To the Editor:
As someone who has admired the work of Hillel Halkin, I was somewhat confused and disappointed by his negative review of Yoram Hazony’s The Jewish State [Books in Review, July-August]. This objectively written book of 340 pages, with an additional 70 pages of notes, can hardly be perceived as partisan, as Mr. Halkin suggests. Had I read only Mr. Halkin’s review, I would not have read the book itself. As I can testify, however, that would have been a great loss.
Lewis B. Dashe
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
_____________
To the Editor:
Hillel Halkin is correct to question the account of anti-Zionism’s intellectual origins offered by Yoram Hazony in The Jewish State. But his more fundamental disagreement with Hazony concerns whether ideas in general can explain Israel’s loss of morale. Mr. Halkin suggests that the weariness and bitterness of Israelis have instead resulted from, among other things, “PLO terror, the Yom Kippur war of 1973, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, [and] the intifada.”
I would argue, however, that it is not the battles themselves that have caused Israel’s demoralization but rather the faulty idea that has governed Israeli warfare—“love thy enemy.” Toward the end of each of its armed conflicts, Israel has forgone trouncing its adversary in order to beg for peace. Similarly, in the peace process, the reality of Israel’s security needs and of Arab noncompliance has been deemed insignificant as compared with “the legitimate rights of the Palestinians.”
If instead of viewing the Arab cause as just, Israel recognized the aggression and hostility of its neighbors, its victories might serve to energize the people. It is indeed in the war of ideas that Zionism and Israel have been defeated.
Allen Weingarten
Morristown, New Jersey
_____________
To the Editor:
Though Hillel Halkin does not mention it in his review of Yoram Hazony’s book, he has suggested elsewhere that concern about “post-Zionism” is an expression of the American Jewish establishment’s guilt over abandoning the key element of Zionism: aliyah, or Jewish immigration to Israel. Indeed, the lack of a steady influx of Jews from the West may become a serious threat to Israel’s existence. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union have for now tipped the scales in Israel’s favor, and its Arab neighbors now view the country less as an imperialist outpost and more as a critical mass of Jews. (It is no coincidence that Arab readiness to negotiate peace has increased during the last decade.) But the demographic situation is still touch and go, which would not be the case if a half-million American Jews had undertaken aliyah.
David Chinitz
Jerusalem, Israel
_____________
To the Editor:
Hillel Halkin correctly notes the “badly skewed” presentation in Yoram Hazony’s compelling but eccentric book. But even Mr. Halkin’s list of Hazony’s omissions is incomplete.
I could not find a single reference in the book to the group that now makes up more than half of Israel’s population—the Sephardim—or to any individual Sephardi Israeli. In this respect, Hazony practices the same cultural triumphalism and paternalism that have been a far more important factor in alienating large sections of the population from the Zionist establishment than the elegant, peripheral musings of a tiny group of academics at Hebrew University.
Another of Hazony’s striking omissions is any discussion of the war in Lebanon, which broke every rule of trust between the Israeli people and their leadership and which has been a much greater source of civic, military, and political cynicism than the “Lavon affair,” to which he devotes sixteen pages.
Hazony also glosses over the issue of religion. The only rabbis whom he mentions are representative of the American Reform movement (Judah Magnes, Steven Wise, and a few others) who were allied with Martin Buber’s unrequited binationalist dreams. This is surprising, since the greatest and most insidious Jewish campaign against the legitimacy of the state of Israel and Zionism has been waged by intensely Orthodox Jews—the haredim—who see themselves as continuing the 19th-century battle against the secularizing of Jewish life.
It is significant that those who present themselves as the most authentic bearers of Jewish tradition—and are recognized as such by the state of Israel—refuse to sing Hatikvah (the Israeli national anthem), ignore the official moment of silence on the memorial day for Israel’s fallen soldiers, and allow the Israeli flag to be burned in their neighborhoods.
I agree entirely with Yoram Hazony that the manifestations of post-Zionism in Israeli society constitute “a cause to weep for generations.” It is straining credibility, however, to suggest that Martin Buber and his coterie are somehow responsible.
Paul Shaviv
Toronto, Ontario,
Canada
_____________
Hillel Halkin writes:
Lewis B. Dashe is mistaken if he thinks I faulted Yoram Hazony for being “partisan.” Indeed one of my criticisms of The Jewish State was that it was not partisan enough, and sacrificed opportunities for concrete analysis by seeking to remain above Israel’s political frays. Had Mr. Hazony taken the plunge into these, he would have written, in my opinion, a more interesting and less abstract book.
I could not agree more with Allen Weingarten about the all-too-Israeli—alas, the all-too-Jewish—propensity for “loving,” or at least justifying, one’s enemies. (Understanding one’s enemies, of course, is something else and generally a very good idea.) And when one’s enemies do not reciprocate, the tendency is to blame oneself, or better yet, one’s fellow countrymen, and direct one’s frustration at them. This syndrome certainly helps to explain the psychology of much of the Israeli Left. Yet, writing from New Jersey, Mr. Weingarten perhaps fails to appreciate how tired any people can be made by 80 years of violent conflict. Although refusing to turn the other cheek has much to recommend it, it is not a cure-all for combat fatigue.
Hence the importance of David Chinitz’s point. Were Israelis to believe, as once they did, that they were being asked to stand firm on behalf of the entire Jewish people and its history, this might be even more “energizing,” to use Mr. Weingarten’s word, than the exhausting task of staying angry with their enemies. But for them to believe this, annual checks and rhetorical pats on the back from the Diaspora (both in any case on the wane) are not sufficient. If Israel is the Jewish state, Jews should want to come to live in it, and post-Zionism is not a totally illogical reaction to the fact that so few do.
Paul Shaviv is wrong: Yoram Hazony does write about a number of partly or wholly Sephardi figures, including David Yellin, A.B. Yehoshua, and Meron Benvenisti, and I confess to seeing no “cultural paternalism” in his book, which deals with intellectual rather than social history. And while I agree that the behavior of Israel’s haredim is often scandalous, they are at least living in Israel. They may yet turn out to be a more constructive presence there than they now seem.
_____________
