Meir Margalit emigrated from Argentina at the age of 20 to settle in Israel, where he has been for more than half a century. He dreamed of a utopian Zionism that he had read about in texts and books, and he was influenced by the ideas of his father, a Holocaust survivor, who told him that the State of Israel was the only safe place for Jews.
He served in the Army in Gaza and was wounded in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when he began to reflect on “the price of that Greater Israel.” The Zionism he had studied was very far from the Zionism he lived: “For a few years we were a country with an Army. Today we are an Army that drags an entire country behind it,” says Margalit in an interview with elDiario.es.
The Israeli peace and human rights activist, historian and former politician goes one step further: “We wanted to be Athens and we became a Sparta.” A totally militarized society that has also ended up being “the most unsafe place in the world for Jews.” “If there is one thing that this war has made clear, it is that Zionism has been a great failure,” he says. Margalit was co-founder of the NGO Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD).
Margalit speaks with this newspaper on the occasion of the publication of his book ‘The eclipse of Israeli society’ (Catarata), in which he describes himself as an exile in his own land and studies and analyzes the social state after the Hamas attacks on October 7 of last year.
He describes himself as an Israeli exiled in his own land. What made you move to Israel in 1972?
Zionism. Pure Zionism. My father was a Holocaust survivor and since I was little he told me that the only place where a Jew can feel safe is the State of Israel. He belonged to that generation that was constantly afraid that there would be another holocaust. In Argentina, at that time, and we historians know this today, Perón had given refuge to many Nazis for economic reasons. My father and the people of his generation were convinced that the Jew in the diaspora is in danger. So it was very clear that at some point, when I was a little older, I was going to end up in Israel.
There is no one to negotiate with because we have destroyed all the possible interlocutors that there could be and we are responsible for weakening them and transforming them into irrelevant
You served in Gaza and in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, what made you change your position? When and why did you move to the pacifist camp?
Already during my military service I realized that some of the comrades in my regiment had attitudes towards the Palestinians that I found very shocking and grotesque. Since I was a new immigrant, I had no right to give my opinion or argue with them. He saw and was silent. I looked at them in silence, but inside I began to realize that there was something that was not working well here, that the Zionism that I had and the position of the Zionists here in Israel were very different.
I think the primary change comes after I was injured. In the hospital, I began to reflect and understand the price of this Greater Israel ideology and came to the conclusion that it is not worth it. The price is too expensive. From that moment on I gradually moved from right-wing Zionism to left-wing Zionism and from left-wing Zionism to non-Zionist left.
Why do you argue that Zionism has changed so much from its origins to today?
I, like many emigrants, have been very naive and have grown up with the Zionism that we read. Everything we knew about Zionism we read in material written by Israelis, the speeches of Ben-Gurion, of Golda Meir… They all had a very romantic and even socialist tinge.
That was the idea we grew up with. Obviously, with the naivety of someone who does not see things with his own eyes and is based only on writings and descriptions formulated by people who intend to describe a romantic, just and socialist society. Well, after a short time I was able to see reality and understand that there was a great distance between what I read and what I lived.
Does this left-wing Zionism exist today?
Unfortunately, no. There is a political party, Labor, that calls itself Zionist and left-wing. Maybe it could be called a social democrat, but it has nothing left-wing. Meretz – a party that has now disappeared and to which I belonged – also declared itself Zionist and left-wing.
Zionism and socialism are not complementary ideologies. While Zionism is a nationalist ideology, socialism claims to be internationalist. There are many sociologists who maintain that Israeli Labor has never been socialist because Zionism always prevailed and there was no room for pure socialism.
Today it is clearer than ever that the most unsafe place for a Jew on the planet is the State of Israel. If there is one thing that this war has made clear, it is that Zionism has been a great failure.
He says the idea of returning the land and ending the occupation is more urgent than ever, but at the same time it seems to have less support than ever in Israeli society. Why have the parties that support peace disappeared or are practically politically insignificant?
The fear factor is the dominant factor and the one that determines the people’s vote. People look for the party that offers a tough and aggressive military solution, and they cannot understand that in a conflict of this magnitude the only solution is negotiation. Negotiate with who? They wonder. With those who have killed and raped us? That is true, but the only alternative to not negotiating is to continue shedding blood until the end of days. It is an alternative that I cannot accept. I cannot leave my children and grandchildren a country in which blood continues to be spilled.
