Zionism:Pitting the West Against Islam

[ishmael]

http://www.rense.com/general74/zzn.htm

I'm not endorsing this--I'm not enough of a historian to have a strong opinion--but I thought it might be an interesting springboard for discussion. It seems a fairly common theme amongst Muslim intellectuals. Anyone with a better grasp of the history care to comment?

[Norman Bernstein]

My take: it's nothing more than 'agitprop', and it really fails to understand or the roots of Zionism, which predated the Holocaust by nearly 100 years.

The entire conflict between Israel and the Palestinians can be made far, far clearer by reading 'One Palestine, Complete', by Tom Segev, a writer for Ha'aretz, a major Israeli newspaper. Segev recounts the history of Palestine, from the founding of Zionism in the 19th century, through the end of the Britsh Mandate... and he explains what the rabidly pro-Israel hawks cannot, namely, why there is such a long standing resentment amongst Palestinians toward the Zionists.

This book, among others, is the reason why my attitude changed about the conflict... from blindly believing the spin promulgated by the American Jewish commnity, in favor of Israel, to a position where I can understand the roots of the conflict... and understand the motivations of the Palestinians.

[Nicholas Scheuer]

Whatever the problem, it's always the Jews' fault.

Moby Nick

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Yup; its low grade agitprop, of the sort that fell out of fashion in 1989

To save people reading the article; here's a sample:

"Driven by history, chance and cunning, the Zionists wedged themselves between two historical adversaries, the West and Islam, and by harnessing the strength of the first against the second, it has produced the conditions of a conflict that has grown deeper over time."

[Norman Bernstein]

Yup; its low grade agitprop, of the sort that fell out of fashion in 1989

To save people reading the article; here's a sample:

"Driven by history, chance and cunning, the Zionists wedged themselves between two historical adversaries, the West and Islam, and by harnessing the strength of the first against the second, it has produced the conditions of a conflict that has grown deeper over time."

Yup, it's absurd... and it's hardly a 'common theme among Muslim intellectuals', I think.... they have significantly more substantial issues, based on history.

If someone really cared enough to really want to know why the conflict exists, they should start by asking themselves just what are the real and concrete issues of each side in the conflict.... while ignoring the hyper-heated rhetoric, which might have nothing whatsoever to do with the root causes.

[PatCox]

How did Amahdinejad get elected? What was Bin Laden's stated reason for the 9/11 attacks? Who wanted Saddam Hussein ousted?
Was Pearle not a paid lobbyist for the Likkud party? What accounts for the popularity of Hamas, didn't they actually gain respect and credibility by provoking Israel to attack them?

There has got to be a middle ground between seeing and hearing no evil when it comes to Israel, and being an anti-semitic consipracy theory believing whacko. There must be some way to acknowledge that arab anti-semitism is real and is a force driving events in the middle east today without being attacked and ridiculed as a nazi.

[Popeye]

land and political entitlement comes from the Bible

that's about it

[Keith Wilson]

There must be some way to acknowledge that Arab anti-semitism is real and is a force driving events in the middle east today without being attacked and ridiculed as a Nazi. You're damn right it's real. The everyday level of Arab paranoia about Israel and the Jews in general is almost clinical. Israel is far from blameless, but sometimes I think the level of hostility would scarcely be less if they were.

[Norman Bernstein]

The term 'anti-semitism' really refers to hatred of Jews decoupled from any particular real and/or rational cause.

I'm not denying, for a moment, that it exists... but since, by definition, there's no real or rational cause for it, it's a lot more instructive to examine the real and rational causes of the conflict between Israel, the Palestinian people, and the neigboring countries.

Anti-semitism itself may be irrational.... but the real and rational causes for emnity do indeed exist... for anyone not so intellectually lazy as to not bother to look.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I'm no expert (and I do wonder if anyone is!) but here are some things that I think contribute to the present state of affairs:

1. The "ethnic cleansing" of the Jewish populations of the Arab countries starting in 1947 and reaching a climax in 1967. Very few Arabs outside Israel have ever known a Jew to speak to, in our time, though their grandparents, after hundreds of years of living together, probably would have done.

2. The importance, for a regime that has not been elected as we understand that term, of having a convenient bogeyman.

3. The importance, for all the Arab world, of having some unifying principle - after all, the Arab world is "meant" to be united. Alas, about the only thing that unites all Arab nations is fear of Israel.

4. The convenient availability of anti-Semitic materials.

5. The convenience of being able to blame Europe for the existence of Israel.

etc...

[Osborne Russell]

Driven by history, chance and cunning, the Islamists wedged themselves between two historical adversaries, xenophobic ignoroid Reds and the rest of the world.

