[statecom-discuss] Fwd: [HumanRights] What is Zionism

[Gracegrnrnbw at aol.com]

Ron - I found this helpful - will you send the chapter on democracy in Israel 
- which is actually the thing I always get asked about?   thanks, Grace
In a message dated 2/6/07 11:42:09 AM, ronwf777 at yahoo.com writes:


> Mazin Qumsiyeh <qumsi001 at hotmail.com> wrote: From: "Mazin Qumsiyeh" <
> qumsi001 at hotmail.com>
> To: Mazin.qumsiyeh at lists.riseup.net
> Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2007 01:09:58 -0500
> Subject: [HumanRights] What is Zionism
> 
> (Note: Mailing List Information, including unsubscription instructions, is 
> located at the end of this message.)
> -------Ethnic Cleansing Continues: An entire Palestinian village barred from 
> its
> land
> hThe news that the latest Palestinian village was barred from its land (see
> http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1389.shtml ) pegs the question if Zionism
> can be compatible with peace.  Since many readers asked about Zionism, I
> thought I would share with you this chapter from my 2004 book "Sharing the
> Land of Canaan".  The chapter delves deeper into Zionism.  In my next
> message I will post the chapter on whether Israel is a democracy or not
> (analyzing Israeli laws etc).
> http://qumsiyeh.org/chapter6
> 
> Chapter 6: Zionism
> 
> PROMISED LAND
> PROMISED LAND
> by Ahlam Shalhout
> 
> I was taken to a foreign land.
> A land believed to be full of promise.
> I was told it bore fruits with the sweetest of nectar.
> Its soil so rich with olive branches of peace.
> Where the streets were paved with golden orange groves.
> 
> The nectar though sweet to my tongue
> Brought tears to my bowels.
> The peace bearing olives were pressed
> To make oil of bullfights. Ole!
> 
> 
> Zionism is variously looked at as a salvation or as a catastrophic power. 
> Yet all agree that Zionism was and is at the center of the conflict that now
> raged for over 100 years in the Land of Canaan. No lasting solution can be
> approached without an honest examination of origin and consequences of this
> phenomenon that still shapes events, not only locally in Palestine/Israel,
> but in the region and the world.  The origin of Zionism is often described
> as initiated in the 19th century by European/Ashkenazi Jews.  But this
> political movement had an earlier and more dramatic history, some of it
> distinctly un-Jewish origin. In dealing with the problems plaguing the Land
> of Canaan today, we must have clear handle on Zionist history and the forces
> that challenged or promoted it.
> 
> Christian Zionism and Colonialism
> 
> Napoleon first attempted to construct a network of Jews loyal to the French
> Empire throughout Europe.  More concrete planning and action from the
> British Empire quickly replaced this initial gesture from the French empire
> (ref 1).  It should be noted that during this time very few Jews lived in
> Britain or France. With the loss of the American Colonies, British
> colonialism focused on India as “the Jewel of the Crown” and perhaps as
> importantly on the road to India (ref 2).  In the words of a London Times’
> correspondent in 1840 “the proposition to plant the Jewish people in the
> land of their fathers, under the protection of the five Powers, is no longer
> a mere matter of speculation, but a serious political consideration” (ref
> 3).  This quote from the Quarterly Review of 1838 shows that British,
> non-Jewish Zionist plans were instituted primarily for the benefit of the
> British Empire:
> 
> "The growing interest manifested for these regions, the larger investment of
> British capital, and the confluence of British travelers and strangers from
> all parts of the world, have recently induced the Secretary of State for
> Foreign Affairs to station there a representative of our Sovereign, in the
> person of a Vice-Consul. This gentleman set sail for Alexandria at the end
> of last September—his residence will be fixed at Jerusalem, but his
> jurisdiction will extend to the whole country within the ancient limits of
> the Holy Land; he is thus accredited, as it were, to the former kingdom of
> David and the Twelve Tribes.  The soil and climate of Palestine are
> singularly adapted to the growth of produce required for the exigencies of
> Great Britain; the finest cotton may be obtained in almost unlimited
> abundance; silk and madder are the staple of the country, and oil-olive is
> now, as it ever was, the very fatness of the land.  Capital and skill are
> alone required: the presence of a British officer, and the increased
> security of property which his presence will confer, may invite them the
> Jews from these islands to the cultivation of Palestine; and the Jews, who
> will betake themselves to agriculture in no other land, having found, in the
> English Consul, a mediator between their people and the Pasha, will probably
> return in yet greater numbers, and become once more the husbandmen of Judæa
> and Galilee … Napoleon knew well the value of an Hebrew alliance; and
> endeavoured to reproduce, in the capital of France, the spectacle of the
> ancient Sanhedrim, which, basking in the might of imperial favour, might
> give laws to the whole body of the Jews throughout the habitable world, and
> aid him, no doubt, in his audacious plans against Poland and the East  That
> which Napoleon designed in his violence and ambition, thinking ‘to destroy
> nations not a few,’ we may wisely and legitimately undertake for the
> maintenance of our Empire" (ref 4)
> 
> British diplomacy with the Ottoman Sultan starting in the 1830s included
> explicit requests to encourage and facilitate the settlements of Jews in
> Palestine.  Many Jews were rightly weary of these schemes by European
> gentiles.  Zionism failed to convince large segments of European Jews in the
> 19th century.  The few Jews who were interested in living in Palestine
> arrived for various reasons: religious individuals relocating near Safed and
> other centers of religious Judaism in Palestine, some enticed by financed
> relocation, and some idealistic socialist Zionists who felt assimilation
> failed and enlightenment was best developed alone until the rest of the
> world catches up.  These early converts to Zionism were vastly outnumbered
> by non-Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews.  Many were even fearful that Zionism
> was merely another scheme by gentiles to remove them from their countries. 
