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Dyin' for ZionMiddle East troubles between Israel and Palestine have roots in Judaism, Zionists and Napoleon. |
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The second half of the twentieth century has not been a particularly good time to be a Palestinian. The UN says that, among other things, Israel has violated several clauses of the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of occupied territories.[1] For example, Israeli authorities have made a habit of severely restricting water supply to the Palestinians to such an extent that a whole body of literature exists discussing exactly how bad it's gotten. "The one fact that is indisputable... is that the Palestinians have no decision-making power in their own water future," says analyst Joyce R. Starr.[2] It doesn't stop at utilities: the US State Department reported in 1991 that Israeli law has been extended to cover most activities of Israeli settlers who live in the occupied territories, while Palestinians live under military occupation law. Under the dual system of governance, Palestinians -- both Muslim and Christian -- are treated less favorably than Israeli settlers on a broad range of issues, including the right to due process, right of residency, freedom of movement, sale of crops and goods, land and water use....[3] As such, the Palestinians have resorted to throwing rocks and lobbing the occasional bomb. Overall, it's not a pretty picture for anybody. An Itty Bitty ImperialistHow did we get to this state of affairs? A lot of it has to do with what Israel is actually supposed to mean, which is to say, a nation-state based on an ethnic group. It's an old, old idea, leading all the way back to the Jews losing their temple to the Romans in 70 AD and getting booted from Jerusalem entirely in the second century. Ever since, the idea of a Jewish nation has tantalized displaced Jews. Napoleon, poised to conquer substantial portions of what is modern-day Israel, issued a sweeping proclamation in 1799 that boldly announced to the "Rightful heirs of Palestine" that it was his intention to found a Zionist state, that is, a political construction created solely for Jewish folks.[4]
Napoleon's commitment to this idea has been contested quite a bit, not least because the proclamation seems to have been intentionally left out of his correspondence following his military defeat in the region. Various historians assert that found copies of the announcement "do not appear to be genuine,"[5] or that they are "a meaningless gesture, as artificial as any heroic strutting on the stage." Others suggest he was trying to add local Jews to his army: "Napoleon was no idealist," claimed historian Salo W. Baron. Historian Philip Guedalla figured, "for a few weeks in the spring of 1799 [he] was a momentary Zionist."[6] Napoleon might well have been a closet Zionist. He freed oppressed Jews in a 1796 invasion of Italy; he frequently used the term "Jewish nation" when referring to Jews living in France.[7] In 1806, he put together two congresses of prominent Jews with the intent of allowing them to essentially govern themselves. One of these congresses, the Great Sanhedrin, aimed to administrate things Jewish in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Germany. Although they never really went anywhere, these congresses were supposed to spur, as Napoleon put it, "the organization of the Jewish nation," which sounds like country-building to us. It sounded that way to him, too. He later said One of my grandest ideas was l'agglomeration: the concentration of a people geographically united, but separated by revolutions and political action. There are, scattered over Europe, 30 million Frenchmen, 15 million Spaniards, 15 million Italians, and 30 million Germans. My intention was to make each of these peoples into a separate national state [corps de nation].[8] L'Etat, C'est Moi, et Il, et ElleIt's clear that Napoleon's idea of nation-building had to do with ethnic identity rather than geographical borders. In 1799, that made a fair bit of sense: folks in Western nations had allegiances to their home nations and displayed appropriately vitriolic levels of Frenchness or Britishness or what-have-you. Modern Israel is based on that old idea of ethnic identity: the government freely accepts Jews who wish to emigrate there, but doesn't say much about anyone else.[9] (It should be pointed out that the two major groups of Jews in Israel, the Sephardic and the Ashkenazi, have little in common culturally or ethnically. Indeed, this has been a cause of some political friction in modern Israel.) Western society has, in the meantime, become ethnically plural.