Zionist Theses And Anti-Theses

A Martian political delegation to our planet arriving in 1948 remarked how lucky they were to have come ata time when Earth’s political geography was undergoing a sea change.

They observed that the two major wars in the three previous decades were behind some of this ferment.Britain and France, the two great colonial powers, were being pushed aside by two new ones, United States andthe Soviet Union. They observed the beginnings of another historic process. Taking advantage of the capitalistwars, the colonized peoples of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean were ratcheting their own independencemovements. The age of colonial empires and settler colonies was coming to a close. Or so it seemed.

In addition to these broad-brush changes, the Martians noted some anomalous details. They wrote of eventsin the Levant-in Palestine to be precise-that ran contrary to the global trends away from colonial empires andsettler-colonization. In particular, they reported the creation in May 1948 of Israel, a Jewish state, inPalestine; it was the culmination of a colonial-settler movement launched at Basle in 1897 by the powerful butdespised Jews of Europe. This new state had expelled, both before and after its creation, some 800,000Palestinians from their homes.

One of the Martian observers, in a dissenting note to the delegation’s report, observed that the creationof Israel did not bode well for Earthlings. In a language that appeared to be taken from Theodor Herzl’s TheJewish State written in 1895, he wrote that "the existence of this rampart of Europe against Asia, thisoutpost of Western civilization, could only be guaranteed by Europe." He predicted that since this new statehad been created abnormally, in opposition to the new trends in global morality, it would face the greatestdifficulty in securing the moral support of the publics in United States and Europe.

On this last point, our Martian observer was in error. He seemed to lack a clear understanding of theforces that had chaperoned this new state into existence. First, there was the longstanding desire of manyWesterners to be rid of the Jews from their midst. [1] Second, most Westerners nursed an even strongerantipathy towards the Ishmaelites-variously known as Saracens, Hagarites, Mahometans and Arabs-the otherbranch of the Semitic family. Third, there was the guilt many Westerners felt over the Holocaust. Ironically,all these forces contributed to the founding of Israel. In creating Israel, the West could reduce its ownJewish population, assuage its guilt over the Holocaust, and oppose the Israelites against the Ishmaelites.The creation of Israel was one project on which the Jews and Western anti-Semites could cooperate heartily.

Our Martian observer also had little notion of the resources commanded by the Jews. Already, by thesixteenth century, the Jews had established themselves as Europe’s leading bankers, since the Church bannedChristians from usurious activities. In turn, the European Enlightenment brought equal rights for allcitizens, allowing Jews to move out of the ghettoes, and rise to distinction in various professions. Far frombeing an "inferior race"-as the Goyims claimed-the Jews demonstrated that they had enormous gifts. In hisbook, The Jewish State (London: H. Pordes, 1967, 16), Theodor Herzl, explains that this was the resultof "Jew-baiting" which had "merely stripped off our weaklings; the strong among us were invariably trueto their race when persecution broke out against them."

The moral case for Israel succeeded like a Spielberg blockbuster, a success produced by Jewish power andingenuity, working to take advantage of Islamophobia, Holocaust guilt, and anti-Semitism. In hundreds ofmovies, television serials, books, magazines, and newspapers, the Zionists constructed a narrative of Jewishrights to Israel, Israel’s distinctiveness, Israeli achievements, the victimization of Israel by itsbarbaric Arab neighbors, and an Islamic hatred of all things Western (chiefly Israel). Those who remainedskeptical of this narrative were neutralized by more direct methods, including denial of tenure, defeat at theballot, smear campaigns, and, occasionally, worse. [2] For too long, these campaigns of persuasion andcoercion have represented Israel as a small, beleaguered but heroic country, defending Western values againstthe onslaught of Islamic vandals. Next to the creation of Israel, the launching of this narrative has been thegreatest triumph of the Zionist movement.

Is it then foolhardy to oppose this political juggernaut? One might answer with Noam Chomsky (Milan Rai, Chomsky’sPolitics, 1995, 50) who was speaking about the media in United States, that "Any system that’s basedon lying and deceit is inherently unstable." The Zionist narrative about Israel too is unstable. It isunstable because it is founded on egregious lies that strain our credulity; it is unstable because thePalestinians have refused to make a quiet exit; it is unstable because Israeli repression escalates as itcontends with Palestinian resistance; it is unstable because Israel contains the dynamics that pushes theworld towards a clash of civilizations. It is all too obvious that as the Palestinian resistance rises, Israelhas been seeking to draw United States directly into its war with the Arabs.

