Over at Normblog you’ll find the latest installment of Sam Fleischacker’s series “A Cool Hour on the Israel-Palestine Conflict” here. You’ll find my comments on previous installments behind these numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. On this occasion Fleischacker deals with questions relating to nationalism and, once again, I’m in agreement with the thrust of what he says. There follow some variations on points he raises.
1.
Sam says of nationalism,
It is a distinctive view of politics, according to which a primary purpose of government is to express and maintain the culture of a particular group.
True enough. However, it might give the impression that the particular group and its culture existed and recognized itself before the nationalists came along to maintain and express it. When we look back at the foundation of states though, we often find that what occurred is that a particular group of individuals took into their heads that there existed such a people as the Italians, the Irish, or the Germans or whoever and that, notwithstanding the class, language and cultural differences that existed among them, it was their Irish, Italian or German identity that really mattered and required a state to give it its full expression and protect it. On many occasions, the populations of new nations had to be persuaded that they in fact were members of it by having their new identity hammered into them as they moved through the educational system. In not a few cases, armed force had to be resorted to in order to convince members of the new nation that they in fact belonged to it, and that assimilating its language and culture was better than ending up on the end of a rope or with a bayonet in one’s guts.
So, nationalisms give birth to nations as much as they seek to protect existing ones and, therefore, arguments about whether or not the Jews or the Palestinians are “really” a nation and entitled to a state of their own are missing the point by miles.
2.
He goes on to say that,
Nationalists are frequently contemptuous of the individual rights beloved of liberals, the vision of human equality beloved of socialists, the attempt of both liberals and socialists to seek international peace, and the emphasis placed by both liberal and socialist intellectuals on cool reason and scholarly study as a basis for public policy. They are drawn instead to myth and a politics of passion, urge individuals to submerge their own good to the good of their nation, and often suppose that war or the threat of war is a permanent feature of the international scene.
Again, there’s much truth in this. However, nationalism also has the possibility of protecting the human rights of those seen as not being members of the nation in question, as long as they don’t make too much of a fuss about this and, even more so if they are willing to assimilate into the dominant group (if the dominant group will let them).
There are many examples of this. Kurds in Turkey who are unconcerned with expressing their cultural and linguistic identity in public have little difficulty making their way in Turkish society and many of them do. In Spain, you can speak the Basque language and even peacefully campaign for Basque independence while enjoying the constitutional guarantees afforded to you by Spain, a nation which you might prefer did not exist or, at least, was not sovereign where you live.
While there is no doubt that their exists an exterminationist germ at the core of nationalism, this germ tends to multiply and cause horrors of various sorts at the moments when a nation is coming in to being and when it seems to be in danger of falling apart. There is also a universalist moment in nationalism, with its roots in the Enlightenment that allows, in the best case, for the protection of the rights of minorities or at least their assimilation, less or more against their will, into the community of the nation, there to be treated equally with its other members.
The relationship of nationalism with the Enlightenment is, therefore, Janus-faced. As Sam correctly points out, nationalism often involves a veering away from universalist values and a profound identification with people one perceives to be like oneself. The matter, however, doesn’t end there; nationalism also frequently involves an appeal for universal rights to be made applicable to one’s own people and many postcolonial nationalist movements have found a great deal of inspiration in the Enlightenment.
3.
And just so I don’t let a week go by without repeating a point that I have made in every one of these response; Sam says,
… a significant proportion of the Zionist movement has supported measures that would restrict the rights of anti-Zionists (including Jewish anti-Zionists) in Israel, as well as discriminatory measures against Arabs.
Many nations which enjoy full legitimacy and respect on the international scene discriminate against their minorities and have political movements that would deepen this discrimination if they got the chance. This doesn’t make it right, but it makes one wonder why only Israel gets called on it. To give just one example, you can read something about the woeful state of minority language rights in Argentina and how little anyone cares about it here.
4.
