1.1 The Left-wing Zionist?
My favourite Golda Meir quote is "Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!." When I mentioned this in a blog many years ago there were a few raised eyebrows. Why would a fan of Marxist analysis quote Golda Meir, of all people?
It didn't stop there, this favourite quote was published alongside some additional handy information regarding my political outlook:
Politics: Dithers between a … Democrat and … Socialist - another Zionist who likes the Middle East
I knew this would come back and bite my butt, and indeed it has done on a number of occasions. However, this needs a bit of translation. What I wanted to convey with the "Democrat" comment was simply that, as far as my view from Europe is concerned, then better Clinton as than many of the far worse candidates in the other party faction. As for "Welsh Socialist", this is simply a device to convey the fact I was an old fashioned Marxist inspired Socialist, not a sentimental liberal from the democratic leisured class, but a socialist from a little land called Wales.
The last part is the hardest to explain. Why would a Marxist claim to be a Zionist? How can one support Marxism and Internationalism and at the same time support Nationalism? Can a Marxist also claim to be a Zionist, and remain coherent?
Nevertheless, before continuing I will address the "raised eyebrows" regarding my choice of the Gold Meir quote. The quote is, in my humble opinion, nothing more or less than simple irony.
1.2 What do I mean by Zionist?
A joke from the early days of Zionism starts with a question: "What is a Zionist?" the answer to which is "A Jew who takes the money of a second Jew in order to send a third Jew to Palestine."
I have heard suggestions that there are several ways of considering Zionism: colonialism, religious expansionism, nationalism, or as a speculative idea.
1.2.1 Zionism As Colonialism
A historically materialist reading of Jewish history shows that Zionism is not colonialism but an anti-colonialist ideology of national revolt of the ultimate colonized people.
Their existence in the Diaspora has been premised on their economic exploitation by sovereign powers complimented by a legal and cultural system that placed them without history and outside of the community. For centuries Jews were locked into the status quo, and they made a virtue of stability, submission and acquiescence. With the modern era came the hope of escape, and most chose assimilation. People like Theodore Herzl and Max Nordau absolutely detested the average Jew, and they believed most Jews were guilty of even the most sordid charges leveled at them. Herzl and Nordau leave little doubt in their writing that they would have happily assimilate if they could. Other Jews were also more optimistic about assimilation as a way out, but they were all slaughtered in spite of their hopes.
Zionism was a response to being colonized, it envisioned regeneration through radical social and Cultural Revolution, which some hoped to transform them through agricultural labor. Others had fuzzy notions of Nietzschen "Trans valuation of values." A few looked to violence. All drew from fin-de-siècle notions of honor, strength and vitality. They wanted Jews to walk tall and to fight back. Like all colonized peoples, moreover, Zionists suffer from the syndrome of being trapped in a dialectical relationship with their European colonizers.
Zionism is not really about Arabs. It is about Europe, and it is about denying the Jew that which the Europeans (and thus acculturated modern Jews) found hateful. Zionism is for some an attempt at one-upmanship, an effort to create conflict with Europe, and implicit malevolence towards Europe.
When Zionism is attacked for its facets of chauvinism, nationalism and racism, it is not totally wrong. However, these facets of Zionism are those that are to be anticipated from colonized peoples in revolt. Zionists are reacting to a long history of alienation, marginalisation and exploitation, which, like Arab nationalism, is a fight against Europe, and the self-hatred that Jews were subjected to here.
1.2.2 Zionism as Religious Expansionism
The claim that Zionism can be viewed as religious expansionism is misplaced. Not many Israelis share the claim that Zionism is necessarily a question of territorial expansion, and not many people try to justify expansionism.
Even after the birth of the state of Israel in 1948, Zionism as a term persisted in eluding an exact designation. One definition states "Since 1948 Zionism has been broadened to imply the identification of world Jewry with Israel ... Zionism has also given financial, political and moral support to the Jewish state."
To muddy the murky waters still further, there have always been Jews who are certainly not Zionists. Many orthodox religious Jews, even in Israel, believe that the creation by man of a Jewish state is an implicit usurpation of God's role. There are many liberal Jews, both in Israel and the Diaspora, who are distinctly unsettled about the 1967 conquest and subsequent occupation and colonization of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and who dislike the association of Zionism with Israeli expansionism.
