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Israel: The Two Halves of the Nation

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Most debates on the Israel/Palestine problem consist in a confrontation between two basic positions: 1) For the sake of its own survival, Israel is justified in holding on to all its present territories by any means necessary, and 2) For the sake of justice, Israel should make peace with the Palestinians and grant them their own state, even though it will mean giving up land. In either case it is usually assumed that the Israelis and the Palestinians are two different nations, the latter being descended from the Arab conquerors of the land. This is what Professor Katz' book disputes. Basing hmself on seldom-discussed writings by David Ben-Gurion and Israel Belkind, founder of the Bilu movement, as well as on contemporary research, he points to evidence that the Palestinians are in fact descended from the agricultural classes of ancient Israel. The division between Palestinians and Jews in Israel is actually a division between two halves of one nation. The division began when many of the elite were taken to Babylon after the destruction of the First Temple. In exile they developed a "Judaism" no longer tied to the land and the nation. Returning, they rejected the "people of the land," and the tension between the two groups continued throughout the Second Temple period. The "people of the land" were at first attracted to Christianity (which began as an anti-elitist movement within Judaism); then the majority converted to Islam over many centuries of Islamic rule. But they retained many marks of continuity with the ancient Israelite population, and Professor Katz believes that they would have welcomed the possibility of becoming reassimilated to a secular Israeli society. Instead, shortsighted separatist policies resulted in discrimination against them and gave rise to the anger that resulted in the Intifada and the drive for a separate state, which Prof. Katz does not believe would be in either group's interest. His presentation of this argument is interwoven with a lively account of his own experience as an Israeli since age 5, ending with his decision in 1970 to emigrate rather than become a "party to the dismantling" of the nation. A thoroughly unsettling and thought-provoking work.