Zionist Research Articles

The Origins of Democratic Zionism. By Gregory B. Kaplan

The Origins of Democratic Zionism. By Gregory B. Kaplan

Parting Ways Too Soon: Arendt contra Butler on Zionism

ABSTRACTIn this article, I discuss the way Judith Butler builds on Hannah Arendt’s political thought for her critique of Zionism. While her critique is valuable in many ways, I argue that it also obscures the complexity of Arendt’s position on Zionism. Instead of Butler’s portrayal of Arendt as a proto-anti-Zionist, along the lines of Butler herself, I suggest that Arendt was a radical Zionist. Arendt, I contend, offered a radical critique of Zionism but at the same time she supported the establishment of a national home for Jews in Palestine, without losing sight of the different streams within Zionism or the different paths that were possible at every juncture in the years leading to the foundation of the state. By contextualizing Arendt’s position on Zionism against the background of her broader political thought, I attempt to show that, while her engagement with the Zionist movement largely ceased in the late 1940s, her support of Zionism continued to inform her major writings, from her recognition of the need of individuals to belong to a national community to her emphasis on the artificiality of any collective achievement. Through this reconstruction of Arendt’s views of Zionism I attempt to show that she provides us with important sources for engaging with Zionism in a critical way without dismissing and rejecting it, as Butler and other progressives do, as a settler-colonialist enterprise.

Social inclusion and legal exclusion in a Jewish or democratic state: intermarriage in the Zionist movement and the early State of Israel

ABSTRACT Zionists grappled with the implications of intermarriage from as early as the beginning of their movement, though the tensions surrounding intermarriage, religion, and the Jewish nation were amplified with the establishment of Israel in 1948. While many Zionists advocated for the social inclusion of non-Jewish spouses (and their children) in the nation, Zionist support for religious control of personal status law allowed for de facto legal exclusion of these same non-Jews. Early Zionist and Israeli policies therefore exercised ‘functional ambiguity’ regarding intermarried families in national life. By celebrating the inclusion of non-Jewish family members—and particularly non-Jewish wives—Zionists underscored a secular Jewish identity and the ostensibly democratic nature of the Jewish state. Yet by allowing for their legal exclusion through religious law, and by highlighting a limited criteria for national inclusion, they maintained the Jewish nature of the state and the prevention of a civic, ‘Israeli’ national identity shared with Palestinian citizens.

A people that shall dwell alone; is that so? Israel and the minorities alliance

The state of Israel, and the Zionist movement before it, has always considered itself to be facing an existential threat from hostile surroundings. Hence, seeking alliance with non-Arab nations and ethnic minority groups in the area was seen as a means of confronting this challenge. During the early decades of its existence, the Israeli establishment adopted the concept of the alliance of the periphery and the alliance of minorities developed by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion and his protégée, Reuven Shiloah, the founder of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad. This research project will demonstrate that, in opposition to apologetic and ideologically-motivated arguments that deny that alliance with minority communities has been a systematic policy, the minorities’ alliance has for decades been an important foundation of Israeli strategy vis-à-vis the Arab world. Furthermore, the article will argue and demonstrate that the ‘Minorities Alliance’ is derived from ideological, historical, and strategic considerations anchored in the very existence of Zionism and Israel. Furthermore, and on the same note, this conception and strategy cannot be disconnected from the self-perception of Zionism, its self-directed reading of Jewish history, and the Zionisation of the milieu.

“Or la-goyim”: From Diaspora theology to Zionist dogma

ABSTRACT The term “a light unto the nations” is a hallmark of modern Jewish identity but the subtle divergences in the meaning of the expression among its diverse proponents shed light on the continuities and differences among modern Jewish ideologies. David Ben-Gurion, in particular, regarded the calling to be “a light unto the nations” as a central mission of the State of Israel. Before the 1950s, however, almost all Zionists, including Ben-Gurion himself, repudiated the term because they associated it with diasporist ideology. This article explores its shifting meanings in Zionist discourse, with a special focus on Ben-Gurion’s rhetoric. It explains Ben-Gurion’s changing attitudes term and shows how his innovative uses of the term allowed him to navigate between modernity and traditional Judaism, between Zionism and its opponents, and between the various streams within the Zionist movement. It reminds us that the lexical continuity of figurative terms can mask conceptual fluctuation and enhances a picture of Zionism that acknowledges both its revolutionary novelty and its place in the long continuum of Jewish life.

