There are hundreds of books that cover the ground Avi Shlaim covers
in his new work, The Iron Wall. What is important is not the
material but rather the conceptual framework. Does a book help us
understand what is going on? Does it provide a useful context,
analysis and set of concepts that help the reading public
critically evaluate the import and truthfulness of the daily news?
Writing as someone who is politically active and not "only" an
academic, I also want to know: Does this book help me put a finger
on the core issues? Does it explain things in a way that I can
translate ultimately into an effective political program?
Looked at in this way, Shlaim's book does make a significant
contribution to the literature. To be sure, Shlaim adheres to the
normal standards of a well-grounded academic work (scope of
coverage, sound research, ample footnotes and bibliography). He
permits himself occasional critical comment on what he considers
key points, such as Ben-Gurion's propensity to prefer domination
and territorial expansion over peace, or Netanyahu's "betrayal" of
Jabotinsky. Most important, from the point of view of someone
seeking to apply Shlaim's analysis to the political situation
today, the book lends itself to crystallizing such a political
analysis. Still, Shlaim, a professor of international relations at
Oxford, is a prominent member of the group known as the "New
Historians." On that basis alone, his work is liable to be attacked
as "polemic."
An Unbreakable Wall
Against the background of the major ideological streams,
policies and practices of the pre-state Yishuv (Jewish population)
and Zionist movements, The Iron Wall, as its subtitle indicates,
examines Israel's relations to the Arab world from 1948 until the
fall of Netanyahu. The title of the book is taken from the phrase
Revisionist Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky used to define what
should be Zionism's policy towards the "Arabs of the Land of
Israel": an "iron wall." In his famous article by that name
published in 1923, Jabotinsky articulated a cardinal principle of
the Zionist enterprise: that Zionism should go about doing what it
has to do to bring about a Jewish state in the whole Land of
Israel, regardless of the Arab response. (He described his own
attitude towards Arabs as one of "polite indifference.") Still, he
realized that Palestinians were a national group with national
aspirations, which he was quite willing to grant them if they would
settle for a kind of autonomy within a Jewish state encompassing
the entire Land. He also realized that this would not be
accomplished without resistance. "Every indigenous people," he
wrote, "will resist alien settlers as long as they see any hope of
ridding themselves of the danger of foreign settlement. This is how
the Arabs will behave and go on behaving so long as they possess a
gleam of hope that they can prevent 'Palestine' from becoming the
Land of Israel."
The trick, then, is to extinguish that "gleam of hope." Before the
Palestinians agree to limited civil and national rights, their
resistance must be broken. Thus the "iron wall." "It is my belief
and hope," wrote Jabotinsky,
that we will then offer [the Palestinians] guarantees that will
satisfy them and that both peoples will live in peace as good
neighbors. But the sole way to such an agreement is through the
iron wall, that is to say, the establishment in Palestine of a
force that will in no way be influenced by Arab pressure… A
voluntary agreement is unattainable… We must either suspend
our settlement efforts or continue them without paying attention to
the mood of the natives. Settlement can thus develop under the
protection of a force that is not dependent on the local
population, behind an iron wall which they will be powerless to
break down.
Far from being the expression of a maverick, as Jabotinsky is
frequently portrayed, this position towards the Palestinians came,
Shlaim contends, to characterize mainstream Zionism itself. In
hindsight, and facing a new Sharon government, it appears that the
iron wall remains the lynchpin of Israeli policy until today.
Defining 'Right' and 'Left'
One of the major contributions of Shlaim's work is to move the
ideological fault line regarding peace with the Palestinians and
the wider Arab world leftwards. In the public consciousness, "left"
and "right" divide neatly between Labor and what is today the Likud
(based on Begin's Herut party, the direct descendent of
Jabotinsky's Revisionists). Yet Shlaim shows convincingly that in
this regard Ben-Gurion shared much more with Jabotinsky than he
differed from him. Addressing the Jewish Agency Executive after the
outbreak of the Arab Revolt in 1936 (or "the disturbances," as
Israelis refer to them), Ben-Gurion said: "A comprehensive
agreement is undoubtedly out of the question now. For only after
total despair on the part of the Arabs, despair that will come not
only from the failure of the disturbances and the attempt at
rebellion, but also as a consequence of our growth in the country,
may the Arabs possibly acquiesce to a Jewish Eretz Israel." Peace,
for example, was desirable only if it advanced the Zionist agenda:
"It is not in order to establish peace in the country that we need
an agreement… peace for us is a means. The end is the
complete and full realization of Zionism. Only for that do we need
an agreement."
Rather than support of, or opposition to, the "peace process" as it
has been defined since the Oslo Accords of 1993 - the usual fault
line between "right" and "left" in Israel - Shlaim's book suggests
that the iron wall approach might be a better measure. Thus
Ben-Gurion, Dayan, Golda Meir, Rabin and Peres (until, perhaps,
1993), Barak, Yigal Allon and most of the Ahdut Ha'avodah branch of
the Labor movement, as well as the Labor-oriented military
establishment, join Jabotinsky, Begin, Netanyahu, Sharon and the
Likud-oriented right in what Shlaim calls variously the "activist
camp," the "party of retaliation" and "hawks" - clearly the vast
majority of Zionist/Israeli leaders in the past 90 years. On the
other side of the iron wall, Shlaim would place Moshe Sharett,
Ben-Gurion's long-suffering foreign minister and briefly Israel's
prime minister, Levi Eshkol, post-Oslo Rabin and Peres, Yossi
Beilin and Yossi Sarid, all "moderates," part of the "party of
negotiations," "doves."
