Zionism is an Example of National Self-Determination
JBG @ Sat Apr 26, 2008 9:09 am
I consider Zionism to be an exercise in self-determination, similar to what many anti-Western groups lobby for. The difference is that many who support other groups' "self-determination" do so only when it is harmful to the West's interests.
The Jews tried living in the Diaspora as citizens of host countries. With the exception of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, intermittently, the United Kingdom that didn't work out so well. We all know the finale, but the prelude was centuries of off and on persecutions of Jews. Ironically, just as full legal rights were extended to Jews in the 1880's in most non-English speaking countries (the US extended full rights from inception through the early 1830's and Britain did in 1831, thus covering the Empire) all hell broke loose. France's L'Affaire Dreyfusse got its start, I believe, in 1892, the same year as Russia's Kisinev Pogroms. This helped jump-start the Zionist movement, or the movement for a Jewish republic.
At the same time, other peoples, such as the Poles, the Lithuanians, etc. began to lobby for self-determination. Most got their wish after WW I when the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires were dismembered. The Jews got a vague promise from the British, the Balfour Declaration. The events of WW II led to the formation of the State of Israel, largely, in my opinion, since the Jewish survivors of the concentration camp could not return to their (expropriated) homes and businesses, and the murderous intent of their "hosts" was clear and obvious.
Zionists have as much right as any other people to "self-determination". The Arabs have plenty of their own countries:
The attempts to demonize Israel are, to me, an attempt to say that there should not be a Jewish state.
sasquatch2 @ Sat Apr 26, 2008 10:06 am
Just using the term Zionist is thinly veiled anti-semitism.
Dr Caleb @ Sat Apr 26, 2008 2:59 pm
sasquatch2 sasquatch2:
Just using the term Zionist is thinly veiled anti-semitism.
Only to a Human Rights Inquisition.
sasquatch2 @ Sun Apr 27, 2008 11:40 am
Dr Caleb
$1:
sasquatch2 wrote:
$1:
Just using the term Zionist is thinly veiled anti-semitism.
Only to a Human Rights Inquisition.
Nah! They allow that!
C.M. Burns @ Mon Apr 28, 2008 10:29 am
sasquatch2 sasquatch2:
Just using the term Zionist is thinly veiled anti-semitism.
Care to explain that?
Brent Swain @ Thu Dec 09, 2010 10:42 pm
Their past persuecution doesn't justify them using the same racist NAZI tactics that so many Canadians died , defending them from.
Individualist @ Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:41 pm
JBG JBG:
I consider Zionism to be an exercise in self-determination, similar to what many anti-Western groups lobby for. The difference is that many who support other groups' "self-determination" do so only when it is harmful to the West's interests.
The left's hate-on for Israel comes from two different sources.
The first is a reflexive aversion to anything that smacks of European colonialism. Many leftists consider diaspora Jews to be Europeans rather than ethnically/culturally Middle Eastern. So they see Isreal as the colonization of Middle East territory by Europeans, which for them harkens back to the dark old days of colonialism in Africa and the Americas.
The second and more important reason for the left's hatred of Israel is its being allied with the United States, which they see as the source of all evil in the world. For Canadian leftists, the friend of their enemy is their enemy as well.