Władza, przywództwo i siła polityczna w amerykańskim ruchu syjonistycznym w latach 1914-1920. W stulecie ustanowienia Brytyjskiego Mandatu Palestyny

World War I marked the beginning of a significant role of American Jewry in global affairs. Both the emergence of the United States as the new world power and the financial status of the Jewish American community contributed to a considerable participation of American Jews in the councils of world Jewry. The war and its aftermath brought fundamental changes to the Zionist movement, which offered the pragmatic approach to the actual problems of Diaspora Jews. There appeared both the necessity and possibility for uniting all the American Zionist factions into a powerful organization with an efficient party apparatus and prominent leadership which revitalized the Zionist movement and made it responsive to its main aim, i.e., the establishment of the Jewish Homeland in Palestine. Louis D. Brandeis’s leadership marked a turning point in the history of American Zionism through a combination of his potent personality with a coherent ideology that reflected the American conditions. All those developments helped create the most powerful American Zionist organization in the world, with the sole aim to effectually implement the idea of a home for the Jewish people. The Americanization of Zionism, based on practical work in building up Palestine, was a direct reason for a bitter conflict between Brandeis and Weizmann, the leader of European Zionism, that is between fostering Jewish settlement in Palestine through a systematic and methodical economic process on the one hand, and through implementing a synthesis of socio-ethical and cultural values that Zionism in Weizmann’s view should represent, on the other. The article discusses the circumstances which triggered the American Zionist movement to assume power, prestige, and large following; it also analyzes the reasons for an orchestrated and determined diplomatic action on the part of both the Zionist Organization of America and the World Zionist Organization to articulate and achieve their direct aim first through the Balfour Declaration and then through the San Remo Conference decision of entrusting the Mandate over Palestine to Great Britain. They both proved to have been the indispensable prerequisites for the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine.

«…Я был бы счастлив найти свое маленькое местечко в русской литературе…»: Письма Авраама Высоцкого Максиму Горькому

The published materials are the correspondence of Maxim Gorky and Abraham Leibovich Vysotsky, which had been awaiting publication for many years. Publishers raise the question of A.L. Vysotsky’s place in Jewish literature in Russian and in Russian literature. It is noted that Vysotsky’s works, appreciated by M. Gorky, who published a number of them in the journals “Letopis’” and “Beseda”, were not included in the canon of both Russian literature as well as its RussianJewish branch, and Israeli literature in Russian . The writer's biography, genesis and poetics of his works have so far remained beyond the attention of researchers, and one of the objectives of this publication is to try to fill this gap. In the introductory article, relying on archival materials, Vysotsky’s biography is reconstructed, a number of important facts are clarified, including his date of birth, information about his education, literary activity and connection with the Zionist movement is presented, the most significant periods of his life in Russia and Eretz Israel, where he repatriated in 1920, are described, and information on translations of his works into other languages and experiments on their staging is reported. Particular attention of the publishers is focused on the history of interaction between Vysotsky and Gorky who never met personally. This interaction developed exclusively in correspondence, which initially concerned Vysotsky’s attempts to offer his short stories to Gorky for publication in his journals. Letters are published according to autographs from the Gorky Archive (Institute of World Literature). The publication is supplemented by two appendixes containing Vysotsky's essay “Maxim Gorky and Zionism” and his drama “Blood of the Maccabees”.

Basic Law: Israel as Nation-State—National Honor Defies Human Dignity and Universal Human Rights

The Basic Law: Israel as Nation-State was not crafted to pronounce any arrangement or instate any procedure. The article claims that the basic law was constructed to elevate the discourse of national Jewish honor and the legislative and executive branches that champion it, while downgrading human dignity and rights, the basic law that constitutes them, and the judiciary that enforces them. Israel, and the Zionist movement that created it, have always vacillated between a devotion to human dignity—the absolute value accorded to every human being as such—and a commitment to the idea of honor, the honor of the Jewish nation in particular. The pursuit of national honor dictates an attribution of a hierarchy of values to different people and national groups; it goes hand in hand with internal, group "loyalty" at the expense of the humane treatment of "others". It encourages admiration of a "strong leader" who symbolizes the collective. This article claims that the enactment of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty was understood as giving precedence to dignity over national honor, and to the judiciary over other branches of government. In contrast, the enactment of Basic Law: Israel as Nation-State was designed to enhance the honor of the Jewish nation, to make it "great again". The article claims that in order to understand the new basic law in context, it must be read together with the fierce attempts of Israel's right-wing legislature and government to expel illegal immigrants, including asylum seekers, to confiscate Palestinian land and to weaken the judicial system.

