Is Zionism the enemy of the Jewish people?
Point. Counterpoint. Discuss.
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Mobius, you’ve got some good stuff going on this site. Please, don’t let it descend any further into a place reasonable Jews like me won’t want to hang out. After the slew of posts this past week, I’m basically coasting on good will and that piece about Owen Wilson.
The point was too strongly stated and too condensed; I’m more sympaethic to Shlaim’s underlying position, but Ben-Ami’s article came off smarter.
Ditto,
I was hoping for a break with some light banter as well to cool off the tempers nad an attempt to find someone on the right that you could approve.
FWIW,
the subject arose about two weeks ago in England with the airing of a debate between three anti-zionist and three supposed pro-zionists. I have a problem with Shlomo BenAmi being invited to defend zionism (which is why I think the debate was lost before it begun), and especially his bringing up Btsalem and ‘independant columnists’ as an example about how moral zionism is. Sheesh. I think there is a consensus that these two entities are detrimental to Israel’s future.
Mobius, again, I ask to first set the stage properly for discussion. What is zionism? This Arab’s version of zionism is not Shlomo BenAmi’s version and definitely not my version of zionism, and so essentially we are arguing about apples from Kibbutz Ortal and Jaffa Oranges which is pointless and a waste of time.
Sorry,
ditto to Josh H. not Sam
Ooh, an Avi Shlaim article criticizing Zionism…on Electronic Intifada! How original.
Your use of Electronic Intifada as a source of fact or opinion worthy of discussion is truly disgusting.
On the one hand, these “debates” are not very tempting — one-sided ranting with those who have the power to post publically, with the Comments section filling up in response. Much heat. Not much light. Feh.
On the other hand, I guess it’s pretty harmless if I quote from the opening lines of Avi Shlaim’s piece: By Zionism today I mean the ideological, ultra-nationalist settlers and their supporters in the Likud-led government.
In other words, this isn’t about Zionism. It’s about settlers. Shlaim is either ignorant (thinks the two are the same thing), or dishonest (pretends the two are the same thing). Which is not really important, I guess, but it’s too bad that Mobius echoed the mischaracterisation by representing this as a debate about Zionism: it’s not.
This is for Sam. It was posted below in response to your post but I’m not sure if you saw it way down there.
Sam, france is a perfect example of how wrong many of you are to think that its possible to have a country to BOTH have political quality for all and to retain its national character and morals.
They are now about 20% arab-this all happened very recently. They are immigrants of just the last few years.
There is already discrimination there and also demands from the minority population to integrate their customs such as their right to wear veils in schools…
You haven’t seen anything of the coming results of the friction going on there.
Sam- we don’t want to end up like France G-d forbid!
joe schmo • 02/07/05 10:40am
Sam,
I’d like to explain further. I don’t care about modern or ancient forms…
One thing is clear from history – the ones in power decide the culture and the morals.
You write “the solution to the conflict holds the possibility of inaugurating a new form of citizenship which the world might usefully imitate.”
We are not guinea pigs – especially for something that has always failed and will fail again!
Sure the world wants us to be guinea pigs – they don’t particularly like us.
I understand them.
Its the Jews I don’t understand.
joe schmo • 02/07/05 01:56pm
Boy, you’ve got the full range of opinions there in your point and counterpoint… everything from left to left-of-center.
Electronic Intifada? You must be kidding.
This is typical milk-and-cookies “tolerance” – facts are irrelevant, we simply line up each person’s “grievances” – then wring our hands about how we’re ALL guilty, we ALL have hate in our hearts (except those noble, brown-skinned *freedom fighters*) and how we should all just try harder to UNDERSTAND each other…
This site is quickly becoming another leftie echo-chamber. Mobi – if the monthly hosting fees are too high, just tell us and we’ll leave…
Mobius, How come nothing on the Sharm Peace Summits posted?
From Avi Shlaim’s piece, “By Zionism today I mean the ideological, ultra-nationalist settlers and their supporters in the Likud-led government.”
There is a straw man if I ever saw one. I expect most Zionists are offended by settlers who wear Nazi-style magen David patches, and adopt the Shoah as comparable to withdrawal.
As for, “Prime Minister Ariel Sharon personifies this xenophobic, exclusive, aggressive and expansionist brand of Zionism. […] He is a man of war and the champion of violent solutions.”
Was this guy asleep the last several months?
From the notes to the article, “The article was first published in the International Herald Tribune on 4 February 2005, and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.”
