Thursday, April 21, 2016

Is anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? This Zionist thinks he stumbled on a clever proof

He says: "Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. It holds that Jews, like any other people, have the right to national self-determination. Denying that right to Jews, and only to Jews, can’t be called anything other than anti-Semitism."  Well, yes. If one is to deny self-determination to Jews, it would be anti-Semitic.  But anti-Zionism is not denial of self-determination to Jews (and not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists vote with their feet relocate to the holy land), but is the notion that self-determination for Zionist Jews should not take place get the expense of another people.  So anti-Zionists like me are opposed to the notion that the creation of a Jewish state should take place atop an existing nation.  That is the crux of the issue. Of course, there is another layer: secularists like myself would object to the creation of any religious-identity state: be it Islamic or Jewish or Christian.  What Zionists deliberately don't want to understand is this: Palestinian and Arab opposition to Zionism is about the choice of the destination (an existing homeland) and about racist practices of the Zionist entity, and its occupation and war crimes.  If Zionism is a movement by Indonesian Muslim or by Tibetan Buddhists, we would be as fiercely opposed to it as now.  Stop with these verbal games hoping to score polemical points which only make your arguments more stupid.  So the opposition to Zionism would be indeed anti-Semitism if one is to accept the occupation of Palestine by Catholics and not by Jews. That would be anti-Semitic. But we are opposed to the occupation of Palestine BY ANYONE. Get it?