We are all creatures of culture. As human beings possessing the
ability for abstract thought, we live in realities that we
construct ourselves, both collectively and individually. We
construct everything; nothing is "natural." Our constructions of
reality - embodied in ideologies, narratives and symbols - make
sense to us. They rest on shared assumptions, experiences,
identities, values and interests that shape our very way of
perceiving the world and other people. They possess a compelling
internal logic. We internalize these paradigms, as these
constructions are also called, so that they exert a strong power
over our actions and views. They are more "real" to us than
"reality" itself. They are self-evident, "normal" ways of
perceiving the world, events and others.
The connection between paradigms and political change is a complex
one. Paradigms do define the positions of various social and
political groups. They have the power to slow or hasten change, to
make it conflictual (as in Binyamin Netanyahu's approach to the
peace process) or to create an atmosphere and channels for each
side to deal honestly with the claims and needs of the other. The
longer the historical process, the more structural elements
determine directions of change. But in the short run - over a
period of months or even a decade or two - paradigms play a major
role. A Palestinian state may eventually emerge, but the events on
the way - house demolitions, massive expropriation of Palestinian
land, the dislocation of thousands of people, closure and
impoverishment, opportunities available or not to the young
generation, violence, death - all these and more matter to actual
people far more than historical processes. Paradigm change may not
be sufficient to create new political realities, but since our
lives are measured in the "short run," it can make a huge
difference in the lives of the current generation (and more) of
Israelis and Palestinians.
Paradigm Panic
Paradigms are hard to change. Even more to the point, the process
of changing political realities without addressing the process of
paradigm shift can be dangerous for a society, creating extreme
reactions and even generating violence.
Since paradigms organize the world for us and make it coherent, we
can enter into a "paradigm panic" when things change too fast. The
consequences of paradigm panic can be catastrophic. Without
minimizing the seriousness of the hate campaign waged against Rabin
in the months before his assassination, one can assign it partly to
such fear and panic. A common bumper sticker at that time was
Shalom balahot (a nightmare peace), and one still hears people
chanting "Death to the Arabs!"
We cling to our paradigms tenaciously, and feel existentially
threatened if reality changes too quickly. The Israeli public had
been raised for generations on several unshakable propositions:
that "we" are the good guys and "they" are the bad guys; that "we"
are the victims and "they" are murderers of children; that peace
with the "Arabs" is impossible, that they have always hated us and
always will; that Arafat is an absolutely unacceptable partner for
negotiations; that, indeed, Palestinians don't even exist. Yet here
was Rabin, one bright day on the White House lawn, having sprung
Oslo on an unprepared Israeli public, shaking hands with Arafat and
throwing millions of Israelis into a complete paradigm panic.
People need time to contemplate and be convinced. There is not only
a peace process, there is also a paradigm-shift process, and it
must also be respected. Failure to appreciate the depths of
paradigm panic can, indeed, be deadly and, for a society,
ultimately polarizing.
To be sure, "paradigm shifts" usually follow rather than precede
structural changes. Rabin could have softened the impact of his
sudden political turnabout and better prepared the public for what
was about to take place, but he could not have avoided paradigm
panic altogether. Although Yitzhak Rabin died and Shimon Peres lost
the 1996 elections, the process of paradigm change they initiated
did in time take hold.
When Ariel Sharon, upon departing for Wye, announced he would not
shake Arafat's hand, he came over as ridiculous across the
political spectrum. The Israeli public had moved beyond that
now-anachronistic position. With hindsight, we might say that
Binyamin Netanyahu's loss in the elections of May 1999 was
ultimately due to the paradigm shift that had taken place in the
five years since Oslo. While Ehud Barak failed to present a
coherent vision of where he would take the country, Netanyahu
represented an old, now-irrelevant paradigm that obviously had no
future. The notion that Israelis could make peace with the
Palestinians, that a Palestinian state was probably inevitable, and
that Arafat had a legitimate role to play, had finally sunk
in.
