User talk:Adam Carr/Anti-Zionism

Discussion of 2nd draft

probably still desire the destruction of Israel but no longer say so openly . . .
The Palestinian leadership formally recognised Israel as part of the 1995 Oslo Accords, although the sincerity of that recognition is doubted by many.
-- The article questions the sincerity of Arabs twice but doesn't question the sincerity of any other groups at all. Perhaps we should try harder to avoid the appearance of following unwholesome stereotypes. --Zero 11:10, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well I think that is the fact of the matter. The Arab regimes, including the PA, are chronically two-faced over this because they are trying to placate both the US and their own publics. How would you phrase it? Adam 12:41, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Zero000 doesn't understand, or admit, the fact that Palestinian polls themselves show the same answer: most Palestinian Arabs have no desire to live in peace with the State of Israel. Many polls have consistently shown that they prefer a peace treaty to be only a tenporary measure. with the eventual goal of the elimination of the State of Israel. It is not a "double standard" to report this fact. RK 00:43, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

The world is full of insincerity; that is not my point. The question is of why you don't apply the same standards to the other players here. Will you object if I also question the sincerity of the "Israelis and Zionist Jews outside Israel" (no qualification!??) that play the anti-Zionism=anti-Semitism card? I believe that there are many (especially on the US political scene) who are not sincere about this.

We are applying the same standard. RK 00:43, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

Hi Adam. I think this page is really getting there. Here are a couple of comments. Do with them as you see fit.

Even today, virtually all ultra-Orthodox Jews continue to reject Zionism, in theory if not in practice. In other words, it is not a minority. The difference between the various groups is the way that they relate to the state of Israel as a de facto entity. Some groups in Israel participate in some or all aspects of the state--in Israel, they vote for the Knesset, pay taxes, and in some cases even serve in the army (though there is a kind of exemption for them); others, such as Satmar or Neturei Karta, reject all aspects of statehood and either keep to themselves or demonstrate against the state at various intervals; they do not vote, pay taxes, or serve in the army. There is also every shade of opinion in between. In the US and Canada (and Belgium, France, and England), the situation is slightly different because Israel does not have such a direct effect on day to day life. There, several mainstream groups such as Agudat Israel declare themselves to be opposed to Zionism though, paradoxically, they also tend to adopt rather rightwing attitudes regarding Israel's security.
One problem I continually have with Wikipedia is the America-centric attitude of articles about Jewish topics, which tends to define Jews in terms of religious beliefs and behaviors, i.e., Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. Such distinctions are virtually meaningless in Israel and many other parts of the world. There are also many secular Jews, and their attitudes toward Zionism vary too. Mention should be made of the Bund, for instance, which opposed Zionism and yet believed in preserving a Jewish ethnic identity, albeit in the Diaspora. There were also Yiddishists, who opposed Hebrew, supporters of Birobidzhan, and many other options available to maintain Jewish identity as an ethnicity, rather than as a religion. In Germany, it wasn't just the Reform movement, but almost all Jewish movements that opposed Zionism, and they represented the entire spectrum of religious and secular attitudes. Danny 12:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I fear that these above comments are conflating non-Zionism with anti-Zionism. Most of Orthodox Judaism today is non-Zionist, which is not the same as being anti-Zionist. This is a significant point. Many of the positions tacitly adopted by non-Zionist Orthodox groups today would be considered Zionist in the 1920s; Agudat Yisrael may be non-Zionist in formality, but terminology aside they have some fairly Zionist practices. As for the second paragraph by Danny, about secular forms of Judaism, I am in agreement. RK 00:43, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

Not being American, and not being Jewish, places me at a disadvantage here. I still have only a vague understanding of the difference between Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Liberal Judaism, and those of my Jewish friends I have asked don't really know either. I don't think we have Conservative, Reform or Liberal here. We have secular (no hats), Orthodox (small hats) and Lubavitchers (big hats}. Anyway, I don't think this article needs to go into all of that, and I don't think it does dwell too much on American Jews and their beliefs. The Satmar people for example happen to live in New York but they are not an American phenomenon by origin.

