AN INTERIM SUMMARY

When Herzl published Der Judenstaat, many criticized him for linking the fate of the Jewish people to the establishment of a political entity of its own. These critics believed that the Jewish people’s ability to exist for thousands of years without such an entity was a virtue worth preserving. Many Jews considered modern nationalism a shameful relic of a bygone era, a reincarnation of tribal particularism that created international tensions, increased separation between nations, and contradicted the steady march of history toward a universalist future in which differences originating in religion, race, or nationality would be eradicated, and a spirit of amity would prevail among humankind. In such a world the Jews would find their place without their own separate entity. Herzl, however, thought that in the era of nationalism, with each nation struggling against others to secure a place in the sun by achieving political independence and defining its national identity—and defining this identity such that the Jew remained extraneous to it—the Jews had no choice but to enter the arena of nationalism and try to create a place for themselves in it.

From the perspective of one hundred years, the course of history seems to incline more toward justifying Herzl’s assessment rather than that of the universalists. It is true that globalization trends, open borders, the waves of emigration flooding the world all weaken national identities, alter them, and create supranational structures such as the European Union, which sought to erase the enmities that had caused two world wars and create an inclusive European alliance. Yet transnational trends are under constant attack by forces of particularism that refuse to accept globalization and economic and cultural uniformity. With every economic or political crisis, forces emerge that seek to preserve local identity, a unique culture, and the historical memory of a common past. Splinter groups emerge claiming the right to self-determination and destroy the inclusive units they belonged to in the past. Yugoslavia was broken down among its peoples, Czechoslovakia was divided into two states, nations rose from the ruins of the Soviet empire, including some that never had a discrete identity, and the Basques struggle interminably for autonomy. Europeans are concerned by the increasing Islamization of minorities from Islamic countries who have settled in Europe, and this Islamization is itself a reaction to trends toward uniformity and loss of local identity in European society. Given these developments it seems that the predictions that nationalism would disappear that greeted Der Judenstaat were premature.

The establishment of the Jewish state was one of history’s rare miracles. A diaspora nation that had not had a political tradition for centuries, had learned how to survive in different climates and under a variety of regimes, and lacked its own power base succeeded within a very short time in laying the foundations for existence in a harsh country, far from economic centers and resources of culture and knowledge. Within half a century the Zionists gained international recognition for the entity they had founded, established a state, gathered in its exiles from the four corners of the earth, and created ex nihilo a vibrant democracy, a modern economy, an impressive defense force, and a flourishing, challenging culture.

It is difiicult to find a national movement whose beginnings were less auspicious than those of the Zionist movement, yet today it is considered one of the most successful national movements in history. The Zionist movement had not just to fight the other national claimant to Palestine—the Palestinians. It also had to change the Jewish mentality—Jews’ perception of themselves and the world—and create a different Jewish identity that would draw on religious tradition and the Jewish past but also be anchored in the modern world, use logic and reason, and be grounded in the belief that an individual and a people can change destiny and reality. Modernizing the Jewish people went hand in hand with realizing Zionism.

The Zionist movement’s ability to enlist the idealistic element of the Jewish people—its youth—resulted from a onetime historical conjunction between the needs of the Jewish people and the spirit of an era in which nations fought for their freedom, empires declined, new states rose, and readiness for self-sacrifice for the good of the nation was part and parcel of the zeitgeist. This was also an era of faith in the possibility of reforming the world, in revolution that would end exploitation and injustice and lead to the kingdom of heaven on earth. Idealism springing from the grand hope of a just society, together with the struggle for national realization, constituted the driving force behind the Zionist movement’s momentum in its early days, before it had a tangible basis in Palestine. These idealists, known in the Zionist lexicon as halutzim (pioneers), were an avantgarde who made up only a negligible percentage of the Jewish people, but it was they who created the symbols and new images with which Jews could identify and furnished the living example showing that Jews could exist as a nation in the Land of Israel. While most of the Yishuv did not belong to this minority, it accepted the minority’s guiding norms, which provided the justification, the path, and the founding myths. It was the halutzim who created the role model, hegemonic culture, and dominant ethos of the nation-building process.

The road to fulfillment of the Zionist vision was paved by the twentieth century’s great revolutions and catastrophes. World War One, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the rise of Nazism transformed the Zionist movement from a small group of idealists into a popular movement of people seeking refuge and national identity. It was not the Holocaust that led to the establishment of the state; the state was established despite this catastrophe. The nation whose central branch had been severed by genocide—the branch that had created multivalent Jewish cultures and was the Jewish people’s main reservoir of human resources—succeeded, through a heroic upwelling of the will to live, in rising from the ashes, rejecting vengeance, and summoning up its remaining strength to build the Jewish state and society in the Land of Israel. The State of Israel has become the symbol of the Jewish people continuing to live despite catastrophe, a concise expression of the lust for life and vitality of a nation that was on the verge of annihilation. The ability to translate the energies born of great despair into acts of creation and rebuilding made Israel the Jewish people’s post-Holocaust rehabilitation project—including those Jews who chose to continue their lives outside it but who believed that the Jews deserved a state of their own.

