Why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic

[Solomon2]

Why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic
DECEMBER 8, 2013, 3:00 PM

Eylon Aslan-Levy is an international debating champion and a member of the Board of Deputies, representing the Union of Jewish Students UK. He is studying for an MPhil in International Relations at the University of Cambridge and holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford. He is writing his MPhil thesis on Israel's foreign policy regarding the exodus of Jews from Arab lands in the 1950s. Contact at ea392@cam.ac.uk.

When an anti-Zionist burns an Israeli flag, what fate does he wish Israeli citizens?

Anti-Zionism is an inherently anti-Semitic doctrine. In calling for the fall of the Jewish state, anti-Zionists are engaged in a racist endeavour. Jews should feel no hesitation whatsoever in calling out those who challenge Israel’s right to exist as anti-Semites, with all the attendant implications.

None of this should be controversial. “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” is part of the EU’s working definition of anti-Semitism (or was, until the EU inexplicably dropped it). This article is concerned with articulating the intellectual foundations for this proposition, rather than somehow presenting a new idea.

Zionism is, at its core, the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determine in the Land of Israel.

Zionism does not, strictly speaking, require the belief in a Greater Israel, nor toleration of any degree of civil or political inequality between Jews and others in the Jewish state. Criticism of practical manifestations of Zionism that are not logically entailed by the Zionist ideal (e.g., the Occupation) is not necessarily anti-Semitic, if only because it is not aimed at the principle of Zionism itself as the simple belief in the self-determination of the Jewish people in Israel.

Anti-Zionism is then, strictly speaking, the denial of a right of the Jewish people to self-determine in Israel. This may involve a denial that Jews have a right to self-determine at all, such that a fortiori no such right can exist in Israel, or a denial that this right could apply to political association in Israel specifically: anti-Zionists could maintain that this right should be exercised elsewhere.

The anti-Zionist credo can take two forms. What I term Philosophical Anti-Zionism is the position that Israel should never have been created, but now that it already exists, it has a right to continue existing.Programmatic Anti-Zionism, in contrast, insists that the creation of the State of Israel was a historic injustice, and since injustice must be always be rectified, the illegitimate Israeli state must be dissolved or destroyed forthwith.

Programmatic Anti-Zionism calls for the destruction of Israel

This latter form is the more common in anti-Israel discourse, certainly in the Middle East, and it is gathering support through those who endorse the euphemistically named one-state solution, or even more circumlocutiously call for a return of the descendants of Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel-proper, which would turn Israel into an Arab-majority state and terminate Jewish self-determination by stealth. John Mearsheimer, for one, agrees that the one-state solution would constitute “national suicide” for Israel. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the BDS Movement both fall in this Programmatic camp, which is trying to pressure Israel into commit national suicide: the only difference with Hamas and Hezbollah, for example, is that these groups are willing to pull the trigger themselves.

If justice may be restored through the reversal of injustice, and if the campaign of delegitimisation is expected to reverse a historic injustice by bringing the Jewish state down, then it is unsurprising that Programmatic Anti-Zionism is the dominant paradigm in anti-Israel discourse. It is to this hegemonic position that I now turn my attention: this criticism is narrowly tailored against those who believe that an iniquitous status quo can only be remedied by the disappearance of Israel from the map, and that the only thing Israel can do to improve itself is to vanish. Whether Philosophical Anti-Zionism, on the margins of mainstream anti-Zionist discourse, is inherently anti-Semitic is a question for another day. For the sake of brevity, ‘anti-Zionism’ will be used as a shorthand for the Programmatic kind.

Why is anti-Zionism anti-Semitic?
There are three principal reasons why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic.

Firstly, anti-Zionism is the position that the Jewish people should be dispossessed, against their will, of a fundamental right that they currently enjoy: namely, the right of self-determination. Whatever one believes about whether the Jewish people had a moral right to self-determine in 1948, this right is now a fact of international law, which states that “all peoples have the right freely to [self-]determine”, recognises that the Jewish people constitute a people and, although the law does not require self-determination to be manifested through political independence (of which more anon), accepts that the creation of the State of Israel was the valid manifestation of this right.

Anti-Zionists may claim that the international community was wrong togrant Jewsa legal right that had no moral basis, but anti-Zionism today is the demand that Jewish people should be deprived of their internationally recognised legalright to self-determine, and that Jews worldwide should be divested of a right that they already lawfully possess as Jews.

