“An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel”, by Jeff Halper (Pluto Press, 2008, London, Ann Arbor MI, in association with ICAHD), 317pp.

Reviewed by Deborah Maccoby

Anyone involved with Israel/Palestine activism knows the strength of the emotions which the subject calls up and how entrenched and aggressive are the positions adopted by many  so-called “peace” activists.  What tends to be lost is any real attempt towards resolution and reconciliation.    This is why a book like this is so welcome.  It looks beyond the often static debates –  about Zionism, anti-Zionism or post-Zionism or one state/two states  - to a real possibility of change and – despite its trenchant, uncompromising  and detailed account of the present disastrous situation - a vision of hope.     

The book is written from a personal point of view, but only one chapter is actually about the author’s life, and it is quite clear that he is not motivated by egoism but that he subordinates his own personality to the cause to which he is dedicated.  Even on the personal level, his own journey from left-wing Zionist to  “critical Israeli” – brought about by his witnessing of the demolition of the house of his Palestinian friend Salim Shawamreh – is treated as less important than one simple question:  why was Salim’s house demolished?

The quest for an answer  leads Halper deeper and deeper, from discovery about the extent of Israel’s policy of house demolitions, to questioning why this policy has been adopted and to finding the answer to this second question not just in the Occupation but within  Zionism itself and its historical background.    Essentially, his conclusion is that there has always been a drive within Zionism to take over the whole land exclusively for the Jewish people – a drive which has to involve “ethnic cleansing” and bantustanisation  of the indigenous Palestinian population.   If the self-proclaimed “Jewish and democratic state” takes over the whole land and gives everyone the vote, it will no longer be a Jewish State; but if it does not give the Palestinians the vote it will no longer be democratic.  So Israel solves the problem by  means of deception, pretending to agree to a viable two-state solution, while creating an apartheid system – the “Matrix of Control”, as Halper calls it - which puts the Palestinians into bantustans. 

Yet Halper points out that this exclusivity, militarism and nationalism are not the whole of Zionism- they are one trend which gained dominance and drowned out other Zionist trends – known as “Cultural Zionism “-  towards sharing the land in cooperation with the Palestinians.   So Halper’s solution does not mean condemning the whole of Zionism and Jewish national aspirations  – and thus antagonising the very people we need to persuade – but in appealing to these positive  trends from the past and returning to “a New Cultural  Zionism, capable of  acknowledging and dealing with the binationalism that, like it or not, defines Palestine/Israel today.  Even in a binational state, a New Cultural Zionism would  preserve a vibrant Israeli culture, a powerful economy and strong national institutions, while opening up possibilities of integration, development and reconciliation closed to ethnocracy.  This vision lies at the root of this book.”

Nonetheless, Halper fears that the one state solution is just as unachievable as a viable two-state solution and he  suggests a confederal regional solution, in which the Palestinians would first accept a less than viable state, which would then enter into confederation with Israel and Jordan - a confederation which would gradually widen to take in other Middle Eastern countries and would eventually become a  Middle Eastern Union similar to the European Union.  Residency would be separated from citizenship  - Palestinian refugees could live and work in israel but be citizens of Palestine, and the settlers could stay in Palestine but be citizens of Israel.  Of course this vision raises many questions – how likely would it be that these Middle Eastern countries would enter into this union – after all, the European Union was only achieved after terrible European wars; would the Palestinians really accept a Right of Return which only gave them residency?  Nonetheless, it does transcend the often entrenched one-state/two state debate.  Moreover, Halper does not put forward this vision in a dogmatic way – indeed this book, despite its passionate commitment to its cause, is the reverse of dogmatic; the writing style has a dynamic quality, open to change and question. 

Halper is also surely right that the conflict has a regional dimension.  Indeed, he points out that it has a global dimension.  Just as he sees house demolitions as emblematic of the conflict as a whole, so he sees the battle in the Holy Land as not only a source of tensions which can spill out to the rest of the world, but as emblematic of a worldwide struggle for human rights, inclusiveness and justice, against injustice, exclusivity, militarism and nationalism.  No doubt his many detractors will accuse him of “demonising Israel” in giving its leaders (not its people) this emblematic status; but after all, in the Hebrew Bible, the Jews present themselves as a kind of microcosm of humanity as a whole, in their  aspirations and their failure – recorded in detail - to achieve these aspirations.   The Christian Zionists, as Halper points out, see the Holy Land as the site of the final battle between Good and Evil in Armageddon – and against their pernicious and dangerous vision Halper pits his own universalist  vision, which is evidently influenced by the Hebrew Prophets:

“Israel/Palestine, as in Biblical times, lies on a fault-line of history, and the battle being fought there today will largely determine where our world is headed....if we lose,if the Occupation prevails,the progressive forces of the world – those struggling for a new age in which human rights, international law, cultural pluralism, inclusivity, justice and peace rule, will be set back to square one.”