What does "Zionist" mean anyway?

[Darth Rotor]

"My life for Aiur!" sums it up really.

​

Entaro Adun!

DR

 

[FireGarden]

I do agree that the Arabs wanted the Jews out and used violence to acheive that.

I do not agree that the Arabs had a responsibility to be generous and give up land. Taking in refugees is one thing -- letting the refugees set up a nation state on your land is another.

Or do you only agree with his claims when they suite your political opinions?

I thought it was clear what I was disagreeing with.

I agree with the claims there is evidence for. There was armed resistance to a Jewish state. And there was expulsion of Arabs from the Jewish state.

Immigrants are often met with racism -- I'm not surprised that Arabs are the same as the rest of Humanity in that regard. Some of what Morris says implies that it was only racism which was at the root of the problem. That is difficult to agree with. Or would you support my claim for a small state in the Americas?

And I also don't agree that the expulsions were simply about security. I think it more likely that there were thoughts along the lines which inspired the term "present absentees" -- a group of "refugees" displaced within Israel itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_Property_laws_in_Israel#The_.27Absentees_Property_Law.27

This law created the novel citizenship category of "present absentees" (nifkadim nohahim), that is, Israeli Arabs who enjoyed all civil rights -- including the right to vote in the Knesset elections -- except one: the right to use and dispose of their property.

If they're dangerous -- an existential threat -- then why let them vote in the Knesset? If they are not dangerous, then why not call them "present non-absentees" and let them decide what to do with the land they own?



ETA: I put "refugees" in quotes because that's what Morris does in one of the articles. According to his definition, you're not a refugee if you stay in the same country.

 

[FireGarden]

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.)

I've no reason to doubt his abilities as a historian. Morris seems able to to do his research and present the facts. His original work was very matter-of-fact and some people interpreted it as an attack upon Zionism. He'd left his political views out of the history. He later clarified his position, which he says he held from the beginning, that the actions were justified. The Haaretz interview begins with a good summary:

Benny Morris says he was always a Zionist. People were mistaken when they labeled him a post-Zionist, when they thought that his historical study on the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem was intended to undercut the Zionist enterprise. Nonsense, Morris says, that's completely unfounded. Some readers simply misread the book. They didn't read it with the same detachment, the same moral neutrality, with which it was written.

But that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything he says. Some of it, as I have said, is difficult to agree with. So the Arabs had 23 nations. Does that mean they were obligated to give one away?

I don't think so.

ETA: I'm also suspicious of his dancing around the idea of there being an overall plan regarding expulsion. On the one hand, there's no doubt in his mind where the order came from. On the other, there is only an "atmosphere" rather than a detailed plan.

 

[Doctor Evil]

I've no reason to doubt his abilities as a historian. Morris seems able to to do his research and present the facts. His original work was very matter-of-fact and some people interpreted it as an attack upon Zionism. He'd left his political views out of the history. He later clarified his position, which he says he held from the beginning, that the actions were justified.

But that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything he says. Some of it, as I have said, is difficult to agree with. So the Arabs had 23 nations. Does that mean they were obligated to give one away?

I don't think so.

ETA: I'm also suspicious of his dancing around the idea of there being an overall plan regarding expulsion. On the one hand, there's no doubt in his mind where the order came from. On the other, there is only an "atmosphere" rather than a detailed plan.

Thank you for the answer. I can't seem to make my mind regarding him. I might leave that for some future discussion.

Regarding the expulsion plan, I would think he has no evidence for one. His argument, as you cited above, seems very weak. (For instance, one may wonder how often would Ben-Gurion meet with his commanders during the war. Did other commanders leaving meetings with him behave as if given similar orders?) Anyway, work is calling. I might come back to this discussion in the future, but only after doing some further reading.

 

[ddt]

To also chip in my 2 cents:

Regarding the expulsion plan, I would think he has no evidence for one. His argument, as you cited above, seems very weak. (For instance, one may wonder how often would Ben-Gurion meet with his commanders during the war. Did other commanders leaving meetings with him behave as if given similar orders?) Anyway, work is calling. I might come back to this discussion in the future, but only after doing some further reading.

Morris mentions two major expulsions, both tied in with previous visits by Ben Gurion:

(1) the well-known expulsion of the population of the cities of Lod and Ramle, carried out by Yitzhak Rabin. That was some 60,000 people, so about 9% of the total number of Palestinians expelled from Israel during that time.

(2) the expulsion of the population of the Upper Galilee by Moshe Carmel. This was about a considerable number of villages, so I'm not sure about the numbers, but it quite likely adds up.

I don't think it unthinkable that Ben Gurion regularly visited the front and indeed gave such orders, but it seems that in tying it to BG personally, Morris contradicts himself with his other quote about the atmosphere that was created.

I do think Morris is a bona-fide historian, and he deserves the praise for, e.g., using the major parts of the IDF archives that were opened (and he had the luck to be there at the right time). However, there are two main criticisms to his methods: (a) he doesn't use Arab sources; (b) he rejects oral testimony, both raised by Pappé.

As to the latter, Plan Dalet is a case in point: the text of the plan is both consistent with Pappé's thesis that it was a grand plan to expel all Palestinians, as well as with others' stance that it wasn't. Which is the right interpretation then, depends on how people at the time perceived it, and then oral testimony about the atmosphere is badly needed.

