Only Israel is allowed to imprison another
People
FP 4. September 2014

Haaretz Sep. 4, 2014

The government's great betrayal of Zionism
By Dmitry Shumsky

Israel-hatred in our times - which spills over occasionally into anti-Semitism - points indirectly at a fundamental failure in the fulfillment of Zionism.

Excerpts:
It is to be hoped that alongside Israelis’ populist, self-pitying shrieks at the waves of (political) anti-Semitism that have been flooding more and more places in the world, some among us will also try to examine the phenomenon of anti-Israeli feeling, as Herzl, in his own time, examined the complaints of modern anti-Semitism against the Jews.

As is well known, the Zionist movement, especially Herzlian Zionism, sought to turn the Jews into a nation like all other nations. Not only did Zionism fail to do so, but the State of Israel, which sees itself as “Zionist” and is seen as such by others, is making the Jewish-Israeli nation seem even more anomalous among the world’s nations.

Before Zionism appeared, the anomalous nature of the Jewish people took the form of discrimination relative to other nations. Today Israel is not discriminated against in the family of nations. On the contrary. It is given preferential treatment and benefits from privilege.

Of all the nations on earth, only Israel can be considered a member of the club of democratic countries even as it deprives millions of people of fundamental rights. Only Israel is allowed to imprison another people in salients that resemble a ghetto and then claim the right of self-defense when that same people fights for its liberty and national dignity – if at times using terrorist means. Only the Israeli prime minister is allowed to make false comparisons between other states and nations and Nazi Germany, cheapening the memory of the Holocaust’s victims, even as he protests against the same kind of false comparison – between Nazi Germany and Israel – such as the one made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Should we be surprised that a country that enjoys privilege in the international community has awakened large, ongoing waves of hatred against itself? Should we be surprised that a state that seems to be above international law should arouse the world over, particularly and without doubt in the public opinion of democratic countries – the wish to put it outside international law?

This anomaly – of a supposed right to be occupiers and yet be thought enlightened – endangers Israel’s status and sabotages the Zionist normalization project of the Jewish people.

Full article:
When Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, cited the socioeconomic and political failure of Europe’s Jews to integrate into the non-Jewish environment as the cause of modern anti-Semitism, there were Jews and non-Jews (most of the latter were friends of Jews) who believed that he was playing into the anti-Semites’ hands, and that he perhaps agreed inwardly with their assertions. They were wrong. Herzl never identified with anti-Semitism. Instead, he saw it as the result of a profound political problem (“the Jewish question” in Europe), and said the Jews had the power to work toward solving it via the establishment of a Jewish state.

It is to be hoped that alongside Israelis’ populist, self-pitying shrieks at the waves of (political) anti-Semitism that have been flooding more and more places in the world, some among us will also try to examine the phenomenon of anti-Israeli feeling, as Herzl, in his own time, examined the complaints of modern anti-Semitism against the Jews.

As is well known, the Zionist movement, especially Herzlian Zionism, sought to turn the Jews into a nation like all other nations. Not only did Zionism fail to do so, but the State of Israel, which sees itself as “Zionist” and is seen as such by others, is making the Jewish-Israeli nation seem even more anomalous among the world’s nations.

Before Zionism appeared, the anomalous nature of the Jewish people took the form of discrimination relative to other nations. Today Israel is not discriminated against in the family of nations. On the contrary. It is given preferential treatment and benefits from privilege.

Of all the nations on earth, only Israel can be considered a member of the club of democratic countries even as it deprives millions of people of fundamental rights. Only Israel is allowed to imprison another people in salients that resemble a ghetto and then claim the right of self-defense when that same people fights for its liberty and national dignity – if at times using terrorist means. Only the Israeli prime minister is allowed to make false comparisons between other states and nations and Nazi Germany, cheapening the memory of the Holocaust’s victims, even as he protests against the same kind of false comparison – between Nazi Germany and Israel – such as the one made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Should we be surprised that a country that enjoys privilege in the international community has awakened large, ongoing waves of hatred against itself? Should we be surprised that a state that seems to be above international law should arouse the world over, particularly and without doubt in the public opinion of democratic countries – the wish to put it outside international law?

Hatred of the State of Israel in our times – which spills over occasionally into hatred of Jews wherever they are – points indirectly at a fundamental failure in the fulfillment of Zionism. This failure, which contains within it an existential danger to the Jewish people’s status throughout the world, is just as bad as the one Herzl saw in his own day as the basis of modern anti-Semitism. Its main component is the failure of Israel, which never succeeded in integrating into the family of nations because of the intolerable anomaly of civil oppression and national subjugation, which are perpetrated under the banner of democracy and freedom.

The more deeply this anomaly becomes entrenched, the stronger the trend of shunning Israel and ostracizing it from the international community will grow, together with confirmation of Zionism’s failure to bring the Jews’ anomalous political status into line with that of the rest of the nations. This anomaly – of a supposed right to be occupiers and yet be thought enlightened – endangers Israel’s status and sabotages the Zionist normalization project of the Jewish people. Since it is growing even stronger under the government of Netanyahu, Bennett and Lieberman, which sees itself as impeccably Zionist, one might say that it is the government of the real betrayers of the Zionist idea.
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