Jamie Hakim PhD Thesis Amended

346 Pages·2014·1.94 MB·English

by  Jamie Hakim

AFFECT AND CULTURAL CHANGE:
THE RISE OF POPULAR ZIONISM IN
THE BRITISH JEWISH COMMUNITY
AFTER THE SIX DAY WAR (1967)

JAMIE HAKIM

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements of the University of East London for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy

September 2012
Abstract

In current Jewish Studies scholarship there is a broad consensus that
the Arab-Israeli war of June 1967 caused both an intense emotional response
in Britain’s Jewish community and a change in the relationship this community
had with the State of Israel. What this scholarship has yet to provide is either
a detailed account of the ways that the June 1967 war impacted on this
community or a sustained theorisation of how the intensity generated by a
world-historical event might bring about change.

This thesis attempts to address these gaps by interviewing twelve
British Jews who lived through their community’s response to the war and
supplement this data with original archival research, adding detail that is
currently missing from the historical record.

It then interprets this data using a cultural studies approach grounded,
primarily, in the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. In using this
approach this thesis reveals that it was the intense affectivity generated by the
Zionist representation of the war as the ‘Six Day War’ that caused the
community to change in the post-1967 conjuncture. It then identifies these
changes as cultural – occurring on the planes of identity, representation,
everyday life, cultural practice and, most crucially, affectivity. In revealing the
centrality of affect in the impact of the war on the British Jewish community,
this thesis argues that the hegemonic form of Zionism that emerges within
that community after 1967 is ‘Popular Zionism’, defined as an intensely
charged affective disposition towards the State of Israel that is lived out in the
cultural identities, everyday lives and cultural practices of British Jews.

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Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………. i

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………….. vii

Chapter 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………1

1. The origins of this thesis……………………………………………………….1
2. Chapter outlines…………………………………………………………………3
3. The originality of this thesis…………………………………………………....6
4. The politics of this thesis……………………………………………………….8

Chapter 2. Theoretical Framework: Cultural Studies, Deleuze and
Guattari and the Impact of the Six Day War on the British Jewish
Community ………………………………………………………………………..10

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………10
2. Literature review……………………………………………………………….13
2.1. Psychoanalysis and Zionism: Jacqueline Rose ……………………….15
2.2. The affective turn and cultural change…………………………………..19
3. A cultural studies approach..…………………………………………………23
4. Gramsci.………………………………………………………………………..24
4.1. Gramsci’s ontology………………………………………………………..25
4.2. Gramsci and cultural change…………………………………………….28
4.3. A Gramscian reading of the rise of Popular Zionism after the Six Day
War…………………….…………………………………………………………30
5. Laclau…………………………………………………………………………..33
5.1. Laclau’s ontology ………………………………………………………....34
5.2. Laclau and cultural change ………………………………………………36
5.3. A Laclauian reading of the rise of Popular Zionism after The Six Day
War .……………………………………………………………………………...40
6. Deleuze and Guattari …………………………………………………………43
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6.1. Deleuze and Guattari’s ontology…………………………………………44
6.1.1. Affect in Deleuze and Guattari’s ontology ………………………….46
6.1.2. Desire, affect and power relations in Deleuze and Guattari’s
ontology……….………………………………………………………………..49
6.2. Deleuze and Guattari, affect and cultural change ……..……………...50
6.3. Outline of a Deleuzo-Guattarian reading of the rise of Popular Zionism
after the Six Day War..…………………………………………………………52

Chapter 3. Methodology……………………………………………………….. 54

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...54
2. Self-reflexivity: positioning myself within the research……………………...54
2.1. My relationship to Israel and Zionism……………………………………..55
3. Methodology……………………………………………………………………..61
3.1. The sample…………………………………………………………………..65
3.2. Recruiting participants ……………………………………………………..67
3.3. Conducting the interviews………………………………………………….68
3.4. Problems encountered doing the interviews …………………………….70
3.5. Archival research …………………………………………………………...73
3.6. British Jewish sociology ……………………………………………………75
4. Ethics……………………………………………………………………………..76

