The Unspoken Rule About Zionism Was Broken

For more than a century, Zionists have understood that the Zionist project involved doing some unpleasant things, and it was best to keep quiet about those things.

Theodor Herzl realized this as early as 1891. He confided in his diary that “we must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us” and “we shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border,” adding that “the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly.” [Emphasis added].

The State of Israel has broken the unspoken rule. Israeli soldiers have been publishing videos of themselves blowing up dozens of residential neighborhoods in Gaza. Jewish Israeli leaders have been publicly declaring their intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza while Jewish Israeli journalists have been calling on the military to flatten the entire Strip. Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu himself likened Israel’s enemy to Amalek twice, Amalek being the people the Biblical Israelites were instructed to commit a genocide against.

Of course, not all pro-war Israelis have forgotten the rule. The Israeli judge appointed to the ICJ by Israel, Aharon Barak, voted in support of South Africa’s claim about incitement to genocide. For Barak, the problem was not what Israel was doing, the problem was what Israeli leaders were saying. They were violating the unspoken rule about Zionism. When removing Palestinians from their homes, and making it impossible for them to return, best to do it discreetly.

The Zionist leader Jacob Thon (1880-1950), who worked at the Palestine Land Development Co. buying up land from Arabs in the 1910s, believed that “of course” transferring the Arabs to Transjordan was desirable. But, Thon warned, if the Zionists talked about transfer openly their chances of accomplishing it would diminish. Any steps to “transfer” Arabs would have to be taken “privately.”

During the 1920s, Israel Zangwill (1864-1926) frequently wrote and spoke openly of the removal of the Palestinian Arab population of Palestine. In his view, that was necessary to establish a Jewish democratic state, and so Palestinian Arabs often cited Zangwill’s writings as evidence of Zionism’s nefarious aims. Zionist leaders learned an important lesson from Zangwill’s frankness: “under no circumstances should they talk as though the Zionist program required the expulsion of the Arabs, because this would cause the Jews to lose the world’s sympathy,” in Tom Segev’s words.

Golda Meir also understood the importance of doing things quietly. By 1971, Israeli ministers were going on media roadshows in their newly established settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Geneva Conventions of 1948 prohibit states from transferring their civilian population onto land occupied in war, something obvious to Meir but apparently not her ministers. “Before we move forward with our discussion,” Meir said at the outset of a 1971 cabinet meeting, “there's something I'd like to ask. It was our habit that for anything that has to do with settlements, outposts, land expropriations and so on, we simply do and do not talk [about it]."

Until recently, the Israeli government appreciated the importance of doing the expulsions and the expropriations quietly. For more than a decade, Israeli archivists have been scouring the Israeli archives on a hunt for documents related to the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes. Hundreds of documents have been concealed in “a systematic effort to hide evidence of the Nakba,” or Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948.​

Israelis have generally understood that, whenever the matter pertains to removing Palestinians from their homes, or settling Jews in those homes, the actions must be done quietly to avoid attention. That’s why, in November 2020, Israel chose US Presidential election day to carry out its largest forced displacement in over four years, making 73 Palestinians in Khirbet Humsa homeless. That’s also why Israeli Jewish settlers usually take over Palestinian homes in the middle of the night (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Incidentally, that’s also why Israel bombs Gaza at night. That’s also why Israel does not allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza and why journalists native to Gaza are so often targeted. They are giving a voice to what Israel doesn't want you to hear, and they are shining a light on what Israel doesn’t want you to see.

Perhaps Zionism should embrace a new slogan. Do Zionism quietly, discreetly, under the cover of darkness.