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My basic contention, drawing on a rather extensive literature of “the State”, is that there are certain functions any state must accomplish in the construction of a citizenry. Much of what we are asked to accept as “Zionism” — and therefore deserving of special accomodation — in Israel is no different from what every modern nation-state has done.

On the question of the State Zionism: on one hand Zionism is rooted in a view of European Jews that was itself anti-Semitic; early Zionism promised the literal reform of the Jew, the transformation of weak, cowardly, over-intellectual, citified Jews into “Muskeljuden” (“muscle Jews”), and this strain of thought is fairly evident in Israeli militarism. On the other hand, though, another strain of Zionism promised Jews a place where they could be Jews, where freed of the external constraints imposed by non-Jewish oppressors, they would be free to realize their own visions of what being Jewish meant. Nation-states, however, don’t need Jews, they need “citizens”, and Israel is no exception. So some kinds of Jews remain unacceptible, and must be “converted”; free practice of Judaism is no more, and maybe even less, a possibility in Israel than in the nations its people hail from.

This is not a radical view, I hasten to add. Most Israeli functionaries will tell you that Israel is not a Jewish state — it simply cannot be. Much of the population, including most (but not all) of the Bedouins I mentioned, are non-Jewish, either Muslim or Christian. Muslims sit in the Knesset — not many, of course, but being non-Jewish is no bar to taking part in the Israeli state, and the precepts of international law and human rights demand that this be so. Israel is a secular state whose citizens just happen to be mostly Jewish; it is perhaps more accomodating of (certain kinds of ) Jewishness than other states, but that is all. And of Jewishnesses that deviate from the (imposed) standard, it is just as unforgiving as any other state, and has been since the beginning. For instance, in order to elevate Hebrew — a language, it must be recalled, that nobody spoke in 1948 as a conversational language — to the national language, Yiddish-speaking was punished, Yiddish presses were raided and destroyed, and so on. If we recall Weber’s description of the state as defined by its use of force against both its enemies and its citizens, this makes perfect sense — a state needs to simplify the complexity of its citizenry, in language as much as anything else. But the promise of Zionism — at least that second strain I mentioned — was not the imposition of a particular way of being Jewish, but of freedom from imposition, the freedom for Jews to figure out their own way of being Jewish.

So yes, I guess I am saying that “State Zionism” is bound to be self-contradictory. But my argument isn’t so much against the particular way that Zionist identity has developed in the context of the Israeli state, but against the idea that this represents the only way to be Jewish, even for people outside of Israel. Prager’s argument is that if I and other Americans fail to support this particular brand of Zionism, we are not only anti-Zionist (which I freely admit I am, though that’s irrelevant to my point) but anti-Semitic, implying that Israel’s is not only the only way to be Zionist but the only way to be Jewish.

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ABSTRACT

The dissertation itself is here [PDF].

He also has some nice pictures from his fieldwork here.

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Thanks

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“Then you have to accept that Israel is not only the best but the only possible realization of Zionism, so that to oppose Israel is to oppose Zionism.”

This is a problem I’ve felt a lot while reading (admittedly not profoundly or widely) about all of this. In particular Said seems to consistently miss it, such as in ‘The End of the Peace Process’.

where I don’t follow you is here:

“In its treatment of Sephardic Jews, Russian Jews, Bedouins, and others, Israel is not acting as a Zionist state, but merely as a state. Like other states, Israel has a need to make its population “legible”…”

and then this:

“As official policy of the state, Zionism functions not as an ideology promoting the free expression of Judaism, but as a tool for the creation of citizens of the state.”

Wouldn’t that be a Zion-ist- (Zionistic?) state, then?

Are you saying that State Zionism is metaphysically incapable of being authentic, of really being what it claims to be(‘false’?).

Or is it the point that the contestation of the state is itself metaphysical?

Just a thought.

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