Chapter 4. Affect and Zionism in the British Jewish Assemblage
1880–1967 …………………………………………………………………………79

1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………...79
2. DeLanda’s assemblage theory..……………………………………………….80
2.1. Lawrence Grossberg: affect, assemblage, cultural change…………....86
3. An assemblage analysis of the British Jewish community in 1960s Britain
3.1. Territorialisations: population and immigration…………………………..90
3.2. Territorialisations: areas of settlement…………...……………………….91
4. Relations of exteriority: the British Jewish assemblage’s shifting location in
British society………………………………………………………………………93
4.1 Upward social mobility: class and employment…………………………..93
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4.2. Relations of exteriority: the shifting location of Jews in Britain’s racial
hierarchies………………………………………………………………………...97
4.2.1. Relations of Exteriority: Intermarriage……………………………….103
5. Flows of affectivity …………………………………………………………….103
6. Coding: coding Jewishness in 1960s popular culture …………………….107
7. The History of Zionism in Britain and the British Jewish relationship to Israel
1890–1967………………………………………………………………………...111
7.1. Zionism in Britain: 1880–1914 …………………………………………...112
7.2. Zionism in Britain: 1917–1929 …………………………………………...114
7.3. Zionism in Britain: 1929–1939 .…………………………………………..116
7.4. Zionism in Britain: 1939–1967 …………………………………………...119
8. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..122

Chapter 5. The Arab-Israeli War of June 1967: An Historical Account .124

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………..124
2. The wider context: 1948–1966 ………………………………………………126
2.1. Inter-Arab relations………………………………………………………...126
2.1.1. Divisions within the ‘Arab nation’ .…………………………...…..…..127
2.1.2. Arab cooperation in the 1960s ……………………………………….129
2.2. Arab-Israeli tensions in the 1960s ………………………………………130
3. “The Catalysts” ………………………………………………………………..132
4. The May/June Crisis: Brinkmanship and Miscalculations…………………135
5. The War …………………………………………….………………………….143
5.1. Israel’s victory/the Arabs’ loss …………………………………………...152
6. After the ceasefire …………………………………………………………….154
6.1. The Palestinian refugees …………………………………………………155
7. Postscript: the effect of the war on Great Britain ………………………….156

Chapter 6. May–June 1967: A History of Intensities ……………………..158

1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………….158
2. DeLanda, Deleuze and intensive processes of ontological change……..160
3. Thesis…………………………………………………………………………...168
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4. Analysis…………………………………………………………………………169
4.1. The Trigger: The Six Day War..………………………………………….169
4.1.1. The British Jewish perception of the Middle East Crisis………..…170
4.2. Intensive process: terror ………………………………………………….183
4.3. The becoming Body-without-Organs of the British Jewish
assemblage……………………………………………………………………...186
4.4. Intensive processes: exultation..…………………………………………194
4.5. The cancerous Body-without-Organs of the fascist …………………...203
5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...205

Chapter 7. The Production of Hegemonic British Jewish Cultural Identity
after the Six Day War ..………………..……………………………………….207

1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………….207
2. Existing approaches to the place of Israel and Zionism in British Jewish
cultural identity …………………………………………………………………...209
2.1. Jewish cultural studies ……………………………………………………210
3. Deleuze and Guattari against cultural identity ……………………………..211
4. A Guattarian approach to cultural identity ………………………………….213
5. A Guattarian analysis of the shifting position of Israel in hegemonic British
Jewish identity…………………………………………………………………….217
5.1. The heterogeneous elements that constitute British Jewish identity…219
5.2. The place of Israel in pre-1967 hegemonic British Jewish identity .....220
5.2.1. Representations of Israel in hegemonic pre-1967 British Jewish
identity………………………………………………………………...………..221
5.2.2. The affectivity catalysed by the pre-1967 representation of Israel.221
5.2.3. Pre-1967 Zionist activity………………………………………………222
5.2.4. The place of Israel in pre-1967 hegemonic British Jewish identity.224
5.2.5. Conclusion: Israel in pre-1967 hegemonic British Jewish identity..225
5.3. The effect of the Six Day War on hegemonic British Jewish identity...225
5.3.1. Post-1967 representation of Israel and Israelis…………………….226
5.3.2. The place of Israel in post-1967 hegemonic British Jewish
identity…………………………………………………………………………..230
5.3.3. The affects catalysed by the post-1967 representation of Israel…234
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5.3.3.1. The affectivity of being a Jew in Britain………………………….238
6. The ethical implications of the position of Israel within hegemonic post-67
British Jewish identity …………………………………………………………...242

