In a message dated 4/6/2002 1:58:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:
> If I'm reading some of the comments correctly, some folks claim Israel is
> 'not' a Jewish state but rather a Zionist state, and that Zionists come in
> all colors and religious beliefs.
Zionists support the current existence of a the state called Israel. I think
I said that Jewish people (different from Zionists) come in all colors and
religious beliefs.
> But according to that article in the
> Daily Ha'aretz, only Jews are allowed the full rights of citizenship.
This was discussed a few days ago by another writer to the list who made an
informative post clarifying the matter. Suffice it to say, there are
bourgeois Palestinians who also enjoy "the full rights of [Israeli]
citizenship." Go back and read the archives.
> And
> if I remember correctly, wasn't it Jews who demanded that the British
> mandate of Palestine be given to them as a country, and not anyone else?
No, sir. It was the Zionists, not "the Jews." People are continually lumping
"the Jews" together with Zionists into one camp. This is incorrect since the
majority of "the Jews" choose to not live in Israel, nor even visit. Nor are
they even religious.
> And wasn't it Jews only who brutally expelled the people who lived there,
> because 'god had given that land to the Jews' (or some such nonsense)?
Me, my mother, and my grandmother are "Jews"-- we didn't expell anyone.
Zionists brutally expelled the Palestinians-- I think it was something like 3
million-- in 1948. "The Jews" are not a monolithic group of people. Many
"Jews" have fought hard against the existence of an Israeli state since day
one. Thousands of Jews in Israel are now being called "refuseniks" as they
refuse to show up to mandatory military service in the Israeli army-- they do
not want a hand in the killing of innocent Palestinian women and children.
> And
> if I'm not mistaken, wasn't it Jews, and no one else, who claimed that by
> leaving their land and property (under threat of being killed) that those
> people had forfeited all rights of ownership and return?
No, it was the Zionist state under Menachim Begin, Meir, et al. Similarly,
reactionary right-wing Christians like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in the
United States would say that "the Muslims" are terrorists threating to
"destroy America."
> And we all know
> the Law of Return applies only to Jews.
It applies only those Jews who choose to side with the state Nationalist
ideology of Zionism. Many of us refuse to use the Right of Return, based on
principle.
> And now we're being told that
> Israel is a Zionist state, which really has nothing to with being Jewish?
No one said that it has "nothing to do with being Jewish." It is Judaism
twisted up in a manner in which it becomes a nationalist creed. Similarly, as
you may know, there are reactionary Muslims who twist up Islam to do
something similar. Christians, during the Middle Ages, used Christianity to
justify the Crusades, i.e., the plunder of the "holy lands."
>
> We seem to be in the midst of one of those situations where, as someone
> once say 'words mean only what I want them to mean, and absolutely nothing
> else!'
But, at the other end, word do not only refer to one discrete idea, either.
The important thing is to look at the actual events occurring around us and
to find correct words for expressing and analyzing the situation. Then to
compare that analysis with the "accepted truths" (as Chomsky would call them)
that emanate from the U.S. State Department.
-- David
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