I agree we ought to mention the Bund in the paragraph on socialist anti-Zionists. I am not familiar with Yiddishists - are or were they an organised group? Did any significant number of Jews actually support Birobidzhan? I though they were just sent there by Stalin. Adam 13:13, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

While I'm doing my grumpy-old-bugger act, the "Arab anti-Zionism" section is terrible. The two paragraphs starting "When the Arabs..." are totally unacceptable. I just deleted them on the grounds that nothing at all on the subject is better than that. --Zero 13:23, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Zero, if you are going to delete everything critical of the Arab world we are not going to have much of an article. Can you explain what is "outrageously bad" about these paragraphs? Do you dispute that the Arabs have adopted the full menu of European anti-Semitism as an explanataion for their troubles? If so, how do explain the Protocols being serialised on Cairo TV? If not, how would you express the subject matter better? Adam 13:30, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It wasn't critical, it was a calumny. I have read a great deal written by Arabs during the mandate period. I've seen citations of the Protocols as early as 1920 and plenty of mentions of the world-wide Jewish conspiracy and similar, but to present that as if it characterises the material is absolutely wrong. The vast bulk of argument was made on historical and moral grounds (and some, but actually not very much, on religious grounds). Even in the worst case, you are wrong. Al Husseini was a Nazi collaborator but he did not "adopt the full-blown rhetoric of Nazism" (which I take to mean the Nazi racial theories). Actually the Arabs were well aware that the Arab race was barely higher than the Jewish race in the Nazi hierachy. Then you take this false picture of what occured in the mandate period and suddenly the article is in the modern era talking about a completely different phenomenon as if it was the same thing. The modern Arab world has a serious problem with anti-Semitism and it is correct to say that sometimes it looks like old-school European anti-Semitism. But it is again absolutely false to write that this anti-Semitism is "impossible to distinguish" from anti-Zionism. The anger towards Zionism and Israel amongst the general public in Arab countries is above all else based on sympathy for the Palestinian plight and has nothing to do specifically with the fact that Israelis are Jews. Distinguishing this from simple anti-Semitism is often quite easy even when it is expressed in language that fails to distinguish "Jew" from "Israeli". The problem is that most of the information that comes to us on this subject comes via organizations (such as MEMRI) that exist for the purpose of misleading us on such issues. Given the anti-Arabism that saturates the Western world from top to bottom (every bit as deep as the anti-Semitism in the Arab world), they have an easy task. --Zero 23:56, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Fair points, Zero: please write an alternative draft for that section. Adam 00:32, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

These are not fair points. Zero000 is disingnuously exagerrating, to make the Arab position sound a lot more liberal than it really was. He has a left wing anti-Zionist agenda, and he has long deleted material that he thinks makes Arabs look bad, even when it is a mainstream view in the Arab community. A for his slanderous and outrrageous claims about MEMRI, let us just say that long as Zero000 makes bald faced lies about verified quotes, we can't trust him. I am going to restore the material he deleted. RK 00:43, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

Dear oh dear, just we when we were all getting along :) Adam 01:11, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hey, I am not the one publicly slandering scholars who publish articles that Zero000 wishes to keep hidden. I want to present both sides of an issue; Zero0000 does not, so he made personal attacks on the academic integrity of those people who bring forth quotes and data that Zero000 would otherwise like hidden. That is left-wing politically correct censorship, not honest academia. RK 01:16, Dec 2, 2003 (UTC)

MEMRI is not an academic organization. It is an Israeli group founded by a former IDF intelligence officer, "Acting Head of Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria" and Israeli government "terrorism advisor", together with a neo-conservative who now works for a "peace institute" sited at a West Bank settlement. The "director of research" is well known as a right-wing commentator in the US media. Other people listed as "research associate" or similar are two more former Israeli intelligence officers and a former minor official of the World Zionist Organization. Their web site used to say "In its research, the institute puts emphasizes [sic] the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel." but now that is gone. Their modus operandum is to scour the Arabic media for items that suit their agenga and translate them with little context. Some of the things they bring to light indeed should be brought to light but the overall operation of MEMRI as a propaganda organization means that nothing can be taken at face value. --Zero 02:02, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

