Liberal Zionism, the notion that Israel’s existence will be appropriate with liberal values, has run its course. As Israel’s genocide in Gaza continues regardless of the outcry of the world and the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice, it’s clear that any hopes of earlier generations to construct a humanistic society in Israel have failed.
Israel has lengthy legitimized itself by purporting to be vital for the safety of Jewish individuals from antisemitism. However Judaism and Jewish id are far older than Zionism, and much more numerous than Zionism’s slim claims to monopolize the which means of religion and ancestry. Rabbi Shaul Magid joins The Chris Hedges Report for a dialogue on how spiritual fanaticism has come to dominate Israeli politics, and the way a Jewish id that rejects Zionism will be constructed from the wealthy and profound historical past of the Jewish religion and folks.
Studio Manufacturing: Cameron Granadino
Publish-Manufacturing: Adam Coley
TRANSCRIPT
Chris Hedges: Has Zionism, particularly liberal Zionism, exhausted itself? The humanistic constructs of liberal Zionism are at all times in battle with itself due to its refusal to grant Palestinians equal civil and political rights and has led many Israelis to embrace a much more chauvinistic and fanatic spiritual Zionism. What does this imply for Israel? And as essential, what does this imply for Judaism? The Zionist motion which turned a dominating drive with the institution of the Jewish state in 1948, has sought to close out Jewish critics of Zionism. It not solely maligned Jews who didn’t embrace Zionism however labels them “anti-Jews,” “self-hating Jews,” or “counter-Jews.” This conflict inside Judaism, between those that put Israel on the middle of Jewish id and those that don’t, has ripped aside the Jewish collective. As Rabbi Shaul Magid writes, “The Talmudic sages train that the heretic is definitely worse than the idolater. Of their estimation, not like the idolater, the heretic subverts Judaism from the within.”
Rabbi Magid goes on to argue that the demand for the complete Zionization of American Jewry is an try to model all who don’t give their main loyalty to the state of Israel as heretics or apostates. This battle inside Zionism raises essential questions: What position does exile play in Jewish perception? What position does the state of Israel play in Jewish perception? Is Zionism the one true refuge for Jews? Are Jews who reject Zionism and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians, who embrace lives outdoors of Israel, upholding or defying Jewish custom? Is the nation’s state one of the best or the healthiest collective construction for Jews? Is a Jewish homeland, recognized by Jews because the land of Israel, linked to sovereignty? Judaism existed lengthy earlier than the idea of sovereignty and the land of Israel has been the homeland of the Jews for millennia with out sovereignty. Is the idea of homeland depending on statehood and even residents in Israel? Or is this idea, in its origins, a theological idea? Becoming a member of me to debate Zionism and its relationship to Jewish perception is Rabbi Shaul Magid, professor of Jewish Research at Dartmouth Faculty and senior fellow on the Heart for the Examine of World Religions at Harvard College, in addition to the writer of The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance.
I learn your e-book and liked it. As you already know, I went to Harvard Divinity College and got here out of a Presbyterian family. One of many issues that I watched and have some sense you’re reacting to as effectively, is very throughout crises just like the Vietnam Warfare, what a big share of Christian clergy had been prepared to sanctify conflict, and sanctify the American state. My father was within the anti-war motion; Those that challenged the sanctification of state energy had been quickly marginalized, not solely inside the society however typically inside the institutional church as effectively. Are you writing about a lot the identical phenomena?
Shaul Magid: To start with, thanks for having me. I respect it and it’s an honor for me to be right here. To a point, there may be an intersection between faith and politics that emerges via Zionism that hadn’t existed for Jews for a really very long time earlier than that. Navigating these very, very difficult waters of politics, particularly if you’re coping with – As politics virtually at all times does – Ruling over different individuals, faith typically is available in to problem the political after which is usually used to verify the political. That’s a part of what the connection between Zionism and Judaism is right this moment. What position does the political play inside the historical past of Judaism in exile? The belief that I start with is that the Jews nonetheless dwell in a state of exile, whether or not they dwell within the land of Israel or whether or not they dwell within the diaspora. The excellence between diaspora and exile is a crucial one, it’s an essential a part of the e-book.
Chris Hedges: Clarify that idea.
