The Fate of Zionism: A Secular Future for Israel & Palestine [Hardcover]

Arthur Hertzberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2003

Internationally known historian and rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, best known for his classic The Zionist Idea, challenges us to reexamine the case for the legitimacy of the state of Israel from a secular point of view. He argues that the religious blinders of absolute thinking and hatred have obscured our vision. In this time of great turmoil in the Mideast, when conflict represents a potential nuclear threat to the region and to the world, it is an argument that is more relevant and urgent than ever.

Charting a pragmatic middle path between the Israeli right wing and critics like Edward Said and Noam Chomsky, Hertzberg chronicles the conflict between the original secular vision of Israel and the illusions that came in the subsequent riptide of Israeli triumphalism and the myths of messianism. The deep need of the Israeli people for both power and security has created a paradox, one that can only be solved when the deeper question of legitimacy is addressed in a clear-eyed, secular fashion, away from the growing threat of clashing right wings and religious violence. Hertzberg calls us to go back to the future, to the original idea behind the founding of Israel -- that a people persecuted, marginalized, and murdered under state sanction need a safe land, a place to be independent and free.

Between the growing religiously motivated blindness of the right wing (Arab, Jewish, and American Christian), and the one-sided blindness of the Western liberal intelligentsia, it has become difficult to see the future. Hertzberg calls on the United States to use its power and influence to help recover the original Zionist intent and settle the questions of legitimacy and coexistence for both Israelis and Palestinians.

During his entire career, Hertzberg has been at once supportive of the right to existence of the state of Israel but also a fierce critic of some of its policies -- particularly the abuse of religious sentiments in the social arena. Realistic about the Palestinian injustice that is precipitated, Hertzberg offers a framework for a hopeful solution in a post-religious Zionist realpolitik.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Author of The French Enlightenment and the Jews, The Zionist Idea and other books, eminent academic Hertzberg heard David Ben-Gurion thunder against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza on the eve of Israel's victory in the 1967 war. Although it took "a couple of years of hard thinking to become one of Ben-Gurion's followers," this proposed, resolutely secular framework for Israel and for a Palestinian state grew out of the experience: anti-messianic and anti-absolutist, Hertzberg proposes that, at the very least, it is time "for the insistence of hard-liners on both sides to end."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Arthur Hertzberg has written a heartbreaking, powerful essay that is essential reading for anyone concerned about Israel’s future.” (Washington Post Book World )

“A powerful lament. . . Hertzberg recounts with great detail and passionate conviction the story of Zionism.” (Forward )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 edition (October 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060557869
• ISBN-13: 978-0060557867
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,483,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good account of the most pressing problem in the Middle East, January 28, 2004

By 

world class wreckin cru "dallasite" (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fate of Zionism: A Secular Future for Israel & Palestine (Hardcover)

It's hard to believe that a self-proclaimed Zionist could write a balanced book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Hertzberg somewhat succeeds. Hertzberg provides a brief history of both his beliefs and solutions regarding the conflict, and describes the problems and virtues of both the Jewish and Palestinian sides. But, as you might expect, there are problems with his account.

1) He describes himself as a moderate Zionist who supports the two-state solution, and he elaborates in his book the various problems that have prevented resolution to the preeminent conflict in the Middle East. Herzberg distances himself from the hard-line, messianic Jews who seek to rule over all of Palestine, but at the same time, he fails to properly address the encroachment of settlements in the West Bank that are often supported and created by the hardliners. In his discussion of the proposed security fence between Israel and the West Bank (the fence had not started construction during the writing of the book), he does not give an opinion regarding what should be done about the settlements that were illegally established in the Palestinian territory.

2) One of Hertzberg's main topics of discussion revolves around Palestinian identity and nationalism. Did the Palestinians regard themselves as such or just as Arabs before the Zionist movement, or did they become Palestinians as a reaction to the Zionist movement? Hertzberg spends a number of pages concerning this issue, and he seems to come to the latter conclusion thereby implicitly weakening the Palestinians reasons for both statehood and return to present-day Israel.

