Zionism, Nationalism, and Morality
[Published in Nationalism and Ethnic
Conflict, ed. Nenad Miscević, Open Court Publishing Company, 2000.]
______________________________________________
No topic causes more acrimonious debate between Jews and Arabs, even
among those who favor a “two-state solution,” than the morality of Zionism.
Israeli Jews from the “Peace Now” movement often astound Arab audiences when
they call Zionism “the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.” And
Arabs infuriate even many left-wing Jews when they label Zionism a form of racism.
Part of the debate is due to confusion about the meaning of Zionism, the
relationship of Zionism to other forms of nationalism, and the extent to which
partiality toward “one's own” is ethically justifiable. I will try to untangle
some of that confusion and to construct a framework for assessing the
morality of Zionism.
One
source of confusion is the failure to distinguish between Zionism as a pure
concept and Zionism as an historical reality associated with the state of
Israel. The concept of Zionism does not imply the particular way that Israel
has implemented it. One can oppose the policies of Israel, yet defend the idea
of Jewish nationalism and even of a (radically changed) Jewish state in
Palestine. In this essay I first address the morality of Zionism as a concept,
apart from its implementation by Israel. I then discuss the implementation of
Zionism and argue for two claims applicable to the current Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. I conclude by suggesting a moral requirement for Zionism today, one
which has larger implications for the ethics of nationalism.
I
stipulate two principles as central to Zionism:
·
Jews have a moral right to self-determination or a Jewish state
somewhere in the world.
·
Jews have a moral right to self-determination or a Jewish state
somewhere in Palestine.
The
first claim addresses something close to the pure idea of Jewish nationalism
completely apart from its implementation in Palestine. The second claim
includes a consideration of the competing claims of Jews and Arabs to the land
of Palestine. For those who do not think that these principles capture what is
essential to “Zionism,” this essay can be considered an evaluation of the two
principles, which are themselves interesting, controversial, and suggestive of
larger issues in the ethics of nationalism.
One
further preliminary point. Each claim refers to “self-determination or a Jewish
state.” In this paper I will assume that political self-determination means
statehood because in the modern world nations typically achieve full
self-determination by gaining a state of their own. Both Palestinians and
Jews—not to mention Kurds, Kosovars, and Croatians—understand their own
self-determination in terms of statehood. Moreover, the more general moral
debate on the ethics of nationalism focuses on the existence of contemporary
nation-states. [1] Perhaps a homeland for Jews
would have been possible without statehood, and there are good reasons for the
world to develop means by which political communities can achieve
self-determination in some form other than that of the nation-state. But I will
not tackle that question here. Therefore, in discussing nationalism and
Zionism, I will assume that Jewish self-determination would express itself
through statehood.
I
will discuss three criticisms of Zionism: (1) Zionism is immoral because
it is a form of cultural nationalism; (2) Even assuming that some forms of
cultural nationalism are morally acceptable, Jewish nationalism is unacceptable;
(3) Even assuming that Jewish nationalism is in principle acceptable,
Zionism is immoral because, insofar as it includes a claim to a Jewish state
somewhere in Palestine, it necessarily violates the moral rights of indigenous
Palestinians. I will try to show that the first two criticisms are flawed and
that the third criticism is more complex than is generally assumed. However, I
will also argue that the third criticism is an important challenge to
contemporary Zionism and demonstrates that if it is to be morally defensible,
it must radically transform its relationship both to its own past and to the
Palestinian people.
The
first criticism of Zionism is that it is immoral because it is a form of
cultural nationalism. And this invokes a larger challenge: can any nationalism
that acts with a preference for members of a particular cultural group be
ethically acceptable? On the face of it, any nationalism violates the standard
ethical view that all persons should be treated equally and impartially. For
people, or for governments acting in the name of people, to grant special
consideration to others who share a certain nationality but not to “foreigners”
requires justification. On first view “being French” would not seem to be a
morally relevant criterion for receiving special benefits. How can it be
morally acceptable for people to establish a “French government” that makes
precisely this distinction?
Of
course the matter is not that simple. There are forms of partiality that are
reasonably accepted, such as an individual’s entitlement to give greater weight
to the interests of one's own family than to strangers and perhaps also to
favor close friends, even in the absence of contractual agreements. [2] In contrast, racism, the
favoring of a people simply because of their race, is widely condemned.
Nationalistic partiality is more controversial; some expressions of
nationalism may be ethically acceptable while others are not.[3]
As with other forms of partialism, we must evaluate nationalisms with respect
to both the degree of partialism and
the kind of partialism that they sanction.
The first criticism of Jewish nationalism is that it sanctions the wrong kind
of partialism because it is a nationalism which favors a particular culture.
What
might be an appropriate form of nationalism for the critic of cultural
nationalism? The division of persons into nations might be justified purely as
a matter of administrative convenience, a way in which our general obligation to
protect welfare can be efficiently distributed. The French government is
assigned special responsibility for French citizens because they are within the
borders of the administrative unit known as “France.” Robert Goodin[4]
endorses this approach and argues that one implication of this model is that if
there are people who have not been assigned protectors, then all states have a
responsibility to them, just as all doctors in a hospital would have some
residual responsibility for patients who had not been assigned to a particular
physician.
If
administered democratically, this kind of “administrative nationalism” will
serve not only to promote economic welfare but also to satisfy the claim of a
group of people to govern themselves, which may itself be viewed an one element
of human welfare. It allows the nation to fulfill what Yael Tamir refers to as
the “democratic version of the right to self-determination”[5] and what Muhammad Ali Khalidi calls
the “right of political participation.”[6] Just as it would be too cumbersome
to administer economic welfare globally, democracies function best when divided
into separate jurisdictions.
To
the critic of cultural nationalism, the partiality involved in administrative
nationalism is relatively unproblematic. Of course even the state organized for
administrative convenience will favor its own citizens and not view every
person in the world as having an equal moral claim on its resources or an equal
claim to influence its policies. But the ultimate justification for administrative
nationalism is impartial, and its defense of partiality within each nation is
merely instrumental. [7] It sees the preferential
treatment that states offer their citizens as a means toward achieving an
impartial goal, the welfare of all people. Under administrative nationalism the
state is bound by impartial principles both in the justification for the
original establishment of state boundaries and in matters of immigration, a
continuation of the process of dividing up people into jurisdictions.