Anti-Zionists may argue that Zionism has deprived the Palestinians of their political rights, and self-determination exercised in a repressive form has neither legal nor moral basis: Israel is a racist regime, and has no more right to exist than did the white supremacist Apartheid regime in South Africa. The fine distinction, however, is between those who seek justice by accommodating Jewish and Palestinian claims for self-determination through a pragmatic partition of the land, helpfully suggesting adjustments to bring the practice of Jewish self-determination closer to liberal ideals, and between those who believe that justice can only be attained if the rights of one community are allowed to override those of another: fiat justitia, ruat caelum, as the old saying goes.

The selective deprival of fundamental rights is the essence of discrimination. There is simply no conceivable sense in which attempts to retroactively strip Jews, and only Jews, of fundamental rights can be anything other than anti-Semitic.

Secondly, anti-Zionism is a stance that necessarily fails to treat Jews as political equals. It is the insistence that Jews should return to being permanent minorities, restored to an irreversibly weaker and more vulnerable position vis-à-vis other groups. It is the demand that Jews, and only Jews, should be forcibly subordinated against their will to other majorities, having already been given their freedom.

Anti-Zionism may be accompanied by a caveat that Jews should have full and equal civil rights wherever they live, but this operates against the implicit understanding that the majority will determine the cultural fabric of the state: the flag, the anthem and its dominant values. In denying Israel’s legitimacy, anti-Zionists tell Jews that they wish to treat them as equals, but only on their terms. Jews have rights only as individuals, but not as a collective. For those anti-Zionists who are members of national majorities in their respective states, the claim is that while they may enjoy individual and collective rights, Jews may only entertain the former.

There is no way that this assertion of political supremacy over Jews can fail to constitute anti-Semitism.

Thirdly, and most gravely, anti-Zionism is complacent with exposing Jews to dangers for which the anti-Zionists have no answer. Zionism was first conceived as an answer to the Jewish Question: the controversy around the political status of Jews as an anomalous, transnational, religious-cum-national minority. Zionism is, at its core, the belief that self-determination in Israel is the answer to this Jewish Question and to millennia of persecution. Anti-Zionism not only rejects as irrelevant Jews’ desires for the determination of their own fate, but crucially fails to articulate a better alternative.

Where do you want the Jews to go, then?

Anti-Zionists are simply not bothered with formulating an answer to the Jewish Question that takes into account the agency, aspirations or basic security of Jews who either live in Israel or depend on it as a safe haven. They implicitly recognise that if Israel were to disappear, Jews would face a problem as Jews, but this is none of their concern. Anti-Zionists may promise that Jews will be safe as minorities in other countries, but Israel exists precisely because Jews learnt that they could never trust these promises. The anti-Zionists’ insensitivity to Jewish existential fears is, ironically, part of the problem that Zionism is meant to address!

Anti-Zionism logically requires that anti-Semitism – an acute problem for vulnerable Jewish minorities – will have to be solved in a context in which Jews are once more vulnerable minorities. If Israel were forced to swallow a one-state solution, it would have an Arab majority either immediately or very shortly after. Those who chant, with venom in their eyes, that from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free, either simply presume that Jews would be safe as Jews in such a state, or they just do not care.

If Israel were to cease to exist, the question of how to protect Jews from anti-Semitism the day after is not the anti-Zionists’ problem. The outburst of late White House correspondent Helen Thomas that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Germany or Poland, is just one such example.

In a post-Israel world, anti-Semitism would continue. Anti-Zionists refuse to elaborate a vision of how this should be combatted, while rejecting point blank the Jewish people’s preferred solution to anti-Semitism: self-determination in Israel. Anti-Zionists are content to throw Jews under a bus, and only then turn their attention to how to stop the bus running them over.

This callous insensitivity to Jews’ concerns for their own basic security as Jews, given the dangers they would face in a post-Israel world as Jews,and the willingness to put Jews in this precarious position, is unambiguously anti-Semitic.

Answering Objections to “Anti-Zionism is Racism”
Anti-Zionism often draws on classical anti-Semitic tropes, but this is mere embellishment for an inherently anti-Semitic agenda. The problem is with the political position more than simply its presentation.

