The bottom line is fairly straightforward. An anti-Zionist believes that one Jewish state is one too many. They would rather send the Jewish people, worldwide by the way, back to 1939. Better In their eyes for Jews to be stateless, defenseless and at the mercy of the first tyrant to come down the pike. But don’t call them antisemites. Heaven forbid…
A well written article however I take exception with a couple of things. The statement that we Jews are allowed a portion of our land. That implies giving away a portion to the Arabs and we all know how badly that ended with Gaza. The Arabs who were invented as Palestinians are not a distinct people. Look up the history of the word Palestine, Palestina, Phylistia. The British took over the area and called it Palestine. The Jews living there had passports that said Palestine. The Jerusalem Post was the Palestine Post. These Arabs can be Jordanians, Egyptians like Arafat was, etc. Clearly the world decided to come out of the closet on the 7th of October when Hamas and Gazans slaughtered our people. What happened in their crazed minds to suddenly go all out against us Jews everywhere? Of course many were primed by Qatar money infused into the universities. It has continued and getting worse. Israel is our land and we will continue to live here and prosper despite all of the Islamists wanting to kill us, erase us, and take over our land. Shabbat shalom.
Here's the thing. There are lots of indigenous people who lost their homelands and who have no prayer of ever getting it back -- native Americans for example. It seems to me that very often these things are decided by war, technology, diplomacy, and other dynamics.
In the case of Israel, the United Nations -- THE UNITED NATIONS -- voted the state of Israel into existence. And so it was done. And it is NOT going away -- barring some highly unusual something that I cannot at the moment fathom.
Is any of this fair, in the sense of kindergarten fair? No. None of it is. But it's the way the world works.
There are no utopias and there is no magical utopian method by which these things are determined. Right now, the Jews have returned to (part of) their original homeland. We lucked out. End of story.
I’m not claiming that we deserve it due to:
* 2,000 years of homelessness
* The Holocaust
* Comparison to most other ethnicities who have a home
* The fact that history clearly shows that Jews cannot rely on ANYone else to exist safely.
* Any other logical, philosophical or emotional argument.
I am not inclined to debate with people as to whether or not the state of Israel has a right to exist. It exists. And it's not going anywhere if we can help it. If you don't like it . . . I'm not at all sorry.
(Side note: in 1975 that same UN voted that "zionism = racism". Can you imagine how incredibly stupid this body of representatives is? They created the "zionist" state of Israel and 28 years later voted to condemn it. Can anything demonstrate more accurately why the UN should be moved to Idaho? It might be good for Idaho.)
I think it was actually the League of Nations that created Israel. And millions of "indigenous" people all over the world were displaced during and after WWII--and Pakistan was created around the same time Israel was re-created. Borders shifted all over the world, including the Middle East. But only Israel gets shit dumped on it and changes demanded, etc.
After WWI the League of Nations did in fact declare a mandate for the establishment of a Jewish state, but they did not vote to actually create one. That happened in 1947 by the United Nations. :)
The “from the river to the sea” crowd wants the moral glamour of liberation without admitting the coercion required to dismantle a country of millions. “Equal rights” is not a plan for disarming Hamas, protecting Israeli Jews, preserving Jewish institutions, or preventing another slaughter. October 7 exposed the logic: when Israel is framed as the original crime, violence against Israelis becomes “resistance.” That is why anti-Zionism so often mutates into antisemitism in practice. Jews may debate Israeli policy. They do not owe anyone an apology for surviving, returning, governing, or defending themselves.
Something that mostly gets overlooked in the whole "Zionism" kerfuffle: Zionism was the movement to establish Jewish self-determination in our ancestral land. That came to fruition in 1948, which makes it a done deal. Thus, the term "anti-Zionism" is 78 years out of date. If the haters want to use "anti-Israel" instead, that's their choice, but even then, they're not really anti-Israel, because they don't really hate Israeli Arabs, Druze, Christians, Bahais, etc. We know what it's really all about.
