Post-Zionism
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Post-Zionism refers to the views of some Israeli and diaspora Jews and others, particularly in academia, that Zionism fulfilled its ideological mission with the creation of modern State of Israel in 1948 and that the ideology should therefore be considered to be at an end. The term is also used by right-wing Jews to refer to the left-wing of Israeli politics in light of the Oslo Accords.
Among the important minority threads within Zionism is one that holds Israelis to be a new nationality, not merely the representatives of world Jewry. The "Canaanite" or "Hebrew Renaissance" movement led by poet Yonatan Ratosh in the 1930s and 1940s was built on this idea. A modern movement based partly on the same idea is known as post-Zionism. There is no agreement as to how this movement should be defined, nor even of who belongs to it, but the most common idea is that Israel should leave behind the concept of a "state of the Jewish people" and instead strive to be a state of all its citizens according to pluralistic democratic values. Many Israeli historians consider "Canaanism" or "Pan-Semitism" to be an aberration beyond the bounds of Zionism. Self-identified post-Zionists differ on many important details, such as the status of the Law of Return. Critics tend to associate post-Zionism with anti-Zionism or postmodernism, both of which claims are strenuously denied by proponents.
Modern post-Zionism is closely associated with the New Historians, a school of historical revisionism which examines the history of Israel and Zionism in light of declassified government documents, with an eye to uncovering events hitherto downplayed or suppressed by Zionist historians – especially those pertaining to the dispossession of the Palestinians, which the New Historians argue was central to the creation of the state of Israel. See also 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
In contrast to the Jewish state being the aim of political Zionism, many Post-Zionists advocate the evolution of Israel into a non-ideological, secular, liberal democratic state which is officially neither Jewish nor Arab in character.
See also
- Category:Post-Zionists, people who self-identify as proponents of Post-Zionism.
- Anti-Zionism
External links
- Meyrav Wurmser: Post- Zionism and the Sephardi Question, Middle East Quarterly, some Jews from Arab countries have second thoughts.
- The Idea of Post-Zionism and its critique by Avishai Ehrich.
- The New Post-Zionism by Harvey Chisick, Tikkun magazine.
- Resources and articles on Post-Zionism from the World Zionist Organization, tends to be critical.
- Can Israel Survive Post-Zionism by Meyrav Wurmser
- Grappling with Post-Zionism by Paul J. White
- Teddy Katz affair, Haaretz
- PLO Financed Academic Fraud at the University of Haifa, Dr. Aaron Lerner IMRA September 1, 2002
- Post-Zionism only rings once by Neri Livneh from Haaretz