Cultural
nationalism is a bolder challenge to the impartiality principle and, to the
critic, a more disturbing one. It corresponds to what Tamir refers to as the
“cultural version of the right of self-determination,”[8] to Khalidi’s “right of
national self-expression,”[9] and to Michael Walzer’s
conception of the right of people to a “common life.” [10] Whereas under
administrative nationalism each state's responsibilities are the same but
simply cover different groups of individuals, for cultural nationalism the
state's role goes beyond protecting the life, liberty, and welfare of individuals;
it must also protect and promote (and hence “favor”) a particular “way of life”
which typically includes customs and traditions that have evolved for a
particular group of people over time and which generally is embraced by
most—but, significantly, not all-- of the people currently residing in the
state’s territory.[11] Hence a French state will
have a responsibility to protect “the French way of life” that will distinguish
it from an Arab state; the obligations of a German state will be different from
those of a Turkish state. And these differences may be reflected in a state's
immigration policies.
Zionism,
which aims to promote a distinctively Jewish society, is clearly a form of
cultural nationalism. As such it is subject to the criticism that it is
oppressive, even racist, and in general incompatible with the impartial
standpoint of morality.[12]
In response, I will offer a qualified defense of cultural nationalism; first,
by distinguishing it from racist and other oppressive nationalisms; second, by
pointing out, positively, ways that cultural nationalism may be justified; and
third, by arguing that the criticism of Zionism for being a form of cultural
nationalism comes from an inappropriately idealistic moral standpoint.
First,
the promotion of a culture is clearly different from the promotion of a race.
It is the existence of a shared way of
life that is judged worth defending that distinguishes partialism on behalf
of a culture from racist partialism. Anyone, regardless of race, may choose to
participate in the common life of a culture. Insofar as the common life that
defines a “people” is not based on race, it leaves open the possibility for all
persons to choose (if they wish) to identity with the country’s predominant
national culture. Though difficult, it is possible for minorities, those who
were once “outsiders,” eventually to share in Danish or French peoplehood. An
Algerian can “become” French (just as Armenians and Jews have become Turks),
whereas it was not possible for a black person in apartheid South Africa to
“become” white. A second difference between cultural and racial nationalism is
that cultures or ways of life evolve, and a changing population may, over time,
enrich and alter a culture. A nationalism based on race is less open to this
kind of evolution. Finally, racist nationalism typically denies equal citizenship rights to “alien” races,
whereas cultural nationalism may grant full citizenship rights to members of
minority cultures.
Even
if cultural nationalism is not based on race, its partiality is, according to
the critic, still unacceptably exclusionary. To the extent that the “way of
life” is based on particular values such as socialism, Islam, Judaism, or
Christianity, and that way of life is part of the nation’s core identity rather
than an issue open to democratic debate, it will exclude those who choose not
to embrace it. To the extent that it is based, as is generally the case, on a
shared history and identification with particular cultural symbols, it will
exclude those who are not members of the dominant culture and who do not wish
to assimilate into it. Thus, even if partiality toward a culture is not the
same as racism, a state’s promotion of a “way of life” may be, critics
argue, no less oppressive for those who
do not wish to share it.
Though
the critic can point to many examples where cultural nationalism (or Zionism in
practice) has oppressed minorities, we should not concede that it necessarily
does so. The acceptance of cultural nationalism does not imply acquiescing in
the exclusion of people or in discrimination against minorities. A culturally
based state will express its way of life officially through its language, its
holidays, and its national symbols, but this does not mean that all people's
basic human and citizenship rights will not be respected. Indeed, reasonable
conditions for the acceptability of a state based on cultural nationalism are
that it develop constitutional procedures to protect the citizenship rights of
minorities, that it guarantee all residents the right to emigrate, and that it
include provisions to ensure that all who wish to join the majority culture’s
national life may do so. More than that: a morally defensible cultural
nationalism should seek ways to protect and encourage the expression of
minority cultures; for example, through funding schools, museums, and other
cultural institutions that express the arts, language, and history of minority
cultures. A small minority cannot expect to have its cultural symbols officially acknowledged by the state,
but to deny a people official expression of their culture’s symbols is neither
to oppress the people themselves nor to deny them the right of cultural
expression. Few would argue that Muslims are necessarily oppressed in
Scandinavian countries merely because the cross and not the crescent is on each
country’s flag.
Aside
from not being inherently racist or oppressive, cultural nationalism includes
positive features that may justify its existence even from an impartial
standpoint. Cultural nationalism responds to some basic human needs, and there
are good reasons to want to see these needs satisfied for many people even
where they cannot be satisfied to the same degree for all. Though it is beyond
the scope of this paper to develop the relationship between individual human
needs and national self-determination, many authors—in particular, Michael
Walzer and Yael Tamir—have argued that persons need, and have a right to, the
“common life” (Walzer) and “shared public space” (Tamir) afforded by being a
member of a self-determining nation.[13] For Tamir,
Membership
in a nation is a constitutive factor of personal identity. The self-image of
individuals is highly affected by the status of their national community. The
ability of individuals to lead a satisfying life and to attain the respect of
others is contingent on, although not assured by, their ability to view
themselves as active members of a worthy community . . .Given the essential
interest of individuals in preserving their national identity…the right to
national self-determination should be seen as an individual right.[14]
One
problem with this argument as a justification of cultural nationalism is that
it is not obvious that the human needs served by cultural nationalism, when
considered impartially, will outweigh other human needs that may compete with
it. But if the value of cultural nationalism can be established, then the
burden of proof is on the critic to spell out those competing needs and to
demonstrate both their importance and their incompatibility with any form of
cultural nationalism.
A
second impartial justification for cultural nationalism is the desirability of
preserving a diversity of “ways of life.” We regret the loss of an indigenous
culture, just as we regret the loss of a species or ecosystem, and one might
attempt to argue that cultures or ecosystems themselves have interests and can
be bearers of rights. But even if cultures themselves do not have rights,
individual human beings have an interest in the preservation of a diversity of
cultures, each making actual some of the possibilities of human consciousness
through distinctive forms of expression. It is reasonable to view the loss of
an indigenous culture’s language and way of life as a loss for humanity in
general. And it is also reasonable to think that those cultures have a better
chance of surviving if they enjoy the protection of national self-determination
or, if that is not possible, if they come under the protection of a state that
is committed to an enlightened form of cultural nationalism.