Shaul Magid: Diaspora is a descriptive time period, it means dispersion. It was created by the Greeks, perhaps to consult with the Jews or perhaps not. However in any occasion, it’s one thing that doesn’t have a lot worth to it; It’s merely the existence of people who find themselves residing outdoors of a homeland. Whereas exile is a theological time period. It’s not a descriptive time period, it’s an existential time period. The concept is that in some way the covenant because it exists shouldn’t be in a state of achievement however in a technique of changing into. And that’s not one thing that’s solely a part of Judaism. I argue that exile is on the very middle of Judaism. Judaism as we all know it right this moment is born in exile and is, in some ways, a response to it.
Chris Hedges: And flesh that out, the concept you can dwell within the Jewish homeland, because it’s referred to as, and but be in a state of exile.
Shaul Magid: Exile merely means – Actually from the standard perspective – A state of changing into; It means a state of not but, it means a state of present outdoors of the achievement of the covenantal promise that’s made by the prophets. So in a means, the top of exile merely is within the prophetic creativeness. The tip of exile is solely the approaching of the Messiah and since Jews don’t consider that the Messiah has come, they’re residing in a state of exile. Zionism, to a point, challenges that by making the declare that one may finish exile with out its messianic achievement. That’s a part of what Zionism sought to perform in establishing a sovereign Jewish nation-state.
Chris Hedges: Let’s speak about Zionism as a motion – At its inception a really marginal motion, however now a really highly effective motion. You write within the e-book that liberal Zionism hasn’t had a brand new concept in virtually 40 years. However let’s speak about Zionism and its interaction now inside Judaism.
Shaul Magid: Zionism emerged within the late nineteenth century in Europe as a response to what turned often known as the “Jewish query” which was the brand new antisemitism that emerged after the emancipation of the Jews and the unwillingness or resistance of European society to completely combine the Jews and query whether or not Jews may very well be built-in into European society. It goes again to Marx’s well-known essay on that query, and Herzl then wrote one other essay in 1897, which asks the query once more. So Zionism emerged as a Jewish motion of liberation primarily based on Western European nationalism, as a technique to clear up the Jewish query. To say that since there’s no answer to the Jewish query in Europe, the one answer is for the Jews to turn out to be a standard nation that’s with a land, a language, and a rustic.
The way in which to do this was to ascertain a Jewish nation-state. Whether or not it was going to occur within the historic land of Israel or not was one other query however that gave the impression to be the apparent place. Though it comprises sure deep issues that we’re nonetheless going through in 2024, which is what do you do with the truth that there are different individuals residing there? In any occasion, Zionism as an answer to a European Jewish drawback – And it was a European Jewish drawback – Was made extra highly effective by the collapse of Europe by the Eighties, Nineties, and definitely by the Nineteen Thirties, when it turned not possible or extraordinarily harmful for Jews to proceed to dwell in Europe. Zionism turned the choice. There have been many different options on the time. That was essentially the most affordable, though actually not the best various.
Chris Hedges: You write that Zionism buttresses antisemitism. Clarify that concept.
Shaul Magid: Buttresses or there’s a sophisticated relationship between Zionism and antisemitism. Herzl knew that and stated in a diary entry that the antisemites may very well be a few of our greatest advocates. In a means, what Herzl was saying to the antisemites is, I’ve an answer to the Jews: I’ll take them out of Europe and put them in a nation-state someplace distant within the Center East. And for lots of European antisemites, that was a superbly fantastic answer, particularly given colonialism. So one of many large questions that’s requested as of late is, is Israel a settler-colonial mission or a colonial mission? That’s one thing that may be debated, however it may possibly’t be debated that Zionism benefited from colonialism.
The concept we will set up a Jewish nation-state of largely European Jews, though Jews from the Arab land actually got here on the institution of the state, in part of the world that was being colonized by Europe, in a sure means made excellent sense. In a means, Zionism was capable of be as profitable because it was for quite a lot of causes: To start with, it targeted on the land of Israel which spoke to the historic and theological aspirations of Jews. Second of all, Europe started to crumble and it turned vital; virtually like an emergency scenario. However there have been issues that had been inherent in Zionism from the start that we’re nonetheless residing with and we’re seeing the fruits of right this moment.
Chris Hedges: You speak about Zionism as… One of many core manifestations of the ideology is that it posits that Israel or the Jewish state makes you secure, you’ll by no means be secure within the diaspora. You break down antisemitism into three components. I can’t keep in mind whether or not you bought that from Hannah Arendt or whether or not that’s your individual formulation, however clarify. And the degrees of hazard from antisemitism are decided by these three totally different kinds or expressions of antisemitism.
