![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
The quote I added to this article does not represent my own opinion; I added it only so that readers can see how anti-Zionists, particularly Arabs, view Zionism. It is likely that the author of the quoted remark misunderstands Zionism or is deliberately slandering it for ulterior motives, but that is hard to judge.
-- Ed Poor
Here is another view from The Department for Jewish Zionist Education:
The article says:
It seems that "race" and "ethnicity" are being equated, at least informally, here -- possibly as part of an argument:
Some advocates further add:
I myself neither agree nor disagree with the above reasoning: I am just trying to figure out how various people see things, so I can describe their points of view in the articles. -- Ed Poor 16:14 Sep 6, 2002 (UCT)
Ed: My point is that, correctly or not, a lot of people do equate "race" and "ethnicity", and some people equate "racism" and "racial discrimination"; and hence at least some people who call Israel or Zionism "racist" are actually talking about discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. I think its important to point this out, since Zionists will say they are mistakenly viewing Jews as a race, or point out that Jews are racially diverse (e.g. the Falashas)--some anti-Zionists may well be making this mistake, and for them this criticism of the Zionists would be correct, but for others they may just be using sloppy language, and really mean the different claim that "Zionism, in practice, inevitably involves ethnic discrimination". I think we should try to describe what people really mean (when this can be discovered), not just take everything they say literally to the point of creating a strawman argument against them. -- SJK, 2002-09-07, 0033 UTC.
Thanks Ed for the compliment. At the moment the article contains the following sentence (which I have changed from a statement to a claim, but kept the same point):
I would like to ask whoever was originally responsible for this comment, what exactly are they talking about? Can we have a specific example of where they claim an anti-Zionist fails to make this distinction? (I agree that maybe some or even many anti-Zionists might fail to make this distinction, but I can't see any necessary logical connection between anti-Zionism and the failure) -- SJK
Also, whoever wrote the following, could they explain what they mean by it: "The consensus that emerged from the following public debate was that since Judaism is not seen by Jews exclusively as a religion (see above), once one rejects one's nationality, one can no longer simultaneously demand membership in it." How can not viewing Judaism as exclusively a religion justify consider a convert to another religion a non-Jew? I would have thought the opposite--if you think Judaism is exclusively a religion, then you would not accept a convert to another religion as still being a Jew; on the other hand, if you do not consider Judaism to be exclusively a religion, then you might be willing to consider a convert from Judaism to another faith as still being Jewish. -- SJK
This paragraph seems obscure and redundant to me.
Regarding the semantic dispute about "racism": sure, the speakers might be using sloppy terminology. But they still do an emotional hijacking, and they do it consciously. I think that should be mentioned.
This phrase needs review.
We have discussed this at length haven't we?
It never got submitted to the Knesset because it was a dead horse. Why beat it? -- Uri
I have removed this very odd paragraph
For the following reasons, mostly to do with the second half.
1. The country of Canada, in the form of the colony of Nova Scotia, existed long before 1812.
2. The inevitability of union between Canada and the US during the period from 1776 to 1812 was pretty low owing to the bad feeling created during the Revolutionary war between the Empire Loyalists and the rebels.
3. Wales was conquered but not colonized unlike Ireland which was conquered and colonised in the north although not in the south.
4. Scotland was neither conquered nor colonised. It entered into a treaty of with England covering currency union, free trade, taxation union and political union which is more thoroughgoing in practice but not dissimilar in principle to the one which the UK has more recently entered into with the European Community.
It seems to me that these flaws in the supporting part of the paragraph are too deep to fix, so the paragraph should be removed until better supporting evidence for its main point can be written. -- Derek Ross 10:55 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)
(removed my comment, it was supposed to go under Anti-Semitism, not here). -- Delirium
just transcribed a bit from a Chomsky speech (couldnt find it on the web) from columbia university, with Edward Said. a bit much, but hopefully enlightening. - Sv
"I still believe what i thought when I was teenage Zionist youth activist, more than... almost 60 years ago. At that time, as a Zionist youth activist I was strongly oppsoed to a jewish state: Which was called a Zionist position at the time. Now its an anti-Zionist position, (its the) same position; the meaning of the word has changed."