It is scarcely surprising then if the hegemonic Zionist narrative has begun to fray at the edges even inthese United States. One visible sign of this is the movement to divest from Israel, which began some twoyears ago at UC Berkeley, and has already spread to more than forty campuses nationwide. In addition, thereare indications that the growing anti-war movement is linking its opposition to the war on Iraq to justice forPalestinians. In Western Europe, the Zionist narrative has fared worse. A survey of recent opinion pollsindicates that there has already occurred a quite significant shift in European sympathies towards thePalestinians. [3] A survey of Britain’s leading writers, conducted by the Independent in October2002, found that about half of the thirty-five writers see greater justice on the Palestinian side, only threeon the Israeli side, and several of the uncommitted writers expressed strong sympathy for the Palestinians intheir comments. [4]

All of this suggests that the time is ripe for examining again, case by case, some of the leading Zionisttheses of the past century. More than ever before, American audiences are perplexed by the dominant narrativesabout Israel, the sources of 9-11, and the inevitable clash of civilizations. We are at a turning point ofhistory, for better or worse. If we can unravel the fabric of lies woven over the past century, we can perhapsnudge this historical turning point just a little bit towards better outcomes.

Promised by God
According to this thesis, the Jews have a legal right to Palestine because God, in the Torah, promised it toAbraham and his descendents some four thousand years ago.

There is one slight problem with this thesis. It has never been established in any system of laws that areligious document, purporting to record statements made by God, could form the basis of legally enforceableclaims to property in this world. Imagine what would happen if courts began to accept individual orcollective claims to land, buildings, rivers, and mountains that were backed by divine promises. SaddamHussein might claim that he had a dream in his youth, which he had never revealed before, in which God hadchosen the Iraqis to inherit the entire United States.

Apart from the legal questions, it would be a little hard proving that European Jews, those who demandedthe right to emigrate to Palestine, were in fact descended from Abraham. Even the world’s leadinggeneticists would feel challenged, trying to establish a connection between a present population and aputative ancestor whose existence has never been established historically. What if this connection wastenuous, or a stronger connection was discovered between Abraham and the Arabs?

A Historical Connection
More secular Zionists pressed their claims on the basis of a historical connection to Palestine. Thehistorical connection is valid, but it will not support Zionist claims.

It is worth pointing out that the historical connection ended some two thousand years ago, when theoverwhelming majority of Jews left Palestine for other destinations, mostly in the Mediterranean world. Inaddition, even during the few centuries when Jews had political dominion over Palestine, they were not itsonly inhabitants. But these are only minor problems.

The real problem with this thesis is that claims of a historical connection, quite ancient in this case,cannot be used to justify present claims to territory. If this is accepted as a valid principle forappropriating territory, we should all start by vacating United States, since the Indians have a historicalconnection to this land that is quite a bit weightier than any Jewish connection to Palestine. The Indians hada connection to United States that was exclusive until the 1600s, and spanned some twenty thousand years.

A Distinct People
The Jews are a ‘distinct’ people, and, hence, they must have a state of their own. In this case, it doesnot matter where; it could be in Argentina, Uganda, or Palestine.

This claim is fraught with difficulties. The Jews were a distinct people some two thousand years agowhen they inhabited a single territory, shared the same faith, spoke a common language, and shared the sametraditions. But since their dispersal, the Jews have been divided into many distinct Jewish communities livingamongst gentiles, blending with their hosts through marriages, and creating new Jewish communities throughconversions. Over centuries, these Jewish communities grew apart from each other, racially, culturally, andeven in terms of their religious life. How much was there in common between the Jews of Russia, Morocco, Iranand Ethiopia, that could define them as a ‘distinct’ people?

Another difficulty with this thesis lies in its unstated second premise. It assumes that all distinctpeoples have a state of their own. This is patently incorrect. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands,of distinct peoples-with distinct languages, cultures, religions, and lineages-through out the world who donot have a state of their own. In addition, most of these distinct peoples have a much stronger claim tostatehood than the Jews since they constitute a majority in the areas they inhabit.

One encounters the greatest difficulty in this argument when the demand for a state arises from a‘people,’ as in the case of the Jews, who do not constitute a majority in any of the areas they inhabit.In the event, such a people can establish their own state only by conquering another people and/or expellingthem. Indeed, that is how the Jews established the state of Israel in Palestine, by invading it under thecover of the British mandate, and, then, expelling the great majority of the Palestinians.

Many Arab States
The Arabs already have several states of their own. If they were not motivated by anti-Semitism, they wouldnot object to the creation of the only Jewish state. Instead, they would welcome and resettle the Palestiniansdisplaced by the creation of Israel.

This is a racist argument. It assumes that the Jewish need for a state has moral precedence over the rightsof Palestinians to their own homes, their history, their ancestral lands, their towns and villages. It blamesthe Arabs for not showing proper deference towards the desire of the Jews for their own state, a state thatwould be established solely at the cost of the Arab peoples.