Shaul Magid: Yeah, I borrow it from Arendt, however Arendt makes use of it in her essay, Reflections on Little Rock, about racism. There are three types of racism, what she calls the person, the social, and the political. She makes the declare that… I don’t wish to get into the Little Rock article about racism however what I’m saying is that there are numerous types of antisemitism. There are individuals who don’t like Jews for no matter motive, however their dislike of Jews stays very a lot inside their non-public sphere; She calls it non-public, social, and political. Then there’s social antisemitism which extends out of the non-public sphere into the social sphere, for instance, like summer season camps and nation golf equipment and all issues like that. Then there’s political antisemitism that turns into a part of the political tradition, and for Arendt on the racism query, it’s solely when racism turns into political that it turns into harmful.
I used to be making an attempt to convey that to the query of antisemitism to indicate that the distinction between European antisemitism earlier than the conflict and antisemitism that exists within the US right this moment, is that within the US, antisemitism not often reaches the extent of the political. It stays way more within the particular person and social sphere, which isn’t to say that’s not an issue however it doesn’t essentially curtail the power for Jews to dwell as Jews within the US. Which is why I say within the e-book that I don’t really feel like Jews in America are oppressed.
Chris Hedges: Arendt additionally, when she writes about antisemitism, talks concerning the distinction between vice and crime. She writes in Origins of Totalitarianism that Marcel Proust maybe explicated the character of antisemitism higher than anybody else in France on the flip of the century. In fact, Jews earlier than the Dreyfus affair are invited into the salon as unique figures, Swan being an instance after Dreyfus. That is Alfred Dreyfus the officer who was falsely accused of – He’s Jewish – Promoting secrets and techniques to the Germans, you see Jews shunned. However she says that for a criminal offense to be explicated, you possibly can serve time otherwise you will be punished. Whereas if you’re contaminated with the vice of “Jewishness” or no matter, racism, that may by no means be washed away. That it’s at all times there. Are you able to discuss a bit bit about that concept of antisemitism?
Shaul Magid: Yeah. In a sure means, she’s getting that a bit bit maybe from Max Nordau who calls antisemitism a illness. It’s the identical primary concept. She makes use of this class of what she calls “everlasting antisemitism” which she makes use of critically as a result of she doesn’t really feel like antisemitism may very well be understood if it’s understood as an everlasting hatred. Though plenty of students of antisemitism make that argument. What I attempted to do in that chapter on antisemitism, is play off Arendt’s lengthy, unfinished article that she wrote on antisemitism and likewise the a part of her totalitarianism on The Origins of Totalitarianism and Antisemitism, is that we have now to grasp it inside a selected historic context, and we will’t name every part the identical factor. We will’t use this umbrella time period to outline how Jews had been thought of in Christian Europe, how Jews had been thought of in Muslim lands, how Jews had been thought of in America, or how Jews had been thought of by Palestinians in Israel.
In case you’re going to make use of the time period antisemitism as a catch-all for hatred of the Jew or Yudin, because it was referred to as in Germany, she appears like we’re not understanding the phenomena. We’re weaponizing it. So she took antisemitism very significantly, as all of us do. She felt like not understanding it and by not solely not understanding it however trying to assert that it’s in every single place and at all times, whether or not there are Jews or whether or not there aren’t any Jews, is an issue by way of understanding the phenomena.
Chris Hedges: I wish to speak about your individual experiences in Israel. You grew up in a counterculture setting and also you ended up in Yeshiva Meah Shearim, which is that this Orthodox spiritual part of Jerusalem, the place you served within the IDF – These had been formative experiences by way of your understanding each of Israel and Judaism. Are you able to clarify?
Shaul Magid: Yeah. I used to be a wandering Jew, so to talk; Somebody who grew up in a middle-class, counter-cultural setting, went to Israel, and was utterly taken in by the nation and likewise by the faith. So I sought out essentially the most excessive type of the faith of Judaism and ended up within the ultra-Orthodox world of Meah Shearim, which was very anti-Zionist however that didn’t concern me at that time. I used to be seeking to dwell some various way of life, I suppose. And I discovered, in ultra-Orthodoxy, an effective way to exist and be a part of a parallel world. I turned disenchanted with it over the course of time as a result of my liberal and even progressive proclivities began to bump up towards a really deep sense of, for lack of a greater time period, misogyny, and racism.
