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Not in my name04/28/2005
The above did not appear in Al-Jazeera (at least, not originally) nor in the writings of some "post-Zionist." They are from a Ha'aretz interview with architect Saadia Mandel, who is trying to justify the occupation.
Mandel's claims have a dubious historical basis at best. Herzl thought that he could get a Jewish "national home" through political negotiations, and was not initially certain of where that home should be. The idea of armed Zionists, even for defense, was foreign to most of the Zionist movement for a long time.
In 1909, Meir Dizengoff, soon to be mayor of Tel Aviv had written:
Mandel continued his rant:
In the 1920s, the Zionist movement bought land, it did not steal it. The Zionists bought land for Jewish settlement under the aegis of the internationally approved mandate. Mandel cannot see how this is different from taking land that the world says is not ours. To him, buying a used automobile is the same as breaking in and stealing one. He also makes no distinction between what was done in 1948, in war time, and what was done after the war. It is OK to kill people in war time. Therefore, according to Mandel's logic, it must also be OK to murder people in peacetime. In the 1970s, when no Arab country was talking about peace with Israel on any terms, it was OK to build settlements, so it is also OK to do in 2005, when the settlements stand between us and peace.
Mandel's twisted Zionism and spurious logic are unfortunately not the isolated ravings of a dotard, but the ideology of an entire segment of the Israeli population and the Zionist movement. They have been with us for a long time, but their views have become increasingly legitimized as a result of the occupation. The settlers have held themselves up as the modern standard bearers of Zionism, and pretend to speak in our name, in the name of all of us. They do not speak in my name certainly.
In 1982, after the Sabra and Shatila massacres, someone wrote that in Lebanon Sharon made a big Deir Yassin, and tried to make us all partners in it. The settlers and their advocates are trying to make all of Zionism look like Deir Yassin and the Baruch Goldstein massacre in Hebron, and they are trying to make us all partners in the Goldstein massacre. We know that it is not so and it is not right. What, however, will will tell anti-Zionists who insist that Zionism is immoral, that Zionism is violent and aggressive and colonialist and racist? What can we tell them, when there is a "Zionist and a Nationalist" quoted in an Israeli Zionist newspaper, explaining that Zionism is aggressive and violent, that it was understood from the start by everyone that it is necessary to expel the Arabs, and that the people who settled Mishmar Ha'emek on land purchased by the Jewish agency are the same as the fanatics who poison sheep and destroy olive groves in the West Bank?
With "Zionists" like Mandel to explain our point of view, who needs Hizbulla's Al Manara television and Palestinian "incitement"?
It is strange that the settlers have taken over the Zionist enterprise. It is not their fault. It is our fault, because the rest of us, the silent majority, fell asleep on the watch. We thought it was sufficient to protest the occupation. We fell into the trap of letting the occupation poison Zionism.
Is all the work of Jewish reconstruction really done, so that the only "Zionist" task left is to poison sheep in the West Bank? Is the Negev developed? Is the Galilee developed? Have we fed and clothed our poor? Have we created a society where everyone is truly equal under law and accepted as equal members of society? Are the settlers likely to do any of these things? If we want to save Zionism from the settlers, it is not enough to fight the occupation. We have to show leadership in real, positive Zionist construction, and in defending Israel from its real enemies. Of course, the settlers have an advantage. Clearing slums and educating new immigrants and doing all the other mundane things that need to be done are not nearly as glamorous as poisoning sheep, trashing olive trees and beating up IDF soldiers.
Happy Passover.
Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log at http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000351.htm where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by email with this notice and link to and cite this article. Other uses by permission. |
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Replies: 3 comments
Surely what has happened is a conflation of modern political Zionism, as response to the rise of the nation state, and the age old religious Zionism that seeks redemption through the arrival of the Messiah. This conflation seems to have occurred as the state of Israel established itself, and the early relgious objections to Zionism diminished. IMO as the Christian fundamentalist bloc on the US reformed itself in the 1960's and became an increasingly powerful faction which allied itself with right wing Zionism and the more religious Jewish groups, it in turn influenced religious / right wing Jewish thinking. Whereas between the port-bellum period and the 1960's the Christian right were allied closely with reactionary elements, these became discredited and for the fundamentalists they reverted to their roots and identification with the Jewish people. That the geo-political interests of the USA coincided with those of Israel served to augment this position. Posted by Rod Davies @ 04/29/2005 10:17 PM CST Well done Rod as usual, but settler Zionism has nothing really to do with the classical pre-political "Zionism" though it tries to usurp that too. Messianic Judaism was almost never active and it was never violent. It is classically illustrated in the position of the Satmar and Neturei Karteh anti-Zionists - "wait for Messiah to fix everything." That is clearly not the intent of these fellows at all. Posted by Ami Isseroff @ 04/30/2005 03:02 PM CST
Ami, Posted by Rod Davies @ 05/03/2005 10:47 AM CST Please do not leave notes for MidEastWeb editors here. Hyperlinks are not displayed. We may delete or abridge comments that are longer than 250 words, or consist entirely of material copied from other sources, and we shall delete comments with obscene or racist content or commercial advertisements. Comments should adhere to Mideastweb Guidelines . IPs of offenders will be banned. |
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