Though
these are reasonable arguments for cultural nationalism from a purely impartial
standpoint, they may not be decisive. Perhaps the most important reason that
the criticism of cultural nationalism fails as a challenge to Zionism is that,
insofar as it insists on pure impartiality, it adopts an inappropriate
standpoint, that of idealistic rather than a more realistic morality. The
distinction, introduced and discussed by Joseph H. Carens in relation to the
ethics of migration,[15] is crucial for discussing
the ethics of nationalism. In an idealistic approach, we evaluate behavior in
light of our highest ideals, disregarding whether there is any chance that
those ideals will actually be met. This is certainly appropriate in discussions
of ethical theory that are concerned with fundamental justification. But in
discussions of public policy, a more realistic approach is the appropriate one.
It would require that (1) what we say ought to be done “should not be too far
from what we think actually might happen,” and that (2) we avoid “moral standards that no one ever meets or
even approximates in their actual behavior.”[16] These are rough but
nonetheless useful guidelines. Carens suggests that in discussing the ethics of
public policy, we want to avoid a “large gap between the ought and the is,” but he
is careful also to warn of the danger of a purely realistic approach that makes
no distinction at all between them and would acquiesce in the worst injustices.
This concern also applies to the morality of Zionism, and at the end of this
paper I will propose a requirement for Zionism that is far from its current
practice but which is consistent with “realistic” morality, given the above
guidelines. More work needs to be done formulating a continuum of
possibilities between idealistic and realistic approaches and specifying in
some detail how much realism is appropriate to different moral inquiries into
nationalism. But even postponing that more exacting project, I think it fair to
claim that criticizing Zionism merely because it is a form of cultural
nationalism is to adopt an unfruitful kind of ethical idealism.
A
more realistic approach is particularly appropriate in assessing Zionism as a
form of cultural nationalism for two reasons. First, if Zionism is flawed
simply because it is a culturally based nationalism, then it is only flawed in
the same way as British nationalism, Lithuanian nationalism, or, most significantly,
Palestinian nationalism. Those criticizing Zionism on moral grounds do not
intend their condemnation to be so sweeping. Though Palestinians protest at
being stateless and express an urgent desire for “a passport,” they are not
indifferent with respect to which passport they receive. Were the right to
belong to a state based purely on a right to be part of some administrative
unit that protects individuals, Palestinians might work to become full
Jordanians or Israelis. Though the “one-state” solution (one secular democratic
state in all of Palestine) approaches this demand, it is doubtful that
Palestinian national aspirations would be met if the name of the single state
were “Israel” or even “Southern Syria,” if its language were Hebrew (or English),
and if only Jewish holidays (or no holidays at all) were officially celebrated.
Second,
a more realistic approach is especially appropriate for evaluating both Jewish
and Palestinian nationalism because the failure of other nationalisms to meet
the most ideal ethical standards is the urgent historical context within which
their movements for self-determination have developed. In a world where other people achieve freedom and
independence through cultural nationalism and where states have recently used
their power to oppress them, Jews and Palestinians may be able to gain security
in the present only through a state of their own.[17] Their historical experience
appears to confirm this. Jews residing in Poland, Russia, and Germany failed
to receive the full protection promised by simply being under the jurisdiction
of a state. And no Palestinian in the occupied areas (and few in Israel
itself) would claim that the state adequately considers the needs of individual
Palestinians.
One
might argue that the historical experience of Palestinians and Jews is due to
the failure to implement the ideals
of administrative nationalism (or even of morally acceptable cultural
nationalism) and that it is through advocating and working toward the
achievement of those ideals that both Palestinians and Jews can overcome
oppression. However, this is not an effective argument against cultural
nationalism for contemporary Jews or Palestinians. Though ethnic bigotry and
discrimination are morally wrong and should be opposed wherever they are found,
the actual framework in which both Jews and Palestinians must make moral
choices includes a continuing history of victimization and a lack of success,
as minorities, in “persuading” those in power to change their behavior. A realistic
morality that aims to assess the behavior of a people and the character of
their national movement cannot ignore that their choices are made in the
context of actions by others that they cannot control.
Many
critics of Zionism accept culturally based nationalism—indeed, most
Palestinians enthusiastically embrace it—but they challenge Zionism on the
grounds that it is morally different from other forms of cultural nationalism
for at least three reasons. First, Jewish nationalism is unacceptable because
Jews are not a “people”; that is, there is no distinctly “Jewish” culture or
way of life, or—a more moderate claim—there is no Jewish culture sufficiently
distinct to justify national self-determination. Second, Jewish nationalism is
unacceptable because its criteria for membership are overly exclusive. Third,
Zionism is unacceptable because Jews lacked a necessary ingredient for national
self-determination, a contiguous territory on which they were already residing.
The
claim that “Jews are not a people” is difficult to defend (or to refute)
because there are no agreed-upon criteria for what constitutes a distinctive
“people.” The arguments used against Jewish peoplehood are often almost
ludicrous: “they don't look alike,” “they don't eat the same foods,” “they
don't speak the same language.” While each of these may be one relevant criterion
of peoplehood, no one of them seems necessary. What unites a “people” is a
complex matter and obviously differs from nation to nation; Americans and
Canadians would meet few of the traditional criteria. Palestinians, dispersed
throughout the world like Jews, no longer share a language and never shared one
common religion. Yet it would be presumptuous to tell someone who experiences herself as Palestinian that
she is really an “American” or a “Jordanian” or even, as Israeli leaders used
to insist, simply an “Arab” with no more distinctive identity. Ultimately,
whether or not someone is a member of a “people” seems most reasonably answered
by whether she is a member of a group that experiences
itself as sharing an identity. Those who do so experience themselves have
certain characteristic qualities: they feel part of a shared history (perhaps a
history of victimization), they feel pride when their group (or perhaps even a
member of their group) is recognized as having performed in a noble or
distinguished way, and they feel shame, not merely anger, when something
ignominious becomes associated with their group.[18]
If these feelings are combined with a general desire to achieve
self-determination and a willingness to sacrifice for it, the existence of
“peoplehood” cannot reasonably be doubted. There may be pragmatic reasons for
regarding the achievement of statehood as undesirable or impossible—insufficient
economic resources, for example—but unless someone can rationally demonstrate
objective criteria for peoplehood, one cannot deny in such cases that there
does indeed exist a people that is striving for self-determination.
A
second argument directed against Jewish nationalism is that it is “closed” or
exclusive, in contrast to the more “open” or inclusive nationalisms espoused by
“genuine” liberation movements. Though this criticism is directed against
Zionism in principle, I will focus mainly on the form it takes by those who
defend Palestinian nationalism. I will argue that if Palestinian nationalism is
not to become a merely administrative nationalism, then it will include the
same exclusionary features as the Jewish nationalism it criticizes.