On Arab anti-Zionism: From today's andrewsullivan.com: QUOTE OF THE DAY: "When my eyes fell upon the rare copy of this dangerous book, I decided immediately to place it next to the Torah. Although it is not a monotheistic holy book, it has become one of the sacred [tenets] of the Jews, next to their first constitution, their religious law, [and] their way of life. In other words, it is not merely an ideological or theoretical book. Perhaps this book of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion' is more important to the Zionist Jews of the world than the Torah, because they conduct Zionist life according to it… It is only natural to place the book in the framework of an exhibit of Torah [scrolls]." - Dr. Yousef Ziedan, museum director of the new Alexandria Library, on why the anti-Semitic forgery is now prominently displayed next to the Torah in the manuscript museum. UNESCO funds helped build it. Adam 23:24, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm new here, and upon looking at the current anti-Zionism article, I don't see any substantial reason to dump the entire thing rather than just consider some editing. Could someone please detail their concerns?

 -Leumi

Just for fun, I did a survey of British use of the word "anti-Zionism" (and its forms like "anti-Zionist") using the electronic archive of the Times newspaper (London). The entire content (even ads) is available in full text from 1785 to 1985. In total I found 243 articles, starting in 1902:

   190x : 3
   191x : 2
   192x:  33
   193x:  27
   194x:  12
   195x:  17
   196x:  22
   197x:  91
   198x:  37 (to 1985)

The earliest references:

 1902 : "the English Colonization Association was anti-Zionist"  (don't know what that was)
 1903 : Lucian Wolf (Jewish journalist and diplomat) : "I am neither a Zionist nor an anti-Zionist"
 1903 : some letter writer said that Wolf was indeed an anti-Zionist
 1911 : "anti-Zionist feeling" in Turkey
 1918 : "the enemy" (of Britain, unspecified) is "anti-Zionist"
 1920 : "British administrative authorities in Palestine, whose bias has been strangely anti-Zionist"
 1920 : "anti-Zionist demonstration in Jerusalem ... 7,000 to 8,000 persons" (mostly Arabs)
 1921 : several cases of "anti-Zionist agitators" and similar, referring to Arabs
 1921 : "Jews - Zionist and anti-Zionist" ... "Arab anti-Zionism" (in same article)

Overall it seems that most uses in the Mandate period were in reference to Arabs, with British authorities and anti-Zionist Jews getting a few mentions. I didn't have time to look at everything as the library closed and I got kicked out, but I managed to jot down who was called anti-Zionist in the 1st, 21st, 41st, ..., usage (up to 1981):

  Feb 1902 : as above
  Apr 1922 : Arabs
  May 1930 : Arabs
  Oct 1938 : unclear general usage
  Jan 1953 : European communists
  Apr 1968 : Rabbi Berger and his organization
  Nov 1970 : Soviet authorities
  Oct 1973 : Polish authorities (referring back to 1968)
  May 1975 : Lord Moyne (British politician killed in 1944, see Lehi)
  May 1976 : UN resolution
  Nov 1978 : Socialist Workers' Party (UK)
  Apr 1981 : "anti-Zionist wars" (in ref. to Israel-Egypt wars)

Finally, I'll mention an early usage of "anti-Zionist" I came across by chance (and did not check to its source): "It has been said and is still being obstinately repeated by anti-Zionists again and again, that zionism aims at the creation of an independent 'Jewish State'. But this is wholly fallacious. The 'Jewish State' was never part of the Zionist programme." -- Nahum Sokolow, History of Zionism, 1600-1918 (London, Loggmans, Green, 1919), vol. I, p. xxi.

--Zero 09:33, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Well, that seems to confirm both our points, I think. You are right that the term had some currency back to the turn of the century. I am right that its usage greatly increased after 1967. So the text can reflect both those facts. Adam 12:56, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)