> Yet, Zionism as a colonial venture could not really succeed without Jews
> taking it up as a cause in much larger numbers.  The first attempt was the
> formation early in 1809 of a new organization by the name of The London
> Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.  Its aims included
> educating Jews on their own history and promote Eastern European immigration
> to Palestine as a fulfillment of Christian theology.  These early attempts
> were the true antecedents of the Christian Zionists movement, which remains
> influential both in Britain and the United States to this day. Colonel
> Charles Henry Churchill, the British Consul in Syria, stated in 1841 that
> success of Zionism depended on, “Firstly that the Jews themselves will take
> up the matter, universally and unanimously.  Secondly that the European
> powers will aid them in their views” (ref 5).
> 
> To achieve such goals, the British Empire employed the services of one
> Lieutenant Colonel George Gawler (1796-1869).  Gawler was a colonization
> expert who successfully founded a penal colony in Australia and after whom a
> major city and state in Australia are named.  In 1845, Gawler published his
> vision for how this might be accomplished.  His treaty was titled:
> "Tranquilization of Syria and the East: Observations and Practical
> Suggestions, in Furtherance of the Establishment of Jewish Colonies in
> Palestine, the Most Sober and Sensible Remedy for the Miseries of Asiatic
> Turkey" (ref 6).  In 1852, the Association for Promoting Jewish Settlement
> in Palestine was founded by Gawler and other British officials and later
> evolved it into the Palestine Fund (ref 7).  Winston Churchill wrote in 1920
> immediately following his assertion that Bolshevism is led and initiated
> mostly by Jews:
> 
> "But if, as may well happen, there should be created in our life time by the
> banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British
> Crown, which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event would
> have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of
> view be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest
> interests of the British Empire" (ref 8)
> 
> Zionism Taking Root among European Jewish Communities
> 
> There is much to be learned about the transition in the 19th century from a
> movement sponsored and promoted by non-Jews to a Jewish led movement that
> then took strong initiative to change the course of history.  The number of
> Jews who looked with favor to Zionism fluctuated depending on circumstances
> of their residence and the political and economic situation. 19th century
> nationalism gave Zionism a more race and nationalistic tone. Yet, Jewish
> advocates of Zionism remained in the minority throughout the 19th century
> and early in the 20th century.  And the movement clearly continued to depend
> on imperial interests for its very survival and this need for better
> cooperation with British colonial interests grew.  The movement's strength
> in the Ashkenazi communities was largely related to levels of anti-Ashkenazi
> feelings.  Thus, Moses Hess (1812-1875) argued that there is no cure for the
> "illness" of this Jewish hatred other than to establish their own state in
> Palestine.  A man with similar views, Judah Leib (Leon) Pinsker (1821-1891),
> became a co-founder (with Moses Lilienblum) of Hibbat Zion, an early Zionist
> movement.  In 1882, he wrote anonymously a pamphlet titled:
> "Auto-Emancipation: An appeal to his people by a Russian Jew."  In it he
> argued that anti-Ashkenazim (known in Europe as anti-Semitism) was a
> pathological phenomenon beyond the reach of any future triumphs of "humanity
> and enlightenment."  Here are relevant quotes of why he believed in Zionism:
> 
> "This is the kernel of the problem, as we see it: the Jews comprise a
> distinctive element among the nations under which they dwell, and as such
> can neither assimilate nor be readily digested by any nation.  Hence the
> solution lies in finding a means of so readjusting this exclusive element to
> the family of nations, that the basis of the Jewish question will be
> permanently removed.
> 
> Having analyzed Judeophobia as a hereditary form of demonopathy, peculiar to
> the human race, and having represented Anti-Semitism as proceeding from an
> inherited aberration of the human mind, we must draw the important
> conclusion that we must give up contending against these hostile impulses as
> we must against every other inherited predisposition.
> 
> Our future will remain insecure and precarious unless a radical change in
> our position is made.  This change cannot be brought about by the civil
> emancipation of the Jews in this or that state, but only by the
> auto-emancipation of the Jewish people as a nation, the foundation of a
> colonial community belonging to the Jews, which is some day to become our
> inalienable home, our country.
> 
> The international Jewish question must have a national solution. Of course,
> our national regeneration can only proceed slowly. We must take the first
> step. Our descendants must follow us at a measured and not over-precipitant
> speed" (ref 9)
> 
> Pinsker became a leader of the movement and with funds from the wealthy
> British philanthropist, Baron Edmond de Rothschild developed the first
> Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine at Rishon LeZiyyon south of Tel
> Aviv, and Zikhron Yaaqov, south of Haifa.  By 1891, about 10,000 Jews had
> relocated to these settlements in Palestine (then part of the Ottoman
> Empire).  Yet, in the period of Jewish emigration from Europe 1882-1903, a
> tiny fraction left for Palestine, most went to North and South America.