3) Although he is very critical of terror tactics employed by various Palestinian terrorist groups, he fails to be critical enough of Israeli reprisals and consequent deaths of many innocent Palestinians.

4) He does not appropriately criticize either Yasir Arafat or Ariel Sharon for their various mistakes and crimes in perpetuating the conflict.

Those are just some of the problems I have with Hertzberg's book, but there are also several positives. He correctly identifies the US as the major player in mediating the conflict and supports American involvement in realizing the two-state solution. He casts aside religious reasons for the existence of Israel and relies instead on secular and humanitarian reasons - he argues that Jews needed to escape persecution from pogroms and the pre- and post-Holocaust atrocities to establish a homeland where they could live as a "normal" nation rather than argue that Jews have a divine right to inhabit their ancestral homeland.

There are, of course, many other discussion points, good and bad, for this book. Finding a well-balanced account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is difficult, but this book is pretty well-balanced for a self-proclaimed Zionist who is obviously biased.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading, December 23, 2004

By 

Jill Malter ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fate of Zionism: A Secular Future for Israel & Palestine (Hardcover)

While there are a few things about this book that I disagree with very strongly, I still think this book has many good points to make.

Let's get the bad stuff over with first. Hertzberg, a very knowledgeable person, thinks that although a genuine peace between Arabs and Israelis is not possible, we ought to have an imposed peace. A peace imposed by the United States! No, not a peace. A ceasefire, in which we'd stop Israel from its "creeping annexation" of the West Bank! And use our troops to enforce it, rather than try to use any diplomatic options that might avoid committing American soldiers in such a manner.

In my opinion, taking Hertzberg's advice literally is not a good idea here. Having the US enforce a cease-fire would risk getting our soldiers attacked by the Arabs, no matter where the lines were drawn. I think American policy in Iraq in 2004 would look positively brilliant by comparison.

Still, this book is worth four stars. Let me tell you some of the good points the author does make:

1) Israel is basically secular, not dominated by religious leaders as many of its detractors imply.

2) Zionism is not colonialism, nor is it racism.

3) Many Western "liberals" act as if Israel's existence were "the worst outrage that exists today in the world," when in fact it is not even the biggest issue in the Arab world.

4) The antizionism of the British newspaper, the Guardian, and the French newspaper, Le Monde, is simply "disgusting."

5) Israel is not simply a US colony, unable to stand up by itself.

6) Those Westerners who demand the destruction of Israel will gain nothing from it. Certainly, they will not achieve peace, even if they succeed in destroying Israel.

7) Many attacks on Israel are really proxy attacks on the United States. Noam Chomsky's attacks on the United States are particularly "intolerable." By the way, Hertzberg does us a service by tracing a little of the history of Chomsky's views about Israel.

8) A partition of the former British Mandate of 1946 will not work. A "two-state solution," something Hertzberg has advocated for the past 35 years, will not work. This is an amazing concession to reality by Hertzberg, and I am impressed that he would not merely realize it but admit it.

I actually recommend this book.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Needs More Thought!!, January 13, 2005

By 

C Brunner "crbpe" (Ashburn, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fate of Zionism: A Secular Future for Israel & Palestine (Hardcover)

This is a good review of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. It addresses the problem from both sides, and from the side of the Arab world also. Some of his assertions are particularly interesting, including the apparent fact that there were no Palestinians before Israel became a possibility after the Balfour declaration . . . until then these people were just Arabs. His solutions to the problem left something to be desired. Essentially he says that there is no solution to the conflict, and presents measures which are contradictory to one of his theses. He notes that when push comes to shove, a population will favor social issues over economic ones, however his solutions are basically economic solutions. He should have given the same level of thought to solutions to this problem as he did to the origins of the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians.