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Zionism doesn't define Jews - it divides us

By Gabor Mate

The Globe and Mail (Canada)
12 December 2002

Given its horrific 20th-century connotations, anti-Semitism is a
serious charge. It was levelled against critics of Israel on this
page recently by three people who have demonstrated a strong
lifelong commitment to humanitarian values. Lawyer Clayton Ruby,
labour leader Jeff Rose and physician Philip Berger wrote that
they feel "anti-Semitism has emerged as a powerful force" among
some left-wing opponents of Israeli policy.

As a Jew and a former member of a Zionist youth movement, I
understand the affinity the three writers have for Israel. I can
also see why the blindly murderous attitudes and actions of some
in the Palestinian resistance trigger a powerfully defensive
emotional response in the Jewish community.

But the flaw in their argument is rooted in a confounding of
Jewish identity with the Jewish state. They write of an
"artificial distinction between Israel and Zionism, on one hand,
and Jewish identity on the other."

The modern identification of Jews and Israel emerged largely as a
reaction to the Nazi genocide. Although it may represent the
majority view today, it should be not taken for granted.
Historically, it never has been. It is unlikely to persist.

From its beginnings, political Zionism faced opposition within
the Jewish world. The Zionist identification of a people with a
state is incompatible with the real position of most Jews as
freely chosen citizens of other countries. Long before Roman
times, Jews formed widely dispersed religious, cultural and
ethnic groups whose commonality was not based on geography or
politics. Only their spiritual practices were centred on
Palestine.

Some Jews saw in political Zionism a vulgarization of Jewish
Messianic tradition that would debase Jewish moral life. The
Russian-Jewish writer and "spiritual Zionist" Ahad Ha'am, who
emigrated to Palestine, was one of the first to recognize the
ethical costs of a project to establish a Jewish state at the
expense of the indigenous Arabs. "If this be the Messiah coming,"
he wrote in the first years of the last century, "then I don't
want to see him arrive."

Zionist theory denied the legitimate presence of an emerging,
indigenous nation in Palestine. Zionist practice ensured its
dispossession and exile. "We may be a people without a home,"
said a disillusioned German Zionist in 1925, "but alas, there is
not a country without a people. . . . Palestine has an existing
population of 700,000, a people who have lived there for
centuries and rightfully consider the country as their fatherland
and homeland."

Ahad Ha'am's dark prophecy of an anti-Messianic future has been
fully realized. My medical friend and colleague Philip Berger
would be appalled if he saw with his own eyes, as I have, the
disastrous humanitarian and health consequences of a policy that
grants settlers from New York six times as much fresh water per
capita as native Palestinians.

Human-rights lawyer Clayton Ruby would be outraged to witness the
proceedings of military courts where tortured Arabs are accused,
convicted and sentenced without the right to know the evidence
against them.

Unionist Jeff Rose would be shocked at policies that de facto
make Palestinian labour groups illegal, exposing their organizers
to the threat of incarceration.

It owes nothing to anti-Semitism that Israel is the subject of
more critical scrutiny than are the neighbouring Arab autarchies,
dictatorships and pseudo-democracies. No one mistakes the true
nature of those regimes. No credible voices are raised in their
defence, nor do the abhorrent Palestinian suicide bombings have
any serious apologists. Only Israel's relentless and ultimately
self-destructive expansionism, militarism and state violence find
many supporters.

The Palestinians continue to be disenfranchised, dispossessed and
humiliated. Mr. Rose, Dr. Berger and Mr. Ruby, were they to drop
their self-generated fear of leftist anti-Semitism, would be
inspired by the words of the Israeli officer who chose this week
to join dozens of his comrades in jail rather than serve in an
army of brutal occupation: "I will do my time in a visible prison
for a few months for refusing to enlist in Israel's academy for
prison guards: the IDF, Israel's 'Defense Forces' which have been
imprisoning an entire people for 35 years." Gabor Mate is a
Vancouver physician and writer.

*Mutt American · Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2002 5:03 am Post subject:

Guest · Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2002 7:33 am Post subject:

Guest

Also, you can read about Jack Bernstein's experience of Israeli racism in his "Life Of An American Jew In Racist-Marxist Israel" which you can read via the following URL (Jack Bernstein was an American Jew and describes his personal experience of blatant Israeli racism):

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/11/19/life-of-an-american-jew-in-racist-marxist-israel.php

Guest · Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2002 9:08 am Post subject:

Guest · Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2002 11:09 am Post subject:

You people have a lot of nerve calling anyone a racist...considering the slurs you use to describe Jews.

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Zionism doesn't define Jews - it divides us