Shlaim has an especially warm appraisal of Moshe Sharett, who is
popularly viewed in Israel as a weakling, an ineffective
politician, a minor and somewhat tragic figure. Yet Shlaim portrays
him as a genuine seeker of peace, almost the alter ego of
Ben-Gurion. When Ben-Gurion and Dayan were rushing Israel to war
with Egypt in the 1950s and unleashing a vicious lieutenant-colonel
Ariel Sharon on Palestinian civilians from Qibya to Gaza (as well
as unprovoked attacks on Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian positions),
Sharett recorded in his diary: "What is our vision on this earth -
war to the end of all generations and life by the sword?" One
wonders what our history might have been had the "party of
negotiations" prevailed over the "party of retaliation." Although
the iron wall is a constant thread running through Zionist history,
its predominance was not a foregone conclusion.
Such a reconceptualization helps explain how the Oslo Accords were
structured and the negotiations carried out in accordance with the
Jabotinsky-Ben-Gurion principle of the iron wall, leading us right
back to Ben-Gurion's characterization as peace being only a means
to an end.
Current Relevance
Again, as both an activist and informed reader, I find Shlaim's
critical review of Yishuv/Israel-Arab relations to be very useful.
It has helped me understand better the meaning and dynamic of the
"peace process," and why it reached its dead end. Taking the "iron
wall" as a constant in Israeli policies towards the Arabs for the
past eight decades, Shlaim's discussion highlights several features
that are as current today as they were in the 1920s:
• Ethnocracy in a non-defined "Land." Ben-Gurion's
phrase "self-reliance," coupled with a rejection of the "external
factor" in ensuring Israel's survival, translates into a carte
blanche to forge ahead at all costs. Israel is basically an
ethnocracy (a country run by and for a particular
national/ethnic/religious group, the Jews) for whom territorial
expansion into the entire "Land of Israel" is a prime goal. Thus
Israel is able to make claims that, as Shlaim points out, ignore
the territorial claims and sovereignty of neighboring states, not
to mention the Palestinians.
• Israel is a country that has long tried to dominate,
control and defeat its neighbors, rather than seek true
accommodation. Except for certain brief periods (Sharett's rule
from late 1953 into 1955; a year or two of Eshkol's rule before
1967; perhaps the earliest stages of Oslo, 1993-95), Israel's
attitude towards the Arabs has been one of an almost autistic
pursuit of Zionist goals by any means necessary:
Military: threat, action and control;
Demographic: expulsion, selective granting of citizenship;
settlement and resettlement; deportation ("active" transfer),
"encouraging" Arab emigration ("passive" transfer) and revocation
of citizenship or residency ("quiet" transfer); massive building
for Jewish populations; while severely curtailing housing and
infrastructure for others; and more;
Bad faith: "creating facts" on the ground that fundamentally
prejudice any negotiations or compromise, while dragging out the
status quo, so that the illusion of accommodation is maintained.
"Security," while a legitimate concern, becomes a cover-term for
doing whatever necessary to "create facts," completely removed from
criticism, oversight, legal or parliamentary procedures or the
rights and interests of others; Manipulating the image of "victim."
• Repression and despair as policy. This is the heart of
the "iron wall" concept. According to Shlaim, "the iron wall was
not an end in itself but a means to the end of breaking Arab
resistance to the onward march of Zionism. Once Arab resistance has
been broken, a process of change would occur within the Palestinian
national movement, with the moderates coming to the fore. Then and
only then would it be time to start serious negotiations." This
certainly seems a basis of the Oslo process whereby the imminent
collapse of the PLO was a major consideration in choosing it as a
negotiating partner - Oslo being virtually a dictation of terms of
surrender.
• "Peace" is a means to an end, subordinate to prior
interests such as territory, settlement and domination/security; it
is not an end in itself. Every country acts according to its
self-interest, of course, but the Israeli concept of "peace" is
completely self-serving. It requires the Palestinians to either
surrender, be forced into a minority "ethnic" status with minimal
rights, or leave. Given the fact that the PLO sued for peace on
only 22 percent of historic Palestine, that the Arab world is for
the most part willing to accept Israel within the 1967 (and not
1947) borders, and that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have
been forced or "induced" to leave the country, the "iron wall"
approach might be said to be working, at least in the short run.
Certainly there is no real desire for peace or for normal relations
with Arabs. Ben-Gurion was explicit on this point: While peace is
important, Shlaim quotes him as saying, "we have to remember that
there are limits to our desire for peace with the Arabs…
First and foremost, we have to see to Israel's needs, whether or
not this brings improvement in our relations with the Arabs…
The second factor is our existence in American Jewry… the
third thing - peace with the Arabs. This is the order of
priorities."
Insights into a Real World
I am not sure that Shlaim would agree with all my conclusions. My
point here is that a well-grounded, well-reasoned and critical
historical work such as The Iron Wall is significant because it
allows the reader to apply its insights to the "real world." After
reading Shlaim's book, no one should be "surprised" or "confused"
as to why the second Intifada broke out. No one should be surprised
that Sharon managed to form a national unity government (not the
first) comprised of pan-party adherents of the "iron wall"
approach, or by the "betrayal" of Peres in agreeing to serve as
Sharon's foreign minister. Perhaps a new Social Democratic party
may arise that would galvanize the "party of negotiations." Be that
as it may, Avi Shlaim has written a book that is well grounded,
very readable and useful for those seeking a critical understanding
of Israel's relations to the Arabs.