In Support of One State (Sort of) – Part III: Jewish Nationalism in a One-State Reality

This is the third and last post on this topic. So far, I have argued (in part I) that a democratic one-state arrangement in the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean is almost inevitable at this stage. (Of course, a one-state reality already exists, but it is not democratic). In part II, I argued that there are potential advantages and benefits in some imaginable democratic one-state scenarios, and that proponents and opponents alike should be thinking about these and working to ensure that they come about, if and when such a situation arises.

In this post, I want to refute the oft-recited mantra which says that a one-person-one-vote situation would automatically spell 'the end of the Zionist enterprise', that it would necessarily constitute an end to the story of Jewish nationalism. Some pragmatic considerations have been discussed in the previous two posts—this one is about ideas and theory.

Though a one-state arrangement has indeed often been advocated by opponents of Zionism, a democratic one-state situation need not undermine a either Jewish national identity and culture, nor a belief in Jewish self-determination. In other words: One can be a Jewish nationalist and believe in a one-state, democratic arrangement between the river and the sea.

“What? How is that possible? Isn't it an obvious contradiction?” I already hear you ask. And that is the shame of the matter. I shouldn't have to write this post: From its inception, the Zionist movement was a 'wide tent' that included both statist and some non-statist conceptions of Jewish nationalism. But so deeply embedded has a particular kind of political, statist Zionism become in the minds of so many people, that few remember that, in fact, there is a long history of Jewish nationalist approaches which conceived of Jewish nationhood and self-determination differently.

I am not, of course, talking about those who have tidily, but wrongly, defined Jewish identity in terms parallel to 'Christian identity'—a matter of religious conviction, and perhaps communal affiliation, usually with no national dimension. The national element of Jewish identity is, to my mind, undeniable. I am also not talking about those who deny any positive value to the flourishing of national identities in their pursuit of some kind of universal, cosmopolitan, post-national utopia. That is, in my opinion, both unrealistic and undesirable: The things that divide human beings, although sometimes sources of conflict, are often enriching at personal, communal, and global levels, and most people in the world feel a strong attachment to their particular identities.

Rather, I am referring to important Jewish thinkers for whom Jewish national identity was central, whilst the expression of that identity through a state 'owned' by the Jewish people has not: Ahad Ha'am, Shimon Dubnow, Martin Buber, Judah Magnes, Shimon Rawidowicz, and others. There is, of course, a spectrum of different non-statist Jewish nationalist approaches: Some, like Ahad Ha'am and Buber, were Zionists. Others, such as Dubnow and the Bund, were not Zionists, but were nevertheless Jewish nationalists. I want to present here a brief summary of some of the views of Ahad Ha'am, considered by many to be the 'father' of Cultural Zionism. Greater familiarity with his approach, which, of course, considerably pre-dated the establishment of the State of Israel, might help some who care deeply about Jewish nationalism come to ideological terms with the possibility (or probability) that we will soon find ourselves living in a reality in which Jewish hegemony is no longer a given.

Unlike his political Zionist counterparts from Western Europe—chiefly, Herzl and Nordau—Ahad Ha'am did not believe that 'Jewish Sovereignty' was possible in the near future; nor did he think that, if a Jewish state did come into existence, it would solve the most important problems facing the Jewish people at a national level. Responding over 100 years ago to the ideological atmosphere at the first Zionist Congress, Ahad Ha'am expressed frustration at the fact that many Western European Zionist leaders seemed obsessed with advocating a misguided solution to the wrong problem.

Ahad Ha'am distinguished between the major problems facing Jews in Western Europe—which he called the 'problem of the Jews'; and those facing Jews in Eastern Europe—in Ahad Ha'am's terminology, 'the problem of Judaism.' Western European Jews, claimed Ahad Ha'am, were unhappy that they were unable to fully integrate into the societies in which they lived, and that they continued to face discrimination despite their best efforts.

The problem of Jews in the East, meanwhile, was a different one. In the West, Jews had left the ghetto, resulting in a desire to fully realise their integration. In the East, however, Jews remained a separate national group, living a distinct communal life. Exchanging their national identity for another wasn't a real option. But for them, modernity had hit as well, just differently; for them, the Jews remained separate, but Judaism had come out of the ghetto. Judaism was facing a crisis in the face of new ideas and concepts, which were now making themselves at home in the heart of a national culture that was Jewish. The serious challenge facing Eastern European Jews was how to adapt Jewish national culture to the religious and philosophical crisis brought about by modernity.

The solution offered by political Zionists such as Nordau and Herzl to the problem as they saw it, was to create a state of the Jews' own. This, they claimed, would solve the 'Jewish problem': Jews will rule over themselves and will no longer face the humiliation of being outsiders. But Ahad Ha'am rejected that idea: You can't integrate as you would like into Western society, he claimed, and so you want to create your own version of it elsewhere.

Instead, Ahad Ha'am was focused on offering a solution to the 'Jewish problem' as he saw it; that is, the 'problem of Judaism'. Instead of national sovereignty, a 'state of our own', his vision involved the creation of a national cultural centre in the Jewish homeland. In this centre Hebrew would be spoken, written and read, and there would be Jewish universities, schools, and other institutions in which Jews could live, learn and thrive, enriching Jewish national culture and radiating it to the communities of the Jewish diaspora all over the world. It would serve as the 'heart' of the body of the Jewish nation, which would remain, of course, mostly in diaspora.

So Ahad Ha'am's disagreement with political Zionism was partly ideological: Herzl envisioned a Jewish State in which Jews wouldn't suffer discrimination; Ahad Ha'am envisioned a Jewish Society that would bring about a renaissance of Jewish national culture. But Ahad Ha’am’s disagreement with political Zionism was also in part a product of his realism. It’s impossible, he argued, that the majority of Jews will come to a newly revived Jewish homeland; millions of Jews are not going to up and leave their homes in such a short space of time. Furthermore, he argued, the land of Israel is already populated. There are Arabs living there, and they, too, will grow in number. They won't necessarily take well to the idea of a Jewish state being established on top of them, and will likely present a serious—and justified—opposition.

Thus, for Ahad Ha'am, Jewish statehood was both unrealistic—because of Arab opposition and because of Jewish dispersion—and not worthy of being a first priority, because it wouldn't solve the major problems facing the Jewish people: The 'problem of the Jews' wouldn't realistically be solved by trying to move millions of people from their homes to a place with an existing population who, in the unlikely event that such a mass influx happened, would not be happy about it, to put it mildly. The 'problem of Judaism', of course, also wouldn't be helped simply by creating a polity ruled by Jews; that problem needed to be addressed at the substantive, cultural level. Statehood couldn't deliver that: it was (and is) neither a sufficient nor even a necessary condition for Jewish culture to flourish in its homeland.

And so, Ahad Ha'am advocated his vision of a Jewish national centre in Israel. A centre that would not be inhabited by the majority of Jews, but which would be the cultural centre of the Jewish nation worldwide. This solution, with or without statehood, would contribute to Jewish national culture and its flourishing in a modern reality.

That is what Ahad Ha'am argued then. And today, too, a Hebrew-speaking Jewish cultural centre in the Land of Israel can continue to make that contribution, regardless of the number of states that exist between the river and the sea.