The U.S. House Of Representatives Equates Anti-Zionism With Anti-Semitism

yasha  |  It might sound like I’m describing a cult or something. But actually zionism was actually pretty normal by 19th-early 20th century European standards. It’s just nationalism — Jewish nationalism. It came out of Europe and the Russian Empire and gained popularity as one solution to the Jewish Question that was being debated there at the time: Are Jews a religious group? A race? Should Jews assimilate and become part of the societies in which they live — to become Russian or German? 

Why does antisemitism exist? 

Jewish nationalism offered an answer: Jews are a race. And because the only natural and healthy way to organize society is for every race to have its own state, the Jews need also need a state of their own where they can live and flourish and control their fate— like the English, the French, the Italians, the Germans. Without this Jewish state, Jews in Europe and all over the world are doomed. They’ll remain hated minorities and suffer bouts of violence. Or even worse, the race will continue to degrade spiritually and culturally and will eventually disappear altogether. To zionists, a Jewish state is the only path to survival of the Jewish race.

This wasn’t unique to zionism. Nationalism was a popular notion in Europe at the time — and it led to some horrible results, Nazi Germany being one example. One thing that made Jewish nationalism stand out was that it wasn’t about defending land that Jews currently occupied from inferior races. It was about transporting millions of Jews from Europe to a place called Palestine — and once there purging the land of the locals and restoring what zionists believed is their rightful ancient Jewish home.

Here’s how Vladimir Jabotinsky — a journalist originally from Odessa who played a big role in setting up the militant rightwing flank of zionism that ultimately produced Israel’s Likud — wrote about about European Jews and the Land of Israel. The two were one:

…the true kernel of our national uniqueness is the pure product of the Land of Israel. We did not exist before we came to the Land of Israel. The Hebrew people was created from the fragments of other peoples on the soil of the Land of Israel. We grew up in the Land of Israel; on it we became citizens; we strengthened the belief in one God; we breathed in the winds of the land, and in our struggles for independence and sovereignty, its air enwrapped us and the grain that its land produced sustained us. In the Land of Israel the ideas of our prophets were developed and in the Land of Israel the “Song of Songs” was first heard. Everything Hebrew in our midst was given to us by the Land of Israel. Anything else in us is not Hebrew. Israel and the Land of Israel are one. There we were born as a people and there we developed.³

The zionism had all sorts of rifts and fissures. But at its core, the movement believed in the same goal and sought to speak collectively for all Jews. It wasn’t about individuals. It was about the race.

So that’s been the main obsession of the movement ever since: the creation and protection of a Jewish state in Palestine. The existence of this state is linked to the survival of the Jewish people. Get rid of one and the other will follow. A Jewish state — a government of Jews, by Jews, for Jews — is the base on which all zionism rests.

Ideologies impose structure on the way people see the world. They condition reactions and assumption and interpretations. That’s why zionist Jews are so freaked out right now. For them October 7 was a shock. The surprise Hamas attack, the killing of innocents, the hostages dragged back to Gaza, the powerlessness of Israeli military — to them this had nothing to do with violence that the zionist quest for land foisted on Palestinians, it was a reminder of the atavistic horror that always plagued Jewish people: Jews are hated for just being Jewish. Existence is never guaranteed.

And as they looked around after the attack, they saw more sympathy for Palestinian suffering than they ever have before: pro-Palestinian protests and marches, college kids on Instagram and TikTok posting about Israel’s occupation and apartheid. All over the world, people were criticizing Israel. In their minds, they saw this as people going after the Jews. This only reaffirmed their fears and deepened their convictions: The ancient hatred is still there. Israel is our only refuge, the only thing that can protect us.

Survival of the Jews. That’s what they believe Israel is fighting for in Gaza. They think they’re warding off a mortal enemy, an enemy that seeks to destroy the Jewishness of Israel. And so nothing is off limits to them — no number of babies or children killed is too high, no destruction is too great. There are no innocents in a war of survival between competing races. The innocent baby of today will grow into a fierce enemy who will want to exterminate them tomorrow. It’s a zero-sum world. They really do believe it. The survival of the race is at stake.