> 
> Nathan Birnbaum (alias Mathias Ascher) coined the term "Zionism" based on
> the ideas of Hess and Pinsker as a political movement for Jewish
> "self-emancipation" and nationalism.  In 1893, he published a brochure
> entitled "Die Nationale Wiedergeburtder Juedischen Volkes in seinem Lande
> als Mittel zur Loesung der Judenfrage" ("The National Rebirth of the Jewish
> People in Its Homeland as a Means of Solving the Jewish Problem").  Later,
> Theodore Herzl's work formed further ideological underpinnings for the
> movement.  Similar to his intellectual fathers, he also "recognized that
> anti-Semitism would be harnessed to his own -Zionist- purposes" (ref 10).
> Thus, proponents of Zionism, non-Jews and Jews alike, built their popularity
> on Jewish fears of anti-Jewish sentiments and actions.  Zionism, they were
> told is the best solution to the "Jewish problem".
> 
> Zionism after 1948
> 
> While Zionism as a political program was thus supposed to "emancipate the
> Jewish people" by having their own state, once the state was established and
> native people largely removed, new roles and arguments were to be resented
> to sustain and reinvent Zionism.  The "protection" of the "Jewish people "
> from the "outside" remained essential philosophical and political
> underpinning to Zionism.  But a bit more was needed.  The Jerusalem Program
> for Zionism adopted in 1951 and revised by the World Zionist Congress in
> 1968 adopted this as a definition of the goals of Zionism:
> 
> The aims of Zionism are:
> -The Unity of the Jewish people and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life;
> - The ingathering of the Jewish people in the historic homeland, Eretz
> Israel, through aliyah from
> all countries;
> -The strengthening of the State of Israel, which is based on the prophetic
> vision of justice and peace;
> - The preservation of the identity of the Jewish people through the
> fostering of Jewish, Hebrew and Zionist education and of Jewish spiritual
> and cultural values;
> - The protection of Jewish rights everywhere.
> 
> 
> In June 1968, the Zionist Congress, held in Jerusalem, redefined the aims of
> Zionism in the "Jerusalem Program" rather broadly:
> 
> 1. Unity of the Jewish People and the Centrality of Israel in Jewish life;
> 
> 2. The ingathering of the Jewish people in its historic homeland Eretz
> Yisrael through Aliyah from all countries.
> 
> 3. The strengthening of the State of Israel, which is based on the prophetic
> vision of justice and peace;
> 
> 4. The preservation of the identity of the Jewish people through the
> fostering of Jewish, Zionist and Hebrew education and of Jewish spiritual
> and cultural values;
> 
> 5. The protection of Jewish rights everywhere.
> 
> Note the wide mandate dictated by key words of power, strength, and
> protection against any perceived threat to Jews. One need only substitute
> Jew/Jewish with Christian or "White" to see the inherent unfairness and
> racism in both the program of 1951 and 1968.  After all, what is this idea
> of ingathering of Jewish "people" mean?  What does it mean when many Jews
> have converted to Christianity and many to Islam?  What does it mean for the
> majority of Jews who are converts over the ages from Christianity, Paganism
> etc.?  How is he "ingathering" and taking land from natives via the
> "strengthening" of the State of Israel in the name of the "Unity of the
> Jewish people" help in the "protection of Jewish rights everywhere"?
> 
> The government of Israel still mindlessly talks about Zionism as a solution
> to "anti-Semitic" (anti-Jewish) hatred instead of working to advance
> equality for Jews and non-Jews everywhere:
> 
> The Zionist movement aimed to solve the 'Jewish problem,' the problem of a
> perennial minority, a people subjected to repeated pogroms and persecution,
> a homeless community whose alienism was underscored by discrimination
> wherever Jews settled. Zionism aspired to deal with this situation by
> affecting a return to the historical homeland of the Jews - Land of
> Israel.... The Zionist national solution was the establishment of a Jewish
> national state with a Jewish majority in the historical homeland, thus
> realizing the Jewish people's right to self-determination (ref 11).
> 
> Note the sweeping generalizations and sense of perpetual victimization that
> reflects the theology of Hess, Pinsker, and Herzl that discrimination
> against Jews is pathological and has no cure other than a powerful state
> with a majority Jewish population. Amnon Rubinstein wrote in Haaretz on
> March 13, 2002:
> 
> "… the new secular Jewish nationalism, which was the foundation on which
> Israel was built, is a nationalism of no choice.  It is true that on the
> basis of the lack of choice were piled on additional traditional national
> elements: the memory of the biblical past, the impact of the revival of
> Hebrew, the concept of a return to Zion, and the characteristic
> accoutrements of other national movements.  But the major strength of
> Zionism stemmed from its sense that there was no other choice, from this
> inability to be like everyone else.  Without the locked gate, the Zionist
> gate would not have opened very wide and the longing for Zion would have
> stayed in the prayer book "
> (ref 12)
> 
> So do Jews really have no choice other than Zionism to prosper in this
> world?  Did Zionism help or hinder the case for tolerance in the world (Jews
> towards non-Jews and vice versa)?  Jews grabbled with such questions for
> decades and arrived at different conclusions with anti-Zionist Jews arriving
> at completely opposite conclusions to those reached by Herzl, Pinskery, Hess
> and their followers.  As history would prove, the critics were right. 
> Today, after over 150 years of Zionism, there is only one place where Jews
> are threatened with annihilation and that is this self-declared "Jewish
> state".  In Israel, one finds a government that is preparing public parks as
> sites for possible mass graves in case of biological or chemical attacks. 
