the last utopia: human rights in history by samuel moyn

Book Reviews

The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. By Samuel Moyn. Cambridge, MA& London: Harvard University Press, 2010.

The aim of Samuel Moyn’s book is to provide a new and historically based understanding ofthe proliferation of human rights in contemporary political discourse. His argument is twofold. His first – and negative – thesis is that human rights as they are currently understood arenot to be understood as a development of prior doctrines. He is especially dismissive of thosewho trace their origins to seventeenth and eighteenth centuries doctrines of natural rightsand the rights of man. These were, he argues, about the construction of state sovereignty,while contemporary doctrines of human rights are directed against state sovereignty. Moynalso rejects the idea that contemporary human rights originated in the various declarationsof human rights issued during the period immediately following the Second World War.Not only did these not challenge state sovereignty, but they were quickly marginalized bythe Cold War and issues about national self-determination (particularly in the context ofanti-colonialism). It was not until the late 1970s that human rights in the contemporarysense began to play a significant political role. This belated emergence of human rights as apolitical force should be understood – and this is Moyn’s positive thesis – as the product ofvery specific historical conditions. Some of these were pure contingency; for example, JimmyCarter’s adoption of human rights in his inauguration speech. Another was the espousal ofhuman rights by dissidents in the Soviet bloc and in China. Yet another condition – andthis is the one that plays a significant role in Moyn’s argument – was the loss of faith bypolitical activists in socialist and post-colonial visions of the future. In this context, humanrights provided a moral framework in terms of which some of the most urgent problemsmight be addressed without commitment to an overarching political program of the kind thatactivists now found discredited. Initially at least, human rights practice was minimalist in itsagenda, directed towards “catastrophe prevention.” But in more recent years, it has becomemore ambitious. As human rights activists have addressed issues of starvation and endemicpoverty, women’s rights, minority rights, not to speak of genocide, sexual crimes, and thelike, they have been led towards more ambitious goals of political transformation:

Though they were born as an alternative to grand political missions – or even as a moralcriticism of politics – human rights were forced to take on the grand political mission ofproviding a global framework for the achievement of freedom, identity, and prosperity (9).

Paradoxically, though human rights were born out of disillusion with utopias, they have nowbecome the “the last utopia.”

There is much in the book that is true and important. There is much more contingencyand, let us admit, luck in the emergence of the contemporary practice of human rights thantext book accounts might suggest. Moyn’s suggestion that the appeal of human rights wasthat they provided a minimalist agenda at a time when faith in more comprehensive politicalprojects had withered is persuasive. Also provocative and important is his argument thatrather than thinking of human rights as ideals that are somehow above politics, we ought tosee them as a particular form of politics, one that must compete with others. But there ismuch that is problematic. While the “alternative history” that Moyn provides contains muchrevealing detail, it overlooks significant continuities between contemporary human rights

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and their predecessor doctrines. And although there are important insights, he provides littleempirical support for his claims about the direction of current human rights practice. Whatis especially disappointing given his title is that Moyn provides little discussion of the keyconcept of utopia.

Let me begin with Moyn’s claim that contemporary conceptions of human rights aredistinct from seventeenth and eighteenth century doctrines of natural rights and the rightsof man. His argument here relies on the claim that the main role of the earlier conceptionsof right was to construct a new form of state sovereignty. No doubt this is true. But thisdid not exhaust their role. In the late eighteenth century, the rights of man were deployedto criticize torture (by Voltaire, Brissot), slavery (by Condorcet, Toussaint Louverture), andthe subordination of women (by Condorcet, Wollstonecraft). Those who used this rhetoricwere not primarily concerned to construct a new form of state power. Rather, they usedthe notion of a right common to all in order to draw attention to the plight of those who werebeing treated in ways that denied that they possessed these rights. There is a universalistic“logic” to the concept of a right that allowed its application beyond the boundaries originallytaken for granted. Moyn dismisses those who appeal to this “logic,” as if they imagine thatthe extension of scope was historically necessary. Of course it is not: semantics does notreplace politics. But then it is hard to find anyone who believed that it does; (too often, Moynoffers caricatured versions of the positions he is attacking). The point is that the conceptof a right common to all makes it available for political arguments against certain forms ofoppression or exclusion. This was one of the reasons that Edmund Burke was so opposedto it.

