Explaining Jews Part VII: Why Anti-Zionism Is Anti-Semitism (Dennis Prager Alert)

Townhall.com ^ | 05/30/06 | Dennis Prager

[goldstategop]

Imagine someone saying that he seeks the destruction of Italy because he regards Italian national identity as racist. Further, imagine that this person constantly denies being anti-Italian, because he does not hate all Italians, only Italy and all those who believe Italy should exist. Now substitute "Jewish" for "Italian" and "Israel" for "Italy" and you understand the absurdity of the argument that one can be anti-Zionist but not anti-Jewish.

Among the many lies that permeate the modern world, none is greater -- or easier to refute -- than the claim that Zionism is not an integral part of Judaism or the claim that anti-Zionism is unrelated to antisemitism.

In order to understand why, it is first necessary to explain Zionism and anti-Zionism.

A modern secular movement called Zionism was founded in the 19th century, but the belief that Jews belong in Zion (the biblical term for Jerusalem) is as old as the Jewish people. See Part One of this series, "Explaining Jews," for a discussion of why Jews are a people and not only a religion.

Starting in 586 B.C., with the destruction of the first Jewish state, Jews were already Zionists in that they fervently prayed to return to Zion. While the movement known by the specific name "Zionism" is modern, the movement of Jews returning to Zion is more than 2,500 years old. That is why the claim that Zionism -- the return of the Jewish people to Zion -- is not part of Judaism is a theological and historical lie.

Judaism has always consisted of three components: God, Torah and Israel, roughly translated as faith, practice and peoplehood. And this Jewish people was conceived of as living in the Jewish country called Israel. One can argue that the modern state of Israel was founded at the expense of Arabs living in the geographic area known as Palestine (there was never a country or a nation called Palestine); but that in no way negates the indisputable fact that Zionism is an integral part of Judaism. Nor does the fact that some Jews who have abandoned Judaism are opposed to Zionism, nor that a tiny sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews (Neturei Karta) believe that only the Messiah can found a Jewish state in Israel.

When anti-Israel Muslim students demonstrate on campus chanting, "Yes to Judaism, No to Zionism," they are inventing a new Judaism out of their hatred for Israel. It would be as if anti-Muslims marched around chanting, "Yes to Allah, No to the Quran." Just as Allah, Muhammad and the Quran are inextricable components of Islam, so God, Torah and Israel are of Judaism.

But, one might argue, even if Zionism is as much a part of Judaism as any other part of the Hebrew Bible, the modern Jewish state of Israel has no right to exist because it displaced many indigenous Arabs, known later as Palestinians.

Before responding to this, it is crucial to understand that this argument -- that Israel's founding was illegitimate -- is completely unrelated to anti-Zionism. An intellectually honest person who believes Israel's founding is illegitimate would still have to acknowledge that Zionism is an inseparable part of Judaism.

But the argument that Israel is illegitimate because its founding led to 600,000 to 700,000 Arab refugees is as anti-Jewish as is anti-Zionism. Virtually every country in the world was founded by displacing some of the people who had lived there, and many of those countries did far worse to far more people than Israel did. Therefore, anyone who calls only for Israel's destruction had better explain why, of all the states on earth whose founding was accompanied by the displacement of others, only the Jewish state is illegitimate.

Take Pakistan, for example. Unlike the Jewish state of Israel, which had existed twice before in history, there was never a country called Pakistan, nor was there ever any other independent Muslim country in the part of India that was carved out to create Pakistan. Moreover, if the Jewish state of Israel is illegitimate because it created 700,000 Arab refugees, why isn't the Muslim state of Pakistan, which created more than eight million Hindu refugees, illegitimate?

The answer is obvious. When people isolate the one Jewish state in the world for sanctions, opprobrium and delegitimizing, they are doing so because it is the Jewish state. And that, quite simply, is why anti-Zionism is simply another form of Jew-hatred.

You can criticize Israel all you want. That does not make you an antisemite. But if you are an anti-Zionist or advocate the destruction of the Jewish state, then let's be clear: You are an enemy of the Jews and of Judaism, and the word for such a person is an antisemite.

[goldstategop]

Criticism of specific Israeli policies or government actions is not anti-Semitism. What is anti-Semitism is criticism of the Jewish self-concept that they have a right to have an independent country like every other people on earth does. Attempting to deny the Jewish people the recognition nationhood as been an intrinsic part of their religion goes back to the very origin of Jewish history itself, is to be an enemy of the Jews and of Judaism. The term for such a person is an antisemite. It does not matter whether this opposition is expressed by those who hate the nation-state on the extreme left, those who hate Israel because its existence is affront to the coming of the Messiah as the Neturei Karta does on the extreme right or from the Islamofascists under the banner of the global jihad do because Israel's existence negates the principle of the purity of the Islamic domain. The War On Terror involves more than just the fate of the West; its above all about whether a small and insignificant people deserve their place as an equal partner in the human family of nations. All that needs to be understood is that when anti-Zionists call for the destruction of the Jewish State, they want Jews to be homeless again, to suffer and die. That's all that Jews and friends of Israel need to know about their agenda.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[NZerFromHK]

A very good article, thanks. I should point out that the devil's adovcate will try to retort that Pakistan's Muslims were indigenous Muslims rather than invading Arabs (as they alleged Jews are the "invading" people). Prager's argument using Pakistan as the analogy is not particularly strong here from the perspective of some people.

It is interesting that one of the arguments I heard from anti-Zionists is a utilitarian, "conservative/libertarian" sounding line: "You Jews lost your home more than 2,500 years ago. Other people have displaced you, the most recent, Arabs. You lost, get over it, and assimilate into whatever the culture you libe in!" Anyone know how to retort this?

[goldstategop]

As long as I have not forfeited my claim to my house, it is irrelevant whether squatters or others move into the place during my absence. Their possession of it does not negate my title to it and my right to to return to it when I am in a position to do so.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[garbageseeker]

Ping

[Slings and Arrows]

Utilitarian argument, you say? Suggested Jewish reply:

"We won in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1981, and we'll win again when we get sick of Pali BS. Get over it!"

[Navy Patriot]

You Jews lost

Well, they done better the last four wars, pretty much they kicked Moo butt hands down. They got their own nation all kosher, (they paid for it, cash, then defended it from thieves the very next day) so it looks like the current news is: Hey, you Jews won, imagine that!

From here forward it looks like the Jews will have to find a way to kick appeasement butt to keep the nation they won fair and square.

[Ainast]

I have to ask. Why have most of the "wars" stopped. Did the muslims pick a new strategy of terrorism or are they just waiting for the opportune time to strike or both.

[nathanbedford]

This article represents the only occasion in my memory in which I disagree with Prager.

He insists that the Zionists' ages long ambition to return to Palestine, or, "Zion" if you prefer, is the end of the definition process. In other words, Jews get to define Zionism. But then, Moslems should get to define their holy sites. But this is not so easy because Christians once identified Palestine as an appropriate place for them to occupy, indeed, they fought bloody crusade's and occupied the territory for hundreds of years because they so defined it. Muslims, inconveniently, have not restricted their definition of holy sites to Mecca but have included the dome of the rock in Jerusalem as the third holiest Muslim site. Obviously, these claims conflict with the ages old dream of Zionism.

