Revisionist Zionism Research Articles

The price of loyalty to Vladimir Jabotinsky: moral honesty and political irrelevance – Yehuda Benari’s life and work (1940–48)

ABSTRACT This essay draws attention to Yehuda Benari, a forgotten figure in the Revisionist Zionist movement who, in addition to serving as the movement’s attorney general (1938–46) and the head of the London office (1947–48), was a leading Zionist lawyer, activist, historian, and journalist. My thesis is that Benari modeled his life, both actively and intellectually, on the leading principles and ideals of Vladimir Jabotinsky. However, his unwavering commitment to Jabotinsky’s interpretation of Revisionist Zionism impeded Benari’s chances of adapting to change and prevented a political career in independent Israel. Nonetheless, his work in the 1940s on behalf of political prisoners sheds light on the way Revisionists used British law as part of their overall struggle. This piece also helps us interpret the political fate of a generation of Revisionist Zionists between Jabotinsky’s death (1940) and the establishment of the State of Israel.

Commentary] Israel: A Problem the World Created (And Now Appears Unable to Solve)

The article takes the view that the conflict in Gaza, involving Israel and Hamas cannot be viewed objectively by assuming that the conflict started on October 7th, 2024. Rather is the conflict a reflection of the pattern of such events and related actions by Israel as the occupying power over 75 years since the declaration of the state of Israel on May 24th, and indeed related conflicts in Palestine prior to that declaration. The article briefly examines to origins of Zionism as an ethic nationalism in the rise of nationalisms in the final 30 years or so of the 19th century. It remarks in particular on the rise of and persistence of Revisionist Zionism and its European neo-liberal roots. It explores the development of Zionism and how it has morphed into a political instrument, going well beyond a benign ethnic nationalism. However, aside from documenting many of the repressive actions of the successive government of Israel since the inception of the state and arguing that Israel’s action following October 7th have been disproportionate, the article explores two potential permanent and practical solutions to the successive conflicts in Palestine: a two-state solution and a confederal solution, both to be guaranteed internationally. The aim of any settlement, it os argued, must provide security and integrity for the state of Israel and the establishment of a similarly recognized and protected Palestinian state. A variety of sources, including Jewish sources, have been used and referenced.

Cooperation and Struggle: Rethinking the Impact of the American Zionist Leadership on the Twenty-Second Zionist Congress

Cooperation and Struggle:Rethinking the Impact of the American Zionist Leadership on the Twenty-Second Zionist Congress Zohar Segev (bio) On December 9, 1946, the twenty-second World Zionist Congress, the first since the outbreak of World War II, opened in Basel, Switzerland. This Congress, whose deliberations took place in the shadow of the Holocaust, was crucial for the future of the Zionist movement. Previous scholarship has underscored the growing rift between David Ben-Gurion, the chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive Committee, and Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Zionist Organization, during the 1940s, describing at length how the former's political stature grew while Weizmann's position deteriorated, leading to his de facto deposition at the Zionist Congress in 1946. Despite Weizmann's dwindling power in the 1940s, it was only in 1946 that Ben-Gurion was able to marginalize him totally.1 In this article, I rethink the effect that American Zionist leaders had on the twenty-second Zionist Congress in general and on Weizmann's ouster in particular. I will show that Weizmann's waning prestige, along with the growing power of Zionism in the United States, in general, and of its leader, Abba Hillel Silver, in particular, require a different assessment of the political realities at the Congress. Many of Weizmann's supporters concluded that it would be futile to persist in their efforts to secure his reelection as president of the Zionist Organization; Weizmann's unwillingness [End Page 75] to cut ties with Great Britain made him politically unpopular with delegates to the Congress. As a result, several of Weizmann's erstwhile supporters who opposed Ben-Gurion decided to cooperate with Silver. In spite of Silver's efforts to depose Weizmann, the two men shared a similar ideology of liberal, General Zionism, in opposition to Ben-Gurion's labor Zionism on the left and Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism on the right. This broad ideological congruence made it easier for some of Weizmann's former supporters to choose Silver as their champion. The result was a political bloc that, at least potentially, posed a challenge to Ben-Gurion's dominance within the Zionist movement, the Yishuv, and the state in the making. The significance of Weizmann's political decline should be understood in the light of his extraordinary importance in the Zionist movement. As one of the chief architects of the Balfour Declaration, Weizmann's authority to lead the movement was widely recognized. Indeed, Weizmann was the president of the Zionist movement for most of its existence from 1921 till 1946.2 Weizmann believed that the best way for the Zionist movement to further its goals was to cooperate with world leaders. In particular, Weizmann was disturbed by Ben-Gurion's strategy of getting the United States to pressure Britain to agree to the establishment of a Jewish state. He was certain that this would lead nowhere and implored Justice Felix Frankfurter to impress upon Ben-Gurion and the other Zionist leaders that the idea was doomed to failure.3 Weizmann's criticism of the Zionist [End Page 76] strategy in the United States was not confined to the debate over the nature of political activity there and extended to the damage sustained by Britain as a result of the pro-Zionist activity in Washington, an issue that continued even after the war.4 Most Zionists disagreed with Weizmann's stance, and so, while rank-and-file members of the movement still venerated him, a majority of Zionist Congress delegates found Weizmann's perspective unacceptable, and came to view Silver, who advocated for more pressure on Britain and a more aggressive push for a Jewish state, as a reasonable alternative. The machinations of the twenty-second Congress reflected these shifting political calculations. Weizmann and American Zionists Before 1946 American Zionists played a major role in the dramatic events that occurred in the Yishuv and the arena of international Zionist politics during the 1930s and 1940s. Their growing weight within the Zionist movement was in part a consequence of the deteriorating situation of European Jewry, as well as a reflection of their country's enhanced stature and increasing involvement in the international sphere. But it...