I felt like ultra-Orthodoxy was making an attempt to take care of or retain the previous. What initially drew me to settler Zionism or the Zionism of Rabbi’s Kook is that it was a Judaism that was wanting towards the longer term. That’s how I understood my very own expertise: residing in a society that was making an attempt to protect the previous versus a society that was making an attempt to create a future. I turned very drawn into that future-looking society till I started to see its underside by way of the way it understood the opposite people who had been residing there and the truth that the Arabs and the Palestinians weren’t thought-about a part of that future imaginative and prescient.
Chris Hedges: You name it “a holy land fantasy.” What do you imply?
Shaul Magid: Yeah. It was a holy land fantasy. Within the days after I was there within the Eighties, it was a fantasy, the best way it isn’t now. For instance, you had been capable of drive to the seashore in Gaza, you had been capable of go to Ramallah or go to Nablus, and go to {the marketplace}. You had been footloose within the land of Israel. There have been individuals there who didn’t such as you and perhaps wished you hurt, however at the moment there have been only a few who had been prepared to do this. That modified after the primary Intifada in 1989. However earlier than that, there was a way of somebody coming from the US residing in some sort of a fantasy.
Chris Hedges: I’m going to learn this passage after which you possibly can discuss concerning the IDF. “I didn’t lose my Zionism in left-wing protests, I misplaced my Zionism within the IDF, the Israeli Protection Power. It was there that I witnessed the depths and intractability of ethno-national chauvinism. It was there that I understood what longtime chief of the Jewish Nationwide Fund and lifelong Zionist, Yosef Weiss, stated way back in his diary popularized within the 2021 movie Blue Field, ‘The Arabs won’t ever forgive us for what we have now completed to them.’” Speak concerning the IDF and that have.
Shaul Magid: Not everyone, however lots of people, within the IDF, are confronted with the realities of what it means to dominate one other society in ways in which Israelis who will not be serving within the IDF don’t expertise. Many serve within the IDF, and what I got here to appreciate is that when you find yourself strolling via a Palestinian village totally armed with a loaded gun, and also you see the hatred within the eyes of the kids in the direction of you, you begin to perceive it. You’re dominating their lives, you’re humiliating their father, you’re arresting their brother – There’s a way of hatred that’s palpable and never solely palpable however from my perspective, totally comprehensible. And if I might’ve been of their scenario, I might’ve felt the identical means.
I got here out of that have even with the entire rationalizations that we had been taught: that is vital for safety and so forth and so forth. That could be true, however it doesn’t imply that the domination is any extra excusable and that the hatred is any extra unreasonable. In order that’s the place the fantasy cracked: Once I realized for me to dwell the fantasy of life within the land of Israel, signifies that I’ve to manage the motion of different individuals. And that all of the sudden appeared to me inexcusable.
Chris Hedges: You write within the e-book about how the Holocaust is taught in Jewish schooling. You stated it’s instilled a way of everlasting existential disaster. What political scientist, Ian Lustick calls “Holocaustia,” making a perpetual state of Israeli exceptionalism and giving rise to a parliamentary perspective by which antisemitism has all however turn out to be Israel’s international coverage. Clarify that and clarify how Zionism makes use of the Holocaust.
Shaul Magid: It’s very attention-grabbing as a result of individuals like David Ben-Gurion, the primary prime minister of Israel, had been fairly towards utilizing the Holocaust as a justification for Zionism. However what’s come to be, and that is Lustick’s Holocaustia, is that the Holocaust has turn out to be the re-instantiation of trauma to legitimize and necessitate the existence of a sovereign Jewish state. So taking sixth graders from Israel to Auschwitz and having that very traumatic expertise… Even for the Jews not of European descent, for the Jews from Morocco or from Algeria or Yemen, to take them to Poland to expertise the remnants of the Holocaust is used to instill a way of patriotism within the want for the state of Israel, as if there may be the state of Israel or the Holocaust. These had been the 2 choices.
Given these two choices, who wouldn’t select the previous? We discover it elsewhere in statements made by Yitzhak Shamir and even Netanyahu that the borders of Israel are just like the borders of Auschwitz. I might even enter to say the best way by which there are analogies between what occurred on October 7 and the Holocaust. There’s a means by which the Holocaust turns into, I wouldn’t say a weapon, it turns into the perennial justification for the necessity of a Jewish state. You may make that argument and we will debate that argument in quite a lot of alternative ways however educationally what it does is sort of like re-traumatizing the Jews time and again and once more. And I can’t see that wholesome individuals will emerge from that.
