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    Zionism

    EDIT: Personally-identifiable stuff that I'd like removed
    Last edited by Your Usual Table; 28-10-2021, 15:52.

    #2
    Zionism

    Firstly, with the greatest respect, your friend is talking utter bollocks and it is a very questionable stance to take on many levels. It isn't, however, as rare a one as you may think. I had a left wing secular Jewish friend who, as it transpired, was extremely pro-Zionism. We could debate quite reasonably on this until, after the death of a friend of hers - I assumed in Israel, she became aggressively against any pro-Palestine anti-Zionist views. It ended with her cutting all ties with me - blanking me in person and defriending me on FB, I assume due to a remark I made wither on Israel or Palestine. I also know a fair few people who are left wing but pro-Zionist.

    Firstly, anti-Zionism isn't inextricably and inevitably linked with anti-semitism. Of course, it would be hard to think that someone could be anti-semitic without being anti-Zionist but you never know. Being simplistic, there are two reasons given for Zionism which intermingle to a greater or lesser degree. First is the religious Zionist reason which is that God had decreed that the Jews would return to Jerusalem and establish a Jewish state again. Cultural Zionism built up over a perceived - and quite accurate - growing tide of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 19th century. Although he wasn't the first to propose Zionism as a protection for Jews, the main figure at the start of Zionism in the 10th Century, Theodore Herzl, was a secular Jew. It is interesting that, for Herzl, Palestine wasn't the only land considered for a Jewidh homeland - Argentina was considered also.

    I have mentioned before that my wife's father's family - who, like Herzl, were Hungarian secular Jews from Budapest - were murdered in the concentration camps. Therefore, personally, I can see how the fear of anti-semitism was very real. However, the issue has always been how Jews who were subjugated, exiled and murdered could effectively do the same - albeit in nowhere near the same numbers - to another population that had lived in the land for over a 1000 years. As far as the intent is concerned, I can't really explain but, as far as how they managed it, it was, like many modern conflicts, down to Britain and the Balfour Declaration which it is very much worth reading up about both it and the events around it. I will try and find the reading that I did around the subject.

    If you want a couple of analogies, the initial idea of a people fleeing persecution to another land for safe haven, in itself, may be fairly benign. For instance, Welsh speakers fearing that their culture and language would be wiped out by the English started a colony in Patagonia in the 1800s (perhaps this was why the same country was considered by Herzl). This was done with agreement from the Argentinian government who donated the land and, to an extent, the indigenous people. The fact that, unlike Palestine, Patagonia is a vast empty country can't but have helped the political machinations then.

    Another way of looking at it is if another stateless and greatly persecuted minority in Europe, the Roma, decided to return to Punjab, seeing it as their birthright and a safe haven from persecution, and expelled the local people from their houses and territories, ruling with the same prejudice that the Roma had been fleeing.

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      #3
      Zionism

      Well said.

      Although I think there are anti-Semites who might support Zionism. The kind who think that every "race" should have its own separate homeland.

      Although he wasn't the first to propose Zionism as a protection for Jews, the main figure at the start of Zionism in the 10th Century, Theodore Herzl, was a secular Jew. It is interesting that, for Herzl, Palestine wasn't the only land considered for a Jewidh homeland - Argentina was considered also.
      I think you mean the 19th Century. A, Because that's when Herzl lived, and B, I'm pretty sure nobody in 10th Century Europe knew Argentina was there.

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        #4
        Zionism

        And it wasn't called Argentina.

        Alaska was considered as well, along with loads and loads of other places (the Michael Chabon novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union is set in an imagined Jewish homeland in Alaska).

        The idea of Argentina ever having been suggested as a Jewish homeland isn't really right; to quote Wikipedia, 'It is partly based on an exaggeration of historical proposals for organized Jewish migration to Argentina in the late 19th and the early 20th century (which, however, did not include plans for a Jewish state there).' It's an important distinction to make because the folk down here who talk about it as if it was a serious proposal are normally horrible anti-Semites. Incidentally my girlfriend's grandfather came down here (as a very young child) as part of just those agricultural development plans; he grew up in some out-of-the-way village in (I think) Entre Ríos Province which we don't think is there any more, and only moved to Buenos Aires later (her mum's family on the other hand moved down here a generation earlier and would have been witness to the same sort of urban spread of Buenos Aires that Jorge Luis Borges talks about a lot in his early writings... but I digress).

        I think you can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic, but it's also important to remember there's not just one Zionism. Chabon and his wife Ayelet Waldman are both Jewish, and have recently been organising trips to the Holy Land for a lot of world-renowned writers, Jewish and non-Jewish, to prepare a collection of essays on the place that's due for publication next year. The writers are being given a tour by a local NGO and then are given free rein to write about whatever they want inspired by the trip. I read an interview with Chabon and Waldman a month or two ago in which they said (among many other fascinating things) that they'd encountered a lot of resistance from Israelis in some places. But - this is the bit that's pertinent to this thread - they considered it a Zionist thing to do, to publish this book and to try and get the situation of the Palestinian people into the spotlight, precisely because their vision of Zionism is to have an Israel where everyone has the right to exist. A nice, progressive Zionism, if you will.

