Martin Luther King, Jr. on Israel, Zionism
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9.66 Is Antisemitism Anti-Zionism?
To answer that question we have to define what the terms mean. Antisemitism means hatred of Jews. Anti-Zionism means hatred of people who believe that Jews have a right to a Jewish state in the Biblical land of Israel. Anti-Zionism actually means more than that, many of the people who are anti-Zionists chant "From the river to the sea Palestine will be free". The area between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea contains all of Israel. Anti-Zionists don't believe Jews have a right to any state at all. I don't think you'll find a single anti-Zionist who thinks that Jews have a right to live in the West Bank which they call "occupied territory". They call the Jews living there settlers. The West Bank is Judea and Samaria. The majority of anti-Zionists if not all believe that the West Bank should be Judenrein. That is antisemitism. Why not believe that Jews have at least a much of a a right to live in their ancient homeland as the Muslims who invaded the area over a thousand years after it first became Israel? If you are going to hate occupiers why not hate the Muslims who occupied the area? The reason is that anti-Zionism is not really about hating occupiers, it is about hating Jews.
In the video below Einat Wilf speaks about the question of whether antisemitism and anti-Zionism are the same thing. She mentions how at different times there were different ratonalizations for antisemitism and how infringement of human rights is todays rationalization but how there was a period when the belief that "the Jews killed Christ" was the rationalization. That doesn't mean that Christian antisemitism doesn't exist, it is likely that the hatred of people like Candace Owens toward Israel has a Christian antisemitic root. That doesn't mean that there aren't many Christians who support Israel. Christians United For Israel (CUFI) is a major very large Christian organization that supports Israel. The Islamic religion is a major source of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hatred today. Einat explains antisemitism as also rooted in the need to blame someone other than oneself and the need to find a scapegoat for problems. In the case of religious antisemitism religious leaders want people to believe in what they say. Religious leaders often want to control other people. The non-believer is a threat to that control. Jews are non-believers in both Christianity and Islam. There is hostility of Muslims to Christians for the same reason as there is hostility of Muslims to Jews, Christians are also non-believers of Islam. Christians are killed today in Africa by Muslims.
Antisemitism vs. Anti-Zionism: Are they Different?
Many people who say they are against Zionism say they are not antisemitic. It's certainly possible to be against policies of the Israeli government and not be anti-semitic. Most of use disagree with at least some of the policies of our own governments but that mean we are against our own countrymen. There is a difference though. Disagreeing with Israeli government policies is not the same as being anti-Zionist. To understand why we need to understand what Zionism is.
Zionism is the belief that Jews have a right to live in safety and in freedom in the land of Israel. It is the belief that Jews have a right to self determination in a Jewish state.
The Muslims have their own states. Try being an Christian in Iran or Saudi Arabia. Although Israel is a Jewish state it allows people of all religions to practice there and to be citizens including Muslims. What Israel being a Jewish state means is that it is a haven for the Jewish people. Israel has the law of return that means that any Jews can escape anywhere in the world for Israel and become an Israeli citizen. This doesn't mean that Israel doesn't accept citizens who aren't Jewish. When vietnamese boat people were escaping North Vietnam in rickety boats in the ocean, Israel let many of them immigrate. I remember eating in a vietnamese restaurant in Israel. They are testimony to the Vietnamese refugees that Israel allowed into the country. Israel saved Jewish black people from Africa and gave them refuge. That is what a Jewish state means. That is what Zohran Mamdani is against. Zohran
In his 1896 pamphlet The Jewish State, Herzl argued that the establishment of a modern, European homeland for Jews would provide a refuge for a persecuted people. Antisemitism would disappear and Jews would be able to ‘live at last as free men on our own soil’. I don't know if he meant that the state would only have Jews. Israel has people of all faiths. If there was no law of return you'd have a repeat of Jews not being allowed in during the Holocaust. You'd have European countries or whoever appeasing the Arabs. If it took in all the Muslims who want to enter than if they'd allow Jews and Christians to stay it would be as Dhimmis. There are plenty of Arabs who said that if they were in control all the Jews would have to leave. If we look at areas controlled by the Muslims like Bethlehem the Christians and Jews have left. So the question isn't whether there is a state of only Jews it is whether Jews can live there as free unpersecuted people. The only way that can happen is if Israel is a "Jewish" state.