What, then, are the elements of Israeli paradigms, and what
strategies should we employ to change them in the direction of
peace?
The Israeli Meta-Paradigm and Paradigms of 'Right' and
'Left'
Underlying the polarization of Israeli society are a number of
competing ideological "camps," each with its particular
experiences, views and interests. Some of the major ones include:
Labor Zionism (shading off to the left); the populist Revisionism
of the Likud; Ashkenazi and Sephardi ultra-Orthodoxy, and the
diverse Palestinian-Arab population. Over the years, however, a
kind of meta-paradigm has emerged to which most Israelis -
Palestinian and segments of the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox excepted -
subscribe. It contains a number of critical elements:
• National Homecoming. Beginning in the later half of the
19th century, a highly detailed and compelling narrative of
national homecoming and liberation began to emerge, later given
form and substance by the various Labor Zionist organizations. Its
central tenet held that the Jews constitute a nation in the
secular-political sense, and therefore possess the same inherent
right to self-determination in its historic homeland that other
nations claim.
At this point the Left and the Right diverge. Labor Zionism came to
consider the state its primary vehicle of national expression.
While, in this conception, the Jewish state had to be located in
the historic Land of Israel, it did not have to encompass the
entire Land. Thus there is nothing in the Labor Zionist paradigm
that precludes territorial compromise with the Palestinians. The
Right, by contrast, developed a "territorial" Zionism. Whether
based on the biblical "tribal" concept which by definition excludes
competing national claims and thus considers Palestinians
"intruders" in the Land, as in the religious paradigm, or a secular
tribalism deriving from the Fascist movements of the 1920s and
1930s, as in the case of the Revisionist (Likud) paradigm, these
models place exclusive Jewish control over the entire Greater Land
of Israel over all other considerations.
Despite these fundamental variations on a theme, the meta-narrative
of national homecoming and the right of the Jews to the Land became
the basis of what is called by Israeli politicians, educators and
the media "the national consensus." The narrative of national
homecoming became a compelling, self-contained and self-evident
"truth," beyond the realm of critical discussion and dissent.
• The Arabs Just Want to Kill Us/There Are No Palestinians.
From the very start the national meta-narrative was an exclusively
Jewish one, able to maintain its internal logic despite the
realities on the ground and the major events that took place over
the past century. Thus, even before setting foot in Palestine,
Zionists coined the famous phrase: "A land without a people for a
people without a land." (The early Zionist Nordau was reported to
have been shocked to find the land populated by Arabs, and
expressed the fear that Zionism was perpetuating an injustice
against the local inhabitants.)
Eliminating Palestinians from the story as a national collective
took several forms: (1) Palestinians were turned into "Arabs"
indistinguishable from the masses of the Arab world; (2) acts of
resistance to Zionism were decontextualized and portrayed solely as
acts of unthinking and hate-filled "mobs" or individuals against
peaceful Jews; and (3) the Palestinian leadership was either
demonized (Haj Amin al-Husseini as a "Nazi") or, if it did not fit
the narrative (such as the peace-seeking Musa Alawi), was simply
ignored. Thus the meta-narrative reduced the Palestinian economic
and political revolt of 1936-39 into a series of violent yet
marginal "events," "disturbances" or "riots."
These depictions eliminated the Arabs as a legitimate presence in
the country whose claims had to be dealt with. From the 1910s until
today, the major upheavals affecting the Palestinian people - the
rise of Palestinian nationalism, the intifadas of the 1920s, 1930s,
and 1980s, the Nakba and its massive dislocations, the contact with
Palestinians following the 1967 war - took place without ruffling a
feather of the Labor Zionist ideology. Its paradigm of 1999 would
be easily recognized by its paradigmatic ancestors of 1919, if not
of 1899. Even from the standpoint of Israel's own experience - the
destruction of 418 Palestinian villages and urban neighborhoods in
1948, the subsequent "Israelification" of the landscape, official
denials that a Palestinian people even exists, the "liberation" of
"Judea and Samaria" in 1967 and the vigorous settlement campaign of
the past 25 years - all these demonstrate the power of a paradigm
to relegate real people to non-intrusive abstractions. "Let them
[the Arabs] go live in one of the other 22 Arab countries" is still
thought and heard.