Introduction, The Jewish 1968 and its Legacies

Introduction, The Jewish 1968 and its Legacies Ari Y. Kelman (bio), Tony Michels (bio), and Riv-Ellen Prell (bio) Sensing that 1968 was a critical, but underexplored, turning point in the reenvisioning and reimagining of Jewish life in the United States, we organized a conference on "The Jewish 1968 and its Legacies." Fifteen scholars gathered at Stanford University on February 15–16, 2015, to discuss the impact of that pivotal year on American Jewish historiography, feminism, Zionism, politics, and religion. We argued that 1968 marked a turning point in the development of American Jewish culture, politics, and religion; we called it "the Jewish 1968" in order to reference both that iconic year of worldwide youth protest, and the particular Jewish dimensions of it. We were especially interested in the ways in which both the year 1968 and the era of which it was a part launched the unraveling of the Jewish liberal consensus identified by historian Arthur Goren in his article "A Golden Decade for American Jews: 1945–1955."1 Though his article has been challenged on the grounds that the period was more complex and somewhat less golden than he claimed, it nevertheless laid out a strong case for a public consensus about American Jewish life in the decade following World War II.2 We suggested that American Jewish baby boomer activists, who were deeply involved with various aspects of Jewish life, were among the most important catalysts for those changes.3 They created a surge of activity that set into motion innovations that, over subsequent decades, transformed Jewish life. These activists did not create ideas, activities, and organizations as a systematic program. Nor was the American counterculture, which they embraced, uniform and coherent.4 Rather, their innovations came from a fertile engagement [End Page 1] between the counterculture with which they deeply identified, and the Jewish milieus in which they grew up. The era's complex politics, psychology, sexuality, theology, and spiritual practices all shaped how they reimagined their Jewish lives, communities, and cultures. We were mindful that many historians view 1967, because of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War that June, as a crucial turning point in Jewish history with different significance for the various Jewish communities of the world. Its importance for American Jews is often associated with moving Zionism to the center of American Jewish life and a new, emergent expression of Jewish identity linked to Jewish nationalism. We wanted to explore the significance of 1968 as a marker of the emergence of a Jewish youth movement that was built on the rejection of the dominant formulations of Jewish life by the postwar generation. How, if at all, did the global youth revolution also significantly change Jewish life? While debates persist among historians about the precise impact of all of the events that lined up in 1968, most would nevertheless agree it constituted a watershed, as young activists and radicals challenged the power and authority of many global powers, leading to both political and cultural repression and change.5 Zionism was one of the conference's most important examples. Following the Six-Day War, Zionism became central to Jewish life in the United States, but in complex and contradictory ways. On one extreme, Radical Zionists revived the Marxist tradition in Zionism through the lens of the New Left. Its place in Zionist history is often overlooked, if not forgotten, but it was a powerful force for Jewish activists and the emergence of the peace movement. On the opposite end, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) merged the right-wing nationalism of Revisionist Zionism with the styles and postures of Black Power. That fusion was deeply disturbing, but also remarkably compelling to many young Americans. Although most rejected his political program, JDL's charismatic leader Meir Kahane's evocation of "identity politics" and "ethnic pride," resonated powerfully in this era. We were interested in exploring [End Page 2] the ways that these expressions of Zionism emerged and developed in light of the youth movement.6 With respect to religion, young Jews experimented with and participated in the larger turn to spirituality among American youth. Sometimes subsumed under the label of "Renewal," the new Jewish spirituality...