Palestinians
often stress that their opposition is not to Jews but to Zionism, and many
emphasize that Jews who come from
Palestine are also Palestinians and can share in the fruits of Palestinian
national liberation. This view bases national identity on a shared attachment
to land. It claims to be an inclusive nationalism, and it considers Zionism
closed or even racist because it excludes people simply because of their ancestry.[19]
The old PLO formula of one “secular democratic state” in Palestine was one
attempt to implement this view. While this approach denies Jews recognition as
a distinctive people entitled to a state of their own, it offers a positive
justification for nationhood that can include Jews. This can be looked at in
two slightly different ways: (1) a state of Palestine that recognizes the
existence of two different “common lives,” Jewish and Arab, but claims that
their shared attachment to the same land implies that they should live together
under one jurisdiction; (2) a state of Palestine in which a shared attachment
to the land is itself regarded as the basis for a single “common life” uniting
Arab and Jew. The first form denies the “one nation, one common life” approach,
while the second accepts that each nation protects one “way of life” but
broadens its conception of what a “way of life” includes. Both conceptions can
give some content to being Jewish or being Palestinian Arab and yet both oppose
an “exclusive” nationalism based on the culture of only one group or the other.
The
idea of a single secular state based on attachment to the land of Palestine
probably best captures the deepest Palestinian aspirations and is proposed as
an alternative both to a “closed” cultural nationalism and to a mere
“administrative” nationalism. The Palestinian dream of a secular state has
always been more substantial than a desire for some administrative unit that
would issue passports or for a bureaucracy, any bureaucracy, that would promote
the health and welfare of Palestinians. The dream includes the use of the
Arabic language, the freedom to practice the Muslim or Christian religion, the
teaching of Palestinian history, and the commemoration of that history in
national holidays. But, according to the proposed challenge, there is no reason
why these elements of a “common life” cannot coexist in a single state with a
second, Jewish “common life” or that the two together cannot be thought to make
up a common life more broadly conceived.
However,
to base nationalism on attachment to the same land seems to undermine the whole
substantive justification of national boundaries, reducing it in the end to a
matter of administrative convenience. There are two possibilities: either Jews
and Palestinians are thought to have somewhat separate common lives but tied
together into one nation by living on the same land, or else the fact that Jews
and Palestinians live on the same land is itself thought to give Jews and
Palestinians one common life. But if Jews and Palestinians have separate
“common lives” and two such different common lives are to coexist in one
country, why not include Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt as well? Why not the whole
Middle East or even Europe? Why divide the land of the world into separate
nations unless doing so is judged to be efficient or administratively
convenient as a way of distributing responsibility? Once we concede that Jews
and Palestinians have different ways of life and once the administrative
convenience model of nationhood is rejected, there seems no good reason to
group Palestinians with Jews rather than with Jordanians and no basis for
grouping Jewish Israelis with Arabs rather than Americans.[20]
If,
on the other hand, Jews and Palestinians are thought to constitute a single way
of life based on a shared attachment to the land, then again it is not clear
where to draw the boundaries of “the land” to which they are attached. How is
it different from the land of Lebanon or Egypt or Jordan? Do not all people in
the region share an attachment to “the land” a bit more broadly conceived? Or,
going in the other direction, why should not Jerusalemites be considered
attached to a “different land” from those living in Tel Aviv? Their relation to
what they regard as a holy city is dramatically different from that of people living
in secular Tel Aviv.[21]
Once
we purge considerations of “culture” or “way of life” of the more traditional
kind in order to create a more “open” nationalism, drawing national boundaries
based on an attachment to one land rather than another would seem to reduce us
to defining political units purely in terms of administrative convenience. If
“attachment to land” is interpreted to include anyone who happens physically to
reside in a given area, then it will indeed be open and inclusive, but it will
justify only an administrative nationalism. On the other hand, if “attachment
to land” means something more than this—a shared history of attachment, a
bonding of people who are “from” the same place—then it will be a cultural
nationalism that will be at least as
exclusive as Jewish nationalism. Though the Zionist movement does not embrace
Palestinian Arab culture (but could in principle, and should, protect its
expression as a cultural minority inside Israel), a Palestinian nationalism
based on a common historical attachment to the land of Palestine will also
exclude (or at least similarly fail to “embrace”) the culture of Russians,
Austrians, Jews and anyone else who does not share Palestinian ancestry. If what is thought morally
problematic about a Jewish nationalism is that it promotes a culture based
(largely) on ancestry, a matter over which people have no control, then
Palestinian (and many other forms of) nationalism must be seen as no less
exclusive. Even when nation-states respect the basic rights of minorities,
their failure fully to “embrace” minority cultures seems to be an inevitable
element of cultural nationalism; the Palestinian idea of a “shared attachment
to land,” if interpreted as more than an administrative division, is no
exception. Though the implementation
of Jewish nationalism may have involved unique forms of exclusion, there seems
to be nothing in principle about
Jewish nationalism that makes it any less inclusive than other forms of
cultural nationalism.
A
final argument against Zionism, attempting to distinguish it from acceptable
forms of cultural nationalism, is that it lacked one of the ethical
requirements of a national liberation movement, residence on contiguous
territory on which to construct a nation-state. National movements typically
work to control territory on which they are currently suppressed or from which
they have recently been expelled, but in its inception Zionism envisioned a
state for people scattered throughout the world.[22]
The
tie between a people, a national liberation movement, and particular territory
is a complex one that, in its most theoretical dimension, is beyond the scope
of this paper. I will limit myself to three brief comments. First, although it
is fair to say that those already living in an area have a presumptive claim to
its territory over those not living in the same area, there may be some
advantage to demystifying the connection between people and land. A group has a
better chance of creating a morally acceptable form of nationalism if it sees
territory simply as the necessary physical space in which their people can live
and express their national culture rather than as the soil where their
ancestors’ blood has been shed. Some of the greatest problems of nationalism,
Jewish nationalism included, derive from an excessive rather than an
insufficient tie to a particular territory of the world.[23]
Second,
if one questions whether a particular people—in this case, the Jews—are truly a
“people” of the kind qualifying for national self-determination, the existence
of a strong will to create a homeland even in the absence of the close natural ties afforded by physical proximity
would seem to be unusually powerful evidence of the experience of a shared
identity. And if, as argued above, the qualities of peoplehood depend upon the
subjective experiences of its members, the sense
of peoplehood is the most important evidence of its actual existence. That this
shared identity derives in part from a history of persecution at the hands of
countries widely separated from one another strengthens rather than weakens the
case for Jewish nationalism.