This does not detract from Moyn’s claim that the main role of these doctrines was toconstruct the modern form of state power. But he does not take sufficient note of the factthat the point of these doctrines was to limit that power. That the citizen had certain rightsagainst the state was taken to mean that resistance, even rebellion, might be justified whenthose rights were not recognized. Of course this did not translate into a right of agenciesexternal to the state to intervene on behalf of its citizens. The idea that external politicalagencies (except perhaps for the Church) might play this role had very little purchase onthe political thinking of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, once the idea ofsupranational agencies enters the political imagination, it is not difficult to make the movefrom rights of the citizen against the state to rights that might be exercised on behalf of thecitizen. In recent years, Joshua Cohen has made precisely this move. Human rights are rightsthat members might legitimately claim against the state, and when the state does not respectthose rights, it renders itself liable to international pressure or intervention. On this andsimilar accounts, there is a direct line of descent from the natural rights of the seventeenthcentury to the human rights of today.1

When Moyn turns to the flurry of attention that was paid to human rights in the immediatepost-war period, he makes a good case that this did not translate into effective politics, atleast for the first twenty years that followed. Indeed, given the confusing plethora of rightsthat were asserted in the 1947 United Nations Declaration, the politics of the Cold War, andthe importance of the anti-colonial movement, it is hard to see how a coherent human rightsprogram could have been developed in this period. But even so, Moyn overstates his case.He ignores the Nuremberg Trials, despite the precedent that it established and its (partial)recognition of the key concept of a crime against humanity. To be sure, many years were topass before there was to be an effective presence of human rights in international law, but atime lag does not negate influence. And there are some cases in which human rights wereeffectively embodied in institutions, most notably in the European Convention on Human

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Rights of 1950. Moyn himself mentions other examples from the 1950s and 1960s wherepoliticians and activists appealed to human rights. His typical response to these examples isrevealing of some of the weaknesses of his “alternative history.” A characteristic move is toclaim that when a person or agency appeals to human rights, this conceals, or is marginalto, the “real” (a word that is made to do a lot of work) concerns being pursued. But thisis much too easy. That an appeal is made to human rights is prima facie evidence of itspolitical force; otherwise it would not appear at all. Another response Moyn makes, oftenin tandem, is that the appeal to human rights (e.g. in the context of colonial struggles forself-determination) did not have the same sense as that which was to become dominant later,that is, human rights as a principle that is to be enforced on states by international agencies.But apart from the fact that this is, as will see, an extremely tendentious reading of currenthuman rights practice, it is also inappropriate in what is presented as an historical argument.To use a later understanding of a concept to evaluate an earlier is no way to do “alternative”history.

Let us return to the present. As I have mentioned, I found Moyn’s account of the(re-)emergence of human rights after the late 1970s, and especially of its appeal to thosedisillusioned with grander projects of political transformation, persuasive and enlightening.One aspect that he emphasizes is the shift from politics to morality; that is, to the idea thathuman rights encapsulated a moral principle that could be brought to bear on the tarnishedworld of politics. There was a certain hardheaded realism in this project. The task of humanrights was not to engage in controversial and ultimately disappointing projects of politicalchange but to focus on the worst of human miseries to see what could be done about them.But Moyn argues that with a kind of inevitability, human rights practitioners were led tobroaden their concerns. While civil and political rights were the priority for dissidents inthe Soviet Union, food and security were required for the victims of civil wars in Africa. Sohuman rights activists were forced to engage in projects of political and economic change.Moyn argues that there is a certain self-deception in contemporary human rights politics.While it presents its standpoint as that of morality, it has become – as perhaps it alwayswas – a political project. As such, it should be judged by the same criteria as other politicalprojects (though Moyn is not forthcoming about what these criteria should be).

To the extent that Moyn is arguing that the current practice of human rights shouldexamine the political content and ramifications of its own activity, this is a fair point. AsDavid Rieff has argued, a politics of human rights is inevitably a politics of the powerful.Those who appeal to human rights should consider not merely those who suffer, but thosewhose power will be enhanced by the actions they recommend. But Moyn’s point is morethan this. It is also that human rights have a political agenda of a particularly ambitious sort.It is directed towards a new utopia, a world without sovereign states, where human rightsreign supreme, enforced by the activities of cosmopolitan legal institutions and altruistichuman rights activists.

