Why zionism is not racism

This "cognitive map" affects US policy toward the Middle East. When policymakers refer to Palestinians, their approach becomes "pragmatic". They argue that Palestinians should settle elsewhere, accept what economic aid they may receive, and be content.

But when US policymakers refer to the Jewish relationship to Israel, they speak about an "ancestral homeland". At the "center of the discourse there is an organic metaphor that sees [a] certain inevitability of union between the Jew and the 'promised land'". Nonetheless, Zionism is "not a Jewish phenomenon. Zionist thought was fully formulated" by non-Jews and even anti-Semites. This "sheds light" on the creation of Zionism-it is "actually a scheme to rid Europe of its Jews".

When Arthur James Balfour was prime minister, he sponsored an act to prevent Jews from immigrating to England and later supported their immigration to Palestine through the declaration named after him. Balfour "admitted" that he was an "anti-Semite, that he hated Jews". He referred to Jews as a "'burden to western civilization. Jews did not begin to support Zionism until the end of the nineteenth century. At its heart, Zionism "is a western phenomenon.

Just as virtually all segregationists are also racists, he suggests, virtually all anti-Zionists are also antisemites. You rarely find one without the other. But that claim is empirically false. It is easy to find antisemitism among people who, far from opposing Zionism, enthusiastically embrace it.

In the s, the Polish government adopted a similar tack. Its ruling party, which excluded Jews, trained Zionist fighters on Polish military bases. Because it wanted Polish Jews to emigrate. And a Jewish state would give them somewhere to go. You find echoes of this antisemitic Zionism among some rightwing American Christians who are far friendlier to the Jews of Israel than the Jews of the US.

I f antisemitism exists without anti-Zionism, anti-Zionism also clearly exists without antisemitism. Consider the Satmar, the largest Hasidic sect in the world. Neither is Avrum Burg.

Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset, in declared that settlement growth in the West Bank had rendered the two-state solution impossible.

Israel must belong to all of its residents, including Arabs, not to the Jews alone. Other Jewish Israeli progressives, including the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem Meron Benvenisti, the Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy and the activists of the Federation Movement, have followed a similar path. Can one question their proposals? Of course. Are they antisemites? Of course not. To be sure, some anti-Zionists really are antisemites: David Duke, Louis Farrakhan and the authors of the Hamas Covenant certainly qualify.

People who care about the moral health of the American left will be fighting this prejudice for years to come. Are Jews a Nation or a Religion? Literature on Zionsim. Quotations on Zionism. Texts Concerning Zionism. The Jewish State. The Iron Wall. Pre-State Zionism. Dreyfus Affair. The Uganda Proposal. Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine.

Jewish Colonial Trust. Zionist Congresses. The Biltmore Conference. Kattowitz Conference. Kharkov Conference. Helsingfors Program. The phrase also denigrates the Jewish State and belittles the diversity of Jewish life in Israel.

Return to Glossary. A protest sign equates the State of Israel with the Nazi swastika.