I’m tired of anti Israel people beating around the bush. Why don’t they just call it like it is. They don’t hate Israel, they just hate Jews. I’m not Israeli, & I don’t speak for them, but if you want to get rid of Israel & the Jews, why don’t you just go in & take it? I have a feeling you would have a nice surprise waiting for you. Just don’t come crying to the world when you get your tushies spanked. Have a good day & Shabbos! 🦁
Anti-Zionism, regardless of whatever jargon and rhetoric it comes garnished with, is a movement with one single, simple goal: ending Israel, either through military conquest or some international boycott that cripples it and forces it to somehow dissolve. All the rest is dishonest PR—especially the fantastical claim about nation-states being immoral anachronisms that need to be abolished in the name of a single global humanity. This is obviously just a rationalization (and something that could only be said by a professor or another permanent campus dweller) as it is a demand made on no other people or state, and as it ignores the deep emotional attachments people have to their homelands, which no bureaucrat, however enlightened, can erase.
Also, the argument about anti-Semitism vs Anti-Zionism is pointless now, as these are (slightly) different beasts but closely related. When the Soviets created the Anti-Zionism movement they knew that the Nazis had eternally befouled the traditional brand of Jew hate, so their task was to pour old wine into a new bottle. Either way, both are a form of politics deliberately structured to be against the Jews and both single out Jews for various conspiracy theories that start hateful and quickly get worse.
The modern Islamo-Leftist usually doesn't use the same slurs as the old-fashioned anti-Semite, as they've been trained to substitute their own jargon instead, but they both campaign for the same outcome: Jewish suffering and ostracism. And in 2026, if we had to quantify, the Islamo-Leftist campaign to demonize Israel has certainly led to more violence and hatred against Jews than any leftover retrograde Archie Bunkers.
Anti-Zionism is a hate movement that has successfully camouflaged itself behind all sorts of post-Marxist jargon about radical liberation and supposed concern for displaced Arabs. But every word and slogan are lies, all of which need to be opposed every time they appear.
As a Jew I stand for Israel. I do not blame Israel ever. I expect all Jews to follow suit. When you separate yourself from Israel remember the holocaust- it wasn’t just Germany. All the countries
either took part or looked the other way. Stop being a self loathing weak Jew. Absolutely stand with the only country that will protect you. Israel. If you lack a spine get spine replacement surgery.
Very well said except for your belief that one can support Israel and ‘Palestinians’. The whole cult of Palestine is a lie. There are no ‘Palestinians’, they are Arabs. The ideology of Palestine was created by the KGB and Arafat in 1964. To keep fomenting this lie instead of tearing it down and confronting it for what it is, a lie, to usurp the Jewish people from their ancient ancestral land, is wrong as well as harmful.
Excellent article. I don't have a problem with substituting Jew with Zionist since the vast majority of us are Zionists. I have a problem with the word becoming a racist slur directed at us.
This is commentary. I can’t speak for all “anti-Zionists” and I think it’s just the most convenient way to say one is against a genocide.
I’d label myself one now cuz it’s an abbreviation at being appalled at the takeover of the United States government by a nation we have fueled & fortified.
Many of my best friends are Jewish. And they too are appalled by a genocide. One merely needs eyes and ears to notice.
Love how the article justifies all of Israel's violence with just: "but!!!! Jewish people have a right to self-determination!!!!" Yeah well all of us do, but that doesn't justify invading another nation's land and killing it's people dude. Please I'm begging for some critical thinking skills.
My parents left Italy as post-war migrants in the 1950s and I’m Australian (not Jewish). You know the British colonised Australia and claimed it as ‘Terra Nullius’ — the Indigenous Australians who have been here for over 60,000 years were not just dispossessed, they were not even acknowledged as human beings in legal terms. We recently had a referendum with the aim of recognising the First Peoples of this land in our constitution and giving them a special ‘voice’ to parliament — this was defeated. My point is this — Jews remind me greatly of Indigenous Australians. Both are indigenous to a specific place and have an ongoing connection to that place. This is different to my connection to either Australia or my parents’ homeland. The British colonised Australia, and we all know Israel was conquered by the Babylonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Ottomans etc. Through all this, Jerusalem and Israel retained Jewish history, culture and citizens. I find it shocking that educated people try to dismiss the Jewish foundation of Israel. It’s like trying to deny the Indigenous Australian foundation of Australia. Why would you want to do that, other than to erase the indigenous peoples from a place to enhance your ideological narrative that it was a blank slate? Israel was not a blank slate when Arabs arrived — Jews (among others) were there. This fact is visible in the archaeological landscape, it’s visible in the people, the language, the religion, the culture, the shared history. You can’t just deny Jews a place in their own story, in their indigenous land. If you don’t agree there is a connection, what does that matter to the people who have lived that story and embody that continuity in their indigenous land? Your opinion is irrelevant and not comparable — as you say, you’re of Moroccan heritage (and maybe Swedish?) — clearly that heritage means something different to you than it does the Israeli heritage of Jews. The history of the Jewish diaspora may explain why they have retained strong ties to their spiritual & (what was and remained for many) their physical homeland in Israel. Note, Arab Palestinians have rights, but those rights don’t extinguish Jewish rights to sovereignty on part of their indigenous land. Why should the oldest indigenous peoples of the former Palestine mandate (pre-dating Islam by millennia) be portrayed as colonisers? I mean, ‘antizionism’ is an Orwellian invention of the academic left. The great colonisers (e.g. UK, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Ottomans) and the colonies (USA, Australia, parts of South America, Africa etc) are the leading countries falsely condemning Israel for what they really have done and continue to do. The Jews are the indigenous people of Israel, just as Native Americans are in the US, or Indigenous Australians here.
