The Return of Israel to the Middle East: Hommage to Eliahu Eliachar:



A speech delivered at the Zionist Congress, Jerusalem, 16th of June,  2010

I want, first, to thank the organizers for inviting me to address  this
important gathering. The Zionist Congress is convening this  year,
celebrating Herzl's 150th birthday. This is a time for  assessment of the
project Herzl envisioned, its success, its  shortcomings and the
existential challenges it faces, especially  nowadays when Israel is
gradually becoming the international  community's Pariah. In the preamble
to the program of this year's  convention, the organizers stated "that
today's convention is of  historic significance. Delegates from all
corners of the world will  address the challenges facing the Zionist
movement, the State of  Israel and the Jewish communities. The main topic
is: "Zionism in  the process of permanent rejuvenation." This is indeed a
tall order.  To accomplish it, old solutions ought to be jettisoned and
courage  should be regained so that new and creative solutions are allowed
to  march to the fore.



No one can deny – friends and foes of Zionism alike - that the  Zionist
project deserves accolades for its impressive achievements –  resulting in
the revival of the Hebrew language, enjoying astounding  economic
strength, possessing remarkable military might, registering  extraordinary
technological achievements, and creating a culturally  vibrant society.
Yet the project is still beset by major problems  posing strategic threats
to the continuous existence of Israel as a  sovereign state.



My understanding of these problems and the way I propose to address  them
is inspired by the late Eliahu Eliachar. Actually, my  presentation here
is hommage to him and to his philosophy. Eliachar,  to remind you, was
born in Jerusalem in 1899 and died in 1981. He  was a descendant of a
glorious Rabbinate Sephardic family. Just  imagine the regrettably
unimaginable nowadays! He studied law in the  American University of
Beirut and Medicine in Cairo during the  Ottoman Empire. He served as a
doctor in the Ottoman army during the  First World War. He was a member of
the Knesset between the years  1949-1951, and more important for our
current meeting, he was a  member of the 14th and 15th Zionist Congress,
back in the years  1925-1926. He was a brilliant Intellectual and
polyglot, trading  easily on different cultural terrains. He was a
Levantine, in a  truly praiseworthy sense, a real cosmopolitan. Eliachar
is mostly  known for advocating the idea that the Zionist project should
seek  harmonious integration within the Middle East and its cultural
heritage, not renouncing of course its European values and ideals.  He was
seeking a propitious synthesis between East and West. His  courageous and
visionary ideas were mostly gathered in his two  books, published in 1975,
titled: To Live with Palestinians, and To  Live with Jews (1981). I find
it astonishing how pertinent they are  to our time.



The thoughts I want to share with you - inspired by Elichar's book -  are
not the ones you usually hear, at least not on occasions such as  this
one. They are mostly critical. Yet they emerge from a deep and  sincere
concern with the future of this place. You may disagree with  what I have
to say, yet I implore you to listen patiently,  remembering the familiar
expression gleaned from the book of the  Bible, Proverbs, chapter 27:
"faithful are the wounds of a friend".  I want to discuss then four major
challenges that the Zionist  project ought to face, the failure of which
may threaten the  stability and sustainability of Israel.







The First challenge:

