As I've said before, although I think it is important to understand the historical roots of Zionism, at this point the practical problem for Americans, leftists, and progressive Jews, is not to take a stand on whether Zionism is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, but to attempt to influence Israeli state policy, and American and American Jewish opinion to end the occupation. That is a precondition of peace, and possibly survival, both for Palestinians ans Israelis, Jews and non-Jews alike.
That said, I agree that Zionism was a complicated project with many strands. But was always deeply implicated with colonialism. Herzl tried to flog it to the leaders of various European states as such; Weitzmann tied its realization to the British role in the region. The project itself always depended on European Jews taking away Aran land--that was the point of the Jewish National Fund. It's true that left Zionists had, and partially realized, socialist ideals, though mostly for Jews. It's also true that some strands of Zionism envisaged peaceful cooperation with Arabs--but always within the framework of a Jewish state, a state in which, by definition, Arabs could not but be second class citizens. Nonetheless, the project of a Jewish state has been realized, and it will not be transformed unless a very substantial majority of Israeli Jews come to think rather differently than they do. It's time to recognize what the PLO has recognized, that the Jewish state is a fact on the ground. Right now, the job is to get it to stop behaving like the apartheid South African state.
--jks
>From: "Forstater, Mathew" <ForstaterM at umkc.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Subject: RE: zionism
>Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 21:01:38 -0500
>
>mbs says: Fact is that zionism was nothing before Hitler.
>Hitler, not Herzl, made zionism. I've made too
>much of the diverse intellectual and cultural
>roots. The main motive was not colonialism
>or the exaltation of a bloodline, but survival.
>
>reply: (right, so the Jews should have taken Germany.) Max--which one
>of the following are you claiming led to the dispossession of the
>Palestinian homeland, denial of their existence and subjection to acts
>of terror on par with what Jews themselves had experienced?:
>
>1) that it was the genuine *belief* of Jews and/or non-Jews that the
>Jewish people would not survive
>
>2) that the Jewish people in fact would not have survived
>
>3) that the claim that the Jewish people would not survive was used to
>convince Jews and/or non-Jews of the necessity of that strategy
>
>mbf
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