User:Aaronshavit/Zionism and racism allegations

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The term Zionism first came to public attention as a result of the works of Viennese Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl, who argued in his 1896 book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) that the best way of avoiding anti-Semitism in Europe was to create an independent Jewish state or national homeland. (He was originally thinking of Uganda or South America). The movement eventually culminated in establishing the State of Israel in 1948 in Palestine. Some 700,000 Palestinians became refugees and a similar number of Jews arrived in the new state. Since then, the term "Zionism" properly refers to supporters of the Israeli state.

The term racism refers to discriminatory beliefs and practices that presume inherent and significant differences exist between different human races; that assume these traits can be measured on a scale of "superior" to "inferior"; and that can result in the social, political and economic advantage of one group in relation to others.

In November 1975, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 declared that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." In December 1991, the General Assembly rescinded this resolution through Resolution 4686. At the time, the Soviet Union, a major sponsor of the "Zionism is racism" doctrine (see Zionology), had completed its rapid collapse. Israel made revocation of resolution 3379 a condition of its participation in the Madrid Peace Conference.

Contents 1 Some aspects of (the alleged) Zionist racism 2 The demographic change 3 Zionism and Israel 4 Some Racist statements by the main Zionist figures 5 Right of return 6 Zionism racism against some Jews 7 Proposed Soviet influence 8 UN resolutions 9 References 10 See also 11 External links 12 Further reading 13 Some aspects of (the alleged) Israeli racism 14 Zionism and Israel 15 UN resolutions 16 References 17 See also 18 External links 19 Further reading

[edit] Some aspects of (the alleged) Zionist racism

• Prior to the 1948 war, Palestinian Christians and Muslims were a two-third majority of the population of Palestine, who owned and operated 93% of Palestine's lands.

• Prior to the 1948 war, most Israeli Jews were persecuted and dispossessed European Jews who made a one-third minority of the population.

• For Israel to become a "Jewish majority" it opted to expel and dispose the two-third Palestinian majority. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from their lands in an aim to build a homogeneous Jewish state. 80% of the Palestinian people were dispossessed from their homes, farms, and businesses and have been kept out.

• 95% of Israel's lands (which is mostly owned by Palestinian refugees) is open for development to Jews only.

• Only one of the 45 Zionist Jews who signed the Israeli "declaration of independence" on May 14th, 1948 was born in Palestine. The other 44 were mostly Jewish refugees who escaped their anti-Semitic Europe countries, such as Tsardom of Russia, Germany and Poland.

• Israeli-Palestinian citizens live almost in segregated communities (or ghettos) because development is strictly limited outside their villages? Ironically, the word "ghetto" was invented to describe the living conditions of Eastern European Jews in Tsarist Russia!

• For just being "Jewish" you gain an automatic citizenship in Israel. Plus tens of thousands of dollars in subsidies too. For example an Indian Christian leader dreamed that his people returned to Israel, and shared his dream with his community, which led some members of the tribe to adopt Jewish traditions, combined with faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Thousands of those people (called Bnei Menashe) where given the Israeli citizenship and were brought to Israel.

• Palestinian Muslims and Christians refugees, who were born in the country and later expelled, cannot gain Israeli citizenship unless they convert to Judaism first!

• Israel rescinded a previous law that was allowing a husband/wife of a non-Jewish Israeli citizen to have a residence permit in Israel. The new amendment is targeted against Arabs.

• Pretending to be Jewish in Israel is punishable by law with up to one year's imprisonment. On the other hand, if you pretend to be a Muslim or Christian the law does you no harm.^{[citation needed]}

• When the Palestine problem was created by Britain in 1917, more than 92% of the population of Palestine were Arabs and there were at that time no more than 56,000 Jews in Palestine. That Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Palestinians at that time lived in peace with each other.

• Palestinians in the early 20th century owned 97.5% of the land, while Jews (native Palestinians and recent immigrants together) owned only 2.5% of the land.