Chris Hedges: Publicly, Netanyahu has referred to as the Palestinians Nazis.
Shaul Magid: Sure. Proper, in fact.
Chris Hedges: The irony is the Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
Shaul Magid: Not solely that, I might say that if you’ll make some comparability between these Kibbutzim within the Gaza envelope that had been savagely destroyed and the Warsaw ghetto, then Zionism hasn’t achieved something. The analogy undermines that which it’s making an attempt to show. The e-book was written earlier than October 7, it got here out after October 7. Jews really feel traumatized by October 7 understandably so, however I don’t assume that working, as Lustick stated in one other article after October 7 “Vengeance shouldn’t be a nationwide coverage.” And that’s what Israelis and Jews worldwide are attempting to grapple with at this level.
Chris Hedges: Speak concerning the interaction between Judaism and the Israeli state. Once I lived in Israel, I assume it’s even worse now, however reformed rabbis had no spiritual legitimacy. Even then the Orthodox had full management. David Hartman was working the Hartman Institute however he was very marginalized. This was liberal Judaism. However speak about that relationship between the state and Judaism.
Shaul Magid: There’s one thing very ironic about that as a result of Israel is discovered as a secular Jewish state. Zionism was a secular motion and the spiritual sector of the early Zionist motion was fairly small. Gurion, when he was within the course of of making a coalition, wished to ask the spiritual events into the mission. The spiritual events had been fairly resistant as a result of lots of these spiritual Jews who had been a part of these spiritual events, although they had been sympathetic to Zionism as a result of Zionism allowed them to dwell within the land of Israel, they understood what they thought-about to be the top of heretical nature of secular Zionism. So Ben-Gurion made a deal that he referred to as The Standing-Quo Settlement by which he gave the spiritual events jurisdiction, over quite a lot of issues. One among them was marriage, one other was divorce, one other was conversion, and one other was burial rights.
Versus America which has a separation of church and state, Israel doesn’t have a separation of church and state in that means. The Israeli rabbinate is a authorities company and so they have jurisdiction over these specific areas. So when individuals say, is Judaism the official faith of Israel? The reply isn’t any. The official faith of Israel is Orthodox Judaism. And so they had been capable of nullify or not settle for any conversions that had been being completed by non-Orthodox Jews. By the best way, there’s no civil marriage in Israel both so a consultant of the Israeli rabbinate must be current at a Jewish wedding ceremony for the marriage to be sanctioned by the state. That is altering and there’s some loosening up of a few of these strictures.
Most likely in some unspecified time in the future in time, there will probably be some type of civil marriage. And non-Orthodox rabbis, whereas they’re not formally acknowledged, are given a bit bit extra authority than they had been prior to now in addition to non-Orthodox Jewish establishments. However the Jewish faith, not Islam or Christianity, in Israel is run by Orthodox Judaism.
Chris Hedges: And Orthodox Judaism is increasing. It’s actually grown fairly a bit since I lived in Israel.
Shaul Magid: Tremendously. Not solely among the many ultra-Orthodox communities however among the many nationwide spiritual Orthodox communities. One of many issues that Ben-Gurion did by making a take care of the ultra-Orthodox events or the Orthodox events in The Standing Quo is he thought that many of the ultra-Orthodox Jews would depart. Both they would depart as a result of why would they wish to dwell in a secular Jewish state or the following technology would secularize. And that didn’t occur. In reality, the alternative occurred. So with very, very massive households; ultra-Orthodox Jews with 5 or 6 kids on common; nationwide Zionist and Orthodox Jews with perhaps a bit bit much less, and the secular Jewish inhabitants ha most likely round two-two level one thing kids per household. So over the course of time, it’s increasing tremendously. Amongst Jews within the diaspora who immigrated to Israel, one thing like 70% of them are Orthodox. So Israel is changing into a extra spiritual nation, it’s changing into a much less liberal nation, and we’re seeing the consequences of that in quite a lot of alternative ways.