Although it is this theme that gives Moyn’s book its title, he does very little to justify orexplain it. No doubt there are proponents of “legalism” – I use the term in the sense givenit by Judith Shklar2 – who envisage a comprehensive legal order governing global affairs.Others may see the construction of a world of liberal democratic states as the way forwardfor human rights. But most human rights practitioners that I know are cynical both about howlaw works and the activities of liberal democratic states. For them, the human rights programis a defensive one: it is primarily concerned to protect individuals and groups from the worsthorrors of the current world, not to point the way to a new world order. Moyn himself providean excellent account of human rights carried on in this spirit. While he suggests that this has


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given way to more grandiose visions, he provides little detail to support this claim. While itis true is that human rights activists often involve themselves in piecemeal social engineering(small scale agriculture, village schools, health clinics, etc.), these projects are a long wayfrom a global utopia.

It may be that that any political program – and Moyn is quite right to argue that humanrights constitute a political program – must contain a vision of an alternative world in whichits values are realized. But even if this is true, we need to distinguish different forms of thisvision. One problem with past utopias is that they have lent themselves to vast projects ofsocial engineering in which the sacrifice of the present generation is justified in the nameof an idealized future. A good deal of the attraction of human rights was precisely that theyprovided a way of identifying the values that are threatened by utopianism of this sort. Soif human rights are the “last utopia,” it is not because they offer a utopian vision of thetraditional kind. What they provide is a normative constraint, not only on the content of suchvisions, but also on the means that may be used to achieve them. Of course, it is impossibleto avoid the question of how these constraints are to be institutionalized, and it may bethat utopian thinking will be a necessary part of this story. But it seems unlikely that thiswill involve a vision of a global order of the kind that Moyn claims to have discovered incontemporary human rights.

From the seventeenth century onwards, theorists have argued that the law-governed con-stitutional state provides the political form in which basic rights will be recognized andprotected. While we are now more than ever aware of the problems and limitations of thisanswer, it is not clear that we have discovered an alternative. What has become clear over thepast sixty years is that transnational agencies are also necessary. These should include legalinstitutions, which, rather than supplanting domestic tribunals, will operate when these areineffective or non-existent and to serve as courts of appeal where they fail to protect humanrights. Other transnational bodies will also be necessary, including agencies to provide aid,security, and even to intervene within the borders of existing states. While these agencieswould diminish sovereignty in certain respects, their role would essentially be supplementaryto that of the constitutional state. In the foreseeable future, at least, the state will continueto be the primary form through which human rights are protected, and most human rightsactivity will be directed towards getting it to do a better job of it. In this respect, there is,despite manifest differences, a good deal more continuity between contemporary practiceand traditional doctrines of right than Moyn is prepared to recognize.

NOTES

1. See Joshua Cohen, “Minimalism About Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope For?” Journal ofPolitical Philosophy 12 no. 2 (2004): 190–213.

2. See Judith Shklar, Legalism: Law, Morals, and Political Trials (Cambridge, MA & London:Harvard University Press, 1964; 2nd Edition, 1986). Many of Moyn’s criticism of the moralism of humanrights seem close to Shklar’s criticisms of legalism. It is a pity that Moyn does not engage with her work.

Ross Poole teaches philosophy and politics at the New School for Social Research, NewYork. Recent publications include “Two Ghosts and an Angel,” Constellations Vol. 16, No.1 (2009); “Enacting Oblivion,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society Vol.22, No. 2 (2009); and “Misremembering the Holocaust: Universal Symbol, Nationalist Icon,or Moral Kitsch?” in Memory and the Future: Transnational Politics, Ethics, and Society(London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).



This Regime Which Is Not One: Occupation and Democracy between the Sea and theRiver (1967-). By Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir. Israel: Resling Publishing, 2008.

The Time of the Green Line: A Jewish Political Essay. By Yehouda Shenhav. Israel: AmOved Publishers Ltd, 2010.

