Behind the Headlines Wanted; Suitable Zionist Information

Zionist leaders in this country and Israel are bemoaning the fact that there is not enough information about Israel and Zionism to arm American Jews to stem the growing tide of Arab propaganda. This propaganda, slick and subtle, subliminal and obvious is beginning to inundate the news and editorial pages of the daily press, much to the consternation and anxiety of these leaders.

At the same time, the Zionist informational apparatus here and in Israel tend to relegate their activities to producing and reproducing what to many Jews seems to be hackneyed cliche-ridden statements and shibboleths that are geared more for emotional barrage against the Arabs than for thoughtful and incisive rebuttals that Jews can use in answering some of the Arab contentions.

It is a sad but objective fact-that at the moment the Arabs appear to be gaining in the propaganda war, but more by default than because of any genuine contributions to the arsenal of clear and objective thinking. They are gaining by virtue of the absence of incisive Zionist educational material and, alternately, by the dissemination of glittering albeit surface propaganda material of the kind that was serviceable before the Arab propaganda drive began in full force.

For too long a time Zionists and Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel felt they had cornered the market on pro-Israel propaganda. And for too long a time this feeling caused a certain amount of smugness, an attitude that history had irrevocably absolved Zionism and Israel. Many American Jews did not feel challenged to answer or deal with Arab propaganda as long as Israel was receiving kudos in the American press and from American policy and public opinion boulders, and as long as the Arab propaganda machinery was in low gear.

A FORM OF NATIONAL ARROGANCE

Even many Israelis including those involved in public information affairs and in the news media, who were told that their cause had to be constantly re-enforced and restated in America, and that this required available educational material for wide-spread distribution, responded by claiming that this was only a problem for diaspora-oriented Jews, that Israel’s cause was well known and assured and that, in any case, who cared about what the “goyim” thought about Israel and Zionism.

Several prominent Israelis told this writer when he was last in Israel: why should Israel be any more concerned with its image to the world at large than, say, the United States, France, England or any other established country; why does Israel have to Justify itself; Israel is a normal nation and doesn’t feel that it has to explain or justify its existence or actions to anyone, One stated quite heatedly, “We are what we are, Let them Judge us by our actions, Words don’t change anyone’s mind,” But all this has proved to be transient and illusory.

Now American and Israeli Zionist leaders are beginning to feel the squeeze of Arab propaganda and what Hamlet called the “pangs of despised love.” This has been driven home repeatedly in the last few weeks by such personalities as Leon Dulzin, Rabbi Israel Miller, Ambassador David Rivlin, Meyer Weisgal and Abba Eban, What can be done? Moreover, what can be done about what?

STICK ARAB PROPAGANDA

Arab propaganda–the professional, not the strident–covers the entire field of Zionist history, Palestine and the State of Israel in all its ramifications. Some of this propaganda is highly theoretical, dealing with the nature of Zionism as theory and practice. It is slick, it is well researched, it is analytical and goes quite frequently to original source material, quoting copiously although one-sidedly and out-of-context some of the more sanguine statements of pioneer and current Zionist leaders.

The effectiveness of this approach cannot be underestimated merely because it is on a highly sophisticated and even academic level, It only serves to impress the impressionable with the seriousness of the propaganda, and unless one is familiar with chapter and verse of the Zionists quoted it is impossible to detect the highly selective method of quoting.

In addition, a great deal of Arab propaganda is developed, refined and adapted to the needs of professors, intellectuals, students, trade unionists and Journalists by Arab and left-wing specialists in the field of Israel and Zionism, And little of this is glib or facile. Individuals of stature like the French Marxist, Maxime Rodinson, a professor at the Sorbonne and the son of one of the founders of the Jewish Workers Trade Unions in Paris, have meticulously developed views of Zionism as an imperialist ideology and Israel as a colonial-settler state To anyone not conversant with the history, theory and practice of Zionism, these views are hand to beat.