In this Prager is more than a little clever, he accuses anti-Zionists of committing the intellectual sin of segregating Zionism from Judaism. He says there are inextricably linked because the Jews say they are inextricably linked. Okay, so what? The yearnings of all religious peoples for their sites, their mores, and their laws can be equally said to be inextricable. The question is, to what degree do others have to accommodate themselves and their conflicting desires to the definitions of another religious group? Will the Jews accommodate to the Crusaders? Will they accommodate to the Moslems desire for the Dome of the Rock? I think not,-at least not wholly. So when Prager says, "When anti-Israel Muslim students demonstrate on campus chanting, "Yes to Judaism, No to Zionism," they are inventing a new Judaism out of their hatred for Israel." He implies that opposition to a Zionism is illegitimate because it necessarily implies opposition to Judaism. This is a false jump. In the modern world we do not let religions dictate politics. Indeed, that is why were fighting the war on terrorism, because the islamo fundamentalists are seeking to impose their laws, sharia, on all of us. In the modern world, politics makes accommodation to religion but is not defined by religion as Prager here is seeking to do. Jews may or may not be entitled legitimately to their own homeland, and once in possession of that homeland they may wish to impose their own religious laws upon themselves, but because they are Jews does not entitle them to a homeland, does not entitle them to impose their religious laws on anyone else, and does not mean opponents of these two precepts are anti-Semitic.

In my judgment Jews are entitled to compete and, if they win, to fight again to keep their homeland, but that does not imply that they are entitled to a homeland, or that those who oppose their efforts because they themselves want that homeland are necessarily anti-Semitic. It certainly does not imply that third parties, such as loyal and patriotic Americans, are anti-Semitic, if they say that the United States has no dog in this fight. No religion, by tweaking its own internal definitions, can render another group "bigots" or in that process control the foreign policy of another sovereign state. That is what Prager here is cleverly trying to do.

Then Prager says this, "You can criticize Israel all you want. That does not make you an antisemite. (So far so good we can all agree with Prager on this, but now he makes another false jump) But if you are an anti-Zionist or advocate the destruction of the Jewish state, then let's be clear: You are an enemy of the Jews and of Judaism, and the word for such a person is an antisemite."

If you call for the distraction of the Church of England, are you then an anti-Anglo-Saxon bigot? After all, great Britain has officially an established church and many today call for its abolition. Now please do not call me naïve, I do not equate raving Muslims who call for the destruction of Israel with pansified intellectuals in England, but I do say that it is not anti-Semitic to insist the people who do not want to be ruled according to Jewish law have a right to fight for their independence on that very same ground, no less than the Jews had their right to fight to take it all in 1948.

The reason all this is important is not because it is worth our time to duel with Prager about his definitions, but because this article is just one more skirmish in the war to control American foreign policy. I believe America should become agnostic on Israel and examine the degree to which our national interests are actually involved in the survival of Israel as a nation. We might well be answering the same questions about Taiwan in the near future. How much war are we going to risk? How much nuclear war are we going to risk if Iran gets the bomb? These questions go right to the very heart of the nation and its survival. They must not be answered in a context of guilt contrived out of false definitions.

[Vectorian]

'After all, great Britain has officially an established church and many today call for its abolition.'

They do? Who exactly?

[nathanbedford]

Christopher Hitchens

[goldstategop]

The defintion is an accurate one. If any one called for the destruction of America, I would view that person both as anti-American and an enemy of America. That is distinct from disagreement with U.S government policies. One can differ about whether a nation is pursuing the right course or not but no one has the right to call into question the existence of a nation itself.

Prager's point is that anti-Zionists seek to define Judaism in terms different from the way that Jews have always seen their faith. The term Zion is not a 19th Century political invention; it appears in the Hebrew Bible. Like it or not, Jews have always understood they are a people as well as a religion and this has up to now been accepted even by their enemies. Where the enemies of the Jews differ with them is they deny the Jews have the right to exist as an independent nationality like any other nation. No one disputes the right of England, Iran or Japan to exist. But it is always the right of Israel to exist that the only right that is under constant attack. The United States does support Israel because we believe the principle of self-determination is both inalienable and universal in character and duration. If Israel is excluded from this principle, then of course, the entire concept of self-determination collapses. No nation state will be safe from the law of the jungle. That is what Israel's enemies want to take the world back to: a lawless world in which might makes right and no one's rights are secure. And no one's existence is either because one has to remember that rights are meaningful only if one is alive to exercise them.

