In the last decade or so, Israeli academia has been shaken and
excited by a scholarly debate on Zionism. Lately, this debate has
been brought into the public arena through a number of articles in
the leading press; on several occasions, it was even the subject of
heated discussion in the electronic mass media. My aim here is to
try and present the essence of this debate and explore its possible
implications and developments.
The debate reflects a challenge to the official historical version
of Zionism by a group of young scholars. The roots of these
university chal¬lengers are twofold: political and academic.
Let us begin with the political background. Ever since the creation
of the State of Israel in 1948, the offi¬cial Zionist
historiography has had to face competing historiographical
versions. From without, there was always the counter Palestinian
version: a historiographical version of the events in Palestine
since 1882 until today, expressed in academic writings, literature,
poetry and in the official politi¬cal stances. There was also
a challenge to the Zionist version from within, one which emerged
in the radical Israeli left (with the Communist Party at its
center). In these leftist circles the competing version
considerably resembled the Palestinian side of the story. From
within, too, the right wing (Herut and Likud) had their own
reservations about the official histo¬riography emplotted by
the Labor Zionist movement. It had its own histo¬rians who
glorified the role of the Revisionist underground movements, the
IZL and Lehi, in the struggle against the British and the Arabs in
Palestine.
After 1967, different challenges were voiced by political groups.
From an ethnic and socioeconomic background, a protest movement
came out with criticism against the Ashkenazi establishment and
Israel's social poli¬cy. This group developed its own
historical version and what happened in the early years of
statehood, mainly one of exclusion and deprivation.
The Palestinians who had been left under Israeli rule in the wake
of the 1948 war - the Arab Israelis - had similar grievances. They
also became more insistent on their version after the 1967
war.
Finally, under the influence of American feminism, a local feminist
movement was established in Israel in the early 1970s. Its claim
was that women were excluded altogether from the official
historiographical version.
Outside the Mainstream
What is common to the claims of all these political challengers is
that they were excluded from the Zionist historical narrative and
that their chroni¬cles were distorted in schools and
university curricula. Their share in the national ethos - the one
which is conveyed through official ceremonies or through literature
and poetry - was blurred. Until the 1970s, these claims of
exclusion and deprivation were expressed through poetry and
literature or within the platforms of political parties; however,
they were not pre¬sented as scientific claims or as based on
scholarly works. Since the 1970s, quite a considerable part of
these claims have been examined by researchers in the Israeli
academia and the result was the espousal of many of them by young
scholars.
But the scholars, as mentioned, were not only working in the
context of political changes. They were also impressed by the
global theoretical and methodological developments in the human
sciences. Ever since the 1960s the definition, role and territory
of the human scientist has been radically transformed, this being
particularly evident in the field of history. A new historian
emerged, a scholar who is more skeptical towards the accepted
historical data or "truth," one who does not pretend to be
objective and recog¬nizes the influence of his or her
prejudices on the historical story. The new historian was required
to be conversant with all methodological tools which the social
sciences can offer. With the help of these tools, he or she was
able to come out with a version which included all those groups
which were left in the dark by national, religious or ethnic
hegemonic historiographies.
Two Contenders
The Israeli academia is an integral part of the global academic
system and thus it is not surprising that historians and
sociologists in it adopted the same inter¬disciplinary,
skeptical and subjective view towards their own history. Such a
methodology will naturally reflect their wish to represent the
Palestinians, the Sephardis and the women's side of the story, just
as American scholars wished to do the same for different groups in
American society.
Within the Israeli academia we can discern two groups of contenders
against the official historiography. One consists of those who
challenge the official version about the early years of Zionism.
The second group, and so far the most known outside Israel, is the
one which has revised the official version of the 1948 war. The
debate still goes on, and a third group which contests the official
version about the early years of statehood is nowadays emerging.
This last group will not be discussed in this paper, but in due
course it should be included in a summary of the new history in
Israel. For the time being, we will discuss the first two
groups.