Israel is the one Jewish state in the midst of 20 Muslim states in MENA. Most of the Muslim states in MENA prior to 7th century Arab conquest (and subsequent Arabisation of language and culture) had a non-Islamic 'indigenous' population that is either no longer distinct, or perhaps is still distinct but under threat. In short, 91% of the MENA population now identifies as Muslim, but within and alongside that huge majority there are still vibrant minorities suffering discrimination and violence for upholding their indigenous traditions and values, such as the Kurds, Yezidis, Copts, Maronite Christians, Druze, Samaritans, Armenian, Zoroastrians and (yes!) Jews. You would know that the Jewish populations in MENA states was ethnically-cleansed in 1948, for example (nobody cares, but basically it was a 'reverse-Nakba' of Jews). My point is -- the non-Islamic minorities (often 'indigenous' peoples if you will) listed in MENA are all under threat from the dominant Islamic culture, apart from within Israel. The only minority, non-Islamic group to have achieved a sovereign state on part of their historic lands are the Jews. If you can't see the significance of this recognition and status, especially as we witness the decline or persecution of every other minority in MENA, then I'm at a loss. Jews themselves are under huge existential threat from extreme Islam (see October 7 as a start) but at least they have a sovereign state, unlike the Kurds for example, who have suffered immense human rights abuses at the hands of the Turks, Iraqis etc -- of course, nobody cares because it's Islam doing the oppressing, which to many seems to considered the natural and just order of things. Why? You're arguing for the rights of non-dominant cultures that were colonised by the West, yet kowtow to the Islamic colonisers of MENA who have enjoyed immense power and have received preferential treatment and favouritism from the same 'Western' immperialists you so despise. The Jews fought for Israel (after the Holocasut) against the antisemitic British and the post-Ottoman pan-Arab nationalists, who were in cahoots and wanted to renege on the agreement to give the Jews a small part of the British Mandate at partition. Good for the Jews for not taking any shit from these entitled bullies who were so accustomed to being the 'overlords' of every group that was not in either the dominant 'European' or 'Arab' overclass.
Everything you say applies to your one-sided view of the Arab colonisation of MENA — you haven’t addressed my point about minorities in MENA being oppressed by Islamic supremacism to this day. I did mention the Nakba in the context of it being the only side of the story of displacement in post-WWII MENA given any weight, when in reality it was not named as an ‘injustice’ but a ‘catastrophe’ by the humiliated Arabs who know they lost a war they started in 1948 against Israel.
Thanks Michael — I appreciate your well-informed opinions and explanations. Your rekindled childhood memories in relation to your recently discovered Moroccan connection may be among the most sincere, poignant revelations I’ve read as a reply in a Substack comment discussing Zionism! I know I sound like I’m in a cult, but the secular antizionist ideology also has cult-like, religious overtones. I’m reading ‘Jerusalem: The biography’ by Simon Sebag Montefiore so am somewhat aware of the violence & betrayals on many sides that preceded the 1948 declaration. The British closure of Palestine to Jewish immigration in the lead-up to the Holocaust (at the violent behest of Arabs in the mandate) was IMO a contributor to the resolve of Jews in Palestine to employ whatever means necessary to advance their cause of a Jewish state, especially when it became clear the British were going to betray the Jews in hopes of ensuring Arab non-violence within the mandate. The British and Arabs to this day are united in their loathing of Israeli Jews, for not knowing their place and for not accepting the impossibility of a Jewish state — there was violence on all sides of this conflict, not least from British military (sometimes irregulars) who committed heinous crimes against young Jewish Zionists in attempts to break Jewish resistance. I just don’t agree that the Israeli state is any less legitimate than the other (Arab-majority) states formed at that time such as Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It’s not only as legitimate as those states (if not more considering all historical factors) it’s by far the most successful, despite the realities.
