Dr. Joseph A. Massad Critiques Zionism From a “Pro-Jewish” Position

By Jane Adas


Dr. Joseph Massad (staff photo J. Adas).

DR. JOSEPH A. Massad described his March 29 talk in New Brunswick, New Jersey on “The Persistence of the Palestinian Question” as a critique of Zionism from a pro-Jewish position. The Palestinian question has not been resolved, the Columbia University professor maintained, because of the persistence of the “Jewish question.”

Haskalah, the Jewish enlightenment that began in the 18th century, was an assimilation project, he explained, whereby Jews rejected their “otherness” to become Europeans. Massad pointed out that Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism, accepted this, and even proposed to the pope the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity. When Europe did not accept Jewish assimilation, Massad said, Herzl concluded that a Jewish state was necessary. Thus Jews no longer were to be identified by religion, but as a race and a nation.

To become European, according to Massad, Jews, having internalized the anti-Semitic impulse of the 19th century, had to leave Europe, and become the carrier of European Gentile civilization to the barbaric Asian area. To do this, Zionists appropriated Europe’s ancient Greek heritage, transforming it into the Judeo-Christian legacy common to “the civilized.” In Massad’s opinion, this should horrify Jews, since Christianity was founded on the replacement of Jewish law. As evidence of Zionism’s aim to preserve Israeli Europeaness, Massad quoted Ben-Gurion—“We do not want Israelis to become Arabs.We are Europeans.”—and Ben-Gurion’s close associate Max Nordau: “We shall not become Arabs any more than Americans became red Indians.”

The Zionist adoption of a nationalist ideology in the European romantic tradition, Massad argued, turned Zionists into anti-Semites with contempt for the Jewish diaspora, Jews from Arab countries, and the new “Jews,” the Palestinians. Toward the latter, the professor observed, Zionists adopted classical anti-Semitic epistemology: “wandering Palestinian,” “dirty Arab,” “two-legged beasts.”

Massad characterized Zionism as an ongoing settler-colonial project that led to the expulsion of the majority of Palestinians (46 percent of Israeli Jews now believe the remaining Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories should be expelled) and requires the destruction of Palestinian civilization. Making the desert bloom on the Israeli side has been countered by the desertification of Palestinian lands—the razing of trees and cultivated land. The Jewish National Fund’s Place Names Committee transformed Palestinian towns into European ones, but with a Jewish flavor. Palestinians, Massad noted, no longer can access their past.

In short, he stated, Israelis have become the anti-Semitic enforcers of oppression against the Judaized Palestinians. The solution to the Palestinian and the Jewish questions, Massad concluded, is to call for the de-Europeanization of Israel and the assimilation of Israeli Jews into the area in which they have chosen to live.

Birzeit Students Describe “Education Under Occupation”


	Birzeit University students Reem Wahdan (l) and Yasser Darwish (staff photo J. Adas).

Two Birzeit University students spoke at Princeton on April 6 about “Education Under Occupation.” They presented many horrifying statistics about the difficulties students are facing during the current intifada: 498 schools disrupted by curfews, sieges and district closures; 1,289 school closings; more than 2,000 child detainees and prisoners; 443 children killed and 3,354 injured, many of them in their schools; 194 university students killed and 1,245 injured, mostly at checkpoints.

Both students have first-hand experience about what happens when education is criminalized. Reem Wahdan began first grade in 1987, at the beginning of the first intifada. When Israel issued an order closing all Palestinian schools, the children met in homes to study. That same year Yasser Darwish entered Birzeit University. Within three weeks, Israel closed the university. The students took their education in mosques and churches, but these, too, were attacked. Under pressure from European countries, Birzeit was re-opened in 1992, but Darwish lost four years.

After finally earning his BA in 1995, Darwish took time off to earn money, then enrolled in an MA program in 2000, the same year that Wahdan joined Birzeit’s freshman class to study journalism. Then the second intifada began. This time, instead of shutting down Palestinian schools and universities, Israel made it difficult to access them, through an intensified system of checkpoints and blockades. Israel’s use of checkpoints preceded the first suicide bombing in 1994, Darwish pointed out, and therefore was not a response to them.

According to Wahdan, the biggest trouble for Birzeit students is the Surda checkpoint, situated between Ramallah and Birzeit, which she described as a scene of continuous humiliation and hours of waiting. She herself has four IDs, she said—U.S. citizen, Palestinian green card, Birzeit student, and press ID—but none enabled her to pass. When students protest at the checkpoint, the Israeli army disperses them with tear gas bombs.

Darwish, who lives 500 meters from the Surda checkpoint, described it as a huge trench crossing the road. Israeli bulldozers, he added, destroyed 800 meters of the road on either side of the trench. Denied passage through the checkpoint, students walked around it to reach the university. Israel responded by building new barriers along the alternate routes.

Since Israel controls the borders, it is able to block the entry of many books and supplies. Broadcasting equipment the German government donated to Birzeit three years ago remains stuck at the border. Supplies that Israel does allow through must be moved on foot, because the Israeli army has blocked the entrance with huge concrete blocks.

During its siege of Ramallah, Israel cut water, electricity, and phone lines to the university, forcing it to close. The Israeli army invaded Birzeit four times last year, trashing offices and destroying equipment. But Birzeit faculty and students persisted, opening a computer study program that students could access from any Internet café. The class of 2003 graduated despite Israel’s efforts to shut down Palestinian education.

Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area.