The Arab propagandists and their left-wing partners are not only prolific writers but also voracious readers, much more so than the average Zionist in a given local community, They have the source material and are trained to use it to “prove” their contentions. Why don’t the Zionists do the same to prove the real nature of Zionism and expose the specious Arab statements about Zionism and Israel? Part of the answer is that for too many years they were convinced of Israel’s and Zionism’s righteous cause and their reading and studying habits became slovenly,

SOURCE MATERIAL NEEDED DESPERATELY

But the time for this is long past, It is easy enough for the national Zionist organizations, the American Zionist Federation, and the World Zionist Organization to provide various source material geared specifically to academics, students, organizers, journalists and activists, The Zionist community does not have the millions in petrodollars the Arabs are using for their propaganda activities in this country but it does have the skilled writers, theoreticians and publicists to effectively counter this propaganda.

It is easy enough for local Zionist groups to form study circles, for a starter, to analyze Arab propaganda in the light of actual Zionist writings, but the pertinent information has to be available and that has to be supplied by the Zionist educational apparatus here and in Israel, The responsibility and the blame for the lack of such information rests squarely with the official Zionist groups which, thus far, have been lackadaisical in their educational efforts. Moreover, they have been reluctant to challenge the Arab propagandists in–let’s not reject it–public debates where views can be aired and exchanged in the market place of ideas.

When was the last time that Zionists discussed Achad Ha’am’s scathing denunciation of the early naive Zionist view that Palestine was a “land without people for a people without land?” It might be well to reprint his article, “The Truth About Palestine,” written in 1891, When was the last time that Zionists referred to the Brith Shalom (Peace Alliance) and Ichud movements in Palestine in the late 1920s and early 1930s which sought ways to achieve Arab-Jewish rapprochement and had in its leadership such Zionist luminaries as Hugo Bergmann, Henrietta Szold, Arthur Ruppin, Judah Magnes and Hayim Kalvarisky?

When was the last time reference was made to Nachman Syrkin’s “The Socialist Jewish State” written in 1898 where he writer “The best and most honorable way, however, is to secure the land (in Palestine) in alliance with other oppressed nationalities in the Turkish empire through a common stand against the Turks. The Jews should form an alliance with the oppressed peoples under Turkish rule and seek a just distribution of the liberated territories. They should support revolutionary elements (the ‘Insurgents’)…and should enlist as volunteers in the war against Turkey.”

When was the last time Zionists referred to the wealth of information about Palestine contained in the now out of print two-volume 1380 page Esco Foundation study, “Palestine A Study of Jewish, Arab and British Policies.” And for that matter, when was the last time Histadrut focussed on its own origins and history in the early 1920s when Jewish and Arab workers organized and fought side by side against the British strikebreakers, union busters and company unions in Palestine?

THE OBJECT OF ZIONIST EDUCATION

The object of all this? To show that the history, theory and practice of Zionism which led to the founding of the State of Israel was not a monolithic movement forcing everyone to fall into line, nor an imperialist-oriented movement and ideology, nor a colonial-settler state movement, but rather a movement and ideology of a people deeply imbued with and committed to the goal of restructuring Jewish existence as a cohesive people in cooperation with and not in opposition to Arab workers and other oppressed peoples in the region.

The point, too, is to show that Zionism is and remains a historically legitimate movement of the international liberation of the Jewish people, as legitimate historically as any other national liberation movement and to show that Zionism and the Jewish yishuv in Palestine forced out the British imperialists, not the Arabs.

Unfortunately, Zionism and Israel are forced constantly to justify their history and existence, not only in the field of propaganda but on the battlefield as well. If the older generation of Zionists here and in Israel have forgotten or are ignoring their own history, the young generation of American Jews and Israelis have yet to learn this history. The material offered by the Zionist establishment does not do this history justice. It had better begin to do so.

Perhaps the time has come for Zionists to focus beyond the critique of Arab arms to arming themselves with critiques of Arab ideas as they did in the past, For in the long run, the ideas will prove more powerful than the arms the Arabs now have at their disposal. In the final analysis ideas serve to mobilize arms. To paraphrase Edward Fitzgerald’s “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,” what gains it Israel if it Wins military battles but loses the propaganda war?