"The Oslo Syndrome," Part II

This is Part II of a review/summary of the book "The Oslo Syndrome:
delusions of a people under siege" by Kenneth Levin, Harvard psychologist
and historian, dealing with the development of Zionism

The First Zionist Congress was organized in Basel in 1897 by Theodor Herzl,
known as the founder of modern political Zionism. Herzl had already
outlined in his book, "The Jewish State" in 1896, a program of political and
diplomatic means whereby the founding of such a State could be realized in
what was then a province of the Turkish Empire.
His program required persuading the Turkish Sultan, the German Kaiser as
well as other world leaders, that formation of a Jewish State would solve
some of their own problems in dealing with their Jewish minorities, as well
as providing a solution to the "Jewish problem" as a whole. But, as soon as
the Zionist Organization was founded it split, and it split along lines that
were recognizable to those familiar with a history of the Jews of Europe.
Four distinct trends of Zionism developed, that of Herzl himself that could
be called "nationalist Zionism," that was focused on the pragmatic means to
founding a Jewish State in Eretz Israel. Then there was so-called
"practical Zionism" that put the emphasis on settling Jews anywhere in the
world (Argentina, Uganda as well as Palestine) in farming cooperatives
(kibbutzim) where they would work the land. This approach was often funded
by European Jews who eschewed Herzl's specifically national message, and who
preferred the (essentially anti-Semitic) view that the Jews needed to be
rescued from their petit-bourgeois and orthodox religious beliefs by
learning to work the land. This approach was favored by the socialist
Jewish movements that had sprung up in Russia and that eventually cohered
into the Israel Labor Party.
Another trend in Zionism was that fostered by Ahad Ha'am ("one of the
people") who believed in the necessity of rescuing and restoring Hebrew
culture. He was not so concerned about saving the Jews physically, but of
saving them culturally. In order to do this he foresaw not a mass migration
to Eretz Israel, but a selective migration of those wedded to Hebrew culture
and language.
Finally, another direction in Zionism was pioneered by Martin Buber, a
German Jew, who saw a positive message in the lives of the leaders of the
Chassidic Jews in Eastern Europe and Russia, who studied them and wrote
about them, but used their message to emphasize a unitary view of mankind.
He foresaw the development in Zion of an essentially Jewish spiritual home,
and opposed Herzl's political program, becoming in the process an
anti-Zionist Zionist.
Chaim Weizmann was in a strong position, as head of the Zionist organization
in Britain, to influence the British Government to promise the Jews a State
in what was then Turkish-occupied Palestine. But, he did not demand a
State, he requested a "homeland," and that was what he got. The Balfour
Declaration issued in 1917 talks about a "homeland for the Jewish people,"
not a State, and this homeland was to be under British administration and
protection (as it was during the British Mandate, 1922-48), i.e. no Jewish
Government or army . When asked why he did not demand a Jewish State then,
Weizmann replied wistfully, "they wouldn't have given us one."
It is this lack of chutzpa that is so characteristic of the Jewish
negotiating style. When dealing with the British Government Weizmann felt
he should show appropriate humility (and not be too "pushy"). Jewish
leaders in America and elsewhere also tried to ingratiate themselves with
the non-Jewish world by supporting the "cultural" and "universal" aspects of
Zionism, but opposing a State, because they understood that would require
that they confront and even fight anti-Zionist and Arab interests.
In 1925 a "Peace Association" was formed in Jerusalem centered on the
nascent Hebrew University, with German Jews prominent, such a Martin Buber
and HU President (American) Judah Magnes. They formulated an anti-Zionist
program, in which they supported the idea of a binational state in Palestine
with the Jews as a permanent minority (!) In doing so they sought to
reproduce the situation of the Jews in Europe, but with the expectation that
the Arabs would be more responsive to their self-negation (just as they
thought the Germans should be). In 1929, when another Arab massacre of Jews
occurred in Palestine, this group castigated the Jews for bringing this
suffering upon themselves for demanding a "national home."
It was only David Ben Gurion, head of the Labor Zionist faction (that was
also split between extreme socialists and pragmatic nationalists) and the
Revisionists under Jabotinsky who remained firm in the demand for a Jewish
State. Even after Hitler came to power in 1933 the majority of the Zionist
(!) organization was against massive immigration to save lives, the
socialists didn't want hundreds of thousands of petit bourgeois or religious
Jews and the universalists didn't want Russian socialist Jews flooding their
utopia (they would rather leave them to their fate in Europe). Thus only
100,000 Jews entered Palestine in 1933-1939 instead of 1 million or more.
Meanwhile, the anti-Zionists, with the New York Times (owners
Ochs-Sulzberger) and the Washington Post (publisher Eugene Meyer) on their
side, expanded their campaign, calling Zionism in 1937 a "lust for power."
As Levin says: "This rhetoric of hyperbolic vilification and its cold
indifference to the desperate plight of Europe's Jews, seem again,
incomprehensible unless recognized as emanating from exposure to anti-Jewish
pressures and as representing a learned response of detaching oneself from
certain other Jews and of pursuing self-abnegation and accommodation as the
proper path that will win relief from the surrounding hostility" (p. 218).
While the Zionist Organization was foundering along these lines the world
was not waiting and events were racing towards the abyss.