> In Israel, one finds unrealistic attempts at assuring the public that they
> can survive such attacks.  Why are Jews safer in America or France than in
> Israel?  Are anti-Jewish sentiments around the world stoked or diminished by
> the Zionist program and its effect on the native Palestinians?
> 
> The answers to these questions make many Jews now rethink the deceptions of
> the militaristic Zionist program.  Political Zionism was far more
> catastrophic for the indigenous Palestinians (Christians and Muslims alike).
>   In public articles and books, Herzl was careful in describing what Zionism
> meant in practice and how it was to be implemented in an already inhabited
> Palestine.  But, as we discussed in Chapter 4 on refugees, Herzl's diaries
> and diaries of other early Zionists are now available and shed light about
> the colonial nature of Zionism and its true intentions.
> 
> Herzl, understood the need for a concrete program to realize his the goals
> he articulated. For this a new group of people participated in the practical
> application of Zionism.  This included people like Nachman Syrkin and Ber
> Borochov who developed the labor Zionism as a dominant force in Zionist
> quarters.  This brand of practical Zionism exists in a form represented by
> the labor party and some other minor parties in Israel today.  Labor
> Zionists criticized the Rothschild-supported settlements on purely
> capitalist terms (e.g. hiring Arab labor).  They called for Jewish
> settlement based on socialist modes of organization: the accumulation of
> capital managed by a central Jewish organization and employment of Jewish
> laborers only.  A key pillar of this was the need for a "Jewish power"
> (physical, material) which can then translate into state and political power
> without dilution by non-Jews.
> 
> Labor Zionists knew that power is needed, but they also knew that to achieve
> their goals required skillful political maneuvering around existing powers
> in the region of their settlement.  For many ardent Zionists, this somehow
> smacked of compromise that they were not willing to accept.  This set the
> stage for the evolution of other methods to achieve the goals of Zionism. 
> Some argued that strong economic and military power is all that mattered to
> realization of the Zionist dreams.  Jabotinsky was the founder of this
> ideology of "revisionist Zionism" that Begin, Netanyahu, Sharon and other
> Israeli leaders identify as their ideological underpinning (now represented
> by the Likud party and other Right Wing parties in Israel).  A reading from
> one of Jabotinsky's 1923 writings clearly demonstrates his mode of thinking:
> 
> "Every reader has some idea of the early history of other countries which
> have been settled.  I suggest that he recall all known instances.  If he
> should attempt to seek but one instance of a country settled with the
> consent of those born there he will not succeed.  The inhabitants (no matter
> whether they are civilized or savages) have always put up a stubborn fight. 
> Furthermore, how the settler acted had no effect whatsoever.  The Spaniards
> who conquered Mexico and Peru, or our own ancestors in the days of Joshua
> ben Nun behaved, one might say, like plunderers.
> 
> ... Compromisers in our midst attempt to convince us that the Arabs are some
> kind of fools who can be tricked by a softened formulation of our goals, or
> a tribe of money grubbers who will abandon their birth right to Palestine
> for cultural and economic gains.  I flatly reject this assessment of the
> Palestinian Arabs.  Culturally they are 500 years behind us, spiritually
> they do not have our endurance or our strength of will, but this exhausts
> all of the internal differences.  We can talk as much as we want about our
> good intentions; but they understand as well as we what is not good for
> them.  They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true
> fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his
> prairie.
> 
> ... It is of no importance whether we quote Herzl or Herbert Samuel to
> justify our activities.  Colonization itself has its own explanation,
> integral and inescapable, and understood by every Arab and every Jew with
> his wits about him.  Colonization can have only one goal.  For the
> Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible.  This is in the nature of
> things.  To change that nature is impossible.
> 
> ... Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be
> terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. 
> This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the
> protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall
> which the native population cannot break through.  This is, in toto, our
> policy towards the Arabs.  To formulate it any other way would only be
> hypocrisy.  Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. 
> What does the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate mean for us?  It is the
> fact that a disinterested power committed itself to create such security
> conditions that the local population would be deterred from interfering with
> our efforts.
> 
> All of us, without exception, are constantly demanding that this power
> strictly fulfill its obligations.  In this sense, there are no meaningful
> differences between our “militarists” and our “vegetarians”.  One prefers 
> an
> iron wall of Jewish bayonets, the other proposes an iron wall of British
> bayonets, the third proposes an agreement with Baghdad, and appears to be
> satisfied with Baghdad's bayonets – a strange and somewhat risky taste – 
> but
> we all applaud, day and night, the iron wall.  We would destroy our cause if
> we proclaimed the necessity of an agreement, and fill the minds of the
> Mandatory with the belief that we do not need an iron wall, but rather
> endless talks.  Such a proclamation can only harm us.  Therefore it is our
> sacred duty to expose such talk and prove that it is a snare and a
> delusion."  (ref 13)
> 
> This is a must reading for those who really want to understand the nature of
> Zionist designs un-encumbered with nice words or skillful maneuvering.   The
> "wall" refers to the wall of bayonets, British and/or Zionist, necessarily
> required to establish a colonial Jewish State.  The author persuasively
> argued why Arabs would not accept a Jewish State in Palestine.  His vision,
> as articulated in this 1923 article, is amazingly prophetic in what was to
> transpire in Palestine over the next 80 years.