• Security. If the Land-of-Israel paradigm dismisses
Palestinian claims on the basis of exclusive Jewish rights to the
Land, the concept of security as used by the Labor Zionists
achieves the same conclusion, even though the Labor Zionist
paradigm is able to conceive of territorial compromise. Unlike
conventional inter-state conflicts where one side defends its
territory against the enemy "over there," the Jewish-Palestinian
conflict took on characteristics of colonial struggles, where the
conflicting populations are geographically intertwined and concerns
of "internal security" outweigh those of external threats. The
Palestinians became a kind of "enemy-within," leading the
bitkhonistim - the generals, secret "security services" officers
and allied politicians who rose to prominence in Labor (and
subsequently Likud) - to adopt an all-encompassing notion of
"security" that virtually eliminated any other kind of political
consideration.
In the best case, security prevented Israeli leaders of all camps
from perceiving, creating or exploiting the numerous opportunities
for peace that emerged over the years. At its worst, security
becomes a convenient pretense for occupation and oppression. Anyone
who has suddenly found a Palestinian house declared a "closed
military zone" because peace activists wish to visit, has followed
Israeli Supreme Court decisions allowing torture, extended
administrative detention or house demolitions out of unspecified
"security concerns," or has been unable to hold a workshop on peace
because the Palestinian participants could not get permits to enter
Israel, realizes the degree to which security has been transformed
from a legitimate concern into an irrational obstacle to
normalization and peace.
• Fortress Israel. The combination of a self-contained
national narrative, a concept of security verging on paranoia and
an effective military and security system, has turned Israel into
an insulated fortress in the Middle East, effectively sealed off
from its Middle Eastern context. Jews from the Muslim world have
been de-Easternized as part of the process of absorption;
Palestinian-Israelis are referred to vaguely as "Israeli Arabs" and
kept safely on the margins of social and political life; and the
broader Middle East has been reduced to little more than a general
but vague presence. Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank, someone
commented, are further from Israel than Thailand, a terra incognita
kept distant by fear and disinterest. Within fortress Israel,
values of peace and democracy flourish, supported by a liberal
Labor Zionist paradigm that allows Israelis to live with house
demolitions, closure, torture, the exploitation of cheap labor and
other aspects of occupation.
• The Self-Serving Victim. Labor Zionism attempted to
distance itself from the image of the Jew as a helpless victim. The
idea of a tiny David versus an Arab Goliath was always a popular
image in Israel.
But casting oneself as victim can be politically expedient and
effective. Victims (or the David underdog) generally win public
sympathy. More important, perhaps, they have no responsibility.
Since victims are not in control of events they cannot be held
accountable. Golda Meir used this devise effectively when she
termed Israel's wars as "wars of ein breira" (no choice). She even
berated the Arabs for "forcing" us to kill their sons. Presenting
itself as the victim lets Israel claim the high moral ground of
"self-defense," "persecution" and "security." Begin was the first
to bring the Holocaust into Israeli political discourse, and it has
been used cynically by the Right ever since. It also sets up a
false symmetry. Israel, with its powerful military machine,
including a nuclear arsenal, a GNP that is 35 times that of the
Palestinians and billions of dollars more than the economies of
Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine combined, casts itself
as the weak and vulnerable party in its conflict with the as-yet
stateless Palestinians. Nothing, U.S. President Bill Clinton said
in his address to the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza,
infuriated Israelis more than his suggesting that Israel does not
have a monopoly over suffering in this conflict.
