The tragedy of Zionism: revolution and democracy in the land of Israel.

ZIONISM, said a Zionist named Baruch Nadel, is "a movement of Western Jews to save the Eastern Jews that built a home for Oriental Jews." Bernard Avishai's The Tragedy of Zionism is oddly titled: He is aware that an entity or institution can, in its existence, change radically from its original conception, but it's not altogether clear how it is tragic that Israel has turned out differently from what its founding generation expected.

Presumably he means that Israel today is less liberal and more religious, particularist, and "racist" than the old Zionists hoped. His book is a highly detailed review of the evolution of Zionism from a utopian socialist vision of democracy in the desert to a tough and expansive Jewish state. The old Zionists had in mind a place where Jews could go and not be Jews; today's Zionists like being Jews.

Avishai thinks Israel should simply drop all ideology, Labor Zionist as well as Beginite. He regards Israel, and wants it to regard itself, as a place, not a dream--a place that could be improved by adopting certain democratic reforms. But he thinks American Jews are somehow too preoccupied with Israel, at the expense of an (unspecified) kind of authentically Jewish life of their own. He concludes that "a profession of Zionism in the West, and especially in America, is not so much resistance to assimilation as a symptom of it."

I'm not sure I understand that paradox. It is obvious, though, that Avishai resents Zionism and its claims on Diaspora Jews. He lived in Israel for several years, but never could adjust to life there. Eventually he faced facts and came home, and he suggests that for many Jews life in America is better than life in Israel, and that's fine with him: He refuses to feel guilty about preferring America.

The Tragedy of Zionism recounts the struggles within the Zionist movement and Israel to define Israel's identity, and does so with more thoroughness than most readers, especially non-Jews, will care for. What emerges from it all is that the pioneering Zionists, many of whom had never been to the Middle East, were so self-absorbed in their ideological debate that they were oblivious to the Arabs and the problems posed by settling a country already inhabited by people who regarded it as their own. Theodor Herzl even expected the Arabs to be grateful. He wrote a novel about the projected Zionist homeland in which an Arab character says, "The Jews have enriched us, why should we be angry with them? They dwell among us like brothers. Why should we not love them?" And long after Herzl, an associate of Chaim Weismann vehemently denied that a Jewish state was even part of the Zionist program.

I am not the one to settle all these disputes. Israel is locked in an endless legitimacy crisis, despite its democracy, that neighboring countries like Syria never have to face, and it is only fair to point that out. People are free to come and go, even if some are freer than others, and more often than not they choose to come.

The real tragedy of Zionism may simply be that it is one more utopian experiment that has run up against the real world, and renouncing the utopianism may not solve the problem. It may be secondary that countries like Syria have nastier governments: Those countries reject Israel like some transplanted foreign tissue. In the long run Zionism may just not work. It may have to be sustained by outside help in order to keep existing at all, as the metaphor about "pilling the plug on Israel" implies, even in the mouths of Israel's supporters.

Which leaves us with the question, beyond the scope of Avishai's book, of what America's relation to Israel should be. That it is beyond the scope of his book is itself an interesting fact: It seems to be taken for granted on all sides that the rest of us are to be deferential to ethnic self-absorption, which is intense even in moments of self-criticism like this book. "Israel," our Secretary of State observed recently, "is the truest symbol of the victory of good over evil." All that remains for us, then, is to align ourselves, gratefully and humbly, on the side of good. Is there any other country on earth whose spokesmen could sink to such self-effacing fatuity?

Given Israel's situation, it is natural that it should cling to us, as it was natural that England should seek to bring us into two world wars. Whether the alliance thus sought is good for us is another matter. Yet this supremely relevant question is politically taboo. I would like to hear arguments for the strategic advantages to the U.S. of close alliance with Israel from someone other than the partisans of Israel itself. These arguments can certainly be made, but the auspices are important.

It has become the theme of those partisans during the last few years that the Arab-Israel conflict is part of the East-West conflict, with "terrorism" somehow an extension of Communism. No doubt the Soviets are glad that we see it this way; for their own reasons, they share with the Israelis a natural interest in hostility between Arabs and the United States. But to read Avishai's book is to see how peculiar and local the whole Zionist issue is. The Middle East dispute is one of those controversies that can hardly concern anyone but the immediate disputants, rather than two men in love with the same woman: You can feel the pathos of it, but you do well to stay neutral.