Reflections of an anti-zionist Jew
Tim Wise


Although one can argue with the claim made by some that Zionism and
racism are synonymous -- especially given the amorphous definition
of "race" which makes such a position forever and always a matter of
semantics -- it is difficult to deny that Zionism, in practice if
not theory, amounts to ethnic chauvinism, colonial ethnocentrism,
and national oppression.

For saying this, I can expect to be called everything but a child of
God by many in the Jewish community. "Self-hating" will be the term
of choice for most, I suspect: the typical Pavlovian response to one
who is Jewish, as I am, and yet dares to criticize Israel or the
ideology underlying its national existence.

"Anti-Semite" will be the other label offered me, despite the fact
that Zionism has led to the oppression of Semitic peoples -- namely
the mostly Semitic Palestinians -- and is also rooted in a deep
antipathy even for Jews. Though Zionism proclaims itself a movement
of a strong and proud people, in fact it is an ideology that has
been brimming with self-hatred from the beginning. Indeed, early
Zionists believed, as a key premise of the movement, that Jews were
responsible for the oppression we had faced over the years, and that
such oppression was inevitable and impossible to overcome, thus, the
need for our own country.

Having never read the words of Theodore Herzl -- the founder of
modern Zionism -- or other Zionist leaders, most will find this
claim hard to believe. But before attacking me, perhaps they should
ask who it was that said anti-Semitism, "is an understandable
reaction to Jewish defects," or that, "each country can only absorb
a limited number of Jews, if she doesn't want disorders in her
stomach. Germany has already too many Jews."

While one might be inclined to attribute either or both statements
to Adolph Hitler, as they are surely worthy of his venomous pen,
they are actually comments made by Herzl and Chaim Weizmann,
eventual president of Israel, and -- at the time he made the second
statement -- head of the World Zionist Organization. So in the
pantheon of self-hating Jews, it appears criticism, for Zionists,
should perhaps begin at home.

Going back to my days in Hebrew school, I never understood the
dialysis-machine-like bond that most of my peers felt for Israel. On
the one hand, we were told God had given that land to our people, as
part of His covenant with Abraham. This we knew because Scripture
told us so. But this never carried much weight with me. After all,
many Christians -- with whom I had more than a passing acquaintance
growing up in the South -- were all-too-willing to point out that
the Scriptures also said (in their opinions) that I was going to
hell, Abraham notwithstanding.

As such, accepting Zionism because of what God did or didn't say
seemed dicey from the get-go. What's more, this was the same God who
ostensibly told the ancient Hebrews never to wear clothes woven with
two different fabrics, and who insisted we burn the entrails of
animals we consume on an alter to create a pleasing smell. Having
been known to sport a wrinkle-free poly-cotton blend, and having not
the fortitude to disembowel my supper and incinerate its lower
intestines, I had long since resolved to withhold judgment on what
God did and didn't want, until such time as the Almighty decided to
whisper said desires in my ear personally. The Rabbi's word wasn't
going to cut it.

On the other hand, we were told we needed a homeland so as to
prevent another Holocaust. Only a strong, independent Jewish state
could provide the kind of unity and protection required of a people
who had suffered so much, and had lost six million souls to the Nazi
terror.

Yet this too seemed suspect to me. After all, one could argue that
getting all the Jews together in one place -- especially a piece of
real estate as small as Palestine -- would be a Jew-hater's dream
come true. It would make finishing the job Hitler started that much
easier. Better, it seemed then and still does, to have vibrant
Jewish communities throughout the world, than to put all our
dreidels in one basket, by pulling up stakes and heading to a place
where others already lived, hoping they wouldn't mind too terribly
if we kicked them out of their homes.

In the final analysis, accepting Israel as a Jewish state for
Biblical reasons made no more sense to me than to accept a self-
identified Christian or Islamic nation: two configurations that
understandably raise fears of theocracy in the heart of any Jew. And
to in-gather the Jews to Israel for the sake of safety made no sense
whatsoever. The only logic to Zionism then, seemed to be the "logic"
of raw power: that of the settler, or colonizer. We wanted the land,
and getting it would provide an ally for European and American
foreign and economic policy. So with pressure applied and force
unleashed, it became ours.

Nearly 800,000 Palestinians would be displaced so as to allow for
the creation of Israel: around 600,000 of whom, according to
internal documents of the Israeli Defense Force, were expelled
forcibly from their homes. At the time, these Palestinians, most of
whose families had been living on the land for centuries,
constituted two-thirds of the population and owned 90% of the land.
Though some Zionists claim Palestine was a largely uninhabited
wilderness prior to Jewish arrival, early settlers were far more
honest. As Ahad Ha'am acknowledged in 1891:

"We...are used to believing that Israel is almost totally desolate.
But...this is not the case. Throughout the country it is difficult
to find fields that are not sowed."