1.2.3 Zionism as a Speculative Idea
Without the anti-Semitism of Europe and the chauvinistic nationalism of central and Eastern Europe, Zionism might have never been born. True, a Zionist parable states that the Jews were always longing for Palestine, but any such longing was limited to prayers, typified by the expression "next year in Jerusalem". Moreover, it is a matter of fact, that throughout the centuries, the Jews made no effort to congregate in Palestine. As Rabbi David Harman wrote:
Israel’s homelessness and vulnerability in history is a human act. It is not because of sin that we are exiled. Rather we must understand Exile and homelessness as empirical facts to be understood by Realpolitik. The only way that this will change is if we enter into Realpolitik. If we want to go back to Israel, it is not sufficient to pray in the synagogue, sit on packed valises waiting for the Messiah to come and say "Next year in Jerusalem" at the Passover Seder. Jews had lived with profound hope, praying for Jerusalem. They prayed for rain in Jerusalem even when they were in Poland. People would say that they were praying for rain in the wrong season. They would reply that there was rain needed for the farmers in Galilee. "But there are no farmers in Galilee!" They were praying on the basis of what the Land of Israel required even when no one was here.
1.2.4 Zionism is Nationalism? Brief Historic Perspective
My interpretation of what defines a person as a Zionist starts simply by defining someone who would support the aspirations of Zionism, and more importantly, whether or not those aspirations are realizable. So, Zionism seen from a mainstream perspective is a national movement, which aspires that people return to their historical homeland and live there.
The mainstream of Zionist movement itself arose in response to the growing anti-Semitism in Europe in the late 19th century. Nathan Birnbaum suggested the term "Zionism" in 1890. It was Theodore Herzl, an Austrian journalist, who formally organized the Zionist movement in 1897. Herzl believed that Jews could never be safe as a minority group in a foreign land due to anti-Semitism, and that security for Jews could only be achieved through gaining sovereignty in a land of their own.
So we can see that Zionism was a reaction to nationalist movements in Europe, which almost invariably, did not want to have anything to do with the Jews. Zionism in this sense was a reaction that stated that Jews must constitute themselves as a nation in the European sense and found their own state. Why would expect Jews to react any differently to anyone else in a world where it was accepted that nationalism was entirely modern and constructed, and a stage between imperialist repression, emancipation and the cosmopolis?
However, there are a number of interpretations of Zionism. Martin Buber envisioned Zionism as "the path to holiness" as opposed to the "sacro-egoism" of humanity. Buber wanted to attach Zionism to a movement for a Jewish renaissance identified as "Hebrew humanism", which he viewed as the highest educational value. He warned of Jewish chauvinism, maintaining that Israel’s behaviour toward its Arab neighbours was not only a political issue, but also an integral part of Judaism itself. Buber claimed that just as anti-Semitism challenges the integrity of Christian principles, thus becoming a Christian problem, that the Jewish attitude towards Arabs also challenges Judaism – making it a Jewish problem. He pleaded repeatedly to the Israeli Jews to endeavour to live in peaceful coexistence with their Arab neighbours.
1.3 Nationalism?
Definitions of nationalism like written histories of war and rules of conflict are dictated by the most imperialistic, most nationalistic, the most aggressive, the most ruthless, the most self-centered and the most exploitative of nations. It is curious that the most rabidly nationalistic of imperialists will decry the aspirations for autonomy and nationalist liberation of others.
We all have some idea of what we believe we know by the term "nationalism", and there are a various concepts about what constitutes a nation. Two examples from contemporary Marxism are: The Bourgeois-Nationalist Concept of the Nation and The Proletarian-Internationalist Concept of the Nation.
On "The National Question and The Class Struggle" Ber Borochov wrote:
Nationalism is a product of the bourgeois society — it was born simultaneously with it, its reign is as old as that of the bourgeois society, and it must be reckoned with as much as any other phenomenon of bourgeois society. Speaking from the proletarian standpoint, we must therefore say that the proletariat is directly concerned with nationalism, with the national wealth, and with the territory. Since the proletariat takes part in the production, then it must also be interested in the conditions of production, and there must develop a specific proletarian type of nationalism —, as is, indeed, the fact.
Now some people may argue that Borochov's thesis doesn’t make sense in the modern context, but the context in which Borochov wrote his thesis was not the year 2009, therefore it can only be fairly interpreted by looking at the historical forces and circumstances of those times. Indeed, to analyse what Borchonov wrote without taking fully into account the prevailing philosophy, social history and economics of the times is to analyse without the benefit of scientific techniques of analysis. As Marx himself stated: "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness", and the social existence of Borochov determined his consciousness, not the global social context of the here and now.
