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1. presenting in a thread are a few words by David Ben-Gurion I keep going back to whenever the Israel/US Jewry debate flares as it did following @PeterBeinart's thoughtful and provocative "Yanve".
2. In 1911, David Ben-Gurion, in HAAHDUT, published "Our Political and Social Work" which was basically a crude platform for his fledgling party Po'alei Tsion. The piece is not that interesting but the introduction deals with the most fundamental tensions within Zionism.
3. Ben-Gurion calls for unity among all the Zionist Moshavot and for Zionist proletarian solidarity blah blah. He starts the article by suggesting that the Zionist vision of "a Jewish state" is done. Instead, Zionism now works within the Ottoman system to gain national rights.
4. But besides foregoing Jewish statehood, what I find fascinating in this piece is Ben-Gurion's repeated insistence that the Yishuv and the Ottoman Jews have primacy within the Zionist movement. Next up, a good quote >>
5. Here: "We are not too impressed by what 'the Zionists' abroad think, what's more important is what people think here, in Erets Yisrael". The shift in political power within the Zionist movement, from abroad to the Yishuv, was for Ben-Gurion "pivotal".
6. What I like about this, is that this is a settler assertion of primacy vis-a-vis the settler's own backers who didn't make the move. It's a way of saying: we're the ones actually fulfilling Zionism - we should call the shots.
7. Many critical of Beinart, I included, pointed out he was advocating "we" (all Jews) strive for a binational state that not all Jews will live in. It's not that binational state is so insane (it may well be), it's his dismissal of settler primacy that rubbed me the wrong way.
8. The tension presented here is between Zionism as a movement of and for all Jews, or Zionism as a movement of and for those Jews that make the move. The tension need not be resolved, but @PeterBeinart seems to lean more towards the former, I think the latter.
9. Notice though that believing in settler primacy need not mean that one's Zionism strives for a Jewish ethno-state. Ben-Gurion ca. 1911, thought that the Yishuv settlers should be given the political mandate to negotiate national autonomy as loyal Ottoman citizens. End.
