Talking about My Promised Land

Transcription

1 Talking about My Promised Land Bettering or Battering? A recurring theme in Shavit s narrative is the difference, sometimes chasm, between intentions, actions, and results. What would you say were Shavit s intentions in writing this book? Did he succeed? The Jewish community throughout the world tends to be suspicious of those who criticize Israel and Zionism. This may be because criticism can serve two opposing intentions. Sometimes criticism is a call for destruction, and sometimes criticism is a call for improvement and reconstruction. How would you classify My Promised Land - reconstructive? destructive? Do you believe Shavit s intentions were towards construction or destruction? This book received considerable support from the Natan Fund, a Jewish organization that aims to catalyze new conversations about Jewish life. The book has already catalyzed conversations about Jewish life. Has it catalyzed new conversations for you? Do you think the Natan Fund was wise in supporting My Promised Land? 1

2 Triumphs and Tragedy The sub-title of the book is The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. Are you left feeling that the book dealt well with both triumph and tragedy? Did you feel that one outweighed the other? Do you feel the balance or imbalance between triumph and tragedy in the book was significant? Most literary definitions of the Tragedy genre would insist on the common element of inevitability. A tragic understanding of an event would assume that catastrophe was unavoidable. Does My Promised Land insist upon the inevitability of catastrophe? Do you find this acceptable? 2

3 Zionism appears throughout the book in many guises. Sometimes Zionism is like a character with whims and will, sometimes faceless sometimes emotional. My Promised Land presents Zionism as something dynamic, ever-changing, but with something constant at its heart. We at Makom would say that the heart of Zionism is summed up in the penultimate line of Israel s national anthem: To be a free (Jewish) People in our land. This line breaks down into four key values that are both simple and complex: To be to survive, and also to be in the sense of to relax, just to be Free free to take responsibility, free to grant and restrict freedoms, free to create (Jewish) People connected to Jews globally, to Jewish civilization and culture In Our Land the home of this collective enterprise is the Holy Land Given this understanding of Zionism s heart, how would you say Shavit leaves you feeling about the Zionist enterprise? 3

4 To be To what extent has Zionism been successful in ensuring the survival of the Jewish People? To what extent has Zionism been successful in enabling the Jewish People to just be? How are you left feeling about Israel s capability to enable the Jewish People to continue To be? Free Has Zionism empowered the Jewish People to be able to make their own decisions, and decide their own fate? To what extent has Zionism been successful in enabling Jewish creativity? How are you left feeling about Israel s capability to enable the Jewish People to continue to be free? 4

5 (Jewish) People To what extent has Zionism been successful in holding the Jewish People together? To what extent would you say Zionism has contributed to the language, culture, and values of the Jewish People? How are you left feeling about Israel s ongoing connection to Jewish people, civilization, and values? In Our Land To what extent do you think that Zionism has succeeded in gathering Jews from around the world into a viable homeland? How do you feel about the way in which Zionism negotiated the claims of another people to the same land? 5

6 Throughout the world there is a marked reticence among young Jews to classify themselves as Zionists or to openly identify with the word Zionism. Ari Shavit has no such reticence. In what way would you say Shavit is a Zionist? How would you compare your relationship to Zionism with Shavit s? Israel vs Diaspora From humble beginnings, Israeli Jews now make up (or will very soon make up) the majority of Jews in the world. This is not only due to Israeli birth-rates, but also due to dropping Jewish birth-rates in the Diaspora. The only Diaspora birth-rates that are rising, are among orthodox and ultra-orthodox. Shavit asserts that Israel is the only chance for the long-term survival of non-orthodox Jewry.Before jumping off into discussions of the viability of Diaspora Jewry, let s look at Shavit s positive assertion: Have you ever seen Israel as the long-term solution to the continuity of non-religious Jewry? Do you find Shavit s assertion challenging? Are you able to easily dismiss it? 6

7 So... what do you think? Are you pleased to have read the book? Are there people you particularly hope will read this book? Are there people you particularly hope will not read this book? What do you think about the fact that this book has not yet been published in Hebrew? 7

8 Facilitator s guide 8

9 What do you need? You need to have read the book yourself You need for everyone attending the discussion to have read the book (or up to the chapter you are discussing, in the 9-part series) no short cuts! You need to have worked through the guide, making decisions for yourself. You are welcome to print out any of the materials you wish. You can also run the entire session carbon-free. You need a quiet, well-lit room with comfortable seating for the discussion itself. Set up a flip-chart or white board. 9

10 What do we recommend? Make sure everyone introduces themselves if it is a new group. Then throw out a warmup question that everyone in the group should answer, before digging into the written questions. We find that the following opener is generative: What is your exclamation mark and your question mark after reading the book? ie what surprised them, and what question do they have? Have everyone in the group answer this briefly. Whether discussing the whole book or a part of it, we recommend building a group recap on the white board. Either chapter by chapter, or section by section, have everyone contribute to a brief summary of the book s main topics. This way everyone will be reminded of what they read, and will feel that they are building a shared picture. Don t take more than 15 minutes for this. Begin the conversation using the questions in the Structured approach, or by going for the Free-range approach. 10

11 Structured approach: The advantages of the structured approach is that it enables you to cover wide aspects of the book, and not get stuck into narrow issues into which a free ranging conversation may flow. The structured questions are also there to allow the conversation to take place in the context Shavit intends: what is the meaning and future of Israel to the Jewish People? Follow the questions. But don t forget that you are aiming to build a flowing conversation, and not a staccato question/answer session. So feel free to alter the order of the questions, to dwell more on some than others, skip over some, and add your own. Free-range conversation approach: Depending on the nature of the group and your familiarity with them, you might ask everyone to print out two quotations from the book before they arrive: One quotation that they wholeheartedly agreed with, and one with which they strongly differed. Have them post them up on the walls of the room. Give time for everyone to look at each other s choices. An entire session could be given over to giving everyone space to explain their choices. This could be a fascinating and rich exploration of people s responses to the book, and would allow them to bring their own burning issues to the table. We would recommend, however, adding in one additional dimension to this free-ranging, individual-led conversation. We recommend introducing these four values of Zionism to the group: 11

12 Zionism appears throughout the book in many guises. Sometimes Zionism is like a character with whims and will, sometimes faceless sometimes emotional. My Promised Land presents Zionism as something dynamic, ever-changing, but with something constant at its heart. We at Makom would say that the heart of Zionism is summed up in the penultimate line of Israel s national anthem: To be a free (Jewish) People in our land. This line breaks down into four key values that are both simple and complex: To be to survive, and also to be in the sense of to relax, just to be Free free to take responsibility, free to grant and restrict freedoms, free to create (Jewish) People connected to Jews globally, to Jewish civilization and culture In Our Land the home of this collective enterprise is the Holy Land 12

13 Place four signs up around the walls: To Be, Free, Jewish People, and In Our Land. Either at the end of the entire discussion, or after each person has talked about their chosen quotations, ask everyone to post each quotation under the appropriate Zionist value. At the end of the session the facilitator may draw attention to the various quotations under the four different headings. They will act as a powerful reminder of the values that underlie the Zionist enterprise, and also as a rich embodiment of how argument and multi-vocality enlivens its future. For a more expansive explanation of the four values of Zionism (what we call The Hatikvah Vision), you are invited to read this, and/or to watch this No matter which approach you use, the book is liable to arouse sharp discussion and possible disagreement. Don t freak out it would be amazing if a group of Jews were to read this book and not disagree about it passionately. We would suggest though: Try to insist that comments and opinions are referred back the book itself where did you pick that up in the book? was that what Shavit actually wrote? Finally, feel free to read our Provocative Facilitation guide, and contact us for suggestions: makom@jafi.com 13

14 The conversation units We have created for you eight individual discussion units based on particular chapters of the book. You can work with these units in a nine-part series of meetings that culminate in the Whole Book Discussion, or you can work with the units as individual stand-alone modules. For each discussion you will need to have read the book yourself for everyone attending the discussion to have read the particular chapter under discussion AND Chapter One At First Sight (this first chapter offers crucial context) no short cuts! to have worked through the guide, making decisions for yourself. to print out any of the materials you wish. You can also run the entire session carbon-free. a quiet, well-lit room with comfortable seating for the discussion itself. a flip-chart or white board. 14

15 What do we recommend? Make sure everyone introduces themselves if it is a new group. Then throw out a warm-up question that everyone in the group should answer, before digging into the written questions. We find that the following opener is generative: What is your exclamation mark and your question mark after reading the two chapters? ie what surprised them, and what question do they have? Have everyone in the group answer this briefly. Build a group re-cap on the white board. Have everyone contribute to a brief summary of the chapter s main topics. This way everyone will be reminded of what they read, and will feel that they are building a shared picture. Don t take more than 10 minutes for this. Follow the questions. But don t forget that you are aiming to build a flowing conversation, and not a staccato question/answer session. So feel free to alter the order of the questions, to dwell more on some than others, skip over some, and add your own. By way of summary, introducing these four values of Zionism to the group: 15

16 Zionism appears throughout the book in many guises. Sometimes Zionism is like a character with whims and will, sometimes faceless sometimes emotional. My Promised Land presents Zionism as something dynamic, ever-changing, but with something constant at its heart. We at Makom would say that the heart of Zionism is summed up in the penultimate line of Israel s national anthem: To be a free (Jewish) People in our land. This line breaks down into four key values that are both simple and complex: To be to survive, and also to be in the sense of to relax, just to be Free free to take responsibility, free to grant and restrict freedoms, free to create (Jewish) People connected to Jews globally, to Jewish civilization and culture In Our Land the home of this collective enterprise is the Holy Land Place four signs up around the walls: To Be, Free, Jewish People, and In Our Land. Have everyone write out (or print out beforehand) one quotation from the chapter that they wholeheartedly agreed with, and one with which they strongly differed. Ask everyone to post each quotation under the appropriate Zionist value. Give time for everyone to look at each other s choices. 16