What does a Jewish state mean? Does it mean a state where only Jews can live? It can't mean that because Israel is a Jewish state where people of all religions live. Does it mean a state where only Jewish people can vote? It doesn't mean that either, people of all religions can vote in Israel. Does it mean a state which is governed by a Jewish dictator? It doesn't mean that because Israel is a democracy. So what does it mean? One thing it means is the law of return. The Law of Return is an Israeli law, passed in 1950, that grants Jews the right to immigrate to Israel and obtain citizenship. Eligibility extends to a person's children, grandchildren, and spouses, regardless of their own religious affiliation. During the Holocaust most countries closed their borders to Jews trying to flee Hitler. The United States did allow approximately 200,000 Jews in but rejected many more. The United States passed a relatives rule that denied visas to Jews who had close relatives in the United States. In 1924, the United States Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924 (also known as the Johnson-Reed Act or the National Origins Act). It revised American immigration laws individual’s “national origins.” The act set quotas, a specific number of visas available each year for each country. They limited immigrants considered less “racially desirable,” including southern and eastern European Jews. Despite the fact that Jews were being burned in German ovens in Europe, the quotas limiting Jewish immigration were not changed.
In May 1939 the SS St. Louis left Hamburg, Germany with 938 passengers on board, almost all of whom were Jewish refugees fleeing from Nazi Germany. The ship was bound for Havana, Cuba. Most of the passengers had landing permits for Havana that they had purchased in Germany. They planned to remain in Cuba and wait for an opportunity to be admitted into the United States. When the St. Louis arrived in Havana on May 27th, Cuban officials denied entry to all but twenty-eight passengers. It anchored twelve miles from the coast of Havana as the JDC and other American Jewish organizations tried to negotiate admission of the refugees to the United States. A telegram from the ship’s passengers to President Roosevelt was not answered. Immigration quotas established in 1924 permitted only 27,370 immigrants in total from Austria-Germany in 1939, and the State Department refused to alter this policy. Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and France admitted a few of the refugees but the ship went back to Germany and 254 passengers were later murdered by the Nazis. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has an interactive exhibit about the Voyage of the St. Louis that can be found here. Some of the content was created with adobe flash which browsers no longer support, however you can find an extension to chrome browsers that can view adobe flash by clicking here.
Persecution of Jews all over the world including in Arab countries is a major reason why it was necessary that Jews have a place they could call home where they were not persecuted. Israel is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. Jews were there long before Arabs invaded the area. Zionism is the lofty goal of giving an oppressed people (the Jewish people) refuge in their ancient land. Zionism started with the bible which states that God promised the land of Israel to the Jews. Throughout history there were Jews who lived in the ancient land of Israel when it was possible to do so. Conquering countries often made it very difficult for Jews to live there. Modern Zionism was founded by Theodor Herzl who was not a religious Jew. He encountered antisemitism and eventually came up with the dream of a Jewish state where Jews would not be persecuted. Many Jewish people thought he was being unrealistic but he said that "if you will it, it is no dream". He wrote a book called The Jewish State. In that book Herzl called for Jews to organize themselves so that they could gain a territory of their own, create institutions and forums to oversee Jewish immigration and settlement, and eventually create a state. For videos about Herzl see
https://www.zionismu.com/course/theodor-herzl/lessons/lesson-5-herzl-prologue-1/
If you are against Zionism you are against Jews having a homeland where they can be safe. That is antisemitism.
Additional Links:
“What is Zionism?” Six Things to Know
Open, violent Jew-hatred exposes the antisemitism of anti-Zionism | New York Post
Additional Links
For more about antisemitism see the antisemitism web page on this site. For
a history and understanding of Zionism see the Zionism web page on this site which links to a free video library about Zionism.
Martin Luther King, Jr. on Israel, Zionism
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