Is “Land for Peace” Legitimate?

Is “Land for Peace” Legitimate?

The Purifying Effect of Truth: Jabotinsky's Interpretation of the Balfour Declaration

Ze’ev Jabotinsky viewed the Balfour Declaration as a commitment to establish the Jewish State in Mandatory Palestine. He believed that public and diplomatic pressure on decision-makers and opinion leaders in Britain could cause that commitment to be fulfilled, either as an independent state or as a dominion within the framework of the British Commonwealth. Personally, he favored the latter. Even as the conflict of interests between Zionism and Britain became increasingly apparent, Jabotinsky maintained his faith in the Zionist connection with Britain—at least up until the publication of McDonald’s White Paper on 17 May 1939. As he saw it, the obstacle to fulfil the British obligation was the political game that the Mandatory Administration in Palestine played. He put the blame on the local administration, rather than on His Majesty’s government in London. This article presents the interpretation of the Balfour Declaration—and, by extension, the British Mandate—through the eyes of the leader of Revisionist Zionism.

REVIEW ESSAY — Revisionist Zionism: The Founder, His Disciple And Their Chief Adversary

Middle East PolicyVolume 22, Issue 2 p. 168-174 REVIEWS REVIEW ESSAY — Revisionist Zionism: The Founder, His Disciple And Their Chief Adversary First published: 14 June 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/mepo.12136Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume22, Issue2Summer 2015Pages 168-174 RelatedInformation

Beyond a one-man show: the prelude of Revisionist Zionism, 1922–25

The hallmarks of the Revisionist political platform, such as opposition to the project of the enlarged Jewish Agency or the idea of fundamental land and fiscal reform in Palestine aimed at an intensification of the settlement endeavour, began to appear spontaneously, particularly in Russo-Ukrainian Zionist circles, during the second quarter of 1922. The so-called ‘Our Platform’, a series of articles setting out the Revisionist proposals, published in March 1924, was a joint undertaking and the culmination of numerous, sometimes inconclusive, discussions. The creation of the Union of Zionists-Revisionists sealed this process in 1925. The aim of this article is to investigate the three-year prelude to the organized Revisionist movement, highlighting the role performed by activists, almost all of whom have been forgotten over time (J. Brutzkus, S. Gepstein, J. Schechtman and I. Trivus, among others). It identifies the opposition to the enlarged Jewish Agency project (and not the rejection of the White Paper of 1922) as the main galvanizing point of the process. Last, but not least, it argues that many of the political notions commonly attributed to Jabotinsky actually originated with others among the Revisionist founders.

The Iron Wall Revisited

More than a decade after the publication of his acclaimed The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, Avi Shlaim returns to Ze'ev Jabotinsky's theory as a framework for understanding Israel's Arab policies, this time focusing on the post-1967 period. The author revisits the theory's formulation by the leader of Revisionist Zionism in 1923 and its near total convergence with the (unacknowledged) strategy followed by Labor Zionism. Examining each Israeli government since 1967, he shows that all zealously followed stage one of Jabotinsky's strategy (constructing an “iron wall” of unassailable military strength) but that the lesser known stage two (serious negotiations with the Palestinians after being compelled by stage one to abandon all hope of prevailing over Zionism) has been completely ignored except by Yitzhak Rabin. Indeed, the recent periods have witnessed a full-blown return to the iron wall at its starkest, with increasing resort to violence and unilateralism.