"And the reasons were pretty straight forward: A democratic Jewish state is an absolute contradiction in terms: You can try to pretend "circles are squares" if you like, but... its more work. It's a contradiciton in terms. Furthermore, a Jewish state, it was clear, was going to exacerbate conflicts and tensions. And thirdly, it was going to destroy the attractive elements in the existing societies, which were quite real: They're not going to survive... a state... and ethnic conflict."
"And there was an alternative: the alternative, which was then, Zionist position, was some kind of bi-nationalist federation; recognizing there were two national groups involved: Moving towards closer integration, as circimstances permit, on the basis of cooperation between people across national lines which are not the only national lines in the world. So, on the basis of common class interests, or cultural interests, or other interests. Well, 1948 that became academic."
"In 1967 it became realistic. at that point, israel controlled the whole region. It could have instituted a regime of that sort, with no opposition - in fact - it would have been welcome."
"I actually suggested it alot at that time, that led to extreme denunciatons - particularly fom isralei doves. Including, im sorry to say, old friends. and the reason was, it was a period of enormous triumphalism; in israel and the united states, nobody wanted to hear anything. So that was gone. But after 1973, that opportunity was lost. There was a window of opportunity from '67 up to the '73 war- it was lost. Now, its concievable, that its realistic again."
"It should be obvious to any sane person that there is not two-state settlement other than the South African Trans-sky settlement. And it's kind of interensting that - I don't know exactly what it means... that this traditional Zionist idea that I just desrcibed - you know, on the fringe: I dont want to say it's the mainstream, its being revived a little bit in Israel, with what... significance when they debate." Sv
Stevertgo, stop your dishonest tactic of hiding major edits, and falsely marking them as minor edits. Your obsession with the Jews and with Chomsky is problematic enough, but your deceptive tactics cause us to question your honesty. RK
Actually, RK, Chomsky's contention is not that off the mark historically. Before statehood, there was an active movement among Jewish intellectuals in Palestine called Ichud, which considered themselves Zionists but believed that a specifically "Jewish" state was not possible or even desirable, and supported the creation of a binational state for Arabs and Jews. Among the supporters of this idea were Martin Buber and J.L. Magnes (first president of The Hebrew University), who were left leaning, but also some people on the extreme right, in the Stern Gang, including Natan Yellin-Mor, a member of the Triumvirate that took over after Stern's death and later represented Lehi in the First Knesset (and possibly a KGB agent). Today, Uri Avneri, a prominent peace activist (the founder of Brit Shalom) and a supporter of a binational state, traces his beliefs to the Stern Gang, of which he was once a member. Another group that supported the idea in a extreme form was Ratosh's Canaanite movement, but apart from a literary journal, they never had more than eighteen full-fledged members (and in my opinion, the idea of reinstituing Baal-worship to bridge the Jewish-Islamic divide was kinda weird). All of these groups considered themselves Zionist. Danny 14:40 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)
I'll try to explain. My problem with anti-Zionism is not the arguments it raises against there being a Jewish state. I believe those arguments are legitimate (heck, I agree with some of them) and can point to various groups in contemporary Jewish history that held similar viewpoints--Agudat Israel and large sections the Reform Movement are two American organizations that disavowed Zionism for a very long time. My problem is that anti-Zionism presupposes a homogeneity of Zionist objectives. That is not the case. Sure, the Territorialists (a Jewish homeland anywhere but Palestine) split with the Zionist Congress, but so did the Revisionists. If the latter are unquestionably Zionist, a case can be made for the former too. Buber and Magnes were active in the Zionist movement. Yellin-Mor was active in the Revisionist movement. They had views that were raised and debated. Buber and Magnes were embraced by mainstream Zionists (Y-M was not, but that is a different story). In fact, it was because Magnes's viewpoints were considered mainstream that he was appointed head of a major Zionist enterprise--the first Hebrew-language university. I find it odd that some anti-Zionists promote the idea of a binational state as a means of attacking Zionism, when they don't realize that the idea itself was developed by Zionists and promoted by Zionists, even though it eventually came to nothing--I also find it odd that many Zionists don't know this (or that Jabotinsky also promoted elements of binationalism in his Revisionist platform). In any event, an article on Zionism should reflect the multiple opinions and heated debates in the Zionist movement. As for anti-Zionism, one cannot be an anti-Zionist if one is adopting what was essentially a Zionist position. By the way, I happened to have met quite a few very old Zionists--activists in HaBonim-Dror and founders of kibbutzim--who hated Ben-Gurion too. They argued that he was too rash. If Arlosoroff hadn't been assassinated, he would have headed the Jewish Agency, not B.G., and Arlosoroff would never have allowed the creation of a Jewish state before an agreement was reached with the Arabs (Palestinians and neighboring states). Danny 15:35 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)
taken from the article The definition of anti-Zionism, however, has a history of political contention among Jews, and depends entirely upon the definition of Zionism. As Noam Chomsky points out:
I think this part does need some clarifications since an uninformed reader can get totally confused by it. It should go back in the article with Danny's explanation, maybe under a subheading "different definitions of zionism in history" -- Elian
from talk:intifada
GrahamN writes "I hope you are able to make the distinction between anti-Semitism, which is obviously completely abhorrent and unacceptable, and anti-Zionism, which is a perfectly legitimate moral and political stance. The Intifada is a struggle against Zionism, not against Jews."