When the Arab states on four occasions failed to defeat Israel with the force of arms, they began a propaganda campaign to equate Zionism with racism. Thanks to Arab oil power to bribe and to intimidate the nations, the victims of racism are now accused of being racist themselves.
The United Nations has long ago ceased to be an organization seeking justice and peace for the world. It has become a tool for the destruction of existing nations. By condemning Zionism's right to exist, they have condemned Israel's right to exist. It is impossible to separate Zionism from Israel. By this one stroke then, the United Nations legalized the destruction of Israel by their enemies. Although the verdict was repealed 17 years later, the damage was already done.
The root of Zionism is the word "Zion." Furthermore, the word "Zion," although originally referred to the mount upon which stood the Jewish temple, eventually became equivalent to the name, "Jerusalem." So Zionism is concerned with the land of Zion and with its capital of Jerusalem.
Zionism describes a feeling. Zionism is an expression of the longing and yearning that the Jewish people have had in the past and still have for their homeland. Zionism existed during the Egyptian bondage. It existed during the Babylonian captivity. It exists in these days of the dispersion which began in 70 A.D. As soon as any Jew expressed a desire to go back to his land, regardless of his reason, he was expressing Zionism. Any Jew who looked toward and identified himself with the promised land, whether he knew it or not, whether he admitted it or not, was a Zionist.
Zionism is neither a conspiracy nor racism. It is an expression of a yearning placed into every Jewish heart by the Lord Himself. Unfulfilled Zionism is being outside the land of Israel. Fulfilled Zionism is being and living in the land.
The bottom line is fairly straightforward. An anti-Zionist believes that one Jewish state is one too many. They would rather send the Jewish people, worldwide by the way, back to 1939. Better In their eyes for Jews to be stateless, defenseless and at the mercy of the first tyrant to come down the pike. But don’t call them antisemites. Heaven forbid…
A well written article however I take exception with a couple of things. The statement that we Jews are allowed a portion of our land. That implies giving away a portion to the Arabs and we all know how badly that ended with Gaza. The Arabs who were invented as Palestinians are not a distinct people. Look up the history of the word Palestine, Palestina, Phylistia. The British took over the area and called it Palestine. The Jews living there had passports that said Palestine. The Jerusalem Post was the Palestine Post. These Arabs can be Jordanians, Egyptians like Arafat was, etc. Clearly the world decided to come out of the closet on the 7th of October when Hamas and Gazans slaughtered our people. What happened in their crazed minds to suddenly go all out against us Jews everywhere? Of course many were primed by Qatar money infused into the universities. It has continued and getting worse. Israel is our land and we will continue to live here and prosper despite all of the Islamists wanting to kill us, erase us, and take over our land. Shabbat shalom.
Wonderful article.
Here's the thing. There are lots of indigenous people who lost their homelands and who have no prayer of ever getting it back -- native Americans for example. It seems to me that very often these things are decided by war, technology, diplomacy, and other dynamics.
In the case of Israel, the United Nations -- THE UNITED NATIONS -- voted the state of Israel into existence. And so it was done. And it is NOT going away -- barring some highly unusual something that I cannot at the moment fathom.
Is any of this fair, in the sense of kindergarten fair? No. None of it is. But it's the way the world works.
There are no utopias and there is no magical utopian method by which these things are determined. Right now, the Jews have returned to (part of) their original homeland. We lucked out. End of story.
I’m not claiming that we deserve it due to:
* 2,000 years of homelessness
* The Holocaust
* Comparison to most other ethnicities who have a home
* The fact that history clearly shows that Jews cannot rely on ANYone else to exist safely.
* Any other logical, philosophical or emotional argument.
I am not inclined to debate with people as to whether or not the state of Israel has a right to exist. It exists. And it's not going anywhere if we can help it. If you don't like it . . . I'm not at all sorry.