Critics will no doubt say that the equation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is a sinister attempt to silence legitimate political discourse. It should be self-evident, however, that there is no room in civilised debate for singling out Jews for the deprivation of fundamental, internationally recognised rights.

It may be objected that there are many nations without corresponding nation-states, so to deny the Jewish nation a right to its own state is not to single it out: the Kurds, Basques and Tibetans lack their own states too. If the denial of Kurdish statehood is not expressive of anti-Kurdish prejudice, the argument might go, then the denial of the Jewish statehood cannot be anti-Semitic.

This objection, however, overlooks the uniquely retroactive nature of anti-Zionism, which is a demand to revoke certain rights, rather than a refusal to grant them. As indicated in the above distinction between Philosophical and Programmatic varieties of anti-Zionism, the question is not whether it is racist to deny a certain people the right to self-determine as a nation-state. The answer to that is probably ‘no’: international law, at least, does not recognise a right for minorities to secede “because it is their wish… [as this] would be to destroy order and stability within States and inaugurate anarchy in international life”.

Anti-Zionism, however, is not rooted in this reluctance to destabilise the international order, for it represents an explicit challenge to the norm of sovereignty and the present order. Whether the Jewish right to self-determination should have been recognised in 1947 is a different matter from whether this right, once recognised, should be revoked. The fact that the international community refuses to entertain certain further claims to statehood is no defence for those who want to retroactively revoke a right to statehood once exercised.

You forgot to add the word ‘anti’.

Far from Zionism being a form of racism, anti-Zionism is racist to boot. Advocates of the Palestinian cause too often couple a defence of Palestinian rights with a denial of Jewish rights, as if the two are in zero-sum competition: justice for Palestinians must come at the expense of justice for Jews, but since the Jews never had any legitimate rights to self-determine in the first place, nobody’s rights would be violated by the elimination of Israel anyway. Israel’s detractors are not interested in reconciling Jewish and Palestinian right where they appear to clash, instead treating the latter as a trump card. Zionism is reconcilable with Palestinian statehood: but anti-Zionism, of the kind I describe, is not reconcilable with Jewish statehood.

The tragedy of the situation is that Zionism gets routinely denounced as racist by the very states whose racism against Jews generated this demand for Jewish self-determination in the first place. The irony is that in denouncing this ideal as necessarily racist, rather than merely attacking what has been done in its name, these detractors are engaging in racist discourse themselves.

Is Jewish anti-Zionism also anti-Semitic?

This framework raises the curious question of Jewish anti-Zionism: are Jews who oppose the existence of the State of Israel also anti-Semites? Well, yes and no. There is certainly no logical contradiction in the idea of a Jewish anti-Semite: the self-hating Jew is well-rehearsed trope. But whereas non-Jewish anti-Zionists demand that Jews be stripped of their rights, Jewish anti-Zionists seek to decline to exercise rights they already have. Jewish anti-Zionists do indeed want to deprive fellow Jews of their right to self-determine, but the fact that they also wish to surrender their own rights should somewhat blunt allegations that they are singling out other people for discriminatory treatment.

The proposition that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic does not mean that anti-Zionists necessarily hold classically anti-Semitic beliefs: anti-Zionism is a variant of anti-Semitism, even if it sometimes also manifests itself as a cover for a more traditional variety of anti-Semitism. Many anti-Zionists are probably sincere, therefore, when they deny accusations of anti-Semitism. That is irrelevant, however, because their agenda can be anti-Semitic in deed if not in intent. The bearer of prejudiced views may still be prejudiced even while ignorant of the nature of his offence: one need not be a wife-beater to be a misogynist, if one also believes that a woman’s place is in the home.

Once one accepts that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic, the world presents itself as a much darker and more sinister place. It means that people to whom we were previously willing to give the benefit of the doubt should now be taken to task. It requires the sober realisation that colleagues whose anti-Israel prejudice we could previously isolate as a merely political difference, are part of a malicious historical trend of treating Jews as politically inferior, whether they know it or not.

There is no reason to tolerate the illusion that challenges to Israel’s existence are only anti-Israel rather than clearly anti-Semitic. It’s time to call a racist spade a racist spade, and to refuse to be beaten with it.

 

[Solomon2]

@Solomon2

Can you tell me why you Zionists atomically think that you have a patent for the word "Semitic" despite...Did not read your article.

Well, if you read the article, you'd have your answer.