Renouncing Israel's self-Perception as an integral part of the West



The first challenge is the one relating to the self perception of  Israel
as an integral part of the West. This perception, I believe,  is nothing
but an exercise of symbolic self-expulsion from the  Middle East. It
feeds, consequently, a desire for physical self- expulsion from the
region. Let me explain. At the beginning, the  encounter of the Zionist
project with the East witnessed ambivalence  and vicissitude: negation vs.
affirmation, repulsion vs. attraction,  inclusion of the East and its
cultural heritage in the Zionist  ideology vs. exclusion of the East from
this ideology. As the  Israeli-born sociologist Gil Eyal, teaching at
Columbia University,  puts it, "once the encounter with the East was
multi-dimensional,  capable of accommodating contradictions and
inconsistencies. This  encounter," he continues, "was primarily an
experience of open  identity and open horizon, of transfiguration and
interplay between  identities" (2004, 23-24). But if in the very
beginning, ambivalence  and vicissitude precipitated this encounter, this
is no longer the  case. If there was ever a possibility of the Zionist
project  becoming an integral part of the region, it has been proven
increasingly utopian with time. That is, over the years we are left  with
a set of one-dimensional negative attitudes towards the East.  It includes
negation of the East, repulsion from the East and its  cultural and
exclusion of the East from the way we perceive our  collective identity.
These attitudes, as Eyal rightly argues, attest  to a gradual
"disenchantment of the Orient". Eliachar noted this  orientation, quoting,
for instance, Penchas Sapir, the legendary  treasury minister of Israel.
"Israel," stated Sapir, "belongs to  Europe in the cultural, political and
economic sense, despite its  location - geographically – in the Middle
East" (p.211). He also  quoted Moshe Dayan's condescending dictum that
"there is nothing we  can learn from the Arabs" (there). Elichar warned
against this  shortsighted cultural orientation, believing it dooms Israel
to the  status of a foreign element in the Middle East, a crusader castle,
reinforcing the conviction of our neighbors to view a foreign  element to
be altogether extricated from the region. "We have tied,"  he wrote, "our
destiny exclusively with the West, although our  origin is in the East.
Displaying arrogance that has no reason and  no justification we closed
ourselves within this narrow attitude  (1942). And indeed, with time, this
attitude has given rise to the  self-perception of Israel not only as
foreign element in the Middle  East, but also as a state morally and
culturally superior to its  neighboring countries. Many of us view Israel
as an enlightened  castle in the heart of a dark and wild Middle East. In
the words of  Ehud Barak, our relentless Minister of Defense, "Israel is a
villa  in the Jungle". Needless to say what is the nature of those
inhabitants, on his view, populating the menacing environment, the  Jungle
surrounding the villa.



The eradication of this mindset is, of course, long overdue, but my
concern here lies elsewhere. I believe that the desperate desire,  the
deeply-seated wish, to belong to the                      West,  shooting
through the ethos of Zionism, amounts to incessant and  symbolic
self-expulsion from the Middle East, from Israel itself.  And this
symbolic self-expulsion may have grave consequences. One  cannot but
speculate the affinity between symbolic self-expulsion  and physical
self-expulsion. Symbolic self-expulsion manifests  itself, after all, in a
kind of yearning, unspoken wish to go  somewhere else, to live somewhere
else, in London, Paris, Berlin,  New York, Loss Angeles and elsewhere.
Rabbi Yhuda Halevi wrote: Libi  bemezrah vani bfati marav. "My heart in
the East but I am at the  very edge of the West. The familiar line from
his poem has expressed  best the aching aspirations of generations over
generations of Jews  who had yearend to come to this place. But something
odd has  transpired since Jews have managed to follow their hearts. We
witness now the opposite aspiration: Our hearts are in the West but  we
are in the East. One is tempted to speculate, again, about what a  person
wants to do most if his or her heart is in the West?  The  answer is
clear – to follow again one's heart! If the inner-most  desire dwelling in
our hearts is the orientation towards the West,  then why not go ahead and
dwell – body and soul - in the West. Many  in Israel nowadays are
seriously entertaining this option and others  continue to adopt it - they
leave.



