[Peace-discuss] Not to be found in the NYT

[Morton K. Brussel]

It appeared in The Guardian, UK, but doesn't seem to have been edited.

It's time to rethink Zionism

The desire for ethnic purity that drove out Palestinians and bars the  
way to democracy in Israel is the rotten fruit of an old debate

The results of last week's parliamentary elections in Israel brought  
to the surface some of the most rotten fruits of a debate that has  
been going on throughout the state's existence: the idea that a mono- 
ethnic Jewish state is feasible, legitimate and desirable. In other  
words, it enhanced the predicament of the moral and practical  
consequences of the Zionist state ideology.

In 1948, during its war of coming-to-be, Israel had driven out of its  
territory 750,000 Palestinians; another 250,000 were pushed out during  
the 1967 war. Ever since then, the Israeli left-right division has  
been marked by the desire for territorial expansion, promoted by the  
right, and the aspiration for ethnic purity, propagated, curiously, by  
the Zionist "left". It has always been the "left" that pushed for  
"division" of the land and "separation" between Jews and Arabs in  
order to secure a big Jewish majority inside Israel. The right,  
historically, seemed unconcerned by and large with the consequences of  
having a large number of Palestinians living under Israel's  
occupation, as long as they do not get to enjoy citizens' (or other,  
civil) rights. The Labour party always had a leg in both camps. It had  
agreed to partition in 1947, seeing it as a chance to get as much Arab- 
free land as possible, and recognizing the opportunity to ethnically  
clear it off most remaining Arabs during the following war. It was the  
same Labour party, however, that was responsible for Israel's great  
victory in the 1967 war, which led to vast territorial expansion and  
at the same time to the inclusion of millions of Palestinians in the  
territories under Israel's rule.

An annexation of these territories, known as Gaza Strip and the West  
Bank, has always been unthinkable for the Labour party and its  
satellites on the left, as it would involve granting citizenship to  
the Palestinians who live in them, hence compromising the majority of  
Jewish citizens in Israel. The right had toyed with the idea of  
annexation, but was deterred by the same dilemma. The temporary  
solution had been to keep building settlements in the occupied West  
Bank and Gaza, while hoping that somehow, miraculously, the  
Palestinians would disappear, or that a huge influx of Jewish citizens  
would somehow flood the country and tip the balance in a conclusive way.

In the fringes of the left there were always voices calling for either  
a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. To its left, there was an  
even smaller group calling for what nowadays can be described as the  
South African solution: one state, with equal rights to both Jews and  
Palestinians living in it.

The latter idea had never become popular among Jewish Israelis, but  
over the last 10 years it had turned into a threat that haunts the  
dreams of all Zionists. The phrase "the demographic danger" became a  
legitimate part of the discourse calling for a two-state solution.  
What started as a lefty support for Palestinian national self- 
determination had turned in this century into a tool for propagating  
apartheid. From that point, it was easy for anybody on the right, from  
Ariel Sharon to Tzipi Livni and Binyamin Netanyahu, to adopt it, and  
for George Bush's administration to embrace it. Accordingly, that  
obscure entity the "Palestinian State" was to be of crippled borders  
that would compromise its already questionable viability. It was to be  
a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan Bantustan.

The Arab citizens of Israel, traditionally ignored by left and right  
Zionists as a "barely tolerable" minority, embody the impossibility  
and futility of the attempt to achieve ethnic purity by means of  
division. A few years of rising racism inside Israel turned its Arab  
citizens into a "ticking bomb" of the "demographic danger", and  
unleashed unprecedented attacks against them by the right wing, with  
little to no response from the Zionist left. Avigdor Lieberman gained  
his startling achievement in Tuesday's elections by riding this wave  
to its natural conclusion. His revolutionary idea – giving up not only  
territories in the West Bank and Gaza but even territories of Israel  
proper, in order to get rid of as many Arabs as possible – confused  
and embarrassed the Zionist left. It had also exposed the absurdity  
and moral unacceptability of the whole Zionist idea by taking it to  
its only rational conclusion. If having a Jewish state is the most  
desirable goal, than getting rid of the non-Jewish citizens is the  
only rational way to go about it. And hey, it is all to take place in  
a very benign way: no more talks of "transfer", but an adoption of the  
"lefty" slogans of division. And all this under the new sinister  
banner "No loyalty – No citizenship".

The fact that Lieberman can easily claim to be a genuine successor of  
Israel's founder, Labourite David Ben Gurion, should be an alarm bell  
in the ears of any Israeli liberal. It is time for any Israeli with an  
enlightened self-image to look at the mirror and see Avigdor Lieberman  
staring back. It is time to stop the procrastination over the question  
whether Israel can be both Jewish and democratic. Lieberman provided  
the answer loud and clear: it cannot. At this late hour, when the  
shadow of proto-fascism is hovering over the land, it is time to join  
forces with Palestinian citizens in the battle against ethnic purity,  
and for a true democracy. It is time to stop fidgeting, and to admit  
that mono-ethnicism cannot be a framework for liberal values. It is  
time to apologize to MK Azmi Bshara, who was dabbed "an Arab  
nationalist" by Israeli liberals because of his call for "a state of  
all its citizens". It is time to rethink Zionism.


     * guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
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