As a Zionist, an Israeli citizen and the ambassador of Israel to South Africa, I read with a great deal of frustration Ronnie Kasrils’s article published under the banner ”Myths of Zionism” (January 27). It is frustrating from the point of view of the content, as well as that of the commentator. I acknowledge the fact that the article was written in Kasrils’s personal capacity. However, its educational value stems also from his position as a highly regarded political leader.
In my view, the article carries the message of an educator, not a historian. One gets the impression that Kasrils has an angry urge to deliver a message, to teach us a lesson, regardless of the extensive fabric of facts, and at the expense of historical accuracy. We know by now that the history of mankind is a multi-dimensional kaleidoscope, rather than a flat puzzle. Zionism is a profound and complex body of political thought and practice and deserves a far more serious debate than that surfacing in the article.
One other aspect that I found disturbing in the article is the overtly defensive attitude of Kasrils towards expected accusations coming from Jews, of being anti-Semitic. As far as I am concerned, a person is entitled to his views. This by no means makes his analysis of history supreme.
Zionism started as a genuine national freedom movement. It was developed in the wake of the 19th century, in light of prevailing winds of national emancipation, which eventually gave birth to numerous nation states as we know them today. It responded to catastrophic events that infested the European Jewish diaspora at the time, rife with lethal manifestations of anti-Semitism. The early Zionists offered the Jews an alternative in the pursuit of statehood in their ancestral land. The majority of European Jews, however, were victims of horrors to come, during the Holocaust.
The Zionist movement was never monolithic. Deep political rifts, and at times heated debates, prevailed throughout its history, which expedited the development of a solid political culture of democracy. This is true on issues pertaining to our relations with the Palestinians. By no means was the Zionist movement unanimously geared to ”expansionism at the expense of coexistence” with the Palestinians. On the contrary, the issue of two nations claiming one territory, with its political and moral aspects, was intensely debated. Throughout its history, the absolute majority and the dominant leadership of the movement were keen on peace with the Arab world and the ”Two State Solution”, as manifested since its early days in Zionist political literature.
It is a fact that, in the course of time, migratory waves of Arab nomadic tribes settled in Palestine, a countryside that was, during the Ottoman Empire era, sparsely populated and regarded by its rulers as a province of Syria. It is also a fact that the Arab population in this territory started manifesting national political aspirations, mainly in reaction to Zionism and the creation of Jewish communities in the area.
The Holocaust was not just ”the crudest and most infamous treatment” meted out to Jews by the Nazis. It was a galactic catastrophe in which millions perished through systematic indus- trialised murder, and the remnants were profoundly traumatised by the colossal loss. The State of Israel offered them a shelter, a sense of safety.
My family lost many members in the Holocaust. My father was involved in his youth with the communist underground in Nazi Berlin. As a result, he spent three harsh years in prison, after which he endured a concentration camp, under horrendous circumstances. He came out of it in 1938. Deeply scarred, he was hurriedly transferred to Jerusalem by the Jewish Agency. They saved his life. He always educated his children about peace and coexistence. He regards himself as a Zionist.
My parents-in-law grew up in the ancient Jewish quarter of Baghdad. Their fate was a far cry from what Kasrils describes as ”symbiosis between Arabs and Jews”. True, in the Middle Ages, Jews in Muslim kingdoms entertained a degree of safety, provided they accepted a discriminatory social status as second-class citizens, along with Christians. In modern times, however, Jewish communities in the Arab world were exposed to intense hate and violence. Most of the Arab world Jewry were forced into exile with a huge loss of property and, at times, with traumatic consequences.
In the 1940s in Iraq, the ancient Jewish community endured the nastiest persecution ever. With the encouragement of the government, mobs invaded the Jewish quarter, killed, maimed, looted and burnt houses. Manifestations of affinity with Nazism were rife, and both Iraqi and Palestinian leaders pursued relations with Nazi Germany. In 1950, my parents-in-law found refuge, together with the majority of Iraqi Jews, in Israel. They educated their children in the ways of coexistence. They are Zionists.
All three of my children grew up in Israel, served in the Israel defence forces, and were extensively exposed to the reality in our region, and its political debate. Moreover, due to my professional involvement in the peace process, we often had Palestinian guests for dinner at our home, at times Palestinian authority ministers. In spite of the extreme pain meted out to us by Palestinian terrorism on the streets of Jerusalem and elsewhere, my children always maintained a solid view that coexistence is the only future for us, and a Palestinian state alongside Israel is the only way out of this conflict. They are not different from the majority of their peers in Israel, and they are no less Zionist than the people who adhere to what Kasrils tries to denounce in his article as Zionist myths.
One last failure, which in my eyes makes Kasrils’s article a fatally flawed one, is the complete omission of any reference to the role the Palestinians have played, and are still playing, in the continuous conflict with Israelis. Palestinian violence against Jews in Palestine and against Israel since 1948 was a fundamental factor in the development of our shared turbulent and torturous history, and of modern Zionist political thinking and practice.
The war of 1948, which we regard as our War of Independence, was the result of Arab and Palestinian rejection of the UN resolution of November 1947, which adopted the ”Two State Solution” by dividing the territory of British Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Notwithstanding Israel accepting the UN resolution and recognising the right of an independent Palestinian state to exist, Arab countries declared war on the Jewish state. Five Arab armies participated on the side of the Palestinians. Israel, despite of being grossly outnumbered in military terms, and the tragic loss of more than six thousand people, one percent of its entire population, succeeded in defending itself. Had it turned out otherwise, no doubt the Jewish people would have suffered yet another catastrophe.
Between 1948 and 1967, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were in Arab hands, yet the opportunity to establish a Palestinian state on this territory was missed once again. Palestinian terrorism against Israel, launched from those territories, preceded the Six Day War in 1967. This violence substantially contributed to its outbreak.
Kasrils sums up his article by denouncing Zionism as a political ”framework of mythology based on propaganda, distortion and fabrication”. This is frustrating. One cannot avoid the impression that, for Kasrils, the history of the Middle East, of Israel and of the Jewish people is a puzzle rather than a kaleidoscope.
Ilan Baruch is the ambassador of Israel to South Africa and this was written in a personal capacity