If this is not an inevitable telos of the Zionist project - to  follow our
hearts, to be 'westbound pioneers' – we must adopt a  different attitude
towards the region in which Israel dwells. In the  words of Eliachar, "as
long as the ruling opinion remains that  Israel is not part of the Middle
East, and that it is essentially  part of Europe – there will be no true
revival to our nation" (p.  279). It is unfortunate that Israeli political
and cultural elites  have continuously refused to heed his warning. Recent
events attest  to how deeply rooted is this myopia. Just think of the
shiver went  through our leaders upon listening to Obama's speech in
Cairo, in  which he declares "that the United States had no quarrel with
Islam." And why should this statement be a cause for panic among us?
Well, we felt at home when President Bush, for example, declared a
crusader war on Iraq; but we feel estranged when the new president  no
longer sees matters though such apocalyptic lances. Obama rejects  the
worldview that divides the world between the enlightened West  and the
fundamentalist East. And this does not sit well with the way  we view and
experience the world. We gleefully take on board  Huntington's depiction
of global political affairs, locking them  narrowly and inescapably within
the tentacles of the 'clash of  civilization'. Thus, when president Obama
challenges this worldview  we rush frantically to correct him, to explain
to him that he is  wrong, that he cannot deprive Israel of the traditional
role it  ascribes to itself in the clash between Judeo–Christian tradition
and Islam. We are offended that he refuses to accept the grain- offering
we bestow upon the West. It is indeed unfortunate that we  see matters in
this light. It is unfortunate that we fail to see  that our future, only
future, lies in the fresh and revolutionary  outlook promoted by President
Obama. The challenge then is to rise  to the occasion, to grab this
historic-turn-of-the-leaf opportunity,  and to realize its enormous
potential.



The Second Challenge:

The failure to the reach the phase of inner consolidation:



The second challenge relates to Israel's failure to determine its  final
borders. Failing to do so, Israel is unable to transcend the  first phase
of the nation-building project experienced by national  movements fighting
to secure themselves autonomous and sovereign  states. That is, this
project includes usually two consecutive  phases. The first aims at the
control of given territories and  fixing the borders of the nascent
nation-state; the second aims at  the consolidation of the nation-state
within these borders. This  consolidation means the establishment of a
well-ordered and just  society, enjoying economic and cultural prosperity.
The war of  independence and its results seemed to successfully conclude
the  first phase, and the years that followed witnessed major efforts
aiming to achieve the second phase. The war of 67 put an end to the
possibility of moving gradually from the first to second phase.  Since
1967 till now Israel has been regressing, going back to the  first phase
of its nation-building project. Thus it diverts and  decreases efforts
towards inner consolidation of Israeli society  around noble ideals and
values



This diversion has nefarious consequences. Having no fixed borders,  the
lingering and protracted Israeli-Arab conflict is expectedly  perceived by
Israelis as belonging to the first phase in the Zionist  nation-building
project. That is, it is perceived as an existential  conflict,
"an-all-or-nothing" conflict. Here is an amusing yet sad  example from
recent days. Participating traditionally in the  Eurovision, the
European-based music contest, - the cultural  terrains on which Israel
likes to trade, of course - Israel had to  face an embarrassing incident:
The hosting country, Norway, chose,  intentionally so it seemed, not to
show the map of Israel. It showed  instead some amorphous image, having
little resemblance to the real  physical contours of Israel, and even this
image was shown very  briefly, transiently. More than that, instead of
showing a postcard  of Jerusalem, our capital, a post card of Tel Aviv was
shown. The  Israeli ambassador to Norway angrily protested. "It makes no
sense,"  he lamented, "that Israel is the only state having no physical
dimensions, appearing as if it is an amorphous entity."  But why  Norway
cannot do what we exactly to ourselves for quite long time,  too long?
Since 1967 we are reluctant to define our borders. We  choose to be an
amorphous entity. And here lies the crux of the  matter. As Yossi Sarid,
the former head of the Mertz party  succinctly puts it: "Only in places
where there are no well-defined  borders, the struggle is about existence,
about survival" (Haaretz,  June 11, 2010, p. 30).  It is again tempting to
speculate that the  failure in itself to fix such borders contributes to
the eruption of  existential fear, anxieties and of paranoia among us,
Israeli Jews.  It is like living in a house having no outer walls, a
situation that  bounds to threaten the sense of security of its
inhabitants.  Those  on the far right might readily endorse this insight,
concluding that  an annexation of the occupied territories is a must, thus
securing  Israel's walls. I vehemently disagree, for reasons repeatedly
elaborated by many on the peace camp in Israel, and there is no  point
repeating them here again. Thus the second challenge facing  Israel is
clear, reaching a peace agreement securing itself clear- cut borders.



