Israeli Television's Fiftieth Anniversary "Tekumma" Series: A Post-Zionist View?

Abstract

Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies Article DOI: 10.2307/2538133 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2538133 ©1998 by The Regents of the University of California. Copying and permissions notice: Authorisation to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by [the Regents of the University of California/on behalf of the Sponsoring Society] for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® on [JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/r/ucal)] or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center, http://www.copyright.comIn a series of three articles published in these pages, I tried to describe the post-Zionist phenomenon: an academic and cultural critique of Zionism from within Israel.1 The three articles touched only slightly on the extent to which this critique has been disseminated in Israeli society and affected gen- eral attitudes toward the Arab world and the Palestinians. The screening of a recent documentary series on Israel's history, broadcast on the country's offi- cial television channel, provides one of the first opportunities to gauge the potential impact of post-Zionism on a wider public. The series, "Tekumma,"2 has been proudly presented as the centerpiece of Israeli Television's efforts to participate in the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary jubilee