 

[al-Hasani]

@Solomon2

Can you tell me why you Zionists atomically think that you have a patent for the word "Semitic" despite Jews only numbering 15 million people and Arabs being the by far biggest Semitic group of peoples nearly numbering 500 million people and there being several other more numerous Semitic peoples?

I always find it extremely funny when Jews accuse us Arabs of being anti-Semitic, LOL.

Nothing more funnier than that. But I forgot that we are talking about the "Chosen People"!

Did not read your article btw but I imagine that it is the same old nonsense you post. Am I right?

Grow up man. You are probably twice as old as I am.

Change your disc!

 

[Solomon2]

Why anti-Zionism is still anti-Semitic: reply to critics
DECEMBER 15, 2013, 11:02 PM

Anti-Semites? Some people still have their doubts.

Last week, I penned an analysis of why anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic: the proposition it is anti-Semitic to “deny… the Jewish people their right to self-determination“, as expressed in the EU working definition of anti-Semitism, stood in need of explanation. The gist of my analysis was that anti-Zionism, expressed as a desire for the disappearance of the State of Israel, is an ideology that demands that Jews be retroactively stripped of their right to self-determine; that treats Jews as political inferiors by only allowing them to participate in political society as minorities; and that is content to expose Jews to dangers in a post-Israel world for which anti-Zionists attempt to offer no solution.

The article caused quite a stir: some people thought I had gone too far; others, not far enough. The responses were mostly civil, notwithstanding some anti-Semitic name-calling: who knew the “ugly narcissistic hook nosed children of Cain” are “the absolute best at the art of misdirection“? The reason why it was anti-Semitic of others tocompare Zionism to Nazism, associating the victims of the Holocaust with their persecutors, should be self-evident.

Nevertheless, it was obvious that many of the people who criticised me had not read the article in its entirety: I was accused, for example, of suggesting that criticism of Israeli policy is anti-Semitic, which would obviously be stupid, which is why I explicitly disavowed this position, except for the cases of usage of classically anti-Semitic tropes.

I was also accused of playing the anti-Semitism card in order to shut down debate (that trope again!), despite ending with an invitation for readers to share their criticism. I guess I must have been been trying to cover up my conspiracy to shut down debate by disingenuously seeking to generate debate: we Jews Zionists are so sneaky! (#JewishConspiracy?)

This follow-up piece is a reply to my critics. I’ll begin by clarifying some misconceptions about the general argument, before getting to grips with some really interesting challenges from readers. My bottom line, however, remains intact: anti-Zionism, defined as the doctrine that the State of Israel should be destroyed or dissolved, is inherently anti-Semitic.


Criticism was, with notable exceptions, broadly constructive.

Addressing Challenges to the Thesis
One common criticism was that I had mischaracterised anti-Zionism, either by construing it too narrowly or too expansively: “his critique of anti-Zionism,” one reader responded, “is applicable only in the way that he chose to define Zionism“. Sound analysis, however, requires one to define terms before analysing them: so whatever falls outside my definitions is therefore also beyond the scope of my criticism. Positions labelled ‘anti-Zionist’ that nevertheless accept Israel’s existence are outside the discussion, which I explicitly and legitimately limited to the dominant paradigm within anti-Zionism. If you call yourself anti-Zionist but do not incite Israel’s destruction, then relax: I’m not calling you an anti-Semite.

Someone also claimed that anti-Semitism does not mean prejudice against Jews but against all Semitic peoples, including Arabs. Frankly this is a bit silly, not only because in cutting against the historical usage of the term, it seeks to redefine it, but also because hatred of all Semitic peoples simply isn’t a thing. If there were a unified tradition of prejudice towards Arabs and Jews as a collective, then there would be a phenomenon in want of a name, but this isn’t the case. Anti-Semitism pertains to prejudice against Jews, and anti-Zionism is a form thereof.

A fascinating query highlighted the connections between Zionism and anti-Semitism, noting that recognition of a distinct Jewish people has historically been motivated in part by anti-Semitism, which made it easier for countries to exclude and “export” Jews rather than integrating them. This is a powerful point: Zionism was indeed a response to the framing of Jews by anti-Semites as the Other. If Jews had never been denigrated as outsiders, it is unlikely they would have sustained a conception of themselves as such over two millennia. Indeed, the yearning for a homeland makes no sense outside the context of homelessness. That’s why Jewish anti-Zionism is strongest among those who feel most at home in their own countries: they feel like they already belong, so do not see themselves as exiles. As a perverse consequence, therefore, Zionism itself can be perversely anti-Semitic if expressed as a desire to banish Jews elsewhere: did the Nazis not wish to exile European Jews to Madagascar?