Third,
there is no good moral reason in
principle to disqualify people from building a state on territory merely
because most (or even all) of them had never lived there before.[24] Had there truly been a
“land without people” and Jews had settled and built their state there, I would
see no good reason to consider Jewish nationalism less legitimate because it
needed to find a homeland rather than to try to “reclaim” one. What is
problematic in practice about
settling in areas where people have not previously lived is that other people have a claim to the land.
This is the most crucial challenge to Zionism and the subject of the next
section.
If
the first two arguments against Zionism fail, then the idea of a morally
defensible Jewish national liberation movement is conceivable. From the
standpoint of a more realistic (even if not from a purely impartial) morality,
people are entitled to form states to defend a particular culture or “way of
life,” and if Jews experience themselves as sharing a way of life and are
willing to sacrifice to achieve self-determination, their aspirations to
national liberation must be respected as much as those of any other people.
The final criticism of Zionism concedes all this but argues that though there
is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of Jewish nationalism, Zionism, by
definition, infringes the rights of Palestinians. Another way of putting the
criticism is to say that if Zionism were fully represented by its first
principle, that “Jews have a moral right to self-determination or a Jewish
state somewhere in the world,” it would be defensible. But since Zionism did
not choose a so-called “land without people,” since it claims for Jews (under
its second principle) “a moral right to self-determination or a Jewish state somewhere in Palestine,” it necessarily
infringes the moral rights of the indigenous people in the area and is for that reason morally indefensible.
That
the actual establishment of Israel infringed Palestinian rights is hard to
dispute. Zionists must confront the dispossession of Palestinians, the
devastation of a Palestinian way of life, and the intentional destruction of
four-fifths of the Arab villages that once existed in what is now Israel.[25]
Similarly, it would be hard to dispute the claim that Israel's current policies
infringe Palestinian rights. Israel's infringement of human rights in the West
Bank and Gaza has been widely documented in both international and Israeli
sources.[26]
Several
argumentative strategies are open to the contemporary Zionist, however. One
would be to claim that Zionism in
principle does not imply the infringement of Palestinian rights that has actually
occurred (and continues to occur). A second would be to concede that Zionism
infringes Palestinian rights but to argue that this infringement is morally
justified by more weighty considerations. Finally, the Zionist might concede
the moral flaws inherent in Zionism but argue that a morally acceptable form of
Zionism is still possible today. I will discuss each of these in turn.
That
Zionism in principle does not imply any particular
course of events, any particular historical infringement of rights, is clearly
true, just as any concept does not imply a particular instantiation. However,
even if the Zionist movement could have minimized the infringement of
Palestinian rights more than it actually did, it is unlikely that any movement
to establish a Jewish state “somewhere in Palestine” could have totally avoided
infringing the rights of the indigenous people. Unlike the romanticized view of
most American Jews and Christians, some leading Zionists have been more
forthright in acknowledging the moral costs that were unavoidable elements of
Jewish national liberation in Palestine. Three years after famously calling
Palestine “a land without people for the people without land,” Israel Zangwill
reversed himself in a little-known 1904 New York speech:
There
is, however, a difficulty from which the Zionist dares not avert his eyes,
though he rarely likes to face it. Palestine proper has already its
inhabitants. The Pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated
as the United States, having fifty-two souls to every square mile, and not 25
percent of them Jews, so we must be prepared either to drive out by the sword
the tribes in possession as our forefathers did, or to grapple with the
problem of a large alien population.[27]
And
in 1969 Moshe Dayan said to a group of students:
We
came to this country, which was already populated by Arabs, and we are
establishing a Hebrew, that is, a Jewish state here. . . .Jewish
villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the
names of these Arab villages, and I don't blame you, since these geography
books no longer exist. Not only the books do not exist—the Arab villages are
not there either.[28]
The
second Zionist argument is more forthright and philosophically more
interesting. It concedes that the infringement of Palestinian rights is
inherent in establishing and maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine. It
claims, however, that this alone does not show Zionism to be in principle
morally unacceptable. The infringement of others' rights is not always morally wrong since even strong
rights claims are not absolute. On an absolutist view, there can never be
considerations that justify infringing a right. For example, if freedom from
unwanted experimentation were regarded as an absolute right, then it would be
immoral to use a person in an experiment against her will even if the fate of
the rest of the world were at stake. Most ethical theorists shrink from such
absolutism.
In
the same spirit, Zionists might concede the infringement of Palestinian rights
but defend Zionism on the grounds that the infringement of rights was (or is) necessary for the protection of morally more weighty rights, such as the
saving of human lives and the preservation of a culture threatened with
destruction. Determining the “weight” of rights is a notoriously difficult
matter, of course. I will not attempt to argue for or against the Zionist case
but instead will set out what I think it needs to involve and then argue for
two conclusions that are relevant to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
whether or not the Zionist defense is successful.
The
Zionist argument appeals to two rights, the right of people to protect their
own lives and the right of people to defend their own culture when it is
threatened with destruction, as Jewish culture was threatened by European
persecution culminating in the Nazi genocide. The Zionist argument is that
these rights outweigh the Palestinian rights that Zionism necessarily sacrifices.
Even
assuming that the two rights invoked by defenders of Zionism exist and have
moral significance, the argument needs further clarification. First, there is
the factual question of exactly which
Palestinian rights Zionism infringes. Some argue that it is the right of
Palestinians to live where they choose
and suggest that the Jewish right to exist
must take precedence. However, Palestinians would respond that Zionism, by
definition, implies not just the “transfer” of Palestinians from one place to
another but the destruction of the whole Palestinian way of life, partly
because Palestinian culture is based on ties to a particular land. If Zionism
implies the destruction of Palestinian culture, its defender will need to
show why the right of Jewish culture to survive outweighs the corresponding
right of Palestinians.
Second,
the right of Jews to protect their lives, to which Zionists appeal—even
assuming that this right was (or is) at stake—is not identifiable with the
right of self-defense as that right is generally understood. The right of
self-defense is generally invoked to permit action to protect oneself from harm
against the source of danger, not against a third party. Jewish lives and
culture were originally threatened primarily by Europeans, not by Arabs, so
Jewish actions against Arabs were not ordinary acts of self-defense.[29]
In self-defense it is often thought that one may inflict slightly greater
damage than the harm that is threatened.[30]
However, when one argues in favor of action against a third party rather than
against the original source of danger, one's burden of proof is significantly
greater. A Zionist who depends on the claim that the Jewish rights at stake are
“more weighty” than the Arab rights is in fact acknowledging this greater
burden of proof.
