speeches in the International Herald Tribune. ^[21] Well, here we can read that, though it is a democracy, Israel is a “caste democracy in the model of ancient Athens” (which had at its foundation the enslavement of barbarians) “and the American South through the 1960s” (the era of Civil Rights protests). The picture Israel presents is clear: “Its minority of Israeli Arabs vote but are second-class in many other ways. The Arabs it rules in the occupied West Bank have no votes and almost no rights.” ^[22] The practice of discrimination against Palestinians goes hand in hand with “dehumanization.” ^[23]

It is a fact: in territories that are one way or another controlled by Israel, access to land, education, water, freedom of movement, and enjoyment of the most basic civil rights, all depend on ethnicity. Only Palestinians run the risk of having their property destroyed, of being deported, of being tortured (even if they are a minor), of being handed over to death squads: and all of this not on the basis of a judgment of the judiciary, but on the basis of the arbitrariness of the police and military authorities, i.e., the sovereign decision of the prime minister. Sharon ^[24] “still speaks proudly of his harsh campaign against Palestinian militants in Gaza 30 years ago, when he bulldozed homes and deported the parents of teenagers engaged in protest.” ^[25] Thus, as the American press informs us, one can be deported not only on the basis of suspicion, but also from merely being related to a young boy suspected of throwing a rock at an Israeli soldier. And this risk exists only for Palestinians. Is this not racism?

On the other hand, while registering with horror the demand of Palestinian refugees to return to the land from which they were violently expelled, Israel invites Jews from all over the world to settle in the Jewish state, and encourages the colonization of the occupied territories, from which Palestinians continue to be expelled. What is this if not ethnic cleansing?

The Trees and the Forest

In the face of the terrible evidence furnished by reality, how cowardly appear the appeals by a certain left to the Palestinian and Arab peoples to refrain from commenting on overly “complex” problems such as Zionism or Israel’s racism, to limit themselves instead to criticizing or condemning Sharon! But, coming as it does from the Western left, does this condemnation even rise to the occasion? At the end of 1948, on the occasion of Menachem Begin’s visit to the U.S., Arendt called for mobilization against the perpetrator of the Deir Yassin massacre, pointing out that the party he headed [Herut, “Freedom”] was “closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties.” ^[26] Why does the Western left not dare speak out as clearly about the person responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre?

That said, even if the condemnation of Sharon lived up to his crimes, the discussion could not be considered closed. Using this same logic, with which a certain Left invites us to leave aside the issue of Israel’s racism and the role of Zionism, one might ask: Why not limit oneself to denouncing the Berlusconi government (or the previous Amato and D’Alema governments) rather than picking on capitalism as a whole? And why not focus fire on Bush Jr. (or Clinton, or Bush Sr.) rather than bring up imperialism as a whole? This is the logic of the most mediocre and penny-pinching reformers: they are willing to sharply scrutinize this or that tree, but woe betide them if anyone hints at the existence of a forest!

And yet, if one does not take a view of this forest, one will not be able to analyze properly the tragedy of the Palestinian people, let alone positively resolve it. This tragedy did not begin with Sharon, or with Barak, or even with earlier governments. Arendt speaks of “the ‘lesser injustice’ that would be done to the Arabs” as early as 1946, and on this same occasion states that the founding of Israel “has little to do with answering the anti-Semites.” ^[27] Indeed, one only has to browse through Herzl, even quickly, to realize that for him the main contradiction is that which pits Jews “belonging to their race” against “assimilated” Jews, where the latter are accused of playing into the hands of those who would like “see the Jews disappear through intermixture” and practice “mixed marriages” (with mixed marriages including those between converted Jews and Jews “loyal to the Jewish strain” and religion). ^[28]

The ferocity of antisemitism (culminating in the horror of Auschwitz) undoubtedly fueled the Zionist movement in a powerful way, but its founders have always openly declared that the Zionist project is independent of antisemitism, and would continue to be valid “even if Anti-Semitism were to vanish completely from the world.” ^[29] In Arendt’s words, Zionism is committed to using antisemitism as “the most salutary factor in Jewish life,” as the “propelling force” first in the creation and then in the development of the Jewish state. ^[30]

Particularly instructive is Sharon’s recent visit to Moscow. He noted the development in Russia of the cultural and religious life of the Jewish community: it is a kind of “Golden Age.” This would seem good, but the Israeli prime minister continued thus, much on the contrary: “This worries me, due to the fact that we need another million Russian Jews.” ^[31] What distresses Sharon here is not the danger of antisemitism but, on the contrary, the danger of assimilation. The disastrous results of the tendency to look at individual trees in isolation while disregarding the forest as a whole is now evident. Some criticize the policy of colonization of the occupied territories but remain silent on the open invitation to Russian Jews (as well as American, and German, etc.) to immigrate en masse to Israel — as if there were no connection between the two! If we want to grasp this connection, we must dare to look at the forest. This forest is Zionism — Zionist colonialism, with all the racist practices that every form of colonialism entails. To take refuge in “complexity” in order to evade the intellectual and moral obligation to pass judgment on Zionism is to adopt an attitude similar to that of historical revisionism, which does not tire of emphasizing “complexity” either, in their case about fascism.