The New View on the Genesis of Zionism
The sociologists in Israel were the first scholars to adopt a
critical view on early Zionism. With the help of neutral
methodology, and putting aside the nationalist ideological
paradigms, they examined Zionism not only as a national ideology
but also as a system of domination and control. Yonathan Shapira,
for instance, delved into the early roots of the Labor movement and
found there dominance and aggressiveness, along with very little
trace of pure socialist ideology or an innocent Zionist vision void
of narrow interests. A dictatorial regime and an atmosphere that
prevent¬ed the emergence of a suitable cadre of successors
characterized the histor¬ical Mapai of Yonathan Shapira.
Baruch Kimmerling employed a neutral methodology as well when he
examined the Zionist movement in 1976. He looked at it as a
colonialist phenomenon. By this he diverted sharply from the
official historiography's habit of looking at terms such as Geulat
Hakarka (the Zionist redemption of the Land), Aliya Gewish
immigration into Palestine) and Tebuma (the renaissance of the
Jewish people in Palestine) as neutral and professional terms
rather than viewing them for what they are - an ideological
lexicon. Kimmerling did not write as a recruited historian but
rather took the his¬tory of the Zionist movement as an
interesting case-study - a successful case-study of a combination
of colonialism and nationalism. He attributed the success of
Zionism to a fruitful alliance between British and Jewish
colonialism on the one hand, and Jewish nationalism, on the other.
Kimmerling pointed to the importance of the military umbrella
provided by the British Empire to the Zionist project's principal
mission - attaining demographic dominance in Palestine.
Gershon Shafir was even more blunt. In his historical version,
Zionism is a colonialist movement par excellence, albeit one with
particularist characteristics. But not a particularism with no
parallel or one which stems, as claimed by Anita Shapira in her
last books Herev Ha-Yona and Halichah al Kav Ha-Ofeq, from a unique
moral standard, but one which is the conse¬quence of the
particular conditions in which the Zionist movement operat¬ed.
For Shafir, Zionism is a unique case-study in the history of
colonialism since the movement succeeded in creating a state,
despite the absence of any substantial military and financial
means. And thus, in his account, the kibbutz and the moshav are not
the implementation of a socialist ideology but rather pragmatic
economic solutions in the face of the hardships encountered in
Palestine. These were instruments of a colonialist move¬ment
which wanted to take over the labor and land market in
Palestine.
Shapira, Kimmerling and Shafir do not agree with one another on
cru¬cial points, and are not the only ones to deal with these
subjects. But they do share a neutral employment of sociological
theories in order to try and understand important chapters in the
history of their own society and state. They expose a far more
"normal" picture of the past when compared to recruited historians
who wrote on the same period, under the commit¬ment to the
nation or under the motivation of the "Chosen People" myth. They
could have done that when the first rifts appeared in the
self-complimentary image of the "Chosen People" in the wake of the
1973 war.
This erosion in the self-complimentary image was accelerated by the
beginning of direct negotiations with the PLO. The negotiations
produced a less paranoiac and more professional perception on the
national past. Unpleasant, and at times shocking, chapters in the
national history were exposed. As a result of these new
revelations, more and more scholars became aware of the basic
contradictions between the Zionists' national aspirations on the
one hand, and their implementation at the expense of a living and
thriving Palestinian population, on the other. A local population
that submitted to the power of force, and not to justice; a
population that had succumbed to the overwhelming Jewish
immigration that eventually led, in 1948, to a war in which many
Palestinian villages and towns were lost, and its inhabitants were
scattered throughout the Arab world. Indeed, it seems that it was
this last chapter, the chapter of 1948, that attracted most of the
public attention in Israel. It was, thus, not so much the debate on
the origins of Zionism that seemed relevant, but rather the debate
on the ori¬gins of the state that stirred and aroused the
public conscience.
The New History of the 1948 War
A number of scholars in Israel and abroad flocked around the doors
of the archives in Jerusalem, London and Washington in the late
1970s when the first bunch of declassified material concerning the
1948 war became acces¬sible to the public. A few years later,
it transpired that from these docu¬ments emerged a new
historiographical picture of the war which stood in stark contrast
to the one portrayed by the educational, communicational and
political systems in Israel. The new picture contradicted the
collective national memory of Israel of the year 1948: a
mythological and a formative year for most of the Jews in the State
of Israel.