17 At the end of the session the facilitator may draw attention to the various quotations under the four different headings. They will act as a powerful reminder of the values that underlie the Zionist enterprise, and also as a rich embodiment of how much argument and multi-vocality enlivens its future. For a more expansive explanation of the four values of Zionism (what we call The Hatikvah Vision), you are invited to read this, and/or to watch this The book is liable to arouse sharp discussion and possible disagreement. Don t freak out it would be amazing if a group of Jews were to read this book and not disagree about it passionately. We would suggest though: Try to insist that comments and opinions are referred back the book itself where did you pick that up in the book? was that what Shavit actually wrote? Finally, feel free to read our Provocative Facilitation guide, and contact us for suggestions: makom@jafi.org 17

18 Provocative Facilitation Here are some of what we may call the principles of provocative facilitation, in no particular order: Dialogue is not consensus Comfort must be hard-won, not worshipped Learning means going to visit Push for authentic speech We live with questions that can t be answered 18

19 Dialogue is not consensus In order for us to learn and to grow, we need to meet others. The deeper the nature of these meetings, the greater the potential for us to grow. In recent times, the term dialogue and its strange invented verb, to dialogue, has come to signify coming together. This isn t entirely mistaken, but the coming together that is imagined always seems to be that of long-lost lovers running towards each other for the mythological embrace at the end of the movie, rather than the wary approach of two boxers from their opposite corners. It s the latter image we should pay more attention to, since the word dialogue comes from the idea of there being different ideas in conversation, not one. Dialogue can involve conflict. This is fine, since dialogue is not consensus. When we are wishing to learn and to grow, dialogue is far more valuable than consensus. (It is true though, that dialogue requires focused and active listening. But like dialogue, listening doesn t have to mean agreeing!) Comfort must be hard-won, not worshipped Sometimes we value comfort over truth. This is totally understandable. Problems only arise when we confuse one for the other. As Al Gore pointed out, some truths are inconvenient. Sometimes, when a group is in disagreement, it feels uncomfortable. In order to escape the discomfort, we rush to skip around the disagreements and forge a shell of comfort. All facilitators will appreciate their own threshold, and we would be the last to suggest that participants entire experience of this program should be uncomfortable. We would simply suggest that wherever your threshold is, at whichever point you would choose to jump for comfort out of conflict, just try to raise that threshold a little higher, postpone that jump a little longer. Don t make the desire for comfort, into the enemy of honest disagreement in the search for truth. 19

20 Learning means going to visit others opinions Deep engagement with Israel is likely to bring us into contact with opinions that are in conflict with our own. We are under no obligation to change our opinions in order to reach consensus. But we should view ourselves as committed to imagining even for a second how the world might look and feel if we did hold these opposing opinions. This has sometimes been described as going to visit. Feeling confident that you can come home afterwards allows one to safely visit other views. This is different from assessing others opinions. We tend to assess others ideas by working out why not. The visiting approach suggests asking why yes. The chances are that we ll emerge from the process still in disagreement, but we ll have reached disagreement through generosity. 20

21 Push for authentic speech A common problem with talking about Israel-related issues in the Jewish community is that the discussions tend to be monopolized by those who see themselves as experts. The enemy here is not the amount of knowledge these people have in comparison to others. The problem is that when we talk about something we know a lot about, we tend to say the same old thing we always say. And when we say the same old thing, it means that we are not even listening to ourselves so no surprise it s tough for others to listen, too! Anna Deveare Smith talked about authentic speech the kind of talking that people do when they find themselves expressing something they have never expressed before, or expressing something in a way they have never done before. As facilitator we need to push participants in this direction. One way of helping this happen is by firmly (but charmingly!) making sure the group attends to the programmed questions, and don t veer off into political generalizations. The more focused the discussion emerges from the art and its issues, then everyone is an equal expert, and the chances for authentic speech are increased. We live with questions that can t be answered The most interesting questions in life are the ones that either have no answer, or have several conflicting answers. Don t feel that every discussion of every question must lead to an agreed answer. Sometimes the most important thing we can do with some questions is to learn to live with them. In conclusion, we know that the word facilitator comes from the Latin meaning easy. That doesn t mean a facilitator has to make everyone s life easy, and it certainly doesn t mean that a facilitator s job is easy! The adventure of our job is often to make it easier for participants to work through that which is difficult. 21

22 Conversation One Chapter Two: Into the Valley, 1921 This chapter focuses specifically on the Harod valley, (the south eastern part of the Yizrael valley), populated by a few poor Arab villages before Zionism arrived there in the Autumn of For centuries the valley had been sparsely populated and lightly farmed. A place of brackish water and disease. Shavit describes the new situation of Eastern European Jews and of Zionism at the end of the First World War. The crisis of the former had become much more acute and the forces awakening in the Zionist movement had responded with more radical and widespread solutions, including the idea of large scale settlement in the Yizrael (Jezreel) valley, a valley that resonated with Biblical memory. He describes the secular and socialist fervor of the first pioneers of the new kibbutz Ein Harod and accompanies companies the growth of the kibbutz through its early years and the growth of this radical new pioneering force throughout the valley. The chalutzim were a collective force that came to transform objective reality and to seize control, not just of their own fortunes, but of the fate of the Jewish People as a whole. This was a large scale immigration of the new type of Jew, an ideologically driven Jew who revolted against traditional Judaism and against Diaspora Jewish history. The Jews of the Exile were seen as passive, weak, cerebral and fate accepting. These Zionist valley Jews were determined to create a new active, strong model of a Jew, reclaiming physicality and the redemptive act of physical labor in the Land of Israel. By conquering the valley through their physical labor, they sought to transform themselves and to conquer the exilic character they had inherited from their parents and which they now rejected. 22

23 Shavit concentrates on the secular Rebbe of the valley, Yitzchak Tabenkin, a passionate rebel and anarchist who joined Ein Harod three months after its foundation, at the advanced ago of 34 (most of the settlers were in their late teens or early twenties). Tabenkin, an advocate of an aggressive Zionist activism, symbolizes the determination to end the Exile and to save the Jewish People through a Zionism very different from that of both Herzl and Shavit s great-grandfather, Herbert Bentwich. As the Zionism of Ein Harod succeeds in transforming the objective reality, some of the Arab inhabitants of the valley move away but others stay and view the new situation with intense resentment even as their own economic fortunes rise with the valley s development. They themselves are becoming unwilling participants in a movement that they are powerless to stop. Jewish history is being transformed and the Arabs are relegated to being onlookers in a historical process that they can neither control nor understand. 23

24 Quotations and Questions Herzl s Zionism of 1903 found the use of force unacceptable. But seventeen years later, Zionism was no longer so fastidious. The Great War and the Great Revolution had hardened hearts. Why do you think Shavit starts his journey in the valley? What qualities of the chalutzim and of early Zionism is he trying to introduce us to? To what extent do they impress you? 24

25 The move is not only brilliant, it is brave. The young Labor Brigade comrades settling in the Valley of Harod do not ask themselves how the eighty thousand Jews living in Palestine in 1921 will deal with the seven hundred thousand Arabs. They do not ask themselves how a tiny avant-garde of ten thousand Palestine socialists will lead the fifteen million of the Jewish Diaspora on an audacious historical adventure. Like Herbert Bentwich, the seventy-four are blessed and cursed with convenient blindness. They see the Arabs but they don t. They see the marshes but they ignore them. They know that historic circumstances are unfavorable but they believe they will overcome them. Like Herbert Bentwich, the seventy-four are blessed and cursed with convenient blindness. In what way are they blind in his opinion? With his triple paradox - a convenient blindness that is both blessed and cursed, Shavit begins his book-long search for what we may call the phraseology of complexity. Does this embracing of complexity help you understand Israel more, or less? Have you ever come across activists for any cause that strike you as blessed and cursed with a blindness? Has their blindness led them to be more or less effective as activists? 25

26 The seventy-four twenty-year-olds launching Ein Harod rebel against the daunting Jewish past of persecution and wandering. They rebel against the moldering Jewish past of a people living an unproductive life, at the mercy of others. They rebel against Christian Europe. They rebel against the capitalist world order. They rebel against Palestine s marshes and boulders. They rebel against Palestine s indigenous population. The pioneers rebel against all forces that are jeopardizing Jewish existence in the twentieth century as they pitch their tents by the spring of Harod. Have you ever imagined Zionism and Zionists in terms of rebellion? As a youth-led passionate rebellion, they were shooting in many different directions. Shavit names six. In how many of these rebellions would you say they were successful? 26

27 Step after step, they sow wheat and barley, and when they return to the encampment at the end of the day, everyone gathers around them in glee. After eighteen hundred years, the Jews have returned to sow the valley. In the communal dining hall, they sing joyfully. They dance through the night, into the light of dawn. Do you identify with the desire to move from object to subject? From passive to active? From victim to sovereign? Do you see sovereign as the natural opposite to victim? In the terms of these opposites, did they succeed in this rebellion of transformation? 27

28 As Jewish Europe has no more hope, Jewish youth is all there is... There is hardly any time left. In only twenty years, European Jewry will be wiped out. That s why the Ein Harod imperative is absolute. There is no compassion in this just-born kibbutz. There is no indulgence, no tolerance, no self-pity. There is no place for individual rights and individual needs and individual wants. Every single person is on trial. And although remote and desolate, this valley will witness the events that determine whether the Jews can establish a new secular civilization in their ancient homeland. Here it will be revealed whether the ambitious avant-garde is indeed leading its impoverished people to a promised land and a new horizon, or whether this encampment is just another hopeless bridgehead with no masses and no reserves to reinforce it, a bridgehead to yet another valley of death. What valley of death is Shavit referring to? We are used to a moral discourse that places individual rights as higher than all other. What is your response to the way in which Shavit describes them as somehow lesser? 28

29 I wonder at the incredible feat of Ein Harod. I think of the incredible resilience of the naked as they faced a naked fate in a naked land. I think of the astonishing determination of the orphans to make a motherland for themselves come hell or high water. I think of that great fire in the belly, a fire without which the valley could not have been cultivated, the land could not have been conquered, the State of the Jews could not have been founded. But I know that the fire will blaze out of control. It will burn the valley s Palestinians and it will consume itself, too. Its smoldering remains will eventually turn Ein Harod s exclamation point into a question mark. What question mark is Shavit referring to? What will Ein Harod later ask, that once was a statement? Shavit is in awe of these young leaders. Can you imagine people you know make similar sacrifices for a cause they believe in? (Remember there were no air conditioners in those days!) Why do you think Shavit focuses in on the Jascha Heifetz concert (pictured above) at the end of the chapter? What does it symbolize for him? Is this semi-royal visit of a Diasporan artist to the hardy Israeli pioneers a symbol of Diaspora-Israel relations to this day? Should it be? 29