Jabotinsky's New Jew: Concept and models

The founder of Revisionist Zionism, Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky, believed that Zionism would create a new type of Jew. The youth organization that he headed, Betar Youth, used a variety of means to train its members to realize the vision of the “new Jew,” from physical and paramilitary exercises to learning and using the Hebrew language, from a certain code of behavior to making every effort to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael. Jabotinsky presented three figures as models of the new Jewish character: Herzl, who had brought the nation back into history; Trumpeldor, who personified the pure idea of pioneering and serving the nation; and Shlomo Ben Yosef, who, when sentenced to death by the British Mandate authorities, demonstrated strength and honor while in prison and went to the gallows with the Betar Song on his lips. These three men symbolized in their lives the idea of the “new Jew” – the antithesis to the figure of the ghetto Jew.

Polemic in Tunisia over Salonika Rabbi's 1912 letter

Salonika Chief Rabbi Jacob Meir's 1912 letter to the Greek authorities disclaiming the news that the Greek troops molested Salonika Israelites generated controversy between La Justice (the pioneering organ of revisionist Zionism in Tunisia) and La Tunisie Française (the semi-official organ, prominently anti-Jewish since its appearance in 1892). While La Justice claimed that the Jews had been excessively brutalised and tried to market the idea that the Rabbi's controversial letter was a masterpiece of casuistry probably intended to preach concord, La Tunisie Française, which had been leading a campaign against the Young Turks, Free-Masonry, and the Jews ever since the Young Turks coup in 1908, insisted that the Jewish accusations fall within a Zionist crusade to discredit the French-trained Greek troops and lobby for an international mandate of Salonika followed by self-rule; a euphemism for the town (the three quarters of which are thought to be Jews) becoming a Jewish homeland. Salient in this polemic is that the letter, which inspired 30 of the 88 articles devoted to the Young Turks Revolution from 1908 to 1912, set loose the impulse to cast aspersions on the Jews, treat them as the midwife of the Young Turks' incompetence and violence, outlandishly deny them the molests European press and diplomats confirmed, and justify the unjustifiable.

Zionism and anti-semitism in Nazi Germany

1. Introduction 2. The age of emancipation in imperial Germany 3. The Weimar years 4. 1933: Nazi confusion, Zionist illusion 5. Zionism in Nazi Jewish policy, 1934-8 6. German Zionism, 1934-8: confrontation with reality 7. Revisionist Zionism in Germany, 1934-8 8. Zionist occupational retraining and Nazi Jewish policy 9. From dissolution to final solution 10. Conclusions.

Revisionist Zionism: Image, Reality and the Quest for Historical Narrative

The Zionist Revisionist movement undoubtedly represented a radical challenge to all parties involved in the complex political mosaic that was mandatory Palestine, namely the mandatory administratio...

Becoming Moustaki

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Notes 1. Moustaki is not alone in expressing his strong attachment to Alexandria. Writers including Lawrence Durrell, Constantin Cavafy, and Daniel Rondeau also express their nostalgia and affection for the city. 2. It should be mentioned that Egypt's official hostility to Zionism predated 1948. 3. Moustaki's mythical construction of the role of early settlers as harbingers of peace and idealism occults a number of important factors. Many have argued that Israel was war-like from its inception. Because they were fighting for their very existence against hostile forces bent on their destruction, they embraced a ruthless determination sometimes called the “Holocaust syndrome.” Moreover, Moustaki's representation overlooks the revisionist Zionism of groups such as the Irgun and the Stern Gang, which indulged in practices in the 1930s and 1940s that were far from peaceful or “ideal” in Moustaki's understanding of the term. 4. My relatives were among those imprisoned. 5. The number of Palestinian refugees in question is debated, but it is generally assessed at between 800,000 and 2,000,000. It is also generally conceded that about an equal number of Jews left or were driven from Muslim countries.

