JKS said it better, and in less space, but let me try it more soberly. Certainly historical analysis need not be pseudo, socio-bio, or pointless, and much of interest has been offered in this thread.
What is poor history and bad politics is analysis that reduces explanation to a mono-causal, primordial factor. I still think understanding zionism as a colonial project because of the roles of Herzl and Weitzman is bad history. It's as if the whole population is prey to a genetic defect. The problem with such defects is they can't be cured. This does not make for good politics. To wit, hear me O Israel, your problem is that your entire society is a design of imperialism.
Not coincidentally, and present company excluded, the same sort of appeal is implied in discussions of the U.S. working class. Your standard of living rests on imperialism and racism. Repent and sin no more. This is the politics of rage. Ordinary people are instruments of unspeakable fascist oppression. There's really nothing for them to do but lay down and die.
So even if true, the colonial story is problematic. But I take Brad's point that there is much to suggest things in the Middle East would have been easier for the U.S. and Europe if the Israelis all picked up and left.
mbs
>mbf: I can understand the pragmatic need to directly address the current
>status on the ground, 'try to get it stop behaving like apartheid S.A.',
>but I don't understand why history, and even historical analysis guided
>by theory, must be "pseudo-analysis" "socio-biology" or
>"comparing...brain sizes"?? As far as I'm concerned, the history of the
>region from the spread of Islam and even further back up through the
>rise and fall of the Ottomans is all of relevance to understanding the
>last 125 years. So is the traditional mode(s) of production of the
>indigenous people(s) and certainly the importance of and impact on the
>region of the rise and development of global capitalism. I don't know
>how I would make sense of the situation if I hadn't examined the history
>of Imperialism, nationalism, and class formation in Palestine as part of
>the (Pan-)Arab world. I understand we have a great crisis that demands
>immediate attention and action, but I don't see why that means history
>and theory are 'pseudo-analytical socio-biology'?
>
Understanding history is relevant and important. But trying to analyse the current situation in terms of the "the essential nature of Zionism" because of what Herzl and Weitzmann did long ago is not productive. The problem is precisely how to get Israel to stop acting like apartheid S.A. Denouncing Zionism, which not even the PLO does any more, is not helpful. I speak as a nonZionist Jew. --jks