Don't head fake me dude. Jews have a long history of being a persecuted group of people, none of this is in dispute. Your notion of Zionism and the secular Jew is laughable. In 21st century terms, Jews aren't considered a race of people however if you want to open that box, then an idea or effort (Zionism) to establish a state based on race is completely racist on its face. Which ever way you want to characterize the Jewish people, as a race or religion or both, Zionism is a scourge. You have no more right to any homeland than any other group of people in the world. There's a very clear distinction in generalizing a group of people in racist terms and holding a group of people accountable for what they believe and what they do. There's a lot of irony in how Jews have been treated historically and how Israel now behaves. The Israelis and the Zionists need to get on with taking responsibility for what they've done in the world and stop playing the victim card. Everything has its cost, both for Israel and their treatment of their neighbors and the US for betraying its ideals in funding Israel's abuses.
Dear god calm down. Deji did a good job of describing the history of zionism. Zionism is simply the belief that there should be a Jewish state. I think most people understand the origins. Jews were persecuted throughout Europe and many came together to pool resources and attempt to find a state for the Jewish people. Now you can (and probably correctly) argue that the implementation and process of creating Israel was pretty messed up. I think you're confusing the issue though. Obviously a "Jewish" state cant truly be secular because you're using religion as a criteria for immigration and citizenship. And frankly that's one of the many questions that Israel has never answered. They dont know their own identity. But secularism to many of the founders of zionism was simply finding a state where Jews would be 100% free from discrimination. Many of the original zionists didnt care for religious orthodoxy or religious restrictions on anything. Some zionists didnt even care if non-jews moved in. For example, Herzl considered a number of alternatives to Israel. He considered empty parts of Argentina and even almost took a deal from the British to set up a state in Uganda at one point. It wasnt till much later that the Zionist Conference decided on Israel. And even then a lot of the original zionists didnt have any particular care for Israel in particular (only that it might have been nice to be in the Jewish ancestral homeland but that wasnt a major issue). Things like prohibitions on public transport on Sabbath (as well as most businesses closing down) are not a product of secular zionism, that's a result of the religious establishment having way too much influence today. David Ben Gurion once said he'd rather form a coalition government with the Arabs in the Knesset instead of the religious parties (which he ended up doing to get a majority in the Knesset). Today sadly such a thing is unthinkable because the type of secular zionism that Deji talked about is slowly weakening. You seem to be very angry about the question of settlements and the Palestinian issue which has nothing to do with zionism. There are plenty of zionists that oppose all settlements. When I was in Israel in November I met several people opposed to settlements. Also you seem to harp on issues that frankly dont matter anymore and only give ammunition to the right wing in Israel who try to paint people as extremists that want to wipe out Israel. Israel's creation was incredibly ****ed up and the British absolutely screwed up. There's a reason why the British immediately repudiated their own partition plan after they did it because they realized how poorly done the whole thing was. But that happened in the 40s, there are more important issues to deal with. Even most Palestinians dont care about that stuff anymore. When I was in Ramallah and Jericho in November, people there generally didnt care about the existence of Israel. To them their concern was good roads, schools etc.. Their problem was with the occupation of the Palestinian territories, not the existence of Israel itself. In fact no one cares about that anymore. Even the Arab League has a standing proposal to give full diplomatic recognition to Israel in exchange for withdrawing to the 67 borders. Now that wont happen but it shows you that even the Arabs arent opposed to the inherent existence of Israel anymore. It seems like everyone has moved on and you should as well. There are legitimate problems that exist for sure. I'm a foreign national and even I got fed up with how ridiculous the checkpoint system was. Having to travel through 7 checkpoints to get from one city to another was ridiculous. And as a foreigner I get access to all of the roads and entry checkpoints, the Palestinians dont. Its ****ed up for example that there are national parks in the West Bank that only Israelis and foreigners can visit but not Palestinians. That is a legitimate problem and one that absolutely deserves criticism but lay off these sweeping attacks on zionism itself. It's not productive to actually addressing any of the real issues that exist there. Anyway that was a long and pretty disjointed post and I could write on for way too long about my visit there but you get the idea.
I think perhaps you are ignoring a key fact. Zionism is not simply the belief that there should be a Jewish state. Zionism is the belief that there should be a Jewish state (i.e. belonging to Jews and serving the interest of Jews), in a specific place, with certain characteristics. The problem is that the goals of a Jewish state, in a specific place, with certain characteristics is not always aligned with what you would consider to be a fair, stable, rational government. It's identical to the kind of argument which is placed on current or potential Islamic states. Imagine that Turkey, which is at least as moderate as Israel if not far more, is referred to by ATW as Islamist or Islamist-dominated or something like that. So don't take it as anti-semitism. It's not pro-semitism either. It's neutral, it's the same kinf of logic that is universally applied, being applied to Israel. I don't know why you're so mad.
