The
post-Zionists’ critique of Israel and the Zionist enterprise revolves
around the struggle over who and what will determine Israel’s
cultural-ideological future. That struggle focuses on secularism versus
religious orientations, particularist national identity versus
cosmopolitan assimilationsim, individualism versus the collectivity,
Jewish national identity for Israel versus ethnic relativism. These
topics have been in dispute among Jews since the earliest days of
Zionism. In addition to these well-known conflicts, the Israeli version
of anti-Zionism includes the conflict over the legitimacy of accepted
national symbols shared by all of Israel’s Jewish citizens as opposed to
the adoption of other national symbols representing the Arabs. The
post-Zionist myths concentrate on the right to self-centeredness to
replace the collectivity as the critical substance of the Jewish-Zionist
ethos. The latter would replace Zionism’s Jewish identity with an
individualistic, a-historical, cultural amalgam. The author argues that
these latter approaches indubitably lead to a dismantling of the Jewish
state.