How a Zionist can oppose the Jewish state: A response to Shmuel Rosner

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://972mag.com/how-a-zionist-can-oppose-the-jewish-state-a-response-to-shmuel-rosner/87372/

Gentlemen, I suggest that you begin with the title of the blog, the Magnes Zionist. I don’t think that it’s too controversial to say that Zionism is a type of Jewish nationalism (though not the only type), so that since I consider myself a Zionist, it is hard to argue that I have a “knee-jerk rejection of nationalism” (Leibovitz) or that I “oppose Zionism” and that I “think nation-states are immoral” (Rosner). Had either read my post “Zionism Without a Jewish State,” which is listed on my home page, they would have read the following:

I start from the position of a liberal nationalist, one that sees the value for the flourishing of its citizens in a nation state. (On “liberal nationalism” you can read the good overview in the article on Nationalism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.) Because I am a liberal nationalist, I cannot be a statist Zionist, because by identifying the Jewish state as a state of the Jewish nation, I am automatically cutting off non-Jews from full membership in that state.

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Rosner and Leibovitz assume that I am post-nationalist, anti-Zionist, think that nation-states are immoral, etc., because they assume that Israel is a liberal nation-state, and hence that critics of Israel are anti-nationalists. In fact, I am very much in favor of liberal nation-states – the U.S. and some European states come to mind – which is why I oppose illiberal nation states, among which I include Israel. This is not an unusual position; anybody familiar with the liberal criticism of Israel will know of what I speak: read Joseph Agassi, Moshe Berent, Bernard Avishai, Chaim Gans, and a bunch of other Israeli thinkers. Read Avishai Margalit’s book on a decent society and you will understand why I don’t consider Israel a decent society – although it is certainly not the most indecent society around, and there are certainly good things about it. America with racial segregation was not a decent society, but there were many good and decent things about it.

Where Rosner and Leibovitz and I disagree is not over the justification or morality of states, but over justification or morality of this state. By Rosner’s reasoning, anybody who questions whether Basques or Kurds, Afrikaners or Palestinians, Scots or French Canadians, have a right to a state must be some post-nationalist who think that states are bad. To the question of whether certain peoples should have states, I answered, “That depends.” For example, I don’t think a people who bars membership in the nation on the basis of religion should have a state on that basis. They can have a state on another basis, but the first basis is inherently illiberal, as Isaiah Berlin intimated to David Ben-Gurion when he was asked about the “Who is a Jew” question.

[aranthus]

1. Depends what you mean by a Jewish state.

From his article: I have lived in Israel on-and-off for over thirty years, and I can tell you that there is an Israeli national culture, and it is predominantly, though not exclusively, Hebraic and Jewish.

Isn't this a liberal understanding of what it means to be a Jewish state? It's what I mean when I say it. That the majority culture is predominantly Jewish. What's wrong with that? Obviously nothing according to Dr. Haber. He and I are in agreement. Could the Palestinians accept that? I don't know, but I think it behooves Israel to define itself this way whether the Palestinians will accept it or not. My point is that Dr. Haber isn't against the existence of a Jewish state. He simply has a liberal definition of it.