• Close to 4 million Palestinian Muslims and Christians are being subjected to Israeli laws that are different than the laws governing the 6 million Israeli Jews. This situation raised what became to be known as the "democratically elected apartheid".

• In the occupied West Bank there are "Jewish Roads" and "Non-Jewish Roads".

• Israel issues national identify cards where the religion of the card holder is clearly shown in bold type if the person is not a Jew.

• Palestinians in the occupied West Bank drive vehicles with license plates that have different coloring than the cars driven by Israeli settlers.

• Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza hold ID cards that are of different colors than the cards held by Israeli settlers.

• The only form of Judaism recognized by the "Jewish state" is Orthodox Judaism, so most US Jews could not get married in Israel. Furthermore, the only conversion to Judaism recognized is Orthodox, so most US converts aren't Jewish enough.

• Just prior to the 1948 war, Jews owned under 7% of Palestine's land, and to increase their share after the war, they passed the "Absentees' Law" which dispossessed the Palestinian majority land owners who later became "absent". What is even a more tragic law, is called "Present Absentees' Law," which dispossessed the Palestinian-Israeli citizens who became internal refugees in Israel. It is worth noting that the internal Jewish refugees were not dispossessed as a result of this racist law.

• Israel refused to comply with the international trends to isolate the former Apartheid regime in South Africa. They cooperated in their nuclear weapons programs and many rumors in Israel spread about their cooperation in programs to develop Targeted-Biological weapons that are able to target only black people or Arabs alone.

• Israeli democracy is a facade for Jewish Democracy. All over the history of the state of Israel (about 6 decades) only one non-Jewish Israeli citizen become a minister. He was assigned to be a minister without a ministry. Although one fifth of Israel's populations are not Jews.

• Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons, and it was close to dropping one on Cairo in 1973.

• Israeli soldiers use human shields in battle to minimize their casualties. So many such cases were reported by many human rights organizations.^{[citation needed]}

• All over its history Israel killed tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians (at least 90% of whom are civilians).

• According to the Israeli law, the non-Jewish missionaries and preachers are prevented from preaching to Jews.

• Since the year 1967 about 750,000 entered the Israeli prisons and were put under torture. This is a very high percentage if compared to the number of the small Palestinian people.

• According to many reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty and many other human rights organizations, Israel is the only country in the world that has laws legalizing torture in its prisons (which is always practiced against non-Jews, mainly Palestinians).^{[citation needed]} Palestinians Released from the Israeli prisons always need rehabilitation and psychological therapy. So many Palestinians in the Israeli prisons became handicapped, some of them lost their lives.

• There is an infamous Israeli law that legalizes medical experiences on the Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prisons.^{[citation needed]}

• According to the 2004 U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Israel and the occupied territories, the Israeli government "did little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens."^[1] It based this finding on studies by Haifa University, reports from Human Rights Watch, Israeli government reports to the UN, and rulings of the Supreme Court of Israel, among other sources.

• Speeches and talks about plans to keep Israel a Jewish majority where given countless times by so many Israeli figures. The scenarios of mass transfer of Arab citizens from Israel where always present.

• The mass punishment against the Palestinians is a well known segment of the Israeli occupation policy in the Palestinian occupied territories. Closing borders, economic siege, preventing movement freedom, preventing non-Jewish believers from reaching the holy sites, massacres and mass prisoning without trials are clear examples.

• Millions of Palestinians now are forced to live in ghettos in the territories occupied by Israel under inhuman conditions with no freedom.

• In the IDF, national military service is compulsory for Jewish and Druze men and Jewish women. Christian and Muslim citizens are excluded.

• Haim Hanegbi, a prominent member of the Gush Shalom movement says^[2]:

"I am not a psychologist," he says, "but I think that everyone who lives with the contradictions of Zionism condemns himself to protracted madness. It's impossible to live like this. It's impossible to live with such a tremendous wrong. It's impossible to live with such conflicting moral criteria. When I see not only the settlements and the occupation and the suppression, but now also the insane wall that the Israelis are trying to hide behind, I have to conclude that there is something very deep here in our attitude to the indigenous people of this land that drives us out of our minds."