30 Additional Sources Here are three additional sources that you might want to use in your discussion. The first, by the very important Jewish and Zionist thinker, Ahad Ha am ( ), writing in 1890, is a very early call for Chalutzim to rise and take responsibility for the future of the Jewish People. This was his call for an order of what he called Cohanim Priests a new (for him, secular) group devoted to the needs of the People. Every new idea, whether religious, moral or social, will not arise, will not exist, without a group of Cohanim [priests] who will devote their lives to it, and will serve it with all their heart and all their soul, who will always be on their guard, to preserve it from all harm, and who, in every place of danger will always be the first to devote their souls to it. The new idea is a way along which no man has ever passed, and every such way is in constant danger. We can neither demand from the masses, who long for life, that they pave the way by struggle for the idea, and nor can we rely on them. This can only be done by the Cohanim, who alone will have the strength and the moral courage demanded for this - and the people will come afterwards, the way having been prepared for them. Achad Ha'am,

31 The second source is a poetic description of the Chalutz from Moshe Bassok ( ), an Eastern European poet and writer who became a leader of the organization Hechalutz while he was still in Europe and came on Aliyah in 1936, joining one of the new kibbutzim. It portrays the mythical and tans-historical nature of the Chalutz in the eyes of a central figure in the movement. From the midst of the storm of a crumbling world, and a world in the making, there came to the astonished eyes of the child, the name of strength and courage - the Chalutz. In the distance, there still echoes the sounds of distant battles, and above his head there is the flowering of the great spring, and his soul is inflamed by the sound of a still unknown voice - the Chalutz. From nearby comes the name, from home, from the mouth of his older brother. The Chalutz. And it comes to him, like a sapling coming to its piece of earth, embedded firmly in the written tradition. The Chalutz goes before the camp. He has come from the distant and barren desert, from those forty years of wandering of the people, in the wilderness of its life between the slavery of the soul, and the yearning for redemption; as a son and a brother of that legendary race of wanderers, he has come to redeem himself from all degradation, a race who conquers both themselves and their land by storm. Moshe Bassok 31

32 The third piece is from A.D. Gordon, ( ), the major thinker of the new Chalutzic labour movement and one of the deepest and most challenging thinkers of the 20th century. As opposed to Tabenkin, who in Shavit s description, cared only for the collective and for whom the individual was basically expendable (in true Russian socialist/communist fashion), for Gordon there was no contradiction between the individual and the nation. Both would grow together and the individual at his or her peak, would merge mystically with the soul of the collective. Man, in his striving to live according to the demands of his humanity, to that image of God which is in him, must not cease to live his own life in order to live for others, but the opposite. He needs to let his essence, his individuality deepen and expand into the infinity of the world; until he becomes as one with the universe, until his life unites with the lives of all that lives, his song with the song of all that sings, and until the pain of all that suffers pain, the evil of all that behaves on an evil fashion, and the ugliness of all that is ugly, become his pain, (תיקון) correction. evil, and ugliness that demand from him their And at this point the yearning to live for others, for the people for humanity, or for God will be nothing other than the yearning to live more, to live one s real and inner self, more fully and completely, to live within oneself, the lives of others,the lives of all creation. A.D. Gordon,

33 If you are interested in this chapter you might want to have a look at

34 Second Conversation Chapter Four: Masada, Masada in 1942 lies at the center of the chapter symbolically but Shavit s narrative begins in the violent years of the Arab revolt of 1936 to These three years of almost unrelenting terror put Jew clearly against Arab and made it impossible for the Jews to maintain any kind of blindness to the Arab question that so many had exhibited up till then. In Shavit s description, the 1936 campaign brought about a toughening of the Jewish psyche, a final realization that non-violent confrontation would be impossible. At the same time, Jews in Palestine became aware of the developments in Europe. As the Nazi armies rolled through North Africa, many of the leaders began to fear a full scale attack on the Jews of Palestine. A consciousness begins to develop that there is a need for the new harder Jews of the country to prepare for war both against the Arabs and the Nazi forces. In that climate, and largely because of the work of one man, Shmaryahu Gutman, Masada developed as a rallying point and a symbol of preparedness for the tough times ahead. Gutman trained groups of youth movement leaders to scale the mountain and to learn Masada s story of the last Jewish rebels who had chosen suicide over slavery as a last defiant act thousands of years previously. These youngsters, carrying out dramatic night time ceremonies in which they swore loyalty to the mountain and to their fellow Jews, would be the guardians of the nation, toughened on the events of the 30 s and the early 40 s. It was their task to forge themselves into the human weapon that would ensure that Masada would never fall again.

35 Quotations and Questions The Jewish national liberation movement had to acknowledge that it was facing an Arab liberation movement that wished to disgorge the Jews from the shores they had settled on. How would you define a National Liberation Movement? From what are the two movements here aiming to liberate themselves from? Faced with an Arab threat and a Nazi threat, it is clear that without the use of force, Zionism will not prevail. It will go down in history as yet another movement of false messianism. That is why the youth of Israel must be prepared. Only the sons and daughters of Zion can save Zionism from utter destruction. Do you believe there are situations in which force is necessary? Does the use of force strike you as a Jewish quality? 35

36 Gutman is not naive. Having grown up beside the malaria-infested marshes near the Valley of Harod, he has always known that Zionism is a struggle. Living under the hateful gaze of the valley s Arabs, he has always known that at its core Zionism embodies conflict. Do you agree with Gutman s assertion of Zionism s core? The Zionism put forward in Shavit s portrait of Gutman is of an oppositional movement, which seems to be more engaged in survival rather than construction. To what extent does this chime with your understanding of Zionism? The more I learn about them, the more distant they seem to me. In an era of criticism and cynicism and selfawareness I find it difficult to truly comprehend the cadets state of mind as they prepare to climb Masada for the very first time. Yet I realize that this paradox is exactly the essence of the Zionist Masada...What Gutman is doing in bringing this young, idealistic group to this desert ruin is using the Hebrew past to give depth to the Hebrew present and enable it to face the Hebrew future. In order to achieve a concrete, realistic, and national goal, Gutman imbues the fortress with a man-made historically based mysticism. Do you share Shavit s difficulty in understanding the cadets state of mind? Have you ever found yourself swept up by a charismatic leader, or an inspiring experience? 36

37 It is not Ben Yair who defined Masada, it is Gutman. What matters is not the event that did or did not take place on the fringe of history in 73, but the event that does take place in For the Masada ethos put forth by Gutman would define the Zionism of the 1940s and would decide the fate of 1948 and would shape the young state of Israel. Have you ever visited Masada? If so, what narrative did the tour guide share with you? Knowing as you do now, that the ancient Masada narrative was promoted with a particular agenda in mind, has your perspective on Masada changed? 37

38 Additional Sources Here are three additional sources that you might want to incorporate into the discussion. The first is from the famous speech of Elazar Ben Yair, the leader of the Zealots of Masada as he calls on the Jews to commit collective suicide rather than fall in slavery to the Romans. It is this speech, taken from the Josephus account of the last episodes of the Jewish war against the Romans after the fall of the second Temple, that became a mythical element in the Zionist self-perception from the mid-1920 s onward. Brave and loyal followers! Long ago we resolved to serve neither the Romans nor anyone other than God... The time has now come that bids us prove our determination by our deeds. At such a time we must not disgrace ourselves. Hitherto we have never submitted to slavery... We must not choose slavery now... I think it is God who has given us this privilege, that we can die nobly and as free men... In our case it is evident that daybreak will end our resistance, but we are free to choose an honorable death with our loved ones. This our enemies cannot prevent, however earnestly they may pray to take us alive; nor can we defeat them in battle. Our possessions and the whole fortress go up in flames. It will be a bitter blow to the Roman, that I know, to find our persons beyond their reach and nothing left for them to loot. One thing only let us spare--our store of food: it will bear witness when we are dead to the fact that we perished, not through want but because...we chose death rather than slavery... Speech of Elazar ben Yair from Josephus Flavius c 70c.e. 38

39 The second source is taken from the poem Masada written by the Ukrainian born Jewish poet, Yitzhak Lamdan ( ), who had come on Aliyah at the beginning of the 1920 s and who wrote his epic poem in 1927, inspired by the terrible Ukrainian pogroms after the First World War. In the poem, Lamdan called for Jewish victims from all over the world to converge on Masada for the last stand of the Jews. The poem began the rise of Masada to its mythic place in the Zionist story. On Ukrainian paths, dotted with graves, and swollen with pain, My sad-eyed, pure-hearted brother fell dead, to be buried in a heathen grave. Only father remained fast to the doorpost wallowing in the ashes of destruction, And over the profaned name of God, he tearfully murmured a prayer. Whilst I, still fastening my crumbling soul with the last girders of courage, Fled, at midnight to the exile ship, to ascend to Masada. I was told The final banner of rebellion had been unfurled there and demands from Heaven and Earth, God and Man: Payments. Stubborn nails grind the gospel of comfort on tablets of rock; Against the hostile Fate of generations, an antagonistic breast is bared with a roar: Enough! You or I! Here will the battle decide the final judgement! Yitzhak Lamdan 1927 from Isaac Lamdan: A Study in Twentieth Century Hebrew Poetry by L. Yudkin [Cornell University Press 1971] 39