The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy (review)

The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy, by Eran Kaplan. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005. 233 pp. $35.00. For the sake of proper disclosure, Eran Kaplan refers in his introduction to my book on the Revisionist movement (1988), which he calls a "wide-ranging study," but states that it does not sufficiently stress the fact that the Revisionists "succeeded in creating a cultural synthesis that was at once a response to the challenges of modern culture and a remedy to the Jewish condition in the Diaspora. In particular, Shavit all but ignores the broader, quintessentially European, intellectual context of revisionism, which, during the period between the two world wars was as much literally an intellectual movement as it was an organized party." If we assume for a moment that he is right, then we should ask what contribution his book-defined on the back cover as no less than pathbreaking-makes to a description of the intellectual history and image of the Revisionist movement, on the one hand, and of the image of the new Jewish-Hebrew culture it proposed, on the other. First, despite the author's declaration, his work is not based on "newly discovered archival materials" (unlike, for example, Michael Sanislawski's book Zionist and the Fin de Siecle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky, 2001, which deals, inter alia, with Jabotinsky as a young man). Kaplan's book is based on familiar source material, in particular on articles in the press and in journals, and this is the basic flaw in his research. Although he writes again and again about"Revisionism" and"the Revisionist movement," he cites as evidence a limited corpus of articles-quite often cut off from the historical context and the special circumstances in which they were writren-by a small group from within the membership of the Revisionist movement, second- and third-rank leaders and members, who do not necessarily represent the official ideology of the movement or the world-view shared by most of its members. Often, based on only a small number of articles, not necessarily representative ones, the author makes statements, for example, that the Revisionist movement had a "Mediterranean orientation." As a result of this method, he totally identifies the views of several men from the radical wing of the movement with the movement as a whole. However, neither Y. H. Yevin nor Uri Zvi Greenberg or Abba Achimeir can be regarded as representatives of the Revisionist movement (incidentally, not only the Revisionists, bur members of Etzel as well did not regard themselves, as he claimed they did, as the successors of the zealots [the Sicari from the time of the Jewish revolt of 66]). Even worse, the author does not draw the necessary distinction between the various maximalist Revisionists and between them and Zeev Jabotinsky. This is one of the major flaws of a book that presents a distorted image of Jabotinsky's intellectual world and his approach to Zionism. As a matter of fact, the history and activity of the movement is not the subject of this book. It is largely an attempt to present it as a branch of the European radical right-wing family in the interwar period, a family defined by the author as characterized by a "revolt against the values of modernity." Once again, the author refers to a small, non-representative group to prove that Revisionism was nothing other rhan a revolt against modernity and its values. It is difficult to understand on what he bases this image of a movement, which advocated-as he himself writes-private initiative and support of industrialization and urbanization, and viewed science and technology as a vital tool in carrying out the project of settling Jews in Palestine. …

The Jewish radical right: Revisionist Zionism and its ideological legacy

This is the first comprehensive analysis of Zionist Revisionist thought in the 1920s and 1930s and of its ideological legacy in modern-day Israel. The Revisionists, under the leadership of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, offered a radical view of Jewish history and a revolutionary vision for its future. Using new archival material, Eran Kaplan examines the intellectual and cultural origins of the Zionist and Israeli Right, when Revisionism evolved into one of the most important movements in the Zionist camp. He presents revisionism as a form of nationalism, intellectually related to the radical right-wing ideologies that flourished in the early twentieth century. Kaplan suggests that Revisionism's legacies can be found both in the right-wing policies of Likud and in the heart of post-Zionism and its critique of mainstream (Labor) Zionism.

Hawks' Beaks, Doves' Feathers: Likud Prime Ministers Between Ideology and Reality

