THE JEWISH STATE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE XXI CENTURY. Anthology of modern Israeli social and political thought. Collection of articles edited by A.D. Epstein. Jerusalem: Gesharim; Moscow: Mosty kul'tury Publ., 2008, 422 p.
Specialists in the history of the State of Israel and Zionism, as well as anyone interested in this topic, have at their disposal a fairly diverse body of literature in Russian. These are works translated into Russian by prominent Zionist ideologists of various trends, as well as works by some Israeli politicians and political scientists. However, as A. Epstein, the author of the anthology, quite rightly points out in the preface to the peer-reviewed publication, "only a few [of these works] are devoted to the present day of the State of Israel" (p.8), which celebrated its 60th anniversary in May 2008.
The peer-reviewed publication is a collection of works translated from Hebrew and English by a number of prominent contemporary Israeli political scientists and their young colleagues on key issues of modern Israeli society and the Middle East conflict.
The journal is published in English and Hebrew by the Shalem Research Center in Jerusalem. The very sections of this anthology allow us to speak about the breadth and diversity of the analyzed issues: "The Jewish State on the world map: Zionism at the beginning of the XXI century", "Jewry, Judaism and Zionism: paths and crossroads", "Israeli society in the face of an ideological crisis", "Israel and the Palestinian Arabs: in the labyrinth of conflict".
A significant part of the articles included in the anthology focuses on numerous internal problems of the Jewish state. The ideological and political confrontation between the religious and secular sectors of Israeli society, the relations between the various communities of the countries of origin, the dominant principles of the country's economy, problems in the field of education, and many other issues that neither the founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl, nor the founding fathers of the Jewish state could even imagine. I note that the articles of the reviewed collection not only raise certain questions, but also offer their own answers to them.
The opening article of the collection, "On the National State: The Guardian of the Jewish People", belongs to the founder of the Shalem Center, author of the famous book "The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul" (2000), Yoram Hazoni. He does not consider it possible to entertain illusions "about the new Middle East" (this was the title of a book written by the current President of Israel, Shimon Peres, who dreamed of opening new development paths for the countries of this most important region) and strongly disagrees with the opinion established in some public and political circles of Israel, which, in his opinion, contradicts political realities, about the desirability of the transformation of the country into a small Mediterranean state, distanced from the Jewish diaspora and alienated from the historical spiritual values of the people. Continuing the idea of Ahad Gaam's "spiritual Zionism", Hazoni writes about the uniqueness of the Jewish state in the modern world and about the implementation of Israel's historical mission to protect the interests of the Jewish people around the world.
In his extensive article "On the Right of the Jewish People to a Sovereign State", which is characterized by a deep analysis and a sense of political realism, a well-known jurist, Prof. Ruth Gavizon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem makes a reasonable conclusion that the existence of Israel as a Jewish and at the same time democratic state does not involve any insoluble contradictions and is completely legitimate. "The idea of a Jewish national state... it is an indispensable condition for the security of Jewish citizens and the continued existence of Jewish civilization." The Jewish character of the State of Israel "does not necessarily pose a threat to democratic institutions" (p. 55). In response to some voices both from the Palestinian side and from the ultra-left Jewish camp, Gavizon hardly dramatizes the situation when he declares that "giving up one's own state would mean national suicide for the Jewish people" (p.62).
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One of the arguments in favor of preserving and further strengthening the national character of the State of Israel for the author is the fact that since the War of independence of 1948-1949, Jews have made up the majority of the population of Palestine. This leads to the author's curious opinion (especially for historians of Zionism) that at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Zionist movement was in its infancy, the Jewish people did not have the right to establish their own state in any part of Palestine: "... the right of a people to form their own state requires that this people form the majority of the country's population" (p. 65). Based on this postulate, Gavizon opposes both the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees and the extension of Israeli sovereignty to territories inhabited by millions of Palestinians. It is also necessary to fully control the influx of immigrants into the country. The desire to violate these principles, the author believes, can turn the wheel of history back and undermine the foundations of the Jewish state. In her opinion, it is preferable to grant the Palestinians national sovereignty. A Palestinian State could give Israeli Arabs the right to choose between living in their own sovereign State and retaining Israeli citizenship.