Chapter 8. The Rise of Popular Zionism in the British Jewish Community
after 1967 ………………………………………………………………………...247

1. Introduction ……………………………………………….……………………247
2. Ideology, the Popular and affect: Gramsci, CCCS and Grossberg ……...248
2.1. Gramsci and ideology……………………………………………………..249
2.2. Grossberg: affect and the Popular……………………………………....253
3. Thesis…………………………………………………………………………...257
4. Classical Zionism………………………………………………………………258
4.1. Negation of the diaspora and Zionism as Colonialism………………...261
5. Popular Zionism………………………………………………………………..265
5.1. Pre-cursors to Popular Zionism: Philanthropic Zionism, Instant Zionism,
New Zionism ……………………………………………………………………266
5.2. Popular Zionism: The becoming hegemonic of Zionist ideology……..268
5.3. Popular Zionism and Colonialism………………………………………..272
5.4. Popular Zionism not Classical Zionism …………………………………274
5.4.1. Zionism and the institutional plane ………………………………….275
5.4.2. Aliyah …………………………………………………………………...277
5.5. Popular Zionism as affect ………………………………………………..279
5.5.1. Affect and physically being in Israel …………………………………285
5.6. Popular Zionism and popular culture ……………………………………290
5.6.1. Pop cultural consumption …………………………………………….290
5.7. Postscript…………………………………………………………………...294
6. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...295

Chapter 9. Conclusion………………………………………………………….298

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………….304
Appendix 1. Interviewee Profiles …………………………………………….333
Appendix 2. Interview Transcripts …………………………………………..339
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Acknowledgements

Whilst researching this PhD has been a solitary task its completion would
have been impossible without the help, advice and support of numerous
people.

The first are my supervisors Haim Bresheeth, Jeremy Gilbert and Maggie
Humm who have been invaluable to this PhD from as far back as 2002/2003
when they each taught me during my MA in Cultural Studies at UEL.

I would also like to thank both my parents who never stop being
extraordinarily generous, and Mario and Terry for everything they have done
over the past five years. I would like to thank Davide especially because
without his patience, cool head, kindness and constant support this PhD
would never have been finished. I am also grateful to Tom, Nicola, Sarah,
Masi and all the members of the Centre for Cultural Studies Research at UEL
for, in different ways, providing a support network and for exchanging ideas
that in some form or other appear in this thesis.

I would like to thank the University of East London for the financial support
they gave me. I am also grateful to the different archives for aiding me in
conducting my research – the British Newspaper Archive, the archive of the
Jewish Museum in London, the Israeli State Archive, the Central Zionist
Archive, the Wiener Collection at the University of Tel Aviv, and the Parkes
Library at the University of Southampton. I am particularly thankful to Eliav for
his skills as a translator and for helping me through the Israeli archives.
Finally I would like to thank my interviewees who were so generous in giving
me not only their time but also their recollections that have constituted such
an important part of this PhD.

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Chapter 1

Introduction

1. The origins of this thesis

“The ‘internal cohesion and solidity’ of Zionism has completely ‘eluded the
understanding of Arabs’. As has the ‘intertwined terror and exultation’ out of
which it was born; or in other words ‘what Zionism meant for the Jews’. It is
the affective dimension, as it exerts its pressure historically, that has been
blocked from view.”1

(Rose, 2007, p. 197)

“I think, if cultural studies as a practice is a fairly significant departure from the
‘normal’ and dominant practices of the western academy, it is a challenge in a
number of ways. One: being contextual. But two is precisely because it both
recognises ‘feeling’ as part of its study, and also because it allows feeling as
part of its practice, so in that way it has something over many forms of
intellectual production.”