• In the infamous confidential and internal Israeli government document authored in April 1976 called The Koenig Memorandum, Koenig proposed mounting a smear campaign against Israeli Arab activists and reducing the number of Israeli Arabs intellectuals..^[3] He proposed also restricting Israeli Arabs employment, restricting their access to universities, reducing their family benefits, and giving preferential treatment to Jews.^[4]

[edit] The demographic change

After the declaration of Israel and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the vast majority of the Palestinians who had lived in what became Israel fled and had their property and land redistributed to Jewish immigrants. In his September 1, 2004 interview [1] with the Ha'aretz daily, Benny Morris said:

In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah (a pre-state militia accused of many brutal actions against Arabs that was the precursor of the IDF) were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves. At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women and the elderly from the villages.

[edit] Zionism and Israel

Though the modern incarnation of the Zionist ideology is the state of Israel, this itself is a source of debate among some Zionists. The nature of the Jewish state has not been finalized. Some Zionist intellectuals still make a careful distinction between advocacy for a Jewish ethnic homeland and a Jewish state, which is perhaps similar to the difference between patriotism and nationalism.

[edit] Some Racist statements by the main Zionist figures

• "The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more".... Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
• " [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs." Menahem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts". New Statesman, 25 June 1982.
• "The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." " Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
• "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
• "How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to." Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.
• "There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed." Golda Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969
• "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.
• Ben Gurion 1948: Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes. "The old will die and the young will forget. ... We must do everything to ensure they (the Palestinian refugees) never do return" David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.
• "We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai." David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
• "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist... There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.
• "We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'" Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
• "There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant. [I] tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:...the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish...with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary." Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.
• "Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them." Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
• "It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.
• "Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine,Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.
• "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." -- Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 (Source: N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 1994, p. 1)
• "We will establish ourselves in Palestine whether you like it or not...You can hasten our arrival or you can equally retard it. It is however better for you to help us so as to avoid our constructive powers being turned into a destructive power which will overthrow the world." (Chaim Weizmann, Published in "Judische Rundschau," No. 4, 1920)

[edit] Right of return

The Israeli law of the right of return which, despite Israel's otherwise restrictive immigration policies, grant every Jew in the world the right to settle in Israel. This is especially agitating for the Palestinian refugees, who were expeled from their lands that is modern Israel, but are denied their right to return.

The Article 11 of the UN General Assembly Resolution 194, "resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property...". Like many other resolutions by UN, Israel still refuse to comply with this resolution.

Many opponents of Zionism declare that Zionism is racist, and compare its continuation to the reform of Germany's former 'Blood Laws', which had allowed ethnic Germans to claim citizenship, even if they were nationals of another country.

[edit] Zionism racism against some Jews

Zionists hold that any person may choose to become a Jew, after meeting the necessary requirements, and enjoy all the benefits and responsibilities of membership. Since anyone can (i.e., regardless of race, ethnicity or nationality) both join the Jewish people and equally enjoy the benefits of membership, Zionists conclude that Zionism is anti-Racist among Jews at least. Even this claim was challenged all over the history of Israel. The Jews of Eastern origins (called Sephardim or Mizrahim) suffered from various kinds of racism by Ashkenazic Jews.

The Jewishness of many Jewish minorities in Israel (like the Ethiopian Jews, the Russian Jews and Indian Jews) has been always questioned by the religious authorities^[5].

In many Israeli settlements they refuse to accept Falasha Jews and The Falasha rabbis privileges are not recognized in Israel^[6] and the unemployment rate among them is at least three times the Israeli average^[7].

According to prof. Esther Herzog: The Falasha Jews where brought to Israel to work in the inferior jobs... and they are considered as third class citizens (after the Ashkenazim and the Sephardim)^[8].

