Zionism is the reason and not the intifada

Zionism is the reason and not the intifada

By: Meir Margalit

Source: www.hagada.org.il, December 18, 2004

The country has been dealt a blow; how did this happen to us? How did we reach this point? Where did our children learn these things—they certainly did not learn it at home! We are a good, respectable, and moral family unlike any other. Analysts, teachers, philosophers, wise men, and prophets of doom deliberated and reached a solution to the thorny situation: occupation is the reason behind all this. The intifada has put our children in unbearable situations, ruining their nerves completely. It is why we have become apathetic towards certain situations, and why we have lost our moral principles.

The intifada is the root of the mistake. Any reasonable person knows that before the intifada we were the models of moral conduct. We were “a civilized occupation,” without a single blemish. The responsibility for everything that has happened, then, falls on the intifada, which the Arabs forced upon us, and just like Golda said in different circumstances, we will not forgive them for this.

I am sorry if this upsets you, but I'm wondering where you were before this last intifada. Were the justified, exemplary Jews in 1948 more ethical than our forces today? In fact, where were you in the 1920s, when the Zionist project was taking its first steps in Israel , and roughly doing away with whatever stood in its way. The actions of the children are evidence of the actions of their fathers. In his 1891 article, “The Truth from the Land of Israel ,” Ahad Haam, one of the most well-known Zionist writers and philosophers, and the founder of intellectual Zionism, wrote, “The settlers behave toward the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, infringe upon their boundaries, hit them shamefully without reason, and even brag about it. No one can stop this despicable and dangerous inclination.” He described in details that would makes ones skin crawl the situation at the borders, and the current situation in the territories. When in 1942 Ben-Gurion and Mapai announced that the goal of the Zionist movement was to establish a sovereign Jewish state, they set the standards for the anticipated state: a single sovereign front that alone holds all the power, and a nation that controls another submissive nation. The Zionist project chose to deal with any other settlement projects that dared to oppose it using special means. The Zionist project wanted to occupy land and remove any traces of any other foreign existence. Land for one nation, as free as possible of strangers, ruled by one group of people who considers themselves the chosen people, in addition to everything else that was mentioned.

From its very inception, Zionism has considered the use of force a Semitic principle, as opposed to the image of the weak Jew in the Diaspora who is afraid to defend himself. Since that time, violence has accompanied us every step of the way, until, over time, it has become a characteristic for which we are famous, and a part of the psychological structure of the state. The so-called weeds (1) that grow among us and destroy everything that is good first sprouted in the nursery of Zionism that was planted during that period. There is a straight line between the historical Mapai, Gush Emunim(2) and confirming the kill. All these phenomena are the result of the same marginal nationalist ideology, and the isolationism, extremism, and savageness which has accompanied us since the beginning of Zionism.

The last intifada was essentially an inducer of things that have been within us since long ago. In addition, the problem is not in the intifada or the occupation itself, but within us. We are in this state of moral decline because of what we are from within, and not for external reasons. When we place the blame on the intifada then we are excusing ourselves from taking responsibility for what is happening, and instead blaming “the circumstances.” The intifada is a nice, simple justification, but it blinds us. Take the blindfold off your eyes, people of Israel , we have reached this current situation because the distortions rooted deep within us. We got into this whirlpool because an extremist, violent, and destructive force pushing us and controlling us like a pillar of fire in the desert(3). Force has been a main tool used throughout Zionist history, and some will say that there was no way out of it, because without this violence we would not have achieved independence. However, this violence is of a type that cannot be done away with. If this violence is given free reign it will intensify until it turns against its master. We are facing these “unbearable” situations because we recklessly go towards them, because this is what we do. Because this is the language we understand. We established a military force never before seen in order to defend ourselves against enemies, both real and imaginary, and after we established it we went looking for any opportunity to use it, because it is there and because we can. Everything looks like a nail to the person who has a hammer in his hand, and likewise we consider every Arab age three and up a threat that must be overcome. The occupation is not the source of corruption, rather we are the ones who are corrupt. We proceed with the occupation because it is the one thing we know how to do.

We inherited the intifada when the Zionist movement abandoned dialogue with the Arab nationalist movement. When the Zionist project rejected the dual-nation idea suggested by Magnus, Buber, Simone, and Bergman and the Hashomer Hatzair movement (4) and the Aliya Hadasha movement (5), it limited the land as the property of the Jewish people alone, making legitimate any means of realizing that, and making way for the tractors and bulldozers that rumble through Rafah. When, in the 1920s, the Zionist movement chose to stand on the nationalist side of the ideological map, it dragged us into the whirlpool which we continue to drown in until this day. In 1925, members of Brit Shalom (6) warned that establishing a one-nation state would necessarily lead to never-ending bloodshed. Despite the fact that the forefathers of Zionism knew the price they would pay, the still chose the path of blood. In the same way, the Arab states did not force the occupation on us in 1967. They perhaps forced us into war, but the occupation was a moral choice for the state of Israel , which complimented our internal inclinations. We occupied the territories and the territories occupied us. Thus, the responsibility really does fall on the occupation, but not the occupation that occurred in 1967, but rather the one that began in the 1920s. When we chose a single-nation state and rejected the idea of a two-nation state we planted the seeds of the quarrel, whose most recent victim was a 12-year-old girl who died on the sands of Rafah. But we still do not know what all the fuss is about over confirming a kill by shooting at a wounded person at close range, but everyone knows that violence leads directly to savageness.

In a hundred years will we apply the same intellectual standards that were prevalent in the past? Both us and the Palestinians continue to think according to that understanding which says, “either you die or you occupy the mountain,” a matter which leaves before us two choices—either we die during the occupation or we die after it, because after occupation comes the intifada. When our thoughts and symbols, and our political dialogue continue to be conducted in the nationalist framework of the nineteenth century, then there is no chance to get out of the cycle of violence and reach a just political solution. The reality of the situation now has not succeeded in creating an awareness of this, just as it did not succeed in doing so before. At that time it was clear that the reality of two nations in one place required a dual-nation solution, just as it is clear today that the amassing that happened in the territories is a result of the sprawling network of settlements which leaves no room for the territories to be returned and a permanent Palestinian state established. Despite all this, we still have not succeeded in formulating new methods capable of getting us out of this closed cycle of disaster and violence in which our children have been lost. Even now our moral decline has not reached the lowest point. There is a gulf before us, the depth of which we cannot know, and our worn-out brakes cannot prevent the fall.

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• The IDF spokesman uses the term “weeds” to describe any moral violation soldiers commit in the territories, implying that it is a unique situation.

• Gush Emunim is a non-parliamentary religious extremist movement which calls for settlement in the West Bank and Gaza .

• This is a reference to Exodus 13:21-22, where the children of Israel thought God created a pillar of fire in order to guide them in the desert.

• Hashomer Hatzair is a Zionist youth movement which began in Poland in 1912.

• Aliyah Hadasha is one of the parties which was part of the interim government at the time of the establishment of the state of Israeli in 1948.

• Brit Shalom is a movement tthat was founded in 1925 by a group of Jewish philosophers which tried to encourage coexistence between Jews and Arabs by surrendering the Jewish right to establish a national state in Israel—Ed.

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