What is Zionism? Who is responsible for Israel’s crimes, Jews or Zionists?

Aug 14, 2024
Star of David on metal fence overlooking Jerusalem, Mount of Olives

Israel and Zionists try to confuse the public by conflating Judaism with Zionism; they commit their crimes and hide behind the Jewish people. Palestinians, on the other hand, distinguish between Jews, Judaism and Zionism and hold the Zionists responsible for the crimes they commit against them, not the Jews.

While the Zionists say, “Every Jew is a Zionist,” the Palestinians have raised the slogan, “Not every Jew is a Zionist, and not every Zionist is a Jew,” in order to make it clear for people to distinguish who the enemy is.

In contrast, there are hypocritical politicians, from the government and the shadow government, who are not ashamed of their ignorance, confuse Zionism with Judaism and attack those who hold the Zionists responsible for the internationally condemned crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians, to appease Israel and its lobby. By doing so, they hold Jews responsible for these crimes, not the Zionists. This is dangerous and the highest form of anti-Arab and anti-Semitism.

Therefore, in light of the genocide being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people, it is important to define what Zionism is and what it represents.

A colonial ideology

Zionism is a political ideology developed in 1896 by an Austrian Jew, Theodore Herzl. In his book “The Jewish State” he suggested Palestine or Argentina be given to the Jews to establish a Jewish colony. He wrote: “Shall we choose Palestine or Argentina? …In both countries, important experiments in colonisation have been made…We shall take what is given us, and what is selected by Jewish public opinion.

Herzl’s ideas to establish a Jewish colony and Jewish nationalism were shaped by the colonial and nationalist ideologies of the European bourgeoisie, which were pervasive at the time, and included concepts of racial superiority and contempt for colonised peoples.

One year later, Herzl called for a conference in Basel, Switzerland, on 29 August 1897.

Around 200 people attended, mainly from Russia and Eastern Europe. Among them, 69 were delegates from different Jewish organisations, and the others were invited individuals, including 10 who were not Jews, and 17 women, some accompanying their husbands and fathers, although women were not given the right to vote in the conference.

The conference elected Herzl as the president of the Zionist Organisation and adopted the “Basel Program,” which declared that “The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law. The Congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end:

  1. The promotion, on suitable lines, of the colonisation of Palestine by Jewish agricultural and industrial workers.” …

Since colonialism was not considered a dirty word in Europe at that time, they called the institutions they established colonial to define their project, such as “The Jewish Colonial Trust,” and “The Colonisation Commission”.

Thus, Zionism is a colonial-settler movement, and it is racist in theory and practise.

At that time, Palestinian Jews were a small community, not exceeding 3.66% of the population.

Herzl wrote in his diary that the area of the Jewish state stretched “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.” He wrote we should “try to spirit the penniless population across the border” and the process of dispossession must be carried out “discreetly and circumspectly.”

To achieve their colonial goals, it was necessary for the Zionists to artificially transform Judaism into a form of nationalism and for Jews to become a distinct “race” to create a legal-political entity. Herzl and his followers achieved this by Zionising the Bible through the manipulation of biblical and religious language, repurposing it for political and racial purposes, thus, creating a sense of unity among Jews as a race and nation.

It is important to note that the term “Jewish people” in the Bible is a reference to those who follow the Jewish faith, just as the Quran and Islamic culture refer to the “Muslim people” or “Muslim nation”.

Jews, like Muslims and Christians, belong to different nations, colours, races and cultures: Ashkenazic and Sephardic, black Africans, white Europeans, Caucasian Khazars and Arab Semites. Like Christians and Muslims, the only common denominator between Jews is their belief and their holy book. Therefore, for Jews, unlike Christians and Muslims, to form out of all these colours, cultures and races, a same race of people defies science, logic and reality.

In their attempt to convert Judaism from religion to nationalism, the Zionists raised the slogan ‘You are not German; you are a Jew, not Russian but a Jew…,’ which provided the biggest support to the anti-Semites and Nazis who were raising the same slogan, ‘You are not German, you are a Jew…’ So, Zionist and anti-Semite interests converged in separating Jews from their own societies where they had lived for centuries and millennia and called for Jews to get out of their homelands. Accordingly, anti-Zionist Jews realised that anti-Semites were winning through Zionism, which validated and legitimised the anti-Semites’ old cry, “Jews get out.”

An ideology of racial discrimination

Secondly, Zionism is an apartheid violent ideology that discriminates against non-Jews and makes Jews a privileged class of people.

Since the Palestinians, Muslims and Christians were the majority in Palestine, the Zionists, as their founder specified, and other Zionist leaders, such as Ben Gurion, openly advocated uprooting the largest number of Palestinians from their homeland to ensure the newly arrived Jewish settler minority would become the majority, and the Palestinian majority would become the minority in their homeland.

Through terrorism and dozens of massacres, they were able to ethnically cleanse over 70% of the Palestinians, and despite UN resolution 194 calling for their right to return, they declared in 1948 the establishment of Israel on 78% of Palestine and refused the refugee’s right of return. Thus, the Palestine issue was born.

They put the remaining Palestinians under martial law from 1948 to 1966, treated them as second-class citizens and confiscated all properties of the ethnically cleared.

In 1967, they launched a war and occupied all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, plus territories from neighbouring countries, and they started building new Jewish-only colonies in violation of international law and UN resolutions.

Since the establishment of Israel, they passed sixty-five racist laws against Muslims and Christians, documented by the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah). In addition, the Israeli parliament passed on 18 July 2018 another racist law, the Jewish Nation-State Law, declaring all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea and beyond, belonged only to Jews around the world no matter what their nationality is, and they alone had the right to self-determination. Accordingly, officially declaring Jews were first-class citizens and Muslims and Christians were second-class.

Finally, since the ruling Zionist ideology is, as its history proves, the negation of a just peace, and no one can coexist with racism and colonialism, the only way to achieve peace with justice is by defeating the Zionist regime and its colonial apartheid ideology, just as colonialist and racist ideologies and regimes were defeated, from the Crusades to Nazis, fascists, and the apartheid regime in South Africa. Peace and stability could not have been achieved in Europe and South Africa without the defeat of these regimes.

Politicians who irresponsibly appease Israel and its extremist lobby by conflating Judaism with Zionism are encouraging Israeli aggression, complicit with its crimes and do not serve Australia’s national interests or peace and stability in the Middle East.

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