How Oren Yiftachel Sees Zionism

How do Israeli academic anti-colonialists who identify with the cause of a liberated Palestine view Zionism? What is their conceptual thinking? How do they grasp the historical record?

One prominent such figure is Oren Yiftachel. As his biography attests, he is a product of Australia's higher education, home to the deveklopment of post-colonial studies.

I have selected an excerpt from a recent article, published in Hebrew in the Van Leer Institute's journal Theory and Criticism that recently appeared. Even the most cursory reading as well as a nominal knowledge of Jewish nationalism can easily notice that Yiftachel chooses to denude all historic depth of Jewish attachment to, residence in and returning to the Land of Israel over a 3,000 year period.

There is an absence of the literature, the religious rituals and cultural customs attached to the land, the various Returns of Zion, prayers and poetry, laws and commandments, financial support for the communities living in the Land during the centuries of Exile and so much more. He adopts fully the approach poularized by A.B. Yehoshua in his essay "Between Right and Right" [translated from his Hebrew Bein Zechut Le-Zechut], Doubleday, 1981 in which, as one reviewer puts it, he "proposes justifications for Israeli statehood in terms of universal morality rather than particularistic religious entitlement.".

On the other hand, the Palestinian narrative, all theoretical, lacks any critical review or detailed attention from Yiftachel. They, in good part, are "liberal".

The excerpt:

There is a clear disregard in Palestinian academic and political discourse in the Diaspora and the occupied territories for the tragic fate of Jews in the twentieth century and the need to discuss their future in the Middle East, most of which is hostile to Zionism. Zionism is perceived by many Palestinians primarily as an ideology of taking over the land, and not as much of its members formulated it — a national movement to save Jews from anti-Semitism and persecution. Palestinian discourse sometimes lacks the understanding that Israel served and still serves as a land of refuge in a historical homeland, and is characterized by frequent disregard for the legitimate rights of Jews the Israelis have earned them from the family of nations. 

The Zionist project is perceived as one-dimensional – an occupying homogeneous power of which the Palestinians are eternal victims. The critical discussion of the active part of the Palestinians in the disaster that rages upon their people is extremely poor, except for a few exceptions such as the researchers Salim Tamari, Rama Hammami, Asaad Ghanem or Yazid Sayigh, and its lack of an internal critical discussion on the devastating consequences of Palestinian defiance and terrorism in the century of struggle. Also, from the Palestinian discourse is almost completely absent an examining of non-colonial structural factors, such as Israeli nationalism and liberalism, which also shape the conflict and sometimes even moderate it.

And yet, it is important to note that throughout a century of conflict there have been Palestinian voices calling for mutual recognition and division of the land, led by communist leaders such as Emil Habibi and Tawfik Ziad but also prominent figures from the Nashashibi and Dajani families or relatively liberal  organizations led by leaders like Hanan Ashrawi or Mustafa Barghouti.

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