What does "Zionist" mean anyway?

In 20 years, Israel will have a majority of non-jews.

This will mean the end of the democracy, or the end of Israel.

Perhaps Utah could come to the rescue.
 
Confuseling said:
But an ideology that states that a racial group has the right to enter an area and forcibly evict the people living there is by my definition racist.
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If this is your description of the creation of Israel then I think you really need to improve your historical knowledge, probably using better sources. I would recommend Martin Gilbert's book "Israel: A History". Other posters may recommend other sources, as it is really hard to find unbiased, and unpolitical books on the subject.
 
quarky said:
In 20 years, Israel will have a majority of non-jews.

This will mean the end of the democracy, or the end of Israel.

Perhaps Utah could come to the rescue.
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In what borders? If you mean the pre 1967 borders than this is simply untrue. Do you include the west bank? Gaza? Do you assume that there will not be a political solution by then?

Anyway, I do not want to derail this thread. This is not relevant to the meaning of the term "Zionist".
 
Confuseling said:
You could argue that it is a necessary expedient to be racist in favour of Jews, after the persecution they have suffered, and most specifically the Holocaust.

But an ideology that states that a racial group has the right to enter an area and forcibly evict the people living there is by my definition racist.

I suppose I would add the qualifier that if people who advocate the continued existence of Israel, within the stipulations and borders dictated by international law, and treating non-Jewish Israeli citizens equally are also now designated Zionists, then Zionism is not necessarily racist - that is simple pragmatism, now that Israel very definitely exists.

But I assert that during the foundation of Israel, Zionism was, inescapably and by definition, racist.
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I disagree that it was by definition racist. Zionism as a political view does not have a specific position on any other peoples who might already (or subsequently) live there. The Zionist leaders in the decade or two prior to Israel's establishment were not of one mind about how to address the presence of non-Jews in Israel. Some actively lobbied for expulsion. Some argued for a softer approach. Some didn't care one way or the other. Clearly, Zionism per se did not (and does not) carry a specific implication as to the perceived fate of Palestinians.

It wasn't Zionism that caused the flight of Arab refugees, but war. Note that Israel's declaration of independence acknowledges and welcomes non-Jews. The degree to which the Zionist leadership encouraged the flight of Arabs from the nascent state remains unclear - they knew it was happening, no doubt, and in some cases may have let the demographic/political "benefits" of removing a potential fifth column color some military decisions, but to place the blame for the Palestinian refugee problem at the door of Zionism itself (even if not exclusively) is to misunderstand the movement.
 
That's interesting, though I have to admit it does sound a little bit like the "Leninism isn't a bad idea - it's just that historically Leninist regimes have happened to be sociopathic" argument.

If you can point me to a group of Zionists who had a serious plan for creating Israel as a political entity without forcibly displacing Arabs, and without any racial stipulation as to who could move there, then I will recant.
 
evict the people living???? How did they "evict"? They didn"t evict people who lived in TransJordan? So how did they evict them? There was British Mandate of Palestine before 1948. So if Israel does not have the rigth to exist then Jordan does not have the rigth to
exist because before 1948 that area was called TransJordan and it was apart of the British Mandate of Palestine. United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine????? Maybe Jimmy Carter and other would like to talk more about Munich massacre that happend during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany? Black September in Jordan and how Yasser Arafat tried to kill Hussein of Jordan? Whatabout Second Intifada? How IDF israeli Soldiers evicted Gaza settlers?
 
Edmund Standing said:
Anyway, back to the Zionism = Racism idea:
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Try Zionism = racialist, with the nineteenth century paradigm of race in the mix. You'd find writings discussing the French race, Spanish race, Russian race, etc., presented in all sincerity by essayists in the nineteenth century.

In that context, Zionism was a pro Jewish, racialist movement with a specific vision/goal: re establishing a Jewish homeland.

That does not require apartheid, though it did require a bit of emigration and, as it turned out, conquest.


ETA: What in the name of Sam Hill is this thread doing in R & P? This is a political thread, and Zionism is a political movement.

DR
 
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Confuseling said:
That's interesting, though I have to admit it does sound a little bit like the "Leninism isn't a bad idea - it's just that historically Leninist regimes have happened to be sociopathic" argument.