40 The third piece is a description of a tiyul (trek, hike) to Masada by Meron Benvenisti, Israeli writer and intellectual who describes himself as being, in his youth, one of the High Priests of the cult of Masada in the 1950 s. It describes briefly the extreme ritual that surrounded the hikes to the mountain fortress. The tiyul was not just an outing. It was the high ceremony of the cult of homeland. The preparations took weeks, and involved not only logistics such as transportation and food, but rehearsals of performing troupes and preparations for evening lectures. Sometimes the logistics were quite esoteric. Before one tiyul in the early 50s, we found we would not be able to maintain radio contact, so we got hold of a half-dozen pigeons, carried them on our backs, and released one each evening at sunset with a message attached to its leg. The tiyul itself was a test of endurance. We walked for days in temperatures that sometimes reached 42 degrees centigrade (108 degrees Fahrenheit). Water rationing was a particularly controversial feature of our tiyulim. In actual fact, children got sunstroke and there were even deaths from dehydration One day, on the shores of the Dead Sea, a group leader reported to me that a water container had been stolen from his group that night. I demanded that the culprit identify him or herself, and when nobody owned up, I told the entire group, 800 strong, to empty out its water supplies, leaving only one canteen per 30 people for emergencies. That day we walked 12 hours to Ein Gedi without drinking a single drop of water. Meron Benvenisti 1986 from Conflicts and Contradictions [Villard publishers] 40

41 If you are interested in this chapter you might want to have a look at

42 42 Third Conversation Chapter Five: Lydda 1948 Precis Lydda 1948 takes us to another valley, the Lydda valley in the centre of the country and tells the story of the Zionist development of the valley from the first initiatives before the First World War through to the deportation of the inhabitants of Arab Lydda in the course of the 1948 war. The valley yields one great success, the marvelous Ben Shemen youth village founded in the mid-20 s. Under the firm hand of its pioneer visionary founder, Dr. Siegfried Lehmann, this became a model of a successful Zionist community in the most enlightened sense of the term, catering to its own residents and offering medical and human services to the Arabs of Lydda and the surrounding villages. Yet as the youth village develops in size and scope preserving its original humane Zionist vision, the world around it is changing. Since the Arab revolt of the late 1930 s, both Arab and Jew have grown more openly confrontational and it has become increasingly clear to many on the Zionist side, that the only way towards the needed Jewish state will be armed struggle between Jews and Arabs. Zionist groups are training for armed confrontation believing that the moment for a final reckoning will soon occur. Lehmann s brand of Zionism is about to vanish. When the struggle breaks out in December 1947 after the United Nations decision to divide the country into two states, it is raw and brutal. For Shavit, the peak of the whole story comes with the Jewish conquest of Lydda and the subsequent expulsion of its 35,000 Arab inhabitants (including refugees from other towns and villages). For Shavit, this raises questions about the validity of the whole Zionist enterprise. He struggles with living as a Zionist Israeli in the full knowledge of what happened in Lydda.

43 Quotations and Questions Lehmann wanted Zionism to suggest a cure both for the modern Jewish people and for modern man; he wanted it to fulfill an urgent national task in a manner that would benefit all of humanity. He wanted Zionism to be a settlement movement that was not tainted by colonialism, a national movement that was not scarred by chauvinism, a progressive movement that was not distorted by urban alienation. He believed that Zionism must not establish a closed-off, condescending colony in Palestine that ignored its surroundings and native neighbors; it must not be an Occidental frontier fortress commanding the Orient. On the contrary, Lehmann believed that Zionism must plant the Jews in their ancient homeland in an organic fashion. It must respect the Orient and become a bridge between East and West. We might say that Lehmann s vision is utopian. Does striving for utopia strike you as admirable, pointless, important? Do you imagine you would have argued with Lehmann, or supported him, or joined him? 43

44 Lydda suspected nothing. Lydda did not imagine what was about to happen. For forty-four years, it watched Zionism enter the valley They did not see that while Dr. Lehmann preached peace, others taught war. While Dr. Lehmann took his students to the neighboring Palestinian villages, Shmaryahu Gutman took them to Masada. While the youth village taught humanism and brotherhood, the pine forest behind it hosted military courses training Ben Shemen s youth to throw grenades, assemble submachine guns, and fire antitank PIAT shells. The people of Lydda did not see that the Zionism that came into the valley to give hope to a nation of orphans has become a movement of cruel resolve, determined to take the land by force. What does Shavit mean by cruel resolve? What does the phrase do to you? Given the end result, would you say that Lehmann s utopian vision failed? If so, what if any - was its flaw? 44

45 Lydda is our black box If Zionism was to be, Lydda could not be. If Lydda was to be, Zionism could not be. In retrospect it s all too clear. When Herbert Bentwich saw Lydda from the white tower of Ramleh in April 1897, he should have seen that if a Jewish state was to exist in Palestine, an Arab Lydda could not exist at its center. He should have known that Lydda was an obstacle blocking the road to the Jewish state and that one day Zionism would have to remove it. But Herbert Bentwich did not see, and Zionism chose not to know. In retrospect it s all too clear. Do you agree? Is it clear? Here Shavit seems to refer to Zionism as a living entity, with feelings, plans, and capabilities. Is this how you see Zionism? We will all be held accountable for this era. We shall face judgment. And I fear that justice will not be on our side. There is an impression that the quick transition to a state, and to a state of Hebrew power, drove people mad. Otherwise it is impossible to explain the behavior, the state of mind, the actions of the Hebrew youth, especially the elite youth. The moral code of the nation, forged during thousands of years of weakness, is rapidly degenerating, deteriorating, disintegrating. Do you think it is important that Shavit brings up Lydda in this book? Why do you imagine the writer talks of Hebrew power, Hebrew youth. Why not Jewish? 45

46 I see that the choice is stark: either reject Zionism because of Lydda, or accept Zionism along with Lydda One thing is clear to me: the brigade commander and the military governor were right to get angry at the bleedingheart Israeli liberals of later years who condemn what they did in Lydda but enjoy the fruits of their deed. I condemn Bulldozer. I reject the sniper. But I will not damn the brigade commander and the military governor and the training group boys. On the contrary. If need be, I ll stand by the damned. Because I know that if it wasn t for them, the State of Israel would not have been born. If it wasn t for them, I would not have been born. They did the dirty, filthy work that enables my people, myself, my daughter, and my sons to live. What does Shavit mean by cruel resolve? Shavit seems to contrast the fight for survival, with the quest for justice. He suggests that treating the Arabs of Lydda justly would have led to the end of the Israel. Is this an opposition - survival vs justice - between two morally equal values, or do you think one should take precedence over the other? There are those who reject Shavit s account of Lydda, and suspect him to be hostile to the Zionist enterprise. There are those who reject Shavit s conclusions about Lydda, and do not accept that the dirty, filthy work was necessary. Shavit may well respond that both are avoiding a very painful and challenging truth. What do you think? 46

47 Additional Sources Here are three additional sources that you might want to incorporate into the discussion. The first is from Professor Benny Morris, the Israeli historian who began to examine the events of 1948 and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem on the basis of solid well researched archival material. In so doing he developing a complex and multi-layered narrative that challenged the prevailing Zionist versions of history that had been dominant in Israel up to that time (the late 1980 s). The piece brought here is actually drawn from two different sources by him. While from the mid-thirties most of the Yishuv s leaders, including Ben Gurion supported ' a transfer solution the Yishuv did not enter the 1948 war with a master plan for expelling the Arabs, nor did its political and military leaders ever adopt such a master plan. There were Haganah/IDF expulsions of Arab communities, some of them with Haganah/IDF General Staff and/or cabinet-level sanction such as in Lydda and Ramle in July But there was no grand or blanket policy of expulsions But from July onwards, there was a growing readiness in the IDF units to expel. This was at least partly due to the political feeling, encouraged by the mass exodus from Jewish held areas to date, that an almost completely Jewish State was a realistic possibility. There were also powerful vengeful urges at play revenge for Jewish losses and punishment for having forced upon the Yishuv and its able bodied young men the protracted, bitter battle. Generally, all that was needed in each successive newly conquered area, was a little nudging. Benny Morris from The New Historiography: Israel Confronts its past (Tikkun Magazine) 47

48 The second source is from the writer Aharon Megged. He rejects totally the works of the New Historians such as Morris. The message [of the new critical Israeli historians] is that most of the verities forged in our consciousness and experience are false. You, whose parents immigrated here from Poland and settled in a small, arid moshav, worked hard and produced a small farm by their house you thought they had come to fulfill the dream of creating a new life a life of labor and Hebrew culture, free of the fear of pogroms and dependence on the gentiles. But you were mistaken! You were naive! They were colonialists whose hidden wish was to exploit the Arabs in the neighboring village... And when you joined the Haganah [pre-state Defence force] and went out at night on guard duty, when Jews were being slain in ambushes every day and night, and orchards and plantations were destroyed and fields set alight and you exercised self-restraint to avoid hurting innocent Arabs you thought you were obeying a moral law you learned at school and in the youth and labor movements. But no; you were just following the path of oppressive, imperialist colonialism. Aharon Megged from One Way Trip on the Highway to Self-Destruction (Jerusalem Post, 17/6/1994) 48

49 The third piece is from Professor Anita Shapira, an important professor of Zionism and Zionist history who does not identify herself as one of the new historians but who has related to the debate in an involved but dispassionate manner. I m not saying that everything that happened is what had to happen, but the Arab-Jewish conflict began when the first Zionist set foot on the soil of Eretz Israel. The Jews couldn t give up what they saw as the last hope of the Jewish people, and the inhabitants of the land, the Palestinians, had no reason to give up what they saw as their sole right to the land. From this perspective, the conflict was inevitable, but its results were not guaranteed from the beginning. Anita Shapira From No Subject is Taboo for the Historian (from Zionism: the Sequel ed. C. Diament, Hadassah Books 1998) 49

50 If you are interested in this chapter you might want to have a look at

51 Fourth Conversation Chapter Six: Housing Estate 1957 Precis In chapter six, Shavit chronicles a time when the population more than doubled as hundreds of thousands of immigrants poured into the young country. The majority of immigrants came from great trauma, whether the trauma of the Shoah or the trauma of radical and sudden dislocation from Arab lands. Through four personal stories, three from central and eastern Europe and one from Iraq, Shavit leads us into the lives of some of the traumatised Jews who arrived in the country in these years. Two of the young men Ze ev Sternhall and Aharon Barak (their new names), were delighted to arrive, feeling tremendous anticipation about the chance to build a new future in a safe haven of which they already felt deeply proud. They rapidly turn themselves into success stories of transformation and progress. The third figure, the writer Aharon Appelfeld, finds adjustment to the new society much more difficult, searching for the old European Jewish society that he had known and loved. He became a chronicler of alienation and most of his writing focusses (not uncritically) on the European world left behind. For Louise Aynachi from Iraq, her day of Aliyah is a day of mourning for the life left behind. Through these four principal figures (with others in the background) Shavit draws a picture of a traumatized society which refuses to a large extent to recognize or even to legitimize the trauma of the different individuals, so busily is it engaged in the building of state-building in the 1950 s. 51