The Europeans too have many states-in fact many more than the Arabs-but would they agree to give up one oftheir states to create a state for some truly distinct people living in the Middle East-say, the Kurds-who arewithout a state of their own?

Israel Attacked in 1948
In order to paint Israel as the victim, the Zionist narrative claims that Arab armies from Egypt, Syria andJordan attacked Israel the day after it was created on May 14, 1948.

Were the Arabs attacking an established state with a moral, legal and historical right to Palestine, orwere they merely defending themselves-their lands, their homes, their historical rights-against a foreignoccupation supported successively by two imperialist powers, Britain and United States?

The Zionist aggression against the Arabs had been set in motion well before 1948. At the First ZionistCongress, convened at Basle in 1897, the Zionists openly declared that their aim "is to create for theJewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law." By "public law" they meant the consent andsupport of Britain, the leading imperialist power at the time. In his diary, the same year, Theodor Herzl (TheJewish State, 4-5) wrote: "At Basle I founded the Jewish State." In 1917, exactly twenty years later,the British gave the Zionists the imperialist support they needed. Later, the same year, once the Britishforces had occupied Palestine, the Zionist agencies began setting up the civilian, security, and militaryinfrastructure for the emergence of a Jewish state in Palestine. And most ominously, Palestine was opened upto Jewish immigration. The Zionist invasion of the Arab heartland had begun.

When the British wavered in their commitment to the Zionist enterprise, especially during the Second WorldWar, they were replaced by United States, the new hegemonic power. United States threw its weight behind theZionist project, and pushed the UN General Assembly to pass a resolution calling for the partition ofPalestine and the creation of a Jewish state. Although the Jews in 1948 were still only a third of thepopulation and owned only 6 percent of the land, the UN partition plan gave the new state 55 percent of theland, which included the best agricultural lands, most of the coastline, and access to the Gulf of Aqaba.Thanks to United States, the Jewish invasion of Palestine now carried the imprimatur of international law.

Should the Arabs, including the Palestinians, have acquiesced to an invasion of their lands merely becauseit had been sanctified by United States? One might well ask, what would the Americans have done if the UN-in aworld in which Japan had won the Second World War-had first allowed unlimited immigration of Jews intoMassachusetts, and then authorized its partition to create a Jewish state of Israel in 55 percent ofMassachusetts? In 1948, the Arabs had done what I have no doubt the Americans would have done: they defendedthemselves against an alien invasion.

Only Democracy
The Zionists repeat ad nauseum that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. This happens everytime the discussion turns to some egregious Israeli violation of human rights.

This mantra serves several useful purposes. Its objective is to remind Western audiences of their affinityto Israel. ‘Democracy’ is a code word for Western. In claiming that Israel is a democracy-and not any ofthe Arab countries-the Zionists are affirming that Israel is a Western country, it is one of us, it belongs tothe Western family of nations. Therefore, go easy on us, because we are fighting your battles against thoseArab barbarians. There is also the sense that if Israel is a democracy then it can do no wrong. As ademocracy, Israel represents a higher civilization, which cannot engage in gratuitous violence againstPalestinians. Finally, this seeks to convey the impression of Israel as a solitary democracy, beleaguered by,and heroically doing battle against those brutal Arab dictatorships.

But is Israel really a democracy? This depends on what are the boundaries of Israel. Israel is the onlycountry in the world that has never declared or demarcated its borders. And for thirty-five years now, sincethe 1967 war, its undeclared borders have included the West Bank and Gaza together with their three millionPalestinian inhabitants. Israel has been building illegal settlements in these territories since 1967, whichdid not stop even after the 1993 Oslo Accord. The expanding, armed Jewish settlements are proof positive thatIsrael never planned to give up these territories. In other words, the true borders of Israel encompass threemillion Palestinians who have no political and very few civil rights within these de facto borders. IsIsrael then a democracy? Reverend Desmond Tutu, a leading opponent of South African apartheid, prefers todescribe it as an apartheid society similar to the one that existed in his own country for more than fortyyears.

A Beleaguered State
The Zionists deflect criticism from Israel by portraying it as a small country-a lamb amongst lions-whose veryexistence is threatened by hostile Arab armies. This image is hardly supportable.

Israel is a small country that packs a lot of military strength. Just consider the wars this country haswaged against its neighbors. In the 1948-49 war, Israel fielded an army that was stronger and better equippedthan all the Arab armies on the war front. As a result, Israel expanded its territory to 78 percent ofhistorical Palestine, well beyond the 55 percent awarded by the UN Partition Plan. On October 29 1956, Israelinvaded Egypt, in concert with Britain and France, and occupied all of Sinai and the Gaza Strip.