RK removed my paragraph explaining that the prominent anti-Zionist Noam Chomsky has stated that he believes anti-Zionism to be "true Zionism"; arguing that the meaning of the word has been distorted and changed since the 40s. I readded the text because RKs statement that "Why should every article be about Noam Chomsky...get a grip" seemed somewhat...well Im sure you understand; I haven't written about Chomsky anywhere but here, Zionism (a brief one sentence comment), and at Noam Chomsky and I find RKs actions to be inappropriate. Pizza Puzzle
Im sorry, is Zionism a formal academic discipline? I consider Chomsky to be an expert in this "field". I agree with him that the labeling of his views as "anti-Zionist" are nothing but the distortion of the truth which a minority of the population engages in due to their influence with the mass media. It is certainly relevant to point out that anti-Zionists do not see themselves as opposing Zionism; but rather, feel that they are supporting Zionism. Pizza Puzzle
All Arabs rejected the possibility of a bi-national state? I think somebody must believe that all Arabs think alike, hmm? Pizza Puzzle
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
The quote I added to this article does not represent my own opinion; I added it only so that readers can see how anti-Zionists, particularly Arabs, view Zionism. It is likely that the author of the quoted remark misunderstands Zionism or is deliberately slandering it for ulterior motives, but that is hard to judge.
-- Ed Poor
Here is another view from The Department for Jewish Zionist Education:
The article says:
It seems that "race" and "ethnicity" are being equated, at least informally, here -- possibly as part of an argument:
Some advocates further add:
I myself neither agree nor disagree with the above reasoning: I am just trying to figure out how various people see things, so I can describe their points of view in the articles. -- Ed Poor 16:14 Sep 6, 2002 (UCT)
Ed: My point is that, correctly or not, a lot of people do equate "race" and "ethnicity", and some people equate "racism" and "racial discrimination"; and hence at least some people who call Israel or Zionism "racist" are actually talking about discrimination on the basis of ethnicity. I think its important to point this out, since Zionists will say they are mistakenly viewing Jews as a race, or point out that Jews are racially diverse (e.g. the Falashas)--some anti-Zionists may well be making this mistake, and for them this criticism of the Zionists would be correct, but for others they may just be using sloppy language, and really mean the different claim that "Zionism, in practice, inevitably involves ethnic discrimination". I think we should try to describe what people really mean (when this can be discovered), not just take everything they say literally to the point of creating a strawman argument against them. -- SJK, 2002-09-07, 0033 UTC.
Thanks Ed for the compliment. At the moment the article contains the following sentence (which I have changed from a statement to a claim, but kept the same point):
I would like to ask whoever was originally responsible for this comment, what exactly are they talking about? Can we have a specific example of where they claim an anti-Zionist fails to make this distinction? (I agree that maybe some or even many anti-Zionists might fail to make this distinction, but I can't see any necessary logical connection between anti-Zionism and the failure) -- SJK
Also, whoever wrote the following, could they explain what they mean by it: "The consensus that emerged from the following public debate was that since Judaism is not seen by Jews exclusively as a religion (see above), once one rejects one's nationality, one can no longer simultaneously demand membership in it." How can not viewing Judaism as exclusively a religion justify consider a convert to another religion a non-Jew? I would have thought the opposite--if you think Judaism is exclusively a religion, then you would not accept a convert to another religion as still being a Jew; on the other hand, if you do not consider Judaism to be exclusively a religion, then you might be willing to consider a convert from Judaism to another faith as still being Jewish. -- SJK
This paragraph seems obscure and redundant to me.
