Books on New Israeli History

Dear Hillel,

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I think that the real difference between you and me is that you like your patriotism really well done, while I like mine medium-rare.

Acknowledging Israel's partial responsibility for the Palestinian tragedy of 1948, yes, even feeling guilty about it, does not make one an "anti" or "post" Zionist. Nor does one's willingness to accept an agreement involving compensation for the Palestinian refugees and recognizing their right of return. Not even one's willingness to reach an agreement on the political and administrative partition of Jerusalem contradicts the Zionist dream. Did you know that Theodor Herzl himself was willing to accept a Jewish state without Jerusalem? I sometimes think that Herzl was probably the first real post-Zionist. The Jewish Agency in 1947 enthusiastically accepted the U.N. partition plan, which also left Jerusalem outside the Jewish State.

I think, however, that we should not unnecessarily alarm the good people on the Web who are following this discussion: What you call "post-Zionism" is a rather vague notion that may or may not become relevant in the future but carries no weight in any serious discussion today. We are debating in Israel the best way to achieve peace with the Arabs. We are debating whether settlements on the West Bank and the Golan Heights are worth more than peace. At times the debate places law and democracy vs. religion. We debate numerous human-rights issues, including a law that, if passed by the Knesset, would legalize the use of torture by the Secret Service. We debate basic values, in an atmosphere of great tension. But so far all this takes place in a clearly defined Zionist framework. Anti-Zionism is so marginal in Israel's public discourse that it is hardly worth mentioning.

Here and there, it is true, we start to ask ourselves what kind of a people we can and should be, once the peace process will have been concluded successfully. No guarantee that it will, but the prospects of peace lead us to play with the idea of a normal existence, European-American style. It is at present rather like playing with the money one hopes to win in the big lottery.

Yes, Hillel, you may dread a "normal" country. Many people in Israel do. I understood from the article you wrote for Commentary that you are particularly apprehensive about the idea that Israel one day will become a state of all its citizens, in which Jews and Arabs are equal. But this also does not make you a better Zionist than those people you try to discredit as "post-Zionists." Let me remind you that there was nothing the Zionists wanted more than normalcy, thereby bringing the Zionist struggle to a successful end. That "post-Zionist" era may come, to use Theodor Herzl's words, in five years, or in 50 at the latest.

A few years from now, Israel will for the first time in 2,000 years become the largest Jewish community in the world. Those Jews who intended to settle in Israel will have done so. The others will remain in their countries, or disappear, also in accordance with Herzl's original vision. Presumably, Israel will by then have reached peace agreements with the Arabs. At any rate its existence will no longer be in danger; in fact, it no longer is even today. Zionism will have fulfilled its goal. The question will then be, what now?--it is a nuclear power, after all. With Zionism a reality, rather than a dream, Israelis will have to decide whether they want to live in a democratic country that guarantees the equal rights of all citizens, at least 20 percent of them Arabs, or whether they want to live like Americans prior to the civil-rights movement.

I certainly hope that in spite of their damnable new textbooks, today's ninth-graders will in due cause choose democracy and equal rights. Something tells me that they might do so at least in part as a result of those damnable textbooks, incorporating the work of Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, and others. There must be something wrong with me, but for some reason I don't really feel damnable about it at all.

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This week, a discussion of Avi Shlaim's The Iron Wall (click here to buy it) and Benny Morris' Righteous Victims (click here to buy it). Hillel Halkin is an American-born author and translator who has been living in Israel since 1970. He is the author of, among other works, Grand Things To Write a Poem On (click here to buy it). Tom Segev is an Israeli journalist and historian. He writes a weekly column for Ha'aretz and is the author of 1949: The First Israelis (click here to buy it).

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