It's a fairly simple, straight forward question... Do you believe that being against Israel necessarily means you dislike/distrust/hate jews? Please elaborate.
No. It's more the motivation for the criticism. Some is founded in egalitarianism. Some is not. I don't consider Sam, for example, to be anti-semitic, merely anti-Israel. Of course, personal opinion is labile, not static.
It depends. It could mean anywhere from thinking Israel should be dissolved to simply taking sides with the Palestinian point of view.
Essentially, i define being anti-Zion as being opposed to the formation of the state of Israel and the related situation including the manner in which it was done. If you feel that land was stolen from the Palestinians unjustly, to form Israel - you might be an anti-Zionist. If you thing Israel should not exist where it does - you might be an anti-Zionist. If you think the Israeli/Palestinian relationship equates to appartheid - you might be an anti-Zionist. If you think the land of Israel should be given back to Palestine - you might be an anti-Zionist. If you think that Israel should be forced back to it's "original" (i.e. post WWII) size - you might be an anti-Zionist. It takes many forms, and I think the question, as I said, is a fairly simple and straight-forward one.
Why anti-Zionist? Why not simply anti-Israeli? I have no objection to Israelis having a homeland, merely their inhumane treatment of Palestinians.
Good point, Sam. Let's stick with Anti-Israel. Against the curent incarnation of Zion. Does that necessarily mean someone is anti-semetic?
There is a rather large movement of Orthodox Jews who believe that the founding of Israel in the 20th century was not only wrong but an affront to their god. It is their god who is supposed to lead them to the promised land, not the British occupiers of Palestine. They also believe it is blasphemy to speak Hebrew except for religious purposes. They live among us and speak our languages, or a few still speak Yiddish. They are fiercely anti-Zionist. These people can hardly be called anti-Semitic. Are the rest of you as pissed off as I am by the word "anti-Semitic" being appropriated to apply only to Jews? The Arabs are also a Semitic people, as are the Assyrians and a few other ethnic groups. They all speak languages of the Semitic-Hamitic family and the relationship is close and obvious. "Peace be unto you" is shalom aleikhem in Hebrew and salaam alaikum in Arabic. Arabs outnumber Jews by about 100 to 1. If a person is anti-Semitic it means he also hates Arabs. Our language is being butchered for political purposes.
And what have you to say of Palestinians' inhumane treatments of fellow Palestinians? Let the children play?
The problem here is that this piece of language was butchered a few hundred years ago. The word was coined by a few German academics who postulated that Jews resulted from admixture of the 'pure' African, Asian and European races. They believed those who hated the supposed results of such 'semiticization' should call themselves antisemites. To them the word held no negative connotation; it was meant to sound more rational than Judenhass. Interestingly, at that time some Germans referred to Jews as 'Palestinians', to emphasise racial origin over religion. Whoops. Personally, I think the word 'Judeophobia' would be more precise, but since 'antisemitism' has referred only to hatred of Jews for several centuries I doubt the usage will change soon. Sometimes middle eastern debaters claim that as Semites they cannot, by definition, be antisemitic (even if they hate Jews). This is like claiming that a black Brit who hates all black Americans isn't racist. :shrug:
Hey, Zephyr. I had just popped in to answer this question of yours here, in a related thread. I see you preceded me. Here in this thread, it seems that you're encouraging readers to discover the difference between cultural and political zionism, since your Wikipedia Buber reference presently points out the distinction between the two in its third sentence. I feel like a spoiler here, but because of the way you asked in the other thread, it seemed less academic, and begged a response. This was ironic to me, because I had previously edited out "political Zionist" from a post there. Political Zionist at every mention just reads clumsily, and in context one can assume we were speaking of political, (not cultural) zionism. That we are so often called out to mind our "p"s, "q"s, big and small "Z"s and such is to me a common symptom of how touchy (political) Zionists are. I think it's because their ideology is contradicted by the concept of basic human rights. Zionists know this, either consciously or not, and wish to employ technical distractions to keep (political) Zionism from what I think is its ultimate destination: Trotsky's (& moreso Reagan's) dustbin of history. There is an obvious difference between cultural and religious Zionisms. Let's follow your Wiki link for a moment: The Wiki link to political Zionism takes you to the url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Zionism, that is titled "Zionism". This is because it is conventional to associate "Zionism" foremost with political, and not cultural Zionism. Cultural Zionists certainly appreciate Jewish culture, but do not necessarily advocate pushing other ethnicities around as an intrinsic part of that expression. Political Zionists either believe in or exploit a concept that is a Jewish version of manifest destiny- that a religious and/or historical mandate demands that other ethnicities had better get the fuck out of their way while they build and maintain an exclusive Homeland for the Jews, where Jewish culture shall always reign superior to any other. Many Jews take offense to this ideology, not to mention the Palestinian victims of Zionism. Oops, I mean political Zionism.
