ABSTRACT
The construction of the Israeli “self” was founded upon the destruction of the identity of the Palestinian “other.” The Palestinian-Arab other, and the memory of their fate, had been excluded from Israeli memory and identity (Chapter 5). In previous chapters we discussed several historical and sociological aspects of the self-same construction of Jewish-Israeli nationhood and society through exclusions. In this chapter we scrutinize and interpret the budding in Israel of a counterhegemonic alternative to Zionist ethno-Jewish identity; an alternative that indicates a potential of an inclusionary nationality, based on “territorial” or “constitutional” membership in the nation, rather than upon pre-political mythical origins of ancestry and belonging. This alternative is labeled post-Zionism. It diverges from the Zionist discourse in its demand for the opening of the boundaries of the nation beyond the Jewish ethnic group, to include all the citizenry; yet it diverges also from the anti-Zionist discourse, in its recognition of the state of Israel as a legitimate political shell for its citizens. Since the 1990s post-Zionism has become a prism through which the augmenting
tensions between the democratic and the Jewish dimensions of the state of Israel are explored. The present chapter focuses upon post-Zionism as an emergent counterhegemonic discourse in contemporary Israel, in the following order: first, a review of the history of the concept “post-Zionism” since its emergence in 1993, as well a retrospective view of its sources. Second, an exposure of manifestations of post-Zionist culture in Israel. Third, an analysis of four distinct approaches to post-Zionism: postnational, postmodern, postcolonial and post-Marxist. Fourth, an account of some ideological controversies surrounding post-Zionism. And finally, fifth, an evaluation of the present state of post-Zionism today and an estimation of its future prospects.1