Falasha used to complain from the systematic racism against them everywhere in Israel because of their origin and black colour. In the last few years Falasha demonstrations erupted after the exposure of the scandal of throwing the blood donated by Falasha in the Israeli hospitals and medical clinics^[9].

The modern founder of Zionism Theodor Herzl once said:

“It is essential that the sufferings of Jews. . . become worse. . . this will assist in realization of our plans. . .I have an excellent idea. . . I shall induce anti-Semites to liquidate Jewish wealth. . . The anti-Semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-Semites shall be our best friends”.^[10][11]

[edit] Proposed Soviet influence

The Soviet Union officially opposed nationalism. At the same time, it opposed racism and ethnic discrimination, including antisemitism. The early Bolsheviks defined their stance as one of support for the Jewish people (many leading Bolsheviks were Jewish themselves), but they favored the assimilation of Jews into a greater Soviet people and were adamantly opposed to Zionism. As early as 1918, Yevsektsiya was established to promote Bolshevik ideas among the Jewish working class in Russia. Political Zionism was officially considered a form of bourgeois nationalism and this was pushed through Zionology sponsored by the Department of propaganda of the Communist Party and by the KGB.

Without changing its official anti-Zionist stance, the Soviet Union briefly supported the establishment of Israel in 1947 and 1948, expecting it to become a Soviet ally in the Cold War. Before voting for the 1947 partition, Soviet Foreign Affairs Minister Andrei Gromyko stated:

"As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely requires proof... The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter..."^[12]

By the end of 1948, however, the Soviet Union realized that Israel had chosen the "Western option" (alliance with the West), and withdrew its support. For the rest of the Cold War, the Soviet Union decided to support Arab regimes against Israel. Soviet propaganda featured a number of criticisms of Zionism recycling old conspiracy theories.

[edit] UN resolutions

Main articles: United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 and UN General Assembly Resolution 4686

On November 10, 1975 the United Nations General Assembly adopted, by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), Resolution 3379, which stated that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination."

However, on 16 December 1991, it was rescinded by Resolution 4686, with a vote of 111 to 25 (with 13 abstentions). The resolution 4686 was acheived under a severe pressure from US and Israel. Israel made it a condition to participate in the Peace process in the Middle East.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Anti-Arabism
• Anti-Zionism
• Peace process
• Projects working for peace among Israelis and Arabs
• 2001 UNESCO World Conference against Racism (also, Durban Strategy)

[edit] External links

• palestine remembered
• Report on Ethiopian Jews in Israel (BBC) November 17, 1999
• Zionism as a Racist Ideology (Counterpunch)
• Legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel
• Text of the family unification lawPDF (95.2 KiB) (Hamoked)
• 'Transfer' (Ethnic Cleansing) Zionist Quotes

[edit] Further reading

• Arie Dayan: "The Debate over Zionism and Racism: An Israeli View"; Haaretz, 27 December 1991; translated in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3. (Spring, 1993), pp. 96-105.
• Michael Adams: "Israel's Treatment of the Arabs in the Occupied Territories"; Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2. (Winter, 1977), pp. 19-40.
• Janice J. Terry: "Zionist Attitudes toward Arabs; Journal of Palestine Studies", Vol. 6, No. 1. (Autumn, 1976), pp. 67-78.
• Roselle Tekiner: "Race and the Issue of National Identity in Israel"; International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1. (Feb., 1991), pp. 39-55.

