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MidEastTruth Forum Index   Gil Troy is an American academic. He received his undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees from Harvard University and is a professor of History at McGill University.
The author of eleven books, nine of which concern American presidential history, and one of which concerns his own and others' "Jewish identity," he contributes regularly to a variety of publications and appears frequently in the media as a commentator and analyst on subjects relating to history and politics. Twitter: @GilTroy. Website: www.giltroy.com.

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PostTue Dec 02, 2003 4:52 pm     Liberal Nationalism    


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Liberal Nationalism

By Gil Troy
Forward
November 26, 2003

The worldwide campaign to rob Israel of its good name has strained Zionism's historic linkage with liberalism. Too many progressives have attacked Israel and Zionism, especially in academia. Palestinians have cleverly hijacked the rhetoric of human rights to rationalize that great human wrong, terrorism. The new, politically correct position of demonizing the Jewish state and Jewish nationalism, combined with the Palestinians' turn from negotiation toward terrorism, has inaccurately stereotyped all Zionists as conservatives. In fact, liberalism and Zionism remain mutually reinforcing.

Both liberalism and Zionism are modern post-Enlightenment movements with deep Biblical roots. Just as Zionism begins with "lech lecha," Abraham's mission to "go forth" to Israel, Western ideas of social justice stem from Biblical notions of equality. Critics like New York University professor Tony Judt, who recently reduced Zionism to a Middle European sideshow in an article in the New York Review of Books, misread history to associate Zionism with Serbo-Croation bloodthirstiness. In fact, Zionism and liberalism are intertwined with a third mainstream movement — nationalism.

Theodor Herzl harmonized these three intellectual currents. This enlightened Viennese progressive is remembered for jumpstarting Zionism in reaction to the antisemitism of the Dreyfus trial. Yet in his 1896 book "The Jewish State," Herzl dreamed of the Jewish state as a liberal light unto the nations. "Whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind," Herzl wrote, applying the romantic nationalist message that communities provide effective structures for implementing high ideals. The American experiment proves how nationalism facilitates idealism.

Yet somehow, in today's crazy world, European or Canadian nationalism is nice, multicultural and natural, and American nationalism is chauvinistic — but Jewish nationalism is racist. People who would not dare suggest uniting Canada and the United States, and historians who forget the bitter failures of Lebanon and Yugoslavia, blithely propose a "one state" absurdity combining Israelis and Palestinians.

Of course, there is a tension between universalism and particularism. But it is odd that often the same Chomskyite forces that celebrate Palestinian nationalism negate Zionism. It is particularly odd considering Canadian parliamentarian Irwin Cotler's insight that the Jews are the original aboriginal people, still speaking the same language, still developing the same culture, still tied to the same land after thousands of years. Nationalism remains the defining "constitutive" force of the modern world, as Boston University professor Liah Greenfield writes. To single out Jewish nationalism, meaning Zionism, as the only illegitimate form of nationalism is bigotry.

Herzl was not the only nineteenth-century Zionist. Zionism was a many-splendored thing, a rollicking conversation about Judaism, modernity, nationalism, liberalism, rationalism, socialism and capitalism. Zionism was a bold experiment to realize these ideals. Zionists were radical intellectual pioneers, fighting the world's evils while making the desert bloom.

It demeans Zionism to judge Israel by the oppressive examples of her self-righteous Arab neighbors. And Israelis themselves are quick to detail their state's shortcomings. But it has been, overall, a gloriously successful experiment, carving out a liberal democratic oasis in a forbidding totalitarian desert.

Critics should be ashamed for singling out Israel merely for acting like any other modern nation-state. Many myopic critics are blind to Jewish suffering and Palestinian violence. Even many Israelis, especially far too many Israeli academics at home and abroad, lambaste Israeli "oppression" while ignoring Israel's risks for peace during the Oslo years and the Palestinians' lethal rejectionism.

These days, critics indict Israel for the "pre-crime" of transfer. Judt, for one, reasons that this is Prime Minister Sharon's only option. Such premature indictments may pass muster in the Hollywood of Tom Cruise's "Minority Report." But "thought crimes" should be anathema to academics, and especially historians.

Suspiciously, while demonizing the Jewish state, liberal critics overlook the restrictions most European countries impose on non-Europeans. Europe is no model — not because of its horrific past, but because of its hypocritical present.

France has closed more than 50 professions to non-European Union citizens, according to the International Herald Tribune, including "pharmacists, midwives, architects, airline pilots, funeral home directors and anyone who wants to obtain a license to sell tobacco or alcohol." Other European countries have similar restrictions.

Israel can proudly compare its record of openness to immigrants, and even its openness to its Arab minority, despite hostile conditions. Progressives can and should continue to delight in Israel's democratic vitality, its vigorous press, powerful courts, creative universities, outspoken dissidents, dynamic population and sophisticated economy — in short the ease, freedom and equality of so many of its citizens, including Arabs.

Of course, Israel is imperfect, like every nation-state, like all human creations. But shame on so many liberals, and so many academics, for jumping on the intifadist bandwagon, magnifying every Israeli imperfection to delegitimize the Jewish state while forgiving so many other countries' shortcomings. Liberal Zionists can and should proudly celebrate Israel's many accomplishments, while prodding it to do even better.

Gil Troy is the author of "Why I Am A Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today" (Bronfman Jewish Education Centre).

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MidEastTruth.com - the first 13 yearsMidEastTruth.com
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What is Palestine? Who are the Palestinians?
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PostTue Dec 09, 2003 10:41 pm     Liberal Nationalism    


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Mr. Troy's article resonates with me and brings to mind my recent experiences on various web forums in the last year. I am a life long liberal, with modest activist credentials. At the same time given my religion, ethnicity and age (I remember the 40's) I ardently support the cause of Israel.

However, my recent web forum experience has had me reviled by "progressives" at Democrats.com and viewed with disbelief (of my being a liberal) by Israel supporters on AOL's Mid East Forum. What is infuriating by both experiences is that rather than respond to my point of view, or even facts I've prevented, I get chastised for being staunchly pro Israel, or not realizing that only "conservatives" can support the cause.

The progressives view me as pretending liberalism, while promulgating a right wing point of view. They find it inconceivable that I can be left wing and yet support (for the most part) current Israeli positions. The right wingers who I've sided with, vis a vis Israel at AOL, can't understand that I detest George Bush, and at the same time support our presence in Iraq.

There is no dichotomy. The issue of Israel is a matter of justice. Striving for justice IS a liberal and a conservative (though mostly not Republican) concept. Awareness of Israeli history discloses that much of what the Psuedo-Palestinians put forth as justification is specious and propagandistic. My concept of liberalism is having the freedom to take stands based on the facts as one sees them. Pseudo Progressive ideology (Chomsky, et. al) relies on following the party line and villifying those who don't. In their haste to identify "friends" and disparage
"enemies" they reveal themselves as missing the point of what liberalism/progresivism is supposed to be about. The same holds true on the right though with different ideological underpinnings.


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