Angelus Novus wrote:
> Leaving
> aside the right-wing manifestations of Zionism,
> Zionism in the most literal sense means a movement for
> a Jewish nation-state. Anybody who opposes such a
> movement among Jews, but has no problem with other
> self-defined national groups having their own
> respective nation-states, I would view as being
> anti-semitic.
^^^^^ CB: Problem is that the Jewish ethnic group has not had a national territory since Roman times ( if my research on the origin of the Diaspora is accurate) . "You" can't just shove some ethnic group off of _their_ land in order to establish another self-defined national-ethnic group's national territory, particularly when the group whose land you take had absolutely nothing to do with centuries of European anti-semitism. Well, "you" _can_, but then "you" are subject to the fight back from the displaced group which amounts to a fully legitimate national liberation movement. And "you" become a usurping, genocidal ( yes, genocidal as defined by the UN Convention against genocide) racist regime, regardless of the victim status of most of your population back in good ole Europe.
Jews' victim status in Europe does not at all reduce the victimizer status of the state of Israel in Palestine.
"Anti-semitism" must be defined in terms of _European_ history, and the mistreatment and prejudice against Jews in that context. Especially, post-Nazi Holocaust, Europeans were very much correct that they owed Jews protection and safety from genocidal anti-semitism. State power, even though it is a sort of blunt object, is about the only way to take a step toward such security. However, obviously, the Jewish state should have been placed on _European_ land. Typical of European ( British) racism, they just assumed that some colored people somewhere didn't amount to full humans, and took _their_ land, making Palestinans sacrifice for the reparations for _European_ wrongs done to Jews !
There _is_ a problem with old-style, European anti-semites using Israel's crimes against Palestinians to further their anti-Jewish genocidal and racist projects. However, defenders of Jews irresponsibly play into this danger if they slur over the absolute difference between old style anti-semitism and legitimate protests against the imperialist history of the modern Israeli.
Israeli imperialism is hiding among Jewish masses ,who have a legitimate fear of the European, anti-semitic ( including Nazi)history. Equivocating on the term "anti-semitism" is a form of this hiding.