None of this, however, changes the fact that if Jews currently self-identify as a people, and the international community has recognised political independence as the legitimate manifestation of the rights that follow, then the revocation of these rights is a matter of discrimination against Jews as Jews, and hence is anti-Semitic.

“Imagine there’s no countries…” Not anti-Semitism, surely?

Another claim was that anti-Zionism can be opposed out of antagonism to the basic idea of the nation-state or self-determination, emerging from cosmopolitan or internationalist concerns. If you want a world without borders, then there are safer borders to take down first. Anti-Zionism, however, does not pick on Israel to take the lead in the universal dissolution of states: it is the position that in a world of nation-states, the Jewish nation-state should be nullified. The doctrine does not call for the abolition of states, but for the replacement of one state with another. It is the position that every nation that the international community has recognised should have a state, should keep its state – bar one: the Jews. That’s why it’s anti-Semitic.

If the anti-Zionism of cosmopolitan internationalists is merely subsidiary to a sincere, loftier vision of a world without borders, then so long as it has an answer for how the safety of Jews can be guaranteed in the radical new world order, it may be an exception, no matter how muddled and hopelessly idealistic, to the broader rule of anti-Semitism.

So much for distractions. Onto the meatier challenges.

One intriguing challenge to my thesis drew an analogy to theretroactive non-recognition of Taiwan. After the Chinese Civil War, two political groups claimed to be the legitimate government of China: the Communist Party, which controlled the mainland, and the Nationalists, which had retreated to the island of Taiwan. At first, the international community recognised the regime in Taiwan as the legitimate government of China, but in 1971 this honour was transferred to the Communist-run People’s Republic of China; Taiwan was stripped of its seat at the United Nations. If it was not racist for the international community to revoke Taiwanese statehood, why would it be racist in the case of Israel?

Didn’t the world revoke Taiwan’s statehood once?

This line of attack stumbles on an important disanalogy. Taipei and Beijing host separate regimes that claim to represent the whole of China: they agree that there is only one China, but differ over the identity of its legitimate government. Taiwan does not think that its statehood was revoked, because it had never claimed statehood in the first place as a separate entity from China: the world simply recognised another government over a territory that both sides consider indivisible. Similarly, many countries recently recognised the National Transitional Council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people, while Gaddafi still claimed that mantle: they recognised a new government, not a new country. In short, Taipei and Beijing accept a one state solution, and disagree on who will run it.

The difference with the Israel-Palestine conflict is striking, for Jerusalem and Ramallah are committed a two-state solution: Israel has never formally annexed the Palestinian territories; the Palestinians, meanwhile, have recognised “the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security“. Neither side claims sovereignty over the whole land or insists that only one of them can form a legitimate government. The international community recognises a separate state called Israel; many states also recognise a Palestine. So the one-state solution wouldinvolve an effective revocation of statehood, unlike with Taiwan: anti-Zionism, therefore, cannot take comfort in this precedent.

A further major criticism was that Zionism is inherently inconsistent with liberal theories of the state; as a liberal, I take this criticism very seriously. The argument is that the ‘Jewish and democratic’ formula is a contradiction in terms: the two pillars of Israel’s identity cannot be logically reconciled, and since only democratic states can be morally legitimate, it is clear which one has to go. This is a conclusion that Zionists are desperate to avoid: to side with one value to the exclusion of the other would be, as Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz put it beautifully, “like choosing between your father and your mother”.

So long as the tension between the two identities has little practicalimport, however, the allegation loses steam: if the two identities never clash over substantive issues, there is simply no problem. Israel can continue to function as any other democracy, but with a Jewish majority: a country “as Jewish as England is English“, as Chaim Weizmann envisioned. Attempts to impose Jewish law or give preferential civic rights to Jews would indeed be an affront to democracy, but they are policy choices rather than inherent questions of Israel’s self-definition, so criticism would not be anti-Zionist at all.