Regarding the semantic dispute about "racism": sure, the speakers might be using sloppy terminology. But they still do an emotional hijacking, and they do it consciously. I think that should be mentioned.
This phrase needs review.
We have discussed this at length haven't we?
It never got submitted to the Knesset because it was a dead horse. Why beat it? -- Uri
I have removed this very odd paragraph
For the following reasons, mostly to do with the second half.
1. The country of Canada, in the form of the colony of Nova Scotia, existed long before 1812.
2. The inevitability of union between Canada and the US during the period from 1776 to 1812 was pretty low owing to the bad feeling created during the Revolutionary war between the Empire Loyalists and the rebels.
3. Wales was conquered but not colonized unlike Ireland which was conquered and colonised in the north although not in the south.
4. Scotland was neither conquered nor colonised. It entered into a treaty of with England covering currency union, free trade, taxation union and political union which is more thoroughgoing in practice but not dissimilar in principle to the one which the UK has more recently entered into with the European Community.
It seems to me that these flaws in the supporting part of the paragraph are too deep to fix, so the paragraph should be removed until better supporting evidence for its main point can be written. -- Derek Ross 10:55 Dec 5, 2002 (UTC)
(removed my comment, it was supposed to go under Anti-Semitism, not here). -- Delirium
just transcribed a bit from a Chomsky speech (couldnt find it on the web) from columbia university, with Edward Said. a bit much, but hopefully enlightening. - Sv
"I still believe what i thought when I was teenage Zionist youth activist, more than... almost 60 years ago. At that time, as a Zionist youth activist I was strongly oppsoed to a jewish state: Which was called a Zionist position at the time. Now its an anti-Zionist position, (its the) same position; the meaning of the word has changed."
"And the reasons were pretty straight forward: A democratic Jewish state is an absolute contradiction in terms: You can try to pretend "circles are squares" if you like, but... its more work. It's a contradiciton in terms. Furthermore, a Jewish state, it was clear, was going to exacerbate conflicts and tensions. And thirdly, it was going to destroy the attractive elements in the existing societies, which were quite real: They're not going to survive... a state... and ethnic conflict."
"And there was an alternative: the alternative, which was then, Zionist position, was some kind of bi-nationalist federation; recognizing there were two national groups involved: Moving towards closer integration, as circimstances permit, on the basis of cooperation between people across national lines which are not the only national lines in the world. So, on the basis of common class interests, or cultural interests, or other interests. Well, 1948 that became academic."
"In 1967 it became realistic. at that point, israel controlled the whole region. It could have instituted a regime of that sort, with no opposition - in fact - it would have been welcome."
"I actually suggested it alot at that time, that led to extreme denunciatons - particularly fom isralei doves. Including, im sorry to say, old friends. and the reason was, it was a period of enormous triumphalism; in israel and the united states, nobody wanted to hear anything. So that was gone. But after 1973, that opportunity was lost. There was a window of opportunity from '67 up to the '73 war- it was lost. Now, its concievable, that its realistic again."