Israel’s political pendulum has clearly shifted to the right in recent years, and the prospect ofa two-state solution seems more untenable than ever. More and more voices, even from theZionist center and left, are beginning to reflect on other forms of solutions – namely, a one-state solution or a bi-national state. In a recent op-ed in the daily Haaretz, A.B. Yehoshua,one of Israel’s prominent authors and a well-known member of the Zionist left, wrote,“Even if many of us believe that it is possible to prevent the creation of such a [bi-national]state through forceful political steps, there still remains an obligation to prepare for it, bothintellectually and emotionally, just as we prepare for other states of emergency.”1 Someintellectuals in Israel would argue that A.B. Yehoshua’s recognition of a possible bi-nationalstate is long overdue. In this respect, two relatively new books (in Hebrew), by AriellaAzoulay and Adi Ophir and Yehouda Shenhav respectively, challenge what they regard tobe a programmatic separation between “Israel itself” or Israel “proper” – the territory of thepre-1967 State of Israel inside the Green Line – and the Occupied Palestinian Territories(OPT). As these books argue, this division does not stem from empirical conditions, butfrom a deep desire to part from the other. This is the reason that A.B. Yehoshua considersthe one-state solution a “state of emergency.”

Azoulay, Ophir, and Shenhav are among Israel’s leading intellectuals. Adi Ophir andYehouda Shenhav consecutively served as the editor of Israel’s leading platform for criticaltheory, the journal Theory and Criticism. Ariella Azoulay published extensively in Theoryand Criticism as well as in other academic platforms and has been a major force behindcritical theory in Israel.

While Shenhav’s book was written expressly as a political essay for the general public,Azoulay and Ophir’s book, despite appealing to a non-academic audience as well, is anacademic work. Azoulay and Ophir offer a deep and wide-ranging structural analysis of thevarious control apparatuses on which the occupation regime over the OPT is founded. Despitethe different governing practices applied in the OPT, they do not regard this control systemas something separate from Israel’s regime. In fact, they argue that the Israeli regime is“two-in-one” – that is, one governing system that presides over two connected, yet different,political zones. Overall their book presents a fresh and powerful articulation of the Israelipolitical system. Shenhav, for his part, puts forward a bold argument. His objective is todebunk the political agenda that separates the two sides of the Green Line. This idea issignificant today since it orients the Zionist left, the nationalist center, and parts of the rightas well.

Both books, but particularly Shenhav’s book, admittedly work towards an idealistic solu-tion. Shenhav readily admits that his solutions carry a utopian kernel. As he sees it, it is a taskof a public intellectual to point towards both what is possible and what is desirable, even ifat the time it seems utopian (164). At any rate, the merit of these books is not so much in thealternative solutions they provide, but in their sharp analyses of the Israeli political structureand of mainstream Jewish-Israeli political conceptions. For these reasons, these books areof great importance for anyone who seeks to understand Israel’s regime and contemporarypolitics. One can only hope that they will soon be translated into English and made accessibleto a broader audience.


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As noted, the authors share a premise that undercuts the prevailing perception of theoccupation as something provisional and external to the Israeli state. Azoulay and Ophir’sbasic argument is that the occupation is not a temporary project, but rather a sustainedapparatus that forms a part of the Israeli governance system. As they see it, the falseimpression of externality is perpetuated through the use of the word “occupation,” whichsupports the illusionary assumption that governance of these territories is a temporary project,rather than a part of the Israeli regime as a whole. Shenhav makes a similar argument andpoints directly at the Israeli Zionist left as the force behind this false conception. He contendsthat this group, which he refers to as the “Israeli liberal left,” is in fact not guided by acommitment to human rights values, but rather by the prospect of maintaining a Jewishmajority. For this reason – that is, for demographic reasons – it is important for the Israeliliberal left to maintain that the occupation is temporal and external.

