The Persistence of the Palestinian Question

Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians

Joseph Massad

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781135988418
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Politik

In this erudite and groundbreaking series of essays, renowned author Joseph Massad asks and answers key questions, such as: What has been the main achievement of the Zionist movement? What accounts for the failure of the Palestinian National Movement to win its struggle against Israel? What do anti-Semitism, colonialism and racism have to do with the Palestinian/Israeli 'conflict'?

Joseph Massad offers a radical departure from mainstream analysis in order to expose the causes for the persistence of the 'Palestinian Question'. He proposes that it is not in de-linking the Palestinian Question from the Jewish Question that a resolution can be found, but by linking them as one and the same question. All other proposed solutions, the author argues, are bound to fail.

Deeply researched and documented, this book analyzes the failure of the 'peace process' and proposes that a solution to the Palestinian Question will not be found unless settler-colonialism, racism, and anti-Semitism are abandoned as the ideological framework for a resolution. Individual essays further explore the struggle over Jewish identity in Israel and the struggle among Palestinians over what constitutes the Palestinian Question today.

Part I
Zionist ideology and Palestinian nationalism

1 The “post-colonial” colony*,¹
Time, space, and bodies in Palestine/Israel

“Colonial” and “post-colonial” are terms that are generally used to designate a historical trajectory of the beginning and end of the process of colonialism and the ushering of a new era. A territory and people who are colonized and inhabit a colonial order transform themselves and are transformed into inhabiting a post-colonial order, both spatially and temporally. The diachronic aspect of this process is guaranteed by the logical imperative of the process of colonialism itself: in order to decolonize oneself, one has to have been colonized first. Consequently, colonialism’s end, it is said, brings about post-colonialism.

Aside from ignoring the material relations of colonial and post-colonial rule and rendering these terms limited to the discursive realm, this diachronic presentation of the history of colonialism has ignored the potential if not actual synchronicity of these “two” eras in different contexts. Settler-colonialism, being a variant of colonialism, presents us with different spatialities and temporalities as regards a diachronic schema of “colonialism-then-post-colonialism.” The Rhodesian “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” in 1965, the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the American Revolution in 1776, or the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 are some examples where settler colonists declared themselves “independent” while maintaining colonial privileges for themselves over the conquered populations. The United States, Rhodesia, South Africa, and Israel, for example, instituted themselves as post-colonial states, territories and spaces, and instituted their political status as “independent” in order to render their present a post-colonial era. Yet, the conquered peoples of these territories continue (including the people of Zimbabwe following “independence”² and South Africa following the “end” of apartheid) to inhabit these spaces as colonial spaces, and to live in eras that are thoroughly colonial. Given such a situation, how can one determine the coloniality and/or post-coloniality of these spaces or times? The perspectival answers to such questions ignore the commonality of these particular spaces and histories. Whereas an Ashkenazi Jew after May 1948 would view her/himself as living in a post-colonial space and era, Palestinians would view themselves as still living in a colonized space and in a colonial era. Mizrahi Jews would have a more difficult task characterizing the nature of the space and time they inhabit due to their dual status of being (internally) colonized vis-à-vis the Ashkenazim with colonizer privileges vis-à-vis the Palestinians. The commonality of this space and time, then, at least in its abstract appellation, Palestine or Israel, renders its status a combinational one. The very naming of this space is, in fact, a process of historicizing it. To call it Palestine is to refer to it as a colonized space in both the pre-1948 and the post-1948 periods and to signal its continued appellation as such for a postcolonial period still to come. To call it Israel is to refer to it in the post-1948 period after the coming to fruition of the Zionist project forestalling any notion of a post-Israel Palestine. Naming, therefore, functions as locating in history, as temporalizing, and ultimately as asserting power as colonial domination or as anti-colonial resistance.