Today it is true that there is no one to negotiate with. And there is not, among other things, because we have destroyed all the possible interlocutors that there could be. We take care of weakening them and making them irrelevant. This is what we have done to Abu Mazen [presidente de la Autoridad Palestina]. We have led the Palestinian people to extremism and that has led to people in Israel becoming much more extremist.
Why do you say that Israel has become the Sparta of the Middle East?
Because for a few years we were a country with an Army. Today we are an Army that drags an entire country behind it. The Army is the one that sets the tone and sets Israeli policies. The Government itself is full of retired generals and the myth of the heroic Army soldier is such that every young man dreams of one day having a weapon and killing the enemy. When that is the ideal, the only thing that comes to mind is the Spartan. We wanted to be an Athens and we became a Sparta.
But at the same time he argues that there is an important division between the Army and the current Government.
TRUE. This is new and it has to do with the fact that the first thing he did [el primer ministro Benjamín] Netanyahu after October 7 was to blame the Army, which in turn reacted by accusing him of lying. I don’t know if relations between the Government and the Army will improve, but the Army is so big and so strong that it will most likely last over time and return to the place it was before October 7.
Another proof of what I am saying is that Netanyahu has tried to fire the Defense Minister twice because he sided with the Army and has not been able to.
Has Israel chosen to be a Jewish State to the detriment of a democratic State?
Although Israelis will tell you that there is no problem with being a Jewish state and a democratic state, it is similar to the issue of being a Zionist and a socialist. What I maintain is that, if a country decides above all to be Jewish, then obviously the Arab minority is going to have a different status within the country. And if within the same country Arab citizens have a lower legal and de facto status than Jews, that cannot be called democracy. It is an ethnocracy, that is, a democracy only for people of Jewish origin.
Although there is a political party, Labor, which calls itself Zionist and left-wing. Zionism and socialism are not complementary ideologies. While the first is a nationalist ideology, the second claims to be internationalist.
You repeat throughout your book the idea of the failure of the State of Israel, what are you referring to?
What I’m basically saying is that Zionism has failed. He promised to create a space on the planet where Jews could live safely, not like in the diaspora, not like in Europe. A space where there would be no anti-Semitism, pogroms, genocides… Today it is clearer than ever that the most unsafe place for a Jew on the planet is the State of Israel.
If there is one thing that this war has made clear, it is that Zionism has been a great failure. It is true that he has built a state, resurrected the language and done good things, but if the safety of the Jews was his basic intention, he has failed.
He maintains that the State of Israel suffers from social divisions that are impossible to resolve, which is why he supports the division of the country into three independent cantons: liberal-Jewish, religious-Jewish and Arab. Could you develop this idea?
For the most part, intellectuals speak of two cantons: one Arab and one Jewish. I, being from Jerusalem, know better than intellectuals from Tel Aviv or Haifa the conflict between Orthodox and secular. For this reason, I add that this country must be divided. Arabs have the right to self-direction, Orthodox people have the right to have full autonomy, and secular people do too. They are three groups that speak different languages and travel through different planets and, given that they do not have any common denominator, it does not make sense to continue maintaining the current political framework in which at least two thirds will always feel segregated. It is another of the many utopias that I present, knowing that they are not real, but they must be put on the table.
And is that apart from a Palestinian State or is the solution through a single binational State?
Talking today about a solution and one model or another has no basis. We are talking about the day after when everything is over, but the day after is not seen. There is no horizon. It seems that this tragedy will never end. Talking about possible solutions does not seem correct to me because there is no solution to be seen here. There is no possible formula.
Israel is an ethnocracy, that is, a democracy only for people of Jewish origin
Still, I greatly respect the Palestinian Authority and, since the Palestinian Authority wants its own state, I support the idea of two states for two nations. In my utopia, however, I prefer a binational state. A single State for both peoples. I hope that the Palestinian partners, after having their own state, will come to the conclusion that it is better for everyone to establish an Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian federation.
How has the position of Israeli society changed since the October 7 attacks regarding the occupation and the Palestinians?
Society has become more extreme than it was before October 7. If at some point there were people who said that something had to be negotiated with the Palestinians—even though they were not clear about what they wanted to negotiate and without clearly knowing where the borders should pass—, those people no longer repeat the same thing today.
Many young people, at least until a year ago, knew clearly that the West Bank is not an organic part of Israel and they knew clearly that behind that famous wall that Ariel Sharon built starting in 2004 there is an entity that is not part of Israel, and that at some point we should reach an agreement. Those people have disappeared.
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