Liu Shaoqi writing on Internationalism and Nationalism stated that:
The Proletarian-internationalist concept of the nation is diametrically opposite to the bourgeois-nationalist concept of the nation. The proletarian-internationalist approach to the national question and its basic principles for dealing with the national question throughout the world proceed from the basic interests of the masses of the given nation, and at the same time, from the common interests of the masses of every nation which are the common basic interests of all mankind. Since national aggression is a product of the system of class exploitation, it is only natural that the proletariat, which exploits no one and fights for a social system without the exploitation of man by man, should be opposed to any oppression of one nation by another. The proletariat cannot countenance in society any system of oppression of man by man for otherwise it could not achieve its own emancipation.
For this reason, the proletariat is resolutely opposed to any kind of national oppression. It fights not only against its own nation oppressing another. It advocates the complete equality of all nations (large or small, strong or weak) both at home and in the family of nations, and it also advocates the voluntary association and voluntary separation of all nations. The gradual movement towards world unity can be achieved through different concrete paths such as voluntary separation (the aim of which is to smash the oppression and control of the imperialists over the vast majority of the world’s nations) and voluntary association (with various nationalities uniting on a completely voluntary basis after imperialist oppression has been eliminated).
Further more, when we look at nationalism more closely we can see the sometimes-invisible influence that oppressor nations exercise over oppressed nations. In this respect oppressor nations treat oppressed nations like prostitutes, even if the prostituted nation is allowed a huge allowance and is implicitly permitted to pack some very serious military logistics.
1.4 Is Zionism really nationalism?
Zionism is predominantly, but not exclusively, seen as one of the various manifestations of nationalism. Amongst secular and non-secular Jews there was and is disagreement over what should be the nature and form of Zionism. This discourse and disagreement covered the spectrum between the exclusive nationalism of the Revisionists led by Vladimir Jabotinsky and and the all-inclusive nature of the nationalist camp headed by Martin Buber.
Jabotisnky warned that the conflict with the Arabs was inevitable that talk of compromise and negotiation would have no sway with the local population. This contrasted with the completely inclusive Zionism of the philosopher Martin Buber, who in 1925, together with his followers, founded Brit Shalom (the Peace Covenant). Brit Shalom called for mutual reconciliation between the Jewish and Arab national movements in Palestine. Buber discarded the idea of Zionism as simply another national movement and wished instead to create an exemplary society. He argued that such a society should embrace Jewish domination of the Arabs. It was therefore incumbent on the Zionist movement to reach a consensus with the Arabs even at the cost of the Jews remaining a minority in the land. Brit Shalom embraced the idea of bi-nationalism and saw in its promise of a single state the moral and just resolution to a heartbreaking and tragic conflict. A third major faction of Zionism born of the curiously and frequently conflictive partnership of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann took a more pragmatic stance, and although they were also committed to the enterprise of a Jewish State, they attuned their position in accordance with the shifting conditions in Palestine and elsewhere.
Zionism therefore came from Europe, and was in main a reaction to the evolving nationalism of European peoples and the increase in anti-Semitism in Europe. European nationalism had two key drivers: the exaltation of feeling and identity, which characterized the nationalistic romantic period in arts, and the Liberal requirement that a legitimate state is about people rather than, for example, a dynasty, a deity or imperial domination. In defining national identity in Europe, there were two distinct approaches. One was the all-inclusive approach, anyone who accepted loyalty to the state was a citizen, and the other was to define citizenship in ethnic terms. Therefore, not all nationalisms ended up as chauvinistic and destructive, but the nature of all nationalism determined the necessity of boundaries.
To put things in simpler terms, the rise of bourgeois nationalism in Europe went hand in hand with a marked increase in xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Many more Jewish Europeans became victims of the consequences of this nationalism, and added weight to the fact that they were, to some extent, marginalized in all societies in which they lived. Jewish Europeans saw how the nationalists used their nationalism as a way to reduce their alienation and to claim their positions in society; it was therefore hardly surprising that some Jews took the idea of nationalism to be both a threat and as a way of protecting themselves.
Therefore, it should not be so difficult to see how, from these and other social-economic imperatives, the various nationalist interpretations of Zionism were gradually brought into being.
