Modern Zionism and white supremacy
JVL Introduction
When Gershon Baskin says “I no longer call myself a Zionist, I don’t know what it means to be a Zionist anymore” it is time for liberal Zionists to sit up and take notice.
There has been no-one more committed to the Jewish and democratic dream, no-one who has worked harder for a two-state outcome, since he made aliyah in 1978.
No more. The conflict with reality has become too great.
As Baskin says, “I have to ask: What is the difference between white supremacy as expressed by outgoing US President Trump and his base of supporters and Jewish supremacy in the State of Israel?”
And his painful answer: “Nothing really.”
[PS: 7 Jan – The title of the article as published in the Jerusalem Post has been altered to a somewhat less assertive “You can’t be democratic for Jews and less democratic for Arabs – opinion”]
This article was originally published by the Jerusalem Post on Wed 6 Jan 2021. Read the original here.
What's the difference between modern Zionism and white supremacy?
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The analogy between white supremacism in the US and Jewish supremacism in Israel and the occupied territories is undeniable. Too many people are in denial on this issue. When people come to terms with this truth there is a chance of dismantling the racist state of Israel and replacing it with an inclusive secular state based on genuine democracy and equality. This must be our strategic goal. It will require international solidarity and an alliance between progressive Palestinians and Israeli Jews.
On Channel 4 news this evening (7 January), Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale felt no qualms about using the word “fascist” to describe Donald Trump. If – as I hope – that is going to become the norm, I wonder how Trump’s many admirers in Israel will cope with this difficult new reality. And what of all the many wonderful agreements brokered by young Mr Kushner on behalf of his fascist father-in-law?
False accusations of antisemitism against Corbyn and Labour by the right have been effective to date but it was always a risky strategy in the longer term.
The first definitive legal finding against any one of our accusers will open the door to other cases, which ought eventually to settle the issue in our favour – legal findings being less open to “interpretation” or amplification by the media than all those entirely evidence-free accusations.
I wonder what history’s shorthand for this UK equivalent of ‘McCarthyism’ will be?
The left must work hard and long to ensure the inevitable backlash stays within the political sphere where it belongs, and that blame for the lies goes where it belongs – to the right wing perpetrators of the scam.
Some Jews were certainly complicit, some will have been prime movers – but such crimes are inherent to right wing politics, not Jewishness – just as in Israel.