Sensual Zionism: Is That "Desire" or "Love"?

A new book, written by Boaz Neumann, assistant professor in the Department of History, Tel Aviv University, is out and is described as an "innovative study" in that it

...examines the responses of early-twentieth-century pioneers to "the Land" of Palestine...Neumann argues for something else that historians have yet to identify - desire. Desire for the Land and a visceral identification with it begin to explain the pioneer experience and its impact on Israeli history and collective memory, as well as on Israelis' abiding connection to the Land of Israel...For Neumann, the Zionist revolution was an existential revolution: for the pioneers, to be in the Land of Israel was to be!

The main chapter headings read:

• Pioneers and Pioneerism
• Desire and Rebirth
• Dissolving Boundaries
• Articulating the Physical Territory of the Land
• Articulating the Pioneer Body
• Pioneer Language: The Conquest of Hebrew

"Desire"?

Or love of the homeland?

Well, the theme has been researched previously:

- "Reimagining Herzl and other Zionist sex symbols" by M. Berkowitz, Professor of Modern Jewish History at University College London.
- "Zionism as an Erotic Revolution" by David Biale

and it could be worse or more ridiculous:

Circumcising Zionism, Queering Diaspora: Reviving Albert Memmi's Penis by Jarrod Hayes at Wasafiri, Volume 22, Issue 1, 2007.

How ridiculuous?

Try this:

...Memmi's retrieval of the Jewish diaspora as queer helps to imagine the undoing of Zionism as a political project (as opposed to queering the Israeli state) by allowing the rhizomatic connections of diaspora to return in the process of returning to origins in a homeland of the mind (as opposed to a physical territory already inhabited by Palestinians). Memmi thus allows us to carry forward Gopinath's queering of diaspora by helping us to tease out the queer potential of the very concept of diaspora itself.

While Memmi's revival of his penis relies on the same phallic genealogy Helmreich alludes to, his Jewissance entails spilling his seed rather differently. Indeed, it is not through heterosexual reproduction that he plants the seeds for a Zionist state; rather, the promised land flows forth like milk and honey every time he touches himself ‘to verify [the] definitive mark [of the Orient]’. J and D Boyarin retrieve a feminised diasporic anti-Zionism by performing ‘the double mark of the male Jew’, that is, their circumcision and head-covering, thereby undoing the body/mind opposition...

And you thought that the recent pinkwashing controversy was silly.

^

Zionism Interruptus

Yesterday, PM Ehud Olmert addressed the special Knesset memorial session for Yitzhak Rabin and said, and I have commented, the following:

Thirteen years ago, the late Yitzhak Rabin, along with Shimon Peres and a great many good people, started out on a path which was unavoidable. There was a basis for disagreement with them - and I too was part of it and I shared my opinion and even voted against them. However, the direction was inevitable and reality proved that it was stronger than the murderer's bullets. I am not trying to retroactively justify the Oslo Accords, with which I disagreed. However, a direction was defined - and that direction was inevitable.

[that is a contradiction and illogical; one can usually stop anytime, especially in diplomacy and political maneuvering and even more so when the policies are wrong, dead wrong]

Since that time, after having learned to live with the feelings of guilt and pain resulting from the costs of the Oslo Accords - the continuation of terror and the disappointment of the diplomatic standstill - we have returned to the heart of the disagreement. Only this time, the decisive moment is growing closer and we are standing at its threshold.

[with more pain and hurt and grief and guilt feelings?]

This decision will be difficult and painful and will intensify the internal disagreement which for years has been and is being conducted by the Israeli public. Any new Government will not be able to avoid such a confrontation. If it wants to: it will have to risk a difficult domestic confrontation unlike any previously experienced. If it refuses: it will lose the international sympathy and support granted to the State of Israel by the international community since the Disengagement and for the duration of the present Government’s tenure.