Who did this guy think he was helping by giving permission to electronic intifada? In the Forward, or any Jewish publication, he would be encouraging his own people to change course, but in electronic intifada, he is feeding terror sympathizers and anti-Semites. I read elsewhere that this guy was born in Baghdad in the 1940s and served in the IDF in the 1960s. You would think that this would have given him a little bit more perspective.
1. Osama bin Laden…”sent by the Jews.”
2. Zionism…the enemy of the Jewish people
Therefore: the Jews and Osama have teamed-up against Zionism!?
Oh wait…
I see your critics are out in full force Mobius.
I for one applaud your efforts to broaden the debate and bring up issues that people may not find so comfortable.
“I for one applaud your efforts to broaden the debate and bring up issues that people may not find so comfortable.”
You like Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews eh? Better check the reference on that one.
I think our problem is more with citing electronic intifada, may their servers crash, than with the issue overall.
Gosh, you mean we don’t like electronic intifada? I would’ve thought it was the favorite of most of the righties around here. How surprising. Let’s quit calling on the Palestinians to be non-violent and get these webmasters some AKs.
To Joe Schmo: I read your post and will try to respond later.
Fair enough
“Let’s quit calling on the Palestinians to be non-violent and get these webmasters some AKs.”
Have we reached the point where we’d be so grateful for an end to terrorism that we should applaud the efforts of people who slander us?
Looks like terrorism does work, at least regarding some of us.
“Gosh, you mean we don’t like electronic intifada? I would’ve thought it was the favorite of most of the righties around here.”
Stop (indirectly) calling me a rightie, whitie.
“Let’s quit calling on the Palestinians to be non-violent and get these webmasters some AKs.”
So Palestinians are only capable of violence or EI?
Snotty condescending and simplistic.
did the Nazis have a point? Discuss.
hey all you zionist jews!!! stop speaking for me. Zionism does not represent world jewry, it represents only zionist jewry. stop colonizing palestine and using my religion as your reasons for being able to do so. ZIONISM IS RACISM. why am I as a jew able to move to palestine when the indegenous people that have lived here for centuries cannot even visit their own homes that zionists are now living in.
terrorism is zionism, palestinian “terrorism” is resistance that is only to be expected in reponse to the brutal aggression by the zionist armies since before 1948.
Personally, i dont understand why every country in the world is not pushing for israel??? Histroy has shown time again that peeps dont be liken da jews (lol on the slang). we were kicked, kill, and exterminated out of countries…he if hated a group and they all decided to live in a country away from me, i would be great. France, Canada (3rd largest amount of anti-semetism), US, Germany, UK..Spain……here we are now leaving voluntarily!! support our efforts it leave ur G-d forsaken countries!!
hey all you zionist jews!!! stop speaking for me. Zionism does not represent world jewry, it represents only zionist jewry. stop colonizing palestine and using my religion as your reasons for being able to do so. ZIONISM IS RACISM. why am I as a jew able to move to palestine when the indegenous people that have lived here for centuries cannot even visit their own homes that zionists are now living in.
terrorism is zionism, palestinian “terrorism” is resistance that is only to be expected in reponse to the brutal aggression by the zionist armies since before 1948.
look ma, a troll!
AZJ, so where should all the Jews in Israel go?
Have we reached the point where we’d be so grateful for an end to terrorism that we should applaud the efforts of people who slander us?
Looks like terrorism does work, at least regarding some of us.
Hmm, I was trying to draw out a good critique of EI with substantive points. But I guess this:
So Palestinians are only capable of violence or EI?
Snotty condescending and simplistic.
is all I’m gonna get.
“is all I’m gonna get.’
garbage in, garbage out.
p.s. I’m just “trying to draw out a good critique of EI with substantive points.”
Its still boggles my mine how u can be a Jew a not a Zionist. I think cuz people do not look in the past. The see now for now is, but without the past, what is now? We died in mass numbers since the establishment of Judaism. We are one of the oldest surviving civilizations….Now there are JEWS saying we shouldn’t exist or be a nation?!? I just don’t get it. 6 million Jews died in the holocaust for 1 reason…b/c they were Jews. Now….we are “free” (minus the increase of anti-Semitism from goys and JEWS) to practice our faith and instead we turn on it. DO JEWS REALLY NEED TO BE PUSICUTED TO STAY A NATION? -that is my controversial question of the day.
“AZJ, so where should all the Jews in Israel go?”
well, they should be able to live in palestine once it is a truly democratic state, not a fascist religious state only for one people. If you’re trying to get from me that I think they should be thrown into the sea, you won’t. I don’t think this. this is what the Zionists did to the palestinians in 48. AS many were fleeing from places like yaffa, haifa they tried to get into overcrowded boats and many actually drowned.