Now we're going from the territory of semantics into the real world: the practical import of achieving Israel's destruction is with the physical murder of every Jewish man, woman and child in Israel. In short, genocide. That is the only way Israel can be made to disappear. Its exactly the intent of those who utter threats to destroy Israel and that is why Jews view them as antisemites. So mere words have real consequences and you're not just talking about destroying an idea; you are talking of destroying real flesh and blood people. I would like in closing, to recall attention to the observation of Heinrich Heine, rephrased to the effect that those who talk of destruction inevitably end up being murderers. For a cause must have an effect. So let us be clear once and for all what is behind the real agenda of the Anti-Zionists: its the physical extermination of the Jewish people from the face of the earth.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[rmlew]

It is interesting that one of the arguments I heard from anti-Zionists is a utilitarian, "conservative/libertarian" sounding line: "You Jews lost your home more than 2,500 years ago. Other people have displaced you, the most recent, Arabs. You lost, get over it, and assimilate into whatever the culture you libe in!" Anyone know how to retort this?
Prior to the recognition of the Third Commonwealth of Israel (the current state), such a position was plausible. However, there is no such utility in saying that Israel should not exist.
Furthermore, this line ignores what has been called "the Jewish question". Jews cannot fully assimilate and remain Jews. (Don't get me wrong, barring divine intervention, my political loyalties are to the US.)
Since we can never fully assimilate into the serious nation-states, Jews remain outsiders. Historically this has led to mutual distrust, resulting is slaughter and expulsion of Jews. Neither the Age of Enlightenment nor the social and political emancipation of Jews changed this reality in Europe. The Dreyfus Affair, Czarist porgroms, the Holocaust, and the Communist attempts to destroy Judaism make this clear. If only for reasons of survival, Zion was a necessity.

[Slings and Arrows]

Both, plus some bribes from the US, plus the loss of Soviet material support, plus they've learned that they can't defeat Israel as-is in open war. If Israel looked weak enough they'd try again.

[goldstategop]

Before Israel was born, one could be opposed to Israel's establishment without being regarded as an antisemite. There were lots of non-Zionist Jews who questioned whether a Jewish State was in the long term interests of the Jewish people. The Holocaust converted the vast majority of Jews to the Zionist position and it was understood the only way to prevent another Holocaust was for Jews to have a state that would protect them from such a fate. After Israel came into existence, it was understood that opposition to Israel's existence was anti-semitism. Jews perceive it in that light for its observed that all Israel has sought is equality, not special treatment, among the family of nations. And yet it is that unassuming request that is so controversial. Which is why Jews are not prepared to admit of any proposal that does not begin with the unreserved acceptance of the Jewish State's legitimacy up front.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[Alberta's Child]

Prager's biggest omission in this article is his failure to examine whether the modern, secular state of Israel even has anything to do with the "Zion" of old at all.

[goldstategop]

Israel has a flawed pedigree. But no other nation in the world has been born either with an untainted birth certificate. Whatever Israel's shortcomings, Jews are justifiably proud of her because the country has brought Jews a measure of security and respect they have not known for millenia. And when Jews were free to do what they really wanted, then we would know the true state of the Jewish character. Israel has been around for less than the normal human lifespan. And I think personally, from our limited vantage point, much of the criticism is beside the point, because this small country has not been around long enough to do a fair-minded review of her potential true justice.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[nathanbedford]

But it is always the right of Israel to exist that the only right that is under constant attack. The United States does support Israel because we believe the principle of self-determination is both inalienable and universal in character and duration. If Israel is excluded from this principle, then of course, the entire concept of self-determination collapses. No nation state will be safe from the law of the jungle. That is what Israel's enemies want to take the world back to: a lawless world in which might makes right and no one's rights are secure. And no one's existence is either because one has to remember that rights are meaningful only if one is alive to exercise them.

Those are fine sentiments indeed. Observed, unfortunately, mainly in the breach.

