Distinguishing Between Zionism And Judaism
Distinguishing Between Zionism And Judaism
In the summer of 1982 there began a great
savagery
that caused the whole world to cry out in protest. The
Israeli Army
entered Lebanon in a sudden attack, and moved forward
destroying every
target that appeared before it. The Israelis surrounded the
refugee
camps, where Palestinians lived who had fled the Israeli
occupation
years before, and for two days used Lebanese Christian
militias to
slaughter innocent civilians. Within a few days, thousands
of innocent
people had been massacred.
This terrible Israeli terrorism outraged the whole world.
The interesting
thing, however, is that some of the protests came from Jews,
even
Israeli Jews. Professor Benjamin Cohen of Tel Aviv
University penned
a statement on June 6, 1982, saying:
I am writing to you while listening to a transistor that has just announced that "we" are in the process of "realizing our objectives" in Lebanon: to insure "peace" for the residents of Galilee. These lies worthy of Goebbels make me mad. It is clear that this savage war, more barbaric than any of those preceding it, has nothing to do with the attempt in London or the security of Galilee ... Jews, sons of Abraham ... Jews, victims themselves of so much cruelty, how can they become so cruel? ... The greatest success of Zionism is the "dejudaisation" of the Jews.1
Benjamin Cohen was not the
only
Israeli to oppose the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Many
Jewish intellectuals
living in Israel condemned the savagery carried out by their
own state.
This
attitude was not restricted to the occupation of Lebanon.
Israel's oppression
of the Palestinians, its insistence on its policy of
occupation, and
its links with the semi-fascist administrations in the former
racist
regime in South Africa had been criticized for many years by
many prominent
intellectuals in Israel. This Jewish criticism was aimed not
just at
the policies of Israel, but also at Zionism, its official
ideology.
This situation is the expression of a very important truth:
Israel's
policy of occupation and state terrorism from 1967 up to the
present
stems from the ideology of Zionism, and many Jews in the world
are opposed
to it.
For Muslims, therefore, the concept that should be criticized
is not
Judaism or the Jewish race, but Zionism. In the same way that
an anti-Nazi
can have no hatred for the German people, so he can have none
for the
Jewish race because he opposes Zionism.
The
Racist Roots
of Zionism
After the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem in 70 AD, they
began to
spread to different parts of the world. During this period
of the
"diaspora," which lasted up to the 19th century, the vast
majority of Jews saw themselves as a religious group. Over
time, most
Jews adopted the religion of the countries they lived in.
Hebrew was
left as a sacred language used in prayers and religious
texts. Jews
in Germany began to speak German, and those in Britain,
English. When
certain social restrictions on Jews in European countries
were lifted
in the 19th century, Jews began to assimilate with the
societies they
were living in. Most Jews saw themselves as a "religious
community,"
not as a "race" or "nation." They described themselves
as "Jewish Germans," "Jewish Britons," or "Jewish
Americans."
As
we know, however, there was a huge rise in racism in the 19th
century.
Racist ideas, influenced in particular by Darwin's theory of
evolution,
grew enormously and found many supporters in Western
societies. Zionism
was the effect this racist storm had among the Jews.
The Jews who propagated the idea of Zionism were people with
very
weak religious beliefs. They saw Judaism as the name of a
race, not
as a community of belief. They suggested that the Jews were a
separate
race from European nations, that it was impossible for them
to live
together and that it was essential they establish their own
homeland.
They did not rely on religious thinking when deciding where
that homeland
should be. Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, once
thought of
Uganda, and this became known as the "Uganda Plan." The
Zionists later decided on Palestine. The reason for this was
Palestine
was regarded as "the Jews' historic homeland" rather than
for any religious significance it had for them.
The Zionists made great efforts to get other Jews to accept
these
non-religious ideas. The World Zionist Organization that was
set up
undertook vast propaganda work in almost all countries with
Jewish
populations, and began to suggest that Jews could not live
peacefully
with other nations and that they were a separate "race,"
for which reason they had to go and settle in Palestine.
Most Jewish
communities ignored these calls.
In this way, Zionism entered world politics as a racist
ideology which
maintained that Jews should not live with other nations.
First of
all, this mistaken idea created grave problems for and
pressure on
Jews living in the diaspora. Then for Muslims in the Middle
East,
it brought the Israeli policy of occupation and annexation,
together
with bloodshed, death, poverty and terror.
Many Jews today criticize the ideology of
Zionism.
Rabbi Hirsch, one of the foremost Jewish men of religion,
said, "Zionism
wants to define the Jewish people as a national entity ...
which is
a heresy."2
The famous French Muslim thinker Roger Garaudy wrote this on
the subject:
The worst enemy of the prophetic Jewish faith is the nationalist, racist and colonialist logic of tribal Zionism, born of the nationalism, racism and colonialism of 19th century Europe. This logic, which inspired all the colonialisms of the West and all its wars of one nationalism against another, is a suicidal logic. There is no future or security for Israel and no peace in the Middle East unless Israel becomes "dezionized" and returns to the faith of Abraham, which is the spiritual, fraternal and common heritage of the three revealed religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.3
For this reason, therefore, we
must
distinguish between Judaism and Zionism. Not every Jew in
the world
is a Zionist. True Zionists are a minority in the Jewish
world. Moreover,
there are a great many Jews who oppose Zionism's crimes
against humanity,
who want Israel to withdraw at once from all the territory
it has
occupied, and say that instead of being a racist "Jewish
state"
Israel should be a free state where all races and
communities can
live together in equality.
While Muslims rightfully oppose Israel and Zionism, they
must also
bear these truths in mind, and remember that it is not the
Jews who
are the problem, but Zionism.
1 "Professor
Leibowitz
calls Israeli politics in Lebanon Judeo-Nazi", Yediot
Aharonoth,
July 2, 1982
2 Washington Post, October 3, 1978
3 Roger Garaudy, "Right to Reply: Reply to the Media
Lynching
of Abbe Pierre and Roger Garaudy", Samizdat, June 1996