(Side note: in 1975 that same UN voted that "zionism = racism". Can you imagine how incredibly stupid this body of representatives is? They created the "zionist" state of Israel and 28 years later voted to condemn it. Can anything demonstrate more accurately why the UN should be moved to Idaho? It might be good for Idaho.)
No explanations and no apologies.
I think it was actually the League of Nations that created Israel. And millions of "indigenous" people all over the world were displaced during and after WWII--and Pakistan was created around the same time Israel was re-created. Borders shifted all over the world, including the Middle East. But only Israel gets shit dumped on it and changes demanded, etc.
After WWI the League of Nations did in fact declare a mandate for the establishment of a Jewish state, but they did not vote to actually create one. That happened in 1947 by the United Nations. :)
you are correct, thank you.
The “from the river to the sea” crowd wants the moral glamour of liberation without admitting the coercion required to dismantle a country of millions. “Equal rights” is not a plan for disarming Hamas, protecting Israeli Jews, preserving Jewish institutions, or preventing another slaughter. October 7 exposed the logic: when Israel is framed as the original crime, violence against Israelis becomes “resistance.” That is why anti-Zionism so often mutates into antisemitism in practice. Jews may debate Israeli policy. They do not owe anyone an apology for surviving, returning, governing, or defending themselves.
Something that mostly gets overlooked in the whole "Zionism" kerfuffle: Zionism was the movement to establish Jewish self-determination in our ancestral land. That came to fruition in 1948, which makes it a done deal. Thus, the term "anti-Zionism" is 78 years out of date. If the haters want to use "anti-Israel" instead, that's their choice, but even then, they're not really anti-Israel, because they don't really hate Israeli Arabs, Druze, Christians, Bahais, etc. We know what it's really all about.
Zionism is our legitimacy, established by our existence, supported by centuries of archaeological and historical records.
I’m tired of anti Israel people beating around the bush. Why don’t they just call it like it is. They don’t hate Israel, they just hate Jews. I’m not Israeli, & I don’t speak for them, but if you want to get rid of Israel & the Jews, why don’t you just go in & take it? I have a feeling you would have a nice surprise waiting for you. Just don’t come crying to the world when you get your tushies spanked. Have a good day & Shabbos! 🦁
Anti-Zionism, regardless of whatever jargon and rhetoric it comes garnished with, is a movement with one single, simple goal: ending Israel, either through military conquest or some international boycott that cripples it and forces it to somehow dissolve. All the rest is dishonest PR—especially the fantastical claim about nation-states being immoral anachronisms that need to be abolished in the name of a single global humanity. This is obviously just a rationalization (and something that could only be said by a professor or another permanent campus dweller) as it is a demand made on no other people or state, and as it ignores the deep emotional attachments people have to their homelands, which no bureaucrat, however enlightened, can erase.
Also, the argument about anti-Semitism vs Anti-Zionism is pointless now, as these are (slightly) different beasts but closely related. When the Soviets created the Anti-Zionism movement they knew that the Nazis had eternally befouled the traditional brand of Jew hate, so their task was to pour old wine into a new bottle. Either way, both are a form of politics deliberately structured to be against the Jews and both single out Jews for various conspiracy theories that start hateful and quickly get worse.
The modern Islamo-Leftist usually doesn't use the same slurs as the old-fashioned anti-Semite, as they've been trained to substitute their own jargon instead, but they both campaign for the same outcome: Jewish suffering and ostracism. And in 2026, if we had to quantify, the Islamo-Leftist campaign to demonize Israel has certainly led to more violence and hatred against Jews than any leftover retrograde Archie Bunkers.
Anti-Zionism is a hate movement that has successfully camouflaged itself behind all sorts of post-Marxist jargon about radical liberation and supposed concern for displaced Arabs. But every word and slogan are lies, all of which need to be opposed every time they appear.
As a Jew I stand for Israel. I do not blame Israel ever. I expect all Jews to follow suit. When you separate yourself from Israel remember the holocaust- it wasn’t just Germany. All the countries
either took part or looked the other way. Stop being a self loathing weak Jew. Absolutely stand with the only country that will protect you. Israel. If you lack a spine get spine replacement surgery.