52 52 Quotations and Questions I had been in the country only a week. I didn t speak the language, I didn t know the land. But when I took off my old clothes I shed the past, the Diaspora, the ghetto. And when I stood in the Atta store in a khaki shirt, khaki trousers, and sandals, I was a new person. An Israeli. In all of these schools Ervin [Aharon Appelfeld] felt totally alone, without family or community. He found no common ground with the arrogant Sabras, the Oriental newcomers, or the ill-mannered Israeli girls On Saturday nights he would sit at a seaside cafe watching the people pass by. Some were Holocaust survivors, others were Arab-world survivors, but what Appelfeld saw were human wrecks. He saw the uprooted Jews of the twentieth century, whose lives had been shattered by disaster. One blow followed another... On top of that was the DDT, the humiliation of life in a tent, the condescending attitude of veteran Israelis, the scornful attitude of the Ashkenazi immigrants. And the fact that in Israel, Jewish Baghdad was not perceived as the cradle of a great civilization but as the unknown territory of barbarians. Within one week they experienced a sudden fall from paradise to humiliation and deprivation. Do you believe it is possible to shed one s identity and adopt a new one so swiftly, like the first quotation, or do you believe it is a painful or impossible process like the second two quotations? Each of these aliya stories are extremes of either overwhelming excitement and adaptation, or dispiriting alienation. Does Shavit s telling of all these either-or stories in one chapter reinforce an understanding of the binary extremes of aliya, or does the difference in the stories give you a stronger picture of variety and complexity? The tales are full of extreme highs and extreme lows. Do you believe this is a reflection of the times they were living in, or a reflection of the way our memories have a tendency to over-dramatize?

53 Although development was rampant, social gaps were narrow. The government was committed to full employment. There was a genuine effort to provide every person with housing, work, education, and health care. The newborn state was one of the most egalitarian democracies in the world. The Israel of the 1950s was a just social democracy. Do you know of any country today whose development is rampant, and is also a just social democracy? For its outstanding economic, social, and engineering achievements, the new Israel paid a dear moral price. There was no notion of human rights, civil rights, due process, or laissez-faire. There was no equality for the Palestinian minority and no compassion for the Palestinian refugees. There was little respect for the Jewish Diaspora and little empathy for the survivors of the Holocaust. Ben Gurion s statism and monolithic rule compelled the nation forward. In the previous quotation Shavit praises Israel s egalitarianism and social justice. Yet in this quotation he writes passionately of a moral price. Do you believe the lack of rights described here cancel out the morality of the egalitarianism describe previously? What is the emotional effect of learning of egalitarian progress first, and learning of human rights violations second? Why do you think Shavit chose this order? 53

54 But the miracle is based on denial. The nation I am born into has erased Palestine from the face of the earth. Bulldozers razed Palestinian villages, warrants confiscated Palestinian land, laws revoked Palestinians citizenship and annulled their homeland. By the socialist kibbutz Ein Harod lie the ruins of Qumya. By the orange groves of Rehovot lie the remains of Zarnuga and Qubeibeh. In the middle of Israeli Lydda, the debris of Palestinian Lydda is all too apparent. And yet there seems to be no connection in people s minds between these sites and the people who occupied them only a decade earlier. Ten-year-old Israel has expunged Palestine from its memory and soul. When I am born, my grandparents, my parents, and their friends go about their lives as if the other people have never existed, as if they were never driven out. As if the other people aren t languishing now in the refugee camps of Jericho, Balata, Deheisha, and Jabalia. Why do you think Shavit uses the word denial so much in this chapter? Was denial of the recent past a good or bad thing for Israel in Shavit s opinion? And yours? What would you say is currently being denied in your country? To what extent does this denial serve any useful purpose? 54

55 The Israeli continuum rejects trauma and defeat and pain and harrowing memories. Furthermore, the Israeli continuum does not have room for the individual. That s also why the Holocaust remains abstract and separate. It s not really about the people living among us. The message is clear: Quiet now, we are building a nation. Don t ask unnecessary questions. Don t indulge in self-pity. Don t doubt, don t lament, don t be soft or sentimental, don t dredge up dangerous ghosts. It s not a time to remember, it is a time to forget. We must gather all our strength now and concentrate on the future. It seems like Shavit is attempting to draw the perspective of Israel s challenges in the 1950 s perspective in order to explain or even justify callousness. Does he succeed, in your opinion? 55

56 Additional Sources Here are three additional sources that you might want to incorporate into the discussion. The first comes from Ze ev Hafetz, (born 1947), writer and journalist, born in America, who came on Aliyah just after the Six Day War. Years later, wrote about his experiences. In this piece he describes his dawning understanding that underneath the celebratory surface of the society, there was a deeper sadness. Israel meant normality, self-assurance, an end to the sense of being different and vulnerable [which he had felt as a Jew growing up in the U.S.]. That s what I expected to find in Israel, and at first I thought I had. In the weeks after the Six Day War, the country was in a state of euphoria. Jerusalem was overrun with American tourists, the August sun was bright and Israel seemed to be a nation of happy warriors. And then came the holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It was the first time I had ever experienced Jewish holidays in a Jewish setting, and it came as a shock. A wave of melancholy washed over Jerusalem. I went to the Western Wall, where worshipers from a hundred diasporas wailed heartbroken prayers. During the memorial service on Yom Kippur, I saw people tear at their clothing in grief, or pound the massive stones of the Wall in frustrated anguish. I began to realize that Israel, despite its sabra élan and Mediterranean sunshine, is a nation of orphans and refugees, a place where people jostle and bray at each other all day long and then go home to cramped apartments to drink tea alongside gilt-framed photographs of the dead. The horrors of modern Jewish history hadn t been overcome here, and they were no abstraction; Israel, I began to understand, takes Jewish pain personally. Ze ev Chafets From Heroes and Hustlers, Hard Hats and Holy Men (William Morrow) 56

57 The second piece is taken from a speech by Ben Gurion ( ) in the very early period of the state, in which he describes his understanding of anti-semitism. He asserts that the problem that led to the Holocaust was the presence of the Jews in other countries, not the natural response of nations to that presence. The Jewish people erred when it blamed anti-semitism for all the suffering and hardship it underwent in the Diaspora.... Must the whole world act like angels toward us? Does a people build its existence on the rule of righteousness in the midst of other nations? Do Jews observe the rule of righteousness among themselves? Is there no jealousy and hatred among us?... Do we relate to members of other groups and parties with sufficient understanding?... And we who are different from every people expect others to understand us... to accept us with love and fraternity, and if they don t we are angry and protest against their wickedness.... Is it too difficult for us to understand that every nation fashions its own way of life in accordance with its needs and its desires and the context of its life and its relationships is the product of its historical condition. One cannot imagine that it will seek to adapt itself to the existence and mentality of the universal exception called Judaism: The cause of our troubles and the anti-semitism of which we complain result from our peculiar status that does not accord with the established framework of the nations of the world. It is not the result of the wickedness or folly of the Gentiles which we call anti-semitism. David Ben Gurion Quoted in Civil Religion in Israel by C.Liebman and E. Don Yehiya (University of California 1983) 57

58 The third piece is taken from a T.V. interview with Israeli writer Yehudit Hendel, (born 1926), on growing up in Israel in the early state years. It is a revealing piece which needs to be added to Ben Gurion s piece to add an extra dimension to the phenomena that Shavit is describing in the chapter. To put it bluntly, there were almost two races in this country. There was one race of people who thought that they were gods. These were the ones who had the honour and the privilege of being born in [the kibbutzim or the old Zionist neighborhoods]. I belonged as it were to those gods. I grew up in a workers neighborhood near Haifa. And there was, we can certainly say, an inferior race. People we saw as inferior had some kind of flaw, some kind of hunchback, and these were the people who came after the war. I was taught in school that the ugliest, basest thing is not the Exile but the Jew who came from there. Yehudit Hendel Cited in The Seventh Million by T. Segev (Hill and Wang 1993) 58

59 If you are interested in this chapter you might want to have a look at +Mass+Migration+of+the+1950s.htm 59

60 Fifth Conversation Chapter Eight: Settlement 1975 Precis Shavit opens his chapter on settlement by exploring the effects of the 1967 and the 1973 wars. The Six Day war of 1967 brought Israeli control of the territories and liberated a potential messianic force within the ranks of religious Zionism. The 1973 war was a war of deep trauma for Israel and the eventual victory could not change the deep discontent regarding the war, the government and indeed, the entire leadership. A malaise was revealed and the country went into a kind of spiritual tailspin. Many sought new directions and new certainties. It is in the contrasting but cumulative effects of these two wars that Shavit locates the roots of the whole settlement enterprise. The majority of the chapter consists of conversations with four figures who represent the leadership of the settlement enterprise. The two central conversations, with Pinchas Wallerstein and Yehuda Etzion, are the real meat of the chapter. Seeing themselves as the continuation of the old Zionist fervor associated with the early Kibbutzim such as Ein Harod, they shared the new settler outlook. They believed in the importance of settlement in the Biblical heartland both in order to do God s will (as they see it) and to revitalize the Zionist enterprise by adding a spiritual dimension. 60

61 Wallerstein is the practical do-er. It is he, more than anyone else, who has been responsible for the rapid accumulation of settlements and the necessary accompanying infrastructure of roads, industry and agriculture throughout the whole of the West Bank. Playing the system with great acumen and smartly exploiting government weakness and the cracks between different government agencies, he has created the basis for the hundreds of thousands of settlers who now inhabit the West Bank. Etzion formulated a revolutionary plan to supplement the gradualism of his friend s approach with a visionary ideology which would involve terror activities, primarily the blowing up of the mosques on the Temple Mount. His underground terrorist organization was caught by the security services in 1984 and he was sentenced to a long jail sentence. Shavit explores the similarities and differences between the two activists in order to try and understand the ideology that underlies their various actions. Shavit himself views the whole settlement project with deep antipathy, while finding himself disturbingly connected to it. He suggests that this great conflict between the Zionism of the plains and the Zionism of the mountains, could threaten the entire Zionist project. 61

