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<h1>“We Fight, Therefore We Are:” Zionism’s Epistemology</h1>
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<p class="by"><a
href="http://www.turkeyagenda.com/author/dr-hatem-bazian/"
style="color:#FF0000;">by Dr. HATEM BAZIAN</a></p>
<p class="by-title">Director, Islamophobia Research and
Documentation Project<br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.turkeyagenda.com/we-fight-therefore-we-are-zionisms-epistemology-1768.html">http://www.turkeyagenda.com/we-fight-therefore-we-are-zionisms-epistemology-1768.html</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</p>
<div class="header-bottom-left">Tuesday, January 13, 2015</div>
<p>Ramon’s Grosfoguel, in a seminal article, <a
href="http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol11/iss1/8/"
target="_blank">The Structure of Knowledge in Westernized
Universities</a>, provided a conceptualization of multiple
genocides/epistemicides, which can and should be extended to
deconstruct the Zionist settler colonial project. From its
epistemic inception, Zionism’s settler colonialism was
directed at the Palestinians and culminating in ethnic
cleansing, destruction of villages and towns as well as the
constant structured violence directed at the population.</p>
<p><a
href="http://scholarworks.umb.edu/humanarchitecture/vol11/iss1/8/"
target="_blank">Rene Descartes statement, “I think therefore
I am” for Grosfoguel and Enrique Dussel was preceded by 150
years of “I conquer, therefore I am”, which for the Zionist
settler colonial project may be translated into “I
ethnically cleanse therefore I am.”</a> In almost identical
ontological and epistemic conceptualization, Menahem Begin
maintained that “we fight, therefore we are,”as an ideological
formation for the Zionism, which since the establishment of
the state has become the bedrock in the process of building
and expanding a militaristic state. (Menahem Begin, <em>The
Revolt</em>, p. 26)</p>
<p>“Out of blood and fire and tears and ashes, a new specimen of
human being was born, a specimen completely unknown to the
world for over 1,800 years, the "FIGHTING JEW." It is
axiomatic that those who fight have to hate… We had to hate
first and foremost, the horrifying, age-old, inexcusable utter
defenselessness of our Jewish people, wandering through
millennia, through a cruel world, to the majority of whose
inhabitants the defenselessness of the Jews was a standing
invitation to massacre them.” (Menahem Begin, <em>The Revolt</em>,
pp. xi-xii)</p>
<p>Begin’s statement above has to be understood in the broader
Zionist movement attempt at constructing the new national and
modern Jewish identity in Palestine; epistemologically vested
in might and power. For Begin and his movement, the approach
was not confined to securing a piece of land, important as it
maybe, rather it was an attempt to do away with the ‘weak’ and
‘meek’ Jewish person living and being a constant subject of
anti-Semitism and relentless oppression in Europe and other
parts of the world.</p>
<p>In Zionism, Begin and others sought to constitute the new
independent, assertive, powerful, secular and national Zionist
Jewish figure forging ahead by fighting to claim a place in
the world. “We fight” for Begin and the Zionists is at the
heart of identity formation, which if done consistently would
help castaway the old and weak Jewish person that was subject
to the diktat and power of others living in ghettos awaiting
divine salvation. Begin’s maintained the new revolting Zionist
Jew “began to fight instead of to plead.” Zionists took
matters into their hands since salvation is not coming anytime
soon considering all the suffering experienced by Jews in the
real world and only might and power in the world can alter the
course for the Jews.</p>
<p>“We fight” is about the Zionist Jews becoming masters of
their own destiny and epistemologically located in the modern
world as equals to ‘Western man’ crafting nationhood through
blood, might, conquest and colonization as well. For the
Zionist, the fighting was on behalf of a national liberation
movement intended on ending Jewish persistent subjection and
oppression at the hands of Europe first and foremost and then
after the birth of the state included everyone that opposes
the settler Zionist project; Palestinians included. Indeed,
“Zionism secularized and nationalized Judaism” for it is not
the book that guides but the power of the gun that defines the
constituted national community. (IlanPappe, <em>The Ethnic
Cleansing of Palestine</em>, p. 11)</p>
<p>In the same way that the “I” for Descartes “replaces God as
the new foundation for knowledge” and its production, the
Zionist in Palestine by embracing a Eurocentric, racist,
genocidal and exclusivist world view embarked on a nationalist
project founded upon settler colonialism with the powerful
Zionist person replacing God in forging a state. Fighting and
power gives meaning to the Zionists as they moved to a form a
new modern Jewish person that exists in the here and now while
being ready to take hold of its future and not waiting for a
non-acting God in the world.</p>
<p>For Begin militancy and violence was a way to reshape
identity since “for nearly two thousands years, the Jews, as
Jews, had not borne arms, and it was on this complete
disarmament, as much psychological as physical, that our
oppressors calculated.” The link between arms and exile was
explicit as Begin asserted that we Jews: “gave up our arms
when we were exiled form our country.” Thus, the notion of
return to the land is also epistemologically a restoration of
strength and use of arms. Exile would be brought to an end by
means of the emergence of the powerful Zionist Jewish figure
restored in the land by resorting to arms. Consequently, the
ineffective God of Judaism is replaced by the Zionists figure
that is acting within history and restoring the Jews to the
land through human agency, a national project and use of arms.</p>
<p>The “Jewish question” in Europe was thought to be addressed
by means of birthing into the modern world a strong and
militant Zionist Jew that can bring to an end the political
quietism of Orthodox or traditional Judaism that up to this
