• DOI:10.1007/BF00209214
• Corpus ID: 144216444

Changing nationalism and Israel's “open frontier” on the West Bank

@article{Shafir1984ChangingNA,
  title={Changing nationalism and Israel's “open frontier” on the West Bank},
  author={Gershon Shafir},
  journal={Theory and Society},
  year={1984},
  volume={13},
  pages={803-827}
}

• G. Shafir
• Published 1 November 1984
• Sociology
• Theory and Society

ConclusionIsrael generally has not been thought of as exhibiting the dynamic typical to frontier societies. On the general historical plane, Jewish and European frontier ventures did not take place contemporaneously. By the time Jewish immigration to Palestine began, Turner concluded that the zone of “free land” in the continental United States was exhausted and, with the exception of the feeble attempt to settle in Kenya, no new targets were selected by Europeans.58 As far as Israeli history is concerned, after the War of Inde-pendence of 1948 it seemed that frontier expansion had halted. Since the Six Day War, however, and more dramatically since the major settlement drive of 1981, Lamar and Thompson's contention that “probably the nearest contemporary approach to the kind of frontier ... where rival societies compete for control of the land, is to be found in Israel”59 seems to be born out. The emphasis on the continuous formative impact of the frontier situation provides, therefore, a theoretical framework for the study of Israeli society and national identity.The pattern of frontier movement as the basis of nation-building was typical of the Palestinian Jewish community and has not been discarded since. The question now being debated by the major political camps, each one of which is involved in a different phase of settlement in the West Bank, concerns the extent of expansion that is wise to undertake and the appropriate goals of this expansion. Settlement is the “heroic” aspect of Israeli nationalism, and therefore a major route for the acquisition of hegemonic influence, elite position, and prestige. The compelling character of the formative national experience is still very much alive, and therefore it is justified to see Israel as similar to other frontier societies.At the same time the forces and interests favoring the expansion of settle-ment across the 1948 borders have been much weakened. Israeli society has become considerably more urban as the cities absorbed the largest part of the immigrant population. Even rural settlements now mix agriculture with industry. Not surprisingly then, no spontaneous mass movement of colon-izers, similar to the Stockade and Watchtower settlers, have emerged. For some fifteen years, only an unsubstantial migration, motivated by the rela-tively weak momentum of intergenerational change, has taken place. Until the end of 1983 only about 0.9 percent of Israeli Jews had moved to the West Bank. Only in late 1981 has a government policy, by turning construction and settlement into a profit-making capitalist venture, created the potential for making a dent in the solid Palestinian Arab demographic composition of the West Bank.The process of massive settlement is still in its preliminary stages and may be slowed down, arrested, or reversed by a number of external factors. Even if the “One-Hundred-Thousand Plan” will be carried out, that number would involve only about 3 percent of Israel's Jewish population, and leave a ratio of 7:1 Arabs for each settler on the West Bank. But numbers alone are not the sole decisive factor. The emergence of a regional interest, translated into electoral strength through the agency of the Techiya Party (founded by members of Gush Emunim and the Movement for Greater Israel), which, according to Goldberg and Ben-Zadok, is in “active opposition toward the larger society's culture,”60 could make territorial withdrawal or compromise unlikely, if not impossible.I have undertaken this study with the intention of contributing a case study to the evolving field of comparative frontier research. Simultaneously I examined the impact of the second period of frontier expansion on Israeli nationalism. To this I will now turn. There are three potential trends or dangers to which I am able to point:1.In adopting the “religious” and later the “economic frontier,” Israel has diminished the primacy of its long-range security considerations. Arab opposition to the “military frontier” on the West Bank might be less severe, because of the different balance of forces, than it was in the Sinai. But whatever might be the case in regard to the “military frontier,” there is no doubt that each additional stage of frontier expansion intensifies the frontier conflict, raises the stakes involved, and makes it less likely for either one of the sides to back down from their positions.2.The increased demographic pressures of the Jewish population might, in certain constellations such as renewed frontier warfare, bring about the forcible, although not necessary planned, expulsion of the Palestinian popu-lation or part of it. As we are not dealing with a pre-political frontier, but one that is modern in its passions and conflicting national identities, the possibili-ty of assimilating the Palestinians into Israeli society, and thus transforming them while being transformed in the process, looks too formidable to contemplate. The existence of two societies that mix no more than oil and water enhances the danger of such removal.3.The character of Israeli nationalism has been transformed bit by bit from its liberal beginnings to the beginning of an integral nationalism. Zionism, in the estimation of Weissbrod, “has turned full circle.”61 Israel's two periods of frontier settlement - from the 1880s to 1948 and from 1967 on - are different, but contain many similarities. Just as the frontier situation changed so did Israeli nationalism, while remaining tied to its frontier circumstances.
In the first era, Jewish-Arab relations were essentially mediated by the central authority of the British Mandate; in the second, both the colonial and the settlers' roles were played out by the same national group, giving Israeli-Palestinian confrontations on the West Bank particularly ominous contours. The pre-state Jewish community operated from a position of weakness and its dominant sectors were predisposed toward compromise with the Palesti-nian national movement. Today, Israeli strength has led to intransigence. Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine flared up at times of massive influx of Jewish refugees. Currently this is scarcely so. Finally, Jewish pioneers, like other brands of revolutionary nationalists experimented with novel forms of social organization and relations. No more.Turner concluded that popular democracy was the outcome of the frontier situation of the United States. In Israel, I believe, the erosion of the demo-cratic structures is hinted at by her frontier processes. There already exists a dual legal system: Israeli settlers are adjudicated under Israeli law and the Palestinian Arabs live under military law that has for all practical purposes revised the previous Jordanian legal system out of existence.62 In addition there is a stringent enforcement of the law against its Arab violators and often benign neglect of Jewish offenders, especially in matters concerning land ownership.63
But the question concerning the impact of the increased demographic, and ultimately cultural and political, pressures of the growing settler population on the Palestinians, and the latter's potentially more embittered and militant defensive and offensive practices, on the internal democracy of Israel proper, also must be raised. Can the Israeli personality, institutions and forms of domination created in the West Bank, be prevented from filtering through into the mainstream of Israeli society, and subverting the spirit, even if not necessarily the formal expressions, of its democracy? Should democracy give way under the demand for “unquestioning assent to governmental decisions” then the third of Hayes's criteria of integral nationalism would have been implemented.