62 Quotations and Questions Secular Zionism never climbed Shomron Mountain. It remained in the plains. The renewal and revival of Zionism after the Yom Kippur War was not just about taking strategic control of the highlands of the West Bank. It was about bringing the people of Israel to the mountain of Israel. We would revive Zionism and save Israel by climbing up the mountain, by realizing that without a spiritual depth the state of Israel cannot hold. We would revive it through the understanding that the Zionism of the plains is doomed. Our way is the way of our fathers; we must go back to the land of our fathers, go back to the mountains we lost. We must bring Zionism back to the mountains and bring the mountains back to Zionism. This is the first time in the book we hear Israeli voices calling for a religious, spiritual interpretation of Zionism. While rejecting their methods and even their aims, does Shavit disagree with their diagnosis, that without a spiritual depth the state of Israel cannot hold? Do you? 62

63 In the simple living room of his modest Ofra home, his [Etzion s] words touch me. Although I reject his worldview and despise his actions, I am not indifferent to what he says. Surprisingly, I recognize the great forces that pulled him to Ofra. I can understand what he says about the plains and the mountains and the history of Zionism. With horror I realize that the DNA of his Zionism and the DNA of my Zionism share a few genes. Do you sense ambivalence in Shavit s reactions during this chapter? If so, what is the nature of his ambivalence? Do you share similar feelings? When arguing for a pluralistic understanding of Zionism, Amos Oz once said that Zionism should be understood as is a surname, a family name. Within families there can be arguments. Do you believe that with these kinds of arguments, the family can hold together? 63

64 When I listen to Wallerstein and Etzion, I realize that they did not have a well-defined doctrine regarding the Arabs. When they came to settle in Samaria, they were more ignorant than evil. They saw Israel s 1970s weakness and realized that the Israeli crisis was not only political but spiritual. They felt obliged to deal with the crisis, but the solution they came up with was absurd and completely ignored the demographic reality on the ground. Wallerstein and Etzion did not realize this because they did not think through the consequences of their actions. They were young and rebellious and they were part of a juvenile movement that enjoyed breaking a taboo, crossing a line, and challenging the establishment. But they never knew where they were really headed. They never realized what sort of mess they were about to create. They established Ofra without comprehending its repercussions. Shavit seems to argue here that there is a crucial moral difference between intentions, and actions: They were more ignorant than evil. Do you agree with his analysis of Wallerstein and Etzion? How would you categorize his tone: understanding, forgiveness, condescension? Something else? Do you agree that ignorance activism is morally different than acting with evil intent? 64

65 There was no real leadership to speak of, and no real state to speak of Have you ever come across people who think like this about their government? What kind of actions does this feeling lead them to? The question is whether Ofra is a benign continuation of Zionism or a malignant mutation of Zionism. The answer, of course, is that it is both. Does this kind of conclusion help you reach a clearer appreciation of what is at stake, or would you prefer to read something more unequivocal? Shavit suggests that the answer to his either-or question is obvious: of course. Is it obvious to you? Some may say that Shavit s answer is a typically Jewish answer. Does that make it more frustrating, or less? 65

66 Additional Sources 66 Here are three additional sources that you might want to use in your discussion. The first is taken from the poem A Day in the Life of Nablus by the Palestinian poet, Sharif Elmusa. Elmusa (born 1947) is from a family that became refugees in 1948 and moved to a refugee camp in Jericho. He is currently a professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo. The vendor in dishevelled clothes arranges a feast of pears, lifts one with pride as he might his own child. He bellows into the air: Go to sleep with a sweet mouth. He sees the soldiers. He does not brood over power or history. In gowns of soft lights the town performs the ritual of sleep. Will the vendor, will the woman who lost her house sleep with a sweet mouth? The settlement, fortress on the mountain -peak, and the jail on the hilltop flood their dreams with yellow lights... Sharif Elmusa A Day in the Life of Nablus from The Space Between our Footsteps ed. N.S. Nye (Simon and Shuster 1998)

67 The second piece is taken from Emuna Elon (born 1955), columnist and author, a religious woman who is also known as a campaigner for women s rights. For many years she lived in Beit El, north of Ramallah. This is from her story The Maidservant s Son, which tells the story of a complex relationship between Ronit, a woman who lives on a settlement in the West Bank, and Ibtisam the Palestinian woman who cleans house for her. On her very first day at work Ibtisam had pulled Ronit over to the window above the Italian marble counter, to point to the camp. That s Jezoun, she announced. Ronit gazed at the heap of miserable huts dotted her and there by pecan and olive trees and encircled with a stone wall. Is that your home? inquired Ronit. The Arab woman chortled. That s nobody s home, she explained, Jezoun isn t a village at all, it s just the place where we re waiting until we can go back to our land. Ronit wondered silently how they intended to return to their land two generations after a kibbutz or a university had been established on it. She regretted that the architect had placed the kitchen window precisely at that spot, facing the road and the camp. We haven t returned to the land of our forefathers in order to solve the problems of other nations, she told herself, and went to the plant nursery where she bought five cypress saplings in black plastic bags. Haim suggested that they exchange them for fruit trees but Ronit wanted evergreens which would grow quickly, planted closely together in a row opposite her kitchen window to block the embarrassing view By the end of three years the five cypresses had reached the height of the window, but they didn t yet conceal the heap of gray shacks from Ronit s view. They also didn t screen the road where our forefathers passed on their way to Shechem or the smoke which rose every day or so from the tires which the refugee children burned on the same road. 67

68 68 The third piece is from much loved song based on the poem Hoy Artzi Moladeti ( Oh my Land, my Homeland ) written in 1933 by Shaul Tchernichovsky ( ). It presents an empty land, waiting to be filled and revived by the early Zionist settlers. It can be likened to the Biblical landscape encountered subjectively by the settlers of the mid 1970 s in the areas of Judea and Samaria. Oh my country, my homeland Bald craggy mountain Faint herd - ewe and kid, Joyous citrus gold. Cloisters, mound, memorial, Plaster domed dwelling, Unpopulated settlement, Olive trees side by side. Oh, land of hearts desire, Waste land of briar and thorn, Plastered pit, forsaken cistern In the sky an eagle. Perfume of spring orchards Ringing song of camels Everything is drowning in a sea of light And sky blue is over all. Saul Tchernichovsky

69 If you are interested in this chapter you might want to have a look at 69

70 Sixth Conversation Chapter Ten: Peace Precis Similar to the settlement chapter, this chapter is structured around a series of conversations with central figures in the peace movement. At the center stand three leading figures, Yossi Sarid, Yossi Beilin and Amos Oz with others ranged around them. Shavit, who himself played a central role in that movement, becomes an active participant in the conversations, arguing with them and accusing them of misleading the movement by concentrating on the post-67 territories, and promoting the possibility of gaining peace in exchange for a return of the territories. Shavit argues that the demand to give back the territories was indeed vital in order to preserve Israel s moral health. However in no way should it have been linked to an assumption that such a returning of territory was capable of bringing peace. The diagnosis was wrong. The root problem he argues is not 1967 but He argues that the leaders of the movement were too desperate to reject Dayan s vision of Israel as a nation which would always be forced to live by the sword. For a generation looking for a life of normality, it would have been too hard to accept, and therefore, he suggests, an illusion was set before the public. He finishes the chapter in Hulda, an area where Jews and Arabs lived relatively harmoniously till 1948 when another murderous attack on a Jewish convoy brought the decision to clear the area of Arabs and to destroy their villages. Ultimately, the root of the problem, says Shavit, is not settlements like Ofra in the territories. It is Hulda. Without solving Hulda, there will perhaps never be an end to the conflict. He doubts whether such a solution is possible for either side.

71 Quotations and Questions I don t love the land as I once did. I don t feel I belong to the nation as I once belonged. In my nightmares I see millions of Palestinians marching to Jerusalem. I see millions of Arabs marching on Israel. I am well over seventy now. I have nothing to lose but the grave I will be buried in. But sometimes, when I look at my grandchildren, my eyes tear up. I am no longer certain that their fate will not be the fate of the children of Rafalowka [my parents Polish town]. Have you met someone who shares Sarid s sharp disappointment with and fear for the Zionist enterprise? What might you say to them or to Sarid if you had the chance? 71

72 I worked out a theory. The theory assumed we lived in a tragedy: an almost eternal struggle between two peoples sharing a homeland and fighting over it. For seventy years we Jews had the stamina needed to withstand this tragedy. We were vital enough to be jolly and optimistic while enduring an ongoing conflict. But as fatigue wore us down, we began to deny the tragedy. We wanted to believe there was no tragic decree at the heart of our existence. We had to pretend that it was not by tragic circumstances that our fate was decided, but by our own deeds. The territories we conquered in 1967 gave us an excellent pretext for this much-needed pretense, as it allowed us to concentrate on an internal conflict of our own making. The Right said, If we only annex the West Bank, we ll be safe and sound. The Left said, If we only hand over the West Bank, we ll have peace. The Right said, Our dead died because of the Left s illusions, while the Left said, Our dead died be-cause of the Right s fantasies. Rather than face a tragic reality imposed on us from without, we chose to create a simplistic narrative of Right against Left. On the one hand Shavit places Israel in the heart of an ongoing unavoidable catastrophe. On the other hand acceptance of this tragedy offers a way out of internal Israeli polarization. What is your response to this opsimistic conclusion? 72

73 Most literary definitions of the Tragedy genre would insist on the common element of inevitability. A tragic understanding of an event would assume that catastrophe was unavoidable. Shavit is insistent that the Israeli-Palestinian is tragic. In addressing the conflict as tragic, does this mean that no one was at fault? Or everyone? Do you agree that the conflict is unavoidable? They saw that for the Palestinians the 1967 occupation was disastrous, but they did not see that for many Palestinians there are other matters that are far more severe and visceral than occupation, like the homes they lost in Taking on board these comments, do you find your attitude to the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks altered? Remembering back to the accounts of the immigrant refugees to Israel in chapter six, (why) do you think that lost homes in Europe or Iraq were less significant than lost Palestinian homes? 73