> 
> Is Zionism the Other Side of the Coin of Anti-Semitism?
> 
> Zionism in essence was a project that accommodated slightly varied modes of
> operations, such as using Arab labor or not, working with existing political
> systems to achieve its goals, or using only military means.  The essence of
> it was and still is the creation and maintenance of a Jewish state with a
> clear and unambiguous Jewish majority (as long as this Jewish majority
> supported Zionism).  In a land already occupied by another people, its
> tactics were viewed as a traumatic, but necessary, loss.  The main device
> towards the realization of this dream was "anti-Semitism".    This form of
> racism was well intertwined, and is also explained by deep psychological
> phenomena.
> 
> The term anti-Semite was coined by anti-Jewish bigot Wilhelm Marr in 1879. 
> According to Yahoo encyclopedia, Marr's 1862 pamphlet titled Der
> Judenspiegel ("Jews Mirror") was followed by the influential "The Victory of
> Judaism over Germandom, Considered from a Non-Religious point of View". 
> Marr apparently did not want to use Jew as it connotes a religion and wanted
> a term that is referring to ethnicity.  He was likely never introduced to
> the word Ashkenazi and he assumed Ashkenazi/European Jews to be "Semitic." 
> Marr thus introduced in 1879 the word "anti-Semite" into the political
> vocabulary by founding the League of anti-Semites, which organized lectures
> and published a short-lived monthly.  The "league" failed as an
> organization, but it was historically important for it was the first effort
> of creating a popular political movement based on hatred Ashkenazim.  As
> pointed out in chapter 2, Semites refer to all people who speak Semitic
> languages (Arabic Hebrew, Aramaic).  Ashkenazi Jews would technically not be
> Semitic since they spoke Yiddish. The fact that this term developed by a
> racist was adopted by many Jews and Zionists is astonishing yet fits well
> within the context of development of Zionist thoughts as discussed above
> (i.e. a solution to the "Jewish problem" being relocation to a "Jewish
> state").
> 
> That Zionism and Judeophobia are intimately connected is evidenced by
> writings of early Zionists.  Here is Vladimir Jabotinsky, the ideological
> forefather of the Israeli Likud Party, writing in 1904 about the "Jewish
> problem" :
> 
> "It is inconceivable from a physical point of view, that a Jew born to a
> family of pure Jewish blood over several generations can become adapted to
> the spiritual outlook of a German or a Frenchman.  A Jew brought up among
> Germans may assume German customs, German words.  He may be wholly imbued
> with that German fluid but the nucleus of his spiritual structure will
> always remain Jewish, because his blood, his body, his physical-racial type
> are Jewish ... And a man whose body is Jewish can not possibly mold within
> himself the spirit of a Frenchman ... It is impossible for a man to become
> assimilated with people whose blood is different than his own " 14
> 
> Perhaps this parallel quote from Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf" needs to
> be pondered and analyzed:
> 
> "Yet I could no longer very well doubt that the objects of my study were not
> Germans of a special religion, but a people in themselves; for once I had
> begun to concern myself with this question and to take cognizance of the
> Jews, Vienna appeared to me in a different light than before.  Wherever I
> went, I began to see Jews, and the more I saw, the more sharply they became
> distinguished in my eyes from the rest of humanity.  Particularly the Inner
> City and the districts north of the Danube Canal swarmed with a people,
> which   even outwardly had lost all resemblance to Germans.  And whatever
> doubts I may still have nourished were finally dispelled by the attitude of
> a portion of the Jews themselves.  Among them there was a great movement,
> quite extensive in Vienna, which came out sharply in confirmation of the
> national character of the Jews: this was the ZIONISTS" (emphasis in
> original) (ref 15)
> 
> Hitler's book is the most horrific denigration of Jews and other people and
> the most racist book one could even imagine.  For him to state that whatever
> "lingering doubts" about his anti-Semitism were dispelled because Zionists
> agreed with him about the national character of Jews is amazing and has
> historically almost completely been ignored.  It is an important notion
> because Zionists not only agreed with Hitler that Jews should go away from
> Europe but they actually worked towards that goal.  Here is what The Zionist
> Federation of Germany wrote in a letter to the new Nazi regime:
> 
> "Zionism believes that a rebirth of national life, such as is occurring in
> German life through adhesion to Christian and national values, must also
> take place in the Jewish national group" (ref 16)
> 
> Both Zionists and Nazis believed that Jews couldn’t be Germans.  They both
> believed that Jews could not function normally in other societies as equal
> citizens.  Zionists in fact were clearly putting a primary goal of colonial
> Jewish presence in a majority in Palestine ahead of any other issues even
> when this goal contradicted the welfare of Jews.  This is why they
> collaborated with the Nazis and thwarted some efforts to rescue Jews.
> 
> The Zionists cooperated with the Nazis in the mid-thirties to facilitate
> Jewish immigration to Palestine.  The details of this agreement were given
> by Edwin Black's book (ref 17).  After commencement of attacks on Jews under
> German control, the British, in the hope of easing the pressure for
> increased immigration into Palestine, proposed that thousands of Jewish
> children be admitted directly into Britain.   Ben-Gurion, the recognized
> leader of labor Zionism at the time was absolutely against the plan, telling
> a meeting of Labour Zionist leaders on 7 Dec. 1938:
> 
> "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by
> bringing them over to England, and only half of them by transporting them to
> Eretz Yisrael, then I would opt for the second alternative.  For we must
> weigh not only the life of these children, but also the history of the
> People of Israel" (ref 18)
> 
> Rabbi Shonfeld quotes the Zionist leader Yitzhak Greenbaum, as stating after
> the war:
> 
> "When they asked me, couldn't you give money out of the United Jewish Appeal
> funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said, 'NO!' and I say again 'NO!'
