Mondoweiss
Jews must ditch Zionism, now
Robert Cohen on April 8, 2018
When Israeli soldiers shoot, maim and kill unarmed Palestinian protestors
living under Israeli siege in Gaza - where has Zionism taken us?
When a nation descended from refugees turns it back on African asylum
seekers because they will dilute the Jewish purity of the State - what moral
integrity does Zionism have?
When the President of the Board of Deputies in Britain describes a left-wing
religious Jewish group as "a source of virulent antisemitism" because they
openly criticise Israel - what madness has Zionism created?
As Israel turns 70 later this month, Zionism, the political ideology that
propelled the Jewish State into existence, is showing all of its failings
and exposing the destructive force it's always been for Palestinians and,
indeed, for Jews.
For everyone's sake, it's high time we ditched it.
The 'Jewish Question'
Zionism at the end of the 19th century set out to provide a distinctly
Jewish response to what was described as 'The Jewish Question'. How could
Jews break free from centuries of oppression and discrimination? Where could
Jews find safety and security and lead a normal life in a place that could
be called 'home'?
Zionism's answer to 'the Jewish Question' was the revival of Jewish
nationalism with the aim of 'returning to' and 'recreating' our ancient
biblical kingdom. It was influenced as much by European 'blood and soil'
nationalism as it was by socialism and the collective memory of 'Eretz
Yisrael' carried with us through sacred texts and daily liturgy.
But whether nationalist, socialist or religious, Zionism has failed to
address the Jewish Question. The State of Israel has neither normalised nor
made safe the Jewish people.
If successive Israeli leaders are to believed, Israel is permanently under
genocidal threat.
Right now we have the nuclear ambitions of Tehran; the would-be Palestinian
murderers about to tear down the Gaza fence; and the campaigners in Europe
and North America using boycotts, divestment and sanctions to throw the Jews
into the sea. So what happened to the 'safe haven' in times of trouble? In
2018 Israel must be the least safe place for a Jew to live.
As for antisemitism, Zionism was meant to address this by taking Jews out of
the continent of Europe which had given birth to it. But according to
Israel's advocates, antisemitism has not gone away but mutated into
anti-Zionism. Not only does this call into question the point of Zionism in
the first place, it's also a convenient framing that makes opposition to
Zionism look like hateful extremism.
Rather than address the causes of antisemitism, Zionism has confused and
complicated matters, making it more difficult to agree what antisemitism is
and how best to combat it.
Defending Israel, defending Zionism and castigating its critics takes up a
disproportionate amount of the diaspora community leadership's time. But
it's worse than that. The pro-active position on Israel and Zionism that's
been adopted by Jewish leaders around the world creates distorted and
strained relationships between the Jewish community and other faiths groups.
New Jewish Questions
Since the late 1980s, the Zionist narrative of 'Jewish Return' as part of a
righteous and moral endeavour of Jewish national self-determination has been
challenged by Jewish Israeli historians gaining access to Israel's own
government archives.
There has been a growing understanding that the indigenous Arab population
of Palestine paid a high price for the triumph of Jewish nationalism. The
historical record shows that Zionism was never just an innocent endeavour
which Arab hostility and irrational Jew hatred attempted to thwart.
Zionism and the creation of the State of Israel created a brand new set
questions about Jewish security and Jewish identity just as urgent and just
as fundamental as those of the 19th century.
What happens when the Jewish people become colonisers?
What happens when we create a State that constitutionally discriminates
against its own non-Jewish citizens?
What happens when we become occupiers?
What happens when we besiege and annex another people's land?
By holding dear to Zionism, Jewish communities around the world are trapped
in a state of collective denial about the past and the present. Not only do
we refuse to accept what's taken place, we've made ourselves incapable of
seeing it.
Zionism and Judaism
What makes it so difficult for Jews to ditch Zionism is that it's undergone
a highly successful 'merger' with Judaism. Zionism long ago stopped being
merely a political project. It's now understood as the natural heir to three
thousand years of Jewish religion, history and culture.
We pray for Israel and its armed forces in our synagogues; our communal
leaders advocate on its behalf, chastise its critics, stay silent on its
misdemeanours; and Israeli Independence Day itself has been made a minor
Jewish festival celebrated not according to the secular Gregorian calendar
but by the Hebrew lunar calendar.
But if Zionism is Judaism and Judaism is Zionism what's left of the ethical
Jewish tradition? Because now the Nakba is Judaism. The Occupation is
Judaism. The siege of Gaza is Judaism. The question becomes not only what is
Zionism but what is Judaism? Is Judaism no more than the defence of a
colonial project of dispossession? And if our Rabbis find such a statement
abhorrent, why don't they speak out against the atrocities being committed
and then excused in the name of our faith.
Liberal Zionism
Liberal Zionists insist that the ideology of Zionism is still fundamentally
sound and can be redeemed from its current difficulties through a two-state
solution. Such a position now looks not only naive but a deliberate attempt
to obscure the truth.
Liberal Zionists still treasure the Israeli Declaration of Independence
signed on 14th May 1948 with its promise of equality for all Israel's
citizens. But in truth that was a deceit from the beginning. There is no
true democracy on either side of the 'Green line'. Try asking Palestinian
Israelis if, after 70 years, they think the Israeli Government treats them
as equal citizens or a demographic threat to the Jewish State?
Dividing not unifying
For a younger generation of Jews living outside of Israel, the Jewish State
is no longer an idea that creates communal unity or a satisfying secular or
religious Jewish identity.
Younger Jews have learnt too much about the forced displacement and on-going
discrimination against an indigenous people to accept that Zionism was, and
still is, an innocent project of Jewish liberation.
They have questioned the myths and narratives accepted by their parents and
grandparents, while their own understanding of what it should mean to 'be
Jewish' in the 21st century feels offended by what they see happening in a
country that claims to exist and act in their interests.
In America you see the growing inter generational divide at work with the
rise of Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now. In Britain the latest twist
in the 'Get Corbyn' saga has given a healthy profile to a young group of
religious and leftist Jews called Jewdas disenchanted by a Jewish
establishment which is attempting to police who is a 'good Jew' and who is a
'bad Jew' based on criteria set by Zionism.
How to mark Israel at 70?
As Israel turns 70 there's nothing to celebrate but there are many lives to
mourn.
The dead and wounded Palestinians shot by Israeli army snipers on the Gaza
border over the last two weeks is what makes Zionism a crime rather than
just a political failure for the Jewish people.
The latest atrocity, is just that, the latest atrocity in a long line of
Israeli atrocities, which Zionism attempts to legitimise and justify. The
news reporting rarely reminds the public why there are so many Palestinians
crammed into the Gaza Strip, how they got there or where their grandparents
came from. But without that knowledge you cannot understand this year's
Great March of Return 70 years on.
If you are Palestinian the idea of another people celebrating the moment of
your national catastrophe is profoundly immoral. The growing number of Jews
who have understood that Zionism has been a 'wrong turning' in Jewish
history will not be celebrating either. Instead we'll stand with
Palestinians to mark the 70th anniversary of their Nakba on 15th May.
Only one thing is certain, Israel needs to stop being an ideology and start
being a nation. A nation of all of its citizens, all with equal national,
civil and religious rights.
After 70 years, only partial justice and restoration is possible for the
Palestinian people. Whatever constitutional arrangements are arrived at,
equality should be the guiding principle at work.
As for Zionism let's ditch it and move on. It's time to place it in a glass
cabinet and put it in a museum in a room marked 'Dead Ends & False
Messiahs'.
This post first appeared on the Patheos site.