Very well said except for your belief that one can support Israel and ‘Palestinians’. The whole cult of Palestine is a lie. There are no ‘Palestinians’, they are Arabs. The ideology of Palestine was created by the KGB and Arafat in 1964. To keep fomenting this lie instead of tearing it down and confronting it for what it is, a lie, to usurp the Jewish people from their ancient ancestral land, is wrong as well as harmful.
Excellent article. I don't have a problem with substituting Jew with Zionist since the vast majority of us are Zionists. I have a problem with the word becoming a racist slur directed at us.
This is commentary. I can’t speak for all “anti-Zionists” and I think it’s just the most convenient way to say one is against a genocide.
I’d label myself one now cuz it’s an abbreviation at being appalled at the takeover of the United States government by a nation we have fueled & fortified.
Many of my best friends are Jewish. And they too are appalled by a genocide. One merely needs eyes and ears to notice.
Love how the article justifies all of Israel's violence with just: "but!!!! Jewish people have a right to self-determination!!!!" Yeah well all of us do, but that doesn't justify invading another nation's land and killing it's people dude. Please I'm begging for some critical thinking skills.
Reply to Michael Eriksson’s hidden comment:
My parents left Italy as post-war migrants in the 1950s and I’m Australian (not Jewish). You know the British colonised Australia and claimed it as ‘Terra Nullius’ — the Indigenous Australians who have been here for over 60,000 years were not just dispossessed, they were not even acknowledged as human beings in legal terms. We recently had a referendum with the aim of recognising the First Peoples of this land in our constitution and giving them a special ‘voice’ to parliament — this was defeated. My point is this — Jews remind me greatly of Indigenous Australians. Both are indigenous to a specific place and have an ongoing connection to that place. This is different to my connection to either Australia or my parents’ homeland. The British colonised Australia, and we all know Israel was conquered by the Babylonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Ottomans etc. Through all this, Jerusalem and Israel retained Jewish history, culture and citizens. I find it shocking that educated people try to dismiss the Jewish foundation of Israel. It’s like trying to deny the Indigenous Australian foundation of Australia. Why would you want to do that, other than to erase the indigenous peoples from a place to enhance your ideological narrative that it was a blank slate? Israel was not a blank slate when Arabs arrived — Jews (among others) were there. This fact is visible in the archaeological landscape, it’s visible in the people, the language, the religion, the culture, the shared history. You can’t just deny Jews a place in their own story, in their indigenous land. If you don’t agree there is a connection, what does that matter to the people who have lived that story and embody that continuity in their indigenous land? Your opinion is irrelevant and not comparable — as you say, you’re of Moroccan heritage (and maybe Swedish?) — clearly that heritage means something different to you than it does the Israeli heritage of Jews. The history of the Jewish diaspora may explain why they have retained strong ties to their spiritual & (what was and remained for many) their physical homeland in Israel. Note, Arab Palestinians have rights, but those rights don’t extinguish Jewish rights to sovereignty on part of their indigenous land. Why should the oldest indigenous peoples of the former Palestine mandate (pre-dating Islam by millennia) be portrayed as colonisers? I mean, ‘antizionism’ is an Orwellian invention of the academic left. The great colonisers (e.g. UK, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Ottomans) and the colonies (USA, Australia, parts of South America, Africa etc) are the leading countries falsely condemning Israel for what they really have done and continue to do. The Jews are the indigenous people of Israel, just as Native Americans are in the US, or Indigenous Australians here.
Israel is the one Jewish state in the midst of 20 Muslim states in MENA. Most of the Muslim states in MENA prior to 7th century Arab conquest (and subsequent Arabisation of language and culture) had a non-Islamic 'indigenous' population that is either no longer distinct, or perhaps is still distinct but under threat. In short, 91% of the MENA population now identifies as Muslim, but within and alongside that huge majority there are still vibrant minorities suffering discrimination and violence for upholding their indigenous traditions and values, such as the Kurds, Yezidis, Copts, Maronite Christians, Druze, Samaritans, Armenian, Zoroastrians and (yes!) Jews. You would know that the Jewish populations in MENA states was ethnically-cleansed in 1948, for example (nobody cares, but basically it was a 'reverse-Nakba' of Jews). My point is -- the non-Islamic minorities (often 'indigenous' peoples if you will) listed in MENA are all under threat from the dominant Islamic culture, apart from within Israel. The only minority, non-Islamic group to have achieved a sovereign state on part of their historic lands are the Jews. If you can't see the significance of this recognition and status, especially as we witness the decline or persecution of every other minority in MENA, then I'm at a loss. Jews themselves are under huge existential threat from extreme Islam (see October 7 as a start) but at least they have a sovereign state, unlike the Kurds for example, who have suffered immense human rights abuses at the hands of the Turks, Iraqis etc -- of course, nobody cares because it's Islam doing the oppressing, which to many seems to considered the natural and just order of things. Why? You're arguing for the rights of non-dominant cultures that were colonised by the West, yet kowtow to the Islamic colonisers of MENA who have enjoyed immense power and have received preferential treatment and favouritism from the same 'Western' immperialists you so despise. The Jews fought for Israel (after the Holocasut) against the antisemitic British and the post-Ottoman pan-Arab nationalists, who were in cahoots and wanted to renege on the agreement to give the Jews a small part of the British Mandate at partition. Good for the Jews for not taking any shit from these entitled bullies who were so accustomed to being the 'overlords' of every group that was not in either the dominant 'European' or 'Arab' overclass.