I quote Sam at length here because he’s dead right in general and about the one state solution in particular. A tiny quibble; there’s no preference for ethnic Turks in Turkey, the problems there arise from everyone being considered an ethnic Turk whether they like it or not. Some don’t mind, plenty do.
So nationalism breeds nationalism, and in a nationalist world, it’s only to be expected that both Jews and Palestinians will want their own state. This is the core of what’s wrong with one-state solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: any such state will inevitably be a national one, in the modern world - either a Jewish or an Arab state. It is disingenuous to suggest either that Arabs will be wholly equal participants in the public realm of a state dominated by Jews or that Jews will be equal participants in the public realm of a state dominated by Arabs. Such multi-national arrangements have rarely worked. Even peaceful Belgium is now coming apart at the seams, and Cyprus, Lebanon, Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union are testimony to what generally happens to such entities. If countries all over the world cease to be identified with religious and ethnic groups - no more Muslim or Christian nations, no Buddhist dominance in Myanmar and Thailand and Sri Lanka, no preference for ethnic Turks in Turkey, ethnic Malays in Malaysia (where non-Malays make up half the population), or ethnic Greeks and Germans in Greece and Germany - if Jews and Arabs, among others, can shape the collective identity of all countries as fully as anyone else, or form vibrant sub-communities for themselves in them, then a single liberal, non-ethnic state in Israel/Palestine will be possible as well. Until then, it is hopeless.
My overall impression of SF’s argument is that he is careful to draw equivalence between ‘Jewish nationalism’ and ‘Palestinian nationalism’.
He is assuming that Palestinian nationalists want a state of Palestine of their own as much as Zionists want a Jewish state. But two developments cast doubt on the Palestinian position. One is the victory of the Hamas Islamists in Gaza, who couldn’t care two hoots about Palestine, only about restoring Islamic dominion over Israel. The other development is the increasing support among Palestinians for a one-state solution. This shows that Palestinians are content to see their nationalist project go the wall as long as the end result is the destruction of the Zionist state.
Another point is that very few Arab states reflect the self-determination of the people who live in them. The only thing they have in common is that they all speak the same Arabic language.
I believe Lyn is very easily swayed by polemics and not into specified data at all, or just that rhetoric is taking over the status of the conflict entirely. Many Palestinians and Israeli Arabs are sympathetic to the notion of controlling the area where they have been marginalised and somewhat brutalised and housed in ghettoes, given minimal rights. The victory of Hamas is less involved with ideology of Islamism, especially since most Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Gaza are against an Islamic state (which is pretty much the consensus across the Arab nations in the Middle East), as Hamas mirrored Hezbollah’s ascendency by giving what Fatah was unable to do in over a decade of negotiations with Israel: social services and some state of security (but at what price, some would say). Secondly, Hamas was the only alternative to the hegemony of Fatah, who proved incapable of leading the Palestinians from the yolk of the occupation (similar to two-party politics in Western nations). They exchanged one leadership for one that was not tainted (yet) by politics. It remains to be seen how effective Hamas can be in governing the Gaza Strip but it looks grim coupled with the closure and boycott of the Islamic group. But they do have security (with the exception of Fatah supporters).
Lyn also forgets to mention how these Arab states came into being: they were split it from the former Ottoman Empire after their demise on the end of WW1. In fact, Israel also is a creation of European powers thanks to the British Mandate and the UN Partition Plan of 1947.
Frankly, the retooling of who gets which area is somewhat mute as of this time. It’s this type of pandering that has led to another impasse here: fighting over more land and who gets to settle where. One thing is true though: most couldn’t give two hoots about “Palestine” or “Israel”; they just want jobs, a house, an education, free from oppression. Although we do forget it, some sections did believe that Israel’s occupation back in ‘67 was a good thing because it removed the occupations of Jordan and Egypt. There were indications that things were improving with Palestinian labour in Israel all the way into the 80s. Things weren’t perfect but I know many do prefer that instead of where they are now. The occupation is still to be undone but when the aggrieved get food on their table to feed their family, their grievances wane. Provide them with the proper amount to live then they simply would just see who runs the country as somewhat irrelevant (typical of Western society). There would still be plenty of talk about politics but none that could spark an imbroglio at every moment.
