The Invention and Decline of Israeliness - Baruch Kimmerling

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time explicitly stated the goal of establishment of a separate Jewish polity. The term “state,” however, was not used or even mentioned for many years by most of the local leaders of the newly established Jewish polity, as they did not want to be too explicit about their intentions vis-à-vis the local inhabitants or the British colonial regime. Later, the “Revisionist” party, established in 1925 and led by Vladimir Jabotinsky, split from the Zionist movement and demanded a more aggressive and overtly Zionist policy of establishing a Jewish state in the territorial framework of Greater Palestine (including Transjordan, which had been outside of Palestine's borders since 1922).

      The immigrants of the second and third waves thought of themselves as “practical Zionists” and believed that the way to gain control over the land was not through politics and diplomacy, such as by securing a charter from a great power (as Herzl and later Jabotinsky demanded), but rather through work, immigration, land purchases, and the establishment of new settlements as territorial faits accomplis. Their slogan “One more dunum [of purchased land],8 one more goat” became the cornerstone of the Zionist strategy of a gradual and incremental process of institution-, state-, and society-building. Supported by funds from the World Zionist Organization, the socialist immigrants created new patterns of social institutions (such as the kibbutz, or agrarian communal settlement). Their labor union became a large-scale economic entrepreneur, establishing health care funds, schools, a bank, a publishing house, newspapers and periodicals, and canteens for laborers and the unemployed. They also took responsibility for the security of the whole Jewish community in Palestine.9 Most important, they created a centralized institutional structure that gained hegemonic rule over the entire immigrant settler community (see chapters 2 and 3).

      THE ZIONIST COLONIZERS IN PALESTINE

      World War I, and the subsequent transformation of the world order, altered the fate of Palestine. With the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and following previous British-French understanding, the League of Nations put Palestine under British colonial rule in July 1922. This “mandate” made the British responsible for creating the political, administrative, and political conditions to “secure the establishment of the Jewish national home and the development of self-governing institutions, and also to safeguard the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion” (article 2 of the Charter). The mandatory charter also granted official representational status of the Jewish community in Palestine to the Zionist organizations and their local branch, the Jewish Agency.

      The most dramatic event had, however, occurred several years earlier, on November 2, 1917, when the British government issued the well-known Balfour Declaration (named for Arthur Balfour, then foreign secretary), which stated that “His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this objective. It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The earlier version of the declaration, favored by the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, included the words “reconstruction of Palestine as a Jewish State.” Some sources argue that the declaration was redrafted under pressure from Edwin Montague, a Jewish minister in the British cabinet, who was concerned that a declaration supporting a Jewish state would redefine the Jews as a separate nation, threaten their recently achieved rights of citizenship in Europe, and even fuel anti-Semitism.

      British commitment to the Jewish people resulted from a mixture of traditional religious feelings toward the “People of the Bible,” British imperial interests vis-à-vis French aspirations in the region, and the expectation that Jewish immigrants would play the white settlers' role in the territory. Zionist leaders spoke in terms of three to five million Jews arriving in Palestine and transforming the small Jewish minority there into a firm majority. The Balfour Declaration was the first major triumph of Zionist diplomacy and the first real threat to the Arabs of Palestine. As such, it provided the impetus for a countrywide protest movement and the establishment of local political institutions, such as the Muslim-Christian Association, various nationalist clubs, and, later, the Arab Executive Committee, the first central Palestinian national authority.

      The second Zionist triumph was the appointment of Sir Herbert Samuel, a declared Jewish Zionist, to the office of high commissioner on July 20, 1920. The Jews celebrated his arrival in Jerusalem in terms equivalent to the coming of the messiah, a king, or a descendant of David's dynasty. Samuel, however, put British interests first. He and the local British administration understood that the Zionists could not supply the several million Jewish immigrant settlers that they had promised. Postwar Jewish immigration (the third “wave”) to Palestine hardly succeeded in drawing 40,000 people in its first four years. Moreover, after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, and the stabilization of the Soviet regime in 1922, one of the major reservoirs of potential Jewish immigration was almost completely cut off. The majority of eastern European Jews still able to migrate chose the North American option over the Zionist vision as long as U.S. immigration policy allowed them to do so.

      The British understood that the demographic and ethnic composition of Palestine would not change in the near future, and that they would have to deal with Arab unrest if they did not alter their pro-Zionist policy and take Palestinian Arab interests into consideration. With this in mind, Samuel initiated the establishment of a Supreme Muslim Council to fill the vacuum left by the demise of Islamic Ottoman rule. He appointed a young militant Palestinian, Amin al-Husseini, a member of a prominent Jerusalem family, as president of the council and later to the position of Mufti (Muslim priest) of Jerusalem—the highest Islamic authority of the country. Al-Husseini combined his religious position with nationalistic and anti-Zionist rhetoric to become the most prominent leader among the local Arabs and one of the creators of the emerging Palestinian collective identity. In Zionist demonology, “the Mufti” is a central figure even today, especially after his flight from Palestine and alliance with Nazi Germany.

      OPPOSITION TO BRITISH RULE

      The era of British colonial rule is considered the formative period of both the Jewish Zionist and Palestinian Arab polities. The colonial government functioned as a minimalistic state, providing basic services for its subjects: law and order, justice (courts), an educational system, basic social and health care systems, a financial and monetary system, and an infrastructure (such as roads, railroads, electricity, ports, and postal and broadcasting services). Moreover, on the symbolic level, the colonial state made an additional and crucial contribution by constituting “Palestine” as a geographic, economic, social, and political entity distinct from the surrounding lands and peoples.

      The Zionists were fully aware of the implications of the colonial state building effort, and made the control of this process their highest priority. They feared that the “natural development” of the decolonization process and continuing Jewish demographic inferiority would lead to transference of control over the country to the majority Arab population of Palestine. This forced the Zionists to withdraw from the mandatory state and to establish their own parallel autonomous institutions, including a quasi-underground, paramilitary organization—the Haganah (“Defense” in Hebrew). It is characteristic that in its first stage, the Haganah was a sectarian “army,” affiliated with and under the command of the labor movement and its highly centralized labor union, the Histadrut. Only following the Arab revolt in 1936 was control over the Haganah passed to the Jewish Agency, in response to its need for funding from the entire community. Zionist historiography considers the present Israeli military force a direct continuation of the Haganah militia.

      The British authorities were well aware of the Haganah's existence, and, with the exception of a short period after World War II when the Haganah launched operations against the British administration, a tacit agreement allowed for its maintenance in exchange for keeping a low profile, self-imposed restraint, and agreement essentially to act as backup to the British military and police forces. From time to time, for example, during the last stage of the Arab rebellion of 1938-39 and several times during World War II, the British military even cooperated with the Jewish militia.

      THE INTERCOMMUNAL WAR

      The Haganah replaced Hashomer, which

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