        Just found it. It's in Haaretz. It's very interesting and I recommend it (a pop-up will appear asking you to subscribe, but you can just close that and read the article).

        Comment


          #5
          Zionism

          Sam, I think that is premium content, and you have to subscribe. (A spot of cut and pasting might be in order)

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            #6
            Zionism

            How strange - I was able to read it just fine when I first did so, and again when I made that post earlier. Clicking the link now I get the same block you guys do, though (and in Incognito too, which was going to be my next suggestion).

            I got there via Google so perhaps that'll work for you too; if you Google 'Michael Chabon Ayelet Waldman interview', it's the seventh link down - the Haaretz one. Although I've just tried that as well and am still getting the premium block. How peculiar.

            Sorry!

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              #7
              Zionism

              Most of the people who founded Israel were socialists, not right-wingers. The Jabotinsky view of Zionism only took hold in the late 70s, Labor (who were mostly secular socialists, hence the kibbutzim movement - communes) were completely dominant in Israeli politics.

              They weren't a whole lot nicer to Palestinians than the Likudniks, but they were perhaps more in step socially with Jews in North America. I guess that's where Waldman and Chabon are coming from. Finding Republicans in the US Jewish community, especially among those less observant than Orthodox, is a very rare thing indeed.

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                #8
                Zionism

                Flynnie wrote: Most of the people who founded Israel were socialists, not right-wingers. The Jabotinsky view of Zionism only took hold in the late 70s, Labor (who were mostly secular socialists, hence the kibbutzim movement - communes) were completely dominant in Israeli politics.
                That is a good point, Flynnie, and one that highlights the dichotomy of very liberal left-wing-leaning people - especially in the 60s and 70s - visiting Israel and living and working in kibbutzes while the kibbutzes historically being part of the land grab in Palestine with some early ones being formed by the IDF.

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                  #9
                  Zionism

                  Yeah, discourse on Israel amongst the left of that time ignored the Palestinians to the point they weren't even really considered there. And if you imagine no Palestinians, then I guess Israel looks like a pretty cool worker's paradise. Communes of Jews gathered from all over the world, working the land together. It's utopian.

                  Part of this is because there wasn't a fully-formed Palestinian identity as some were considered Egyptian or Jordanian, but nobody even really thinks about Israeli Arabs and who they are and how they got there.

                  It's safe to say this was one of the major bones of contention between the New and Old Left.

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                    #10
                    Zionism

                    I read a novel once based on some real life experiences of Jewish people moving to Israel after it was founded. Many of them moved on to abandoned farms and into abandoned houses and were never told that the previous occupants had been marched out of them at gunpoint. Instead they were told people had chosen to leave or had died. It came as a shock when years later some old chap turned up asking to look around the family farm he remembered when he was a kid and explained how they were ordered off the land.

                    It was a novel but it had a core of real life experience in it.

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                      #11
                      It's painful reading back over your own posts, isn't it? Especially when they're badly written or expose your own confused, woolly thinking.

                      Anyway, I thought this was very good on the issue of what Zionism is and how opposing it is distinct from antisemitism.

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                        #12
                        Who were you before, RG? All the posts on here seem reasonable enough. In other news, this is disgustingly predictable.

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                          #13
                          This is a really useful exploration of what Zionism means - both what it meant to historical Zionists, to what it means to diaspora Zionist Jews to what it means to Palestinians both in Israel and the diaspora.

                          https://www.jewdas.org/zionism-schmi...ur-identities/

                          It's really worth a read.

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                            #14
                            Your previous posts are absolutely fine.

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                              #15
                              To me, Zionism, as a topic of conversation, always has the potential to Viet Nam, so I steer well clear. I would like to understand it better, and this thread has helped, but it seems very easy to inadvertently insult people or give them the impression that you are anti-Semitic if you don't choose your words carefully. I might be lambasted for even saying this, but it seems like some people are overly sensitive on any topic related to Israel, Judaism, etc., and infer insult when none is intended.

                              I'm not referring to anyone here, btw., but thinking of an encounter I had on Twitter.