 

[quarky]

There's always an option to refuse to be identified by one's race or religion or nationalism.
I've had lots of Jewish friends, and still do. Not one has been able to explain to me what it meant to be Jewish. Its very confusing. Lots of paradox. Jewish purity implies inbreeding; hence, not very good as a long range plan. Mixing it up means slowly losing track; redefining loyalties; not knowing what religious hooplah to lay on the kids.

I'm a wasp. I have no big-time identity thingy going; no homeland to identify with.
Imagine if wasps did have this? I would demand refuge in Ireland, and take the British to task for the genocide that killed half my ancestors during the so-called 'potatoe famine'.

Has there ever been a group of people that had any specific identity that has not suffered some attempt at genocide? Its what people do. We kill other people that aren't like us. Killing other people is humanity's single largest and oldest project.

Why is it so cruel to say this:
Nobody has to be a Jew anymore.
Or a Catholic.
Or an Irishman.

Or even a negro.

Miles Davis was a musician.

This is off-topic. But I'm not so sure that Israel was such a great idea.
I wish it could have happened in Utah. I hope it still can. The Mormons could use the challange. I can't wait until we can't really tell each other apart; when we don't identify with ancient history. When people don't want to exterminate us because we have special needs. There is no one alive today that doesn't have a worthwhile historical background, full of suffering. We are all equally old and new. Some of us have no sense of our history.
Some people live in New Jersey.

My advice is this:
Have sex with whomever you can.
But when you want to procreate, mix up the gene pool.

 

[David Swidler]

Um, Quarky, I think you'll find that a Jew can be of any race.

 

[Confuseling]

Hmm... well that's the blurred distinction between Judaism and Jewry is it not? One's cultural / religious, and the other cultural / genetic.

And Quarky, I'm not sure it's possible to say that everyone's suffered genocide. Mass murder, yes, but this was completely different - a conscious and systematic attempt to exterminate a people. I don't know of any analogue - even the most brutal colonial projects tended to attempt to drive people off land or enslave them, which while tragic and awful, doesn't instill the existential fear that Jews suffered. Earlier events that were actually genocidal (perhaps the elimination of other hominids would be the paradigm case) were not conscious - nobody had any concept of 'extinction' then.

As to inbreeding, it really isn't that simple. There is a balance between inbreeding and outbreeding - if you outbreed too much, desirable characteristics are diluted and vanish. This is regulated quite well biologically; I think the simple description is that you fancy people who look like you (perhaps more specifically your parents) but smell different, via a process called major histocompatibility complex olfaction.

 

[Furi]

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.

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?

'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.

From what I've observed of CTists on this forum, "Zionist" can be defined as "Any Jewish person with financial or political influence, real or imagined, or any Jewish person I personally dislike or need to discredit."

"Zionist Sympathiser" is "Any non-Jewish person who disagrees with me, or any non-Jewish person I personally dislike or need to discredit."

Good post 1337. I was thinking about exactly this last night before I saw your post weirdly enough. As far as I can make out, Truthers use it to mean any Jewish person in any position of influence in any area.

As Far as I can tell, I become a Zionist whenever I disagree with anything a CT or flagrant AntiSemite says (strangely the 2 often go hand in hand),

I find the term tends to be thrown around with the words plot, sympathiser, controlled, sheep, etc they seem to be a last resort argument too many times, "Well if you think that, you are clearly a Ziionist, and therefore anything you state I can ignore LALALALA Can't hear you.".

In this and other CT fora I expect to hear the term thrown around like so many vol-au-vents at a drunken buffet, seems it is more popular than Shill at the moment.

In the other bizarre thread in the CT sub, it was pointed out that the number of degrees of seperation from Effect - Cause - Global Zionist Plot is quite small.

 

[quarky]

Hmm... well that's the blurred distinction between Judaism and Jewry is it not? One's cultural / religious, and the other cultural / genetic.

And Quarky, I'm not sure it's possible to say that everyone's suffered genocide. Mass murder, yes, but this was completely different - a conscious and systematic attempt to exterminate a people. I don't know of any analogue - even the most brutal colonial projects tended to attempt to drive people off land or enslave them, which while tragic and awful, doesn't instill the existential fear that Jews suffered. Earlier events that were actually genocidal (perhaps the elimination of other hominids would be the paradigm case) were not conscious - nobody had any concept of 'extinction' then.

As to inbreeding, it really isn't that simple. There is a balance between inbreeding and outbreeding - if you outbreed too much, desirable characteristics are diluted and vanish. This is regulated quite well biologically; I think the simple description is that you fancy people who look like you (perhaps more specifically your parents) but smell different, via a process called major histocompatibility complex olfaction.

Yes, it was a whacky post. I like to stir up crap sometimes.
In truth, I'm glad for the diversity of humans, but discouraged by human arrogance and violence.

 

[Mycroft]

Why is it so cruel to say this:
Nobody has to be a Jew anymore.
Or a Catholic.
Or an Irishman.

Or even a negro.

It's cruel because it's dismissive of the fact that people want to embrace these identities. Jews want to be Jews. If they didn't, they'd stop. Ditto for Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, and any other religion you can name.