Zionism and Judaism are two different creatures. Ergo, you can hate one/disagree with one and not the other and vice-versa.
I have a lot to say about the inhumane treatment of Dalits by some Indians and the inhumane treatment oh many peoples by Americans but thats not related to Israeli occupation or zionism. I'm pretty sure that criminal/violent elements won't disappear from any society if Israelis stop oppressing the Palestinians, however, that does not diminish the scale and extent of their oppression.
My main reason for asking that question was that there seemed a clear discrepancy between the views of some self-described Zionists and the views ascribed to Zionists by their opponents. It's interesting that Martin Buber still chose to live in Palestine, which according to some applications of post-colonial theory is enough to damn him as a colonial collaborator or enabler (a phrase about as malleable as terrorist enabler Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!). But given his championing the binational solution I don't think he can easily be accused of racism. It would be interesting to see what self-described anti-Zionists think of him. This has little to do with the main topic, but it would be nice to define terms before discussing them. It will also make raven's question simpler and more straightforward. Discussions between people using the same word for different things are seldom fruitful. (Similarly, I would guess that the two nation theory may have been seen differently by its founder and those parties who carried it out.)
"Discussions between people using the same word for different things are seldom fruitful." So the sensible thing is to acknowledge the linguistic norms, and not get bogged down in terminological minutiae. It's well established that "Zionist" commonly describes political Zionism. If one wants to instead evoke cultural zionism, then the adjective is necessary. I demonstrated this with your own references, Zephyr. It's the same with "anti-semitism". Even though Arabs are also Semites, it's become conventional that anti-semitism without a qualifier means bigotry against Jews. When someone starts quibbling obsessively over the terms of a discussion, I usually suspect that they are not being intellectually honest. That's why some discussions become fruitless- It's not because of the terms, but because of evasive tactics, or hiding behind words.
if you want to nit-pick and separate a conventional meaning of a word into a few different ones, and then have an academic debate about those meanings, it will not bring you closer to any solution. people have to debate in common simple terms ... i.e. to dumb-down all these concepts as much as possible, so the largest amount of people can understand and relate to the arguments from both sides. at least that's how i look at things. the argument is not cheapened, and the 2 sides understand each other better. the simplest definition of "Zionizm", IMO, is how my dad explained it to me when i was 7: the idea that all Jews should live in Israel... and that they should rule themselves. that's as simple as it gets, and i believe the most commonly-understood definition. all the other definitions are sort of derivatives that were invented by academic types in recent years. so when one is anti-Zionist, then one is against the above-said idea. similarly, the simplest definition of anti-Semitism, again -- IMO, is hatred (and sometimes acting it out) of Jews for them being Jews, and not for their individual actions. hatred of their existence... hatred of Jewish symbols... hatred of beards and locks... taking away civil equalities (e.g. a law such as this one)... you know... what academics now call "classical anti-Semitism". now, what is "hatred"? some say that rejecting of the idea of Jewish self-determination (i.e. to self-govern and to live in their recently-self-resurrected ancient homeland) falls under the definition. on a simple un-nuanced level, i agree. but there are many nuances that complicate the situation. by and large i find that most so-called anti-Zionists are also anti-Semites. they are not against one Israeli policy vs. another... they're against the entire existence of Israel. in my book that makes you anti-Semetic.