The three authors claim that all the major Jewish political factions in Israel share thismisconception that portrays the occupation as an external and temporary condition. In fact,they argue that no Jewish-Israeli political group, right-wing or left-wing, has ever adoptedthe Israeli regime as is as its political platform. That is to say, one could not find any politicalparty, today or in the past, claiming that it wishes to maintain Israel’s relation with the OPTin its current condition. Instead, Jewish political parties tend to call either for a separationfrom the OPT or for an annexation of it. In doing so, both sides of the Jewish political mapcan claim that the occupation does not define the State of Israel. For Azoulay and Ophir, thefalse consensus, which maintains something permanent as temporal and external, worsensthe conditions for the occupied population. As they see it, even full annexation, withoutgranting Israeli citizenship to Palestinians, would have ensured that the Israeli regime was atleast accountable to the occupied population.

In many respects, Azoulay and Ophir’s achievement in putting forward one of the mostmeticulous analyses of the Israeli political system available to date stems from their relativemethodological freedom. As political philosophers, Azoulay and Ophir, unlike those in themore disciplined social sciences, do not seek a clear-cut definition. Instead, they concentrateon the question, “How does it work?” and their analysis is inspired by Gilles Deleuze andFelix Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus.

Generally speaking, Azoulay and Ophir assert that both sides of the Green Line are underthe same twofold political logic in which Jewish hegemony, not democracy, is its mostvaluable and protected feature. According to them, despite the fact that different apparatusesapply to each region, “Israel itself” and the OPT are two parts of the same regime. Theydemonstrate that these different apparatuses do not divide along the Green Line; rather, it isIsrael’s double political logic that dictates the actual division within its regime. On the onehand, the State of Israel is governed according to a territorial division (separation betweenthe two nationalities), while on the other hand, it follows a logic of a subordinate relationshipbetween citizens and non-citizens. Since these two logics contradict one another, neithercan fully realize itself (58). The only exception is Gaza, where the two political logics haveconverged since the 2005 withdrawal.

In articulating Israel’s twofold political logic, Azoulay and Ophir put forward a dualplateau theory. As I see it, this is the greatest contribution of the book. Accordingly, theydistinguish between the plateau of being governed and the plateau of partaking in govern-ment. This division, they suggest, is the outcome of Israel’s dual political logic of sepa-ration and subordination. In doing so, they forward previous conceptualization regardingthe division between Jews and Palestinians,2 and most importantly, include the OPT intheir formulation. The plateau of being governed applies chiefly to the difference between



citizens and non-citizens. In this respect, all Israeli citizens are protected by the Israeli law,although not in a totally equal fashion. As such, the conditions of Palestinian citizens areessentially better than those of non-citizen Palestinians. On the other hand, according to thesecond plateau of partaking in government, which applies chiefly to the ethnic differencebetween Jews and Palestinians, there is not much difference between citizen and non-citizenPalestinians. Despite their citizenship, Palestinians inside the Green Line are not modernpolitical subjects because they are excluded from partaking in the political process in anysignificant manner. The Knesset asserts that any Palestinian faction, or any party for thatmatter, that challenges the Jewish character of the state and calls for a state of all its citizens,will be regarded as posing a threat to the integrity of the state. Moreover, since the state’sinception, no Palestinian party3 has ever been invited to be part of the government coalition.

Shenhav, like Azoulay and Ophir, offers a reconfiguration of Israel’s political scheme. Hefocuses his attention on debunking the concept of separation, which is the motor behind thetwo-state solution. Shenhav’s point of departure is a critique of what he calls the unjustifiedsacredness of the Green Line. Overall, Shenhav rejects the notion that the occupation of 1967represents a watershed moment in Israel’s history. Instead, he asserts that the occupation of1967 is a node in a continuum in the history of the Zionist movement and the State of Israel.

According to Shenhav, the Green Line is an arbitrary border that over the years has beenselectively breached (as in East Jerusalem, for example), blurred by facts on the ground (a setof small towns that were established right on the Green Line), and erased and redrawn intothe map of Israel. Moreover, today, the security fence in the West Bank is not built along thepath of the Green Line. Shenhav’s argument is valid, but he downplays the fact that despitethese complications, most of the people living in the region as well as the internationalcommunity still recognize the Green Line as the border between the two communities.