[edit] Some aspects of (the alleged) Israeli racism

http://www.gateway.ualberta.ca/view.php?aid=3207 Schlomo Lifshitz is quoted "As you are a Jew, this is your rightful homeland," ....... Lifshitz ........ would reappear over the next ten days to complete his message. I could, if I wanted, claim my Israeli citizenship at any point. I would be issued a passport, given an envelope full of cash, and the keys to a subsidized flat. Most importantly, I was here, in his words, "not to support us, but to be supported."

http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/nidal.htm - March 4, 2004 - Montreal ...... discussion degenerated into personal insults ("Nablus is a city of donkeys and pigs"; "your name sounds like one of a prostitutes," etc), Nidal Aloul told the man that "in two years, I'm going to be famous and you will be selling falafel." This was interpreted in a racist way: Nidal was assumed to be threatening to become a suicide bomber because the colonel's narrow vision cannot see any Palestinian being famous by any other means.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2006/11/1733088.php (Nov. 20, 2006) - Blankfort's parents lived in California and did important work supporting Israel in the 50s. (Blankfort may be suffering a prolonged campaign to cause him personal and professional damage).

........ in the early fifties, we had a number of Israeli Jews visit our house. All of them had immigrated from Israel because they did not want to live in a racist state, racist because every time there was an attack by what they called the fedayeen, the Palestinian guerrillas who had been fighting to get back in their own land from which they'd been dispossessed, every time that there was an attack, there would be what they called a "pogrom," what Jews call a "pogrom," on the Arab villagers in the Galilee, who had remained. And so these Israeli Jews said, "We can't live in a country like this."

So then I went to Europe, and I didn't know the history, and I wasn't curious about the history, but I went to Europe, and I ran into Israeli Jews who told me the same story, about their parents leaving, or they had left because of the racism towards Arabs. It was years before I met an Israeli who had anything good to say about Israel. And that didn't bother me. It wasn't really a problem for me because I had never really made a connection between Israel and the Holocaust. The Holocaust was very traumatic for me when I found out about it, and I had this irrational, though I didn't think it irrational at the time, an irrational hatred toward Germans, which I subsequently no longer have and haven't had for about thirty-five years.

http://www.pogrom.org.il/ "Reports of anti-Semitic acts have turned into a regular feature in Israeli newspapers, mainly Russian-language ones. The movement "Dmir - Assistance in Absorption" has carried out an investigation of the problem and found that the scourge of anti-Semitism had penetrated the society fabric much deeper than predicted in most grim estimates."

http://www.socialaction.com/kolinskyshatil.html "I have heard countless racial slurs, talked to Ethiopian youth about their experiences, .... I am appalled by a Jewish homeland which secretly throws out untested Ethiopian blood for fear of AIDS. I am ashamed of a Jewish people which prevents an Ethiopian child from going to school with other Israeli children."

http://www.africana.com/DailyArticles/index_20000420.htm - ".... many observers claim that Ethiopians in Israel continue to suffer racial discrimination. Critics point to the high rates of poverty and suicide among the Beta Israel, and the discrimination they experience from other non-European Jews of similar socioeconomic stature, and, as Behar says, "from middle- and upper-class Israelis, who don't want Ethiopian neighbors, because it will bring down the value of their real estate."

jews-for-allah.org/Jews-not-for-Judaism/racism_against_ethiopian_jews.htm - "Activists of the 60,000-strong Ethiopian community complain of systematic discrimination by established Israelis and say the government is not moving fast enough to move immigrants from transit camps to real homes."

US State Department - www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/irf/irf_rpt/irf_israel.html - "The Declaration of Independence describes the country as a "Jewish and democratic state." The overwhelming majority of non-Jewish citizens are Arabs and they are subject to various forms of discrimination. ...

............ The Government does not provide Israeli Arabs, who constitute 20 percent of the population, with the same quality of education, housing, employment opportunities, and social services

............ Those not subject to the draft have less access than other citizens to those social and economic benefits for which military service is a prerequisite or an advantage, such as housing, new-household subsidies, and government or security-related industrial employment.

[edit] Zionism and Israel

In many Israeli settlements they refuse to accept Falasha jews and The Falasha rabbis privileges are not recognized in Israel^[1] and the unemployment rate among them is at least three times the Israeli average^[2].

[edit] UN resolutions

Main articles: United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 and UN General Assembly Resolution 4686

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading