Posted by John, January 11th, 2009 - under Middle East, Palestine.



The moral bankruptcy of Zionism – the racist ideology of ongoing exclusion and hate of Palestinians and the theft of their land – is plain to many in the world today as the Israelis destroys Gaza and its people.

To that we can add intellectual bankruptcy. Niv Horesh, in an apologia recently for Israeli terror published in The Australian newspaper, has said about Robert Fisk, a respected journalist with a deep knowledge of Middle East affairs, that “while Fisk is perhaps not himself an anti-semite, he nevertheless abets classic anti-semitism in his grotesquely disproportionate coverage of Israel.” (‘Propaganda does nothing for peace’ The Australian Friday January 9 page 12 Opinion.)

What a weasel word is “perhaps” in this context. Perhaps (intentional use) Horesh should read Fisk’s book Pity the Nation. It reports on the smears against him and others for telling the truth about Israel’s crimes against humanity in Lebanon in 1982; the two month siege and their complicity in the massacre of 2000 Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila. As Fisk says “Anyone in Europe or America who dared to criticise Israel’s behaviour … was invariably attacked … with veiled or direct accusations of anti-Semitism.”

Fisk is reporting the facts, and basing opinions on them. These are facts and opinions that those minds blighted by Zionism cannot and will not see and so cannot challenge. Instead they resort to cheap gibes and grotesque lies about anti-Zionism being anti-semitism to shut down debate.

I regard Fisk as one of the few balanced and informative Western reporters and commentators on the Middle East. It is difficult to see how he ‘abets’ anti-semitism in telling his version of the truth. But that is not Horesh’s aim.

The callous, cowardly catch cry of anti-semitism is the last refuge of Zionist scoundrels as they continue their slaughter of the innocents. It is an attempt to destroy debate and discussion – Zionism is a dictatorial ideology, allowing no dissenters from its main pillar – a Jewish homeland built on the genocide of the Palestinians – and impose this particular view (Zionism) on all, Jews and non-Jews alike. It is an attempt to justify the slaughter of the Palestinian innocents and the subjugation of the Palestinian people in the Gaza concentration camp.

Zionism is a political ideology; Jews are a people. Opposing Zionism is opposing a political position, not a people.

Some Jews (including religious sects) are anti-Zionist. The idea that all Jews should be Zionists is another example of Zionism’s dictatorial attempts at thought control. So too the description of such Jews as self hating.

Historically Zionism had little appeal to Jews until the rise of Stalinism and the defeat of the Russian Revolution, followed by the rise of Nazism and virulent anti-semitism in Germany leading to the obscenity of the final solution.

Zionism is in a macabre dance with anti-semitism. It operates on the basis that anti-semitism is not able to be challenged or beaten and so justifies dispossessing the Palestinians with its calls for a homeland (and since 1948, the establishment of the Israeli state) to supposedly help protect Jews from this “pervasive” ideology of anti-semitism.

I favour the liberation of Jews and Palestinians through a one state solution; a democratic and secular state where all who want to (Jews, Muslims, Christians) can live. My vision is of a rainbow nation of the Middle East. This is hardly anti-semitic. Anti-Zionist yes, anti-semitic no. (The question of how that comes about is another issue, which I have mentioned on other posts and can be summed up in the slogan of Egyptian socialists: ‘The road to Jerusalem runs through Cairo.’)

To deliberately confuse and conflate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism is to attempt to shut down debate and discussion and is another example of the dictatorial thought patterns of Zionism, thought patterns that are now being played out in the murder of thousands of Palestinians and the ongoing criminal blockade of Gaza. (Three hour daily lulls to allow in supplies are a drop in the ocean of the humanitarian crisis that is Gaza and just PR spin from the Israelis.)