Uncertain Comparisons: Zionist and Israeli Perceptions of India and Pakistan during Decolonization

• In Event: (Il)legal Dialogues: Jews and Law in a Global Perspective post-1945

Abstract

This paper examines Zionist-cum-Israeli connections with and borrowings from India and Pakistan in the years surrounding the 1948 War. I argue that, while Zionists found striking similarities between the unfolding realities in Palestine and South Asia, the exact nature of the comparison-- was India or Pakistan “the doppelganger of the Jewish State”?—was quite equivocal. At times, such as during their prolonged efforts to establish diplomatic connections with India, Zionists saw and portrayed themselves as more akin to Indians. At others, they identified Israel as paralleling Pakistan. This was especially pronounced as an array of Israeli officials and Zionist actors, including Joseph Schechtman and Zalman Lifschitz, transplanted recently legislated Pakistani Evacuee Property Ordinances into Israel to legalize the confiscation of Palestinian Evacuee Property. This paper makes several contributions. First, by focusing on the fact that Zionist-cum-Israeli actors were looking toward other decolonizing countries, this paper places Israel within the broader global processes of mid-century decolonization and the formation of early post-colonial states, and, building on an argument I make elsewhere, draws attention to the fact that the Israeli overtures toward India were part of its broader attempts to conceptualize itself within ‘Asia’. Second, the focus on Israeli transplantation of Pakistani law underscores their shared British legal legacies. In contrast to the significant literature on legal transplantation across the British Empire, less attention has been given to transplantation among post-colonies. This paper seeks to demonstrate one case of the post-colonial life of an originally British colonial law. Third, I draw attention to the fact that Israeli actors involved in transplanting Pakistani law were part of broader currents of population transfer thinking in interwar and WWII-era Europe and the partitions and population displacements in Palestine and South Asia. As I show, Zionists involved in transplanting the Pakistani legislation were engaged in both debates about population transfer, minority rights, and federations and confederations in wartime Europe as well as in those concerning global demography and population distribution.

Author

• Rephael G Stern, Harvard University