Just finished this short book ( just over 100 pages) from a Liberal Zionist perspective.
A provocative argument for a new way of seeing Israel, Zionism, and the two-state solution. Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel is an urgent wake-up call. The philosopher Omri Boehm argues...
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A good read. Some of it been covered elsewhere. As with Anti Zionists he now regards Israel as an Apartheid State. With its long term occupation of West Bank and Gaza de facto annexation.
So Palestinians should have in his opinion Israeli citizenship.
What distinguishes him from anti Zionists is that he says a Bi National State was a position of early Zionists.
Its an interesting position.
He has sections on the liberal state. He comes from a liberal perspective not radical one.
He argues that the present day Israeli state does not count as a liberal democratic state. In practise its a an ethnocratic democracy for Jews only.
A liberal democratic state treats citizens as neutral , whatever their background. Israeli state as it has developed has gone the other way. Its a state for Jews.
He says two of things about foundation of Israel.
The British Peel commission of the 1930s made population transfer ( ethnic cleansing ) respectable.
( I differ here. Zionists lobbied Peel to include population transfer)
Once that was made official people like David Ben Gurion became more interested in it.
The second is the Holocaust. This pushed Zionists to position that liberal democracy in Europe had failed to protect Jews as a minority so a state purely for Jews was required. In order to protect the remaining Jews.
Hence the Nabka.
He mentions the Israeli historian Benny Morris. Morris does not deny the Nakba, position is that it did not go far enough. He is the "you cannot make a omelette without breaking eggs" view. Given the historical circumstance of the time David Ben Gurion et all should have gone all the way and expelled Palestinians from all of Palestine. His view is that great democracies like USA were built on the dirty work of ethnic cleansing. And its historically required. He however is honest about this and does not deny it. His view is that if that was done in 48 it would have meant the problems now would have been avoided. Not saying the writer of this pamphlet agreed with this.
This is different from Ilan Pappe who regards the Nakba as a war crime and the foundation of Israels later actions in oppressing and removing the indigenous population to make state for Jews.
Both historians btw are Israeli Jews,
He has whole section on how the Holocaust is used to justify the Israeli state. In first decades Holocaust did not feature. It was the show trial of Eichmann that changed all that. David Ben Gurion made sure of that.
After that Holocaust became a founding principle of Israeli ( Jewish) identity. He points out that the Nakba was not remembered in the same way. It was hardly acknowledged.
He regards this in Israel as misuse of the history of Holocaust.
This gave justification that Israel is exceptional state. ( see this with reaction to ICJ ruling)
He goes onto political philosophy of what is a citizen and a state. The ideal , from his perspective , is a citizen who is patriotic to a republican state. But not nationalist. Nationalist is based on racial or other kind of identity. Which excludes others.
To get to a republican state which is not nationalist remembering and forgetting is required.
In Palestine / Israel case Palestinians need to acknowledge what Holocaust means to Jews and Israeli Jews need to acknowledge the Nakba. Both side need to remember.
Then as citizens need to put this aside and look to a future where both communities live side by side.
He looks at philosophers who say the past should not determine the future. (Nietzsche)
Lastly he argues that Liberal Zionism has roots in the very early Zionist ideas of a bi national state.
National self determination does not have to be about exclusive sovereignty.
National self determination of a people can take place in a bi national state of Palestinian and Jews.
So he says he is not an anti Zionist he regards himself as still a Zionist who is picking up ideas from early days of Zionism.