Indeed, the large presence of Palestinians led many Zionists to
openly advocate their removal. The head of the Jewish Agency's
colonization department stated: "there is no room for both peoples
together in this country. There is no other way than to transfer the
Arabs from here to neighboring countries, to transfer all of them:
not one village, not one tribe, should be left."

Herzl himself conceded that Zionism was "something colonial,"
indicating again that we were not discovering or founding anything.
We were taking it, and for reasons we would never accept from
others. As Shimon Peres -- seen as one of the most peace-loving
Israeli leaders in memory -- said in 1985: "The Bible is the
decisive document in determining the fate of our land." Such is the
stuff of fanaticism, and we would say as much were a fundamentalist
Christian to make the same statement about the fate of the U.S., or
anywhere else for that matter.

That most Jews have never examined the founding principles of this
ideology to which they cleave is unfortunate. For if they were to do
so, they might be shocked at how anti-Jewish Zionism really is. Time
and again, Zionists have even collaborated with open Jew-haters for
the sake of political power.

Consider Herzl: a man who believed Jews were to blame for anti-
Semitism, and thus, only by fleeing for Palestine could we be safe.
In The Jewish State, he wrote:

"Every nation in whose midst Jews live is, either covertly or
openly, anti-Semitic...its immediate cause is our excessive
production of mediocre intellects, who cannot find an outlet
downwards or upwards. When we sink, we become a revolutionary
proletariat. When we rise, there also rises our terrible power of
the purse."

He went on to say, "The Jews are carrying the seeds of anti-Semitism
into England; they have already introduced it into America." Were a
non-Jew to suggest that Jews were to blame for anti-Semitism, our
community would be rightly outraged. But the same words from the
father of Zionism pass without comment.

Worse still, early in Hitler's reign the Zionist Federation of
Germany wrote the new Chancellor, noting their willingness to "adapt
our community to these new structures" (namely, the Nuremberg Laws
that limited Jewish freedom), as they "give the Jewish
minority...its own cultural life, its own national life."

Far from resisting Nazi genocide, some Zionists collaborated with
it. When the British devised a plan to allow thousands of German
Jewish children to enter the U.K. and be saved from the Holocaust,
David Ben-Gurion, who would become Israel's first Prime Minister
balked, explaining:

"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 (Israel) then I would opt for the second
alternative."

Later, Israeli Zionists would again make alliances with anti-Jewish
extremists. In the 1970's, Israel hosted South African Prime
Minister John Vorster, and cultivated economic and military ties
with the apartheid state, even though Vorster had been locked up as
a Nazi collaborator during World War II. And Israel supplied
military aid to the Galtieri regime in Argentina, even while the
Generals were known to harbor ex-Nazis in the country, and had
targeted Argentine Jews for torture and death.

Indeed, the argument that Zionism is racism finds some support in
statements of Zionists themselves, many of whom have long concurred
with the Hitlerian doctrine that Judaism is a racial identity as
much as a religious and cultural one. In 1934, German Zionist
Joachim Prinz, who would later head the American Jewish Congress,
noted:

"We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration
of belonging to the Jewish nation and Jewish race. A state built
upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can only be
honored and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own
kind."

Years later, David Ben-Gurion acknowledged that Israeli leader
Menachem Begin could be branded racist, but that doing so would
require one to "put on trial the entire Zionist movement, which is
founded on the principle of a purely Jewish entity in Palestine."

Laws granting special privileges to Jewish immigrants from anywhere
in the world, over Palestinians whose families had been on the land
for generations, and measures that set aside most land for exclusive
Jewish ownership and use, are but two examples of discriminatory
legislation underlying the Zionist experiment. As the International
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
makes clear, racial discrimination is:

"any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on
race, color, descent, or national and ethnic origin which has the
purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition,
enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and
fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or
any other field of public life."

Given this internationally recognized definition, we ought not be
surprised that at a World Conference on Racism, some might suggest
that the policies of our people in the land of Palestine had earned
a place on the agenda. As such, we should take this opportunity to
begin an honest dialogue, not only with Palestinians, but also with
ourselves. Neither the chauvinism so integral to Zionism, nor the
ironic self-hatred that has gone along with it are becoming of a
strong and vital people. Just as a dialysis machine is no substitute
for a healthy and functioning kidney, neither is Zionism an adequate
substitute for a healthy and vibrant Judaism. Surely it is not for
this ignoble end, that six million died.


Tim Wise is an activist, writer and lecturer based in Nashville,
Tennessee.

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