[in a democracy, and in a confrontation the government can also reconsider its moves and decisions and can avoid confrontation and change its path]

Whoever thinks and believes that he can avoid the decision while at the same time maintaining Israel’s international position; whoever assumes he can continue the internal status quo and also benefit from the warm and supporting embrace of the leaders of the Western world, especially those who support Israel and are friendly towards it - is deluding himself and may deceive the Israeli public. Whoever thinks it is possible to avoid the decision and continue to build a broad system of relations with Arab and Muslim countries, as we are doing today - is living in a dream.

[and Olmert would rather us live in a very real nightmare of death and destruction?]

I am convinced that we have no realistic option other than an internal decision, and I am afraid of its consequences to the fragile fabric of the tense relations which already typify sections of the Israeli public. The Government, any government, must tell the truth, and this truth, unfortunately, will obligate us to rip away many portions of the homeland - in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. This decision, when it is made, will not be an indictment against the settlers, the vast majority of whom are not violent, but rather an integral part of a dedicated, loyal public, one which loves the land and builds it up.

[and in doing so, he will rip the 'heart' out of Zionism and, indeed, the Jewish people and will endanger the existence of the state without solving any of the real problems we face]

This is the time to appeal to that public and say: you are unparalleled in your love of the land, in your dedication to it, in your willingness to sacrifice yourselves for it. There were moments, which we were all party to, during which we desired with all our hearts to leave our indelible mark on the land. I too was party to it. We were wrong; we did not see the big picture; we thought we could succeed in having a country which was Jewish, democratic, decent, violence-free, one which welcomed and embraced its neighbors within the borders of our sovereignty. It will not work. It is already not working. It claimed a price from us which we do not have the moral strength to bear - and it will claim even heavier costs - which will unravel the fragile bonds which still preserve the social solidarity of Israeli society.

[the same message was trumpeted by Yaakov DeHaan in the early 1920s, by the German professors and the infamous 'Group of Five' in the 1930s, and by various parties in the Yishuv who hewed to a line of pacifism, defeatism and lack of ideological belief and intrinsic faith in Zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and if we had followed that advice, there would be no state, no Knesset and no position of Prime Minister]

I am not criticizing anybody nor am I preaching. I do not have the right to do so. However, I do have the duty to appeal to you, the builders and settlers, and tell you with great respect and appreciation that you too must search your souls and reach a decision.

[we have, for the past four decades, and we have found you and other to be enfeeblers and have come to realize the none of your withdrawl plans have ever solved anything in the face of intractable animosity from the Arab and Islamic wordl]

Not due to conflict and strife, not due to the rift which will tear the most sensitive fabric of our agonizing society, but rather as a result of inevitable acceptance, as a result of noble understanding - that this is the only way - one strewn with dangers and uncertainty, paved with obstacles - but the only way.

[nothing is inevitable except death and you, sir, with your "tiredness" and your unworthy Zionist spirit and plans that have little merit and your fawning before diplomats have made a significant contribution to Israel's current weakness and ability to pursue a sane, reasonable policy that will benefit the Jewish people, our neighbors and the world. Your personal failings will be dealt with in criminal court, it would appear. The court of history will deal with the rest of your enterprises]

So, there it is - Zionism interruptus.

and at another graveside ceremony:

If we want to keep Israel Jewish and democratic, we need to give up parts of the homeland we have dreamed about for generations and [mentioned] in our prayers, even Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and to return to a 1967 Israel with certain amendments," he said, at the state ceremony on Mount Herzl, where Rabin is buried.

"The decision must be made now. The moment of truth has arrived. There is no escaping it, but [the opportunity] can be missed. If, God forbid, we dither, we will lose the support for the idea of two states.

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P.S.

Interviewed by Army Radio, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said, "I as Kadima Chairwoman am not committed to the outgoing prime minister's comments - but to Kadima's platform, and this is what determines exactly how we will hold negotiations," adding, "You can't just throw the key to the other side and hope for the best, especially not in Judea and Samaria."