THE «JORDANIAN OPTION» FOR THE SETTLEMENT OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT: FROM THE «ABDULLAH-HUSSEIN’S PLAN» TO THE D. TRUMP’S «DEAL OF THE CENTURY»

The article is devoted to the consideration of the role of the «Jordanian option» for the solution of the Palestinian question, which was embodied in the Middle East by the Hashemite dynasty. As the direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, they initiated the pan-Arab movement to create a united Arab state on the lands of the historical «Great Syria» and the Hejaz. In the context of the formation of a mandate system of these territories, the opposition of the Zionist movement and neighboring Arab countries, the Hashemites focused their attention on Palestine. After World War II, the Abdullah Hussein plan was implemented, which resulted in the creation of a federation between Jordan and Arab Palestine. After the loss of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, Jordan maintained administrative and legal ties with the part of Palestine occupied by Israel. Only in 1988, having abandoned its claims to the status of a unified Arab state, Jordan «distanced itself» from the specific forms of the future Palestinian state formation and the time framing of its emergence. By such actions, Jordan «secured» itself from participation in the creation of a Palestinian state what is explained by the fact that the Palestinians play an important role in the country, influencing its demographic and socio-economic component. The peace plan proposed by US President Donald Trump in 2018 stipulating the formation of a Jordan-Palestine federation, known as the «Deal of the Century» can be considered as an actual revival of the «Abdullah-Hussein» plan. This indicates that Jordan and in the 20s of the XXIst century still remains an important actor in the settlement of the Palestinian question, on which balanced policy the factual peace in the Middle East will strongly depend.

The impact of the domino political phenomenon in the Latin continent and its role in the Palestinian issue

The study deals with a political phenomenon that has an impact on international relations and the political dealing based on the interrelated interests that would affect the issue of an international bloc. The influence of this phenomenon is so important in gaining the support of international blocs to the question of Palestine, in addition to the possibility of investing this phenomenon for the interests of the Arab League, namely the phenomenon of political domino effect in the diplomacy and dealing political of Latin American countries to support the Palestinian issue. The Latin American countries have played an important role in the emergence of the Zionist entity and voted for it in the General Assembly of the United Nations and in international forums for the period 1947-1973. After that they began to vote for Palestine in international forums and the General Assembly, so we will explore the causes of this political and diplomatic transformation of the Latin continent after 1973 for Palestinian issue and abandonment the vote for the Zionist entity. and we will discuss the impact of political domino as a tool in changing positions of most countries of the continent in favor of the Arabs and the abandonment of the Zionist entity. The countries of the continent lined up behind Brazil, under the influence of political domino, where sided with the Arab states when the Arabs used the oil strategy as a weapon in the battle in 1973, Where Iraq and Saudi Arabia alternated between 1976 and 1984 in the second and third ranks of the total Brazilian imports

„Ich Kam, Sah und Explodierte“ – Eine Episode aus dem Leben Sammy Gronemanns

Abstract This article focuses on a particular episode in Sammy Gronemann’s life that occurred in 1902 and is briefly described in his memoires, Erinnerungen. Gronemann was asked to travel to Mainz for a propaganda lecture on behalf of the Zionist Movement in which he caused an uproar. Earlier in the year, the Jewish-orthodox newspaper Der Israelit of Mainz had published a slanderous article on the Zionist bank, the Jewish Colonial Trust, for which it was sued by the Zionist leadership. In the midst of the trial against the paper and its editor-in-chief, Oskar Lehmann, efforts were made to bring the trial to a quick end by means of a settlement. During Gronemann’s talk in Mainz, he spotted Lehmann in the audience and entered into a tirade. He publicly insulted Lehmann, who angrily left the venue. This caused an uproar and jeopardized the leverage of the Zionists in the settlement negotiations and the trial’s speedy conclusion. This paper provides the background to the events, discusses its outcome, and puts the episode in its historical context.

