What is Zionism?

The difference between the Jewish soul … and the soul of all the Gentiles … is greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of an animal. — Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook (1865-1935)

Zionism is a political movement concerned principally with the establishment of a state in Palestine controlled by and for Jews.

It began in the late 19th Century and attained its stated objective with the creation in 1948 of the state of Israel by the United Nations. (The United States insisted, without the agreement of existing Middle

Eastern states). Subsequently Israel doubled the amount of territory it controlled by means of its illegal occupation of the West Bank in the 1967 and

1973 wars.

In its current form, Zionism seeks to dominate all of Palestine and the Middle East by means of violence and the threat of violence (using weapons manufactured and purchased with billions of dollars of “aid” supplied by the United States at taxpayer expense), at the expense of the social wellbeing, not only of the Palestinians, but of the peoples of all lands. Zionists claim that Jews have the right to possess all land between the Nile and the Euphrates because (they say) this land was given to them by God as claimed in the Old Testament (Genesis

15:18). But this would not be the first time that documents written by humans were used to justify land grabs.

Zionists also lay claim to Palestine because this was territory controlled by two Jewish mini-states, Judah and Samaria, until their destruction by the

Romans in the 1st Century. CE. To which may be replied: If Zionist claims to a Jewish “homeland” in Palestine, based on Jewish occupation of that area 2000 years ago, are accepted as valid then the claims of North American Indians to their former homeland (all of the United States), and the claims of Australian Aborigines to their former homeland (all of Australia), should also be accepted as valid, and those homelands returned. Not to mention the descendants of the inhabitants of countless ministates which have risen and fallen over the course of thousands of years of human history. Jews have no more rights than anyone else. Zionists are not content with having acquired a state of their own in Palestine, they also want this state to be for-Jews-only, thus the desire and intention to expel from Israeli-controlled territory all the indigenous inhabitants (a practice sometimes known as ethnic cleansing, a concept derived from the Nazi practice of “cleansing” areas of all Jews so that those areas are then Judenrein).

The idea of transfer had accompanied the Zionist movement from its very beginnings, first appearing in Theodore Herzl’s diary. In practice, the Zionists began executing a mini-transfer from the time they began purchasing the land and evacuating the Arab tenants…. “Disappearing” the Arabs lay at the heart of the Zionist dream, and was also a necessary condition of its existence…. With few exceptions, none of the Zionists disputed the desirability of forced transfer

The Palestinians, being Arabs, are Semites. By their open contempt for, and racist persecution of, the Palestinians the Israelis show that it is they who are the real anti-Semites, and their accusations of anti-Semitism cast at all who criticise Jews or Israel amount to no more than blatant hypocrisy. Xymphora has some revealing Quotes from Zionists, including these: “We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village.” — Moshe Dyan, 1969 “Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours . . . Everything we do not grab will go to them.” — Ariel Sharon, 1998

Zionism and Judaism

Zionism should not be equated with Judaism. The contemptible treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli government is supported and approved of by most Israeli Jews but not by all Jews. There are some Jews who are totally opposed to Zionism and to Israel’s policies in the occupied territories of the West Bank.

Zionism is racist, it is nationalist, and it is Biblically inspired (rather than spiritually inspired). Being a fundamentalist movement, Zionism is not categorically different from Nazism. Only whenwe understand Zionism in its nationalist and racist context will we begin to comprehend the depth of its atrocities. Criticism of Zionism is criticism of a particularly ugly political movement, not criticism of a religion or of the adherents of a religion. One may be critical of Zionism and of Zionists while at the same time being quite tolerant of, or well-disposed toward, or even an adherent of, the Jewish religion.

Zionism as racism

A principal component of Zionism is racism, in the form of the belief held by Zionists that Jews constitute a race (or ethnic group or however They see themselves) superior to all others, and in particular to the Palestinians.

In Israel: more water is given to Jewish citizens than to Palestinians; jobs are more plentiful for Jewish citizens than Israeli Palestinians; Jewish citizens are not subjected to torture while in prison; only Israeli citizens and illegal Jewish settlers drive with yellow license plates, which allow them freedom to travel throughout the Holy Land; non- Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in Israel;

Israel’s policies have involved planning regulations prohibiting Palestinian building on 40 percent of Gaza, 70 percent of the West Bank and 80 percent of East Jerusalem. While restricting Palestinian development, Israel builds housing for its people in the occupied territories. Zionism rejects the idea of a modern secular state, based on equality of all citizens. Zionism predicates a state where Jews have privileged rights. Thus, according to Israeli law, a person born in London, who has never visited Israel, does not speak Hebrew and professes atheism, is granted automatic Israeli citizenship, if he can produce proof from a rabbi that his mother was considered a Jew, while indigenous Palestinian inhabitants who were born to Christian or Muslim parents are at best tolerated but never considered as full fledged partners in Israeli society. Racial discrimination, as defined in international law, is thus not only reflected in Israeli laws and policies, but is grounded in the very nature of Israel as a Jewish state, in public perception and in the Zionist credo.

* Edited & syndicated from the Internet website: www.serendipity.li/zionism.htm.