The
Zionist appeal to “more weighty” Jewish rights may take either an impartial
perspective or rely on cultural partialism. In either case, a first premise
might be:
1. The infringement of Palestinian rights is necessary for satisfying the rights of
Jews to preserve their lives and their culture” (i.e., for fulfilling the
Zionist project in Palestine).
The
argument could then proceed in one of two ways.
Impartialist version
2a. Rights of other people may be infringed when it
is necessary to do so in order to satisfy rights that are, objectively and
impartially, more compelling.
3a. The rights of Jews to preserve their lives and
their culture are, objectively and impartially, more compelling than the
Palestinian rights that must be infringed.
Partialist version
2b. People in one's own culture are objects of
special moral concern; therefore, the rights of people in other cultures may be
infringed when it is necessary to do so in order to satisfy rights of one's own
people that are impartially of at least
nearly equal importance.
3b. Jews are a culture, and the rights of Jews to
preserve Jewish lives and Jewish culture are, impartially, at least of nearly
equal importance to the Palestinian rights that must be infringed.
Again,
for either of these arguments to be developed, defenders of Zionism would
need to show that the infringement of the Palestinian rights in question is necessary, and they would need to spell
out which Palestinian rights are in fact infringed and to argue that the Jewish
rights are either “more compelling” than the Palestinian rights (in the
impartial version) or “at least of nearly equal importance” (in the partialist
version).
Obviously
the Zionist argument will be easier to make if some form of partialism can be
defended, perhaps as part of accepting a “realistic” approach to morality. The
partialist argument advanced here is a conservative one, permitting only a
slight preference for people in one's own culture. And it is possible that
there may be sound, ultimately impartial
arguments for a moderate partialist principle such as 2b above. For example,
it is conceivable that people in a Rawlsian original position would choose such
a principle.
Of
course even if this Zionist defense is successful, it would justify only a
conceptual Zionism, not the one that has actually been (and is still being)
implemented. In fact, of course, many Jews have displaced Palestinians when
neither their own lives nor their culture were at stake (especially since
1967). And much Palestinian land has been taken not in order to save Jewish
lives or Jewish culture but to preserve a higher standard of living.[31]
But the defender of the concept of
Zionism need not defend these or any other particular actions any more than a
defender of Christianity or Marxism needs to defend everything that has been
done in its name. A contemporary Zionist can concede moral failings in Zionist
history and current practice, yet defend a Zionism that “might have been.” More
significant for the current crisis, a contemporary Zionist might concede even inherent flaws in Zionism but claim
that a morally acceptable form of Zionism—that is, a morally acceptable form of
Jewish statehood “somewhere in Palestine”—is still possible.
I
would like to argue for two claims that apply directly to the contemporary
conflict between Jews and Palestinians. First, even if the Zionist defense
fails, some Jews may nonetheless now have a stronger moral claim to live in the
land of Israel/Palestine than some Palestinians. Second, even if the Zionist
defense succeeds, Palestinian rights still have moral force and cannot now be
ignored. This final claim leads in a direction that may help contribute to the
development of a morally acceptable Zionism and holds larger lessons for
nationalism in general.
First,
imagine that the Jewish rights at stake do not outweigh the Palestinian
rights; for example, because it was (or is) not
necessary for Zionists to infringe
Palestinian rights in order to protect their lives and culture. Even if we
inferred from this that Zionism is inherently flawed, it would not prove what
some Palestinians want to claim, that all Palestinians and no (non-indigenous)
Jews are morally entitled to live on
the land of Palestine. Many Palestinians, including those who now favor “two
states” as a political solution, want to claim that any Palestinian has a
right to return to the land where his parent (or grandparent) was born, at
least if his ancestors did not leave willingly. Yet there is an implied
“statute of limitations” on this claim since they do not grant that Jews, who
were forced out centuries ago, have the same moral right.
Clearly
there is a significant moral
difference between the claim of some Palestinians whose ancestors lived in
Palestine for many recent centuries and the claim of Jews, most of whom must go
back 2,000 years to establish a tie to the same land. But this difference does
not establish that all Palestinians who want to go to Palestine have a right to
do so and that no Diaspora Jews have that right.
The
Palestinian argument for a right of all Palestinians to the land of Palestine
is based on a special kind of tie, “being from” the area. But even assuming
that moral claims to land are based on “being from” an area, there is no reason
to think that Palestinian ancestral ties always give individual Palestinians a
stronger claim than individual Jews to live in the land of Palestine. A typical
Palestinian analogy goes like this:
Imagine
that you live in a house, and someone comes from another place and takes your
house by force. You have a moral right to reclaim the house that was taken from
you.
Our
intuitions are fairly clear in a case of this kind. But now imagine the
following variation, which corresponds to some
instances of conflict between Palestinian Arab and Jewish claims to land:
Your
grandfather lived in a house. Someone from another place took that house by
force, and your grandfather went to another place and established a house
there. You were born in this other house. In the meantime, the person who took
your grandfather's house maintained the house, farmed its land, and perhaps
continued to improve it.
Whether
or not you have a moral right to your grandfather's old house would seem to
depend on a number of further considerations. Have you and your parents
consistently pressed for a return to the house? Have you established a home
elsewhere? Do you consider yourself a refugee or are you thriving in your
present home? Are any of the current residents of the house responsible for the
original theft and continuing to benefit from it?[32] One might conclude that
there are some circumstances where
the present resident of the house, who may know no other home, has a greater
tie—and a greater moral claim—to that land than you do, even if it is granted
that his ancestors acted wrongly in
taking your grandfather's house. Thus, even if the defense of Zionism fails,
that would not imply that Jews currently living in Israel have no right to do
so or that all Palestinians have a right to return.
If
the failure of the Zionist argument would not negate all current Jewish claims
to live in Palestine, neither would the success of the Zionist argument negate
all Palestinian claims. Though some descendants of Palestinians are thriving in
other parts of the world, many Palestinians whose ancestors were forced off
their land remain refugees, have not established new homes, and have made
continuous efforts to reclaim their ancestors' land. These Palestinians, at
least, do seem to have a strong claim based on “tie to land.” Moreover, though
Jews currently living in Israel cannot be held accountable for human rights
violations committed by their ancestors, many have not only failed to
acknowledge those infringements but are implicated—especially in the occupied
territories—in infringements of Palestinian rights that are not unlike those
of their ancestors.
