Zionism Is Racism (this headline is Haaretz’s…)

Thu 29 Dec 2022

Chaim Herzog (R) and David Ben-Gurion at the Western Wall.Credit: Meir Freundlich / GPO

JVL Introduction

In this opinion piece published by Haaretz Zvi Bar’el pulls no punches.

Revisiting the 1975 UN debate and resolution that Zionism was racism he explains the grounds on which President Hertzog could claim to reject the contention: the pluralistic, egalitarian nature of Israeli society in which freedom of speech, of movement, of thought, of expression were guaranteed…

Never mind if he is, shall we say, a bit starry-eyed about what Zionism had already become by 1975; his view now is clear.

Racists like Ben-Gvir will hold key cabinet portfolios in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and shape the country’s character:

• “They are the founding fathers of the new Zionism, which is racist, primitive and sees democratic values as a historical mistake unsuited to a true Jewish state.”
• “They have Judaized antisemitic claims and race theory and are using them to build a pure country – one that is avowedly and by law Jewish, Zionist and racist.”

This article was originally published by Haaretz on Tue 27 Dec 2022. Read the original here.

Zionism Is Racism

by Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz

“We, in Israel, have endeavored to create a society which strives to implement the highest ideals of society – political, social and cultural – for all the inhabitants of Israel, irrespective of religious belief, race or sex. Show me another pluralistic society in this world in which, despite all the difficult problems among which we live, Jew and Arab live together with such a degree of harmony … in which freedom of speech, of movement, of thought, of expression are guaranteed.”

The above is one of the key sentences around which former President Chaim Herzog, who at the time was Israel’s UN ambassador, built his impressive speech blasting UN General Assembly Resolution 3379. That resolution, passed on November 10, 1975, stated that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”

Herzog recruited the Jewish people’s long history, the principles of Judaism, science, economic development and the fundamentals of democracy to undermine the resolution, which he deemed antisemitic. “For us, the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper, and we shall treat it as such,” he concluded, before demonstratively tearing a copy of the resolution to pieces.

Sixteen years later, the UN repealed the resolution. A decade after that, when the United States demonstratively skipped the UN’s World Conference against Racism in Durban in September 2001, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said it was “important to send a signal to the freedom-loving nations of the world that we will not stand by if the world tries to describe Zionism as racism. That is as wrong as wrong can be.”

Wrong? Herzog and Fleischer, along with the U.S. presidents and other world leaders who objected to the “Zionism is racism” resolution, would have trouble finding convincing arguments against it today, when the incoming national security minister is Itamar Ben-Gvir, a disciple of Meir Kahane; another slated minister, Orit Strock, says doctors can refuse to provide treatment that violates their religious beliefs “as long as there are enough other doctors who can provide service”; Ben-Gvir’s ideological partner, Bezalel Smotrich, is horrified at the idea of his wife sharing a hospital room with an Arab woman and told Israeli Arabs, “You’re here by mistake, because Ben-Gurion didn’t finish the work in 1948 and throw you out”; and Avi Maoz, a benighted homophobe, knows that “women’s greatest contribution to the country is to marry and raise a wonderful family.”

These racists will not only hold key cabinet portfolios in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, but will shape the country’s character, dictate the boundaries of legitimate debate and shape the coming generations through the education system and the government funding they will control.

Related Ha’aretz articles:

• Ben-Gvir is paving the way for his racist friends
• Kahanism won. Israel is closing in on a right-wing, religious, authoritarian revolution
• When Zionism Becomes a Dirty Word

They are the founding fathers of the new Zionism, which is racist, primitive and sees democratic values as a historical mistake unsuited to a true Jewish state. They are entrenching a cowardly, panicked Zionism that sees gays and lesbians as an existential threat and minorities as superfluous populations.

Their power rests on the falsehood that “the people had its say” in the last election. Consequently, they are wrapping all of Israel’s millions of citizens in their stinking garment.

They have Judaized antisemitic claims and race theory and are using them to build a pure country – one that is avowedly and by law Jewish, Zionist and racist. They are building an ethnic Jewish hierarchy by determining who are the best Jews and who aren’t fit to be Jews at all. They are the priests and Levites of the cult of racism that has sprouted as a parasitic mutation on the West Bank’s terraced hillsides, from which it has climbed and twisted and now holds Zionism and Judaism by the throat.

Who will tell the now-deceased Chaim Herzog the truth? Certainly not his son, current President Isaac Herzog, who made do with the following delicate, polite comment – “I find the racist remarks heard here recently against the LGBT community and, more generally, against various communities and groups very worrying and disturbing.”

The younger Herzog had better hope that if the UN ever votes again on a resolution to define Zionism as a form of racism, he won’t be the speaker asked to respond to it.

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/zionism-is-racism-this-headline-is-haaretzs/