In Israel, the clash between a left and a right has less to do with socialist versus capitalist principles than it does with sacrificing land for peace and the definition of a Jew.
There is no single "line of march" on the left but there has been an increasingly vocal broad based anti-Zionist current on the left which has driven many Socialist leaning Zionist Jews away from their traditional association with pro-justice left wing tendencies. Anti-Israel mythology is a prevalent phenomenon on the Internet which to some degree is a microcosm of general anti-Zionist and antisemitic sentiment at-large, and it has also been growing even more virulent on today's contemporary left.
Zionism is a Jewish Liberation Movement. It was a rational response to antisemitism, which just doesn't go away and it is not easy to ignore. If you are Jewish it has an ugly way of reaching out and touching you with words and deeds.
The other response has been to assimilate and join the anti-Zionists, which many on the Jewish left have done but that has not been a very comfortable solution and it has not solved the dominant problem, hatred of the Jews. For some the Jews are their goat, the Judas complex - and - and for some it is jealousy of their successes. The Jews are blamed for socialism by a fringe right and for capitalist exploitation by thew fringe left. And there is any other reason they can find to single out those Jews for whatever they perceive to be their differences.
Zionist-Socialism was a prudent and logical response by Jews to the unsatisfactory efforts of the Jewish Bund to achieve some equality and overcome Jewish poverty and antisemitism immediately preceding the first Russian revolution.
Zionism-Socialism was an answer to anti-Jewish hate and pogroms, which a reversal of class relations under socialism by itself proved unable to address. And unfortunately, the real achievement of the Zionist Movement came too late for over 6 million Jews.
The Bund (the Jewish Socialist Labor Movement) was russo-centric and Zionism was the only clear alternative as articulated by early socialist-Zionists, Nachman Syrkin, Ber Borochov, Moses Hess - and others. The rising tide of antisemitism, i.e. the Kisinev pogrom (1903), the blood libel, and the Dryfuss affair gave force to the argument that a national "centrality" was necessary and also proved the absurdity that socialist revolution with a benefit to the Jews was possible without it.
R A M P A N TZionist-Socialists participated both in the political and economic struggle inside Russia but a Jewish homeland was never far from their minds.
Obviously this two level approach tended to cause some problems for Zionists, including antagonism from their co-religionists in the Bund. But many even in the Bund eventually were moved to the Zionist position because of Russian proletariat participation in the pogroms. The very working people they believed they could find commonality with betrayed them. It was a realization which eventually came to many just as Zionism was awakened in many formerly non-Zionist Jews. There is nothing quite like antisemitism to make Jews more aware of how vulnerable they are and how important it is to have a place, a homeland, where you knew you could freely go for refuge. Zionism was becoming stronger and a real force for a return to Zion.
Jews were daily faced with the struggle against antisemitism.
The feeling of being a foreigner in your own country is not something which was unknown or uncommon to me also - even though I grew up in Miami Beach - where even some areas were off-limits to Jews and later in military school where Jews were harassed until I and others, like me, figured out some way to insure our own survival.
The solution I chose for me was varsity gymnastics and to forge friendships with other jocks, who tended to be the strongest and my most powerful allies, not all of them did I like but I needed them to like this little Jew boy. Israel too must make friends with the strongest and the most powerful allies it can find for self-preservation, even when they are not the best of friends because survival is the primary objective of all living beings.
Palestine became the territory of opportunity for Socialist-Zionists, like the Marxist's Ber Borochov and Moses Hess, the latter a Hegelian, who went to the university with Marx and introduced communism to him. There was also some tension for choosing a national movement over international "scientific" socialism but the choice was predicated on the realization that antisemitism would lead to extinction and national liberation was only possible with a territorial center. All of the argumentation resolved upon that national disaster to the Jews: the Holocaust. Socialists are an Ideological Soup
Socialist-Zionism was by no means unipolar. There were tensions and various ideological tendencies even among Socialist-Zionists and several distinct parties were formed out of this ideological soup; the Marxist Party, the Po'alei Zion, the Zionist Workers' Party, and the Zionist Socialist Workers' Party (also known as the "Sejmist" party).
