Uri Avnery, I.F. Stone, Yaari

I believe, and sure hope, that Uri Avnery is overdoing it when (in the passage quoted in the last paragraph of the preceding posting) he refers to the United States as the greatest enemy of the Moslem and Arab worlds. It's not really in the interest of Israelis to be its servants even if that's not all that accurate. In fact, US-Arab relations are probably better now than they will be next year.

Although we were both born in the same province of (1920s) Germany, we had come from very different early ideological backgrounds. But Avnery had moved from the "New Zionist" ultraright that wanted to conquer the land on both banks of the Jordan river by military force toward what is now The Left; while I moved from what was the mainstream Zionist far left that advocated a peaceful socialist bi-national state toward what I had begun to describe here in some detail. Lately that has amounted to a view of the Israeli-Palestinian problems pretty close to Avnery's stand. After a non-activist phase (that remains to be discussed) of more than half a century on those matters, I have now taken some actions. Thus I signed a petition for a boycott of products (et al) from the settlements in the occupied territories (which were designed to prevent an equitable peace with the Palestinians), but not a resolution for a boycott of Israel itself, which also included a really preposterous feature.

My abandonment of political activism (in disgust) barely preceded my first arrival in North America in 1950 to continue my interrupted studies. I still viewed myself as a left socialist and was known as such, one of few not to hide that during Joe McCarthy's heyday. It took no special heroism, since I had no intention of staying in the US after completing my studies; by which time it turned out that Joe McCarthy was finished; later also my determination to leave. I was completely preoccupied with my research, and the US system really seemed to work in the late fifties with labor unions achieving a lot for working people (and "the economy"). Most people still viewed me as Left, but I did not feel as part of what was called "The Movement" in Berkeley, though many of my friends were. Whether I learned the proper lessons from the savage reaction of the power "elite" to the easy way to solar power we came up with in our lab remains to be seen.

Not all that is termed left nowadays necessarily looks left to those familiar with earlier versions of the left. I don't know whether Uri Avnery is a socialist now, without which you would hardly have counted as really left, at least not in Europe or Israel about 1950. If I had to name someone of the left in the US then, I.F. Stone might be the first I would pick. I certainly felt close to his positions at the time. I am likely to have been somewhat more skeptical already about the Soviet Union (and associated parties) still deserving to be viewed as left. But on practical points, such as opposition to the anti-Soviet war cries, or McCarthyism, I tended to agree with him, probably in part influenced by his writing. Also, we had some causes in common during my activist past. And Stone liked Uri Avnery's attitude on the Arab Israeli conflict, at least at the time of the (1967) six day war.


Avnery and I.F. Stone
Inserted September 16, 2006:

Recently I came across a review ("Holy War") I.F.Stone wrote of the special issue of Les Temps Modernes about "The Israeli-Arab Conflict" , which Jean Paul Sartre happened to publish right about the time of the June 1967 "Six Day War" between Israel and three Arab states (written just before, published just after). I had the issue in my home library in Berkeley, but was still so unaware of Avnery's role that I don't recall reading his contribution. There was an article by Eliezer (Bauer) Beeri, our first guide (madrikh מדריך) in Hazorea, which was probably the reason I decided to buy it. In early 1941, he had been relieved of trying to educate me (and Yossel and the other two dozen or so) so he could devote himself full time to Arabic language, culture and understanding.

There were five contributions by Arabs from different countries and five by Jews, all but one Israelis, without interaction between the two sides. All were of their respective left or moderates, thus not in positions of power. In his review, I.F. Stone clearly views Avnery's attitude as the most likely to lead to peace. After describing Arab fears (e.g. as brought forth in M. Laroui's article) that Zionist aspirations to get all Jews to Israel would lead to expansionist pressures at the expense of the Palestinian(s) Arabs, he writes: "The suggestion that Israel abandon its supra-nationalist dream finds its only echo on the other side of this collection of essays in Israel's No. 1 maverick and champion of Arab rights, Uri Avnery".

There is a brief sketch of Avnery's record up to that time from which I still learned and most of which is quoted here. Having started on "the far nationalist right, as a member of the Irgun terrorist group..... he has since swung over to the far left of Israeli opinion, to the point where he is considered anti-nationalist.......in 1959 he formed an Israeli committee to aid the Algerian rebels. At one time he organized a movement which asserted that the Israelis were no longer Jews but "Canaanites" and therefore one with the Arabs, forcibly converted remnants of the same indigenous stock. When this far-out conception attracted few Jews and even fewer Canaanites, he formed a "Semitic Action" movement which has now become "the Movement of New Forces." This polled 1.2 percent of the vote in the 1965 elections and by virtue of proportional representation put Avnery into Parliament. Avnery has been more successful as a publisher. He has made his weekly Haolam Hazeh ("This World") the largest in Israel". I believe it continued publication until the 1990s.