The synchronicity of the colonial and the post-colonial (as discursive and material relations) in Palestine/Israel as one era is not a situation that exists only in reference to the different national groups and their relationship to this common space and time, but also to the same national group. The Zionist movement was and presented its project of creating a Jewish State through colonization as part of the European colonizing world, while “socialist” variants of it were presenting the Zionist project as one assisting in combating imperialism and the world capitalist order. Later, the Zionist establishment itself which had initially presented its project as colonial was presenting itself as a movement of national liberation constituting its project as anticolonial in nature, albeit one established through colonization but not colonialism!³ The synchronic presentation of the Zionist project as colonial and anti-colonial coupled with the diachronic process of transforming its explicitly colonial heritage as anti-colonial show the palimpsestic nature of current Zionist historiography. Moreover, the dual status of Mizrahi Jews as colonizer and colonized renders the national space and time within and during which they live as colonial/postcolonial synchronically. What is then this space and time called Israel? What constitutes the difficulty in naming it in relation to colonialism? Can one determine the coloniality of Palestine/Israel without noting its “post-coloniality” for Ashkenazi Jews? Can one determine the post-coloniality of Palestine/Israel without noting its coloniality for Palestinians? Can one determine both or either without noting the simultaneous colonizer/colonized status of Mizrahi Jews? How can all these people inhabit a colonial/postcolonial space in a world that declares itself living in a post-colonial time?⁴ This chapter will chart the ideological history of the Zionist movement with an emphasis on its epistemological underpinnings, and how it was/is conceived by its agents in an attempt to begin to answer the above questions.

Colonial Zionism, Jewish and Gentile

Since its prehistory, Zionism, in both its Jewish and gentile versions, was incorporated within colonial thought. Non-Jewish Zionism was propagated for the first time within European colonial projects by Napoleon Bonaparte during his Egyptian campaign. By the closing years of the nineteenth century, French and British colonial officials were explicitly advancing the idea of European Jewish colonization of Palestine as part of the construction of a permanent imperial order in the region. Sharing a colonial project, the interests of European Jewish proponents of Zionism and its gentile advocates converged, leading to collaboration among them.⁵ The convergence of interests between Jewish and non-Jewish Zionists was a result of their shared views on anti-Semitism. Like European anti-Semites, Zionism viewed the presence of Jews among gentiles as the main cause for gentile anti-Semitism. Whereas Herzl had initially considered the option of converting Jews to Christianity as a solution to anti-Semitism, he, and his disciples after him, opted for a second solution, namely, the removal of Jews from gentile societies, that is, from Europe (a solution long advocated by anti-Semitic Christian Zionists). Removing Jews from gentile societies and “normalizing” them by creating a state for them would be, the Zionists argued, the only way to end anti Semitism. Thus, Zionism and anti-Semitism had a unified goal—the removal of Jews from Europe—which became the basis for their shared imperial vision.

In France, Ernest Laharanne, private secretary of Napoleon III, wrote in 1860 La Nouvelle Question d’Orient: Reconstruction de la Nationalité Juive. In his book, Laharanne emphasized the economic gains that could accrue to Europe if European Jews were to settle Palestine. He spoke highly of the Jewish people who were “to open new highways and byways to European civilization.”⁶ Such views of Jews as transmitters of European civilization to the uncivilized were also espoused by the father of Jewish Zionism, Theodor Herzl. In his Der Judenstaat (which contrary to common translations means The State of the Jews not The Jewish State—which in German is Der Jüdische Staat⁷) Herzl saw his proposed state as “the portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.”⁸ Laharanne’s work also influenced one of the earliest Jewish Zionists, Moses Hess, who used Laharanne’s book extensively while writing his Rome and Jerusalem in 1862. The collusion with European imperialism was so central to the Zionist project that Hess notes in his book to those unpersuaded in the practicality of Zionist aims: “Do you still doubt that France will help the Jews to found colonies which may extend from Suez to Jerusalem and from the banks of the Jordan to the coast of the Mediterranean?”⁹

On the British front, Lord Palmerston, who became Britain’s foreign minister in 1830, was an advocate of Jewish “restoration” to Palestine. The context of Palmerston’s Zionism was to provide support to a teetering Ottoman Empire against Muhammad Ali’s defiance of the Ottoman Sultan. For Palmerston, a Jewish presence in Palestine was a key element in supporting the Sultan against “any future evil designs of Mahomet Ali or his successor.”¹⁰ British Zionist designs, like their French counterparts, were to coincide later with the rise of Jewish Zionism. Meeting with the kings and leaders of European empires (from the Italian King to the German Kaiser, Czarist Russian ministers, the Ottoman Sultan et al.), Herzl finally settled on Britain as the “Archimidean point where the lever can be applied.”¹¹ In his opening address to the Fourth Zionist Congress, taking place in London in 1900, Herzl proclaimed: “From this place the Zionist movement will take a higher and higher flight . . . England the great, England the free, England with her eyes on the seven seas, will understand us.”¹² In his negotiations with the British, the quid pro quo that Herzl had offered Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Lansdowne, the foreign secretary, in return for British imperial sponsorship of Jewish colonization was that Jews will

wear England in their hearts if through such a deed it becomes the protective power of the Jewish people. At one stroke England will get ten million secret but loyal subjects active in all walks of life all over the world . . . As at a signal, all of them will place themselves at the service of the magnanimous nation that brings long-desired help. England will get ten million agents for her greatness and her influence. And the spread of this sort of thing usually spreads from the political to the economic. It is surely no exaggeration to say that a Jew would rather purchase and propagate the products of a country that has rendered the Jewish people a benefaction than those of a country in which the Jews are badly off . . . May the English government recognize what value there is in gaining the Jewish people [emphasis added].¹³