(As Coordinator of the Israel Committee against House Demolitions,
I can testify to yet another unfortunate aspect of Israel casting
itself as a victim - cruelty. Victims can have no victims, and can
have no compassion for other victims. Thus Israel pursues policies
in the occupied territories - home demolitions being foremost among
them - that can only be described as persecution. And since
claiming a monopoly over suffering is crucial to maintaining one's
status as a victim, the suffering Israel inflicts on the
Palestinian population cannot be acknowledged, something that will
make the task of reconciliation all the more difficult.)
Towards a New Paradigm of Peace: The Need for a
Strategy
Israel today is in a pivotal position. A major paradigm shift has
taken place in which the vast majority of Israelis are prepared for
a Palestinian state and for major redeployments (including
settlements) on the West Bank, in Gaza and even in East Jerusalem.
(Because it has been ringed by massive Israeli satellite cities,
Jerusalem is much less amenable to physical change.) The defeat of
Netanyahu indicates that old paradigms have been rendered largely
irrelevant. But no new paradigm or vision has yet taken the place
of the old ones. Unless the shift in the readiness for compromise
is reinforced by a compelling and specific paradigm of peace, the
elements of the old paradigms will reassert themselves and prevent
new paradigms, and their structural prerequisites, from
emerging.
The Israeli peace movement is an uncoordinated and gangly
collection of peace organizations, dialogue groups, academic
institutions, human-rights organizations, concerned individuals, a
few Knesset members, some performers, a number of legal groups and
information centers. Identifying the talent in our ranks and
formulating a concerted campaign of paradigm change would
measurably increase public support for the peace process. Such a
campaign would involve several steps:
• Presenting the Public with a Coherent and Self-Serving
Vision. In order to have a coherent something to shift into, the
public has to be offered a coherent and compelling alternative
vision. Israelis tend to see peace in negative terms: as giving up
territory and security, or becoming more vulnerable to people
(Palestinians and the wider Arab world) whose intentions cannot be
trusted. (Working-class Israelis of Middle Eastern origin tend to
see peace for its own sake as an "Ashkenazi peace," something else
to distract national attention from their economic and social
plight.) And Israelis are also not convinced that peace will bring
any tangible benefits. A necessary first step is thus simply
demonstrating the connection between peace, economic development,
social mobility and security.
• Pursuing the Political and Structural Requirements for
Peace. The peace camp, in conjunction with the Palestinians, must
identify the elements of a just and viable structure of peace, and
then develop effective strategies to secure them. How much of the
paralyzing matrix of settlements, bypass roads, industrial parks,
army bases, expropriated lands and checkpoints must be dismantled,
for example, for a truly viable Palestinian state to emerge? New
paradigms of peace depend upon a structure of peace that
substantially satisfies the claims of the various parties.
• Towards a New Meta-Paradigm. As we have mentioned, people
cling to the paradigms they grew up with and feel threatened if
reality changes too quickly. Paradigm shift is a process, and so is
paradigm replacement. Strategies of engagement, of dialogue, with
the "unpersuaded" (as far as peace goes) are essential. The issue
of peace is only one component of a broader process of paradigm
change. For example for Jews originating in Muslim countries, the
issue of identity and de-culturalization at the hands of the
Ashkenazim are still burning issues, as questions of identity are
raised, the historic relationship between Middle Eastern Jews and
Arabs might be renewed, with great implications for Israeli-Arab
reconciliation. A process of genuine communication, reflection,
learning, dialogue and critical analysis must accompany paradigm
change for peace, since in the end new paradigms must be accepted
and integrated rather than merely "taught." In this process of
paradigm change, the peace camp can take a leading role in
articulating a new meta-paradigm, since it has the breadth of
vision, knowledge and critical ability to articulate the outlines
of a paradigm of the future.
• Let a Thousand Paradigms Blossom! That is as far as an
induced process of paradigm change can go. Once the conditions for
peace are met and a process of paradigm change is begun - which
means reconciliation among the Israeli camps as well as with the
Palestinians - the different paradigms of Israel's cultural mosaic
will take care of themselves.