ROBERT WISTRICH
463
teresting that the kind of people who were really important Zionist
thinkers in the 1960s and 1970s, like Nathan Rotenstreich, are a rare
breed today. This kind of Zionist discourse seems strangely out of tune
with the current mood in Israel. There are still a few people who in their
own way nobly state the case for the centrality and the importance of
ideological considerations in a society like Israel. This not only involves
existential problems of security but also those of a national identity slowly
being eroded by the post-Zionist climate. Unfortunately, those elements
which unite the Jews in Israel, which provide the historical
raison d'etre
for
Zionism and its historic link with the entire history of the Jewish people
- these considerations are not very fashionable right now.
Indeed, scorn is often poured on them from all quarters. There are a
few philosophers today like Professor Eli Schweid in Jerusalem, who
make the case about how dangerous collective amnesia might be. I think
that "normalization," in the sense that you began to describe it, raises a
very big question with regard to the coming decades. If indeed, a peace
process actually takes root more or less successfully between Israel and all
its Arab neighbors, what implications would this have for the relationship
between Israel and the Diaspora? For Judaism in Israel and for its Jewish
identity? Will we see the revival you seem to be implying of a sort of
neo-Canaanite outlook, even if it doesn't necessarily have an overt ideo–
logical expression? These are important questions which need to be
addressed with new creative thinking, if Zionism is to renew itself in the
twenty-first century.
Apropos of the Holy Book and quoting from it, I recall that the late
Moshe Dayan (certainly an archetypal Sabra Israeli hero for his time) saw
the Bible as absolutely central to his own consciousness. He not only
wrote vividly about it, but I think he deeply felt the connection with
those places in the land that linked him to a history far older than that of
modem Zionism. I feel today this kind of consciousness does not exist
within the Israeli political elite, except for a handful of people. You do
not have that kind of living secular sense of the Bible.
It
was still there in
the Sabra generation that Dayan represented, but has since receded. This
is a significant change.
Then there are the brash statements that one hears more recently,
about Israel no longer needing the Diaspora. The terms in which this is
couched by some Israelis suggest to me impatience with the old relation–
ship and the desire to go their own way. They seem to be saying, "Okay,
we've grown up, we don't need any more handouts, we're a thriving,
prosperous state, maybe the Diaspora needs us more than we need them."
Beyond that, there may be some deeper problem about Israeli identity
and its future orientation that is going to have to be resolved in the next