> . . . one should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to
> secondary importance" (ref 19)
> 
> Most Jews in the 19th and early 20th century criticized Zionist
> methodologies and even the whole concept of Zionism.    They saw this
> movement as a cynical use of religion to establish state power.  Perhaps the
> most interesting were views of highly intelligent and humanistic Jews like
> Einstein and Freud who while openly not opposing Zionism, simply refused to
> take part in it.  They reflected the majority Jewish opinion before the
> establishment of the state of Israel.
> 
> Sigmund Freud, the father of psychotherapy, was opposed to Zionism.  When
> approached to sign a petition to condemn the Arab riots in Palestine and to
> support the settlement of Jews in Israel, he wrote politely to decline:
> 
> "Dear Sir,
> 
> I cannot do as you wish.  I am unable to overcome my aversion to burdening
> the public with my name, and even the present critical time does not seem to
> me to warrant it.  Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them
> something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgment of Zionism does not
> permit this.  I certainly sympathize with its goals, am proud of our
> University in Jerusalem and am delighted with our settlement's prosperity. 
> But, on the other hand, I do not think that Palestine could ever become a
> Jewish state, nor that the Christian and Islamic worlds would ever be
> prepared to have their holy places under Jewish care.  It would have seemed
> more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less
> historically-burdened land. But I know that such a rational viewpoint would
> never have gained the enthusiasm of the masses and the financial support of
> the wealthy.  I concede with sorrow that the baseless fanaticism of our
> people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust.  I can
> raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece
> of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of
> the natives.
> 
> Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the
> right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by
> unjustified hope." (ref 20)
> 
> Freud was referring to the clear methods of Zionists of the day to assert
> sovereignty on areas of Palestine and to regularly confront and show the
> natives that their interests were incompatible.  Zionism was for a state of
> the Jews and not for a democratic state for a variety of people.  As Freud
> pointed out it is born of a preference for a tribal affiliation that still
> haunts us to this day.  Hillel Halkin wrote in the Jerusalem Post in 2002:
> 
> "You would like me to look at it objectively. Objectively, I agree: we are
> only breeding more hatred and violence. You want me to imagine how I would
> feel if I were a Palestinian.  I suppose that if I were, I might want to
> kill Israelis myself.  But I am not objective and I am not a Palestinian. 
> It's not that the lives of Palestinians don't matter to me.  But Israeli
> lives matter more.
> 
> I know this doesn't sound terribly enlightened.  And it certainly doesn't
> lead to any of the political solutions that we both know are necessary if
> this horror is going to end.  But being objective would not make me more
> human.  It would make me less.
> 
> I can try to be objective about Russians and Chechnyans, or about Hindus and
> Muslims in Kashmir, without drying up the milk of human kindness in me, just
> as you can try to be objective about us here, but that is only because I am
> not a Russian or a Chechnyan.  If I were, and if I didn't put my own people
> first, I would simply be an emotional monster.  Nothing good could come of
> that" (ref 21)
> 
> Thus, Zionism's victims were not only the intended native displacement but
> it could be argued that humane Jewish values were also its victims. In his
> book "Ben Gurion's Scandals" Naeim Giladi ,an Iraqi Jew and ex-Zionist,
> discusses Zionist tactics in trying to import Jews from Iraq to Israel in
> the 1950s.  He immigrated to the US and recently wrote an article in 'The
> Link', a publication of the Americans for Middle East Understanding about
> his book.  In part he said that "about 125,000 Jews left Iraq for Israel in
> the late 1940s and into 1952, mostly because they had been lied to and put
> into a panic by what I came to learn were Zionist bombs [referring to the
> bombings done at Synagogues and other areas of Jewish public concentration).
>   But my mother and father were among the 6,000 who did not go to Israel”
> (ref 22).  Other books discuss Zionist discourse and its relationship to
> anti-Ashkenazim and Judeophobia.  Some of these are cited in the 
> recommended readings below.
> 
> A Post-Zionist Discourse
> 
> This Zionist program tried but failed to make its ideology the ideology of
> "the Jewish people."  Many even argued that Zionists tried to replace
> Judaism with Zionism or at least to make sure that Zionism is a dominant
> feature of mainstream Jewish thought.  Hence, one understands the incessant
> need to label anti-Zionists or even non-Zionists  as "anti-Semitic" or if
> they are Jewish as "self-hating Jews."  In the first 80 years of Apartheid
> South Africa, the leaders of the White South Africans also labeled apartheid
> as a national movement for white safety and all opposition within blacks as
> anti-White racism.  Jewish intellectuals and many others opposed Zionism
> simply because they knew it was not a workable construct for Jewish
> self-determination or freedom.
