A Postcolonial State
In the two decades after the end of the Second World War dozens of new states came into being in Africa, the Middle East and Asia as the old colonial powers lost the will and means to keep their empires intact. Another wave of state creation occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Yet this week the opinion columns of the world’s papers are devoting a degree of attention to the 60th anniversary of the foundation of Israel that they certainly won’t be doing for the 60th anniversary of Ireland declaring itself a republic in 1949 or of Indonesia achieving independence from the Netherlands the same year.
So why, 60 years after its foundation does Israel still command so much attention? On the face of it, the answer seems easy; Israel was founded against the wishes of a large percentage of the inhabitants of what is now its national territory, many of its first citizens had been born elsewhere, it was not recognized by any of its neighbours, has fought a series of wars during the course of its existence and has for many years occupied territories conquered from its neighbours. And lurking behind these undeniable facts there’s the ever more commonly expressed feeling that Israel’s foundation involved a unique injustice, the triumph of the nationalism of the Jews over the nationalism of the Palestinians and the theft of their land and that its continued existence is, therefore, uniquely illegitimate. When comparable events elsewhere are examined, however, it becomes clear that there is nothing unique about either the circumstances of Israel’s birth or its history.
In the first place, there was no original sin and nothing artificial about Israel’s foundation; the violence and what we would now call ethnic cleansing that accompanied it were not in any qualitative sense different from those that accompanied the foundation of many other post-colonial states. To give just one example, the foundation of India and Pakistan in 1947 was accompanied by massive loss of life and huge population exchanges, they subsequently fought two major wars and continue to confront each other, eyeball to nuclear eyeball, over Kashmir. No one seems to consider that this calls the legitimacy of either one into question. On a more general level, there are many existing states that were founded against the wishes of some part of their original population and if we are to regard those states founded with a large number of immigrants or their descendants in their population and without any consideration being given to the wishes of the indigenous population as somehow illegitimate then Israel is only going to be one on a very long list.
The hostility of neighbouring states to Israel’s existence, uncommonly strong in the first 30 years of the half of the life of the state, has since waned greatly with full peace agreements implemented with Egypt and Jordan and de facto recognition and warming relations with a number of Gulf states, especially Qatar. Even in the case of the Palestinians it’s easy to forget the degree of progress that has been made; from a position barely 20 years of effectively denying Palestinian national rights, Israel signed the Oslo Agreement, recognised the PLO, uprooted its settlements in Gaza and today continues to negotiate with the President of the Palestinian Authority.
Again, a look at comparable cases suggests that it can often take a very long time for all the problems created by the foundation of a new state to be resolved and there’s nothing very unusual in this respect about Israel. An obvious example is Ireland, which achieved partial independence in 1922 and became a republic in 1949. The violent consequences of its liberation from Britain have, however, only exhausted themselves in the last few years.
The issue of the occupation of the territories seized from Egypt, Jordan and Syria in the Six Day War of 1967 is one that seems to particularly exercise Israel’s critics. Once more, it’s easy to forget the progress that has been made. Israel uprooted its settlements and handed the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt in the context of the peace agreement with that country and although some still talk of the occupation of Gaza continuing, it’s undeniable that Israel removed all its citizens and infrastructure in 2005. In the north a deal was very nearly reached with Syria to return the Golan Heights in 2000 and since then there have been repeated stories in the press about back channel negotiations sketching out an agreement to give the Syrians back their land in return for a comprehensive peace deal, an agreement that would be fleshed out and signed whenever the parties judge it to be in their interest to do so. The question of the West Bank and the settlement of Israelis there is the one where, apart from the closing of four settlements in the north of the disputed territory in 2005, almost no progress has been made and where it’s most urgently needed. As full a withdrawal from the West Bank as is necessary to reach a deal with the Palestinian Authority and allow for the foundation of a Palestinian state is as necessary for the preservation of democracy in Israel as it is for the Palestinians to enjoy the full use of their national rights.
And, once more, Israel is far from being the only country in the world that has engaged in long term military occupation of neighbouring territories conquered in war. Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara and the continuing Turkish occupation and colonisation of a third of the national territory of Cyprus - now a member state of the European Union - spring immediately to mind. Curiously, these and other examples of illegal occupations haven’t led to their perpetrators being heaped with opprobrium the way Israel has.