[10] Allegiance to ethnic groups is being supplanted by a shared societal identity and values that frequently incorporate traditions from many cultures. There's nothing wrong with the existence of a Jewish homeland; everyone should have one. Unfortunately, the way the country is set up sort of implies that Israel is not for anybody who's not Jewish. This happens to include people who have been living there for millennia, otherwise known as the Palestinians. The Long Way HomeThe modern Zionist movement is generally considered to have started with Theodor Herzl, who claimed to be an ideological descendent of Napoleon. Herzl sponsored the first Zionist Congress in 1897, was a pretty secular guy and journalist, and wrote the influential The State of the Jews: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Question. At the Congress, Herzl proclaimed that "Zionism aims at the creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine to be secured by public law." He wrote in his diary that year that, "At [the Congress] I founded the Jewish state... in five years and certainly in fifty everyone will know."[11] Herzl wasn't the only one dreaming of creating a homeland. Various factions in the Zionist camp espoused a variety of beliefs. For example, Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinksy proposed that a potential Jewish homeland ought to encompass the entire biblical region, an "iron wall" constructed, and local Palestinians be damned. Future first prime minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion suggested that a Jewish state ought to be built from the ground up, rather than imposed by some arbitrary military arm. Prior to World War II, many Orthodox Jews figured since only God could lead them to the Holy Land, secular efforts to do so were heretical. A smaller group, led by Martin Buber and Judah L. Magnes, sensibly noted that tossing Arabs out on their ears wasn't going to do anybody any good and that some cooperation in the region was necessary: The object of the Association is to arrive at an understanding between Jews and Arabs as to the form of their mutual social relations in Palestine on the basis of absolute political equality of two culturally autonomous peoples, and to determine the lines of their cooperation for the development of the country.[12] That last one makes the most sense to us, but it was swiftly shouted down. Note all of these plans presuppose a formation of a Jewish state in Israel. In an effort to get the thing jump-started, Herzl also stooped to the indignities of finding alternate targets to colonize. Zionists considered Argentina[13] and the Sinai Peninsula. They also considered "Uganda", which has to be referred to in quotes because it was actually Kenya. Herzl, the ringleader, was a practical guy and figured he should take land wherever he could get it. Some of the more religious types really had their hearts set on Israel but wound up interpreting prophecies to possibly include "Uganda" as a Jewish homeland. They were saved from such contortions when the deal fell through. Planting SeedsJews had to content themselves with moving to the Middle East and eking out a living instead. From 1881-1900, about 25,000 Jews moved to Palestine and integrated themselves nicely into the political and cultural landscape. Waves of immigration starting around 1904, though, contained a lot of Jewish socialists who distinctly wanted to found a Jewish state rather than just live in the Holy Land. These folks bought property, started agricultural collectives (kibbutzim) and insisted that only Jews work on them, depriving local Palestinians of labor jobs. In keeping with this ideal, the Jewish National Fund was formed in 1901 with the purpose of buying land and maintaining Jewish ownership thereof in perpetuity. Without a bona fide Jewish state, acquisition of the land by commercial means would have to do, at least, for the time being. The Zionist dream did not seem to consider the possibility that Palestine had already been settled by other people, namely, the Palestinians. Israeli journalist Uri Avnery wrote of the Zionist Congresses, Except for a handful, these more or less self-appointed delegates of the Jewish people had never been to Palestine, had no idea what is was like and took little interest in realities. Reality did not bother them. They were out to build a new world, only half imagined. The only reality they knew was one they wanted to get away from -- the reality of Eastern Europe, with its pogroms, its discrimination, its forebodings of greater catastrophes to come.[14] As a Jewish presence built itself up in Palestine with these ideas and Palestinians revolting against them,[15] darker things were happening in Nazi Germany and other parts of Europe. It goes without saying that the Holocaust was without parallel in the annals of human history, and not in a good way. Following World War II the lapse of British presence in the Middle East and pro-Jewish feelings worldwide spurred the creation of the Jewish state of Israel.[16] However, it was not done so without some trepidation. For example, while Palestine was under British control, various studies investigated the feasibility of the fruition of Zionism in the area (the government had also alternately agreed and disagreed to the creation of a Jewish state).