Many historians believe that World War II commenced in 1933 when the Japanese undertook to exclude the people of Manchuria from their inalienable and universal right of self determination. United States did not move to the defense of the Manchurians. When Hitler stole Czechoslovakia we did not bestir ourselves. Oddly, when Hitler gobbled up the western half of Poland in 1939 much of the world declared war against him, but not against Stalin who had gobbled up the other half. Nor did we do anything to save the Peoples who became part of the Warsaw Pact even though we were in sole possession of the atomic weapon. We did go to war to save the people of South Korea and give them a chance for self-determination, but were we motivated for these reasons or were we more motivated by geo-strategic fears of expanding communism? likewise Vietnam. Our record of living up to these fine sentiments on behalf of the peoples of Africa has been worse than spotty it has, by these lights, been shameful.

In sum, the altruistic defense of another people's right to self determination, even their very existence, has never determined our foreign policy, at least not enough to risk nuclear war to effect it and nearly as rarely when there has been no such risk.

[rmlew]

Israel is holy to Judaism, Christian, and Islam. (Although it is Holy to Islam only in so far as they consider it part of the ummah, Muslims see all Jewish Prophets as Muslim, and a the fallaciously claim that Mohammed dreamt he ascended heaven from a far-away Mosque, which was politically chosen to be the Temple Mount.) However, Christianity and Islam are universal religions, or tied to other locations. On the other hand, the Covenant with God, which makes one an Israelite, is based on service to God and Israel as a reward and place of servitude.

The yearnings of all religious peoples for their sites, their mores, and their laws can be equally said to be inextricable. The question is, to what degree do others have to accommodate themselves and their conflicting desires to the definitions of another religious group?
They should respect these as legitimate goals, if not politically wise ones.
It is one thing to say that Zionism was politically foolish. It is quite another to say that Jews have no claim to the land, a statement at the heart of anti-Zionism.

So when Prager says, "When anti-Israel Muslim students demonstrate on campus chanting, "Yes to Judaism, No to Zionism," they are inventing a new Judaism out of their hatred for Israel." He implies that opposition to a Zionism is illegitimate because it necessarily implies opposition to Judaism.
Go read the Koran and Hadiths and understand the religious basis of this position. For Muslims, Judaism is infidelity. Jews are allowed to exist only as a servant/occupied people (dhimmi) and are to be exterminated or forced to convert int he end of days.

In the modern world we do not let religions dictate politics. Indeed, that is why were fighting the war on terrorism, because the islamo fundamentalists are seeking to impose their laws, sharia, on all of us.
You do see the difference here. Jews just want Israel. Muslims want the world.

In the modern world, politics makes accommodation to religion but is not defined by religion as Prager here is seeking to do. Jews may or may not be entitled legitimately to their own homeland, and once in possession of that homeland they may wish to impose their own religious laws upon themselves, but because they are Jews does not entitle them to a homeland, does not entitle them to impose their religious laws on anyone else, and does not mean opponents of these two precepts are anti-Semitic.
The issue is not whether Jews should have the current state of Israel. That was a political question, but after 1948, to oppose Israel was to call for the murder of millions of Jews.
Moreover, to claim that Jews have no legitimate desire for Israel is anti-Jewish.

In my judgment Jews are entitled to compete and, if they win, to fight again to keep their homeland, but that does not imply that they are entitled to a homeland, or that those who oppose their efforts because they themselves want that homeland are necessarily anti-Semitic.
Since Israel has been reborn as a nation-state calls for its destruction are calls for mass-murder of Jews, enslavement of Jews as dhimmi, and the expulsion of Jews. There is no way that cannot be anti-Semitic.

To be honest, name one group, aside from the derainged "Gujardians of the Gate" (NK), who are anti-Zionist, but not anti-Semitic.
The ARabs did not respnd to the creation of Israel by lodging a complaint. They tried to annihilate it, with open calls of turning the Mediterranian incarnidine. Moreover the campaign was paid for by siezing Jewish property in Arab countries, and 800,000 Jews were forced to leave Muslim lands.