So we now come back to the original question, why does Israel continue to arouse such passions in some many places, 60 years after its birth? I would speculate that it’s because a lot of people who have no problem at all with the nationalism of the Irish, the Uzbeks or the Tamils seem to be made, at best, uncomfortable by the nationalism of the Jews. Not by their own or anybody else’s, just that of the Jews. It seems to stick in their craws that the Jews have their own state. They are happy for Jews to be doctors, lawyers, shrinks and bankers but for them to have their own state, elect corrupt and ignorant politicians, defend themselves and commit the occasional atrocity, just like the great majority of other nation states at some point in their history, doesn’t seem to be acceptable.
And yet, despite the hostility of so many, Israel at 60 thrives. It has absorbed huge numbers of immigrants from the Middle East and farther afield (indeed it has recently become a magnet for Sudanese refugees), it has enviable indices of human development, contributed a huge amount to science and maintained the only liberal democracy – imperfect, like all others - in the Middle East and all this in a context where it has constantly had to defend itself from attacks designed to be mortal. It therefore deserves the warmest possible congratulations on its 60th birthday and it’s to be hoped that Palestinians will soon be accepting congratulations for the foundation of their own state too.
A shortened version of the text above appears in today’s Buenos Aires Herald.
Tags: India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Pakistan, Palestine, The Netherlands
May 9, 2008 at 11:24 am
[...] Mcdonagh in the Buenos Aires Herald, “A Postcolonial State” (h/t Norm and [...]
May 9, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Hear, hear.
May 9, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Great piece, Eamonn. All I would add is that despite all the talk of Europe being post-national, it is the site of the newest independent state: Kosovo. One more piece of evidence that Israel really is the rule, not the exception.
If I may be allowed a quick plug, readers might be interested in the Z Word blog’s response to yesterday’s LA Times article on the attraction of the so-called “one-state solution”:
http://blog.z-word.com/2008/05/israel-at-sixty-the-right-to-exist/#more-99
May 9, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Feliz cumplaños Israel!!
JC
May 10, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I’d deeply question the assumptions in that piece. No ‘original sin’? Really? Nothing ‘artificial’? In the context of the early part of this century it was profoundly artificial.
check out benedict anderson. all nation states are imagined into existence. Also, if you buy into the notion of “natural states” I don’t see how you would be able to support a state for the Palestinians. What would be “natural” about that? There has never been a state called Palestine and many of the potential citizens of a new state of Palestine would have been born thousands of km from it. You might say, “ah, but their parents/grandparents were forced to leave by the Israelis”. I am sure I don’t have to point out how the Israelis could trump that argument. The national rights of the Palestinians don’t depend on the “naturalness” of the idea of a Palestinian state and neither do those of the Israelis.
We’re simply not talking about a state, as the article presupposes, that shared a commonality with say those swallowed up by the Soviet Union, because Israel as a political and cultural entity in that area did not exist prior to the 1940s
nonsense. though my argument doesn’t depend on it, it’s a fact that there was an unbroken Jewish presence in Palestine since Roman times, a presence that quickly increased in size from the 1880s on. Who do you imagine fought the war of independence on the Israeli side?
and had no continuity with a preexisting Israel either.
nobody says that it does. what does ireland share with the ancient celts?
And that makes the comparison with Ireland simply ahistorical nonsense
see here
(incidentally I don’t believe for a moment the foundation of the RoI will be celebrated in any serious or meaningful sense in Ireland this coming year).
that’s exactly my point
Again the problem is that the article assumes that the situation of the foundation was during a period where say it is tolerable to ignore the wishes or self-determination of already existing populations and secondly that ethnic cleansing is also tolerable. But neither are.
Kosovo has just been founded against the wishes of a large minority of its population-. So have loads of other countries over the last fifty years. I didn’t say ethnic cleansing was tolerable. I just wonder why people get more excited when Jews do it
I can accept the legitimacy of Israel while find the process by which it came about deeply and profoundly disquieting
the process which brought our state into being wasn’t a stroll in the park either. Every single state in latin america was founded on, to a greater or lesser extent, genoicide. No one calls their legitimacy into question or suggests boycotting them etc.. Same for the USA, Australia, Canada…
and the lack of any sense of understanding of this desperately worrying for the future stability and security of Israel itself.
they’ve done okay up to now….
