[Peace-discuss] Re: Another Jew talks about Zionism

[E. Wayne Johnson]

Way to blame all the bad puns on me, Dr. Quis.

C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> I'd say, "Better latke than never!" (and blame it on Wayne's 
> influence), but there's no sense in which you've been a pancake on 
> this issue... (or, as we say at my house, "Leigh Viva!" [לביבה]...) --CGE
>
> David Green wrote:
>> Mort,
>>
>> This is an incisive post by Philip Weiss, who spends most of his 
>> energy on
>> discourse with other Jews in New York. I'm not as interested in this 
>> issue as
>> I once was, which will come as a relief to most of the people on this 
>> list
>> who haven't yet pressed the delete key. Zionism was a powerful ideology
>> toward establishing a Jewish state, and up to 1967 in attracting Jewish
>> immigrants, absorbing Jews from Arab and other non-European countries,
>> assigning Arab non-Jewish Israelis to 4th class citizenship at best, and
>> maintaining the siege mentality that led to the 1967 war and subsequent
>> occupation. Obviously, it still is a powerful motivator among settler
>> fanatics, in a religious manifestation that was of course not 
>> intended by the
>> founders (although territorial expansion was).
>>
>> Ideologies outlive their usefulness, and its harder and harder to 
>> attribute
>> Israel's behavior to Zionist ideology, in my opinion. In fact, I 
>> would see
>> Zionism per se as having almost nothing to do with Israel as it now 
>> exists
>> and behaves. The ideology is greatly overshadowed by material realities,
>> facts on the ground, power and domination--and, of course, it's 
>> choice to be
>> an American surrogate. The Jewish state is like any other state at this
>> point; the people who run it do so for their own aggrandizement; 
>> along with
>> that goes racism, militarism, neoliberalism, etc. Zionist ideology is 
>> now
>> windowdressing, intended more for American Jews than Israeli Jews.
>>
>> I understand that those dissenters who seek an alternative need to 
>> articulate
>> their positions and address the problems of Zionism and a Jewish state,
>> especially those who are Jewish, especially in discussions with other 
>> Jews.
>> Your post is from Philip Weiss, on whose blog I've attempted to 
>> participate.
>> It's extremely informative and has become quite popular, if one can 
>> tell by
>> the greatly increasing number of individuals who participate in the 
>> comments
>> sections. In spite of all the nutcases it attracts, I think it's a 
>> positive
>> interaction. The blog is also run by a guy named Adam Horowitz, who 
>> is more
>> to my liking than Weiss, who is much too giddy about Obama, JStreet, 
>> etc.;
>> and who is also obsessed with the Lobby.
>>
>> What's concerns me, however, is that a basic Chomsky/Finkelstein 
>> leftist Enlightenment orientation is not often clearly and plainly 
>> articulated (in my
>> comments, I started referring to myself as a boring whitebread leftist
>> socialist). There's too much time wasted on the Lobby, dual loyalty, 
>> etc.
>> There's obvious and blatant anti-Semitism by some frequent 
>> commenters. Add to
>> that the anti vs. post Zionist discussion. Having a state based on 
>> Jewish
>> domination of non-Jews has obviously turned out to be a horrible idea, a
>> moral and humanitarian catastrophe. But now we've got 6 million Jews 
>> living
>> with five million Arabs in Israel and Palestine. Anti or post, 
>> Zionism is
>> finished. The choice is either continued state-sponsored terrorism and a
>> national security state vs. the Enlightenment and human decency.
>>
>> If one has to make choices, anti-Zionism implies correctly that it's 
>> a racist
>> ideology, and disregards the minimal (sadly) influence of bi-national 
>> Zionism
>> as endorsed by Einstein, Chomsky, etc. Post Zionism asserts the 
>> validity of
>> the original necessity of a homeland for the Jews, which was a 
>> terrible idea
>> but now is a fact on the ground that we all have to deal with.
>>
>> Just my 2 latkes.
>>
>> DG
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>> *From:* Morton K. Brussel <mkbrussel at comcast.net> *To:* peace-discuss 
>> Discuss
>> <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> *Cc:* David Green 
>> <davegreen84 at yahoo.com> *Sent:* Monday, January 12, 2009 10:11:00 AM 
>> *Subject:* Another Jew talks
>> about Zionism
>>
>>
>> _http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-weiss/rethinking-zionism_b_156955.html___ 
>>
>>
>>
>> _Dana Goldstein_ 
>> <http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=01&year=2009&base_name=draft_draft_draftthe_idea_of_i>, 
>>
>>  whose thoughtful condemnation of the Gaza slaughter after years of 
>> reserve I
>> welcome, is a little uncomfortable with the embrace. _She points out_ 
>> <http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=01&year=2009&base_name=postzionism#112060> 
>>
>>  that I have identified myself as a non- or anti-Zionist, and says 
>> that anti-Zionism is redolent of antisemitism. She's a post-Zionist, 
>> she says.
>> Goldstein's comments deserve a response, especially at this moment in
>> intellectual life, when so many people are crowding the doorways of this
>> conversation.
>>
>> I also used to say post- or non-Zionist to avoid being negative. The 
>> playwright _David Zellnik_ <http://www.davidzellnik.com/> told me 
>> that anti-Zionist felt to him like a denial of Israel's considerable 
