Summary
The Zionist collective settlement institution, whose celebratory accounts Said uses as the type case of diffusion: a remarkable social unit made to appear spontaneous in an uninhabited land by the repression of the Arab reality around it.
Details
- Most accounts of the kibbutz, Said says, leave out the facts that even before the state of Israel came into being, and of course after, Arabs were never admitted as members, that cheap Arab or Oriental Jewish hired labor is essential to kibbutz functioning, and that socialist kibbutzim were and are established on land confiscated from Arabs (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.42 / printed p.21).
- Rather than answer charges about Zionist policy toward the Arab natives in advance, Zionist spokesmen simply said nothing about them, so the institution appeared to grow and prosper more or less spontaneously in an uninhabited land (The Question of Palestine, PDF p.42 / printed p.21).
Related pages
The Question of Palestine, Representation, Jewish Labour Only