Israel pulled out of Gaza explicitly in order to stop ‘Jewish’ and ‘democratic’ coming into contradiction

Sometimes the prospect of an unpalatable choice presented by afuture contradiction between the Jewish and democratic forces Israel to make certain policy choices, which is why even Prime Minister Netanyahu will countenance Palestinian statehood, to avert the spectre of the binational state. Ariel Sharon had already grasped the basic truth that “it is impossible to have a Jewish, democratic state and at the same time to control all of Eretz Israel”, which is why he authorised the disengagement from Gaza. These decisions are meant to ensure that the potential clash between the two core values never be actualised.

A problem might arise if changing demographics within Israel-proper forced Jerusalem to prioritise one of the two values. Note, however, that the problem would arise not from Israel’s self-definition per se, but from its collision with the unique situation facing Israel: a growing national minority, relatively homogeneous, resistant to integration and harbouring a very different vision of the state’s basic identity. Minorities in Western states are mostly heterogeneous; national minorities remain comparatively small. Concerns arising from the Jewish part of Israel’s identity would arise from a conjunction of a Western nation-state-style definition with problems that other nation-states do not face. I do not know what Israel should do if forced to choose between Jewish and democratic, but no other state is required to stipulate what it would do in a hypothetical dilemma to avoid allegations of racism. One wonders how India would react if its Muslims were set to form a majority, which might entail a union with Pakistan – but this isn’t an issue. Hypothetical problems are not real problems so long as they are only theoretical.

What lessons can Israel learn from the jurisprudence of the Canadian Supreme Court about balancing competing values?

In the meanwhile, however, Canada offers an intriguing insight into how a modern democracy can self-define in terms of multiple values that are constitutionally co-equal with democracy. In 1998, the Canadian Supreme Court was asked to pre-emptively answer legal questions about the possible secession of Quebec from Canada; it replied with a powerfully nuanced analysis of the Canadian constitution.

The Court identified “federalism, democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and respect for minority rights” as Canada’s ”four foundational constitutional principles”. It went on to explain: “These defining principles function in symbiosis. No single principle can be defined in isolation from the others, nor does any one principle trump or exclude the operation of any other.” Quebec and Ottowa would be compelled to negotiate over independence “in accordance” with these co-equal principles, none of which had absolute priority over others.

The principle of holding multiple values as co-equal with democracy is not an anomaly in international jurisprudence. Israel can aspire to a similar balancing-act between the Jewish and democratic: both could be assigned equal importance, with dilemmas resolved in a Canadian-style spirit of reconciliation of values. Perhaps this answer will not please everyone: the question certainly deserves more attention and nuance than it can be given in a few paragraphs here. The government recently commissioned Professor Ruth Gavison to draft a definition of this troubled formula; it will be interesting to read her proposals.

Anti-Zionism, however, is weak on the ground in its claims that Zionism is necessarily an affront to liberal values, at least as presently practised. Israel’s Declaration of Independence, perhaps the most authoritative expression of Zionist ideals, is emphatic in its belief that Jewish statehood is perfectly consistent with “full and equal citizenship” for minorities, and that far from being one horn of a dilemma, “freedom, justice and peace” are quintessential parts of Israel’s Jewish character, rather poetically “envisioned by the prophets of Israel”.

Perhaps Israel has fallen short of the high bar it set itself, but criticism of its policy is one thing: calls for its destruction are another. I should stress, moreover, that even if one maintains that the principle of Jewish statehood is problematic, calls for a one-state solution do not logically follow. If Zionism renders Israel inconsistent with liberal ideals, it is highly doubtful that a one-state solution would bring it closer into consistency: perhaps those who think a binational state would be a liberal paradise should take a look at who won the last Palestinian elections, then think again. If liberals want to see the actualisation of liberal values, supporting Israel’s right to exist should be a no-brainer.

The Challenge to Anti-Zionism
If anti-Zionism wants to be an intellectually respectable position, it needs to directly address the charges against it by answering these questions:

1. Which other nations have lost their right to self-determine through their conduct, or are the Jews singularly evil? Alternatively, which other countries that should not have been created should also have their independence reversed?

2. With the horrors of persecution fresh in living memory, is it reasonable to expect Jews to exchange the sovereign equality they presently enjoy for permanent subordination to the very states that once persecuted them?

