Op onze uitnodiging om te reageren op de kritische tekst die enkele studenten schreven naar aanleiding van zijn lezing, heeft Bernard Wasserstein in een vriendelijk schrijven aangegeven zich hiervan te willen weerhouden. Toch blijft zijn lezing voor discussie zorgen. Daarin komt scherp naar voor dat het historische (en dus ook het huidige) conflict tussen Israël en Palestina vanuit heel verschillende perspectieven kan worden bekeken. We geven graag ruimte aan duidelijke formuleringen van die perspectieven. Niet omdat we zelf een neutrale positie zouden aannemen in deze kwestie – die is immers onmogelijk – wel omdat we geloven dat slechts dan een gesprek mogelijk wordt waarin de verschillende deelnemers naar elkaar luisteren en van elkaar leren. Dit is de oorspronkelijke bedoeling geweest van het initiatief dat Power in History, het Centrum voor Stadsgeschiedenis, het Instituut voor Joodse Studies en de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte gezamenlijk hebben genomen. Trouw aan deze intentie bieden wij op deze blog een forum voor goed onderbouwde reflecties op de lezing – en bijgevolg ook op de geschiedenis van het Israëlisch-Palestijnse conflict.
Om die reden vroegen we aan dr. Janiv Stamberger, die in 2020 zijn proefschrift aan de UAntwerpen en de Université Libre de Bruxelles verdedigde over de Joodse geschiedenis van België vóór 1940, om zijn impressies bij de lezing en bij de reactie van de studenten aan deze blog toe te vertrouwen. We zijn hem dankbaar dat hij dat op korte termijn en op een heel doorwrochte en genuanceerde manier heeft gedaan. Hij deed dat in eigen naam. Intussen ontvingen we ook een reflectie door Annelys de Vet, die aan ARIA een doctoraat in de kunsten voorbereidt en daarbij intense contacten onderhoudt met Palestijnse ontwerpers. Zij is in haar tekst heel scherp op de keuzes die gemaakt zijn door de initiatiefnemers van de lezing. Precies omdat we geloven dat dit gezamenlijke initiatief als grote meerwaarde heeft een open en constructieve dialoog mogelijk te maken, vinden we het belangrijk ook deze kritiek te publiceren en ter harte te nemen.
Dat het debat in de huidige context soms emotioneel en met scherpe bewoordingen wordt gevoerd, vinden wij normaal. We grijpen redactioneel slechts in wanneer we vinden dat de grenzen van de academische deontologie worden overschreden. Dat is met name het geval wanneer mensen niet worden beoordeeld om wat ze schrijven, maar om wie ze zijn, of wanneer hen kwade bedoelingen worden toegeschreven. Het (al dan niet terecht) aanduiden van eenzijdigheid in wat iemand zegt of schrijft, behoort volgens ons wel tot de regels van het academische debat. Wij zijn dan ook van oordeel dat de deontologische grenzen in de voorliggende teksten niet werden overschreden. Uit de tekst van Janiv Stamberger blijkt dat daarover het oordeel sterk kan verschillen. Ook dat kan dus het voorwerp uitmaken van een respectvol debat.
Roschanack Shaery-Yazdi en Marnix Beyen, editors van de blog
The lecture of prof. dr. Bernard Wasserstein painted a broad historical picture of the political and geopolitical events underlying the Israeli-Arab conflict. In many ways the lecture followed the familiar patterns on how in introduction courses at the (under)graduate level (bachelor’s or master’s degree in Belgium) in universities and colleges around the world, the subject is, and has been, taught.[1] In a more or less chronologic order key political events and historical turning points were recounted and placed in their historical context, such as the advent of Zionism at the end of the nineteenth century, British promises to both Jews and Arabs during the First World War, the Sykes-Picot agreement (1916) and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the establishment of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1922; rising intercommunal violence between Jews and Arabs during the interwar period (…) until the current day. The emphasis however lay on the early history which was discussed in greater detail than later events which transpired after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the expulsion (Palestinians use the term “Nakba” which means “disaster”) of the majority of the Palestinian population within the new borders (the 1949 armistice lines) of the new country. Such a broad-stroked depiction of more than a century and a half of complex history quickly jumps from one historical event to another, skips or barely mentions others deemed to be of lesser importance, depicts historical events in a severely synthesized form, and by necessity must leave some nuance and attention to detail aside. As always, the choices of what to include and omit can be debated. Other scholars might have made different choices or emphasized other events. As a whole, however, the lecture presented a nuanced view, firmly grounded in modern and more classic historical works on the subject, with both the Jewish/Israeli and Arab/Palestinian historical perspectives being represented.[2] When the author veered off from the historical record to give his own opinion — as he did in the last half an hour of the lecture when stating his skepticism about the feasibility of a one state solution — this was clearly mentioned, as befits an academic lecture.