The Zionist-Israeli project was never consensual. Before World War Two Zionists were a minority among the Jewish people, just like other national movements at the beginning of their roads. After the state was established, various elements of the Jewish population that made their home in Israel adopted different visions of the future. The socialist-pioneering elite that established the state envisioned a just, egalitarian society in which the state was guide and mentor. The state guided the economy, the building of the nation, the nature of its culture, and its formative ethos. In contrast, the Israeli center and right nurtured a worldview of free enterprise, minimal state intervention in economic life, and Western culture. Until the 1970s, with respect to formative ethos and cultural character, the differences between these two streams of thought seem to have been relatively small. Meanwhile running parallel to these two visions were the religious faith, patriarchal tradition, and ethnic identity brought by the immigrants from Islamic countries. For them the mobilizing power of Zionism arose from association with the world of Torah, legend, and messianic belief.

As the State of Israel passed through its embryonic stages and the Zionist revolution became routinized, the pioneering structures that had supported it at the beginning—without which it might not have been able to absorb aliyot and build an economy and society despite severe shortages and a hostile environment—became superfluous. The time had come to be like all the Western countries. This process occurred in tandem with a change in the Western zeitgeist. The crisis period of World War Two and its extension through the Cold War were over. With the rise in the standard of living and the advent of consumerist culture, it was time to lounge in the armchair in front of the television set. The about-turn of 1977 brought a shift from the pioneering mentality to the center-right worldview—with the latter also captivating the immigrants from Islamic countries, who construed the socialist-elite ethos as a repressive and insulting interference by government bureaucracy in every facet of their life. The slow but sure decline of the socialist vision for the future led to economic growth, entrepreneurial innovation, and integration into the global economy, but it also entailed the loss of the original egalitarianism and social creativity and the dissolution of individual commitment to the state. At the end of the second millennium, Israel increasingly resembled the industrialized Western countries, with all their advantages and disadvantages.

Israel’s establishment and existence were and are accompanied by conflict with the Palestinians and the Arab world. The Jews did not return to an empty land. But it was a land that was relatively sparsely populated, and before World War One it was hard to detect nationalist inclinations in its inhabitants. Nevertheless the Palestinians’ encounter with Jewish nationalism heightened their awareness of the differences between them and the Jews as well as the presence of a competition for possession of the country. This encounter in fact constituted a vital element in the formation of their national identity. The Palestinians considered the country theirs alone and were unwilling to share it with people they viewed as foreign invaders. The Jews, too, saw themselves as owners of the land, and while they were prepared to allow the Arabs to live in it, they would not countenance sharing ownership. Eventually it became clear that in the race between fulfillment of the Zionist enterprise and formation of the Palestinian national identity and its violent eruption, Zionism was losing. Only then did the Jews agree to partition the country and establish two states, Jewish and Arab. The Arabs, however, did not agree to relinquish their exclusive right to the country and refused to share it. Encouraged by the Arab states’ involvement in the conflict, they believed that ultimately the problem would be resolved by force. The collapse of Arab society, the Arab armies’ failure in the War of Independence, and the Nakba were revolutionary developments that the Arabs had never imagined. For the Zionists this was the moment when Zionism proved its ability to create a state capable of withstanding a war of survival.

For the Jews the flight or expulsion of the Arabs was an unpredicted but welcome outcome of a war they had not initiated and that cost them heavy casualties. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not begin with the 1948 war, but in Arab eyes the war was emblematic of the deprivation inflicted on them by Zionism, which had dispossessed them of their country. The role reversal between Jews and Arabs, with the Jews becoming the majority and the Arabs the minority, was the source of a trauma that still affects the Palestinians. Until 1967 they hoped that “the next round” between Israel and the Arab states would turn back the clock. Since then, and particularly since the 1973 war, they have been forced to accept Israel as a fact of life. But at the same time, they have never viewed it as a legitimate entity in the Middle East. According to the Arab narrative, Zionism is not a national movement of the Jewish people. For the Arabs there is no such thing as a Jewish nationality but only a Jewish religion; or, in a less harsh interpretation, the Israelis are a nationality, but world Jewry is not. Zionism is therefore not the Jewish people’s liberation movement but rather a form of white colonization that stole a country from its native inhabitants.

The outcome is that at the present stage of history the Palestinians are prepared to suffer Israel’s existence in the Middle East as an inalienable fact but not to see it as justifiable. Hence their difiiculty in reaching a peace agreement, since Israel demands reciprocity and acceptance of its basic demands: that the Arabs relinquish the myth of the “right of return” and the eternal nature of the conflict and recognize Israel as the Jewish national state.

