Regarding Zionism and the Jews

This is not a long post analyzing that dimension, but personally I have had enough of that topic as people seems to either blindly tag every Jew a Zionist or vice versa, knowing the fact that in Lebanon that there are Lebanese Jews who enjoy the full right as anyone else. In fact, their presence in Lebanon has been re-inforced by the different governments who agreed to repair and preserve an old Jewish Synagogue (facing Starco).

The problem of Judaism is Zionism, it transformed them from a sect to a race. Pre-Zionists (dubbed as Isolationists) were highly active in isolating the Jews in the communities in the face of Assimilationists (example: there can be a French Jew just as there is a French Catholic, and the sort). Isolationists brought bad name to Judaism and remained a minority within the Jewish Community, till Hitler’s butchery of the Jews reinforced Zionism beyond what Ben Gurion, Ben Horin, and Weitz ever imagined. To Ben Gurion’s surprise, most of the Jews of Europe fleeing the Nazi racial butchery, they prefered the United States. Only 100,000 people prefered Palestine. However, this is not my focus, if I dwell on history, I will never finish.

A lot of the Lebanese factions think that a Jew and a Zionist are the same. When Finkelstein, Chomsky, and others visited , things changed. In the beginning it was not safe for any Jew to visit Lebanon: for example: Chomsky a decade earlier was scheduled to visit Lebanon, a lot of death threats hovered that he will be assassinated (he stepped down from visiting Lebanon then). Ironically, ever since he sat with Hezbollah’s Nasrallah, same people who threatened to assassinate him, endorsed him as a partner who is fighting for the "cause". Despite the lunch, a lot others face the dilemma of accepting him or he is just part of a grand conspiracy plan (which I find totally ridiculous).

Their argument that once a Jew is no longer a Zionist then that individual X is no longer a Jew. Most parties assume Israeli – Zionist – Jew are the same entity, disregarding the Jewish minority in Lebanon. Another argument would come that every Jew in Israel is filling the home of an expelled family in Palestine. This piece of information holds true, but the solution to the crisis has to be emancipatory in nature. We all know how the Zionists demolished the homes of the Palestinians when they were expelled from their houses back in 1948 (and afterwards). The bulldozer always remains the Zionist's best friend. Hence, Zionist and non-Zionist Jews would be regarded the same. The argument rotates that European Jews have a second nationality, while Palestinians have none, so there is no way to sort the crisis except one group destroying the other, which I don’t regard as a solution. In fact, Zionism can be blamed for that hatred, specially for their previous and on-going butchery of the Palestinians.

More to the point, Marxist figures had plenty of people who are originally Jews: Marx originally came from a Jewish Family, Leon Trotsky, Krupskaya, Leon Kamenev, Clara Zatkin, Rosa Luxemburg, Zinoviev, and so forth; however, to some they exist as a grand conspiracy plan by the free masons to destroy the Eastern Orthodox Church and subdue Russia and previous ex-USSR nations to the Free Masons. This is racism to the extreme. I was accused in the past of being a Zionist because I insisted there is a big difference between Zionism and Judaism.

Now luckily, in the 21st century, some extremist groups began accepting non-Zionist Jews. Marcy Newman is probably one example to give, Chomsky’s welcoming as a national hero was greeted by two primary figures: Hassan Nasrallah and Walid Junblatt. Nine years ago, Newman’s life would have been in dangerous situation if she visited Lebanon. Several members of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party defended Newman’s stand when she was attacked by a certain pro-Zionist Professor who racially accused her of being “self-hating Jew”.

