In recent decades, denial of the national element of the Jewish people's history has become widely accepted in the academic discourse • The discussion about the legitimacy of the Zionist enterprise is still awake, and essential for every young Israeli and Diaspora student • Response to Yossi Beilin's criticism of the book "From the Bible to the Jewish State"

On July 20, 1994, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, spoke on Tehran Radio, addressing the State of Israel: "What are you? You are a government without roots or sources, a false government and a false nation.

They gathered evil people from all over the world and founded something called the Israeli Nation. Is this a nation? All the bad and evil Jews gathered there ... is this a nation? Such a nation and such a government created in this way and the so-called denominations themselves have no way but terror "(Ephraim Kam," From Terror to Nuclear ", p. 397).

These are a manifestation of the classic position of the Iranian revolutionary regime, which has already put hostility to Jews and Israel at the center of its conception, including Ayatollah Khamenei, in which he saw an arrowhead in the plot to introduce the values ​​of materialistic secular imperialism to Islamic countries. But in the quoted things there is also another emphasis, according to which the Islamic conception regards Jews as religious and not nationals who should not exist but as humiliated protesters under Muslim rule and not as independent rulers.

This is a regular element of the Iranian-Islamist claim against the State of Israel, and they are also well in line with the Arab position reflected, for example, in Article 20 of the PLO's Palestinian Charter, which states: "The allegations of Jewish historical or spiritual connection to Palestine are inconsistent with The truths of history, or the elements of the state in their proper meaning. Judaism, as a celestial religion (we were, in Revelation), is not an independent reality nationality, nor are the Jews with one, independent personality, but are citizens of their own countries. "

Zionism as a departure from Judaism

The understanding of the centrality of these arguments in the eyes of the enemies of the State of Israel, to the representatives of the BDS movements of our time, makes clear the absurdity we have reached, where the denial of the national element of the Jewish people's history has become such a common argument among Israeli academics in recent decades.

Twenty years ago, Prof. Uri Ram, one of Israel's foremost sociologists and who later served as president of the Israeli Sociological Association from 2016 to 2018, declared "the critical intellectual challenge today at the door of the Israeli cultural and academic establishment" "And exposing the way in which" Zionist historiography has forcibly imposed itself on Judaism on Jewish history, on the history of the Land of Israel and on the history of Zionism and the State of Israel. "

This anti-national stance, which calls itself "critical" in relation to the Zionist narrative, has become not only a beacon, but also a program in some of the sociology departments of Israeli universities, which foster a radical discourse that systematically undermines the legitimacy of the Zionist enterprise. At the same time, many scholars of Judaism have adopted marginalizing positions on the national dimension of Israeli history, and present the novelty of Zionism as a departure from Judaism-focused Judaism.

This discourse developed simultaneously in both our country and Jewish overseas scholars, as evidenced by the following, for example, by Professor Daniel Boyarin of the University of California, Berkeley: "The solution of political Zionism - Jewish hegemony in a Jewish state - was, at certain stages of its realization, an emergency rescue operation. He seems to us to undermine Jewish culture ... Zionism represents the placing of a cultural-political, European, and Western form instead of the traditional Jewish form that was - at its best - a partnership in political power with others ... Exile and not monotheism is the most important contribution that Judaism has ever made. "(" Theory and Criticism 5 ", 1994).

Far from a knockout

To this day, an average student of political science and other social sciences will encounter during their studies of nationalism first and foremost the positions that defy nationalism as a modern and manipulative phenomenon that has created new identities from groups of human beings with no real connection. The application of the argument to the Israeli case is clear and immediate, and, as is customary in these cases, first filed with the State of Israel. The perceptions of historians such as Eric Hobbsbaum and Ernest Gellner, who describe nationalism as a whole, and the Jewish one in particular, as misrepresentation and manipulation, have taken root in Israel at the heart of academic discourse on these issues.

Against this backdrop, I was surprised to read Dr. Yossi Beilin's review of my new book, "From the Bible to the Jewish State - The Incarnation of Jewish Nationalism and the Israeli Polemic," published in this paper, 21.02). Beilin reviewed the trend and purpose of the book and for that my thanks are due. As he rightly wrote, in a book I detailed the claims against the authenticity of the national phenomenon in world and Jewish history, and systematically refuted them. In the Jewish context, I also discussed the variety of views held by Jews throughout history on the question of the relation between the religious element and the national element in Judaism.

Admittedly, Beilin added and appreciated the entire project as part of the pre-state era, and as a preoccupation with the already-knocked-out debate on the establishment and establishment of the State of Israel. Not only that, he even claims that just raising the question only removes the demons that have already been trapped without it again. But as mentioned, it was requested that Beilin, who served as Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel, and who was among the initiators and leaders of a Birthright project designed to strengthen the Jewish identity of Diaspora youth through acquaintance with the State of Israel, would understand the sharp and topical importance of this debate.

As I presented above, in both the diplomatic arena and in the academic discourse, statements of argument against the legitimacy of the State of Israel are heard and written as a crooked and illegitimate continuation of the Jewish religion. A careful discussion of the various aspects of the question, and the separation of the relevant components from the political components involved as a tangled cocoon within the academic discourse that is being conducted on these issues, is an essential need for every young Israeli and Jewish student in the Diaspora. The question remains is whether the arguments in the book are compelling, and this will leave the readers' judgment.



* The writer is the head of the Jerusalem State College