point have not been able to defend the Jewish person from
European violence and endemic anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>For Herzl and the Zionists, militancy was about saving Jews
from the ever-present pogroms in Europe, “of ‘fighting’ the
scourge of anti-Semitism, of ‘conquering’ the land,
‘capturing’ the Diaspora of Jewish communities, ‘combating’
assimilation; the alliances he sought with the rich and
powerful were both political and military; he advocated a
‘campaign’ of deception to get stubborn Jewish masses to
emigrate. ” The Zionist project was an internal epistemic one
focused on challenging, rejecting and changing existing Jewish
attitudes toward their own text, history and conditions to
urge them all to take matters into their own hands by
embracing nationalism. Externally, the Zionist effort was
directed at securing Palestine from the British to begin
building a settler colonial nation-state.</p>
<p>The new Zionist attitude is evident in the writings of both
Micah Berdichevski and Saul Tchernickovski who required
setting aside ‘the Book’ while taking up the sword to build
the state. “The world” for Begin “does not pity the
slaughtered. It only respects those who fight,” and Zionist
set out to forge the modern fighting identity. Force and
violence as a framework was unleashed on the Palestinians
starting with the first Zionist secret defense organization in
Palestine lead by both David Ben Gurion and Yitzak Ben Zvi
commenting in the first meeting that “not by word of mouth
shall a nation be saved, nor shall a country be rebuilt by
speeches. ‘In blood and fire Judea fell, in blood and fire it
shall rise again.’</p>
<p>It is modernity and secular materiality that was at the heart
of the Zionist project, which was certainly an internalizing
of Eurocentric conceptualization of the human and his/her
agency in the world. In this view, the human emerges into the
modern devoid of metaphysics and meaning, rather becoming a
pure byproduct of the material and an instrument to shape and
be shaped by it. Such a material human responds to and is
molded by power having internalized the Eurocentric racist
structure that was imposed upon it. Zionism internalized the
modern national European project and reproduced it in creating
the new Zionist figure that only acts and responds to power
for it is the measure of meaning in the modern material world.</p>
<p>The modern, nationalist and material Zionist epistemic is
diametrically opposite the classical and Orthodox Judaism on
the question of return to Palestine. Up to the point of the
emergence of Zionism it was universally accepted that only
when the awaited Messiah arrives into the world that the
return is authorized otherwise it is a violation of
universally recognized Jewish teachings. Indeed, the early
Reform Jewish response to Zionism was articulated in the
Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, with the official statement
reading: "We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a
religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to
Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron,
nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish
state."</p>
<p>Just as Important was the views of Jews in Palestine and
their response to Herzl’s invite to join in the Zionist
effort. Rabbi Joseph Hayyim Sonnenfeldt wrote from Jerusalem
in 1898, expressing the “dismay in the Holy Land” and
describing Zionists as “evil men who deny the Unique one of
the world and His holy Torah have proclaimed with so much
publicity that it is in their hands to hasten Redemption of
the People of Israel and gather the dispersed from the ends of
the Earth.” Furthermore, Rabbi Sonnenfeldt concluded his
letter by stating that “Doctor Herzl comes not from the Lord
but from the side of pollution, for we say: anyone who pleads
in defense of Israel is exalted in the world by the Holy One –
blessed be He -, while this evil man pleads in condemnation
and multiplies accusations.”</p>
<p>A similar view was articulated aroundthe same time in 1897,by
the leading American Reform Rabbi, Issac Mayer Wise who
stated:“We totally disapprove of any attempt for the
establishment of a Jewish State … We affirm that the object of
Judaism is not political nor national, but spiritual, and
addresses itself to the continuous growth of peace, justice,
and love in the human race, to a Messianic time when all men
will recognize that they form one great brotherhood for the
establishment of God’s kingdom on earth.”</p>
<p>Albert Einstein expressed an identical perspective opposing
Zionism in 1930, and stating:“Apart from practical
considerations, my awareness of the essential nature of
Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state, with borders, an
army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I
am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain –
especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within
our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight
strongly, even without a Jewish State. We are no longer the
Jews of the Maccabee period. A return to a nation in the
political sense of the word would be equivalent to turning
away from the spiritualization of our community which we owe
to the genius of our prophets.”<br>
<br>
“In blood and fire” was sacrilegious for the Orthodox and
reform Judaism and up to the late 1930s the Zionist were in
the minority on the question of the return to Palestine if it
was on the basis of nationalism. It is this worldview that
gives birth to the militant strand in Zionism and eventually
becomes the pillar around which the new state is formed. The
use of violence was not only an instrument of defending
oneself or fighting to claim Palestine but an epistemic
foundational building block and a shift that makes the modern
nationalist Zionist a reality. Constituting the state becomes
a function of affirming the veracity of the epistemic shift
and the reorientation of Judaism itself into the Zionist point
of view. ‘Blood and might’ for the Zionist is what saves the
Jews rather than the book and God who is seen to have failed
in doing so many times over.</p>
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