In justifying the need to strengthen Jewish sovereignty in Palestine, Gavizon does not deny that there are various forms of discrimination against Israeli Arabs in Israel. But, turning to everyday realities, he notes that although the status of Israeli Arabs will always be compared with the situation of Israeli Jews, the situation of the former is preferable to that which would await them in an Arab state. This applies primarily to such vital areas as education, health care, and ensuring political freedom. All opinion polls of Israeli Arabs indicate that most of them would not like to live in a Palestinian state. Of course, in theory, a bi-national state stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River "is considered by many people to be a more acceptable idea than creating two separate states" (p. 77). However, everyday realities make us talk about the need to create two states. The fact that Israel remains a Jewish nation-State does not exempt it from fulfilling its obligations to ensure the safety and well-being of all its citizens.
The author notes that the Jewish majority should recognize a number of fundamental obligations to Israeli Arabs, which, in her opinion, are "three-tiered in nature" (p. 81). First of all, it is necessary to recognize that the very Jewish nature of the state is a "heavy burden" for many Israeli Arabs. The State should take action to meet the immediate needs of the Arab community and ensure civil equality. The growing alienation of Israeli Arabs from the Jewish State should not be understated. Nevertheless, Gavizon justifies discrimination against Arab residents of the country, but, contradicting the recognition of this fact, notes that such a policy should not affect the basic rights of the Arab population. At the same time, the Jewish majority in Israel must recognize the rights of the Palestinians and grant them the right to collective self-determination. In this concept, the author puts not only the formation of an independent Palestinian state, but also self-determination "as a minority living in the Jewish state" (p. 92).
In the article, the author also touches on the alienation that Israeli Arabs experience in relation to state symbols. In addition to maintaining the current Hatikva (Hope) anthem, which expresses Zionist values, she suggests that consideration should be given to introducing an alternative anthem that emphasizes exclusively civil aspects of statehood, with which non-Jewish citizens of Israel can also identify. Both anthems could be performed during official events. As far as I know, such a precedent has not yet been set in the world practice. The claim that the entire population of Israel will become homogeneous as a cultural community is nothing short of utopian. On the contrary, Israel should try to protect the unique set of traditions and cultures that currently exists.
R. Gavizon examines the now widely discussed participation of Diaspora Jews in the country's political processes. She justifiably opposes such claims, pointing out that such aspirations contradict the democratic principle, according to which only those people who are directly affected by the decisions taken should be allowed to participate in political life.: "neither Jews living outside the country, nor their ancestors-
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representatives have no right to influence the political decisions made by Israel" (p. 84).
If relations with Diaspora Jews are a rather marginal issue for R. Gavizon, then for Amnon Rubinstein, a professor of law and a statesman known to the Russian-speaking reader for his brilliant book " From Herzl to Rabin and Beyond "(Minsk, 2001), as is convincingly shown in his article ""Fellow travelers of "Zionism: Israel and the new nation-states" are quite legitimate, since currently international law and practice recognize the ties that countries maintain with ethnic diasporas outside their state entities. This process was further strengthened after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist bloc countries, when about 30 states emerged in their place. New trends in Europe are also expressed in the very willingness to reevaluate the concept of "dispersion" or "diaspora". At the time when the Zionist movement was taking its first steps, the diaspora was identified mainly with the Jewish "scattering". At present, as the author rightly points out, the connection between the diaspora and the mother country has become "the focus of increasing interest around the world" (p.107). In this context, he suggests that the perception that "the State of Israel and the idea on which it is based represent a political, legal, and moral anomaly" should be removed as quickly as possible (p.104).
Like other authors of the collection, Rubinstein sees no contradiction between the Jewish and democratic character of Israel, although he believes that a number of areas, especially those related to the attitude towards the Arab minority, need further improvement. I would like to note that this process is clearly hindered by the growing radicalization of a certain part of Israeli Arabs. Rubinstein published his article in 2004, and already in 2007, according to Israeli intelligence agencies, about 14% of terrorist attacks were committed by Arabs with Israeli citizenship. As a result of this development, the demand for a significant part of the Israeli electorate to review both existing laws and attitudes towards Arab citizens in general has become increasingly clear. This is clearly contrary to the suggestions that many authors of the reviewed collection write about.
