Anti-Zionism Is Racism

Max Sawicky sawicky at bellatlantic.net
Sat Jul 28 14:02:40 PDT 2001


Anti-zionism is not necessarily racism. It often is. One reason for the preoccupation with it on the left is that lots of lefts are also Jews, and this gets us to thinking about the nature of one's 'national liberation.'

I think it is true that it is possible to show ties between most nationalisms and colonial interests. And I agree there is much in common between zionism, black nationalism, and other nationalisms (not necessarily negative, either).

But the main reasons zionism gets attention is that it was successful in gaining state power, it is allied with the U.S., and it is seen as, ironically enough, part of the "white race."

I have noted previously on PEN-L that some leninist support for nationalism is totally hypocritical, since it is premised entirely on opposition to the U.S. or Europe, not on any commitment to ideas of freedom or autonomy per se. But we don't have many leninists here on LBO, and perhaps none for whom my criticism applies.

mbs

Marcus Garvey, the great African-American nationalist who hailed from Jamaica, once wrote a text entitled "Black Zionism." As many a commentator has noted, and as was recently noted in an LBO discussion, the parallels between Jewish Zionism and Garvey's African-American Zionism/nationalism are remarkable.



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