Everything you say applies to your one-sided view of the Arab colonisation of MENA — you haven’t addressed my point about minorities in MENA being oppressed by Islamic supremacism to this day. I did mention the Nakba in the context of it being the only side of the story of displacement in post-WWII MENA given any weight, when in reality it was not named as an ‘injustice’ but a ‘catastrophe’ by the humiliated Arabs who know they lost a war they started in 1948 against Israel.
Thanks Michael — I appreciate your well-informed opinions and explanations. Your rekindled childhood memories in relation to your recently discovered Moroccan connection may be among the most sincere, poignant revelations I’ve read as a reply in a Substack comment discussing Zionism! I know I sound like I’m in a cult, but the secular antizionist ideology also has cult-like, religious overtones. I’m reading ‘Jerusalem: The biography’ by Simon Sebag Montefiore so am somewhat aware of the violence & betrayals on many sides that preceded the 1948 declaration. The British closure of Palestine to Jewish immigration in the lead-up to the Holocaust (at the violent behest of Arabs in the mandate) was IMO a contributor to the resolve of Jews in Palestine to employ whatever means necessary to advance their cause of a Jewish state, especially when it became clear the British were going to betray the Jews in hopes of ensuring Arab non-violence within the mandate. The British and Arabs to this day are united in their loathing of Israeli Jews, for not knowing their place and for not accepting the impossibility of a Jewish state — there was violence on all sides of this conflict, not least from British military (sometimes irregulars) who committed heinous crimes against young Jewish Zionists in attempts to break Jewish resistance. I just don’t agree that the Israeli state is any less legitimate than the other (Arab-majority) states formed at that time such as Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It’s not only as legitimate as those states (if not more considering all historical factors) it’s by far the most successful, despite the realities.
When the Arab states on four occasions failed to defeat Israel with the force of arms, they began a propaganda campaign to equate Zionism with racism. Thanks to Arab oil power to bribe and to intimidate the nations, the victims of racism are now accused of being racist themselves.
The United Nations has long ago ceased to be an organization seeking justice and peace for the world. It has become a tool for the destruction of existing nations. By condemning Zionism's right to exist, they have condemned Israel's right to exist. It is impossible to separate Zionism from Israel. By this one stroke then, the United Nations legalized the destruction of Israel by their enemies. Although the verdict was repealed 17 years later, the damage was already done.
The root of Zionism is the word "Zion." Furthermore, the word "Zion," although originally referred to the mount upon which stood the Jewish temple, eventually became equivalent to the name, "Jerusalem." So Zionism is concerned with the land of Zion and with its capital of Jerusalem.
Zionism describes a feeling. Zionism is an expression of the longing and yearning that the Jewish people have had in the past and still have for their homeland. Zionism existed during the Egyptian bondage. It existed during the Babylonian captivity. It exists in these days of the dispersion which began in 70 A.D. As soon as any Jew expressed a desire to go back to his land, regardless of his reason, he was expressing Zionism. Any Jew who looked toward and identified himself with the promised land, whether he knew it or not, whether he admitted it or not, was a Zionist.
Zionism is neither a conspiracy nor racism. It is an expression of a yearning placed into every Jewish heart by the Lord Himself. Unfulfilled Zionism is being outside the land of Israel. Fulfilled Zionism is being and living in the land.
Excellent
I did!