After a discussion with someone on Instagram, I realized that it would be useful to be more specific here, especially regarding two topics above:
about the historical attitudes toward holocaust survivors in Israel
the statement "Early Zionists were wealthy European capitalists" (I will redact this sentence and rephrase it, it was lazy & somewhat dangerous wording)
Specificity accomplishes two goals: it'll give even better historical context, and it will prevent people over-generalizing or over-simplifying these statements in a way that is anti-semitic, and bigotry is rampant at a time like this regardless of my personal intent.
In particular, "Zionism" has started to mean different things to different people. To be very clear, what is meant by "Zionism" here refers to early Zionist attitudes as held by leaders like Herzl et al, and the Statists that followed. This is, specifically, the idea that Jewish people needed a physical nation, and that Jewish people should pursue creating and maintaining a powerful nation-state. Of course, a vast number of Jewish diaspora and modern Israelis are against this ideology (especially, in that the dominant people in the nation state should be Jewish people, to the exclusion of others, as opposed to some democratic state solution that might include Palestinians and Arabs).
The Statists were sort of post-Zionists occupied with crafting an Israeli national identity that would ensure their new colony remained cohesive. The goal of Statists was to quickly disseminate a Jewish
image everyone could at least admire, if not identify with. From this the image of the "Sabra" was created--an archetype informed by Statist heroes like David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, and romanticized like a "desert cactus". A poem from Yaacov Cohen went:
"We are what we are, Sabras / Simple folk / Sons of the sun and honest are we / ours is a wild charm / And he who understands us / will love us"
A Sabra was the image of a strapping young Israeli-born Asheknazi man toiling in a kibbutz. This romanticized image of what Israelis should be was not reflective of the actual population, because at the time, "every 10th Israeli just arrived yesterday", as the author Amnon Rubenstein wrote. As more and more Yiddish-speaking holocaust victims arrived, stories of suffering clashed with the Sabra myth-making that the Statists were trying to achieve. Here's an excerpt from a book called From Herzl to Rabin: The Changing Image of Zionism by Amnon Rubenstein:
"Many novels describe this clash. In Sham ai Golan 's The Death of Uri Peled, the protagonist comes to the country as a young escapee from the Holocaust. Like many new immigrants, he acquires a Sabra name as well as Sabra mannerisms. Ne vertheless, he is v iewed with suspiciousdisdain by the homogeneous native society he encounters. His friend, a fifth-generation Sabra, harangues him:
The fighters of our War of Independence died for you, so that this land could absorb the likes of you--refugees who arrive from many exiles. We spilled our blood for this coun-try, and you, I'm telling you, don't you now turn it into a pigsty with your swinish galut wheeling and dealing.?
(Galut referring generally to Jewish exile but especially connoted as the holocaust at that time.)
The point is that Statists' promotional images failed Israelis and the Jewish diaspora, that the image of the Sabra was never inclusive, of holocaust survivors or so many other categories, like Mizrahi Jews and obviously Arabs and Palestinians. We see the images of the struggles of Jewish and Israeli identity here, like Yiddish vs. Hebrew, collecting a global, diverse diaspora into one place. It is from this that the "Sabra" image clashed with the desire for holocaust memorial and reflection. Importantly, the Statists were in charge at the time, and the political ideology of that early Zionism/Statism courses through Israeli politics today.
For me, this explained the paradox I myself had thought about--how could people once subject to genocide be the same people to condone it? And the answer should leave you optimistic--I can find solidarity with Jewish diaspora around the world and many Israelis who are against it, because they are not all these Statist leaders. It was never those actually subject to genocide condoning it after all. My final paper in this course was about Israeli politics of inclusion, and I became interested in many related topics, especially Ethiopian Jewish communities in Israel and their political clashes with the government...
Now, the second statement:
"Early Zionists were wealthy European capitalists, and largely secular"
I want to apologize for my carelessness here--I'd actually like to retract the term "wealthy" from this sentence. In fact, a more clear statement is more like:
"The successful Zionists were prominent Europeans, largely secular, and relied on a colonial apparatus to succeed."
This change is not only because I wish to avoid existing harmful stereotypes (regardless of my personal intent), but also because the previous sentence didn't really capture the actual point, which is that the Zionists beginning with Herzl were secular and relied heavily on coordinating with European colonial powers at the time, particularly Britain, which handled the whole thing awfully (what do you expect from the #1 colonial power). As mentioned previously, Zionist and Statist leaders were also not directly Holocaust survivors, though the concern about Jewish persecution was additional impetus for the movement (which had begun before WWII and even before WWI). The PBS link above contains primary sources on this.
The point is that when Zionism finally succeeded, it relied on an imperial, colonial apparatus, and it was not really about religion. Orthodox Jews were on-and-off with the Zionists, and finally, after considering, Uganda, Argentina, and Palestine, Palestine was chosen in part to win over the Orthodox coalition. I find this context very important because many arguments I've personally heard for the state of Israel are related to the "original home of the Jews", from a religious perspective, but early Zionist leaders were content with, as Herzl himself said, "whatever is given us".
appendix: contrast with Liberia & why we need humanities:
I've been thinking about the history of Liberia in contrast, which neither rose to Israel's level of power nor the same kind of atrocity--but it was still a colonization. Liberia was supposed to be a state for formerly enslaved Black Americans. Yet indigenous tribespeople did not have citizenship in Liberia to start. Black Americans were not all in agreement about the formation of Liberia. Frederick Douglass was opposed to any colonization of Africa by Black Americans:
"Shame upon the guilty wretches that dare propose, and all that countenance such a proposition. We live here—have lived here—have a right to live here, and mean to live here."
Source
Indigenous people of Liberia were also given birthright citizenship in 1904. In any case, it's history is of course very different in that it was also perceived as a sham to get Americans to accept slavery, which was still ongoing, and lacked the unifying effect Zionism eventually had:
"As a remedy for slavery, it must be placed amongst the grossest of all delusions. In fifteen years it has transported less than three thousand persons to the African coast; while the increase on their numbers, in the same period, is about seven hundred thousand!"
-Supporter of William Garrison, Source
In general, this history of resorting to colonization as a solution for persecution makes me reflect a lot on what to aspire to as a member of a persecuted group. The endgame of revolution should never be to simply join the club of imperial capitalists. I think you can find ripples of that in all sorts of conversations marginalized people have--like critiques of Pride becoming increasingly corporate, or recent anti-immigration branches of conservative Black people in the US.
In fact, I've been seeing the concept of revolution not having an "end" floating around. We cannot behave as though we will someday have some endpoint or fully egalitarian world. It is a mindset we have to maintain each day, to be thoughtful about our actions and interactions with others. To listen to dissenting voices. To consider the dynamics of power, even as they change and vary. To be humble enough to own up to our mistakes. I will try to continue to do my best, and stand against violence and discrimination of any kind. I hope that in this discussion of historical context on this difficult topic, that much is clear.
I could write an entirely separate blog post about why we need the humanities and to read books again etc., but I hope some of this sets an example for that. I'm very glad I took that course on Israeli politics and culture. My goal with all of this was to get people to think more critically, to ask more questions, to read more history.
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