"It should be obvious to any sane person that there is not two-state settlement other than the South African Trans-sky settlement. And it's kind of interensting that - I don't know exactly what it means... that this traditional Zionist idea that I just desrcibed - you know, on the fringe: I dont want to say it's the mainstream, its being revived a little bit in Israel, with what... significance when they debate." Sv
Stevertgo, stop your dishonest tactic of hiding major edits, and falsely marking them as minor edits. Your obsession with the Jews and with Chomsky is problematic enough, but your deceptive tactics cause us to question your honesty. RK
Actually, RK, Chomsky's contention is not that off the mark historically. Before statehood, there was an active movement among Jewish intellectuals in Palestine called Ichud, which considered themselves Zionists but believed that a specifically "Jewish" state was not possible or even desirable, and supported the creation of a binational state for Arabs and Jews. Among the supporters of this idea were Martin Buber and J.L. Magnes (first president of The Hebrew University), who were left leaning, but also some people on the extreme right, in the Stern Gang, including Natan Yellin-Mor, a member of the Triumvirate that took over after Stern's death and later represented Lehi in the First Knesset (and possibly a KGB agent). Today, Uri Avneri, a prominent peace activist (the founder of Brit Shalom) and a supporter of a binational state, traces his beliefs to the Stern Gang, of which he was once a member. Another group that supported the idea in a extreme form was Ratosh's Canaanite movement, but apart from a literary journal, they never had more than eighteen full-fledged members (and in my opinion, the idea of reinstituing Baal-worship to bridge the Jewish-Islamic divide was kinda weird). All of these groups considered themselves Zionist. Danny 14:40 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)
I'll try to explain. My problem with anti-Zionism is not the arguments it raises against there being a Jewish state. I believe those arguments are legitimate (heck, I agree with some of them) and can point to various groups in contemporary Jewish history that held similar viewpoints--Agudat Israel and large sections the Reform Movement are two American organizations that disavowed Zionism for a very long time. My problem is that anti-Zionism presupposes a homogeneity of Zionist objectives. That is not the case. Sure, the Territorialists (a Jewish homeland anywhere but Palestine) split with the Zionist Congress, but so did the Revisionists. If the latter are unquestionably Zionist, a case can be made for the former too. Buber and Magnes were active in the Zionist movement. Yellin-Mor was active in the Revisionist movement. They had views that were raised and debated. Buber and Magnes were embraced by mainstream Zionists (Y-M was not, but that is a different story). In fact, it was because Magnes's viewpoints were considered mainstream that he was appointed head of a major Zionist enterprise--the first Hebrew-language university. I find it odd that some anti-Zionists promote the idea of a binational state as a means of attacking Zionism, when they don't realize that the idea itself was developed by Zionists and promoted by Zionists, even though it eventually came to nothing--I also find it odd that many Zionists don't know this (or that Jabotinsky also promoted elements of binationalism in his Revisionist platform). In any event, an article on Zionism should reflect the multiple opinions and heated debates in the Zionist movement. As for anti-Zionism, one cannot be an anti-Zionist if one is adopting what was essentially a Zionist position. By the way, I happened to have met quite a few very old Zionists--activists in HaBonim-Dror and founders of kibbutzim--who hated Ben-Gurion too. They argued that he was too rash. If Arlosoroff hadn't been assassinated, he would have headed the Jewish Agency, not B.G., and Arlosoroff would never have allowed the creation of a Jewish state before an agreement was reached with the Arabs (Palestinians and neighboring states). Danny 15:35 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)
taken from the article The definition of anti-Zionism, however, has a history of political contention among Jews, and depends entirely upon the definition of Zionism. As Noam Chomsky points out:
I think this part does need some clarifications since an uninformed reader can get totally confused by it. It should go back in the article with Danny's explanation, maybe under a subheading "different definitions of zionism in history" -- Elian
from talk:intifada
GrahamN writes "I hope you are able to make the distinction between anti-Semitism, which is obviously completely abhorrent and unacceptable, and anti-Zionism, which is a perfectly legitimate moral and political stance. The Intifada is a struggle against Zionism, not against Jews."
RK removed my paragraph explaining that the prominent anti-Zionist Noam Chomsky has stated that he believes anti-Zionism to be "true Zionism"; arguing that the meaning of the word has been distorted and changed since the 40s. I readded the text because RKs statement that "Why should every article be about Noam Chomsky...get a grip" seemed somewhat...well Im sure you understand; I haven't written about Chomsky anywhere but here, Zionism (a brief one sentence comment), and at Noam Chomsky and I find RKs actions to be inappropriate. Pizza Puzzle
Im sorry, is Zionism a formal academic discipline? I consider Chomsky to be an expert in this "field". I agree with him that the labeling of his views as "anti-Zionist" are nothing but the distortion of the truth which a minority of the population engages in due to their influence with the mass media. It is certainly relevant to point out that anti-Zionists do not see themselves as opposing Zionism; but rather, feel that they are supporting Zionism. Pizza Puzzle
All Arabs rejected the possibility of a bi-national state? I think somebody must believe that all Arabs think alike, hmm? Pizza Puzzle