The new portrayal of the war challenged the mainstream
historiograph¬ical claim that the Jewish community in
Palestine was under the danger of annihilation on the eve of the
1948 war. The documents revealed a divided Arab world and a
militarily-impotent Palestinian community unable to seriously
threaten the existence of the Jewish community. The Arab world was
mainly engaged in warlike rhetoric and less in proper military
prepara¬tions. When the Arab League had eventually decided to
send forces to the bat¬tlefield, they did not transcend the
number of Jewish troops, and certainly were of a lower operational
ability compared to the Jewish army facing them.
The myth of annihilation is also challenged by the prominent role
attrib¬uted by the new historians to the tacit understanding
between the Hashemites and the Jews on the eve of the war. The two
sides had agreed to divide between them post-Mandatory Palestine
and only failed to reach an agreement on the future of Jerusalem.
The Arab Legion was the strongest and ablest of the Arab armies,
and its neutralization on the Jerusalem front had tipped the
balance in the Jews' favor even more.
Moreover, a new interpretation of the danger of annihilation is
based on an analysis of the positions taken by the two superpowers,
the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. Although the Cold War had already
broken out, the two super¬powers adopted a similar policy
towards post-Mandatory Palestine. They both supported the idea of a
Jewish state. Thus, contrary to the Israeli per¬ception, the
whole world was not against us. On the other hand, the world was
against the Palestinian demand to establish an Arab state in all of
Palestine. Even Britain was neutral in this conflict, and not
hostile, as repeatedly claimed by Israeli historians. Britain
supported the Zionist alliance with the Hashemites in Transjordan
as the best means of safe¬guarding its own interests in the
area and saw the alliance as the best solu¬tion to the
conflict.
This sympathetic international atmosphere owed much to the
Holocaust and thus, when the claims of the two sides were heard for
the first time in the U.N., the moral and political claims of the
Palestinians could not withstand the competition with the guilt and
shame felt by the international community towards the Jewish
people. And so the parity on the battlefield, the understanding
with the Jordanians, and the international support are the main
"new" explanations to the success of the Jewish community in the
war: explanations which challenge the mainstream Zionist
historiographi¬cal treatment of the Jewish success as a
miraculous event.
Refuting Myths
The new history also challenges two other myths connected to the
war. One is the myth of the Palestinian flight. The new historians
write about mass expulsion, and report on massacres and atrocities
committed by the Israelis, apart from the infamous Deir Yassin
massacre. They also refute the allegation that Arab and Palestinian
leaders encouraged the population to leave and wait until victory
came.
The second myth challenged is the intransigence of the Arab world
after the war, while Israel was offering peace to its enemies.
According to the works of the new historians, Israel was not
seeking peace while quite a substantial number of Arab leaders were
willing to negotiate peace with it.
The new historians point to the zeal with which Israel erased the
aban¬doned Arab villages and turned them either into Jewish
settlements or agricultural land, thus preempting any chance for
peace with the Palestinian people. They also stress Israel's
refusal to recognize the right of return granted to the
Palestinians by the U.N. in Resolution 194, and Israel's rejection
of that resolution's recommendation to internationalize Jerusalem
and partition Palestine.
Important chapters in the Palestinian historical narrative about
the ori¬gins of the war, its course and consequences are thus
now accepted by Israeli historians - although some of the new
claims also contradict the Palestinian official historiography
(such as the peace chapter). But all in all, there is certainly
legitimization to some of the fundamental claims of the other side
in this new historiographical enterprise.
In Conclusion
The debate still goes on. It reflects not only an academic dispute
but also a crisis of identity for a society on the eve of peace
with its neighbors. Israel is entering an era where the national
consensus, based in the past on the danger of annihilation and
security problems, is gradually substituted by a debate over the
future face of the society and its culture.
Bibliography
Genesis of Zionism:
Kimmerling, Baruch Politics. Zionism and Territory: the
Socio-Territorial Dimensions of Zionist Berkeley, 1983.
Shafir, Gershon. Land, Labor and the Origins of the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914. Cambridge, 1987.