(Grossberg, 2010, p. 335)

“Only … after the Six Day War in June 1967… did concern for and
identification with Israel’s fate become central to what it meant to be a Jew in
Britain.”

(Endelman, 2002, p. 235)

The idea for this thesis originated at the intersection of two different
intellectual concerns. The first was an interest in the extraordinary power a
certain idea of the State of Israel has in contemporary British Jewish culture
or what Jacqueline Rose calls in the above quote the “‘internal cohesion and
solidity’ of Zionism” – what Zionism has meant for the Jews. As a British Jew
of Israeli heritage who has fallen out of love2 with Zionism (see Chapter 3) I
have experienced first hand the ‘intertwined terror and exultation’ out of which
Zionism is born and wanted to get a fuller sense of how the affective
dimension of Zionism exerted its pressure historically.

1 Rose is quoting Edward Said’s The Question of Palestine (1992).
2 As will soon become clear, the word ‘love’ is carefully chosen here.
1
This desire to understand Zionism’s affective dimension leads to the
second intellectual concern governing this thesis. Over the past fifteen years
there has been an ‘affective turn’ in humanities scholarship (Gorton, 2007;
Blackman and Venn, 2010), in which critics have begun sustained
explorations into the sensuous, corporeal, visceral, intensive, embodied,
emotional, volitional, libidinal, passionate… i.e. the affective3 dimensions of
culture. Different theorists have been used to understand affect within the
affective turn; for reasons explained below (and at length in Chapter 2), this
thesis uses a cultural studies approach rooted in the philosophy of Gilles
Deleuze and Felix Guattari as exemplified by the work of Lawrence Grossberg
(and others). So as much as this thesis is interested in the specificity of
Zionism’s affective dimensions it is also interested in what cultural studies
informed by Deleuzo-Guattarian theory can reveal about how affect operates
in culture more generally.

In a bid to explore these concerns, I have chosen the case study of the
impact of the Arab-Israeli war of June 19674 on the British Jewish community.
There were different reasons for choosing this as a case study. The first was
that it is a mainstay of Jewish Studies and Jewish historiography that the 1967
war generated a tremendous emotional response in global Jewry5 so using it
as a case study would provide an opportunity to theorise how world-historical

3 Different critics use different definitions of affect in the affective turn. This thesis uses Brian
Massumi’s definition of affect outlined in his introduction of Deleuze and Guattari’s A
Thousand Plateau’s: “a pre-personal intensity corresponding to the passage from one
experiential state of the body to another and implying an augmentation or diminution in that
body’s capacity to act” (in Deleuze and Guattari, 1980, p. xvii).

4 The war is given different names throughout the thesis: the June War, the June 1967 War,
the third Arab Israeli-War and the Six Day War. All but the last are used for stylistic variation.
The term the Six Day War is used specifically in reference to the Zionist representation of the
events of the war. The term emerged in the Israeli press shortly after the Israeli victory. The
term is imbued with Israeli triumphalism, designed to invoke the Bible’s six days of creation
(Segev, 2005, pp. 450–451) It also suggests that the effects of the war are over, when the
continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights and the Israeli siege of
Gaza demonstrate that they are not. The term Six Day War is used in the thesis only in
reference to the Zionist representation of events.
5 The length of the following list of references indicates the consensus around this idea:
(Alderman, 1992; Bar-Nir, 1969; Benbassa, 2007; Ben-Moshe and Segev, 2007; Cohen and
Kahn-Harris, 2004; Davidson, 1967/1968; Endelman, 2002; Gould, 1984; Gross, 1967/1968,
Kosmin et al., 1997; Lederhendler, 2000; Mankowitz, 1967/1968; Marks, 1967, 1967/1968;
Oren, 2002; Sacks, 1991; Schindler, 2007(b); Segev, 2005; Staub, 2004; Taft, 1974).
2