74 It s Hulda, stupid. Not Ofra, but Hulda, I tell myself. Ofra was a mistake, an aberration, insanity. But in principle, Ofra may have a solution. Hulda is the crux of the matter. Hulda is what the conflict is really about. And Hulda has no solution. Hulda is our fate. Shavit concludes with two challenging but very different comments. What is the difference between a situation that has no solution, and one that is fate? Is there a different emotional valence? Do Shavit s comments energize you? without the steel helmet and the gun s muzzle we will not be able to plant a tree and build a house. Let us not fear to look squarely at the hatred that consumes and fills the lives of hundreds of Arabs who live around us. Let us not drop our gaze, lest our arms weaken. That is the fate of our generation. This is our choice to be ready and armed, tough and hard- or else the sword shall fall from our hands and our lives will be cut short. Dayan spoke about the fate of his generation. Do you believe this is the fate of all future generations of Israelis? 74

75 Additional Sources Here are three additional sources that you might want to incorporate into the discussion. The first is from Yitzchak Epstein ( ), a teacher and writer from Rosh Pinah. Epstein was the first person to try and put the question of the relations between Arabs and Jews on the agenda of the World Zionist Organization. At that time he alone believed that the whole enterprise of Zionism would rise or fall on the relationships created with the Arabs in the Land. We are making a flagrant error in human understanding toward a great, resolute, and zealous people. While we feel the love of homeland, in all its intensity, toward the land of our fathers, we forget that the people now living there also has a feeling heart and a loving soul. The Arab, like any person, is strongly attached to his homeland. When we come to buy lands in Eretz Israel, we must thoroughly check whose land it is, who works it, and what the rights of the latter are, and we must not complete the purchase until we are certain that no one will be worse off. In this way we will have to forswear most cultivated land.our approach to land purchase must be a direct expression of our general attitude to the Arab people. The principles that must guide our actions when we settle amidst or near this people are: A. The Hebrew people, first and foremost among all peoples in the teaching of justice and law, absolute equality, and human brotherhood, respects not only the individual rights of every person, but also the national rights of every people and tribe. B. The people Israel, as it aspires to rebirth, is a partner in thought and in deed to all the peoples who are stirring to life; it honors and respects their aspirations, and when it comes in contact with them, it cultivates their national recognition. Yitzchak Epstein

76 The second is from Vladimir (Ze ev) Jabotinsky ( ), brilliant orator and Zionist leader. He believed that the Arabs could not be bought, and would never make peace until they were thoroughly convinced that they could not contend with Zionist strength and that the Jews would be a permanent fixture in the Land of Israel. This is taken from his famous Iron Wall article in which he argued that the Jews would only be able to maintain a state by defending its borders as if it was behind an iron wall. To think that the Arabs will voluntarily consent to the realization of Zionism in return for the cultural and economic benefits we can bestow on them is infantile and has its source in a feeling of contempt which some of our people have for the Arab people. The Arabs, according to these voices are nothing more than a rabble of crass materialists prepared to barter away their patriotism for a developed network of railroads. This view is absolutely groundless Every indigenous people will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement. Hence those for whom an agreement with the Arabs is a prerequisite for Zionism, can be sure that this condition will never be fulfilled and that they should therefore renounce their Zionism But the only way leading to such an agreement is by erecting an iron wall, meaning that in the land of Israel there must be a power that will not under any circumstances yield to Arab pressure. In other words, the only way to achieve an agreement with them in the future is by absolutely avoiding any attempts at agreement with them at present. I do not mean to assert that no agreement whatever is possible with the Arabs of the land of Israel. But a voluntary agreement is just not possible. As long as the Arabs pre serve a gleam of hope that they will succeed in getting rid of us, nothing in the world -neither soft words nor alluring promises - can cause them to relinquish this hope, pre cisely because they are not rabble but a living people. Ze ev Jabotinsky

77 The third piece comprises the words of a very popular 1994 peace song called Choref 73 the Winter of 73. It describes the feelings of those children born immediately after the 1973 war, and calls on the leadership to fulfill their promises and to do whatever they can in the cause of peace. The words were written by playwright Shmuel Hasfari (born 1954) and it can be heard in full here. We are the children of winter 1973 You dreamt us first at dawn at the end of the battles You were tired men that thanked their good luck You were worried young women and you wanted so much to love When you conceived us with love in winter 1973 You wanted to fill up with your bodies that what the war finished And we were born the country was wounded and sad You looked at us you hugged us you were trying to find comfort When we were born the elders blessed with tears in their eyes They said: we wish those kids will not have to go to the army And your faces in the old picture prove That you said it from the bottom of your hearts When you promised to do everything for us To make an enemy into a loved one You promised a dove, an olive tree leaf, you promised peace You promised spring at home and blossoms You promised to fulfill promises, you promised a dove 77

78 78 Seventh Conversation Chapter Eleven: J accuse 1999 Precis This chapter deals with the rise of the Oriental Jews (Mizrachim) in a process that began in the early 1970 s but rose to its zenith in the 90 s and the first years of the new millennium. Most chapters in this book do not have one star figure, but in this chapter, there is no mistaking the star, Aryeh Deri, the founder and old-new leader of the Shas party, the traditional/charedi Mizrachi political party that first appeared in 1984 winning four seats in the Knesset, a number that had grown to 17 seats (450,000 votes) by Shas was the first major Mizrachi political party. It rode on a ticket of ethnic Mizrachi pride and traditional religious observance - everything that pre and early state Zionism was not. Deri, whose meteoric rise to power electrified the society as a whole, was later jailed for corruption. Shavit s story and interview with Deri tries to understand what that rise and fall represented to the community of non-ashkenazi Jews in Israel. Supplemented by an extra narrative from T.V talk host and journalist Gal Gabai, also Mizrachit but more secular and modern than the Shas constituency, Shavit realizes how deep the Deri phenomenon struck into the hearts and souls of this large disenfranchised community. The rise of Shas the party and Deri the individual created a new point of identification and pride for many Mizrachim whose family traditions had been alienated from mainstream Zionism, historically reserved for Ashkenazim. Gabai felt betrayed by his corruption. She suggests that he was a role model and a point of identification and through his own personal faults he fell and disappointed. In so doing, she suggests, he condemned his whole constituency back to the ranks of the negative stereotypes they had been so keen to break. The breakthrough remained, at least partially, virtual. The revolution had not been completed.

79 Quotations and Questions Now secular Israelis are afraid that Shas will change the secular character of the state. They call themselves Zionists, but they are not really Zionists. Their movement is a movement of heresy. They see our fathers and mothers as primitives. They want to convert them. They sent them to remote towns and villages where life was hard. They gave their children a good-for-nothing education. Until we came and began taking care of all these people who were suffering in all these remote places. That s why they are afraid of us. That s why they persecute us. And this persecution is both ethnic and religious. But the more they humiliate us, the more we will grow. We shall change the character of the State of Israel. Does this sound like Deri is calling for reform or revolution? Can Deri be heard as constructive or destructive? 79

80 There is one thing that does make me angry: the spiritual aspect of absorption. When it built the immigrant camps, the housing estates and the remote factories, Labor had no malice in its heart. But in spiritual matters it certainly did. The veteran Ashkenazim of Labor thought that most of the people who emigrated from the Arab world were primitive and therefore had to be put through a process of secular European indoctrination. The melting pot was a Western melting pot that was supposed to totally transform us. Those Labor Ashkenazim didn t honor our civilization. They didn t see the beauty of our tradition. That s why they severed us from our roots and our heritage. That was a terrible, vicious mistake. What these people did was to destroy, not build. They took the soul we had and did not give us another in its place. And since they didn t really give us a new culture or identity they left us with nothing. Facing extreme economic and physical hardship, we found ourselves standing in the world spiritually naked. Deri s accusation of spiritual emptiness echoes that of the settlers in chapter eight. In what you have read of Shavit s account so far, do you believe there is something to this accusation? Bearing in mind Shavit s expectation that Zionism will ensure the continuity of non-orthodox Jewry, how do you respond to Deri s critique? 80

81 Only then, in office, did I truly leave the closed world of ultra-orthodox Judaism and come to know Israeli society. And suddenly I realized that of the hundreds of municipalities I was responsible for, the weak ones were almost all Arabic or Oriental. I suddenly realized that most of the suffering in Israel is Oriental suffering. In every remote development town I visited, I found neglect. In every impoverished neighborhood, I found Oriental Jews who had lost their pride and their identity. I found communities destroyed, families torn apart, their honor and tradition taken away, and the spark in their eyes extinguished. While on the surface Israel was thriving, just below the surface there was an Israel that was fatherless and rabbi-less and hopeless. Mizrachim still make up the lion s share of Jews in Israel s jails, and are a tiny minority of Israel s academia. Is this account of Mizrachi Jews experience in Israel new to you? 81

82 When I listen to Wallerstein and Etzion, I realize that they did not have a well-defined doctrine regarding the Israel did a favor to those it extracted from the Orient. The Jews there had no real future Had they stayed, they would have been annihilated. But forcing them to forgo their identity and culture was foolhardy, callous, and cruel. To this day, many Oriental Israelis are not aware of what Israel saved them from: a life of misery and backwardness in an Arab Middle East that turned ugly. To this day Israel is not aware of the pain it inflicted when it crushed the culture and identity of the Oriental Jews it absorbed. Neither Zionist Israel nor its Oriental population has fully recognized the traumas of the 1950s and 1960s. Neither has yet found a way to honor it and contain it and make peace with it. This is why the wound lingers on. Shavit would seem to be in danger of calling Mizrachim ignorant and ungrateful. Is this a fair assessment of his comments? And if so, does this strike you as a useful tone? Shavit offers an interesting opposition: Zionist Israel as opposed to its Oriental population. Where do you think this places Mizrachi Jews in the Zionist narrative? 82