If you can point me to a group of Zionists who had a serious plan for creating Israel as a political entity without forcibly displacing Arabs, and without any racial stipulation as to who could move there, then I will recant.
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Try Uri Avnery at Gush Shalom,
http://gush-shalom.org/

He's a Zionist, in the sense that he is in favour of the 2-state solution -- ie: including a Jewish state. He is also a very long-time supporter of justice for the Palestinians. As far as the one-state solution goes, his main argument against it is that it is not practical. But he says he hopes that, after a 2-state solution is made, a "federation" could come about:

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1177227796

Avenry was a member of the Irgun, fighting the British, but "left the Irgun in protest against its anti-Arab and reactionary social attitudes and terrorist methods" (see:
http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/uri2.html

In September 1947, on the eve of the Israeli-Palestinian war, Avnery published a booklet entitled "War or Peace in the Semitic Region", which called for a radically new approach: An alliance of the Hebrew and Arab national movements in order to liberate the common "Semitic Region" (a term coined by Avnery in order to avoid the colonialist term Middle East) from imperialism and colonialism, and create a Semitic community and common market, as a part of the emerging third world. Excerpts of the booklet were sent to the media throughout the Arab world and mentioned in some Arab newspapers, just before the start of the war.

[...] Throughout the war, Avnery reported on his experiences as a combat soldier who took part in nearly all the major battles on the Jerusalem and southern fronts. These reports, which appeared in the Ha'aretz evening paper,
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So he was certainly a Zionist in the 1940's. He's a zionist today, by the definition of supporting the existence of a Jewish State in Palestine. But I don't think he was ever anti-Arab.



Oh, and, Counterpunch also publishes Avnery -- if you like the site:

Anti-Semitism vs. Anti-Zionism
http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery01192004.html
 
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'Zionist' is a verbal warning label, like 'Darwinist', 'Commie Pinko', the slurred 'Librul', 'fag', and the dreaded 'n' word. Bigots are apparently required to use those terms to signal to one and all that they can (and should) be avoided.
 
FireGarden said:
Try reading this interview with Benny Morris:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=380986

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=380984

Brought to you via ddt's post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112651

which has, so far, gone unanswered.
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As far as I know, Benny Morris believes that the 47-49 war was initiated by the Arab side, with the goal of driving all the Jews out (or killing them). He then state that in the latter stages of the war there were instances where the Jewish army drove local Arabs from their homes. Though he insists there was no overall plan to clean the country from its population.
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2008/02/benny-morris-letter-to-irish-times.html

He apparently wrote a new book on the war:
Historians have tended to ignore or dismiss, as so much hot air, the jihadi rhetoric and flourishes that accompanied the two-stage assault on the Yishuv [the Jewish residents of Palestine before the founding of Israel] and the constant references in the prevailing Arab discourse to that earlier bout of Islamic battle for the Holy Land, against the Crusaders. This is a mistake.
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http://hnn.us/articles/49503.html

I think that Morris started his carrier by examining mainly the actions of 'his side' - the Israeli side. Naturally, he found a lot to criticise. (This war the probably worst Israeli-Arab war.) Apparently, while working on his new book he found enough blame for everyone. FireGarden, since you brought Morris up, do you agree with his conclusions cited here?
 
TheDaver said:
I like the term “Zionazi”. Inflammatory as all hell, but technically accurate.
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Are you referring to Zionist plus Ashkenazi = Zionazi?

I believe, but I would be interested to hear otherwise, that the term was coined as Zionist plus Nazi = Zionazi. My understanding was that it was only later did those who want to use it start pretending that it simply meant Ashkenazi.

This seems plausible as the Ashkenazi are only a subset of Jews and I have never seen it used in the context of only those Zionists who are of Ashkenazi origin.

It is similar to the way that anti-semite was coined to indicate hatred of Jews (as semite was commonly used by people who saw Jews as belonging to an inferior race); but is now disavowed by some people who claim to like non-Jewish semites (i.e. Arabs) just fine.

I apologise if I have misspelt the word.
 
Moose said:
'Zionist' is a verbal warning label, like 'Darwinist', 'Commie Pinko', the slurred 'Librul', 'fag', and the dreaded 'n' word. Bigots are apparently required to use those terms to signal to one and all that they can (and should) be avoided.
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so its sort of like the word "democrat" If you use it.... its a verbal warning that indicates the user is quite possibly a facist....is that how it works?
 
The Fool said:
so its sort of like the word "democrat" If you use it.... its a verbal warning that indicates the user is quite possibly a facist....is that how it works?
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The correct word is demoncrat. Democ-rat is also acceptable.
 
gumboot said:
On this note, anyone ever seen this video before?
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Parts, mainly the beginning and then the Israeli talk show part. It's in a documentary film called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", where an American Jew talks with different people about the protocols, including some Arab newspaper guy and some sort of director of an American Neo-Nazi organisation. The parts with the breasts is not in the documentary, nor are those labels like the "5 Israelis".

Link.

Saw it some time ago, was interesting. :)
It's by a man called "Marc Levin". Maybe you know him, I don't.

ETA You can find the relevant part beginning at the ~23rd minute.
 
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As this thread has displayed, the word "Zionist" means whatever people want it to mean, and mostly so that it can be used as a weapon against people they disagree with.
 
