Yes, correct. You can say you are a Zionist while not being in favour of Palestinian oppression.
There are so many forms of Zionism, but they all have at their root the belief in a Jewish homeland. Some Zionists will believe in the 2 state solution, others will say the Palestinians should be expelled from the whole of Israel.
I would think so. As a Zionist myself, I wish Palestinians would have accepted a two state solution instead of rejecting each offer. Israel is going nowhere.
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Israel left Gaza in 2005. Gaza wasn’t occupied until Hamas decided to invade Israel on October 7th. Hamas is not an armed resistance group, they are a designated terrorist group who along with 6,000 other Palestinians murdered 1,200 Israelis including foreigners, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza.
One can unequivocally condemn the Nazis without attributing their crimes to every German. Likewise, one can condemn the policies of Netanyahu's government without attributing those policies to every Israeli or every Zionist.
Let's start with the first claim, The German public largely trusted Hitler's goals and supported reclaiming territories like Danzig. Who should we attribute the crimes that went unopposed in Germany? The Mexicans?
I'm sure that not every single German agreed, but Germany committed these crimes and the German people agree with this conclusion, otherwise, why did Germany agree to reparations.
Under the Luxembourg Agreement signed in September 1952, West Germany agreed to pay 3 billion Deutschmarks to the State of Israel and 450 million Deutschmarks to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. From 1945 through 2018, Germany paid over $86.8 billion in individual compensation, property restitution, and survivor pensions (including Hardship and Article 2 funds).
In addition the allies took all of Germany's plants and used them to replace their damaged industrial plants.
Currently, the majority of Israelis support expelling Gazans and also replacing West Bank people with settlers.
Who should be blamed? Mexicans?
As far as I know, Israel is a democracy and Netanyahu, elected by the people, with a majority support, rejects a 2-state solution, and wants to expel Palestinians. In fact, one of the reasons he did not see 9/07 coming, was that he had the IDF turned on the West Bank trying to harass people into leaving.
See the 60 minutes video. Or pretend none of this is happening.
@Northwest You're confusing state responsibility, political responsibility, and individual culpability.
Of course Germany was responsible for the crimes of the Nazi regime. That's why Germany paid reparations. But those reparations established the responsibility of the German state, not the personal criminal guilt of every German citizen. A German born in 1960 could contribute to reparations without having been responsible for the Holocaust.
Likewise, Israel can be held accountable for its government's actions, and individual Israelis who support oppressive policies can be criticized for doing so. I have never disputed either proposition.
And yes, polling reveals disturbing levels of support among Jewish Israelis for Palestinian displacement. I don't deny that.
But you're still confusing the conduct and beliefs of some—or even a majority—with the beliefs necessarily held by every member of a larger group.
If criticizing Israel does not necessarily make someone antisemitic, supporting Zionism does not necessarily make someone an advocate of Palestinian oppression.
The existence of antisemitic critics of Israel doesn't invalidate the first proposition. The existence of oppressive Zionists doesn't invalidate the second.
You can hold Israel responsible for governmental wrongdoing without assigning personal guilt to every Israeli or every Zionist.
That's the distinction I've been making from the beginning. Nothing you've said refutes it.
You're confusing state responsibility, political responsibility, and individual culpability.
No, I am not. "I did not vote for xxx" is not an excuse. I'm trying to point out to you, that this is irrelevant, because war is conducted on behalf of citizens and if they don't really like it, they can drop their nationality.
@Fukfacewillie You're confusing three distinct concepts: historical ancestry, individual property rights, and national self-determination.
I agree that Jewish ancestry does not entitle anyone to seize Palestinian property. But that doesn't mean Jews have no legitimate claim to national self-determination in their historic homeland.
Nor does the Irish identification with Palestinians settle the question. Historical analogies illuminate; they don't establish equivalence.
The UN partition proposal of 1947 explicitly contemplated both Jewish and Arab national self-determination. Supporting one need not entail denying the other.
And that's precisely my original point: Just as criticizing Israel does not necessarily mean endorsing antisemitism, supporting Zionism does not necessarily mean endorsing Palestinian oppression.
You can condemn particular Israeli policies without condemning every Zionist, just as you can condemn particular antisemitic critics of Israel without condemning every critic of Israel.
Why is that distinction acceptable in one direction but not the other?
@flipper1966 Okay, but I can’t answer then. I can tell you I used to consider myself a Zionist, but not any longer. That doesnt mean I want Israel to disappear, either, and become Palestine.
@Fukfacewillie I believe in the legal aims of Zionism. The settlements are illegal. War crimes are illegal. Netanyahu is a war criminal and belongs in prison.
@flipper1966 I appreciate your points. I no longer believe it was worth the cost, and that the treatment of Palestinians is a blight on the history of Israel.
Criticizing Israel is not antisemitic. Saying Israel should not exist is.
For example, if I say that I have nothing against Irish people, but the country of Ireland should not exist and would be better off if it was under British rule, because the Irish don't deserve their own country, would you call that anti-Irish?
@LeopoldBloom I literally have a more valid claim to being "indigenous" to Scotland and throwing some random person in Perth off their land than half of the Europeans larping as Middle Easterners in Tel Aviv.
And even if that was not the case using a blood and soil justification for a far right ethno state and the genocide of an entire population is a disgusting choice.
the reason the Irish never had a problem with Jews is because they never allowed any Jews to live there. I
A claim not supported by actual history.
