Origins of Political Concepts and the
Zionist Movement (Pre-1948) Prof. Shlomo Avineri[1]
I would like to
start by sharing a true story about politics and poetry. In
1968, when Moshe Dayan was Defense Minister, Fadwa Tuqan
from Nablus wrote a nationalist Arab poem on Jerusalem
that contained some unpleasant lines regarding Jews and
Israelis. Dayan, being a very unusual person, invited Tuqan and
some of his friends one Saturday to his home. The next day the
Israeli newspapers were full with stories about their alleged
discussion during lunch. As a result, the Israeli right-wing
raised a motion of no-confidence against the Minister of
Defense because they felt he had given an ‘enemy’ of the Jews
some sort of legitimacy by invited Tuqan to his home. At the
time, however, Dayan knew he had a majority in parliament and
that he had no reason to worry. When he came to the parliament,
Dayan rebutted his peers by reading the poem, and explaining,
“Look, this poem is as terrible to me as it is to all Israeli
Jews. But it inspires: it moves people to kill us and it moves
people to put their own lives in jeopardy. So we should listen
to the poet. Because if we don’t understand the poetry of the
other, we will never understand what motivates them and
therefore we will never understand how to make peace with them.
One day, let’s hope that they will listen to our poetry, too.”
I think we are beginning to listen to the poetry of the other.
At the end of the
19th and the beginning of the 20th
Centuries, two very important developments occurred which
resulted in the current state of affairs. The first was the
emergence of modern Arab nationalism. Although people of this
region spoke Arabic at that time, they lived under the Ottoman
Empire and were subjects of the Sultan in Istanbul. Thus, their
primary unifying identification was their Islamic religion,
although of course Christians were also subjects of the Sultan.
Towards the end of the 19th Century, however, there
was a significant shift in the sense that people in this region
began to self identify as Arabs, regardless of their religion
or the ethnicity of the ruling Sultan.
Arabism at that
time was dominated by the Arabic language and the common Arab
culture, which were the unifying factors across different
religious backgrounds. At the same time, the spread of
education, secularization, modernization, and the ideas that
came with the French Revolution and Napoleon’s presence in
Egypt greatly influenced thinking in the region. Most of the
ideas of the enlightenment were revolutionary at the time, both
here and in Europe.
Something
similar, though under different circumstances, was happening to
the Jews, especially in central and Eastern Europe. It is
important to understand this in order to understand the
emergence of Zionism. Zionism was not just a response to
anti-Semitism or the persecution of Jews that occurred in many
countries. Although in some areas the Jewish situation had not
been bad, Jews often found themselves emigrating to places
where it was much worse. For instance, in Russia during the 19th
Century, Jews found their only comfort in the idea of a
religious redemption, in which their Messiah would come to take
them to live peacefully in the land of Israel.
While the
European Enlightenment and European secularization impacted the
experience of the Arabic-speaking people in this area, the
question of Jewish identity in Europe was of quite a different
nature. Before the French Revolution, for example, if a European
was asked about his identity he would have answered according
to his religion. Thus, the primary identity of people at that
time was based on religion. People related to others in terms
of religiosity, especially in mixed populations.
Identities in
Europe started to change between the French Revolution in 1789
and the Revolutions of 1848, also known as the ‘Spring of the
Nations.’ People, especially intellectuals and teachers,
started identifying themselves according to their
nationalities. In other words, they thought of themselves as
Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Polish, Hungarians, etc. The
move towards Arabism marked a similar change in the Middle East.
This shift in
perception, combined with secularization and liberalism, put
the Jewish people in a new and revolutionary situation. Many
Jews, however, found this exposure to liberalism and openness
problematic. Their newfound acceptance into society led to
integration, which threatened long-standing Jewish practices
and identity.
Prior to the
French Revolution, European countries viewed themselves as
Christian. Kings were Christian kings by the grace of God, and
schools were instruments of the Church. At that time, Jewish
people did not send their children to Christian schools because
they would not be accepted. In most cases, Jewish people were
tolerated, but they could not hold public office, buy land,
serve in the army, and were limited to certain occupations.
After the French Revolution, however, each individual was
considered a citizen regardless of his religious or ethnic
background. For the first time, Jewish people could send their
children to state schools instead of religious schools. Also,
they could become doctors or lawyers, and they could study.