Doctor Evil said:
Though he insists there was no overall plan to clean the country from its population.
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2008/02/benny-morris-letter-to-irish-times.html
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So, Morris' position now is that there were expulsions but no 'overall' plans for such. Just great minds dancing to the beat of an unheard drum, perhaps? That's quite hard to believe. But he tries the same thing in his 2004 interview with Haaretz:

Haaretz ::: What you are telling me here, as though by the way, is that in Operation Hiram there was a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order. Is that right?

Morris ::: "Yes. One of the revelations in the book is that on October 31, 1948, the commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in writing to his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population. Carmel took this action immediately after a visit by Ben-Gurion to the Northern Command in Nazareth. There is no doubt in my mind that this order originated with Ben-Gurion. Just as the expulsion order for the city of Lod, which was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, was issued immediately after Ben-Gurion visited the headquarters of Operation Dani [July 1948]."

[...] "From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created."
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No orderly, comprehensive policy -- just an atmosphere. But there's no doubt in his mind that the orders originated from Ben-Gurion.

He apparently wrote a new book on the war:

http://hnn.us/articles/49503.html

I think that Morris started his carrier by examining mainly the actions of 'his side' - the Israeli side. Naturally, he found a lot to criticise. (This war the probably worst Israeli-Arab war.) Apparently, while working on his new book he found enough blame for everyone. FireGarden, since you brought Morris up, do you agree with his conclusions cited here?
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Morris' position, in 2004, was already one in which he blamed the Arabs. In fact, this is how he puts it in the interview I linked:

"There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

[...] "There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing."
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Here's more Benny Morris:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/03/12/DI2007031200377.html

Stewartstown, Pa.: I can sympathize with the basic idea of Zionism: the creation of a Jewish homeland where Jews would not be in danger of persecution. But I don't understand the blindness of most Zionists concerning the Arabs. How could they be surprised at the Arab resistance to Israel's creation? In no other place in the world is it accepted that a people have an inherent right to establish a nation on land they possessed 2,000 years ago, regardless of the wishes of the majority of the present day inhabitants of the land. How then did the Zionists expect the Arabs to accept that Jews had a "right" to a nation in Palestine?

Benny Morris: I don't think the Zionists, by and large, at the end of the Nineteenth and in the early Twentieth century, were blind. They realized the land was inhabited (fairly sparsely: There were then 450,000-600,000 Arabs; today the country has a population of 10 million) but knew the Arab inhabitants at the time were not nationally conscious or minded; they grew so progressively from the 1920s on, under the impact of Zionism. And secondly, the Zionists truly believed they would bring progress and development to Palestine and that the Arab inhabitants, as well as the Jewish settlers, would benefit. Lastly, the Zionists looked around and saw that the Arabs had an enormous stretch of land from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf and thought maybe they would be generous and allow the Jews 0.0005 percent of that stretch for their homeland. They were, of course, wrong. So today we have 22 and a half Arab states and one Jewish states, and most Arabs believe they should have 23 states and the Jews none.
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So the arguent goes:
1) The Arabs didn't have a nation-state mind-set
2) Zionism would help the Arabs
3) The Arabs have got so much, you'd expect them to be generous.


That's Morris' argument. The Arabs didn't want to share their 23 states. Bad people.

Difficult to agree with.
There are 50 American states. Give me one, please. A little one will do.




Perhaps more on topic for this thread, is the next question Morris answers:

Re: Churchill's recent revelations: It has been reported recently that Churchill said that some of the problems of the Jews were of their own making -- this said at the time when the Jews were being exterminated in the death camps. Did this sort of view spring from his upper-class milieu, where these feelings about the Jews were so prevalent at that time, or did Churchill's feelings go much deeper -- have some personal experience, perhaps?

Benny Morris: I assume Churchill shared the outlook, at least in part, of his class and milieu. But he was impressed by the Zionist settlers and enterprise (and Haim Weizmann) and traditionally was pro-Zionist and a philo-Semite, and had good Jewish friends. And he acted to promote a Jewish state, generally with consistency, from WWI until 1948 and by and large was 'friendly' to Israel in its first decade, during his second term as prime minister.
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So Churchill was just fitting in. He's pro-Zionist, in favour of a Jewish state and philo-Semitic. Yes -- even if he did say the Jews were facing problems of there own making during WW2.

Who was it who said: "In a perverse way, a real anti-Semite must be a Zionist."
 
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Firegarden brings more citations from Morris, but still did not find the time to answer my question. Do you agree with Morris' conclusion when he argues that the Palestinian and Arab side started the war with the aim of removing the Jewish presence from the area. Or do you only agree with his claims when they suite your political opinions?


ETA: I felt the need to clarify. My goal here is to find out whether you value Morris as a professional historian. (If he is a good historian we should consider all his claims on a-priory equal footing.)
 
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