If
the moral defense of Zionism succeeds, it does so on the grounds that moral
rights are not absolute and that what is at stake for Jews and Jewish culture
outweighs the Palestinian rights that must be compromised. But just as it is
reasonable to reject an absolutist view of rights and to be open to the possibility
that rights infringements sometimes may be justified, another extreme view of
rights also seems unacceptable. This is the view that when rights are
overridden by morally more compelling considerations (such as other rights or
avoiding truly disastrous consequences), in
these cases rights lose all their moral force. This view would claim not
only that it is morally right to experiment on a person against her will in
order to save the rest of the world but would deny that the person experimented
on was in any way wronged or that any failure to respect a right even occurred.
On this view, when it is necessary to override a moral right, there is nothing
to regret and the person who acted is immune from moral criticism because she
“did the right thing,” all things considered.
Judith
Jarvis Thomson and Nancy Davis suggest a middle course between these two
extreme views of rights;[33]
namely, that there may be cases where it is appropriate to infringe a right, but infringing a right does not fully negate it. Thus even where the
circumstances are such that it is morally appropriate to wrong people and to
infringe their rights, these justifiable rights infringements still leave
“moral traces”; the infringement of rights, even in a morally permissible act,
is not immune from serious moral criticism or
the need to make redress. This view respects the complexity of moral life
and has special relevance to the possibility, today, of a morally acceptable
Zionism.
Zionists
might insist that a key to overcoming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is for
Palestinians to recognize that even if they will not concede the moral
acceptability of past Zionist actions—indeed, even if those actions are not
morally defensible—Palestinians should focus on the present and future and
acknowledge the right of Jews to live as citizens in a state of Israel. But
this second argument, which addresses the infringement of Palestinian rights,
points to the challenge Zionists themselves confront both to achieve peace with
Palestinians and to create the possibility of a morally defensible Zionism
today. A morally defensible Zionism needs to acknowledge that even if the
infringement of Palestinian rights can be justified (a difficult task, as
discussed above), those rights are not totally negated, the infringement of
those rights leaves “moral traces,” and restitution
is due to those whose rights have been infringed.
The
lesson is a larger one with important implications for nationalism in general.
Even within the framework of a realistic approach to morality, states and
peoples may reasonably be required to come to terms with the dark episodes of
their histories. Probably all nations have them, and in his classic statement
on nationalism, Renan suggests that collective amnesia has been endemic to
nationalism:
Forgetting, I would even go
so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a
nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger
for [the principle of] nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light
deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations…[34]
Renan
claims, further, that a heroic past and the memory of past glory are “the
social capital upon which one bases a national idea.”[35]
For
any people, especially a people with a long history as victims of persecution,
to acknowledge having also been victimizers requires a transformation of
national identity that may be even deeper than Renan imagined. But if Zionism
and nationalism generally are to be morally acceptable, they must overcome
Renan’s dicta. There is much that can be said, still in the spirit of a
realistic morality, about the need to develop institutions and practices to
remember and teach the truth about the less glorious—indeed, the most
shameful—elements of a nation’s past.[36] Many countries, including
Germany, South Africa, and the United States, have made efforts toward this
end.
For
Israel and for Zionism there are two kinds of requirements that come with
acknowledging infringement of Palestinian rights as part of Israel’s history.
One is to make restitution to the Palestinians; for example, by paying
reparations to Palestinian refugees, perhaps by means of grants to a
Palestinian state. The other requirement is for Israeli Jews to engage in
public acts, using the results of recent historical studies to overcome
forgetting. These would be acts of national self-examination, but they would
also have great significance for Palestinians, including Palestinian Israeli
citizens. They include teaching in Israeli schools the truth about the
destruction of Arab villages in Israel after
its War of Independence[37] and creating public
memorials and commemorative holidays for Palestinian victims.[38]
Through such acts Israel can take an important step toward a morally acceptable
Zionism by transforming its relationship both to its own past and, in the
present, to the Palestinian people.
I presented versions of this essay at the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and at Philosophy Colloquia at the University of Colorado-Boulder and the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. I am grateful for the comments of Anton Shammas, Carl Cohen, and Holly Arida (University of Michigan-Ann Arbor); Paul Hughes (University of Michigan-Dearborn); Sanford Kessler (North Carolina State University); Nancy Davis (University of Colorado-Boulder); Ibrahim Dawud (Jerusalem); and Bashshar Haydar and Muhammad Ali Khalidi (American University of Beirut).
Elias
Baumgarten is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Michigan-Dearborn; Research Associate at the Center for Middle Eastern and
North African Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and a member of
two ethics committees at the University of Michigan Health System.
[1] However, this is a legitimate topic of ongoing debate. Margarit and Raz accept the assumption that in the current international system, self-determination is achieved through statehood. Yael Tamir (and others) suggests the need to develop more local associations. See Avishai Margalit and Joseph Raz, “National Self-Determination,” Journal of Philosophy 87 (September 1990 ), p. 441 and Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 140-167.
[2] The ethical literature on partiality and impartiality is extensive. See, for example, John Cottingham, “Ethics and Impartiality,” Philosophical Studies 43 (1983): 83-99 and “Partiality, Favouritism and Morality,” The Philosophical Quarterly 36: 357-373.
[3] Jeff McMahan and Thomas Hurka both discuss the ethics of nationalism in the context of different forms of partiality. See Jeff McMahan, “The Limits of National Partiality,” The Morality of Nationalism, ed. Robert McKim and Jeff McMahan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 107-138, and in the same volume, Thomas Hurka, “The Justification of National Partiality,” pp. 139-157.
[4]“What Is So Special about Our Fellow Countrymen?,” Ethics 98 (July 1988): 663-686.
[5] Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, p. 69.
[6] Muhammad Ali Khalidi, “Formulating the Right of National Self-Determination,” Philosophical Perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, ed. Tomis Kapitan (Armonk, NY and London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 71-2.
[7] Charles Beitz distinguishes between an intermediate level and a foundational level for justifying the claim that “compatriots take priority.” See “Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sentiment,” Journal of Philosophy 80 (1983): 593-599. Alan Gewirth argues for certain forms of particularism on ultimately impartial grounds in “Ethical Universalism and Particularism,” The Journal of Philosophy 85 (June 1988): 283-302.
[8] Tamir, p. 69.
[9] Khalidi, p. 72.
[10] Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, (Basic Books, 1977), pp. 53-74 and 86-108.
[11] Hurka, p. 148, considers important the distinction between partiality toward the good of one’s fellow nationals and partiality toward the “impersonal” good of a flourishing culture, apart from any effects on individuals. Cultural nationalism generally sees the role of the state, and of people acting on behalf of the state or of a movement to gain a state, as favoring one culture over others because of the benefits that the flourishing of a particular culture has for individuals participating in it.