I genuinely don’t think this should be a source of celebration when the issue of Palestine remains outstanding.
we had no problem celebrating the birth of our state while the catholics in the north were being pissed on from a great height over decades. The article states my frank support for a Palestinian state.
Moreover the comparisons with other conflicts simply won’t wash. I expect little from Morocco because it has been an essentially authoritarian state,
I don’t expect more or less from anyone on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. I do my best to expect the same from all.
the same is largely true of Pakistan (and note that Pakistan/India actually retained sufficient territory etc each to maintain state structures - again unlike the Israel/Palestine situation), etc, etc
I musn’t have written the India Pakistan part clearly because you appear to have misunderstood it
It’s not about the Jewish character or otherwise of Israel, but about the democracy of Israel, in other words I hold it to a higher standard because it itself holds itself to a higher standard. And it comes back to the foundation.
I don’t hold Israelis to higher standards than anyone else regardless of what some of them say and I don’t think we can let Morocco off the hook just because of what you see as its intrinsically authoritarian nature. That, if I may say so, is a kind of condescension “the savages aren’t capable of any better” sort of thing
There was a pretty unique injustice for the 20th century of a democratic state being founded on land which was already occupied.
the people who founded it also “occupied” it. I take it that on this basis you are against the “right of return” as most of those who would benefit from it have never seen the land they want to return to.
It pains me to say this
so what? arguments please….
because I entirely understand the dynamics which led to this, and accept that a partitioned Palestine was probably the optimal outcome of the situation the Jewish people found themselves in in the late 1940s.
great
I’d also add I’ve been to Israel and found the people and place admirable.
great
I can only see it, if this works out well, as a positive element of the Middle East,
great again
but obscuring reality isn’t a positive course.
I am not doing that.
May 11, 2008 at 2:00 pm
“check out benedict anderson. all nation states are imagined into existence. Also, if you buy into the notion of “natural states” I don’t see how you would be able to support a state for the Palestinians. What would be “natural” about that? There has never been a state called Palestine and many of the potential citizens of a new state of Palestine would have been born thousands of km from it. You might say, “ah, but their parents/grandparents were forced to leave by the Israelis”. I am sure I don’t have to point out how the Israelis could trump that argument. The national rights of the Palestinians don’t depend on the “naturalness” of the idea of a Palestinian state and neither do those of the Israelis.”
I’m well aware of Anderson, but his point is a bit different to what you posit. He doesn’t actually suggest that ’states’ are imagined, but that nations are. There are clear distinctions between the two. As regards states being artificial, well, yes they are to some degree and no they’re not to others. But more importantly your argument is founded on a clear logical problem. If it is alright to wipe away the pre-existing situation and nationalism and peoples in 1948, then it is presumably equally okay for the same to happen again today. If one can found a state on land once, one can do it again and again. And that is a very dangerous route to take which leads us down the Iranian road. Quite apart from arguments for Palestine routed in humanity, equality and indeed fraternity. BTW, you’re a bit out on your own in your seeming disregard for a Palestinian state. Considering too that all players acknowledge the right of same (not merely because whatever about a historical Palestinian state - which in some ways is as equivalently real or unreal as an historical Israeli state - it surely has as much or as little basis as an Israeli state).
“nonsense. though my argument doesn’t depend on it, it’s a fact that there was an unbroken Jewish presence in Palestine since Roman times, a presence that quickly increased in size from the 1880s on. Who do you imagine fought the war of independence on the Israeli side?”
Why is that nonsense? A state of Israel did not exist. Nor arguably did a clear ‘Israeli’ national consciousness in Palestine. A presence is a presence, but the Zionist push certainly came more as an external rather than an internal push. Incidentally, the major population increase (and one that didn’t outweigh Palestinians within Palestine) was particularly rapid in the 20th century.
“nobody says that it does. what does ireland share with the ancient celts?”
Yes, well. Some make the claim that it does (in the Israeli context).