SINCE THE POLITICAL UPHEAVAL OF May 17, 1977, Israel has had four Likud Prime Ministers-Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ariel Sharon. All four had pledged allegiance to the Greater Israel (Eretz Israel Hashlemah) ideology before being elected and during tenure. Different from each other in background, in style, and language as they might have been, all of them were elected on the Greater Israel ticket, having disassociated themselves and their Likud Party from Labor mainly on this issue. Judging by their past positions and their criticism of Labor's territories for peace policy, one might have concluded that none of them would relinquish anything in negotiating the future of Eretz Israel; however, the policies they conducted were, indeed, different, resulting in shaking the foundations of Greater Israel ideology. In the end it appears that under Likud leadership the Land of Israel is about to be partitioned-manifesting the antithesis of Revisionist Zionism. Although it is too early to sum up Ariel Sharon's policy and evaluate its results, it is already clear that his initiative for Israeli disengagement from Gaza and his acceptance of President Bush's road map eventually leads to partition. Its parameters, from exact boundaries to time-table are irrelevant from an ideological point of view. However, since this policy is still in the making, this article analyzes the development of the approaches of Begin, Shamir, and Netanyahu. The comparative study shows that Begin, as the main ideology-maker after Jabotinsky, was obliged to consider opportunities and constraints, and as prime minister he also had to acknowledge considerations of Realpolitik. The result was a moderation of his ideological demands; indeed, Begin revised Revisionism. In the transition from Begin to Shamir, the ideological

Qui criait au loup ? Comment Zeev Jabotinsky perçut-il l’Allemagne nazie et son projet ?

Both Israeli historians concentrate on proving what, according to them, is nothing but a myth created by adepts of revisionist Zionism : the legend of an extra-clairvoyant Jabotinsky who foresaw the rise of Nazi Germany and the fate of European Jewry.Quoting chapter and verse, they try to prove a contrario Jabotinsky’s ambiguity, i.e. his alternating between well-founded inquietude concerning the fate of the Jews, and his catastrophic underestimation of Nazi Germany’s warplans, which was then proved justified. This being said, Jabotinsky’s position can only be understood in the global contemporary European context, one which includes especially Poland ; not just in a theoretical Jewish-German confrontation.

Hawks' Beaks', Doves' Feathers: Likud Prime Ministers Between Ideology and Reality

Hawks’ Beaks, Doves’ FeathersLikud Prime Ministers Between Ideology and Reality Arye Naor (bio) Introduction Since the political upheaval of May 17, 1977, Israel has had four Likud Prime Ministers—Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ariel Sharon. All four had pledged allegiance to the Greater Israel (Eretz Israel Hashlemah) ideology before being elected and during tenure. Different from each other in background, in style, and language as they might have been, all of them were elected on the Greater Israel ticket, having disassociated themselves and their Likud Party from Labor mainly on this issue. Judging by their past positions and their criticism of Labor's "territories for peace" policy, one might have concluded that none of them would relinquish anything in negotiating the future of Eretz Israel; however, the policies they conducted were, indeed, different, resulting in shaking the foundations of Greater Israel ideology. In the end it appears that under Likud leadership the Land of Israel is about to be partitioned—manifesting the antithesis of Revisionist Zionism. Although it is too early to sum up Ariel Sharon's policy and evaluate its results, it is already clear that his initiative for Israeli disengagement from Gaza and his acceptance of President Bush's road map eventually leads to partition. Its parameters, from exact boundaries to time-table are irrelevant from an ideological point of view. However, since this policy is still in the making, this article analyzes the development of the approaches of Begin, Shamir, and Netanyahu. The comparative study shows that Begin, as the main ideology-maker after Jabotinsky, was obliged to consider opportunities and constraints, and as prime minister he also had to acknowledge considerations of Realpolitik. The result was a moderation of his ideological demands; indeed, Begin revised Revisionism. In the transition from Begin to Shamir, the ideological [End Page 154] dimension in policy making was strengthened, leading to the development of a dogmatic approach that rejected any revision of this ideology, which was used to form strict rules for policy; however, he went to Madrid, thus unintentionally paving the way for the Oslo process.1 With the transition from Shamir to Netanyahu, by contrast, the attachment to ideology as the basis for policy making and policy evaluation weakened; policy reasoning gave way to "Hasbarah"—that is to say, propaganda and political manipulation. From the viewpoint of those who remained faithful to the old ideology, this was an extremely worrying development—a grave defect that may only be rectified with considerable effort.2 Equally, however, it should be emphasized that Netanyahu's book, A Place Among the Nations, is based not only on an evaluation of the situation and a neutral discussion of the lessons of history, but also on a profound ideological and emotional commitment to continued Israeli control of all territories under its supervision. As we shall see below, the gap between this commitment and the policy of Netanyahu's government is due to political manipulation, and to an instrumentalist approach which sees ideology as a means for achieving political ends. The relationship of ideology and policy is thus revealed in three different ways. Begin For fifty years, Menachem Begin was a leading ideological and political figure in his movement. Throughout this period, he had an ideological approach to policy and politics. We shall examine his approach to the principle of the "integrity of the homeland," the term he used for the principle of a "Greater Israel," at three critical junctures: shortly before the establishment of the State of Israel (1947/8); immediately after the Six Day War (1967/8); and during term as prime minister (1977–1983). In response to UN General Assembly Decision 181 of November 29, 1947, supporting the division of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, Begin published a statement on behalf of the Irgun (Etzel) underground organization which he commanded. The statement begins, "In the name of the Divine promise given to the nation's forefathers," goes on to speak "in the name of the nation's martyrs in each generation," and "in the name of this people, tortured throughout the generations," and reaches its peak in the underground war—"in the name of those...

