Professor Sternhall

It does well sometimes to look at the other side's arguments and with this in mind I started reading an article in today's 'Haaretz' under the headline 'Prof. Sternhall: "Supporters of occupation are not Zionist."' Having never heard of Professor Sternhall, what I got was a pleasant surprise rather than the usual dose of zionist drivel that an article with a heading like that invariably exposes you to and, which, to be honest, I was expecting. Professor Sternhall, is a Political Scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and, despite my having not heard of him up until now, he is well known for his condemnation of the right wing settlers and now he is in hospital recovering after a bomb exploded at his house.1 He argues that the settlers are in fact damaging the zionist ideal because their actions threaten the very existence of Israel and says, "I'm suggesting an alternative to exclusive ownership of the land that justifies occupation. It would be based on a rational view of universal rights, especially the right to liberty and dignity, including for the Palestinians. This is the social-democratic approach that shaped 20th century Europe. It would strengthen Zionism, unlike the insistence on exclusivity over all the Land of Israel which rejects the other's rights, undermines the Zionist ideal, and is a proven prescription for disaster."2 What we appear to have is one "Zionist" who could accept the solution that I put forward in yesterday's post and it appears that there are acceptable "Zionists".
Of course, on reading the article, I decided to do a bit of research on Professor Sternhall and I turned to an academic debate he was involved in with the British professor, Adrian Lyttelton, back in 2005, when, in his article in 'The New York Review of Books', 'The Anatomy of Fascism' he responded to Lyttleton's, 'What was Fascism?'.3 It is not for us here to get too involved in that debate. However, what is interesting is Sternhall's view that the roots of Fascism can be traced to the revolutionary far left in France.4 Perhaps, in understanding this, Professor Sternhall already sees that the right wing zionist "zealots" that tried to kill him in his home have their roots in the ideology that founded the state of Israel; an ideology that was immoral from the very beginning for as David Ben Gurion said, "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?5 Yesterday's post finished off with me saying, "it is time to move on even if that moving on means me offering my Palestinian friends advice and telling them to accept what amounts to one of the biggest stings in the history of mankind. It is, however, also time for Israel to stop its bullying and to end its illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem."6 Moreover, in moving on, Israelis should at least recognise what Ben Gurion said. Perhaps, Professor Sternhall would agree with me.
1 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1025210.html
2 Ibid
3 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17985
4 http://www.akweb.de/ak_s/ak437/02.htm
5 http://israel-palestijnen.blogspot.com/2008/05/1948-history-of-first-arab-israeli-war.html
6 See post below