However, if a
Jewish child wanted to enroll in the new secular school system,
he would be forced to attend on Saturday, the Jewish Shabbat.
According to Jewish religious tradition, it is permitted to
study on Saturdays but not to write, because writing is work.
Furthermore, if a Jewish son is sent to university, he will
likely live in a different town away from his family and will be
expected to eat in a non-Kosher cafeteria. Should his parents
tell him not to eat pork, or not to eat in the cafeteria at
all, or that it does not matter if he eats pork? Later, the
student becomes a lawyer or a doctor and opens an office or a
practice. He then faces the question of whether or not to open
on Saturdays.
This question of
identity touched every part of the Jewish person's life,
including his name. Until around 1800, Jews had Jewish names. As
the world became more secularized, modern Jews began to adopt
two names. When the children were sent to school it was not
unusual that Abraham became Albert, or Israel became Isador.
This exemplifies the common Jewish condition of living in two
worlds and developing two identities. Under the Hebrew model of
enlightenment, one was a Jew at home and an assimilated European
on the street.
This question of
double identity created crises and tensions. When fights erupted
between nationality groups such as Poles, Russians, Ukrainians
or Hungarians, the Jewish populations were caught in the
middle, as they had no national affiliation. Thus, the emergence
of the nation-state in Europe, together with liberalism and the
opening of the society towards the Jews created a Jewish
sensitivity to the question of identity in the modern world.
Furthermore, the
emerging modern Jewish intelligentsia in Central and Eastern
Europe was constructing an increasingly secular Jewish
identity. Although they discarded many traditional religious
practices, they were very much aware of their identity as Jews
with a common history, language, and belief in their origins in
the land of Israel. The intelligentsia was responsible for
secularizing the Hebrew language, which had once only been used
in Scripture and prayer. They also created some non-religious
holidays such as Hanukah, the Festival of Light. The origin of
Hanukah is almost nonexistent in Jewish religious tradition,
but instead recalls the time when the Greeks came from Syria and
the Jews were forced to remain sequestered without provisions.
There was no holy oil at the temple, but then a miracle
happened and the oil lasted for eight days, which is why
Hanukah is celebrated for eight days. Behind this
religious-mythological story is the rebellion of the Jews
against the pagan Greek kings who wanted to force paganism upon
them. Until around 1850 this was a very minor Jewish holiday,
especially for very religious Jews. People even worked during
this holiday, simply because it was not biblical. In the 19th
Century, however, modern, secular, Europeanized, multi-lingual
Jews who did not fast nor go to synagogue on Yom Kippur and who
did not keep kosher transformed it into a major holiday. This
shows how tradition is actually developed and constructed.
Hanukah became a symbol of the fight for religious and national
freedom, just as the Jews under the pagan kings of the Greeks
had fought for religious and national freedom.
The secularized
intelligentsia drove this early identity transformation and
began to view themselves not as simply a religious community
but as a nation dispersed throughout the world. Many Jews in the
late 19th Century wanted to leave Russia for the
west, as they were facing increased persecution for their role
as revolutionaries, socialists and communists. This post-1881
emigration wave is the root of many of today’s 3-5 million Jews
in America, as well as those in Latin America, South Africa,
Australia, and other non-European countries.
Thus, the
beginning of Zionism can be dated back to the 1880s. The First
Zionist Congress convened in 1897, marking the first time that
Jews decided to create a nation of their own, rather than remain
a persecuted minority over many nations. Again, the orthodox
rabbis were very much against such a project, saying the
creation of a national state was blasphemy. From the beginning,
Zionism was thus not just a continuation of the Jewish belief
but a break and reinterpretation of tradition. Theodore Herzl,
a journalist in Vienna, was the founder of the formal Zionist
organization that convened the 1897 Congress in Basle. His
book The Jewish State had been published a year earlier.
At the time, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire was second only to the Russian Empire in
terms of its large Jewish population. Though relatively liberal,
it was coming under pressure from Hungarian, Czech, Slovak,
Polish, and German nationalist movements. Herzl realized that
the multi-national empire was going to split into different
national states, and that the Jews as a minority would face
increasing persecution in each one. Thus, the Zionist movement
emerged as a rebellion against religion that oddly employed both
historical and religious memory, and as a response to the
European nationalization process.
