Bartov says the early Zionist movement had liberatory intentions, aiming to emancipate the persecuted Jewish minority in Europe and modeling itself after other contemporary ethnonationalist movements. He then argues that while Israel had the opportunity to “become a normal state” and “issue a constitution that would provide equality to all its citizens, would define its borders and create a legal framework” that could also acknowledge and redress the Nakba, it chose another path. Instead of remedying its foundational violence, he says, the modern Israeli state has become increasingly “militaristic, centralized, expansionist, racist and, as we’ve seen since October 2023, genocidal.” Though Bartov does not identify as an anti-Zionist, he says Israel “must discard Zionism, it must put it on the garbage heap of history, and it must redefine itself, going all the way back to 1948.”
Levy, on the other hand, says Zionism has never been reformable, because the movement, from its very beginning, “started wrong, without the belief or the conviction that we can live together.” He contests Bartov’s assertion that early Zionist intentions became warped over the 20th century, and says instead that the violent dispossession of Palestinians is embedded into the premise of the movement. “This very same attitude, this very same policy never stopped ever since ’48,” Levy contends. Zionism Didn't Go Wrong, It Was Always Built This Way - Opinion “Israel: What Went Wrong?”: Holocaust Scholar Omer Bartov & Haaretz’s Gideon Levy Debate Zionism | Democracy Now! | | | | | | | | | | | “Israel: What Went Wrong?”: Omer Bartov & Gideon Levy Debate Zionism We speak to two prominent Israeli thinkers, historian Omer Bartov and journalist Gideon Levy, about the founding... | | | -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#41736): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/41736 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/119337124/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
