Is civil war looming in Israel?
JVL Introduction
The story told here might be called “A tale of two Zionisms”.
Shaul Arieli is in no two minds about it: Israeli society is fundamentally split between secular and right-wing messianic publics. Both are Zionist, in their different ways.
The Messianic wing, marginal before 1967 is now truly in the ascendant, interpreting every sign of Jewish power and presence in the promised land as an indication that redemption is at hand.
And what will redemption mean? The establishment of a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, the restoration of the House of David, the rebuilding of the Temple and more.
And all this with a certainty that God has used Hamas, as with the Nazis, to inflict misfortune on those who refuse to cooperate with his scheme…
In opposition to this there is, says Arieli, another, traditional, vision of Zionism in a public that sees Israel as a “safe haven for the Jewish people,” based on the values of Israel’s Declaration of Independence – notably democracy, equality and membership in the family of nations.
Between these two there is now an unbridgeable gulf…
RK
This article was originally published by Haaretz on Thu 28 Mar 2024. Read the original here.
Israel's Secular and Religious-messianic Publics See October 7 Very Differently. Is Civil War Looming?
Israeli society is confronted by two clear and irreconcilable visions – of the secular and messianic-right publics. The latter is exploiting the government’s so-called judicial reform and the war raging in Gaza to pursue its dreams of redemption
Loading article text…
The conflict is real enough, but I doubt the result will be a large scale, violent civil war. Clashes maybe. For the majority of both populations described, taking another Jewish life is abhorrent. A civil war would split the Army and it’s very likely that outside forces and some Palestinian groups would see it as an ideal moment to attack Israel and unintentionally bring the two sides together again.
A more likely scenario is that Israel will continue its drift to full-on nationalism and even fascism. Ben Gvir is working on this. Some of the secularists will leave, most will accommodate themselves to this, just as they have tolerated all the other rightward steps, as long as they can continue their lifestyle by the Mediterranean.
Human beings started to believe in a ‘God’ when they knew no better and were looking for an entity to account for the existence of the universe and to praise or blame for their fortunes/misfortunes. Certain ‘holy men’ ran with this and thus began the religious indoctrination we see all around us today. If we dropped this reverence to a God which allows holocausts and genocide, but instead, treated each other kindly, then much of what was described in the article can be consigned to the dust bin.
The whole premise on which this article is based is wrong. There are no two Zionisms. Both agreed on a Jewish Supremacist State. It was the Labour Zionist tradition and its most ‘left wing’ faction, Ahdut Ha’avodah, which spawned the Greater Israel Movement – Tabenkin, Galili, Allon.
It was a Labor Government that conquered the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and Golan Heights. The Messianic vision is merely the religious legitimation of that desire, common to all wings, to ethnically cleanse the land.
It is noticeable that it was President Herzog who laid the basis for the present genocidal destruction in Gaza with his claim that all the people of Gaza were responsible for October 7 and therefore all, civilians and militants, were legitimate targets.
Of course in a state that bases its claim on god’s word the religious Zionist messianic fundamentalists will win out over those who claim to be adherents of secular Zionism. The latter base their claim to Palestine on a god whose existence they deny – that has always been a problem for ‘left’ Zionism.
It is also why Religious Zionism now constitutes the 3rd largest bloc in the Knesset whilst the Labor Party hangs on by its fingernails.
The article is well worth reading for the picture it paints of the extreme nature of messianic Zionism, but it is flawed in regarding Israel as a democratic state willing to share the land equally with an independent Palestine. The revival of “two state solution” rhetoric is as meaningless now as it always was.
Dear Naomi,
I have a lot of admiration for you from what I know of your involvement with the Labour Party, especially from Corbyn on. I am ignorant of the complexity of the Middle East situation.
I was surprised to see you express doubt about a two state solution.
Are you able to say something about how you see the way forward in Israel/Palestine?
Peter, thanks for your question. I certainly don’t have a pat solution to the Palestine tragedy, but those of us who’ve followed it for many years, Palestinians and friends, have seen “the two-state solution” trotted out as a meaningless mantra by western politicians with no hint of how it could conceivably bring equality and justice to Palestinians, while Israeli politicians cynically used the idea as cover for taking over the West Bank and East Jerusalem with Jewish-only settlements, destroying any possibility of there ever being a sovereign Palestinian state. What’s happening to Gaza makes it even more inconceivable. I’ve just searched “two state solution” on the JVL website and found 650 references. Plenty to read!
I’d like to add to Naomi’s explanation, that last night on Sky News I saw US General David Petraeus trot out exactly the same hideous ‘road map for peace’ that was put forward by the Tony Blair Foundation and the Quartet of major powers twenty years ago: Israel to re-occupy Gaza for an indefinite time, until the Gazans are saved from Hamas and a suitable Palestinian partner for peace can be installed to govern the Strip… I omit the fright quotes towards the end. During all this time incessant land grabs and settlement building have made a two-state solution physically impossible. This history is made very clear in Ilan Pappe’s devastating handbook Ten Myths About Israel. Published in 2017 incidentally. It does put forward a different future when we have given up our delusions. Hard, but we now have no alternative.
PS I should add that both Norman Finkelstein and Shlomo Sand, writers I admire tremendously, believe that two states are the only option. This is not because they have any illusions about the injustice involved, but because they believe that Israel has become so intensely racist that coexistence in one state would be impossibly dangerous for the Palestinians.