[12] Paul Gomberg argues for the related claim that individual action favoring co-nationals is morally equivalent to racism. See “Patriotism is Like Racism,” Ethics 101 (October 1990): 146-150. In contrast Andrew Oldenquist, attempts to defend civic loyalty and to distinguish it from racism and illegitimate nationalism in “Loyalties,” 146-150 Journal of Philosophy 79 (April 1982).
[13] Walzer, 53-73; Tamir, Liberal Nationalism, p. 72-77. Also see Tamir, “The Right to Self-Determination,” Philosophical Perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, pp. 59-60.
[14] Tamir, p. 73.
[15] “Realistic and Idealistic Approaches to the Ethics of Migration,” International Migration Review 30 (Spring 1996): 156-170.
[16] Carens, pp. 157-8.
[17] From the standpoint of a realistic approach to morality, protection from persecution is a powerful argument for a people’s claim to self-determination. Alan Gewirth argues that the long history of persecution of Jews provides the justification for the idea of Israel as a Jewish state. See “The Moral Status of Israel,” Philosophical Perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, ed. Tomis Kapitan (Armonk, NY and London, England: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), p 101.
[18]Stanley Bates discusses how experiences of pride and shame connect a person to a community. See “My Lai and Vietnam: The Issues of Responsibility,” in Peter A. French, ed., Individual and Collective Responsibility: The Massacre at My Lai (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1972), pp. 156-57.
[19]In fact, Zionism excludes those who fail to embrace Judaism, which is usually, but not always, a matter of ancestry.
[20]My own personal view, based on travel in Israel/Palestine, is that there are three main “ways of life” in the area: Jewish fundamentalism, Muslim fundamentalism, and secular, democratic Arab-Jewish “Palestinianism” (for lack of a better term). Since the majority in Israel/Palestine share the third way of life, my own ethical ideal would be for it to be the basis for a unified national liberation movement. However, it is crucial to point out that people in the area do not experience themselves this way, and it is the people's own experience of their identities, not that of an outsider, that is the appropriate basis for determining “peoplehood” and the boundaries for genuine political self-determination. It would be a pointless form of “idealistic” morality to disregard the actual way people experience their national identities.
[21] Muhammad Ali Khalidi considers several other possible ways for drawing territorial boundaries, including the idea that certain geographical regions form "natural" autonomous units. He criticizes this notion and treats more sympathetically the principle that "every region should be independent in which a majority of the population so desire, and in case of dispute, the group inhabiting the smallest such geographical region is the one that is given priority." See Khalidi, pp. 79ff.
[22] This point was raised by Bashshar Haidar of the American University of Beirut.
[23] It is perhaps interesting to speculate about the course of Jewish history had Jews settled on land to which they felt no special ancestral tie. Jewish settlers might have wanted more of Uganda than they originally possessed for its minerals, water, or other resources, but they would not claim it as the land given to their ancestors.
[24] In fact Jews had lived continuously in the land of Palestine, although often as a small minority.
[25]A thorough treatment of the dispossession of Palestinians and of the decision to destroy Arab villages can be found in Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Benny Morris, an Israeli journalist and historian, based this study on declassified Israeli, British, and American documents. Also see, by the same author, Righteous Victims : A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-1998 (Knopf, 1999).
[26]See,
for example, U.S. Department of State, Israel
and the Occupied Territories
Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998
<http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1998_hrp_report/israel.html>;
Human Rights Watch, World Report 1999:
Israel, The Occupied West Bank, Gaza Trip, and Palestinian Authority
Territories, <http://www.hrw.org/worldreport99/mideast/israel.html>;
and publications of B’tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights
in the Occupied Territories <http://www.btselem.org/btselem/>.
[27]Israel Zangwill, The Voice of Jerusalem (London: William Heinemann, 1920), p. 88. But Zangwill did not advocate that Jews imitate their forefathers’ behavior. In fact he assumed that Jews, as an ethical people, would never do so.
[28]Reported in Ha'aretz, April 1969.
[29]See, for example, Amos Elon (a mainstream liberal Zionist), The Israelis: Fathers and Sons (Tel Aviv: Adam Publishers, 1981), p. 22: “The Arabs bore no responsibility for the centuries-long suffering of Jews in Europe; yet, in the end, the Arabs were punished because of it.”
[30]See, for example, Jane English, “Abortion and the Concept of a Person,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (October 1975): 237-239. “How severe an injury may you inflict in self defense?. . .our laws and customs seem to say that you may create an injury somewhat, but not enormously, greater than the injury to be avoided. To fend off an attack whose outcome would be as serious as rape, a severe beating, or the loss of a finger, you may shoot; to avoid having your clothes torn, you may blacken an eye” (p. 237).
[31]See, for example, Martin Buber, “A Protest Against Expropriation of Arab Lands,” letter to Joseph Sprinzak, Speaker of the Knesset, March 7, 1953, in Paul R. Mendes-Flohr, ed., A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 262. “We know well, however, that in numerous cases [Arab] land is expropriated not on grounds of security, but for other reasons, such as expansion of existing settlements, etc. . . .In some densely populated villages two-thirds and even more of the land have been seized. As Jews and citizens of the State of Israel, we find it our duty to cry out against a proposed law which will add no honor to the Jewish people.” [The law was adopted 3 days later.]
[32] See Khalidi, p. 92.
[33]See Nancy Davis, “Rights and Moral Theory: A Critical Review of Judith Thomson's Rights, Restitution, and Risk,” Ethics 98 (July 1988): 806-826. Davis is not herself an advocate of a theory of rights and claims that the requirement to compensate those injured may apply more generally to actions that are, “all things considered,” the right ones.
[34] Ernest Renan, “What Is a Nation?” in Becoming National: A Reader, ed. Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny (New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1996), p. 45.
[35] Renan, p. 52.
[36] See, for example, Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide and Mass Violence (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998).
[37] New school textbooks are beginning to do exactly this, relying on work of historical studies of the kind Renan warned may threaten nationalism. According to The New York Times, “instead of portraying the early Zionists as pure, peace-loving pioneers who fell victim to Arab hatred, the new historians focus on the early leaders’ machinations to build an iron-walled Jewish state regardless of the consequences for non-Jews living here.” “Israel’s History Textbooks Replace Myths With Facts,” August 13, 1999, p. A5.
[38] The “Deir Yassine Remembered” project is one such attempt. See <http://www.deiryassin.org/>