[17] The British government-sponsored Peel Commission reported that To foster Jewish immigration in the hope that it might ultimately lead to the creation of a Jewish majority and the establishment of a Jewish state with the consent or the acquiescence of the Arabs was one thing. It was quite another to contemplate, however remotely, the forcible conversion of Palestine into a Jewish State against the will of the Arabs.[18] In a post-World War II climate, that's exactly what happened. The British realized they could never administer Palestine following the war, and dumped the problem in the lap of the UN. The UN suggested that there be two political entities in Palestine but unified economically, and then considered creating two entirely separate states. Many Zionists insisted that the future Jewish homeland be under distinctively Jewish control; offers from the Arabs to create a secular, democratic, binational state were rejected on grounds of immigration restriction issues. Intense lobbying by Zionists led to the passage of UN Resolution 181, which created the nation of Israel in 1948. Jews who had formerly comprised 33% of the population and owned 7% of the land found themselves in possession of 57% of Palestine. Everybody Must Throw StonesNearly overnight, pretty much all the Arab nations attacked Israel, which managed to defend itself.[19] When the dust settled in 1949, Israel controlled 77% of Palestine. The political entity that had been Palestine no longer existed: the leftovers known as Gaza and the West Bank were occupied by Egypt and Jordan, respectively. Of 900,000 Palestinians who had resided in what had become Israel, there were only 150,000 left.[20] These dregs were considered to be security threats to the Zionist movement, and Palestinian civil rights were imperiled. Palestinians could be jailed or deported without due process; their movement and economic rights were restricted, and they fled in droves. Israel's first President Chaim Weizmann called it "a miraculous clearing of the land," but there was nothing miraculous about it. Israeli Defense Forces and other groups expelled Palestinians through violence or the threat of violence; refugees were reduced to fleeing with what they could carry only to be pilfered by guards at military checkpoints. Palestinian towns, bereft of residents, were looted and then occupied by Jewish settlers. Crazier Zionists thought this was all according to plan: Yosef Weitz wrote, "Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples."[21] In 1949, the United Nations felt compelled to create a Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees; the organization is still in operation a half century later.[22] Sort of Like Jim Crow, Only Somewhere ElseLife for Palestinians who stuck around in Israel wasn't any easier. They were granted Israeli citizenship, but only under the thumb of military rule. The 1950 Law for the Acquisition of Absentee Property decreed that anybody absent from his or her property any time between November 29, 1947 and September 1, 1949 was considered an absentee tenant and would lose his or her property to the government. This included those who had fled their homes during the fighting; all governmental decrees of this sort were final even if it could be later proved that the tenant wasn't actually absent. Cultivatable land fell to similar tactics: the Emergency Articles for the Exploitation of Uncultivated Areas allowed the agriculture minister to take over land that had been unworked for the prior three years; Palestinian farms were frequently declared military zones for that time period and subsequently annexed.[23] Palestinians were understandably upset at the situation. An Arab nationalist movement, called Al-Ard (The Land) was outlawed in the 1960s by the Israeli High Court, which decreed that "there is no place for an Arab organization which is not based on recognition of the State of Israel as a state of the Jews." As it fell, the venues for the legitimate redress of Arab grievances narrowed.[24] With that proclamation, the nation of Israel has neatly fulfilled several prophecies. In an improbable array, Napoleon seems to have agreed with the Covenant of Abraham in that Jews are a distinct people, and that the usual concerns of ethnic plurality do not apply in Israel. Napoleon, in some ways, inspired Herzl, who had noble ambitions but seems to have been swallowed by Zionists with a more rabid vision. As such, Israel was founded as a nation for Jews, and, for the most part, Jews only. In turn this led to unhappy Palestinians, who, curiously unsupported by their outside Arab brethren, have resorted to throwing rocks and killing the occasional wayward Israeli soldier. And, through all this, for the past thirty years, the United States has pledged in between a third to a little less than half of its entire foreign assistance budget to keep that little corner of the world from exploding. That's quite a legacy left behind by an itty bitty French general. Footnotes
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