Jewish Anti-Zionism Unravelled: The Morality of Vanity (Part 1)
The contending institutions of contemporary Jewish politics are radically different. On the one hand, there is the massive fact of the Jewish State. On the other, the political life of Diaspora Jewry is much attenuated - especially in Europe. There are communal bodies, one or two research institutions, some ad hoc pressure groups, and there are charities. But that is all. The principal oppositionist bodies that identify themselves as Jewish - in the United Kingdom, "Jews for Justice for Palestinians," "Independent Jewish Voices," in America, groups such as "Independent Jewish Voices" and one or two others - are marginal to their community.
[T]hen came the Six Day War, and with it, the emergence of a new Jewish politics - a contemporary Jewish politics
The Nazis destroyed the Yiddish-speaking Jewish nation that inhabited parts of Central and Eastern Europe [8], and many of the ideological positions taken by those Jews perished with them. The very possibility of Jewish politics suffered an immense blow. Leftists of Jewish origin surrendered their Jewish identity in favor of their Leftist politics; other Jews merely abandoned their Jewish politics and either chose or had forced upon them the consolations of private life, the apolitics of quietism. In the decades immediately following the War, the Jews in the Soviet bloc were prisoners; the Jews of Muslim lands were expelled; the Jews of Israel built their state; the Jews of Western Europe and America reconciled themselves to their good fortune. And then came the Six Day War, and with it, the emergence of a new Jewish politics - a contemporary Jewish politics.
The "Israel Question" is similarly plural. The Six Day War reintroduced the possibility of a Jewish politics by posing the question, what should be done with this newly conquered land? If returned, on what terms, and if retained, by what right? These questions led to still further ones, of a more historical nature. Most concerned the differences and similarities between the 1967 War and the 1948 War. Were they both wars of Jewish survival? Were the Arabs / Palestinians Arabs on both occasions the authors of their own calamity? What were Israel's peace-making responsibilities in the aftermath of these wars, and did it meet them? And what, indeed, were Israel's responsibilities towards those unwillingly under its control, and did it meet those responsibilities, too? And still further questions arose. Can Israel be both Jewish and democratic [9]? What are Diaspora Jewry's obligations to Israel? And by reference to what (Jewish?) principles were these obligations to be defined [10]?These questions together constitute a new Jewish politics in the making [11].
The character of the contemporary Jewish anti-Zionist
There have always been distinct strands in the Jewish objection to Zionism. It has been regarded as inconsistent with Jewish teaching (the "religious objection"), with Jews' obligations to their countries of citizenship ("the patriotic objection"), and with projects of universal emancipation both / either from capitalism ("the leftist objection") and / or ethnic or religious particularism ("the liberal objection").
In the pre-1948 period, every one of these objections counted for a great deal. The religious objection existed in both Orthodox and Reform or Liberal versions. The patriotic objection, which was often advanced in tandem with the religious one, was made by substantial fractions of the Jewish communities of most Western European nations, and of the United States [12]. Indeed, antipathy to Zionism was one of the few positions (according to Michael B. Oren) around which, in the early 1900s, most of American Jewry could rally [13]. In Germany, meanwhile, in addition to the patriotic objection commanding the unreflective, commonsense allegiance of the generality of the nation's Jewry it was also given considerable theological depth by the German thinker Herman Cohen (1842-1919) [14].The liberal objection was to the effect that Zionism represented an attempt - no more, actually, than the latest in a series of such attempts in Jewish history - to distance the Western Jew from Western culture [15].The leftist objection was advanced by both the Third and the Fourth Internationals, that is, the Stalinist and the Trotskyist wings of the revolutionary Communist movement. All these objections faded upon the establishing of the Jewish State, not all at once, but over time. The religious objection was chastened by the ready accommodation reached with the State by the non-Zionist religious parties; the patriotic objection disappeared almost completely, as Jews found it possible to be citizens of their own country while also taking a fond pride in the achievements of another, Israel; the leftist objection faded before the spectacle of the Jewish remnants of the Holocaust rebuilding their lives as they built a state. Non-Zionists became no less ardent for the safety and success of the young State as the Zionists themselves [16];anti-Zionists tended to keep their own counsel.
