ZIONISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ITS VICTIMS 57 ization. V ery little is said about what Zionism entailed for non-Jews who happened to have encountered it; for that matter, nothing is said about where (outside Jewish history) it took place, and from what in the historical context of nineteenth-century Europe Zionism drew its force. T o the Palestinian, for whom Zionism was som ebody else’s idea imported into Palestine and for which in a very concrete way he or she was made to pay and suffer, these forgotten things about Zionism are the very things that are centrally important. In short, effective political ideas like Zionism need to be examined historically in two ways: (1) genealogically in order that their provenance, their kinship and descent, their affilia­ tion both with other ideas and with political institutions may be demonstrated; (2) as practical systems for accumulation (of power, land, ideological legitim acy) and displacement (of people, other ideas, prior legitim acy). Present political and cultural actualities make such an exam ination extraordinarily difficult, as much because Zionism in the postindustrial West has acquired for itself an almost unchallenged hegem ony in liberal ''establishm ent'’ discourse, as because in keeping with one o f its central ideological characteristics, Zionism has hidden, or caused to disappear, the literal historical ground o f its growth, its political cost to the native inhabitants of Palestine, and its militantly oppressive discriminations be­ tween Jews and non-Jews. Consider as a startling instance o f what I m ean, the symbolism o f M enachem Begin, a form er head o f the Irgun terror organization, in whose past there are numerous (and frequently admitted) acts o f cold-blooded murder, being honored as Israeli premier at Northwestern University in M ay 1978 with a doctorate o f laws honoris causa; a leader whose army a scant month before had created 300,000 new refugees in South Lebanon, who spoke constantly o f "Judea and Sam aria” as “ rightful" parts o f the Jewish state (claims made on the basis o f the O ld Testam ent and without so much as a reference to the land's actual inhabitants); and all this without— on the part o f the press or the intellectual community— one sign o f com prehension that Menachem B e ­