Chris Hedges: Speak concerning the relationship between the settler motion and the fanatic or right-wing Zionism of the settlers. They’re not solely inside the Netanyahu authorities, however they’re inside the IDF. The chief-of-staff comes out of the settler motion. That is one thing that, 20 years in the past after I lived in Israel, settlers or individuals who embrace that chauvinistic Zionism like Meir Kahane – I used to be in Israel, you wrote a e-book on Kahane, however I knew him and was there – His occasion was outlawed in 1994, Kahane, and he was later assassinated. He wasn’t allowed to run. That’s all modified. And lots of of those individuals are heirs to Kahane. That’s a brand new phenomenon.
Shaul Magid: Yeah. A part of the ideology of the settler motion is one thing referred to as “better Israel” and better Israel is an ideology that the entire land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea is Jewish land. So the thought of the West Financial institution or the Gaza Strip as being Palestinian land or Palestinians having rights to that land is subverted and undermined by that notion of better Israel. It’s arguably the case that the federal government is advocating a better Israel ideology, which governments beforehand had rejected. 1977 Menachem Start is elected as prime minister from the Likud Celebration, a right-wing occasion.
He was nominally spiritual however he adhered to a selected better Israel ideology. What’s occurred is with the enlargement of the settlements, you have got a complete tradition – I wouldn’t even name it a subculture anymore – Of Israelis who’re raised with a selected spiritual, messianic ideology whereby the entire land has to stay in Jewish palms, that solely Jews ought to have the authorized rights, and that Palestinians who wish to dwell there, dwell there as second class residents. That is one thing within the Eighties when Kahane was round, was thought-about to be so excessive that even the proper wing rejected him. However now it’s turn out to be normative or regular, not solely among the many excessive right-wing settlers however a number of the extra center-right members of the Israeli Parliament.
Chris Hedges: Liberal Zionism – We’ll return to that quote I learn. What’s taking place? Is it withering away? Is it being changed by spiritual Zionism? Is it discovering a brand new id? What’s occurring with it?
Shaul Magid: It’s a great query. Liberal Zionism, to start with, is one thing that solely existed within the US. There was an Israeli left however the Israeli left was not liberal Zionism. The Israeli left in some ways was far to the left of liberal Zionism. So liberal Zionism indirectly begins with Louis Brandeis – Again within the teenagers of the twentieth century – Who made that well-known speech. It was 1915 the place he stated to be a great American is to be a Zionist and to be a Zionist is to be a great American. The liberal values that Brandeis espoused had been the liberal values of Zionism. That is clearly lengthy earlier than a state. To a point, liberal Zionism was capable of survive the institution of the state and even up till the Nineteen Seventies.
However liberal Zionism is in a defensive mode at this level. As a result of you have got a gaggle of people that take into account themselves liberal Zionists, who’re dedicated to liberal concepts, who’re dedicated to equality, who’re dedicated to justice, and so they’re supporting a state that’s not dedicated to these values and never dedicated to these concepts. So the query is, what worth does it have for a liberal motion to help an intolerant state? Now, we will argue concerning the nature of the state however one of many issues that’s the underside of democracy is that the individuals which are residing within the state select the state. It’s not that Netanyahu gained in a fluke election; Netanyahu has been profitable for a very long time. The Israeli left not solely is now within the opposition, however the Israeli left didn’t make sufficient votes to be within the authorities in any respect. So we’re in a scenario the place, my perspective is that liberal Zionism doesn’t have any new concepts, partly as a result of the nation that it helps has chosen a distinct path.
Chris Hedges: I wish to speak about BDS: The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction motion. You, together with two different nice students I like; Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein, don’t help BDS. I’m a powerful supporter of BDS however I would like you to put out why you don’t help BDS.
Shaul Magid: It’s an excellent query and I don’t have an excellent reply. I might say it in one other means: I don’t have a rational reply, I’ve an emotional reply. I can’t consider a great motive why to not help a nonviolent motion that’s searching for to finish the occupation. Now, some individuals in BDS are searching for to eradicate the state utterly. Others in BDS merely are attempting to eradicate the occupation. For me, two issues: I don’t really feel like it’ll have the influence that the anti-Apartheid motion had, for instance, of forcing South Africa to finish apartheid. I don’t assume it has that energy. I don’t assume it has the enamel to do this. It additionally turns into so combined up with a selected left group that merely doesn’t acknowledge the viability of the existence of the state, which I don’t help. I do assume that the state has a proper to exist like every states have a proper to exist. Or I don’t know if any states have a proper to exist.
