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The Poisons of Nationalism
- Tikkun
- Duke University Press
- Volume 23, Number 3, May/June 2008
- p. 89
- Article
- Additional Information
M AY / J U N E 2 0 0 8 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 89 It did not occur to me—so little did I know about the Middle East—that the establishment of a Jewish state meant the dispossession of the Arab majority that lived on that land. I was as ignorant of that as, when in school, I was shown a classroom map of American “Western Expansion” and assumed the white settlers were moving into empty territory. In neither case did I grasp that the advance of “civilization” involved what we would today call “ethnic cleansing.” It was only after the “Six-Day War” of 1967 and Israel’s occupation of territories seized in that war (the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the Sinai peninsula) that I began to see Israel not simply as a beleaguered little nation surrounded by hostile Arab states, but as an expansionist power. In 1967 I was totally engaged in the movement against the war in Vietnam. I had long since understood that the phrases “national security” and “national defense” were used by the United States government to justify aggressive violence against other countries. Indeed, there was a clear bond between Israel and the United States in their respective foreign polices, illustrated by the military and economic support the United States was giving to Israel, and by Israel’s tacit approval of the U.S. war in Vietnam. True, Israel’s claim of “security,” given its geographical position , seemed to have more substance than the one made by the U.S. government, but it seemed clear to me that the occupation and subjugation of several million Palestinians in the occupied territories did not enhance Israel’s security but endangered it. I was reinforced in my view during a spirited discussion of the Israel-Palestine conflict I was having with my large lecture class at Boston University. A number of Jewish students were fervently defending the Occupation, whereupon two young women who had been silent up to that point rose, one after the other, to say something like the following: “We are from Israel. We served in the Israeli army. We want to say to you who love Israel that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza will lead to the destruction of Israel, if not physically, then morally and spiritually.” As the years of the Occupation went on, the cycle of violenceseemedendless—arock-throwingintifadametbyoverreaction in the form of broken bones and destroyed homes, suicidebomberskillinginnocentJewsfollowedbybombingswhich killed ten times as many innocent Arabs. The invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was a particularly horrifying episode in that cycle: rocket fire from the Lebanese side into Israel brought a full scale invasion and ruthless bombing, in which perhaps 16,000 Lebanese civilians were killed. The culmination was the massacre of hundreds, perhaps thousands of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. An Israeli commission put the responsibility on General Ariel Sharon. I have for a long time considered the nation-state as an abominationofourtime—nationalprideleadingtonationalhatred ,leadingtowar.ItalwaysseemedtomethatJews,withouta national territory, were a humanizing influence in the world. The charge against them by Stalin, that Jews were “cosmopolitans ” was exactly what I thought the great virtue of Jews. So for Jews to become just another nation-state, with all the characteristics of the nation-state—xenophobia, militarism, expansionism —neverseemedtomeawelcomedevelopment.And thepoliciesoftheStateofIsraelsinceitsbirthhaveborneoutmy fears. Some of the wisest Jews of our time—Einstein, Martin Buber—warned of the consequences of a Jewish state. Einstein wrote, at the very inception of Israel: “My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain….” Of course, there is no turning back the clock and it may be thatanindependentPalestinealongsideanindependentJewish state is the best interim solution, but since the poison of nationalism will undoubtedly infect both states, the ideal of a democratic , secular community of Jews and Palestinians should remain a goal of all who desire lasting peace and justice. I Howard Zinn is a historian, playwright...