The Third Challenge:

Social Justice and the Integration of Israel Society



The fact that Israel is failing to direct its full efforts towards  inner
consolidation is readily manifested in the unfortunate fact  that it
figures the deepest economic gaps between poor and rich in  the Western
world.  This is how Herzl imagined his dream-society: it  is a society
that "cares for every sick and needy applicant," in  which "education is
free
from the kindergarten through the  university" and in which women
enjoy equal rights. For many  Israelis, too many of them, actually over
1600000 of them, who live  under the poverty line, this dream has turned
into a daily economic  nightmare. Worse yet, even work, once a revered
undertaking in  Zionist ideology, is not an effective tool for salvaging
them from  the trap of poverty. In the last two decades, the rate of
workers  whose salaries put them under the poverty line has increased
dramatically. Again, we talk about workers. Almost 30% of wage  earners
earned minimum wage and even less than that. Among the  families making
their living out of work, 33.0% are poor. This is  indeed a cause for an
outrage, especially when we witness how senior  directors of publicly
owned companies pull outrageous, skyrocketing  salaries, while low echelon
workers are asked to be contended with  meager income. Thus these workers
are doomed to life of destitute  and their children predestined to limited
opportunities for self- realization.



Worse yet, the gaps between poor and rich carry distinct ethno-
demographic characters. Hence, these gaps challenge the very idea  that
the different Jewish Diasporas gathered in Israel constitute,  after
shading the exilic garbs they had gained during their  protracted sojourn
in foreign lands, an organic whole. This is how  Ben Zion Dinur, a
prominent Zionist historiographer, who is  responsible more than any other
Zionist historiographers for the  manner Jewish history has been taught in
Israeli schools, perceived  the matter. "Despite the liquidation of the
Historic Jewish state,  and despite the earthquakes that frequently shook
the Jews, causing  them to be dispersed among the many nations and to be
integrated  among the various kingdoms, the unity of the Hebrew nation had
not  ceased. True, the conditions of its life and its existence had been
altered", he continued, "but its might and its essence remained  intact."
Like many Zionists, then, Dinur believed that the  gathering of the exiles
within the budding Jewish state would result  in a necessary process: all
Jews, irrespective of cultural  diversity, will cast off their exilic
cultures and become reunited  with their essential and ancient identity.
Now some may believe in  this primordial unity and other may doubt it, but
one thing is  certain - the failure of Israel to secure social justice to
its  citizens definitely undermines the efforts to cultivate a homogenous
national community. For the distinct demographic nature of the  economic
gaps characterizing Israeli society leads to its  disintegration and to
the consolidation of various ethno-cultural  groups. Thus the phase of
consolidation has been taking an ironic  twist: instead of consolidating
itself around a shared Jewish core  culture and historic heritage, the
Israeli society witnesses the  consolidation of its sub-groups, each
cultivating its unique culture  and heritage. Again, this development
proves to be a serious blow to  the Zionist dream of "the integrating of
the exiles" within a  homogenous national collective. The challenge then
is clear: to halt  the disintegration of Israeli society into rigid
sub-societies,  radical redistributive steps are urgently needed.