> 
> When Palestinians return to their lands and form a pluralistic society for
> all, will the descendants of those expelled Palestinians remember more the
> words and actions of Heztl, Ben Gurion, Barak, and Sharon or will they
> remember the words and actions of Martin Buber, Israel Shahak, Uri Avneri,
> or Norman Finkelstein?  Will those memories teach us to be more tolerant of
> each other or will it instill in us the kind of self-righteous, know it all,
> "we were the perpetual victim" mentality that was so characteristic of many
> Zionists.  Victims of the Holocaust took different lessons from it.  Some,
> perhaps goaded or misled by simplistic and rather unrealistic notion of
> separation/apartheid, thought "never again" but meant never again to us Jews
> and thus we must separate ourselves from humanity.  To make sure this does
> not happen, we will build a very strong state based on Jewish power.  A
> logical place was Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jews.  Of course
> the only problem was that Palestine was already heavily inhabited and the
> native population was not simply going to consent to having sovereignty of
> their land transferred to an extra national entity.  Other Holocaust
> survivors and their children like Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shahak and tens
> of thousands like them took the message that never again will we allow
> hatred or racism against anyone.  Others also rejected the notion of a new
> secular "Jewish state" based on theological arguments (this was true of
> essentially all Orthodox Jews until 1967 and still now common among the
> ultra-orthodox like the Naturei Karta).
> 
> I am confident that an exclusionary Palestinian movement analogous to
> Zionism will not gain widespread recognition nor would ever be allowed to
> get a foothold analogous to that of Zionism in Jewish masses.  I know this
> because I saw it happen with natives in other parts of the world.  In South
> Africa, the Blacks won their freedom but did not push the whites into the
> sea as was feared.  Palestinians will not push Jews into the sea.  The
> reverse of this actually did happen in 1948 where Palestinians were
> literally pushed into the sea at Jaffa and were loaded into boats to end-up
> in places like Gaza.   It is also something that the world would never
> tolerate in the 21st century as witnessed in Bosnia.
> 
> Jewish voices against Zionism and against Israeli actions are gaining
> momentum but it is true that the dominant feature in at least the organized
> Jewish community is Zionist.  However, one must realize that a majority of
> Jews in all surveys state that they are not Zionist and even today a
> majority of Jews live outside Israel.  Further, the growth of the Jewish
> anti-Zionist and post-Zionist movements has been dramatic.  What are some of
> the good things about these movements?
> 
> 1) Jewish opponents to Zionism make it rather impossible for both Zionists
> and other racists to make  generalizations about "the Jews."  This is
> important in many ways but the most important is that generalizations can
> lead to racism and attacks on the whole community.  I think it is an ironic
> twist that these Jews whom Zionists vilify as "self-hating" or as traitors
> to their religion actually do a lot of good for the religion and enhance
> protection for their co-religionists while Zionists who perpetuate
> brutalities and claim they represent all Jews increase anti-Jewish paranoia.
>   The lesson to all, including Palestinians, is to never vilify those who
> stand up for justice/freedom for all.
> 
> 2) Jewish opponents of Zionism take a moral stance on issues regardless of
> the victim or the perpetrator.  They provide the highest of human ideals in
> rejecting tribalism and the philosophies of "us" and "them."  They view each
> event on its own merits and are thus freed from the hypocrisy of ideological
> adherence.  Zionists must continuously play a game of moral relativism and
> hypocritical support of human rights in some cases while opposing them on
> others (depending on whether the tribe is affected or not).  This is not a
> healthy way to live and creates many sleepless nights among some Zionists I
> know.  The lesson to all, including Palestinians is to never think or act
> tribally, think and act as a human being.
> 
> Those Jews who oppose Zionism are not doing what they do to provide us an
> example, nor are they doing it because they think they can change history. 
> They do it for a very simple reason – because it is just.  In fact, the more
> of us think like that, the less likelihood there is for wars, for tribal
> conflicts, for nationalism, and the more likelihood there is for peace and
> prosperity to all of us.
> 
> The questions asked by those skeptical of Zionist aspirations are still
> relevant today.  Were Jews really able to survive only because of the
> creation of the Jewish State of Israel and the continuing dispossession of
> the native Palestinians?  What price is a Jewish state to the natives?  Does
> Zionism really solve the lingering feeling of being oppressed or
> discriminated against?  Do Zionism and anti-Jewish feelings
> ("anti-Semitism") feed on each other to grow?   In the US, Jews, Christians,
> Muslims and others are well adapted as members of a society that protects
> their rights.  During the zenith of Arabic/Islamic civilization, Jews,
> Christians and Muslims similarly prospered together and built a great
> economic, architectural, intellectual, and cultural heritage.  The best
> example of this is the pluralistic society developed in Al-Andalus (Spain). 
> My grandfather frequently spoke of the amicable relationships he, as a
> Palestinian Christian, observed between all communities in Palestine well
> before the disasters imposed by the British-Zionist project unfolded. 
> Jewish colleagues agree with my grandfather's statement,  “It is not true
> what Zionism preached to us that we could not live together. It is a shame
> that instead of building a pluralistic country for all, some chose to build
> a country for one and dispossess the other.”
> 
> The record shows that Zionism and anti-Jewish feelings (anti-Semitism) had a
> symbiotic relationship.  Victims of Zionist ideology were not limited to the
> Palestinians (the native inhabitants) but extended to Jews and many others.