No that simply isnt true. That's what it has become in the minds of manypeople but look at zionism at its roots. The idea of even putting the Jewish state in Israel didnt actually become a demand of the zionist conference until years after it was founded. Like I said earlier, they were inches away from accepting a proposal from the British to set up shop in Africa. Not to mention there were originally other proposals to go elsewhere. And as for the other stuff, again not true. There were plenty of zionists (and still are) that want a fully secular state. (i.e. no restrictions on Sabbath, no religious exemptions from military service, no tax exemptions, full rights for Arab citizens, etc...) Again look at voting patterns when Israel was first formed. A MAJORITY of Arabs that voted in the first elections voted for zionist parties over Arab ones. Today that's pretty much impossible because of the direction that parties have gone but it speaks to a brand of zionism that embraced secularism. Again as I said, Ben Gurion formed coalition governments with Arab parties (who in turn were agreeing to ally with the zionist Labor/Mapai party). Deji brought up other examples. You can be a zionist (i.e. support the state of Israel) and not support the occupation, the almost second class nature of citizenship for Arab Israelis, the influence of the religious establishment etc.. Yes by default you're supporting a state that uprooted the lives of millions when it was formed but again, just because you support the state of Israel doesnt even mean you're condoning the way the state was formed. Believe me I could go on a laundry list of criticisms of Israel today and I'm not really a zionist (I'm not Jewish and frankly have no connection to Israel) but I hate the way people abuse the term zionist without any understanding of what it even means. Yes I'm not a fan of ATW's generalizations of Muslims and his reasoning behind his criticisms but I dont see how that has anything to do with taking a term with little meaning (zionism) and just hurling it around without really understanding the roots of it.
That is incorrect. I said that Erdogan is an islamist. His party is also widely referred to as an islamist party. Turkey as a country as a whole is fortunately not as islamist as, e.g., Afghanistan or Pakistan (although more so in rural areas than for instance in Istanbul). The trend, driven by Erdogan and his party, is toward islamization, though.
I completely accept your rationale, it's logical to me. The difficulty then is with terminology only. Personally, I don't care what the motivation is - whether religious or not. What I do care about is how it affects freedom. So while I will take your word for it that the word zionism meant a different thing decades ago, my personal interest is in the actions of those who have hijacked the word today, much like my personal interest is in the actions of those who have hijacked the word Muslim or Islam. My practical solution to this terminology problem has been to avoid using the word "fundamentalist" and label this new form of Islamism to be Extremist or Islamist or in some cases pure terrorist. What kind of terminology would you see appropriate for those who have hijacked Zionism? IMO the word is tainted and can not realistically go back to its original meaning. Therefore I have, perhaps with poor judgement, used the word zionist as a representation of the most visible alleged zionists today. Is that fair? What do you think is fair? I don't think we disagree on core issues here. I am completely with you that terminology has morphed to become more effective in the political arena, and that the political arena is not filled with rationality, but by appealing to greed, racism, and general hatred. Ultimately, I don't find anything wrong with original zionists disowning the WORD zionist due to the association it has with psychotic conservatives. As I tell Muslims all the time, if the point of a beard is to differentiate each other from bad guys, then what do you do when bad guys start growing beards? If the point of zionism is peace, then what do you do when the bad guys start using zionism for injustice? Here's what you do: you stick to the principle, and disassociate yourself from the hijackers. In the end, the idea is to be good, not to be labelled well. /end overly dramatic and wannabe philosophical rant
The term is what it is now. You're right in terms of its modern use in public discourse. People use it incorrectly but I think it speaks more to the gradual shift of Israeli political discourse and to a lesser extent culture, since 1948. The Israeli right just became bold and havent held back. Meanwhile the left basically crumbled. I think the last major secular party was Shinui and they imploded years ago. Labor is probably going to die soon as well and Kadima is just a ragtag opposition party that has no straight message. Politics is just poisonous there. Honestly there are tons of secular people that are in Israel but they're either politically apathetic or disorganized politically. A lot of the people I met would point out some of the problems there but just throw their hands up and accept it for what it is. Not to mention there's been such a massive culture shift there. The 67 war didnt just give them the Palestinian territories but it opened up basically the Israeli equivalent of manifest destiny discourse with God thrown in. It went from the original message of working hard to build the state to we beat the Arab invasions and got Judea and Samaria, god's on our side. And as stupid as all of that sounds, tons of people drink the kool aid.
The whole "what is Zionism" discussion is probably better served in another thread but if I can throw my two shekels in here from what I have read what Deji and Geeimsobored said is largely correct. Zionism started out as a secular movement with the idea of building a democratic and socialist secular state founded on the progressive ideas of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. From what I have read there was a big split between extremely religious Jews in Western Europe and the US regarding Zionism as many religious Jews thought that the idea of a Jewish state not created by the Messiah was an abomination. Chaim Potok describes a lot of the debate in The Chosen. Since then a lot of those very religious Jews have fully embraced the idea of Zionism and hijacked it from the religious idea. That said though the development of Zionism and the creation of Israel though isn't without extremism and violence many Zionists groups openly embraced terrorism and Avraham Stern the leader of the Lehi Group advocated and carried out acts of terrorism. The logic he used to justify terrorism wasn't much different than that used by the PLO and other Palestinian groups and their sympathizers against Israel.
Erdogan's Islamist party wins Turkey's election http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1558290/Erdogans-Islamist-party-wins-Turkeys-election.html
Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Thinks Obama Is Muslim, Survey Shows http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/19/nearly-americans-thinks-obama-muslim-survey-shows/
If you think these are equivalent statements (Obama Muslim, AKP Islamist), then you have once again shown that you are not the sharpest tool in the shed. One statement is evidently false, the other one is one of interpretation. The article below discusses how "Islamist" the AKP is (it claims it is not as Islamist as one would think). http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=how-8216islamist8217-is-the-akp-2010-12-03
If you think that these aren't both fear mongering statements conjured up by people that are delusional, then you have once again proven that you are blinded by your bigotry. Its quite funny how you can read an article that dismisses your claims, and then continue to mislabel a group.
Judging by the news headlines and people in Cairo going back to work, seems this issue is dying, for now.