Joshua you say ‘The victory of Hamas is less involved with ideology of Islamism, especially since most Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Gaza are against an Islamic state (which is pretty much the consensus across the Arab nations in the Middle East)’
What evidence do you have that most Palestinians are against an Islamic state? It is also often said that were Israel not intervening in the West Bank it too would fall to Hamas.
You say that both Israel and the Arab states are creations of the European powers. Agreed. And what a disaster nationalism it has proved to be in the Middle East. It was the late professor Elie Kedourie who said that the end of empire tended to bring not national liberation but misgovernment, frequently followed by lawlessness and oppression.
Among Palestinains recently there has been a discernible shift towards support for the one-state solution. Palestinians are happy to abandon their national aspirations if it means the Zionists are forced to abandon theirs.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/160030
You then say that the Palestinians are not actually bothered about fighting for a state of their own as long as they have food on the table. This is a restatement of the old liberal myth that if people are doing well economically, they are less likely to resort to violence. And yet at the height of Palestinian prosperity Arafat started the 2nd intifada.
Now this is interesting. Joshua has a blog entitled “This Machine Kills Zionists.” This is an adaptation of the words which the great American musician Woody Guthrie had emblazoned on his guitar, “This Machine Kills Fascists.”
On his blog, Joshua has written a long defense of “9/11 truther” Lesley Hughes. He seems to think - if that rather inelegant crib from Woody Guthrie is anything to go by - that Zionists are fascists. And yet, here he is telling us that a hike in Palestinian living standards will result in their giving up on politics.
Is it me who’s confused, or is it Joshua?
There is a remarkable difference between two sections of Palestinian livelihood: one that has Israeli citizenship and those under occupation. There is a great parity between the two (and even the third of those in the refugee camps): the violence that is directed at Israel is mostly from the outside the borders of Israel. It was very indicative when Palestinians were able to move and work in Israel that the ideological really came from the Diaspora. That’s not to say that ALL the problems will go away with the introduction of jobs and aid, etc. This conflict has been going on for a very long time and myths have been proliferated by both sides that distance the two.
I know it’s been repeated enough times that Arafat “sparked” the intifada, there have been numerous books that debunked this. Arafat was simply too weak enough to curdle it and then decided to approve it when he saw that he was incapable of doing so.
I also can attest that Oslo was not “the height of Palestinian prosperity”. They may have gained international legitimacy in the eyes of the world but that did not equate to “prosperity” for those living in the occupied territories. The workers from Gaza were replaced and it was “dedeveloped” to paraphrase Sara Roy. The West Bank saw an increase in settlement activity and the autonomy proved less than the paper it was signed on.
I don’t doubt that the momentum of a one-state solution is gathering steam. I cannot speak for every Palestinian who supports such a solution and why they do it: some may do it because their current situation is untenable, others may do it because they’ve been told that this is the only way to get themselves out of this mess. I have read that some use it to “scare” Israel into withdrawing from the West Bank. Some could do it out of sheer hatred of Israel, others could do it because they really feel that this land should be shared. But let’s make the distinction between support from the intellectual outside of the territories and those who live there: I remember reading that the prospect of which solution to support (one-state or two) is the LAST thing on the Palestinians’ mind in Ramallah. It wasn’t even on the discussion table until the very end. As much as the rest of the world would like to sympathise and suggest what is best for the Palestininans to do, it is those in the territories that matter most and what they advocate and a great deal of them would still like a state of their own.
PS The name of my blog, while offensive, understandibly to those on this site, was more or less chosen because Guthrie’s famous message address was taken. It’s a great power that you have to bridge those two together.