The fourth challenge: The status of Israeli Palestinians

The failure to direct efficient efforts towards inner consolidation  is
manifested also in the case of Palestinian minority. Indeed,  Israeli
Palestinians are inextricably connected historically and  culturally with
their brethren living in the occupied territories.  Thus I do not know if
there ever was a real option to integrate  members belonging to this
minority as full citizens within Israeli  society, defining itself as
Jewish state. However, this option  became obsolete since 1967. Open
borders has encouraged closer  cultural ties and increased the sense of
common destiny between  Israel Palestinians and the Palestinians residing
in the occupied  territories. Thus their display of support of the
Palestinian cause  has been accordingly intensified. This is natural. As
much as Israel  seeks the moral and material support of Jewish diasporas
every where  on the globe, the he Palestinians in the occupied territories
seek –  and received – the support of their co-patriots everywhere,
including those live in Israel. I am talking, of course, only about  moral
and material support – not military. And so, as much as Jews  of the
Diaspora are often caught up in the trap of double loyalty,  thus the
Israeli Palestinians are caught in the same trap. The  solution to this
problem is not the one poorly advised by the  bellicose and world's
pariah, Israel's foreign minister, Evat  Lieberman and his party, Israel
Betenu: "no loyalty no citizenship".  Imagine a proposal to impose this
principle, for instance, on  American Jews. It would result, God forbid,
in the expulsion of them  from the USA. The solution then to this
intricate problem lies  elsewhere. It should be viewed as an integral part
of a  comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians, securing therein
the collective interests and rights of Israeli Palestinians. We  should
admit it – for long time now Israel is conducting against  Israeli
Palestinians a war by other means, mainly through land and  immigration
policies. Lieberman's policies, taking on board virulent  rhetoric and
advocating harsh policies against them may be seen as a  culmination of
this tacit war.

In this case, it is not possible to talk about simple accommodation  of
the Palestinians within Israeli society, securing them basic  citizenship
rights, but about a peace treaty that should include  them as part of a
comprehensive peace treaty with the Palestinians  in general. It seems
that there is no better way to secure the  loyalty of Israeli Palestinians
to the state of Israel than the one  that secures their collective rights
within the Jewish state. After  all, this is part of Jewish heritage and
it should be a part of the  Zionist heritage. As the Bible decrees: And
thou shalt love him as  thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of
Egypt.



The overwhelming majority of Israelis fervently reject this  solution.
Their articulate spokespersons cite a lesson from history  to buttress
this position. Back in the time of the French  Revolution, in the year
1789, the count Clermont–Tonnerre, stated,  in his speech to the National
Assembly, that "we must refuse  everything to the Jews as a nation and
accord everything to Jews as  individuals. Echoing this position,
approximately 200 years later,  in 1976, the Late Issac Rabin declared
that "the individuals of the  minority are entitled to equal rights as
individuals
with respect  to
to their different religion and culture,
but nothing more than  that.”[1] This is however not an appropriate
analogy. We should  recognize the fact that non-Jews in Israel can not,
formally and  materially speaking, become full members of the Jewish
state. This  is not the case in Franc despite the systematic
discrimination  displayed against French citizens who are descendents of
Third World  countries. Besides, Israeli Palestinians constitute and
indigenous  group, not immigrants to be integrated among a hosting
society. And  indeed there is a growing understanding all over the world
that  multicultural arrangements, securing the collective rights of
indigenous and national minorities, is the most effective and just  path
to include them as full members of the societies in which they  reside. As
I suggested, in the Israeli case, such a solution should  be part of a
comprehensive peace treaty with Palestinians in  general. This is then the
fourth major challenge facing the Zionist  project.



To conclude, the four challenges I cited above, attest to lingering  major
problems besetting the Zionist project. Most of these problems  are
maladies inherited by the project from the time of its infancy.   The
solutions to them, no matter how painful, can no longer be  postponed, for
the future of the Jewish state hinges upon them. They  require then
courageous and resolute leaders. And this is yet  another challenge facing
the Zionist project – brave leadership. Let  these leaders appear, let
them be modest, as the wise man, Eliahu  Eliachar once advised. Let them
renounce, as he said, any false  pretense of moral and cultural
superiority and let them declare that  Jews and Arabs can help each other
in the cultivation of the region,  turning it into prosperous heaven to
the interests of all parties  concerned (p. 242).

Professor Yossi Yonah

Ben Gurion University of the Negev/Van Leer Institute of Jerusalem

yyona@bgu.ac.il





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[1] A speech delivered before high-school graduates in Tel Aviv’ 6th  of
May, 1976.  (Quoted in Daniel Gootenmacher, “The Right, the  Religious and
Democracy,” Native 6 (1996), pp. 43-49).