"Avnery writes in Les Temps Modernes that he would turn Israel into a secular, pluralist, and multi-national state. He would abolish the Law of Return which gives every Jew the right to enter Israel and automatically become a citizen". But then toward the end: "Yet Avnery, who asks Israel to give up its Zionist essence, turns out to be a Jewish nationalist, too." This is not being cited because I agree with Stone on that, but to point to a difficulty that even he doesn't avoid; the different, often diametrically opposed, meanings that different people or groups attach to terms such as nationalism and Zionism.

In an Irish context, nationalists tended to be those who rejected division of the island based on majority religious heritage. More generally for countries that had been divided into many feudal fiefdoms, such as Germany, Italy, it had originally meant those favoring national unification; in countries that "belonged" to an imperial overlord, it meant those who sought liberation, while it stood for a supporter of fascist-like authoritarianism to regimes like that in the Germany Avnery left in 1933, we later. But Albert Einstein, a determined opponent of such regimes, also used the term in that sense. He emphasized that a major reason why he could support the Jewish upbuilding (Aufbau) project in (British Mandatory) Palestine was because the "nationalist" influence was so insignificant. That, of course, was long ago, even before Uri Avnery joined those "nationalists". Having read quite a bit of what he wrote lately, I don't believe he views himself as a nationalist now, surely not in that latter sense.

The word Zionism has been aquiring even more diverse, usually ideologically loaded, meanings. Avnery probably is now non-Zionist, like me (or possibly he considers himself anti-). When I was a Zionist I/we meant by it that we go/had gone "up" to the (pre-state) "Land of Israel" (Aliyah), as a vanguard of all Jews, without waiting for a Messiah to arrange it for us at the end of days; that we would rebuild the land from its desolation and be ourselves rebuild by it. Jews were now to be an enlightened nation rather than a religious community. Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism in the 1890s wanted a "Judenstaat", i.e. state of the Jews, not necessarily where the State of Israel is now, under the tutelage of an imperial power and governed like what educated turn of the (19-20th) century liberal Europeans aspired to. Some now, also on the left, think being a Zionist means to be an overmilitarized bully who likes to destroy Palestinian or Lebanese buildings or villages with their people, as played on television again recently.

By the latest official Israeli version I am aware of, a Zionist is a Jew who accepts "the centrality" of the State of Israel; and it is to be understood that this center includes everything, and that really all Jews are also Zionists. Shortly after the first Revisionist "New Zionist" terrorist became prime minister (Begin), I had to laugh when I was was "invited" in France to a meeting about Jews owing him ("Israel") l'inconditionalité. A Frenchman would not have to be prejudiced against Jews to find that outrageous. The corresponding term in the US is "100% for Israel", and its enforcers are not confined to that Zionist ultraright.

After Stone quotes Avnery writing that Herzl doesn't even mention Arabs in his Judenstaat book, he points to Akhad Ha-Am (whose "practical" or "spiritual" love of Zion preceded Herzl's idea) and his concern about the existing Arab population. "But as little attention was paid to him as was later accorded his successors in 'spiritual Zionism,' men like Buber and Judah Magnes who tried to preach Ichud 'unity,' i.e. with the Arabs".

Avnery, Stone and Meir Yaari
inserted up to September 21, 2006

Stone's judgment of the controversy over the origin of the Palestinian refugee problem looks very sound to me. Since he wrote, two more generations were born, the number of the
refugee population multiplied, and his complaint about Israeli indifference has to be understood with a view to the much smaller number of refugees then. "Even Meir Yaari, the head of Mapam, the leader of the 'Marxist' Zionists of Hashomer Hatzair, who long preached bi-nationalism, says Israel can only accept a minority of the Arab refugees because the essential reason for the creation of Israel was to 'welcome the mass of immigrant Jews returning to their historic fatherland!' If there is not room enough for both, the Jews must have precedence. This is what leads Gabran Majdalany, a Baath Socialist, to write that Israel is 'a racist state founded from its start on discrimination between Jew and non-Jew'."

He is more severe on Meir Yaari than I would have expected, even though I may have worse to criticise on other matters (not having been aware of this one). But Uri Avnery just published something related since I started this posting. Under the heading of Left, but...., initially about people who say they are of the left, but at the outset of the second Lebanon war in July found reason to support it (notably prominent Israeli writers, specifically "the trio" Amos Oz, A.B.Yehoshua and David Grossman), he first takes on the Israeli labor movement in general. He recalls that the Histadrut accepted no Arab members in pre-independence days and insisted on "Hebrew labor" in the Jewish enterprises. Underlying it is that "From the beginning of the Jewish Labor Movement in the country, the Left has suffered from an internal contradiction: it was both socialist and nationalist. Of the two components, nationalism was by far the more important".

Avnery sounds right, but.... What is he after? Why isn't he happy about these writers having come around to opposing the war which he had done from the outset. I am confident that I was ahead of Uri Avnery when as a member of the Histadrut in the early 40s I stood for acceptance of Arabs, but I see no reason why I shouldn't welcome his coming around to it. There are times when polarization, e.g. among those who prefer peace, is called for, but... why is this it?