3. How will anti-Zionists fully guarantee Jews’ personal safety from anti-Semitic persecution after they revoke the right of Jews to be the ultimate guarantors of their own security? ​

It’s just not good enough to fall back on the old canard that Jews only equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in order to to silence dissent. Far from it: I want to hear these people account for themselves. Anti-Zionists must answer these three questions head-on if they are to purge the stench of anti-Semitism that is so redolent in their ideology.

Something tells me they will fail.

 

[PWFI]

Israel: illegal child of the west, occupying innocent Palestinians land since 1948, and massacring them. Israel is the perfect exemple of a terrorists state like no other in whole modern history.

PS: Solomon keep crying my lady, everybody know the truth, you guys have nothing to do with real original jews, You are sionists (murdrers) !

 

[Falcon29]

Okay.

 

[Solomon2]

Israel: illegal child of the west, occupying innocent Palestinians land since 1948, and massacring them. Israel is the perfect exemple of a terrorists state like no other in whole modern history.

It's so easy to counter this stuff: the establishment of Palestine as the Jewish National Home was authorized by the League of Nations and the Caliph of the Ottomans, Jews purchased land from Arabs or settled state lands, Arabs who fled to the enemy camp in 1948 surrendered their civil and property rights while the Arabs who remained kept theirs, and there were no deliberate mass slayings of Arab civilians by Jews (but there were mass slayings of Jewish civilians by Arabs). Neither Jews nor Arabs committed killings on anything like the scale seen in the subcontinent during partition.

But you're right in one sense: Israel is the perfect example of a "terrorist" state like no other in whole modern history - because such a description applied to Israel is 100% false.

 

[Leader]

Does that mean all jews are terrorists like Zionists?

I highly doubt if jews are violent, its the zionist terrorists...

 

[bolo]

Does that mean all jews are terrorists like Zionists?

I highly doubt if jews are violent, its the zionist terrorists...

But these small group of jews hold the power that normal jews are unable to fight it.

 

[Solomon2]

Does that mean all jews are terrorists like Zionists?

Tricks with words, since Zionists aren't terrorists.

 

[Leader]

Tricks with words, since Zionists aren't terrorists.

Zionism itself is a violent ideology/movement, its members are terrorists by mind, talk and actions.


but all jews are not zionists/terrorists.

 

[Solomon2]

Zionism itself is a violent ideology/movement -

Which explains why Zionists encourage the growth of minority populations in their midst, treat their enemies with kid gloves, hold minority property rights dear, and allow their holiest site to be administered by Muslims.

I leave it to you, Leader, to explain to prove to us readers you actually believe this stuff you spout or else yield pretensions of leadership to those who make more sense, for why should Pakistanis follow insane people?

 

[Leader]

Which explains why Zionists encourage the growth of minority populations in their midst, treat their enemies with kid gloves, hold minority property rights dear, and allow their holiest site to be administered by Muslims.

I leave it to you, Leader, to explain to prove to us readers you actually believe this stuff you spout or else yield pretensions of leadership to those who make more sense, for why should Pakistanis follow insane people?

using them as bait. what else.
these zionist terrorists should be brought to justice for war crimes and cultivating terror and forcing jew people to their cult agenda, without giving them any choice or remorse over the inhumane crimes !

get an independent voting on that, overwhelming majority of the jews will vote for a muslim administrator over a zionist terrorist. let alone history being a witness to the obvious choice.

but ofcourse you support terrorist zionies. the disease is in your heart. stop looking elsewhere !

 

[BeyondHeretic]

Everyone knows it's anti-Semitic , but no one dares to voice it , currently ,

 

[Chak Bamu]

This here is the second sentence: "In calling for the fall of the Jewish state, anti-Zionists are engaged in a racist endeavour." This naked, misguided statement is rather desperate in its assertiveness. Zionists are loosing their grip on the collective Western imagination. They are even losing support among many young secular jews. One also wonders about reports of rising quantum of immigration out of Israel.

So where does this leave a committed Zionist? To find out continue reading beyond the second sentence. But I wonder how many would do that? It is not an important topic for most here on PDF (and beyond I suppose). All this flailing and thrashing about by a young Zionist would only interest fellow Zionists. Most others would call it BS and move on. That is how I happened by this piece of desperation a week ago. Dr. Christine Fair (@CChristineFair) shared it by stating "I call BS on this on multiple levels". I agree. This is only for BS freaks. Read on if you are one.