Response to Joseph Dana: A case for liberal Zionism

By Larry Derfner November 28, 2011 | Edit

Yes, Zionism is at odds with liberal values. But it’s less at odds than the alternative; moreover, it has the capacity to be liberalized almost without limit.

I want to take issue with Joseph Dana’s claim that liberal Zionism is a “dishonest system of thought.” I don’t, however, want to take issue with his statement that “the Zionist ideology, in so far as it privileges one ethnic group over another, is at odds with liberal values.” I won’t argue with that second point because I’m an honest liberal Zionist, and I don’t think any honest liberal Zionist, such as Bernard Avishai or Gershom Gorenberg, would argue with it either, because it’s undeniably true. Zionism privileges the Jews over Arabs and other gentiles, and that’s at odds with liberal values. So if I believe in liberal values, such as civic equality, why am I a Zionist, i.e. why do I want Israel to remain a Jewish state?

Because if Israel stops being a Jewish state it will become a Palestinian state, and on the way to that it will be a state at civil war that will bring on the exodus of the Jews – and that’s even more at odds with my liberal values than Zionism. You cannot have two warring nations in one state, and that’s what the Jews and Palestinians are in this part of the world – warring nations. The only way a state can work is if one of those nations is the stable, unchallenged majority, and there is such a Jewish majority in Israel and it should stay that way. I also believe that the Palestinians have as much right as the Jews to be the clear majority in a sovereign state of their own, and the Palestinians’ state – by right – encompasses the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

At home, I think the responsibility of Zionism is to realize that it inherently privileges Jewish citizens over Arab citizens, and to rectify all the inequalities and do away with all the discrimination, except in one area – immigration. While Israel has to get rid of its miserable “Jews-only” immigration policy and allow Palestinians and other gentiles to become citizens, it should still gear its policy so that a solid Jewish majority is maintained. It doesn’t have to be 80% like it is now, but if Israel is going to be a Jewish state and not a Palestinian state, the Jewish majority has to stay pretty solid.

Which means, naturally, that I’m against the right of return. I’m against it both on practical grounds, which I think I’ve laid out, and on moral grounds. It’s not just that the Palestinians started the 1947-48 war, it’s that they, too, carried out expulsions in that war, expulsions of thousands of Jews from the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, Gush Etzion, Kfar Darom and several other kibbutzim and moshavim. As Uri Avnery, a veteran of that war, said in a debate in 2007 with Ilan Pappe: “There can be no dispute that ethnic cleansing took place in 1948 – though allow me to remark, in parenthesis, that the ethnic cleansing was on both sides, and that there was not a single Jew left residing in whatever territory was conquered on the Arab side.” The Arabs were trying to do to the Jews what the Jews were trying to do to the Arabs; the Jews, to be brutally frank, just did it better. So I don’t see that the Palestinians have any right of return, especially since they started the war in the first place.

If there had been a small number of refugees, I personally would have had no objection to letting them come back – not as a matter of right, but rather because there would have been no good reason to refuse. Today, if it would allow the peace to be made, I’d personally agree to let up to a few hundred thousand refugees return to Israel over, say, a 10-year period. But again, not as a matter of right, because I don’t think it is their right.

The above is a capsule version of my idea of liberal Zionism. I don’t see anything dishonest about it.

I was a columnist and feature writer for The Jerusalem Post, as well as the correspondent in Israel for the U.S. News and World Report, for many years. I wrote feature articles for the Sunday Times of London during the second intifada, and have been writing for American Jewish publications since 1990. Politically, I would describe myself as an ultra-liberal Zionist; as journalist Bradley Burston put it, I’m “probably as far left as a centrist can be.” I was born in New York, grew up in Los Angeles and moved to Israel in 1985.

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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