Israel Palestine Infos
Uri Avnery
July 28, 2012
Talking Zionism
“HE
TALKS Zionism,” used to be a very derogatory comment when I was young. It meant
that some elderly functionary had come to waste our time with a boring speech
consisting largely of empty phrases.
That was before the foundation of the State of
When I visited
It’s then and there that I understood the essence of a state ideology. Communist
regimes were founded by idealists, imbued with humanist values. They ended as
mafia states, in which a corrupt clique of cynics used the communist ideology as
justification for privilege, oppression and exploitation.
I don’t like state ideologies. States should not foster ideologies.
THE ONLY people who have an official confirmation that they are sane are those
who have been released from psychiatric hospitals. In a similar way, I may be
the only person in
It happened this way: when my friends and I founded the Israeli Council for
Israeli-Palestinian Peace in
Since I had published a book entitled “
Since then, the term has been expropriated as a synonym for anti-Zionism. But I
used it quite literally. As I explained to the judge, my position is that
Zionism was a historical movement with its glorious achievements as well as its
darker side. One can admire or condemn it, but either way Zionism has come to
its logical end with the creation of the State of
So the judge decided that I am not an anti-Zionist. She ordered the defendants
to pay us hefty compensation, which helped us to finance our activities.
I still adhere to that definition.
NOWADAYS, WHEN the term Zionism is used in
For ordinary Jewish Israelis, it means not much more than Israeli patriotism,
combined with the dogma that
From this point on, the definitions go in many different directions.
At the beginning, the dominant Zionist color was red (or at least pink). The
Zionist dream was coupled with socialism (not necessarily of the Marxist kind),
a movement that built the pre-state Jewish society in
For religious Zionists (unlike the anti-Zionist Orthodox), Zionism was the
forerunner of the Messiah, who would surely come if only all of us
observed the shabbat. Religious Zionists want
Right-wing Zionists want Zionism to mean a Jewish state in all of historical
Theodor Herzl, the founder, wanted a liberal, secular state. Martin Buber, the
outstanding humanist, called himself a Zionist. So did Albert Einstein. Vladimir
Jabotinsky, the idol of right-wing Zionists, believed in a mixture of extreme
nationalism, liberalism, capitalism and humanism. Rabbi Meir Kahane, an outright
Fascist, was a Zionist. So, of course, are the settlers.
Many fanatical anti-Zionists around the world, including Jewish ones, would like
to see Zionism as one monolith, so as to make it easier to hate. So, for the
sake of love, do many lovers of
Altogether, a rather bizarre picture.
TODAY, ZIONISM is firmly in the hands of the extreme Right, a mixture of
nationalists, religious fanatics and the settlers, supported by very rich Jews
in
They govern the news, both directly (they own all the TV networks and the
newspapers) and metaphorically. Every day, the news contains
many items figuring “Zionism”.
For Zionism’s sake, Bedouin in Israel-proper are forcibly displaced from the
large stretches of land they have occupied for centuries. For Zionism’s sake, a
settler’s college deep in the occupied territories is accorded the status of
“university” (by the military governor!), giving new impetus to the
international academic boycott on
In the name of Zionism, our fanatically right-wing Minister of Education is
sending Israeli school children on indoctrination trips to “holy places” in the
occupied territory, so as to instill in their consciousness from early on that
all the country belongs to them. To strengthen their Zionist convictions they
are also sent to
The settlers claim – not without some justification – that they are the only
real Zionists, the rightful heirs of 130 years of Zionist settlement and
expansion. This gives them the right to receive huge piles of state funds for
their activities, while new taxes are being levied on even the poorest of the
poor in
The Jewish Agency, an offshoot of the World Zionist Organization, is devoting
almost all its resources to the settlements.
There is no faction in the Knesset (except the two small Arab factions and the
predominantly Arab communist faction, and of course the Orthodox) that does not
loudly proclaim its total devotion to Zionism. Indeed, the Zionist Left claims
to be truer Zionists than the Right.
WHERE IS all this leading? Ah, there is the rub.
The current staunchly Zionist policy of the State of
The policy of our government is based on maintaining the status quo. All of
historical Eretz Israel/Palestine under Israeli rule, the
If, at some point in the future, a right-wing government decides to annex the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip “officially” (as Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan
Heights were annexed long ago - unrecognized by
the rest of the world - it will not make any real difference. Most Palestinians
are already confined to enclaves resembling the South African
In this Greater Israel, Palestinian Arabs will constitute a minority of at least
40%, growing rapidly to 50% and more, making it less and less convincing to call
it a “Jewish State”. The “Jewish and Democratic State” will be a thing of the
past.
Of course, practically nobody in
The only way out would be ethnic cleansing on a huge scale. Some of this is
already happening discretely in remote areas. For some time now, in the most
remote area of the West Bank, on the edge of the desert south of Hebron, the
occupation authorities have been trying to remove the entire Arab population.
This week, the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, declared the area a “military
firing zone” that must be immediately evacuated. People who remain there risk
being shot. Agriculturists may return and work on their land, but only on
Shabbat and Jewish holidays, when the army is on leave. Zionism in action.
Currently, some five million Palestinians and six million Jews live between the
Mediterranean Sea and the
The only alternative is peace –
Our leaders escape this reality by a simple device: they don’t think about it.
They don’t talk about it. They prefer to “talk Zionism” – a string of empty
phrases.
But sometime in the future the contradictions of Zionism will have to be faced.