Chris Hedges: Effectively, you argue within the e-book you can’t use that time period.
Shaul Magid: Yeah. I don’t like to make use of the time period “proper to exist.” I might say it otherwise – Israel as a state, exists. The query that pursuits me is what sort of a state it’s going to be and that’s the place my vitality is. I don’t assume that my vitality is effectively spent if I signal onto the BDS motion.
Chris Hedges: For these of us who abhor violence… And I knew two of the leaders of Hamas and was fairly upfront. This was in the course of the suicide bombing assaults in Jerusalem which I needed to cowl. And I argue each within the dwelling of Abdelaziz Runtisi, one of many co-founders of Hamas after which after he was assassinated, Nizar Ryan that by finishing up indiscriminate suicide bombing assaults towards Israeli civilians, they had been primarily abrogating or taking from themselves the ethical excessive floor that they had. To not point out the truth that it was a conflict crime. However amongst Palestinian pals with out being a powerful supporter of BDS, I don’t know the way I can counter this name to withstand the violence.
Shaul Magid: I hear you. That’s a really severe critique. And once more, I don’t have a solution for it. What occurs from inside the circles that I dwell in, signing on to BDS places you outdoors the dialog, and at this level, I desire to be inside that dialog. I can perceive BDS, if it’s a motion that’s searching for to finish the occupation and create justice and equality for Palestinians, from everyone that lives from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, I can help that as a non-violent motion as a result of I agree with these objectives. Do I believe that these objectives will be achieved with or with out BDS? The argument in my e-book is, not so long as Zionism is the ideology that dominates the state.
Chris Hedges: I wish to ask you about Jeremy Corbyn. That was one other… Now there’s very sturdy proof that antisemitism was weaponized to convey down Corbyn and his supporters, lots of whom had been Jewish. However you say that he could also be an antisemite. I’m curious what your perspective is now on the entire marketing campaign towards Corbyn.
Shaul Magid: Yeah, it’s a great query. It was a little bit of a throwaway line that perhaps on second thought, I most likely [laughs] … I truthfully don’t really feel like I do know sufficient concerning the ins and outs of British parliamentary politics. I might say all I find out about Corbyn is what he stated, and there have been plenty of issues that he stated that I agreed with and there have been issues he stated that I didn’t agree with. Figuring out whether or not anyone is an antisemite is a way more difficult course of by way of what’s the intention of what they stated and from the space that I’ve, I wasn’t capable of confirm that.
I do assume although that the weaponization of antisemitism… And it’s not getting used towards individuals like Jeremy Corbyn. Simply yesterday it was used towards a colleague of mine who’s a historian of Zionism, Derek Penslar, who was appointed to be the co-director of the duty drive on antisemitism at Harvard College, who’s a Zionist. So it’s turn out to be a time period that’s been used and right here I fault the ADL and Jonathan Greenblatt so extensively and so sloppily that it doesn’t imply something anymore. Anyone who’s a Zionist and spent his complete grownup life educating Jewish historical past and Jewish college students, for that particular person to be referred to as an antisemite as a result of he criticizes Israel, the time period loses all of its which means.
Chris Hedges: You start one chapter with these three quotes, and I wish to ask you to answer them. The primary is from David Ben-Gurion, “The Bible is our mandate.” The second from Pat Boone, that horrible singer, the theme music to the movie Exodus “This land is mine. God gave this land to me.” After which Danny Danon, “That is our deed to our land” holding up a replica of the Bible earlier than the UN Safety Council in 2019. Speak about that appropriation of a divine mandate to justify a colonial-settler mission.
Shaul Magid: This is likely one of the deep-seated issues of the political ideology of Zionism, not solely of spiritual Zionism. I don’t know Danny Danon’s spiritual life, however David Ben-Gurion actually was not a spiritual Jew. And but the concept the notion of what Chaim Gantz calls “proprietary Zionism” which begins with the belief the land of Israel belongs to the Jews, and we’ll do with it what we wish, and perhaps we’ll give a bit of it to different individuals below situations that we decide, is one thing that’s embedded in your complete Zionist mission. That’s why we maintain hitting our heads towards the wall. We’ve got to get outdoors of this notion of proprietary Zionism that in some way it’s our land as a result of God gave it to us very innocuously.