Shapira, Y. The Historical Ahdut Ha-Avoda: the Power of a Political
Organization (Hebrew). Tel Aviv, 1975.
- Elite with No Successors (Hebrew). Tel Aviv, 1984.
The New History of the War of 1948:
Bar-Joseph, Uri. The Best of Enemies: Israel and Transjordan in the
War of 1948. London, 1987.
Flapan, Simha. The Birth of Israel. New York, 1987.
Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,
1947-1949. Cambridge, 1988.
Pappe, Ilan. The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1949.
London, 1992. Shlaim, Avi. Collusion Across the Jordan. Oxford,
1988
the U.S.S.R. Although the Cold War had already broken out, the two
super¬powers adopted a similar policy towards post-Mandatory
Palestine. They both supported the idea of a Jewish state. Thus,
contrary to the Israeli per¬ception, the whole world was not
against us. On the other hand, the world was against the
Palestinian demand to establish an Arab state in all of Palestine.
Even Britain was neutral in this conflict, and not hostile, as
repeatedly claimed by Israeli historians. Britain supported the
Zionist alliance with the Hashemites in Transjordan as the best
means of safe¬guarding its own interests in the area and saw
the alliance as the best solu¬tion to the conflict.
This sympathetic international atmosphere owed much to the
Holocaust and thus, when the claims of the two sides were heard for
the first time in the U.N., the moral and political claims of the
Palestinians could not withstand the competition with the guilt and
shame felt by the international community towards the Jewish
people. And so the parity on the battlefield, the understanding
with the Jordanians, and the international support are the main
"new" explanations to the success of the Jewish community in the
war: explanations which challenge the mainstream Zionist
historiographi¬cal treatment of the Jewish success as a
miraculous event.
Refuting Myths
The new history also challenges two other myths connected to the
war. One is the myth of the Palestinian flight. The new historians
write about mass expulsion, and report on massacres and atrocities
committed by the Israelis, apart from the infamous Deir Yassin
massacre. They also refute the allegation that Arab and Palestinian
leaders encouraged the population to leave and wait until victory
came.
The second myth challenged is the intransigence of the Arab world
after the war, while Israel was offering peace to its enemies.
According to the works of the new historians, Israel was not
seeking peace while quite a substantial number of Arab leaders were
willing to negotiate peace with it.
The new historians point to the zeal with which Israel erased the
aban¬doned Arab villages and turned them either into Jewish
settlements or agricultural land, thus preempting any chance for
peace with the Palestinian people. They also stress Israel's
refusal to recognize the right of return granted to the
Palestinians by the U.N. in Resolution 194, and Israel's rejection
of that resolution's recommendation to internationalize Jerusalem
and partition Palestine.
Important chapters in the Palestinian historical narrative about
the ori¬gins of the war, its course and consequences are thus
now accepted by Israeli historians - although some of the new
claims also contradict the Palestinian official historiography
(such as the peace chapter). But all in all, there is certainly
legitimization to some of the fundamental claims of the other side
in this new historiographical enterprise.
In Conclusion
The debate still goes on. It reflects not only an academic dispute
but also a crisis of identity for a society on the eve of peace
with its neighbors. Israel is entering an era where the national
consensus, based in the past on the danger of annihilation and
security problems, is gradually substituted by a debate over the
future face of the society and its culture. Bibliography Genesis of Zionism:
Kimmerling, Baruch Politics. Zionism and Territory: the
Socio-Territorial Dimensions of Zionist Berkeley, 1983.
Shafir, Gershon. Land, Labor and the Origins of the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914. Cambridge, 1987.
Shapira, Y. The Historical Ahdut Ha-Avoda: the Power of a Political
Organization (Hebrew). Tel Aviv, 1975.
- Elite with No Successors (Hebrew). Tel Aviv, 1984. The New History of the War of 1948:
Bar-Joseph, Uri. The Best of Enemies: Israel and Transjordan in the
War of 1948.
London, 1987.
Flapan, Simha. The Birth of Israel. New York, 1987.
Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem,
1947-1949.
Cambridge, 1988.
Pappe, Ilan. The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1949.
London, 1992. Shlaim, Avi. Collusion Across the Jordan. Oxford,
1988.