From ?Both Banks of the Jordan? to the ?Whole Land of Israel:? Ideological Change in Revisionist Zionism

A central implication of constructivist ontologies of nationalism is that nationalist ideologies may not be static. This article explores this implication by tracing the shift in one aspect of Revisionist Zionist ideology: their conception of the appropriate borders of the Jewish nation-state.2 It asks how the definition of the homeland as the area encompassed by "both banks of the Jordan,"3 gave way to a situation where one is hard pressed to find Revisionist politicians laying claim to the Gilead, Bashan, Amman, or other parts of the East Bank of the Jordan. The emergence of the map-image identifying the Jewish homeland as the territory west of the Jordan within the Revisionist movement in the mid-1950s and its slow and uneven displacement of the original map-image, suggests that conventional accounts which rely on adaptation to a new reality, generational change, or elite manipulation need to be integrated into the battle for hegemony among nationalist movements in order to account for change. The battle for hegemony takes place because each nationalist movement within a society believes that its vision of the nation and the nation-state is the true one.4 As a result, nationalist movements fight for "a particular crystallization of the state's physical, human, or cultural boundaries."5 The Revisionist Zionist movement was, and is, an active contender in the battle for hegemony within Zionism. From its very inception, its members perceived it not as another Zionist faction or even as a loyal opposition, but as the true Zionism, the authentic voice of the Jewish world and the carrier of the real interests of the Jewish nation.6 The battles between the Revisionist movement and the other Zionist movements to define the community, like battles for hegemony more [End Page 125] generally, are more than metaphorical and like real fights, it matters who wins and who loses; in this contest, losing is particularly significant. As Gramsci noted, the defenders of an ideology under attack "are not demoralized, nor do they abandon their positions, even among the ruins, nor do they lose faith in their own strength or their own future. Of course, things do not remain exactly as they were . . ."7 The losers in a battle for hegemony (except for rare cases in which they are physically exterminated—e.g., the Mensheviks) face a choice of fading into irrelevance or attempting to re-enter the legitimate political spectrum. This was the situation in which the Revisionist movement found itself in the mid-1950s. In response, they embarked on a series of tactical changes that, perhaps unintentionally, contributed to a shift in the way they defined the appropriate territory of the Jewish homeland.8 When Did the Change Actually Take Place? A mainstay of Revisionist Zionist thought is the contention that they have consistently raised the banner of the "wholeness of Eretz Israel" (the Land of Israel).9 Even their critics often assume that the territorial dimension of their ideology has been consistent.10 However, the continuous use of the same rhetorical vessel—the "wholeness of the land"—masks the possibility that it may refer to different map-images over time. The timing of the emergence of the alternative map-images helps disentangle the factors that contributed to the formation and ultimate preeminence of the new map-image. The course of this shift can be divided into three periods. The first period (lasting until the mid-1950s) was characterized by the exclusive dominance of the "both banks of the Jordan" map-image. The second period, beginning in the mid-1950s and lasting until the early 1970s, was a liminal one in which both map-images uneasily coexisted. Since the mid-1970s the latter map-image has become dominant, if not exclusive. This Best Part of Palestine Initially, the only map-image of the appropriate territory of the Jewish...