> Sephardic Jews who were forced to flee their homes and rather comfortable
> lives in Arab countries as Israel pushed to undermine their presence in
> those countries and as anti-Jewish feelings increased due to the repression
> of the Palestinians by self-declared Jewish representatives.  Even today,
> actions of the State of Israel do increase and certainly do not decrease
> threats or danger to Jews around the world.  So even strictly judging from
> its own stated goals of providing normality and safety to Jews, Zionism has
> been a failure.  But perhaps these stated goals were not truly genuine and
> that Zionism, like so many other -isms, has been mainly about power and
> control.  Declassified documents are shedding light on these things and
> raise very troubling questions.
> 
> These questions about relationship of Zionism to anti-Judaic feelings and
> Jewish reactions to it are all worth exploring.  But the story with regard
> to the native Palestinian inhabitants is much simpler and much less
> controversial.  In practice to fulfill the dreams of Zionist leaders, ethnic
> cleansing was and continues to be practiced.  After taking 78% of the land
> from its native people and expelling over three fourths of them, Zionism
> still was not satisfied and Israeli leaders are aggressively and violently
> insisting on partitioning the remaining 22% (apartheid) while insisting on
> no return of Palestinian refugees and on maintaining racist laws that
> discriminate against non-Jews.  The idea is to keep the Jewish character of
> the state.  These laws and beliefs are the topic of the next chapter.
> 
> Notes to Chapter 6
> 
> 1.  Mohameden Ould-Mey, The non-Jewish Origin of Zionism, The Arab World
> Geographer, 5:34-52, 2002.
> 2.  Barbara W. Tuchman, Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the
> Bronze Age to Balfour (New York: Ballantine Books, 1984).
> 3.  The Times, 17 August 1840, Restoration of the Jews, p. 5, col 6(f).
> 4.  Lord Lindsay, Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land, , (London:
> Henry Colburn, 1838), pp. 188-190.
> 5.  L. J Epstein, Zion’s Call: Christian Contributions to the Origins and
> Development of Israel. (New York: University Press of America, 1984).
> 6. George Gawler 1845, ‘Tranquilization of Syria and the East: Observations
> and Practical Suggestions, in Furtherance of the Establishment of Jewish
> Colonies in Palestine, the Most Sober and Sensible Remedy for the Miseries
> of Asiatic Turkey" as quoted in Mohameden Ould-Mey, The non-Jewish Origin of
> Zionism’, The Arab World Geographer, Vol. 5, pp. 34--52,( 2002).
> 7.  Epstein, Zion’s Call.
> 8.  ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism: A struggle for the Soul of the Jewish
> people’ Illustrated Sunday Herald 8 February 1920, reprinted in Lenni
> Brenner, 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis (New Jersey:
> Barricade, 2002), p. 27
> 9. Translated from German by Dr. D. S. Blondheim, Federation of American
> Zionists, 1916, Essential Texts of Zionism; Jewish Virtual Library
> http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Zionism/pinsker.html
> 10. Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict,
> 1881-2001 (New York: Knopf, 2001), p. 21.
> 11.  Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website
> http://www.israel.org/mfa/go.asp?MFAH00ng0
> 12.  Amnon Rubinstein, Haaretz, 13 March 2002.
> 13.  Vladimir Jabotinsky, "The Iron Wall: We and the Arabs"  First published
> in Russian under the title "O Zheleznoi Stene" in Rasswyet," November 4,
> 1923. Translated by Lenni Brenner. It can be downloaded at
> http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm
> 14.  Vladimir Jabotinsky, ‘A Letter on Autonomy, 1904', reprinted in
> Brenner, 51 Documents, p. 10.
> 15.  Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Reissue edition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
> 1998), p. 56.
> 16.  June 21, 1933 memo from The Zionist Federation of Germany, reprinted in
> Brenner, 51 Documents, p. 43.
> 17.  Edwin Black, The Transfer Agreement: the Untold Story of the Secret
> Pact Between the Third Reich & Jewish Palestine (New York: Macmillan
> Publishing Co., London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1984).
> 18.  Lenni Brenner, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to
> Shamir (Zed Books, 1984). cites as reference no. 23: Yoav Gelber, ' Zionist
> Policy and the Fate of European Jewry (1939-42)' Yad Vashem Studies, vol.
> XII, p. 199.
> 19.  Rabbi  Moshe Shonfeld, The Holocaust Victims Accuse, Neturei Karta,
> USA, New York, 1977.
> 20.  Freud's Letter to Dr. Chaim Koffler Keren HaYassod, Vienna: 26 February
> 1930; posted at the Freud Institute in UK website:
> http://www.freud.org.uk./arab-israeli.html.
> 21.  Hillel Halkin ,’Objectivity is morally overrated’, Jerusalem Post, 14
> November 2002. Also on the web at
> http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&
> cid=1037248935749
> 22.  Naeim Giladi , Ben Gurion's Scandals (Flushing: Glilit Pub. Co., 1995).
> 
> Recommended Readings
> 
> Edwin Black, The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between
> the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine (New York : Carroll & Graf, 2001).
> Marc H. Ellis, Israel and Palestine: Out of the Ashes, (London: Pluto Press,
> 2003).
> Naeim Giladi , Ben Gurion's Scandals (Flushing: Glilit Pub. Co., 1995).
> Lenni Brenner, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir
> (London: Zed Books, 1984).
> Tom Segev with Haim Watzman (Translator) The Seventh Million: The Israelis
> and the Holocaust, (New York: Owl Books, 2000).
> -------------------------------------
> Mazin
> http://qumsiyeh.org
> 
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