[LeeG]

seems to me that it's not accurate to describe a conflict called Islam vs Zionism when Islamic cultures cover a much, much larger population and variety of cultures. For some reason the argument looks like connecting horticultural sciences with particle physics by virture of the ethnic make-up of the students in the college these fields are studied(yeah, I'm easily confused)

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Good point:

Islam = a middle eastern monotheistic religion, which actively proselytises

Judaism = a middle eastern monotheistic religion, which does not proselytise

Islamism = a loose term for a political movement which seeks to unite Moslems and secure for them the benefits of science and technology whilst retaining the virtues of Islam

Zionism = a loose term for a political movement which seeks the return of Jews to their own land under their own Government.

We might once have spoken of pan-Arabism, but it's just about dead as a political force. It only excited the intellectuals - the odd thing about Islamism is that, though it began as an intellectual movement, a version of it was able to motivate the man and woman in the street.

[Norman Bernstein]

Zionism = a loose term for a political movement which seeks the return of Jews to their own land under their own Government.

Not quite correct.... it would be more correct to say that the movement sought the stablishment of a homeland for the Jews, not the 'return of Jews to their own land'. The Zionist movement did not, at it's founding, make any heritage claims to land in the middle east; in fact, places such as South Africa and Argentina were considered as possible locations for a Jewish state.

The propaganda about 'heritage land' didn't come until much later.... and even later than that, came the myth of 'greater Isreal'.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Sorry, Norman - I stand corrected.

[LeeG]

thanks Andrew, now it's going to take me another five years and stack of books to line up those ducks.

[JimD]

If only Hagen Daas didn't make such good ice cream.

[Anthony Zucker]

Norman is wrong on stating that the return to their own land was one of several options. For two thousand years the Passover meal has ended with the prayer/toast, "Next year in Jerusalem". The British government suggested Rhodesia and others suggested Argentina but the thrust has always been to get back to their anciant land. And by the way, there had been Jews living there the whole time. Not all had been exiled by the Romans. Also ther had been returnees during the inquisition and during other hard times such as the expulsion from Damascus in 1900 when the Syrian Jews established a synagouge in Jerusalem that is still thriving.

Having lived in Israel and travelled in Arab countries I feel that the root problem is Arab embarrassment over Israel's accomplishments. It's not just the military superiority or the economic progress, it's also the cultural differences such as equal rights for women which is such an anethma for moslem men.

[Norman Bernstein]

Norman is wrong on stating that the return to their own land was one of several options. For two thousand years the Passover meal has ended with the prayer/toast, "Next year in Jerusalem".

I think you're confusing rhetoric with reality. Yes, the liturgy does indeed have a 'return to Jerusalem' theme embedded into it.... but I was talking about the Zionist movement, not the liturgy. The early Zionist movement most definately did not have the Middle East in their sights, per se.



The British government suggested Rhodesia and others suggested Argentina but the thrust has always been to get back to their anciant land.

See above... true of the liturgy, not true of the Zionist movement of the 19th century.



And by the way, there had been Jews living there the whole time. Not all had been exiled by the Romans. Also ther had been returnees during the inquisition and during other hard times such as the expulsion from Damascus in 1900 when the Syrian Jews established a synagouge in Jerusalem that is still thriving.

In the mid-19th century, there were perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 Jews living in the land now called Israel and Palestine.... amongst 3/4 million Arabs. Even by the early 1900's, the Zionist organizations were deperately trying to find Jews willing to relocate to the Middle East, to bolster the population... the chief problems being the British, who were lamely trying to minimize Jewish immigration to prevent friction with indigenous Arabs, and Jews themselves; during the 1930's, the Jewish population was actually declining, due to Jews who had emigrated and didn't like thenon-european lifestyle.


Having lived in Israel and travelled in Arab countries I feel that the root problem is Arab embarrassment over Israel's accomplishments. It's not just the military superiority or the economic progress, it's also the cultural differences such as equal rights for women which is such an anethma for moslem men.

I haven't lived in Israel, but I have read very extensively about the conflict, and from what I've read, I haven't seen any support for your theory. The roots of Arab resentment against Israel are real, not merely emnity, and date back over 150 years.