Zionism as a
movement was never a monolithic entity, and many of its
original factions later transformed into parties. In the early
days the Zionist movement had no power and no state, and most of
the rabbis and the rich Jews were anti-Zionist because they felt
very comfortable with the way things were. An important
aspect in these times was the movement’s attempt to be
inclusive. For example, despite the fact that most of the
delegates of the First Zionist Congress were secular, they
decided not to convene on Saturday out of respect for the
religious minority, who would not have attended.
Membership in the
First Zionist Congress was extended by invitation only. At the
Second Zionist Congress in 1898, it was decided that a voluntary
contribution and a symbolic membership fee of half a dollar
would attract as many people as possible. The participants also
decided that women could become members. The decision had little
to do with feminism but instead was based on the goal of
increasing the movement’s membership. Women obtained the right
to vote in the elections held at the Third Zionist Congress.
This came at a time when no country in the West had yet
introduced women’s suffrage.
The Zionist
organization was successful because it created institutions
that became the backbone for the infrastructure of the Jewish
State. The British Mandate in Palestine allowed both the Jewish
and the Arab communities to organize themselves, but it did not
create the infrastructure of a state. According to British Law
in Palestine, both communities could each organize their own
institutions for the provision of education and health care.
The Jewish
community of perhaps 60,000 or 70,000 decided that the electoral
process was necessary for the creation of their institutions,
which in turn raised the issue of women’s rights. The religious
parties did not want to grant women the right to vote, so a deal
was made which represents the root of some of the problems and
achievements of secular-religious relations in Israel today.
The religious parties, who perhaps represented 10-12 percent
of the population, were ready to accept women’s right to vote
if the majority in return accepted that only kosher food
be served in all Zionist institutions in Palestine. This was an
early example of the creation of coalitions.
Under these
circumstances a General Assembly of the representatives of the
Jewish community in Palestine was first elected in 1923, and
regular elections followed every few years. Political parties
were established (a number of socialist and social-democratic
parties, liberal as well as orthodox and right-wing parties),
and since 1932 Labor became the dominant party and its leader,
David Ben-Gurion, became chairman of the Jewish Agency for
Palestine and thus the leader of the Jewish community in the
country, presiding over a coalition made up of a number of
left and center parties. The Jewish Agency was responsible for
finance, education, development, and settlement activities. In
this way it was similar to what the Palestinian Authority is now
for the Palestinian Arabs. The Arab community in Palestine also,
mainly through the Arab Higher Committee, organized an assembly
of notables stemming from the big families like the Husseinis.
It was not as active as the Jewish community in terms of
promoting education, founding schools, or creating
infrastructures. This was mainly due to the fact that
Palestinian society at that time was still very traditional,
very much based on notables, tribalism and regionalism.
After the
establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the representative
assembly of Palestinian Jews elected since 1923 became the
provisional government. Within nine months, in January 1949, the
elections for the first Knesset returned the same parties that
had existed in the pre-state Jewish community and led to the
same coalition. It should be emphasized in this context that
never within the Jewish community in Palestine or in the state
of Israel has one party obtained a majority. This is partly
because the Israeli system follows representative visitation,
which is more difficult than the British or American system
where the winner takes all. However, the goal of national
movements is to represent everybody, even small groups with no
more than five percent of the population behind them.
A parable
ascribed to the Greek philosopher Esau says that the gods gave
us two sacks and put one of them in front of us and the other
one in the back. The one in front of us has all the sense of the
others, which we can always see. The one in the back, which we
cannot see, is our own sense. In terms of national movements,
this can be read as follows: we see our pain but we do not
always see the pain of the other. We see our compromises but
not that of the other.
This partially
explains why, in the end, Israel was able to survive under
difficult conditions with very little outside help. Remember:
one percent of the Jewish population was killed in 1948 and not
all of them were soldiers. One percent is not easy for any
society to endure, but the world of institutions based on
coalition, discourse, and representation continued.
[1] Prof. Avineri teaches
Political Science at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He was
born in 1933 in Poland and came to Palestine in 1939. He
studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the London
School of Economics. He has taught in the US, Australia, and
Budapest and written several books on Marx, Marxism and Hegel,
as well as on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, including
Israel and the Palestinians (1970), which was one of
the first books that advocated dialogue and the possibility
of a Palestinian state next to Israel, and The Making of
Modern Zionism (1980). During Yitzhak Rabin’s first
government, he was director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry,
and he previously was a member of the Israeli Labor party.
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