83 There was a feeling that there was something wrong with us, with Oriental Jews, Gabai says. That there was something tainted and inferior. That s why we bowed down to the Ashkenazis and abased ourselves before them. There was a subtle, complicated sort of self-loathing, a deep unease with one s self. Until Deri came and proved that we could stand tall and proud walk among the Ashkenazis as equals. Deri brought North African Jewish tradition to center stage. He said we were just as good, if not better He let us lift our heads high...he meant we could succeed in the West without betraying the East. Do you recognize any parallels of the Deri story with other stories of minorities in your country? How do you think that telling the Mizrachi story through the metaphor of Deri colors the Mizrachi strand in the Zionist narrative? What might it expose in the way Mizrachim continue to be viewed? 83

84 Additional Sources 84 Here are three additional sources that you might want to use in your discussion. The first source is a poem by Israeli poet, Erez Biton, born in Algeria in Written in the 1970 s, the poem talks of the failed attempt of a Mizrachi man to find acceptance in Israeli society. He opens a shop in the fashionable Dizengoff street, full as it was then of many Tel Aviv society coffee shops, including the Café Roval. I bought a shop on Dizengoff to strike some roots to buy some roots to find a spot at the Roval but the crowd at the Roval I ask myself who are these folks at the Roval, what s with these people at the Roval, what s going on with the people at the Roval, I don t face the people at the Roval but when the people at the Roval turn to me I unsheathe my tongue with clean words, Yes, sir, please, sir, very-up-to-date Hebrew, and the buildings looming over me here tower over me here, and the openings open here are impenetrable for me here. At dusk I pack my things in the shop on Dizengoff to head back to the outskirts and another Hebrew. From Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing ed. Ammiel Alcalay (City Lights 1996)

85 The second piece comes from a speech made by David Ben Gurion ( ) in 1951 about the need to build the nation by replacing the identity of the hundreds of thousands of new immigrants with the new pioneering (Ashkenazi) identity that for him and so many others, marked the desirable identity of the new, secular, Israeli. The speech was aimed at all of the immigrants from post-holocaust Europe and from the Arab world, but as Gal Gabai suggests in the chapter, in many ways it was easier for the European immigrants to find their way in the new society. The immigrants must be taught our language and a knowledge of the land... They must conceive what the first settlers did with their bare hands... Being privileged to enter Israel, the newcomers must be told that they too must toil; if perhaps, less than their forerunners...we must melt down this fantastically diversified assembly and make it afresh in the die of a renewed nationhood. We must break down the barriers of geography and culture of society and speech, which keep the different sections apart and endow them with a single language, a single culture, a single citizenship, a single loyalty, with new legislation and new laws. We must give them a new spirit, a culture and literature, science and art. David Ben Gurion,

86 The third piece is taken from In the Land of Israel by Amos Oz (born 1939) on Israeli society in the early 1980 s. Here is a conversation that he reports from an encounter with Mizrahi second generation Israelis in the (then) poor Israeli town of Bet Shemesh. Really, think about this. When I was a little kid, my kindergarten teacher was white and her assistant was black. In school, my teacher was Iraqi and the principal was Polish. On the construction site where I worked; my supervisor was some redhead from Solel Boneh [the government building company]! At the clinic the nurse is Egyptian and the doctor Ashkenazi. In the army, we Moroccans are the corporals and the officers are from the kibbutz. All my life I ve been on the bottom and you ve been on top. I ll tell you what shame is: they gave us houses, they gave us the dirty work: they gave us education, and they took away our self-respect. What did they bring my parents to Israel for? I ll tell you what for, but you won t write this. You ll think it s just provocation, but wasn t it to do your dirty work? You didn t have Arabs then, so you needed our parents to do your cleaning and be your servants and your laborers. You brought our parents to be your Arabs. You brought a million donkeys here to ride on, but they should live in the stables, far away from your houses. So our stink won t reach your living room. That s what you did. Sure, you gave us food and a roof over our heads you do that much for a donkey but far away from your children. Amos Oz From In the Land of Israel (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1983) 86

87 If you are interested in this chapter you might want to have a look at

88 Eighth Conversation Chapter Thirteen: Up The Galilee 2003 Precis In this chapter Shavit encounters the voices of the Arabs of the State of Israel. The central speaker here is attorney and activist Mohammad Dahla. Shavit and Dahla co-chaired the Association of Civil Rights in Israel in the mid-1990s. As Dahla shares his outlook in detail through this chapter, the gulf between these two friends on the legitimacy of Zionism and the viability of the continuing Jewish State becomes apparent. Dahl makes a number of very clear points. He questions and ultimately denies - any Jewish claims to historic continuity within the land. Zionism is thus reduced to an invading colonial force which has come from the outside and imposed itself on the Arabs of Palestine. As a majority in the land, Zionism has imposed an alien regime. It forgets that it is actually a minority in a larger Arab and Moslem world, a world growing stronger and larger all the time. Ultimately, he says, Zionism will have to change and will have to learn to share the land, relinquishing sole sovereignty for its Jewish inhabitants and working out a genuine power sharing arrangement with the Arab inhabitants. The end of the chapter, leaves Shavit musing about the chance of a possible future for their children. 88

89 Quotations and Questions At the outset, the Jews had no legal, historical, or religious right to the land. The only right they had was the right born of persecution, but that right cannot justify taking 78 percent of a land that is not theirs. It cannot justify the fact that the guests went on to become the masters. At the end of the day, the ones with the superior right to the land are the natives, not the immigrants the ones who have lived here for hundreds of years and have become part of the land just as the land has become a part of them. We are not like you. We are not strangers or wanderers or emigrants. For centuries we have lived upon this land and we multiplied. No one can uproot us. No one can separate us from the land. Not even you. Mohammed suggests that the Jews only had a claim to the land born of persecution. To what extent does Shavit s narrative of Zionism refute this idea? Do you agree that those with the superior right to the land are the natives? How does this play out in other areas of the world? If one accepts that Jews once lived in the area some two thousand years ago, did their native rights fade away in the millennia? How should their rights compare with those who are currently native to the land? Do you believe that any People should have a claim to a particular piece of land? 89

90 He tells me that the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 was not exactly like the Holocaust, but that he is not willing to accept the Jewish monopoly on the term Holocaust. It s true that here, there were no concentration camps, Dahla says. But on the other hand, unlike the Holocaust, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 is still going on. And while the Holocaust was the holocaust of man, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 was a holocaust of man and land. The destruction of our people, he says, was also the destruction of our homeland. What comparison is Mohammed making here? What comparison is he not making when he talks about the Shoah in this context? How do you react to this comment? Is it reasonable to use the image of the Shoah in this context? 90

91 Tzipori s houses are nice and neat, white-walled and red-roofed. In one of the front yards, a beautiful young mother opens her arms as her one-year-old takes his first steps toward her. But Mohammed says he doesn t know how people can live here. In theory, the countryside is pastoral and inviting, but in reality it is a graveyard. In theory, you are walking in your garden, but really you are walking on corpses. It s not human, Mohammed says. It s like the movie he saw once about an American suburb built on a Native American cemetery whose ghosts haunted the families who chose to live on top of their graves. I am not into mysticism, Mohammed says, but I feel the spirits here, and I know they will not stop haunting you. Do you accept the analogy with American suburbia and Native Americans? To what extent do you believe that the Zionist enterprise was driven by ghosts? 91

92 So what are you saying? I ask Mohammed. That the injustice done to Palestinians is an injustice not to be forgiven, he answers. Because at this very moment, as Israelis lay out picnic lunches under the trees of the South Africa Forest, the refugees of the village of Lubia rot in the Yarmuch refugee camp in Syria. And the refugees of Saffuriyya rot in the Ain-al-Hilweh refugee camp in Lebanon. So justice demands that we have the right to return. At least those rotting in the refugee camps should be allowed to return. I don t know how many there will be, Mohammed says. Not millions, but perhaps hundreds of thousands. But I see them returning. Just as my family returned from Lebanon, coming down the slopes of the rocky ridge of Turan with their donkeys and belongings after months of exile, so will the others return. In a long convoy they will all return. What do you think that Shavit would say in response to Mohammad s ongoing narrative? What would you try and say to Mohammad if you were talking with him? 92

93 Additional Sources The first source is a poem from Tawfik Ziad ( ), an Arab from Nazareth who became a member of Knesset and Communist Mayor of Nazareth. Here we will stay In Lidda, in Ramla, in the Galilee, Here we shall stay Like a brick wall upon your breast, And in your throat Like a splinter of glass, like spiky cactus And in your eyes a chaos of fire. Here we shall stay Like a wall upon your breast, Washing dishes in idle, buzzing bars, Pouring drinks for our overlords Scrubbing floors in blackened kitchens To snatch a crumb for our children From between your blue fangs Here we shall stay Sing our songs, Sweep the sick streets with our angry dances, Saturate the prisons with dignity and pride In Lidda, in Ramla, in the Galilee, Here we shall stay Tawfik Zayyad from Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature ed. by S. K. Jayyusi (Columbia University Press 1992) 93

94 Here instead of a text, we present a cartoon by West Bank settler Shay Charka. It sums up many of the conflicts that are addressed and not addressed over a cup of dark coffee 94

95 This final piece addresses the thorny nature of the Palestinian refugee. The UN definition of refugee is not applied to Palestinians, who are defined and treated differently from all other refugees in the world. Former MK Einat Wilf has been prominent in pushing the case for reform. Since the Second World War the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has been responsible for the welfare of all refugees in the world and has assisted in their resettlement and relocation so that nearly all of them are no longer refugees with one exception: the Arabs from Palestine. By contrast, UNRWA, the organization created specifically to handle the Arab refugees from Palestine from the Arab-Israel war, has collaborated with the Arab refusal to resettle the refugees in the areas where they reside, or to relocate them to third countries. Worse, UNRWA has ensured that the refugee issue only grows larger by automatically registering descendants of the original refugees from the war as refugees themselves in perpetuity. For Palestinians, uniquely, refugeeness is an hereditary trait. If the descendants of the Arab refugees from the Arab-Israeli war were treated like all other refugees, including the Jewish ones, they would not quality for refugee status because almost all of them (upward of 80 per cent) are either citizens of a third country, such as Jordan, or they live in the places where they were born and expect to have a future... No other people in the world are registered as refugees while being citizens of another country or territory. 95