>> achievements
>> and I respected David's view. Now I've come to say that I'm an 
>> anti-Zionist
>> for several reasons.
>>
>> First: My feelings are not neutral about Zionism; I don't like it. As 
>> a Jew,
>> I think about it a lot and there is nothing I can really feel 
>> positive about
>> outside of the Jewish pride and its historical significance of it and 
>> its
>> visionary component. All these elements have lost their value: Zionism
>> privileges Jews and justifies oppression, and this appalls me. Saying 
>> I'm
>> anti-Zionist is a sincere expression of my minority-respecting 
>> worldview.
>>
>> Second, Post-Zionist strikes me as an evasion. At this moment, 
>> Zionism reigns
>> in historical Palestine and in American Jewish leadership. To say 
>> you're a
>> post-Zionist is like saying you're a post-Communist during the Stalin 
>> purges.
>> You are tastefully separating yourself from the world, dainty as an 
>> English
>> person drinking tea with their little finger in the air. Zionism 
>> remains a
>> very powerful force in Middle East affairs and American society. It's 
>> not
>> helpful to those who are trying to understand these matters to evade 
>> this
>> fact or suggest that post-Zionism is actually a real factor in, say, 
>> the life
>> of Gaza City. I urge people to take a stand if they find Zionist 
>> beliefs that
>> privilege 6 million Jews over 5-6 million non-Jews and that have 
>> entailed
>> apartheid on the West Bank and ethnic cleansing a supportable ideology,
>> especially in the age of our mutt president-to-be.
>>
>> Third, anti-Zionism is an idealistic Jewish tradition. In fact, it 
>> draws on
>> the same visionary and If-you-dream-it feeling that Zionism did 100 
>> years
>> ago, before the militants ruined it, and engages the same young restless
>> sensibilities and liberationist feeling as Zionism did by imagining 
>> Israel as
>> a state of its citizens, not a Jewish state. We anti-Zionists can say 
>> with
>> honor that anti-Zionists like Rabbi Elmer Berger identified the 
>> problems with
>> Zionism 60 years ago, accurately when he said that Zionism meant 
>> contempt for
>> the Arab population, dependence on a backroom lobby in the United 
>> States, and
>> the introduction of dual loyalty into American Jewish life. All true. 
>> Hannah
>>  Arendt and Walter Benjamin and Norman Mailer all opposed Zionism to 
>> one degree or another out of concerns with ethnocentrism--didn't like 
>> its Is-it-good-for-the-Jews backbeat. These problems are larger today 
>> than ever,
>> especially post-Iraq-war and the Iraq war's idiot stepson, Gaza.
>>
>> Finally, declaring I'm anti-Zionist is a way of trying to make room 
>> in American life for this view. Right now being critical of Israel 
>> means that
>> you can hurt your business, as a Bay Area professional told the _/San
>> Francisco Chronicle/_ 
>> <http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/01/sf-chron-says-breakup-of-jewish-monolith-on-gaza-will-give-obama-room-to-move.html>. 
>>
>>  True and disgusting. As Jimi Hendrix said when he was changing 
>> attitudes:
>> I'm going to wave my freak flag high!
>>
>> As to the antisemitism point, the American Jewish Committee has said 
>> the same
>> thing: anti-Zionism is antisemitism. It thus conflates Jewishness with
>> Zionism, and this conflation is damaging the Jewish experience around 
>> the
>> world. When Dana says she worries about the antisemitic suggestion of
>> anti-Zionism, I feel a shadow of censoriousness. There are things you 
>> can and
>> can't say. Well, I am an empowered Jew who has never experienced 
>> functional
>> antisemitism ever in my life, and my empowerment is also part of this
>> conversation: I insist on speaking about Jewish cultural/financial 
>> power in
>> the U.S. as a component of my Zionist critique. Do I think that Jews 
>> should
>> be denied power? No! Do I think that there should be quotas on Jewish
>> inclusion in elite institutions? No! Well: I would like Jewish 
>> participation
>> in mainstream media roundtables on the Middle East held to 50 
>> percent. That
>> is my quota. These ideas have made some of my readers uncomfortable. 
>> They've
>> made me uncomfortable. I grew up in fear of lurking antisemitism. But 
>> I have
>>  decided in my 50s that these are things I think about all the time 
>> as a mature person, however flawed I am, and I think they're 
>> important--so I am
>> going to talk about them.
>>
>> And I would add that shutting down debate in the name of 
>> "antisemitism" strikes me as selfish. Our phantom worries about a 
>> second Holocaust take precedence over the real evidence that 
>> surrounds us of man's inhumanity to
>> man, not just man's inhumanity to Jews. And our phantom worries mean 
>> that we
>> cannot address the incredible, everyday, real suffering of 
>> Palestinians that
>> has been perpetrated politically in large part by empowered American 
>> Jews who
>> are all over the media and political establishment, some of whom 
>> limit debate
>> of the issue by citing a possible infraction of our tremendous freedoms.
>> Believe me, when our freedoms are encroached upon, I will howl. Today 
>> and
>> tomorrow I howl for the Jewish leadership's actual crushing of the
>> Palestinian right of self-determination.
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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