Bottom line, Jews lived in perfect harmony with their Arab citizens everywhere till Zionism sent us their racial ideas from Europe, and the division began. While the English had a racial term in London called: “Dirty Jew”, pre-Zionism arab nations didn’t seggregate between a Jew or any other Arab sect. Zionist butchery triggered the domino effect of bloodbaths and retribution to other Arab Jews (specially the Iraqi Jews). It is funny that Western Zionist Jews had to invent the notion of “empty Palestine” to build their “nation” in order to avoid “civilized Europe’s” racism to ruin the lifestyle of Arab Jews and render racism effective both ways.
For me, attacking Zionism does not mean racism. Zionism is a political exclusive racist theory that focused on expelling Palestinians from their homes, triggering a reactionary wave, pretend to be victims, then rewrite history as “bringers of civilization” to the Middle East. Zionism has not only Jews in the international arena supporting “poor Jews in a middle of Barbarian lands” but also non-Jewish sympathizers who believe in a single pure Jewish Israel and forgetting about Palestine. More to the point, I will never forgive the Zionists for triggering this racial division lines in this region of the world, not to forget the on-going slaughters, and also assisting indirectly in the rise of Islamist fundementalists. The Zionists remind me of Milosevic’s Serbia amidst the breakdown of Yugoslavia.

From our side, we have a long way to promote the idea that Zionism and Judaism are different. As much as this is a sensitive topic, I think it should be openly discussed and bluntly too. For this to happen, the following steps are needed to take place:

1) Zionist Jews should learn history as it happened and shouldn’t base their information from single Zionist sources, rather check both sides, check British archives of their mandate, the US, and history as a whole.

2) Arabs should dig up archives how Jews were regarded as a normal sect in their countries before the ressurection of Israel

3) Arabs should focus on the achievements of non-Zionist Jews and focus on the Internationalist dimension of humanity: people are people despite religion or race.

4) The discussions of the Iskra dialogues witnessed heavy offensive attacks from Trotsky on the Bund (Jewish Socialist Party) because they seperated the Proletariat as Jews and Non-Jews. This can trigger wonderful material for discussions.

5) Despite the racial practices of Israel on the Palestinians and triggering the domino effect of reverse racism in the Arab world and bringing us Islamist fundementalists, the non-Zionist Jews should be recognized in Israel. They are the key factor of bringing down a Zionist racial dogma, and hopefully transforming Israel into a secular real democratic nation, not having a big wall dividing Israel as Jews or non-Jews (at least a logical step one for the crisis instead of favoring a parallel logic similar to the Zionist logic of dumping non-Arab Jews into the sea.

6) More to the Point, the progressive Palestinians in Palestine/Israel should recognize the non-Zionist Jews as perfect allies and try togather to emancipate the Proletariat over there into a single movement. I seriously cant imagine any real solution except the unity of the Jews-Christians- Muslims of Palestine/Israel (which means Israeli/Palestinian civilians) unless the Palestinians/Israelis overthrow their oppressors and unify the proletariat as one.

7) The logic that “Jews rule the world” is over-rated and inflated (not to forget flawed) logic. In the end, Zionism is only one lobby in the US administration among many other factors. Again we separate between Zionists and Jews.

8) Not anyone who wants to “bring the destruction of Israel” is an ally. There are differences between those (say Ahmadinejad denying the existence of the Holocaust) , Qa’eda freaks, and progressive Marxists who want to emancipate the Proletariat as one. I am sure no one wounded recently the Zionists better than Yossi Schwartz’s “Origin of the Jews” (a Marxist from Israel). We have to always consider the difference between progressive forcesand non-progressive forces.

9) Edward Said at a one time was despised by the Palestinians for leaving the PLO when the Oslo agreement was reached. Personally Edward Said is a hero who proved Zionism is a typical 19th century European colonial movement. Azmi Bchara was accused by several people of treason for participating in the Israeli cabinet (and in defecto recognizing Israel through that act) but Azmi Bchara became persecuted by the Zionists when he resigned his position as an MP over there. Rather Azmi Bchara proved to the Arab world how certain form of progressiveness and emancipation can take place from within. Yossi Shwartz is a simple third 100% progressive example of the situation. He even shed light on how the Nazis and Zionists had hidden agreements.

10) Last but not least, as Marxists, we believe that the whole people should be unified as one despite race, gender, nationality, color, tendency, and religion. From here, the concept of one world will always rotate in the minds of the comrades everywhere in the world, and more importantly, we as Marxists dig up history EXACTLY as it happened.

MFL