Shenhav provides a sharp analysis of the political doctrine of the Israeli liberal left. Ashe argues, the liberal left focuses on the 1967 occupation, and it is therefore very importantfor them to keep the 1948 skeletons deep in the closet. Shenhav coins this attitude “the1967 paradigm.” He suggests that the peace process failed because Israelis and Palestiniansspeak in two different political and temporal languages. For the Israelis (as well as for themajority of the international community), the conflict is limited to the occupation of 1967,whereas the 1948 Nakba – “the disaster” – constitutes the crucial aspect of the conflict forthe Palestinians. In fact, from the Palestinian perspective, the occupation of 1967 can beregarded, to an extent, as a partial reunion.

In general, Shenhav argues that the 1967 paradigm is based on a deep desire to separatefrom the Palestinians as well as on a nostalgic gaze at the “good old” State of Israel before the1967 occupation. According to this narrative, the period from 1948 to 1967 represents a timebefore Israel’s democracy went astray. In this account, 1967 was an accident that came uponIsraeli democracy. In order to assert this notion, certain historical events – for example, themilitary government imposed on Palestinian citizens between 1948 and 1966 that supportedthe massive expropriation of Palestinian land – are ignored. Additionally, for Shenhav, thenostalgic gaze also reflects a longing to return to the Ashkenasi4 hegemony. Thus, the 1967paradigm entails not only a desire to separate from Palestinians, but also a deep yearning toseparate entirely from the Levant and imagine Israel as a part of European culture.

Shenhav, like Azoulay and Ophir, points to the connections between the two sides ofthe Green Line. For him, this link stems from the political economy of the occupation. TheIsraeli liberal left has been an ardent supporter of the neoliberal transformation of the Israelieconomy. The decline of the welfare state inside the Green Line has been one outcome ofthis transformation. At the same time, however, an alternative welfare state for Jews has


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been established in the OPT. The social group that capitalized most on what became the onlyavailable welfare state has been the “third Israel” (i.e. a coalition between Mizhrachi Jews,5

Russian immigrants, and Orthodox Jews) (113–4). This group of settlers is less ideologicallymotivated. For the most part, this group finds refuge from the neo-liberal project in the set-tlements. Thus, pressure from one side of the Green Line orients outcomes on the other side.

According to the script of the 1967 paradigm, the settlers are the villains. But inShenhav’s opinion, the settlers are used as scapegoats by the Israeli liberal left. Theliberal left uses them to hide years of massive governmental support, which took placenot only under the leadership of the right-wing Likud party, but also under the leadership ofthe Labor party. Therefore, for Shenhav, the Israeli government is morally responsible forthe settlers and he is open to a solution that would keep the settlements. The Israeli liberalleft, however, wants to redeem itself on the backs of the settlers. That is to say, for the liberalleft, territorial concessions are regarded as redemption for the 1948 Palestinian Nakba.

Shenhav offers a new political litmus test that is based on one’s position regarding the1948 events and, more importantly, on one’s position towards the role that these events shouldplay, if any, in a prospective solution. This test, he argues, would reshuffle the Jewish politicalmap since it would put the liberal left together with the nationalistic center and the moderateright. On the other side of this new division we would find the radical left and the settlerswho recognize, in different capacities, the events of 1948. By thus drawing the boundary,Shenhav identifies a possibility of rather surprising political alliances. He recognizes a smallpocket of what he calls “democratic settlers” among the vast majority of settlers who support,in one way or another, a type of apartheid regime in a bi-national state. What characterizesthem as democratic settlers is that they are more open to a type of democratic solution, albeitone that maintains the settlements.

Above all, Shenhav appreciates the honesty of the settlers’ manifest political theology,which he sees as a stark contrast to the liberal left’s denial of the theological elements of itsown ideology. According to him, even the most secular liberal Zionist version is based onthe notion of a return to history and salvation in the form of a Jewish homeland (66–72).As Shenhav argues, at its core, it is still the bible that serves as justification for the Jewishexistence in the region. This is one of the main reasons why it is a mistake to regard 1967as a historical breaking point. The occupation of 1967 simply unveiled the secular mask ofthe Zionist movement. The occupation and Gush Emunim (the settlers’ original ideologicalgroup) are just more of the same.