Yet it seems that since Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem the delegitimizing of Israel in the Middle East has diminished somewhat. The Zionist movement has come a long way from its modest beginnings to the Arab League’s offer of recognition and peace. Despite all the bitterness and violence on both sides, the Land of Israel has not experienced genocide or mass killings such as those that occurred in some European countries, even as recently as the 1990s. Compared with other national conflicts, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict remains limited, even considering the settlements and Israel’s repression of a popular uprising or, on the other side, suicide terrorism. Since Israel is the stronger side in the conflict, it can be said to deserve credit for the moral restrictions it has imposed on itself in this struggle.

Since 1967 the occupation of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip has cast a shadow over Israeli society. The polarization between the supporters of Greater Israel and those favoring “territory for peace” has changed Israeli politics. Whereas previously the division between left and right reflected different social outlooks, now in Israeli politics the signifier of identity—dove or hawk—is one’s position on the occupied territories. The dominance of this conflict has shunted aside the issue of further integrating Israeli society itself. The disappointments of the peace process have enfeebled the Israeli left. However, the resulting shift was not to the right but to the center. There is a new, sober readiness for peace among the majority of the Israeli public, but without the messianic fervor that characterized the early 1990s.

An outsider observing Israel today sees a divided society, a decrease in national solidarity, struggles among the various sectors, a weakness in its cohesive tissue. But this view from outside is apt to lead to an erroneous analysis. Was the assessment that Israeli society was crumbling and needed just one last small blow to kill it off that impelled Arafat to intensify the Second Intifada? As it turned out, when this society full of disparities faces danger from without, it summons the mental fortitude to close ranks, find a common denominator, and muster the courage to face its attackers. Each time this happens, voices are raised asking: why do these wonderful qualities of volunteerism and patriotic devotion only appear at times of crisis?

In the first decade of the third millennium, two books were published in Israel that can serve as guides through the tangle of the Israeli ethos. The first was Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness; it was followed a few years later by David Grossman’s A Woman Flees Tidings. From the early days of the Zionist enterprise, Hebrew literature has been a seismograph registering the movement’s mood and dominant ethos, as well as its conscience and guide. In the 1980s the depression and confusion resulting from the loss of values and consensus in Israeli society were expressed in literary works that described the fear of chaos and the pain of losing the public space to which the earlier literature had been devoted. In the 1990s this vacuum became the subject of the new literature that engaged with nothing.

Now, in response to the failure of the peace process and the Second Intifada’s outburst of violence, these two great novels reappropriated the public sphere for literature. Amos Oz tells the story of his family, while at the same time relating the Zionist meta-story. A family of immigrants from Europe puts down roots under the scorching sun of Eretz Yisrael, in an environment hostile to young plants accustomed to greenhouse conditions. The encounter causes suffering and pain but also leads to individual and social redemption and the building of a new world. That is the essence of the Zionist story. Grossman’s book describes the unceasing invasion of private space in Israel by the public one, and the impossibility of separating the two. The mother who flees her home in order to avoid seeing the IDF ofiicers coming to inform her of her son’s death on active service, and the father of the young man suffering from combat fatigue and torture in the Yom Kippur War, are figures forged in the furnace of Israeli reality. Love of country, coping with the hidden layer of existential anxiety, maintaining a semblance of humanity are all typical motifs in Hebrew literature since the beginning of the twentieth century. Literature that documents nothingness has been supplanted by literature committed to the nation, to society, to all that is human.

Israel is a success story of global proportions; it is a vital, vibrant society with a dynamic economy and an academy that has gained international recognition for standing at the forefront of research, a critical democracy with extreme freedom of speech and insolent and invasive media that never hesitate to expose all the government’s weaknesses. Despite constant complaints in the media about human rights, Israel displays sensitivity on these issues, not only to a greater degree than all other Middle Eastern countries but also more than most of the world’s democracies, especially when they feel threatened. Israeli culture is rich, multi-faceted, innovative, and constantly renewing itself, with constant confrontations within it between high and popular culture, European and American culture and Mizrachi culture, secular and religious Jewish culture, and so forth—all of which reflect its mosaic of cultural life. Yet Israel still faces world criticism to a degree hard to discover elsewhere. Every action taken by the government of Israel, and every one of its failures, is immediately censured with expressions usually reserved for dark regimes. There is great empathy for the Palestinian issue, while the other side of the coin is ignored.

Many claim that the hostility toward today’s Israel is a modern reincarnation of hatred of the Jews, the old antisemitism. If this is true, then it seems Herzl was mistaken in his belief that turning the Jewish people into a people like any other, with its own state recognized by the family of nations, would end antisemitism. But even if this basic premise of the father of Zionism turns out to be wrong, and in the end Israel’s existence as an independent Jewish state with military might is fraught with risks and does not ensure the existence of the Jewish people, the great Zionist adventure was and is one of the most astonishing attempts ever made at building a nation: taking place democratically, without coercion of its citizens, during an incessant existential war, and with no loss of the moral principles that guided it.