And to you hazeev,
Im assuming you mean persecuted in your question, right? yes, anti-semitism all over the world helps the state of israel exist. hence, in the early 50s zionists terrorized jews all over the arab world making them come to palestine to help the creation of the jewish state. now every year they use the holocaust as a reason. the holocaust was horrible, no one denies. But it was also over 60 years ago. How many genocides have there been between then and now? How come we jews have a monopoly on the term holocaust as a unique event that has only ever happened to jews, no one else. In the past decades over 1 million rawandans were brutally slaughtered, who says shit. where is there museum in every major city all over the world?
And never use the injustice done upon the jews as your excuse to do injustice onto palestinians. that is not right, and I do not appreciate you using the blood of my people and my family to justify your racist genocide. I don’t think the 6 million that were lost would appreciate it either. Look at what you’re doing in palestine. Killing, forcing people from their lands, into overcrowded camps where they live with nothing, ITS GENOCIDE!
“I hear too many familiar sounds today, sounds which are being amplified by the
war. I hear ‘dirty Arabs’ and I remember ‘dirty Jews.’ I hear about ‘closed
areas’ and I remember ghettos and camps. I hear ‘two-legged beasts’ and I
remember ‘Untermenschen.’ I hear about tightening the siege, clearing the area,
pounding the city into submission and I remember suffering, destruction, death,
blood and murder… Too many things in Israel remind me of too many other things
from my childhood.”
-Dr. Sholo Shmelzman, Holocaust survivor
only difference is Jews never went out and tried to kill anyone…only themselves in the hope that someone will love them
man, you people are traitors for everything your fathers ever were
unless you’re a goy of course
Killing, forcing people from their lands, into overcrowded camps where they live with nothing, ITS GENOCIDE!
Wait, I though it was ethnic cleansing. Or maybe apartheid. Which one? This is important stuff, anti-Zionist Jew.
AZJ, what do you think of what the Palestinians have done to the Christians in Bethlehem? That is the reality of a Palestinian state. Scary for minorities.
AZJ, also 1st off if you knew anything…the term Holocaust mean consumed in flames. The next genocide that happens where humans are consumed in flames…i would gladly share the name. The rwandnies were kill by hand…it was horrible and world stood by they world i guilty. Sudan there is a genocide now! But the lovely UN said its not…i guess 80,000 people killed by a gov’t supported mallitia is…..?
“anti-semitism all over the world helps the state of israel exist. hence, in the early 50s zionists terrorized jews all over the arab world making them come to palestine to help the creation of the jewish state. ” (AZJ)
see i always thought the arabs kicked evyer jew out in 48…but i dont want to confuse you witht hte facts…
” now every year they use the holocaust as a reason. the holocaust was horrible, no one denies. But it was also over 60 years ago.” (AZJ)
This statement is is now offensive…MAY it be 160 years ago…never will the importance go away! never will the horror escape people minds….this is humanity…humans can devolve to the lowest form and here is the example and Mr. AZJ ur not too far from that.
one last thought…
AZJ, HITLER WOULD HAVE KILLED YOU TOO!!
(assuming ur jewish at all…which is questionable)
Zionism should not be confused with the border policy of Israel. Zionism is ultimately the belief that the Jewish people should be governed by themselves. No one debates that each group of people should have their own land and own government, as long as it doesn’t interfere with other peoples right to be free. In this sense, Zionists may also believe that the Palestinians should also have their own land, as they should. The Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is a reaction to the violence they faced from day one of establishing a nation state. it should not be confused with the right of a people to be governed by their own.
seeing as how this jewschool site is clearly a playground for you herzl-youth to plan Zionist world domination in the name of Judaism, I think I will have to stop posting. Really it’s frightening where this world is headed, and when you look to the front the star of david waves high above with 2 blue stripes above and below.
So please remain in your little Zionist state in Palestine and continue making war for another 50 years. Let’s see what happens. Of course europe sees you as the biggest threat to world peace, but what do you care? theyre all a bunch of anti-semites anyway right.
Zionism is creating too many enemies, as is a natural reaction towards a colonialist movement. If you want to prevent another holocaust, then I would suggest taking a step down from the mile-high tower in which the jewish state sits atop of, and look down at the rest of the world. The tide is changing. You can no longer keep using the holocaust as your reason to kill and destroy, people are seeing the truth.
Yes, I am Jewish, but first I am a human. I’m looking out for everyone here as you all should be also.