Nationalism and Monolingualism: the “Language Wars” and the Resurgence of Israeli Multilingualism

With the establishment of a Jewish settlement in Palestine in the early 20th century, and a Hebrew culture with it, furious debates arose among Jewish writers about the future of Jewish literary multilingualism. Until this period, the idea that Jewish monolingualism was a preferred mode of cultural existence or that a writer would have to choose between the two primary languages of European Jewish cultural production was a relatively new one. Polylingualism had been characteristic of Jewish culture and literary production for millennia. But in modernity, Jewish nationalist movements, particularly Zionism, demanded a monolingual Jewish culture united around one language. Nonetheless, polylingual Jewish culture has persisted, and despite the state of Israel’s insistence on Hebrew as the national language, Israeli multilingualism has surged in recent years. This article surveys a number of recent developments in translingual, transcultural, and transnational Israeli literary and cultural forms

Religion, Statelessness, and Belonging

AbstractBefore 1948, and stretching back more than 1800 years, the Jewish people suffered all the problems of statelessness. The Zionist movement, 1897–1948, strove to end the condition of Jewish exile and statelessness. The great historical irony and tragedy is that the establishment of the State of Israel brought about the Nakba, the catastrophe, of the Palestinian people. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians see themselves as the victims of the conflict. They seem to be competitors in what I call a “suffering sweepstakes.” One of the problems with victimhood is that it prevents victims from assuming responsibility for their actions, including the victimization of others. In the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, both sides are victims and both sides are victimizers. The least helpful thing people can do – and regrettably many well‐meaning people do this – is to portray the situation in terms of a zero‐sum game, in which, if you’re pro‐Palestinian, you must be anti‐Israeli, and vice versa. We must be both pro‐Palestinian and pro‐Israeli, because we are pro‐people and, therefore, pro‐peace. The achievement of peace necessitates a two‐state solution based on some recognition of the two narratives. The best fulfilment of Zionism will come when there is a Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.

The construction of tenor, identities and power relations in online discourses on indigenous people of Biafra (Ipob)

Previous studies on ethnic, religious and political expressions and activities in Nigeria have examined issues such as religious and political intolerance between and among groups. In particular, the activities of pro-Biafra groups such as that of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Biafra Zionist Movement (BZM), Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Biafra Independent Movement (BIM) among others in real life and in online forums have also been studied by scholars from different ideological and theoretical standpoints. However, none of these studies examined the deliberate expression of ethnic, religious and political identities and otherness in the discourses that emanate from the arrest, detention and trial of Nnamdi Kanu, the separatist founder of IPOB, by the government of Nigeria. This study aims at unearthing the deep sense of exclusion that underlies the reactions that trail his arrest and trial in online platforms. A total of twenty online comments were purposively selected and analysed within the tenets of critical discourse analysis (CDA) in order to unearth the ethnic, religious and political ideologies that underlie them. This study gives an insight into how individual and group ideologies in online discourses can threaten the autonomous face wants of others and also that of the corporate existence of the nation. The theoretical orientation adopted for the study leads to the understanding that ethnic, political and religious sentiments underlie the use of language in crisis/conflict situations in the Nigerian context. This study significantly espouses the notion that there is the need for equity, social justice and mutual trust between groups in Nigeria.

The Israeli Nationality Law: A Blueprint for a Twenty-first Century Settler-Colonial State

This article examines the recent Israeli Nationality Law within a historical context. It argues that the law in many ways manifests the settler-colonial identity of the State of Israel and as such the law embodies clearly both the achievements of the Zionist movement and Zionist future designs. The law is not an extreme right-wing document but rather an accurate reflection of the major characteristics of the Zionist settler-colonial movement in Palestine. Like all settler-colonial movements, the Zionist movement strove to include as few Palestinians as possible in it. The incomplete implementation of this goal during the 1948 Nakba has informed Israeli policies since 1948 and are the best explanation for the 2018 Nationality Law.