Personally, at the time, I could not help to feel a little disappointed with how the lecture unfolded. Perhaps the (in my mind) misleading title of the lecture “Israel/Palestine: Two states or one? A historical perspective”, had led me to believe that the lecture would examine how ideas about a binational state had existed since even before the Mandate period and how they had ultimately failed to materialize. I was hoping to learn more about groups such as Brit Shalom, Ihud, support for (the idea of) a binational state in parties on the Jewish left and the Jewish-Arab Communist Party in Mandatory Palestine (and afterwards), as well as intellectuals such Martin Buber or Judah Magnes who advocated for this idea.[3] It is also interesting to note how from the Palestinian perspective support for such a binational state has recently grown and how its various political representatives have responded to this idea. In short, I was expecting a history of ideas instead of a grand sweeping historical narrative of the history of the conflict of which I am more familiar.
In hindsight however I do believe it was the right choice to focus on a more general historical overview. In the highly emotionally charged atmosphere currently raging on campuses and (parts of) wider society about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, history seems to have become one of its many victims. Both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian activists pick apart, carefully choose and distort the historical events or facts which vindicate their ideologically driven narratives. This was also clearly on display during the Q&A at the lecture. The pro-Israeli public asked for further details about the ‘Olmert peace offer’ in 2008 and the Palestinian rejection. This is an argument often cited to demonstrate Palestinian intransigence and unwillingness to come to a compromise (Olmert supposedly went the furthest in meeting Palestinian demands), which ignores the paramount responsibility of Israeli governments which have a long record of actively sabotaging any attempts to come to a two state solutions by creating facts on the ground. On the pro-Palestinian side, the ill-informed portrayal, masked as a question, of the Haganah (a paramilitary Zionist organization) as a terrorist organization, served as an attempt to forcefully hammer Zionist history into the conceptual frame of European ‘colonial and settler history’ which has perpetuated (genocidal) violence against the Palestinians. This narrative has become fashionable on the Far Left and parts of pro-Palestinian activists, but does little to elucidate the complex history of the conflict. A dispassionate, carefully constructed, and well-presented historical overview of the conflict therefore was a welcome relief for those in the public who do not belong to both warring camps, but came to listen with an open mind to an academic lecture in order to gain a better historical understanding of current events.
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at their trilateral meeting at the David Citadel Hotel, Jerusalem. 19 February 2007
Source: Wikimedia Commons
As for my opinion on the ‘critical review’ published in this blog by four master students, I will not attempt to analyze topic by topic the veracity of these claims. I will however take this opportunity to focus on one specific assertion, which also resurfaces in the wider debates now raging on campuses and society, which has vexed me personally. That is the assertion that Wasserstein repeatedly conflates Jews with Zionists and that this is problematic. First of all, let me state that a professor who wrote a book on Jewish life in Europe (On the eve: the Jews of Europe before the Second World War) is without a single doubt intimately aware of the many ideological differences within historical (and contemporary) Jewish society. Next, when speaking in the context of Mandatory Palestine (as well as in the period before and after), it is entirely correct to speak of Jews (or Arabs for that matter) when discussing the different ethnic, cultural and religious groups living in the country. Zionism is an ideology, not an ethnicity. ‘Zionists’ didn’t immigrate and settle in Mandate Palestine in large numbers, Jews did (far from all of them Zionist supporters).