I used to be raised on the film Exodus and a complete technology of individuals had been raised on the film Exodus; We will need to have heard that line being sung by Pat Boone a whole bunch of occasions and nobody’s ever thought of it. However wait, that’s a unusually chauvinistic factor to say. Zionism is a contemporary nationwide motion. I don’t know that its relationship to Jewish theology, Jewish historical past, and Jewish messianism is that productive however I don’t assume that’s solely being espoused by the spiritual sector. It’s being espoused by everybody from David Ben-Gurion to Danny Danon, to whoever wrote the lyrics to that unhealthy theme music.
Chris Hedges: You’ve had these prescient critics – Yeshayahu Leibowitz is fairly superb, he foresaw the darkish locations Israel would go if it continued to occupy the Palestinians, Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt. You quote Isaac Bashevis Singer, a author I like, and he wrote that exile was essential to perpetuate a longing that produces Jewish genius. And for Singer, Yiddish was the language of exile.
Shaul Magid: It’s an enchanting essay that I found fairly late in writing the e-book after which determined that he wanted to be included as a result of Singer thought-about himself a Zionist, but he understood that the greatness of Judaism, the genius of Judaism, was that which was produced in exile. Not solely in exile – I believe that is Singer’s level – However due to exile. There’s one thing about that have, whether or not it’s an expertise of marginalization, an expertise of disempowerment, an expertise of being apolitical or non-political, that enabled Judaism to kind and develop in ways in which created a completely distinctive, sturdy, and moral custom to a point with the entire caveats. There’s a line that I additionally quote from Gershom Scholem in his interview with the Mukit Soor from the ’70s the place he stated, “Zionism sought to finish exile and it was those who had been against it that understood it greater than those who had been in favor.”
That’s what I’m making an attempt to get at within the e-book, is to say that if we take into consideration exile as one thing that’s not unfavorable, that’s not about punishment, however that’s concerning the cultivation of an moral, ethical, humane society and push away the concept that is the footsteps of the approaching of the Messiah and simply attempt to dwell exile totally, we have now a greater likelihood of making the society that plenty of Jews like me will be happy with.
Chris Hedges: Effectively, you quote James Cone within the e-book, The Nice Theologian, that’s not unintended. His writing dovetails very a lot with the place you’re coming from and this notion that by being in exile, one doesn’t establish as spiritual with facilities of energy however facilities of marginalization. Let’s make an inventory of the good writers of European fascism. I might off the highest of my head say 80% of them are most likely Jewish. Let’s make an inventory of the good writers of racism in America and W.E.B Du Bois, Cone, and others, are Black. And that’s since you’re marrying the facility of spiritual convictions and super mind with a closeness to a marginalized or oppressed group. That’s what provides all nice spiritual writing – Christian, Jewish, no matter – Its energy and also you’re elevating that as an concept.
Shaul Magid: Yeah. And Du Bois is somebody who’s crucial to me. Cones, his final e-book, The Cross within the Lynching Tree, was very, very highly effective. One of many issues I’m engaged on now could be a e-book on vital race principle and antisemitism as a result of a few of these writers, the 2 that you simply talked about and others as effectively, do converse to what it means to be outdoors of the orbit of the political. But when one may say as an elevator pitch, Zionism was a motion that was began by Jews who bought bored with being in exile, they bought bored with being marginalized, and so they bought bored with being disempowered. They felt that their lives had been in peril. As Scholem stated, “Energy is a really harmful factor and nationalism is a really harmful factor.”
Although it’d’ve been vital, a part of the hazards of Zionism is that it virtually occurred too rapidly. And never any fault of its personal. It started to realize steam after which Europe fell aside and it turned an emergency scenario. The entire issues that Martin Buber, Leibovich, and plenty of different individuals observed, all of the sudden bought pushed away as a result of it turned about saving Jewish our bodies and people issues live on into 2024. These issues created situations that made October 7 doable. To not say that it was the fault of Israelis however the situations of a tradition of domination, and that’s what Israel has turn out to be. The navy specialists would say that’s vital. Perhaps that’s true however that doesn’t imply that it doesn’t create very harmful conditions and that it doesn’t deteriorate from my perspective, the sweetness and the genius of Judaism.
Chris Hedges: Nice. That was Rabbi Shaul Magid, professor of Jewish Research at Dartmouth Faculty. I wish to thank The Actual Information Community and its manufacturing workforce: Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivara. Yow will discover me at chrishedges.substack.com.