He goes on first with the Kibbutzim in general: "That is true also for the most glorious of socialist creations: the kibbutz. No Arab was ever allowed to become a member. That was no accident: the kibbutzim saw themselves not only as a realization of a socialist dream, but also as fortresses in the Jewish struggle for the country". Then,

"The most leftist part of the kibbutz movement, Hashomer Hatsa'ir (the basis of the late Mapam party, now Meretz) had an official slogan: 'For Zionism, Socialism and the Brotherhood of Peoples'. The order was not accidental, either: it expressed the real priorities. Hashomer Hatsa'ir did indeed adore Stalin, 'the sun of the peoples', until his death, but its main creations were the settlements". Why this utter bullshit about the adoration of that sun?

Isn't he aware of the danger that if he (mis)informs people of something so completely devoid of reality, maybe they'll soon disbelieve all else he says. I am already beginning to doubt that he really was born in Westphalia, even that there is a place called Beckum there. During my four years of "Volksschule" in Dortmund, the largest metropolis in all the erstwhile kingdom, we had a big map of Westphalia next to the blackboard, and I recall no evidence of something called Beckum; nor ever heard of it. And surely, if the Dortmunders had to seek superior wisdom, they might send to Cologne, or Worms, Amsterdam; but Beckum?

Anyway, the family is supposed to have left Westphalia for Hanover. Take a look at the table below of the football (soccer) Bundesliga {I am deleting most of that months later. It was too elaborate a practical joke even when set down, and is meaningless now when Hanover had risen to about the middle of the league.

Platz Mannschaft ges G U V Tore Diff. Punkte

1 FC Nürnberg 3 2 1 0 4:0 +4 7

18 Hannover 96 3 0 0 3 2:11 -9 0


That's where Uri learned to play ball. Of course every football team may at some point be at the bottom of the heap, but with more than 5 times the number of goals lost than gained, and the same for weeks on end! Could that represent the fate of the peace movement, if Avnery becomes its sole leader; if that is the point of knocking all the "Left, But..."s. Let's hope, meanwhile assume, that some of his September writing has been a fleeting aberration.

As to the adoration of the Stalinesque "sun of the peoples" , let me recount that after several years as an independent non-Zionist socialist, I joined Mapam in early 1948. It had just been founded "on the basis of" not just the Hashomer Hatza'ir, but also of Akhdut Avodah (or B Faction of Mapai) and the much smaller, but prestigious Po'aley Zion Left (plus, e.g., the "Socialist League", a sort of City Auxiliary of the Hashomer Hatza'ir ; which thus could remain purely a youth- and Kibbutz- organization). At a meeting of the First Seminar of Mapam "Young Brigade" Activists in Tel Aviv, the chairman asked if anyone knew Preminger (later Peri}, one of the three Communist members of the first Knesset, just constituted.

I was the only one who knew him, originally from the short period in 1942 when I had thought of joining, but more from his coming to meet a co-worker (Oskar, an old Vienna friend of his, also party member). The story was that he and his faction in the party was thinking of quitting and possibly joining Mapam; and that they were meeting nearby right then to discuss it. Will I go and try to pull them in. A group of them had been in Yugoslavia on some solidarity work project when overnight Tito was turned from major hero to utter villain and his party thrown out of the Cominform, the successor of the Communist (3rd) International. I agreed, and a character called Benni said he'll come along. I did what I could to make them join. After a few days they did.
So I could claim (assuming that my spiel had been what done it) to have won one Knesset member for my cause, just like Uri Avneri. But that brought the total Mapam representation to 20, more than he (or Mapam) will ever get in the future (I dare predict). What is significant here, however, is that welcoming such Tito lovers excludes the possibility of Avneri's bull about adoration of Tito's mortal enemy (as do other things like the torture of Oren in Stalin's Prague).

A short time later, as I prepared to leave for study in the US, Benni came up to me on the street to say that Mapam wants me to infiltrate the CP in the US. That is what made me abandon political activism for decades. 1 1/2 years earlier, one of my first assignments when I got to my (11th) batallion was to go through a card file, where I discovered that Eli Simon had been killed in action at Nebi Yusha. People who had been with the batallion during that time told me how he died, the clearest case I am aware of of the popular conception of a heroic soldier. There is a sense of solidarity with anyone I had a fighting association with, and that seems to be the norm. But he had also stopped me years earlier, when I was 16-17, on Haifa's Masada street and we had a long friendly conversation, although he was by several years my senior, and he knew I had decided not to join the PKP, of which he was a highly respected member. That was the decisive reason for disregarding the Benni assignment Also, part of what repelled me in the Communist practice was that they engaged in stuff like that; and I didn't think Mapam did.

Years later, it occurred to me that Benni most likely didn't act forMapam. They sure had more appropriate people to try to persuade me. So what did he really represent?