Betrayed by theThe Jewish collective struggle for socialism has had to confront antisemitic tendencies on the Left. It exists now and it existed during the great revolutionary period in Russia and it existed among the proletarian as well as the bourgeoisie. Antisemitism was endemic to the Diaspora (outside of Israel). Eliminating class as a determinate of privilege would not eliminate antisemitism. What did constitute a solution was the re-establishment of the Jewish homeland (Eretz Yisrael), with out which the "Jewish Problem" would remain the greatest threat to Jewish existence. Taking the Axe to Morality
"So what is the explanation for the left's position? Partly, its the old anti-imperialist and anti-west prejudice. Partly, its the view that only the powerless can be victims; so third world people can never be murderers, and any self-defence by western societies such as Israel must instead be aggression. Partly, its the post-modern destruction of objectivity and truth, which has ushered in the hegemony of lies. And partly, as the left takes an axe to morality and self-restraint, its a golden opportunity to pulverise the very people who invented the damn rules in the first place." (Melanie Phillips - May 22, 2003 - "The new nexus of antisemitism"
"A left-wing Polish journalist at the conference, Konstanty Gebert, got the real point. The left, he said, could not face the fact that they had totally misconstrued the Middle East because this would undermine their whole philosophy. This was founded on the premise that reason could reconcile all differences; all that was needed in Israel was an enlightened government for reason to prevail. The evidence that we are facing a phenomenon which is not susceptible to reason would destroy that world view. It would also give credibility to the hated Sharon, whose demonisation is absolutely vital to the left as a protective against the implosion of its whole ideological position." (Phillips)
Israel's
The major motivation for Zionism among the Jewish socialists was antisemitism and it's many manifestations: no access to many professions and universities, the pogroms in Russia at the turn of the century, the blood libels in central and eastern Europe, the 2,000 year history of Christian-Jewish relations, mistreatment at the hands of their Muslim neighbors in Islamic countries, blood libels, blaming Jews for the Black Plague, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust.
Socialist-Zionism dominated Jewish life in "Palestine" since even before the re-establishment of the state of Israel. It was the socialists in Israel who rejected religious practice. Religion by most was considered reactionary, "the opium of the masses". BUT as David Kimche points out, even though most socialists are not believers in the traditional sense (Jews are a nation), it is all:
"...Inextricably bound together, and while rejecting observance per se, they knew that to nullify Jewish traditions or the teaching of the Bible would negate the raison d'etre for their being in Palestine and not in the US or in Uganda." (David Kimche, "Traditional divisions" 01-06-1999 - Jerusalem Post)
And the reason Israel is not all socialist today is because of its reliance on right wing (and ultra religious) partners and the lessons of history. What seems like irreconcilable differences are reconciled in favor of historical and existential considerations.
"Capitalism developed side by side with socialism; humanistic values clashed with the ongoing confrontation with our Arab neighbors. Our political scene was always characterized by fierce infighting, both within the socialist camp and between Labor and the Revisionists." (Kimche)
With all the differences and contradictions, Israel is united in it's stand against terrorism and outside threats. And even the terminology which is common in the U.S., i.e. "left" and "right" there are not the same because of these existential considerations in Israel and because of the hatred for Jews and transference of that hatred to Israelis and the State of Israel. In Israel, the clash between a left and a right has less to do with socialist versus capitalist principles than it does on how to achieve peace.
"The leaders of the "Right" view the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular as the "enemy," to be feared and put down...`Peace' is inscribed on its banner in bold lettering, but its adherents do not trust the Arabs to live in peace with Israel. Some of its most prominent members do not believe that peace with the Arabs is possible. They therefore believe that making any compromise for the sake of peace is useless, and they conduct the peace negotiations from a position of extreme distrust which negates any real possibility of reconciliation. Settlements in Judea and Samaria are, for them, more important than peace." (Kimche)
"The late Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Joumblatt described in "I speak for Lebanon", an encounter he had with the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. The Syrians, Joumblatt recalled, `refuse to forget the days before the carve-up of 1919, when the Lebanese, the Palestinians, the Jordanians and the Syrians formed a single people, the people of historic Syria (that is, Bilad al-Sham), covering the area from the Taurus Mountains to Sinai and from the Iraqi steppes to the sea. Indeed, President Assad confirmed this quite unambiguously to Yasser Arafat not so long ago (around April 1976): `You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point; there is no such thing as the Palestinian people, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria! You are an integral part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore, it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people.' 'On this occasion, at least,' Joumblatt concluded, `the Lion of Greater Syria' put his viewpoint frankly enough.' Assad considered war with Israel to be a critical component in his quest for Greater Syria. His objective was `to put the Golan in the middle of Syria and not on it's borders,' he declared on February 17, 1986. `Israel's continued presence on the Golan will only increase our hatred for that historical enemy and augment our determination to fight it through to the end." (Yosef Bodansky, "The High Cost of Peace..." 2002 - division of Random House).
There are vastly different currents and tendencies in politics and no less so than on both ends of the political spectrum. There has never been peaceful coexistence of oppositional tendencies but at times there are concessions. Jews are particular skilled at making the kinds of concessions which will guarantee their survival and Jews who ignore their history, who take the side of anti-Zionists are impractical and that position is dangerous and suicidal.
Hank Roth
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