Following early mentions in the 11th century, small groups of Sephardic refugees arrived after the Spanish expulsion in 1492, and a formal Dublin community was re-established in the 17th century.But the core of the modern community formed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when thousands of Eastern European Jews—predominantly from Lithuania—fled pogroms and czarist persecution, settling largely in Dublin’s Portobello neighborhood and Belfast.
There was no policy to discriminate against Jews.
Ireland mistakenly views itself in solidarity with the Palestinians as a reiteration of their conflict with the English.
Which is another fabrication, because both the Irish and Northern Irish are vocal about their support for Palestinian rights, which is a human rights issue, but AIPAC thinks that's a dangerous trend.
@LeopoldBloom “They are mistaken.” Oh, that is rich. They identify with Palestinians because that is the proper analogy of a historically oppressed people oppressed by a more powerful force. You are UDA, Pics is right.
Actually there is a difference, Being a Zionist by definition means supporting the oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Even Theodor Herzl wrote about that being part of the entire point. He defined it as a colonial project from day one and made it clear that he saw ethnic cleansing as necessary and had zero qualms about it.
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow Herzl's use of "colonial" was not the same as Frantz Fanon's in the 1960s. Herzl meant it in the sense of moving somewhere. There was no imperial metropole that sent Jews to Ottoman and Mandatory Palestine to extract resources and send them back to the metropole. Most of the Jews who emigrated there were refugees. Also, the "Palestinian" identity didn't exist at the time; Arabs in that area considered themselves "Arabs" or "Syrians." "Palestinian" referred to Jews.
Antizionism by definition means supporting the genocide or ethnic cleansing of Israeli Jews, therefore, it's antisemitic, just as supporting the genocide or ethnic cleansing of any other group would be considered opposed to that group.
@LeopoldBloom That is just a lie. He meant it in terms of conquering and displacing or subjugating the people living there. He explicitly stated this. It is not ambiguous.
The extraction point is an irrelevant non sequitur.
And parroting lies and deliberate misrepresentations. Identity is not a fixed point. like in Canada the Palestinian identity largely solidified into what it is today as a direct result of a foreign invader conquering and oppressing them. This is completely normal.
This is how Canadian identity came about. Canadians particularly in English speaking communities largely did not identify any differently than the people of the 13 colonies.
That changed after the war of 1812 when the US invaded Canada.
By your logic that means Canadians don't exist as a valid identity.
Claiming anti Zionism is by definition supporting genocide of of Israeli Jews is a lie.
For one it is objectively not happening. The genocide of Palestinians is.
Claiming being anti Zionist is supporting genocide of Jews is the same and as idiotic as claiming being Anti Apartheid meant supporting "white genocide."
And Zionism by definition explicitly from it's founding openly states that ethnic cleansing of non Jews is the entire point.
Israel in its present form is not compatible with liberal democracy or humanism, or the idea of equal rights regardless of ethnicity. Supporting Israel now is supporting a brutal regime.
@LeopoldBloom So, you agree with my assessment? Also, you would need to define “support” for me to provide a meaningful response. I don’t know if my positions constitute what you would call “support” or not.
@ElyssTTTrucks Why would advocating for Jewish self-determination in their historic homeland be a form of racial or religious supremacism? Is Ireland an Irish supremacist country? Is Japan a Japanese supremacist country (ask the Ainu what they think of that, assuming you can find any).
@LeopoldBloom And where did I say anything opposing Jewish self determination in their historic homeland? Much has been said and written regarding Zionism pro and con. Including the issue raised in my question. I do not know enough about Zionism to make that determination one way or another without reading more and asking others.
@LeopoldBloom So what would you say regarding comments on this thread in relation to modern day Israel and modern day Zionism? Comments such as present day Israel being incompatible with liberal democracy or humanism?
@TheDeathOCuHullainn When you say "modern Zionism" I am afraid you really mean Netanyahu-ism. Netanyahu-ism is not Zionism, in my opinion, it is a fascistic perversion of Zionism.
Keep in mind, UN Resolution 181 requires of Israel: "No discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants on the ground of race, religion, language or sex." That is certainly not being honored by Netanyahu-ism.
UN resolution 181 has rarely if ever been honoured by Israel.
Lets not pretend all this horrendous stuff that Israel is guilty of started with Netanyahu. Lets keep things honest and avoid the white washing of history.
There is a reference to Israel as the ancient homeland of someone I presume is an Ashkenazi Jew, like myself. The Levant side of us left a millennium ago, and we are also of European heritage (hence the sunscreen). I find the argument specious, at best, that I am a refugee of Israel. I also claim no land rights to Minsk or Budapest.
@Fukfacewillie The Jewish people have been described as a people who have a religion. Judaism is not just a religion. Israel does give preferential treatment to Jewish immigration, just as Ireland, Italy, Japan, Armenia, Greece, and many other countries give preferential treatment to people from their respective diasporas who want to return to those countries.
@LeopoldBloom Israel is a country and can determine its rules about immigration. I am confused why you don’t move there if you feel such an ancient biblical connection.
No, because Zionism is Jewish Supremacy in the Middle East. So supporting Zionism involves oppressing all of the non-jewish populations in that region. You might have nothing against Arabs, but in order to do Zionism, most Arabs need to be oppressed.
My suggestion is to not let yourself get bogged down in semantics and catch phrases.
The world is a much more complex than the media makes it, and allowing yourself to get limited to a binary choice of "for or against" is part of the ongoing problem in politics in general, and society at large.
Israel has a right to exist. So does Palestine, should they choose to actually become a real country and not the terrorist breeding ground for Hamas and Hezbollah. We don't have to choose one side or the other.