Chamberlain offered the Zionists El Arish in Sinai, which they readily accepted. The project, however, did not materialize in light of the impracticality of its settlement (due to the arid conditions in the area and the lack of water resources), a conclusion that was reached by Zionist envoys to the region. Chamberlain immediately located another possible territory for Jewish colonization, Uganda. He reassured Herzl that although “[i]t’s hot on the coast, . . . farther inland the climate becomes excellent, even for Europeans [emphasis added].”¹⁴ The offer was to be later rejected at the Sixth Zionist Congress in 1903 in favor of Palestine. The priority of Palestine, however, did not prevent Herzl from asserting that “our base must be in or near Palestine. Later we could also settle in Uganda, for we have masses of people ready to emigrate.”¹⁵ Whereas by 1903, Palestine was the primary candidate for the Jewish settler-colony, this was not always the case. Herzl himself spoke of Argentina in his Der Judenstaat as a possible location for the Jewish colony. He even pursued other African locations as late as 1903, namely Mozambique. He had met with the Portuguese ambassador, Count Paraty, requesting of him that he “inquire of his government whether it was willing to give us a Charter for an adequate territory.”¹⁶ In a follow-up letter to the ambassador, Herzl explained to him that “the preliminary question to submit to the Minister is the following: Is there a territory sufficiently habitable and cultivable by Europeans? [emphasis added].”¹⁷ Other solicited territories included Herzl’s request during a meeting with the Italian King for Tripolitania (Libya) as a territory for Jewish colonization. But as in the case of Uganda, Tripolitania was not intended to be the primary territory for the Jewish state, rather its function was “de déverser le trop plein de l’immigration juive en Tripolitaine sous les lois et institutions libérales de l’Italie.”¹⁸ The King responded with surprise due to Herzl’s earlier declaration that the Zionist movement did not want to send many Jews to Palestine before insuring that the country would be theirs. For “[o]ur project means investments and improvements, and I don’t want them undertaken as long as the country isn’t ours.”¹⁹ Seeing the parallel with Palestine, the King responded to the Tripolitania proposal by saying “Ma é ancora casa di altri.”²⁰ Herzl assured the King that “the partition of Turkey is bound to come, Your Majesty.”²¹

Herzl’s requested territorial concessions for his State of the Jews, it is important to stress, were always located in the colonized world. It was never suggested by Jewish or gentile Zionists that a location for a state for the Jews be in Europe— in the Pale of Settlement,²² for example. Such a proposal would never have been considered by the European empires, who would never have agreed to the displacement of gentile Europeans for the purposes of erecting a Jewish state.
Similarly, Stalin’s Birobidzhan project of an autonomous Jewish region was located in the far reaches of Asia, far, that is, from Soviet Europe. What is noteworthy, however, is that such a proposal was never entertained by the Zionist movement at any time in its history. This was not the result of an implicit understanding of the impracticality of a Zionist project that would require displacing white Christian people, but, rather, an understanding of European race politics that was quite explicit in the minds of Zionist leaders. In the context of his negotiations with Joseph Chamberlain (in which Herzl suggested Cyprus, El Arish, and the Sinai Peninsula as possible territories in the vicinity of Palestine), Herzl commented in his diaries that “[i]n fact, if I could show him a spot in the English possessions where there were no white people as yet, we could talk about that [emphasis added].”²³

Other Zionist thinkers who preceded and succeeded Herzl had a similar understanding of Zionist goals. Leo Pinsker, an assimilationist, who was converted to Zionism by the pogroms of 1881, wrote in his well-known 1882 book Auto-Emancipation that the “auto-emancipation of the Jewish people as a nation [would take place through] the foundation of a colonial community belonging to the Jews, which is some day to become our inalienable home, our fatherland.”²⁴ He understood that “of course, the establishment of a Jewish refuge cannot come about without the support of [European] governments.”²⁵ A similar sentiment was expressed by Herzl when in a conversation with Chamberlain, in which Chamberlain wondered about the survivability of the Jewish state in the ...