[Anthony Zucker]

Norman;
I think we went around on this once before.
The reason those people called themselves Zionists is because they wanted to get back to Zion, the land they were promised by God (the Liturgy was important to them)and the land that even the Koran mentions as theirs(Sara 5-something)
But back to Ishmael's offerring. I find it curious that the article is from the Tehran Times and mentions the horrors of the Holocost. I assumed that PC in Tehran these days is that it didnt happen but that they are going to make it happen. But it is a fairly representative of what passes for intellect in the Arab press these days. Any play of words that can demonize Jews/Israel is all an Arab newspaper reader ever gets.
I must also disagree with you that there is no rational cause for anti-semitism. I think it has been caused by the failed theology of Christianity. It started out as a group of jews who thought that their rabbi, who was crucified by the Romans, was the messiah and would come back from the dead in a few days. He never did but the followers established a cult and it grew even without his reappearring until the emperor Constantine took it over and made it into a state religion. Of course he had to change the bit about the Romans killing Jesus and he made it read that the Jews killed him. That allowed Christians to tax, persecute, kill Jews until Pope John Paul II undid it and apologized. But its still in the Easter mass. Not to sound like a crybaby, but I remember being in the sixth grade in Waterbury, Conn and having my classmates ask me "Why did you kill our saviour?". I was 10 years old and didnt understand what a saviour was.
Your neighbor and Boston Globe editorialist, James Carroll, has written "Constantine's Sword" about all this.

[PatCox]

The original christian sect members, including Jesus' brother James, were jews who worshipped in the Temple and remained in Jerusalem until the disapora, wasn't it around 72 AD, when the Romans destroyed the temple and most likely killed them all. The Christian church of today was founded by Paul, who never knew Jesus, and who founded a gentile church based in Lebanon, Greece, and Turkey. The Romans were "persecuting" jews long before christianity.

[Norman Bernstein]

Concerning the establishment of Israel by the early Zionists:



Before 1917 some Zionist leaders took seriously proposals for Jewish homelands in places other than Palestine. Herzl's Der Judenstaat argued for a Jewish state in either Palestine, "our ever-memorable historic home", or Argentina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina), "one of the most fertile countries in the world". In 1903 British cabinet ministers suggested the British Uganda Program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Uganda_Program), land for a Jewish state in "Uganda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda)" (in today's Kenya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya)). Herzl initially rejected the idea, preferring Palestine, but after the April 1903 Kishinev pogrom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom) Herzl introduced a controversial proposal to the Sixth Zionist Congress to investigate the offer as a temporary measure for Russian Jews in danger. Notwithstanding its emergency and temporary nature, the proposal still proved very divisive, and widespread opposition to the plan was fueled by a walkout led by the Russian Jewish delegation to the Congress. Nevertheless, a majority voted to establish a committee for the investigation of the possibility, and it was not dismissed until the 7th Zionist Congress in 1905.

In response to this, the Jewish Territorialist Organization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Territorialist_Organization) (ITO) led by Israel Zangwill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Zangwill) split off from the main Zionist movement. The territorialists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorialism) attempted to establish a Jewish homeland wherever possible, but went into decline after 1917 and the ITO was dissolved in 1925. From that time Palestine was the sole focus of Zionist aspirations. In 1928, the Soviet Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union) established a Jewish Autonomous Oblast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast) in the Russian Far East (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Far_East) but the effort failed to meet expectations and as of 2002 Jews constitute only about 1.2% of its population.

[ishmael]

As I said at the outset, I don't know this history well. I do recall some fairly good references showing that the Zionists actually negotiated with the Nazis, before the "final solution" was in place, to let German and Polish Jews migrate to Palestine. May be more agitprop.

In anycase, Palestine. It hadn't been under Jewish control in over two thousand years. What and who's idea was it to make a Jewish state in what was ostensibly Muslim territory? Balfour!? Was this a good idea, or was it some romance coming out of odd Christian guilt and mythology?

Granted, the Arabs in Palestine weren't up to much, and Jews came in and made a modern state, with many successes, economically politically. But how do you just set aside a piece of land in the middle of Arab desire, call it Israel, with all that biblical baggage, and not expect a big fight? Who ultimately decided this was Israel? A council far removed from Arab understanding.

And Israel, Jews from Europe mostly, just coming out of the horrors of WWII, was under attack from day one. And they won some territory they are chary to give back. And who can blame them!? They are surrounded by enemies who wish to destroy them yet again.

What a bloody mess. If I were a superstitious man I'd say the apocalyptic Christians are just about right. The armies of the east and the west are going to converge on this silly bit of territory and make our lives hell on earth.

[Anthony Zucker]

Ishmael;
I am afraid that your concerns are well placed. There is so much bad feeling on both sides that I grow more pessamistic as the years go by.
Listening to Bush, Baker, Hamilton, etc., talk about a negotiated settlement just shows how naive they are. Unfortunately, the Middle East is not inhabited by American businessmen who understand compromise and dont mind seeing the folks on the other side of the table do well. That is what is so amazing about this country and as a regular Bilge reader I think you fellows take that for granted.
In the Middle East most people would rather see their opponents suffer than prosper themselves. Golda Meyer once said that "There will be peace in the Middle East when the Arabs decide that they love their children more than they hate us". A very sad comment.