One of the most fascinating moves that Shenhav makes in his book is taking whatmany regard as an impediment to any peaceful solution and turning it into a basis forreconciliation. In this respect, Shenhav wishes to make use of the theological dimension ofthe conflict. Shenhav follows Jose Casanova’s post-secular observation, according to whichliberal secularism is seen as the ideology of the minority.6 He therefore argues that anyeffective solution must address the theological interest of each group. Thus, the first steptowards a possible solution, he argues, would be to think about Jewish rights in the region. Bydoing so, Shenhav wishes to dismantle apriorically the politics of demography and the fear ofa democratic solution. However, nowhere in his book does Shenhav address the dichotomybetween Israel’s national identity and the Palestinian national identity. While the Palestiniannationality is based on a national identity across religious lines, the Israeli national identityis singularly Jewish. It is only by ignoring this important difference that Shenhav is able topropose his solutions as viable ones.

As Shenhav argues, and I agree, it is the spirit and not the details of his proposed solutionsthat is important. For this reason, I shall not present the details in full. The guideline for these



solutions is to make maximum amends for the historical injustices committed against thePalestinians (mainly the Palestinian refugee problem) without creating new injustices (i.e.solving one refugee problem by creating a new one). Generally speaking, he toys with threeprospective one-state solutions, which he evaluates according to the way they accommodatethe theological interests of each group. For this reason, he does not favor the more “rational”solution of one state for all its citizens and prefers another constitutional arrangement thatwill ensure the capacity of each group to hold on to their separate religious and nationalidentities. According to Shenhav, this should be a pragmatic and flexible model based onconstant negotiation and balancing. Yet, he has no illusions about the difficulty of achievingsuch a solution. Part of the problem, as he sees it, is that he has left the power dimension outof his analysis.

Shenhav’s proposals are bold and interesting. However, it seems to me that he exemplifiesa classical case of the intellectual paradox. In the final analysis, he uses rational analyticaltools to support a myth. In fact, throughout most of the book Shenhav sharply deconstructsthe myth of the Israeli liberal left, but then asks us to accept an alternative myth. Additionally,we must ask whether it is wise to celebrate any type of an exclusionary identity. It is one thingto recognize one’s identity as the historical source of discrimination and work to correct it,but why should we accept it as the end goal?

All in all, both books by Shenhav and Azoulay and Ophir occasion and merit a seriouspublic debate. They offer incisive attempts to rearticulate Israel’s political structure andpolitical imagination and introduce an alternative analytical construction that challengesthe perceived separation between the two sides of the Green Line. Azoulay and Ophir’sdiscussion of a two-in-one regime links Israel’s two governing apparatuses under one roofand demonstrates that any change on one side will affect the other. By extension, the end ofthe occupation, in any form, would also mean a new regime in “Israel itself” (similar to whatIsrael experienced during the short-lived Oslo years with its liberalization process). On theother hand, it also means that any intensification of the occupation, such as the one that hasbeen taking place, in different velocities, since October 2000, is bound to leave scars eveninside the Green Line (today, we are faced with a series of anti-democratic laws enacted bythe Knesset). In his courageous analysis and proposals for change, Shenhav shifts our focusfrom 1967 back to 1948. After all, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not start in 1967, norwill it be the extent of its legacy.

NOTES

1. “An Unwelcome Intro to the Binational State,” Haaretz, January, 2, 2012.2. While all citizens formally enjoy equal citizenship rights, only Jews can exercise their citizenship

by attending to the common good. This distinction follows a division between two types of citizenship:republican and liberal. In this formulation, while liberal citizenship is shared by Jews and Palestinians alike,republican citizenship is open for Jews only. See Yoav Peled, “Ethnic Democracy and the Legal Constructionof Citizenship: Arab Citizens of the Jewish State,” American Political Science Review 86 no. 2 (1992).

3. Independent Palestinian party or even a party in which Jews and Palestinians share power.4. European Jewish immigrants mostly from Eastern Europe.5. Jewish immigrants who came from the Middle East and North Africa.6. Jose Casanova, “Religion, European Secular Identities and European Integration,” Eurozine (2007),

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2004–07-29-casanova-en.html.

Yoav Mehozay is a Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studiesat Harvard University. He also teaches courses on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and onMiddle East History and Politics at MIT and Northeastern University.


the last utopia: human rights in history by samuel moyn

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