The Birth of Israel: The Way It Really Was
By Stephen S. Rosenfeld
Friday, April 24, 1998; Page A27
Israel's 50th anniversary as a state could easily have been
a grand jubilee observance of peace with the Palestinians. I
say this thinking it could still happen. Certainly it has to
count that Israelis curious about their history are now finally
getting exposed to a deeper and more inclusive version of it.
Israel's practitioners of a "new history" have been looking
beyond the stirring narratives of rescue and national redemption
to see how the founding appeared to the Palestinians. In a
notable recent series on the state-run Israel TV, the birth of
Israel was presented as having not just valiant champions but
coldly calculating ones. Israelis were shown as contributors to
the "transfer" -- the uprooting and expelling -- of hundreds of
thousands of long-settled Palestinians. The resulting buzz has
fed into current Israeli concern over the stalemate in peace talks.
Everywhere, state-making turns out to be a violent sorting out
of winners and losers. This newly appreciated slice of its history
does not invalidate Israel's claim to statehood, which rests on
unassailable historical and religious tradition and on the absolute
post-Holocaust urgency of the Zionist movement for a Jewish national
home. But it does clarify the picture of Palestine that, for the
sake of truth, ought to be in people's minds. It is part of the
unsentimental reality that peace must somehow accommodate.
It is good news that some number of Israelis -- and not just
intellectuals but a broader public -- should now be acknowledging
the true manner of Israel's birth as it affected others. An American
commentator, Rochelle Furstenberg, observes that the "post-Zionist"
historians figure Israel is now strong enough to confront earlier
myths. The fact is that pre-state Zionist militia commanders, the
young Yitzhak Rabin among them, drove Palestinians from hundreds of
their villages, including Deir Yassin, scene of a notorious
massacre. What Israelis hail as their finest national hour,
Palestinians term "the catastrophe."
President Clinton recently waded into these waters blithely unaware.
In a CBS special celebrating the Israeli anniversary, he tossed in
a boilerplate tribute to Israel's "making a once-barren desert bloom."
He was promptly (but not on air) caught up by Hala Maksoud, president
of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee: "Palestine was
not a desert. Palestinians had a rich culture and society. Haifa,
Jaffa and Acre were thriving cities. But Israel erased the
Palestinian presence from the land, destroying 418 Palestinian
villages. Israel was built on the wreckage of Palestinian lives.
It is unconscionable for President Clinton to celebrate this history,
while ignoring its human cost. . . .
"Even within Israel the public discussions of the anniversary have
been much more thoughtful and frank in reexaming the Palestinian
experience.
"Mr. Clinton's statement was particularly astonishing, coming at a
time when the U.S. is trying to act as an honest broker in the peace
process."
For Israelis, the 50-year balance sheet includes great pluses: the
establishment and defense of the state, provision of refuge for Jews
in desperate straits, preservation of democracy, building a modern
society and economy and beginning peace with some of the neighbors.
All that is on one side of the ledger. On the other is Israel's
failure to do the hard things that should have been done to invite
reconciliation with Palestinians.
The Palestinians' balance sheet is starker. They judge it a success
just that they have asserted and maintained a national identity in
the minds of their people and in world consciousness. But there has
been a specific failure to exploit the several opportunities (1948,
1978) to work toward self-determination, and a general failure to
match the Zionists in applying self-discipline to the pursuit of a
deeply felt destiny.
The Israeli-Palestinian transaction is a century old and far from
complete. But it is evident what its eventual political bottom
line must be: the establishment of a Palestinian state next to the
existing Jewish state. The nations of the world had it right when
they voted to partition then-British Palestine in 1947. It was a
good idea then, even though, while the Israelis accepted it, the
Palestinians turned it down. Now the two parties have reversed
positions, with the Palestinians in favor and the Israeli government
of Binyamin Netanyahu seemingly locked in denial, but the idea
remains compelling and sound.
(c) Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