The assertion of the authors of the blog that the interchangeable use of the word Zionist and Jews within this specific context is problematic, therefore does not rest on a critical evaluation of historical conceptions, but rather on a moral claim pushed by Pro-Palestinian activists: the distinction between ‘good Jews’ (non-Zionist and the few anti-Israeli activists) and ‘bad Jews’ (historically Zionists and today those who support the right for Israel to exist as a distinct Jewish homeland). This moral dichotomy totally ignores the fact that a majority of Jews around the world today view Israel, its modern Hebrew culture, and the historical achievements of the Zionist national project, as a source of pride and inspiration — even though many recognize the tragedy it caused to the Palestinians and disagree with the policies of the Israeli government.[4] Even before the Second World War and the Shoah, Zionism had made rapid inroads in European Jewish society (and elsewhere), and came to signify a marker of Jewish political, ethnic and cultural identification; as was also the case for Belgium’s Jewish community, as my own research has shown.[5] The strong attachment of Jews to Israel, indeed should not be used to dissuade legitimate criticism of the state of Israel, as at times has indeed been done by politically motivated accusations of antisemitism. Yet far too often Jews recognize in the accusatory use of the term ‘Zionists’ by the far-Left and parts of pro-Palestinian activists, a less congenial yet all too familiar specter of the not-too-distant past rearing its ugly head; a tendency which the Austrian-Belgian writer and intellectual Jean Améry as early as the late 1960’s dubbed ‘virtuous antisemitism’.[6]
The last point I wish to make is a plea for common decency. Academic criticism is one of the cornerstones of the scientific method and should be treasured and celebrated. No one should be above it, from the most celebrated scholar to the novice historian. Yet criticism, at its best, ought to come from an informed position, should be carefully scrutinized, and preferably be stated in a respectful manner. The strong-worded assertion in this blog from four master students that the lecture of prof. Wasserstein was “deeply problematic, characterized by bias, omissions, and historical revisionism”, in my opinion, meets none of these criteria. This is regrettable. One can certainly argue that other scholars might have stressed different historical events or perspectives, point out perceived flaws in logic, and state that the lecture fell short of one’s expectations and express disappointment or frustration that this was the case. But to callously attack someone’s scientific integrity — let alone a distinguished professor with a long career, who spent years in the archives studying the source material and published a great number of books on the subject — is disingenuous at best and accounts for a sciolism and hubris which I as a master student, having just set my first steps in the archives and yet to pass my master thesis which would solidify my status within the community of historians, would have been loath to be associated with. This is not the way a scientific dialogue or argument should be conducted. Basic respect (not deference) should be the least any (aspiring) scholar should be able to muster when engaging with a peer.
Dr. Janiv Stamberger doctoreerde in 2020 aan de Universiteit Antwerpen en de Université Libre de Bruxelles met een proefschrift over de Joodse geschiedenis van België voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Hij schrijft deze reflectie in eigen naam.
[1] For a few examples: https://www.apu.apus.edu/course-schedule/details/?c=IRLS463 ; https://historyarthistory.gmu.edu/courses/hist461 ; https://nes.princeton.edu/courses/arab-israeli-conflict-1 ; https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/modules/undergraduate/2023/90591-time-and-place-1948-the-arab-israeli-conflict
[2] For the events of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern middle East during the aftermath of the First World War, for instance, see the classic but very much still relevant and thoroughly engaging history: David Fromkin, A peace to end all peace: Creating the Modern Middle East, 1914–1922 (London: Deutsch, 1989), p. 635. (First edition).
[3] Tamar Herman, “The bi-national idea in Israel/Palestine: past and present”, in Nations and Nationalism, 11:3 (2005), pp. 381-401. ; Zohar Maor, “Moderation from Right to Left: The Hidden Roots of Brit Shalom”, in Jewish Social Studies, 19:2 (2013), pp. 79-108. ; Sasson Sofer, “Magnes, Buber and Ihud”, in Zionism and the Foundations of Israeli Diplomacy (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 337 – 356.
[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/21/u-s-jews-have-widely-differing-views-on-israel/ ; https://www.jpr.org.uk/reports/jews-uk-today-key-findings-jpr-national-jewish-identity-survey ; https://www.jpr.org.uk/reports/jewish-identities-european-jews-what-why-and-how
[5] J. Stamberger, “An institutional and political history of the Zionist movement in Belgium prior to 1940. Part I: Zionist parties and organizations at the local level”, in Les Cahiers de la Mémoire contemporaine, 16(2022-2023) p. 13-74. ; J. Stamberger, “An institutional and political history of the Zionist movement in Belgium prior to 1940. Part II: Zionist organizations at the national level”, in Les Cahiers de la Mémoire contemporaine, 17(2024). (Forthcoming).
[6] Jean Améry, Essays on Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and the Left, Indiana University Press, 2022.
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