1.5 All the same?
Are all nationalisms equal? No, there is sufficient evidence of diversity between nationalisms to be able to state that this is not the case. Not all nationalisms are the same; there is for example, cultural nationalism; liberal nationalism and triumphal nationalism, all different.
There are the nationalisms of the dominant states. For example, the nationalism of Britain and America is dominant and seeks to maintain the existing order of things.
There are nationalisms that seek to liberate people from the grips of the dominant nationalisms. How we view a particular national liberation struggle is dependent on its relation to our own political and philosophical values. Some of us are happy to support a liberal or a left wing national liberation movement, but get queasy when national liberation goes hand in hand with things that we are not necessarily comfortable with. The strange thing is that people will be happy to have one nationalist liberation leader on their t-shirt but no another, simply because they might be also a religious leader, for example.
Therefore, not all nationalisms are the same. However, all nationalisms have some common elements. Whether it's the monster raving gung ho nationalism of the dominant state or that of a "just struggle" for national liberation.
1.6 What does nationalism mean to a Marxist?
Nationalist movements typically occur in any region, country or part of a state whilst the people themselves feel repressed, alienated or exploited by an external force or state. All such movements have the same basic demands for independence, autonomy or self-determination, but the political form of these demands and the support any group receives, depend explicitly on the historical narrative and class composition of the region in question.
"Workers of the world unite--you have nothing to lose but your chains."
Karl Marx
In Marx’s day, he wrote that the way in which capitalism would develop right across the globe and across all national boundaries would lead to the development of capitalism that would actually diminish incrementally the hostilities between nations. However, if this were true, we would now be in a world without national divisions, national tensions, national hostilities and so on and so forth. The reality of the world is as it is. The starting point for any Marxist socialist, in whatever part of the world in which we may be, is that we live in a world in which all workers have a common interest in fighting against a common enemy. That is to say, exploitation affects all workers and the ruling class exploits us all, which is an international ruling class. Therefore, the common struggle for socialism is an international struggle and one, which is takes as part of its ultimate aim, a united society and the complete elimination, not just the reduction, of national divisions and borders.
However, the vast majority of big struggles that have taken place around the world have contained some form of nation and nationalist elements, in various guises. Therefore, what socialists have to say about nationalism and how socialists understand nationalists, in a historical materialist sense, is of fundamental importance.
However, it is potentially churlish to suggest that we can some how make the magical transition from a world of dominant imperialist powers, economic superpowers, nation states and a surfeit of repressed nations and peoples to a borderless international socialist world overnight. No matter how many people get involved in the process it still takes at least 9 months to produce a human baby.
In the world as it is, like it or not, the state and nation state are realities. The state is to all intents and purposes the common sense of our time. We may want a world without borders and free movement of world citizens, but the reality is that if we want to travel from Spain to Beijing, for example, you will need a passport. If I go to Madrid airport without my passport the police there are not going to let me get on the flight if I simply tell them I am an international socialist, and I don’t believe in nations and borders. I can’t hope to flash them my party membership card and expect them to wave international rules, it just doesn’t work that way. So at this moment the desire for national liberation, the national consciousness and the national sentiment are still very much part of a nationalism that goes hand in hand with capitalism and which is very much part of the prevailing interpretation of common sense.
Lenin in his "The Discussion on Self-determination Summed Up" wrote:
In the international education of the workers of the oppressor countries, emphasis must necessarily be laid on their advocating freedom for the oppressed countries to secede and their fighting for it. Without this there can be no internationalism.
We know that the banner of a Marxist does not carry the slogan "national culture" but "international culture", but this is not the same as saying that the only culture that is valid is universal. That said, self-determination should be an inalienable right of nations, of people, and this inalienable right can act as a "beacon of workers' democracy that can guide socialists in the anti-imperialist struggles of the twenty-first century as surely as it has in the past".
1.7 The context between Marxism and Zionism
The main Russian theoretician of Marxist Zionism was Ber Borochov. He stated that the Jews were an anomalous people, with a class structure resembling an "inverted pyramid". And that rather than workers and peasants constituting the broad base of their society, and lesser numbers of petty bourgeois and capitalists at the top of the social ‘pyramid,' among the Jews the masses were in large part urban petty bourgeois, engaged in increasingly marginal occupations far from the point of production. As Mitchell Cohen explains:
Borochov's argument is that anti-Semitism, national competition (in which the Jews, lacking a territorial base, are at a disadvantage), and the continuing development of capitalism force a continual pattern of Jewish migration, and make the abnormal Jewish conditions of production more and more insecure. Jewish labor, not employed by non-Jews, follows the migration of Jewish capital, and because of the competition, the Jewish petty bourgeoisie becomes more and more proletarianized. Yet if 'the Jewish problem migrates with the Jews,' then a radical solution that does not simply lead to another inhospitable roadside inn is needed. The solution was proletarian Zionism; the ‘conscious Jewish proletariat' had the task of directing the migration. In the final analysis the abolition of capitalism and national liberation were the salvation for the Jewish working class.