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                                #16
                                I agree that talk of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism presently is threatened by ridiculous over-sensitivity and ignorance (sometimes, wilful) - probably more here than your side of the pond. Personally, I have no problem in talking about it as I am completely confident in my avoidance of anti-Semitism (and, indeed, racism or xenophobia) although I am not, obviously, perfect in being completely indiscriminative. I am not sure that anyone can be but certainly not anyone who grew up in a fairly monocultural Welsh town in the 70s. However, I am sure that many who are currently being accused of anti-Semitism are also confident in their own views and their distinction from prejudiced views but they know that the media and public perception - especially with the current zeitgeist - is a very blunt instrument that needs to be handled carefully. I don't have such responsibility and neither do many informed people on here - hence the nature of this thread - and, mercifully, amongst my Facebook friends.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  I was in Theodor Herzl's house today.

                                  Technically I wasn't since it was demolished long ago. I was instead in the Jewish museum which is part of the complex of the synagogue in Budapest and which sits (the museum not the synagogue) on the site of the house in which he was born

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                                    #18
                                    Zionism itself appears to have very many definitions some of which are benign and in fact very easy to buy into. And others of which which are vile and involve the unpeopling and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. I tend to avoid talking about "Zionism" since it's such a fluid concept

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                                      #19
                                      Very much so, and becoming more so by the day.

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                                        #20
                                        What ursus and ad hoc said.

                                        I tend to avoid the term and the "discussions" (usually shitfights) because all too often the core point is missed: that Zionism was an effect long before it was a cause. Unlike assorted other -isms, it was not based on prejudice and privilege, but the opposite.

                                        The other options ("Stay where you are", "Go to America" etc) were not permitted. So somebody else paid the price instead. The consequences were tragic and ongoing. The "time machine question" ("What should have happened instead?") is hard - even impossible - to answer. Not if we're honest about the self-serving nature of politicians and their voters.

                                        There's a broader underlying theme too, that of the "safe haven", "settler", etc. It features in countless sci-fi movies and woefully inaccurate history books. We shouldn't underestimate the visceral appeal of this myth, because it is the foundation of numerous other nations. In every case, there was somebody already there. In many cases, they aren't there any more. But if we isolate Zionism, we have to explain how a current nation is legitimate if greed did the conquering while the persecuted did not. Casually saying "Well, Australia and the USA are there, sovereign nations, can't change that, a long time ago" is inviting Israel to keep doing what it's doing - using the weapon of occupation plus time.

                                        Of course, the two-state solution has long been accepted internationally, and it's hard to see any other way forward. So being "anti-Zionist" is at best clumsy language, at worst deluded. "Fuck Netanyahu" is better.

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                                          #21
                                          I don't know whether people misunderstanding and misusing the term for their own ends makes it, by definition, "fluid". For religious Jews, it has a very specific meaning (taking into account any religion's capacity for interpreting its scriptures, rituals and traditions). Even for secular Jews, it has a fixed historic meaning obviously. Of course, there is a broad tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism. The issue is that anti-Zionism is being seen - or put forward- as a proxy for anti-Israel or even anti-Semitism and then people are under the impression that weasel words are being used when you point out that anti-Zionism =/= anti-Semitism or anti-Israel. I know that referring to 1984 is the new Godwin's Law but you just can't accept people changing language for their own ends.

                                          The other thing about Zionism is that it is a redundant issue as Zionism is here and established so it is hardly worth debating. It is only a question of whether you regard Israel as occupiers or a state legitimately settling areas.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Bored, I have no idea how many "religious Jews" you know (or even what you mean by that term), but of the dozens of practicing Jews that I know, few if any would agree completely on a "fixed historical meaning" of anything (particularly "religious Jew").

                                            But then we have a dozen synagogues within a ten minute walk of our flat, which I recognise is unusual.

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                                              #23
                                              I really think that it's the fundamental Christians who have a "fixed historical meaning" of the word. They are the ones outside of Israel who are most aggressively pushing a Zionist agenda in the worst sense of the word.

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                                                #24
                                                That is rather more plausible to me, though I know many fewer Fundamentalist Christians.

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                                                  #25
                                                  I mean 'religious' as opposed to 'secular'. I am not sure that 'theist' and 'agnostic/atheist' works in this respect. Religious Jews are broadly agreed on the Talmudic definition of Zionism - a return to an Jewish homeland of Israel and specifically Jerusalem.

                                                  The "fixed historical meaning" I was talking about was the secular Jews' Zionism (political Zionism, if you want) which is based on Herzl and his reaction to the Dreyfus Affair which effectively led to the formation of Israel not the religious Jews' version which is somewhat more interpretive. I am aware that there is an element of flexibility in interpretation in religious Judaism which is why I said "taking into account any religion's capacity for interpreting its scriptures, rituals and traditions". However, while I know that there is a tradition in Judaism of "Arguing with God" and, as a rabbi, said to me "if you have 40 rabbis in a room, you will get 41 opinions" but I have never found Jews any more interpretive than any other religion certainly not my home ground of Christianity.

                                                  Like I say, many Jews - both religious and not - disagree with Zionism but I am not sure that, even in these cases, the term is contested that much.

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