[lbo-talk] Religious vs National struggles...

[joanna]

It defines the Jew as Hitler defines the Jew, by blood. Political 
zionism is the bastard child, or unexpected issue of the blood-based 
justifications for nationalism that emerged in the 19th century 
throughout Europe. Political Zionism is an imperial project. Zionism 
_was_ a cynical land and power grap and _was_ an atavistic tribalism. It 
arose _with_ the gradual emancipation of the Jews throughout Europe, 
fomented by those whose power in the Jewish ghettoes was diminished by 
this emancipation. The Holocaust was their poster child.

Joanna

Colin Brace wrote:


>Fascinating piece, Johanna; thanks for posting it. It begs the
>question though: if the original Zionists didn't define themselves in
>religious terms, by their religions practices, what then formed the
>ideological basis for their project? How else could one define a Jew
>except by religion? They had no common language at the time, nor a
>distinctive racial identity, not even a over-arching culture (cf, the
>synagogues in 17th century Amsterdam; separate ones for Sephardic and
>Ashenazi Jews) And these avowed "atheists" established a nation whose
>citizenship is defined by one's mother having been "Jewish"? What
>right did they have to settle in Palestine except that established in
>a two-thousand year old religious text? Based on what Avnery says,
>Zionism sounds at best like a cynical land and power grab, at worst a
>kind of atavistic tribalism.
>
>--
>  Colin Brace
>  Amsterdam
>
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