“that’s exactly my point”
So why raise a comparison which simply isn’t apt?
“Kosovo has just been founded against the wishes of a large minority of its population-. So have loads of other countries over the last fifty years. I didn’t say ethnic cleansing was tolerable. I just wonder why people get more excited when Jews do it”
Minority? That’s the crucial element here. Israel was founded against the the wishes of a clear majority within the geographical area it existed in. I certainly don’t get ‘more’ excited when Jews do it (not least because I don’t believe that the Jewishness of Israel is significant in the context of what was done or not). Incidentally I’m no booster of Kosovo, although recognising rights to self-determination that will lead to sovereignty.
“the process which brought our state into being wasn’t a stroll in the park either. Every single state in latin america was founded on, to a greater or lesser extent, genoicide. No one calls their legitimacy into question or suggests boycotting them etc.. Same for the USA, Australia, Canada…”
You’re still not comparing like with like in a 20th century context. Mass population movements into an area. Violent struggle against the pre-existing structures. The foundation of a state on land where others already existed - that last is pretty unusual in the last hundred years. I’m trying to think of another analogous example. Furthermore the mass movement from that state by the already existing population and the foundation of a state which is democratic and which sees itself as being directly in a Western liberal effectively Republican tradition.
“they’ve done okay up to now….”
No, they haven’t. World opinion turns against them increasingly. This may not trouble you, although I’ll bet it does, but it does me. The last thing I want is a state which has no friends, which is insular and introspective and indifferent to broader global mores…
“we had no problem celebrating the birth of our state while the catholics in the north were being pissed on from a great height over decades. The article states my frank support for a Palestinian state.”
Again not like with like. I don’t care if in 1966 there were celebrations. I don’t think they were appropriate then. I think they’re more appropriate now. This comparison thing of yours can only go so far before it breaks down.
“I don’t expect more or less from anyone on the basis of their religion or ethnicity. I do my best to expect the same from all.”
Again, you’re misinterpreting my point. It’s precisely because Israel is a democracy that I ask for more from it. Nothing at all to do with religion or ethnicity. In precisely the same way as I expect a tad more from the PRC than from Burma, one is a fairly authoritarian state, the other is a profoundly authoritarian state. These are nuances.
“I musn’t have written the India Pakistan part clearly because you appear to have misunderstood it”
How so?
“I don’t hold Israelis to higher standards than anyone else regardless of what some of them say and I don’t think we can let Morocco off the hook just because of what you see as its intrinsically authoritarian nature. That, if I may say so, is a kind of condescension “the savages aren’t capable of any better” sort of thing”
That’s facile and certainly not worthy of you Eamonn. See my response above.
“the people who founded it also “occupied” it. I take it that on this basis you are against the “right of return” as most of those who would benefit from it have never seen the land they want to return to.”
As it happens I support a limited right to return but not one which would alter the demographic in such a way as it would undermine the stability of Israel. But that might mean a number of solutions including overlapping sovereignty in areas, clearly at least compensation, some sort of joint citizenship with limited voting rights but rights of residence, who knows? etc. Look, this is making the best of a difficult situation stuff but the integrity of Israel is something I believe in.
What I genuinely don’t get is why you - a perceptive commentator on such things - appears at least indifferent to crucial issues like the power of nationalism (see Anderson and Hobsbawm and Edensor) on both sides, the clear imbalance in terms of power relationships, the compete hames that Israel has made of the occupation and so on. I also don’t understand the attempt to contextualise events that occur in the 20th century by a state that is clearly part of a Western tradition as somehow reasonable because they echo/mirror/follow events in previous nation buildings in previous centuries. I just don’t think that’s a good way to go on this. As someone who strongly supports Israel’s right to exist I have no problem with detailing these issues because I believe in the long run that an open approach will reap dividends.
May 11, 2008 at 8:02 pm
I think we’ll leave it there. The only point I’d like to emphasise is that I support the urgent creation of a Palestinian state and I think that’s clear from any fair reading of the original article.
I just don’t think there would be anything “natural” about such a state anymore than there would be about Uruguay or Israel or Indonesia. The rights of Palestinians or Poles don’t spring from metaphysical categories like “naturalness”.