It certainly does not imply that third parties, such as loyal and patriotic Americans, are anti-Semitic, if they say that the United States has no dog in this fight.
In theory, you are correct. In practice, this is quite rare.

If you call for the distraction of the Church of England, are you then an anti-Anglo-Saxon bigot? After all, great Britain has officially an established church and many today call for its abolition.
1. This analogy is backwards.
2. Since it is possible to be a Anglo-Saxon Catholic, your question is based on false assumptions.

Now please do not call me naïve, I do not equate raving Muslims who call for the destruction of Israel with pansified intellectuals in England, but I do say that it is not anti-Semitic to insist the people who do not want to be ruled according to Jewish law have a right to fight for their independence on that very same ground, no less than the Jews had their right to fight to take it all in 1948.
The Arab desire to retake Israel is legitimate, although it is also anti-Jewish and generally genocidal. I don't begrudge the hatred of Levantine Arabs.
I would point out that Israel is not run by Jewish law.

The reason all this is important is not because it is worth our time to duel with Prager about his definitions, but because this article is just one more skirmish in the war to control American foreign policy. I believe America should become agnostic on Israel and examine the degree to which our national interests are actually involved in the survival of Israel as a nation. We might well be answering the same questions about Taiwan in the near future. How much war are we going to risk? How much nuclear war are we going to risk if Iran gets the bomb? These questions go right to the very heart of the nation and its survival. They must not be answered in a context of guilt contrived out of false definitions.
The US certanily could exist without Israel or Taiwan. The diffence is that Chinese asperations are largely limited to Asia, while Muslims wish to conquer the world. The thought of the Eschatologically driven Mullahs in Iran getting nuclear weapons should terrify you. They don't abide by mutually assured destruction and they do want to conquer us.

We may be able to trade Taiwan for Chinese disengagement for Central and South America, and non-aggression towards Japan and Phillipeans. No such trade is possible with Iran because they would only see it as legitimate for 10 years.

However, this is a political question. I have no reason to think that all such isolationists are anti-Israel or anti-Jewish. However, there is a damn high corellation.
When pressed, most isolationists quickly show themselves to be pro-Arab, theologically threatened by Israel, or anti-Jewish.

[goldstategop]

You're right, realpolitik and political calculation have limited the extent to which that principle could be defended. What has been done to date in most cases has not been enough, out of the perception that, whatever the misfortune to others, it would not immediately affect our own existence. And we also realized there is so much we can do to permit others to exercise the same freedom we enjoy without making things even worse. We are pledged to defend Israel. In most circumstances though, the Israelis can take care of themselves. America would probably enter the picture only if an Iranian atomic threat was imminent, not so much that its Israel that would be in the firing line but that we would become the next target of the mullahs. At the end of the day, any decision will be made less out of a consideration of high flown principle than the cold assessment of whether some other power by its moves, endangers our own national security.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

[nathanbedford]

However, this is a political question. I have no reason to think that all such isolationists are anti-Israel or anti-Jewish. However, there is a damn high corellation. When pressed, most isolationists quickly show themselves to be pro-Arab, theologically threatened by Israel, or anti-Jewish.

I agree. There is a damn high correlation and this is gravely unfortunate because it keeps us talking at cross purposses. My purpose is the pursuit of American interests. That means in conjunction with Israel when that fits but also in oppposition to Israel's interests when ours so demand.

I agree with your risk assesment of the crazed Muslims with nukes have have oft so posted. But I have also said that if the war is to be won, ultimately, it must be won by sane muslims who come to see the threat against themselves by the crazies to be life threatening and that means they do not buy into the anti-semitism BS but act in their own interests of survival.

As long as the Muslim world sees no daylight between us and Israel, we will see no daylight between rational Islam and the crazed bomb throwers. This does not mean pandering to irrational anti Zionism, nor does it mean pandering to the Israel lobby here at home. It means the pursuit of rational national security interests.