The nationalism of the oppressed Jewish proletariat, Borochov argued, "is emancipating. If we were the proletariat of a free nation which neither oppresses nor is oppressed, we would not be interested in any problems of national life." What was needed to "normalize" the Jews - and avoid their destruction - was the founding of a Jewish state where Jewish capitalists and workers would wage class struggle. Migration to Palestine specifically "was ideal because it would be, in Borochov's analysis, the only land available to the Jews. It lacked advanced political and cultural development, and would be a land in which big capital would find no possibility while Jewish petty and middle capital would." Palestine would then develop along capitalist lines and the Jewish proletariat – as part of the world proletariat - would fight against capitalism and imperialism and for international socialism.
1.8 Conclusion
One hears all too frequently the bizarre claim that Israeli government controls, manipulates and manages the USA Administration. But who is manipulating who here? Furthermore, why should a Marxist become a fool to anti-Semitism, or fascistic lies or Imperialist propaganda? Why did so many people get up in arms over Prime Minister Sharon’s contempt for European governments and institutions when all he was doing was mimicking the attitude of imperialists? This isn’t a question about Zionists, Jews, Welsh Rugby Supporters or the Martians who hid Iraq´s WMD - that's irony, right! No, it’s a classic case of the relationship between an imperialist power and a state that needs a big and powerful friend in a neighbourhood of potential bullies.
Neither Zionism nor proletariat nationalism is the enemy of the people of the eastern Mediterranean region. The enemies are anti-Semitism, fascism, feudalism and the agents of imperialism.
Indeed, proletariat nationalism is needed to free a people from imperialism and to create the coherent platform upon which a socially just, equitable and humane society can be constructed and thrive. However, nationalism is not the end goal; it’s just a phase, but a necessary phase on the road to true internationalism and a free and just world without borders.
So where has this lead me? The conclusion that I have no problem labelling myself a Zionist in order for it to be interpreted as a supporter of all inclusive proletarian nationalist movements as a reaction to imperialism and all it’s vices, and as a liberation from it. (I have no problem in acting as agent-provocateur in order to denounce the fascistic tendencies of the fanaticism, dogma and vicious post-modernity of some who think they are left-wingers or liberals but would be more at home with the hard right and their intolerant ilk.) Things should be as they should be, whether the nationalists in question base part of their arguments on irrelevant historic land claims or not.
Irving Howe once described Israel as "the democratic socialist hope of combining radical social change with political freedom". It is indeed curious however that many Zionists who started off with the legitimate idea of creating a nation as a positive focus of identity, as a basis for social change and liberal democracy but at the same time one that would avoid chauvinistic and aggressive claims to of superiority, would eventually see things go wrong.
In an article entitled "A Failed Israeli Society Collapses While Its Leaders Remain Silent" and published in the magazine Forward, Avraham Burg, former Knesset speaker wrote[1][1]:
The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. The Israeli nation today rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep.
So, why am I a Marxist who claims to be a Zionist? Simply stated, its probably a desire to provoke the anti-Semites and to explain the contextual relationship between Zionism and Marxism.
At the end of the day I, like many others, have consistently supported the Palestinian right to a nation state that is both politically and economically viable, and Israel's right to retain its character as a majority Jewish state, but one that grants full political and civil rights to its Palestinian minority and to all Jews, secular and religious.
However, for a Marxist the story does not end there, because one day the hope is that neither Palestine, Israel, Wales, Germany, USA, China, Spain or anyone else for that matter, will think it necessary to have borders and armies to protect ourselves from each other and from ourselves.
Complete equality of rights for all nations; the right of nations to self-determination; the unity of the workers of all nations--such is the national program that Marxism, the experience of the whole world, and the experience of Russia, teach the workers.
--V. I. Lenin, "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination"
Print | posted on Friday, February 27, 2009 12:00 AM