For decades, Israel's social-democratic Labor Party was the
country's predominant political force, consistently holding a
plurality of power against the right-wing "revisionist" and
religious parties. Yet contemporary Israeli society has more social
inequity than almost any other developed nation. Asks political
scientist Sternhell (Hebrew Univ.): How can this be? Easy, he
answers. From at least the 1920s and possibly earlier, the ruling
elites of the Jewish settlement in Palestine were far more
interested in increasing the Jewish population (about 75 percent of
the total population was still Arab in 1947, the year of the UN's
partition resolution) and in other forms of state-building than in
redistributive socioeconomic policies. Sternhell exhaustively
documents his thesis by quoting extensively from the writings and
speeches of Labor Zionism's long-time political and ideological
leaders, David Ben-Gurion and Bed Katznelson. As the latter put it
in 1925, "It is not the interests of class warfare that must
determine the needs and strategy of the movement, but those of
building up the land." Thus, the national workers' federation, the
Histadrut, took on a strongly centrist orientation, in which a
certain degree of anti-democratic tactics, as well as some
financial corruption, were tolerated. The government was thus also
uncompromising in staking Jewish claims to the land against those
of Arabs. In general, this account is so focused on political
ideology that it doesn't quite provide enough of a demographic,
geopolitical, and historical context when it comes to issues of
equity in Jewish-Arab relations or another matter he broaches,
Zionism's commitment to rescue, rather than to internal issues,
during the Holocaust. Still, for those fascinated by Zionist
ideology and Israel's early history, this is one of the most
provocative of the recent rash of "post-Zionist" studies that
debunk earlier works on Israel's founding fathers and mothers.
(Kirkus Reviews)
The well-known historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell
here advances a radically new interpretation of the founding of
modern Israel. The founders claimed that they intended to create
both a landed state for the Jewish people and a socialist society.
However, according to Sternhell, socialism served the leaders of
the influential labor movement more as a rhetorical resource for
the legitimation of the national project of establishing a Jewish
state than as a blueprint for a just society. In this
thought-provoking book, Sternhell demonstrates how socialist
principles were consistently subverted in practice by the
nationalist goals to which socialist Zionism was committed.
Sternhell explains how the avowedly socialist leaders of the
dominant labor party, Mapai, especially David Ben Gurion and Berl
Katznelson, never really believed in the prospects of realizing the
"dream" of a new society, even though many of their working-class
supporters were self-identified socialists. The founders of the
state understood, from the very beginning, that not only socialism
but also other universalistic ideologies like liberalism, were
incompatible with cultural, historical, and territorial
nationalism. Because nationalism took precedence over universal
values, argues Sternhell, Israel has not evolved a constitution or
a Bill of Rights, has not moved to separate state and religion, has
failed to develop a liberal concept of citizenship, and, until the
Oslo accords of 1993, did not recognize the rights of the
Palestinians to independence.
This is a controversial and timely book, which not only provides
useful historical background to Israel's ongoing struggle to
mobilize its citizenry to support a shared vision of nationhood,
but also raises a question of general significance: is a national
movement whose aim is a political and cultural revolution capable
of coexisting with the universal values of secularism,
individualism, and social justice? This bold critical reevaluation
will unsettle long-standing myths as it contributes to a fresh new
historiography of Zionism and Israel. At the same time, while it
examines the past, "The Founding Myths of Israel" reflects
profoundly on the future of the Jewish State.
General
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