Setting Up Shop for Israel Advocacy—Diaspora “Retailers” and the Israeli “Wholesalers” in the Early Years of Israeli Diplomacy

This article focuses on the immediate repercussions of a reconstituted Jewish State after “2,000 years” on its relations with Diaspora Jewry and its diplomatic relations epitomized by American and Anglo Jewry. The Jewish Agency and Zionist organizations, once effective and indispensable former “retailers” were inexorably and painfully usurped by the new “wholesaler”, the Government of Israel and its diplomats who now appealed directly to all willing to contribute to strengthening Israel, irrespective of their past or present affiliations with the Zionist movement. Israeli diplomats viewed the Zionist organizations as the board of a company, which had been nationalized, had much goodwill, an immense pool of experience, some capital, but no clear idea about what to do with themselves. The path to reach a modus vivendi on delegating and authorizing responsibilities on public relations and Israel advocacy was acrimonious.

Democratic and Anti-democratic Roots of the Israeli Political System

This article explores the ideological underpinnings of the major Jewish political camps in Israel and the Yishuv—the left, the Orthodox, the national right, the bourgeois center—and evaluates the extent to which they are compatible with liberal democracy as commonly understood in the West. It also analyzes quasi-democratic and non-democratic aspects of older Jewish traditions based on the Torah, the Talmud, and the Halakhah. While the history of Zionism and the Zionist movement contained definite democratic components, Israel’s political system was shaped by a range of anti-democratic traditions whose resonance is still felt today.

A Nomadic State of Mind: Mental Maps of Bedouins in the Negev and Sinai During the Time of the Ottomans, the British Mandate, and the State of Israel

This article is based on over a decade of field research among Bedouin tribes of the Negev as well as historical and geographical research. Its central argument is that the main social, cultural, and geographical processes within the Negev Bedouin groups are impacted by three major forces: nomadism and the social structure; formal Islam; and the rise of the modern state. This argument is illustrated by the geographical concept of “mental maps”, and its various manifestations in Bedouin society. The article focuses on the historical developments of the twentieth century, which took place alongside the rise of the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel.

Edward Said’s Home, Martin Buber’s Mailbox

This article examines the primary means by which Israeli settler colonialism has appropriated and reconfigured Jerusalem since 1948—discursively no less than physically. It analyzes how the Jewish state, building on the colonial suppositions and discourses of the pre-1948 Zionist movement, has sought to efface Palestinian attachments to and histories in this contested urban realm. This piece foregrounds the life and works of Jewish Israeli philosopher Martin Buber and the binationalist, antistatist politics he sought to build in Palestine with the indigenous Arab populations before the creation of Israel in 1948. However, it also offers a critique of the ways in which even Buber and other Zionist binationalists’ dovish political positions were implicated in settler colonialism and the displacement and erasure of the Palestinians. The article details some of the ways in which the mobilization of presence and absence has been crucial to Israel’s colonization of Jerusalem and how they have been utilized in the service of the state’s drive for exclusive control over this symbolically potent city. This is done, principally, through a reading of the Palestinian house in Jerusalem in which Buber resided during his first four years in the country: the family home of Palestinian scholar and activist Edward Said. This article explores the relationship between the exiled intellectual, Said, and this structure, commandeered by Zionist forces in 1948. This article also explores some of Said’s views on colonial landscapes and binationalist futures for Israelis and Palestinians.

KOMITMEN MALAYSIA DALAM KONFLIK ISRAEL-PALESTIN: 1957-2014

This study discusses Malaysia's stand and commitment in its foreign policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Malaysia's foreign policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts is to prioritize security and stability in the region of West Asia or the Middle East. A more important aspect is Malaysia's commitment to the liberation of the Palestinian land from the conquest and oppression of the Zionist regime which is strongly supported by the major powers such as the United States and Britain. Although various peace negotiations have been held between Israel and Palestine, yet such concrete solutions have not yet been achieved in absolute terms. The objective of this paper is to analyze the reason Malaysia is actively involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. The methodology that was used in this research is using primary resources such as files and documents from National Archive Kuala Lumpur, Official Statements of Parliament of Malaysia, speech texts and newspaper clippings. The finding shows that Malaysia is involved in the conflict due to the humanitarian and Islamic religion.