The Tragedy of Zionism: How Its Revolutionary Past Haunts Israeli Democracy [antikvár]

Prologue: Summer 2002 when the state of Israel was proclaimed in 1948, Winston Churchill cabled Chaim Weizmann, the state's venerable first president, declaring what a fine moment it was "for an old Zionist like me!" In Churchill's sense, certainly, Zionism had been a source of fascination and good will not only for Jews, but also for non-Jewish Western leaders and intellectuals since England's Balfour Declaration of 1917 authorized a Jewish National Home in Palestine. And the necessary achievements of Zionism from 1881 to 1948—the ideas and political economy that laid the ground for that home—can hardly be denied, at least not by fair-minded people who have had the patience to hear its story. This is a complex, affecting story which has largely been forgotten or (what amounts to the same thing) turned to myth, even in Israel. If, like Churchill, people called themselves Zionists only to wish Israel well, or to suggest sympathy for valiant, communitarian pioneers defying European fascism, or to honor an Israeli citizen's sense of national service, or even just to pronounce an appreciation for die lively Hebrew culture that classical Zionism engendered, tlien who is not a Zionist? I have knovra Palestinians, citizens of Israel, who've called themselves Zionists of this kind. The legacy of Zionism is more demanding and disquieting, however. Demanding because Zionist theories, institutions, and language—its heroes, battle cries, and costumes—were meant to advance a wide-