There is another aspect that some venerable Israeli authors often ignore in their research. This is a question of how the State of Israel is perceived by key external forces based on a particular religious tradition. This is the subject of a brilliant article by an internationally recognized expert in the field of theology, Prof. Yosef Dan's "The State of Israel as a Theological Problem". The Vatican, the author notes, sees the creation of a Jewish state in the Holy Land primarily as a theological problem, a source of threat to Christian dogma, since the sovereignty of the Jewish people in its historical homeland is basically impossible. For this actually means the falsity of the church's self-determination as the "new Israel", almost a refutation of Christianity as such. It is no coincidence that both Israel and the Vatican have carefully avoided open discussion of this issue.
In Western Christianity, there is also a Protestant perception of the problem, coming from apocalyptic texts, eschatological premonitions. Protestant evangelical circles have enthusiastically embraced the creation of the State of Israel as evidence of their anticipated "second coming" and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. For them, the very existence of Israel is conditioned by the hope of a future conversion of Jews to Christianity. In other words, for Protestantism as well as for the Vatican, modern Israel is a phenomenon of theology. "Like Catholics, Evangelicals cannot accept the existence of a modern Jewish state as a permanent fact" (p.131). According to Dan, according to the Christian concept, statehood was granted to Jews not by right, but because of the suffering that the Nazis subjected them to. Therefore, it is no accident that some Christian circles sometimes equate Israel's behavior towards the Palestinians with the Nazi policy towards the Jews. In this case, the statehood "granted" to the Jews is no longer valid.
Turning to Islam, Dan notes that at present, it is the Islamic theological platform that is the core of the ideological attitude of the Arabs towards Israel. In Arab countries, Israel is considered not just a state of "infidels", but does not have the right to a sovereign existence at all. The image of the Jew in the Arab consciousness remains the same: his presence is tolerable at best, but he cannot claim true equality, much less the possession of his own state, and even on land that is the "legitimate property of Islam".
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Despite significant differences in the Islamic and Christian concepts of attitudes towards Jews, for both religions, as the researcher notes, "Jewishness "and" sovereignty " are incompatible concepts. Israel's own polemic about the nature and essence of the state reflects the need of Israeli society itself and has no significance for the perception of Israel through the prism of Christian and Islamic doctrines.
The volume of the review does not allow you to present all the articles included in the collection. However, one cannot ignore the important work necessary for understanding the concept of the collection itself - the article "New Hegemony and Vanished Pluralism: Reflections on the Crisis of Israeli Sociology"by A. Epstein, an Israeli scholar well-known to Russian specialists. The author reflects on the crisis of Israeli sociology, which in its own way reflects the crisis of Israeli society. At the same time, post-Zionist historiography itself "made" a significant contribution to this crisis. Having challenged the" Zionist " myth in the 1980s and initially being a rather marginal phenomenon, the post-Zionist vision of history and modernity now completely dominates most universities in the country and has a significant influence on the decisions of the political leadership in recent years. The author's call for Israeli sociologists to first critically evaluate their own views, "understand themselves and see their own shortcomings", seems to remain a voice crying out in the desert.
The collection concludes with an article by Moshe Ya'alon, a prominent Israeli military leader who held top positions in the country's military leadership in 1995-2005, including the post of Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, entitled "The Israel Defense Forces and the spirit of Israeli Society". The author focuses on the moral state of Israeli civil society in the face of a new type of threat, primarily related to the nuclear danger posed by Iran. The ideological crisis of Israeli society is largely connected, according to the general, with various post-Zionist theses spread by the left-wing intellectual elite, who question the moral legitimacy of the Zionist idea. Ya'alon strongly rejects such views, which cannot but affect the morale of the country's armed forces. He emphasizes that any compromise proposals and concessions from the Israeli side only open up a "new front line" and become an impulse to escalate the conflict. "Meetings with the Palestinians will only be meaningful and useful," Ya'alon is convinced," if they are based on the recognition of the legitimacy of Zionism by the opposite side " (p.407).
In general, the collection called by the compiler "an anthology of Israeli public political thought", of course, does not represent the full range of constantly dynamic socio-political views of modern Israel. As you know, the Jerusalem research center "Shalem", headed by Natan Sharansky, adheres to the right orientation.
The author did not have time to include articles that analyze the state of society after the second Lebanon War and a number of other external and internal political events known to the reader. This means that a new publication should be on the agenda, reflecting the views of Israeli political scientists on recent events.
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