But there is also some reason in this. At one time it was Palmiro Togliatti himself ^[32] who warned against hasty simplifications, drawing attention to the fact that fascism was, yes, a reactionary movement, but a reactionary movement that, at least for a certain period of time, thanks in part to its social demagoguery, managed to enjoy a mass base, and even to attract intellectuals, ultimately maturing into a clear alternative to the Left. This is a lesson in method that goes far beyond the analysis of fascism.

Invoking complexity is legitimate and fruitful when it stimulates a richer and more concrete articulation of historical judgment, which is called upon to take into account the elements of differentiation and contradiction that always arise in the course of the development process of a complex historical phenomenon. At other times, however, the deferral to complexity is an escape from historical judgment, it is an abandonment to the mystique of ineffability: it is an expression of mystifying will, or, rather, of cowardice.

The Anti-Zionist Cause of Palestinians and the Cause of Progressive Jews

Does rejecting the thesis that Zionism and the founding of the State of Israel are primarily a response to antisemitism, or asserting that from its very beginnings it has constituted an injustice against the Palestinians, automatically equate to a case that we should strive for the destruction of the State of Israel? The foundation of the United States is an original crime committed against Native Americans and Black people. And, yet, there’s no plan to drive whites back to Europe, Blacks back to Africa, nor to awaken Native Americans from… eternal sleep. Since its inception, Israel has treated Palestinians partly as Native Americans (deprived of their land, sometimes subject to decimation), and partly as Blacks — discriminated against, tortured, humiliated, or, in the best case, forced to occupy the lower segments of the labor market. Recognition of this original crime is a first prerequisite, if there is ever to be justice and reconciliation.

But, wouldn’t such a radical critique of Israel and Zionism itself risk a revival of antisemitism? Hannah Arendt mocked the myth of an eternal antisemitism as a myth rooted in Zionism. At least its most radical exponents, with their naturalistic view of the nation, tend to present “the relations of Jews and Gentiles” as governed by natural and eternal opposition. And this myth of eternal antisemitism is rooted in a vision which is itself dense with racist notions. In all cases, what is evident is the chauvinist component of this view. Doesn’t Herzl state that “A nation is a group of people … held together by a common enemy”? It is from such an “absurd doctrine” — observes Arendt, the courageous Jewish thinker — that Zionists cultivate the myth of eternal anti-Semitism. ^[33] These are observations that date back to 1945, but are more relevant today than ever before. Even after her turn towards an anti-communist and anti-Marxist direction, in 1963, Arendt declared that “Anti-Semitism has been discredited, thanks to Hitler, perhaps not forever but certainly for the time being.” ^[34] In turn, a well-known American political scientist has written that, in the present day, “In Western Europe, anti-Semitism directed against Arabs has largely replaced anti-Semitism directed against Jews.” ^[35] In fact, this applies not only to urban metropolises in Western Europe, but also and especially to the Middle East.

An authentic commitment against racism is measured not by its homage, however dutiful, to past victims, but first and foremost by the support we give to victims today. If today we cannot make the cause of the Palestinian people our own, the struggle against racism is just an empty phrase. This is why one reads with astonishment, in a “communist newspaper,” a call to leave “anti-Semitism — or principled anti-Zionism — to the racists.” ^[36] The author of this claim — or, at any rate, its stenographer — while rejecting outright the accusation of colonialism and racism levelled at Zionism, does not hesitate to brand Victor Klemperer and Hannah Arendt (among others) as racists. When the latter published Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1963, harshly inveighing against Zionism and against Israel’s attempt to instrumentalize the trial to rally anti-Arab sentiment, she became the target of a hateful international campaign that attempted to impeach her as an antisemite. In France, the weekly Nouvel Observateur, publishing maliciously cherry-picked excerpts from the book, asked about the author: Est-elle nazie? [Is she a Nazi?] ^[37]

This campaign never ceased, although it now goes for easier targets. From the columns of the International Herald Tribune, progressive exponents of the American Jewish community raise a cry of alarm: it’s not only Palestinians who are being “dehumanized,” but also any Jews whose overall appraisal of Israel is critical, or who go as far as questioning Zionism as such. It is an attitude that can cost them dearly because, in addition to insults, they receive repeated death threats. ^[38] By uncritically accepting the equation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism propagated by Israel’s leaders, a certain Left betrays not only the struggle of the Palestinians, but also the struggle, in some respects no less difficult and no less courageous, of progressive Jews in Israel and around the world.