Does anti-Zionism equal anti-Semitism?

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Malnourished Palestinian child in Israeli-occupied West Bank 12 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1987 The following article is reprinted from the May/June 1987 issue of Socialist Outlook, a new Marxist journal in Britain. We have shortened the article for reasons of space.

There is more confusion surrounding the "Jewish Question" than possibly any other. Surely, some may think, Jews are entitled to a "homeland," and to attack Israel, for not being right-wing or capitalist, but for being a Jewish state, runs the risk of developing into an anti-Semitic argument.

Even left-wing Zionists denounce anti-Zionists as anti-Jewish for supporting the Palestinian people's right to national self-determination while simultaneously not supporting this right in respect to "the Jewish children in Nazi concentration camp Jewish people." Left-wing Zionists, in common with all Zionists, believe that Jews constitute a nation and are, as such, a race.

Zionism is a very young movement, but this fact does not prevent it from pretending that it draws its origins from a past more than 2000 years old-asserting that it constitutes a reaction to the state of things existing since the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 A.D.

Zionism's recent birth [following the Russian pogroms of 1882 and the antiSemitic Dreyfus Affair in France] is naturally the best reply to these pretensions.

Zionist claims to Palestine derive from a distortion of Jewish history and are based on the false assumption: Zionism equals Judaism.

its time Zionism was born in Eastern Europe when the feudal system broke down and the persecution of the Jews began in earnest. It developed and came to maturity with the spread of fascism in Western Europe. Zionism could not gain a foothold until the social conditions for its emergence were ripe. It is a product of its time.

The tragedy experienced by Jews in Eastern Europe in the early twentieth century was due to a combination of the decline of feudalism and the degeneration of capitalism. Hardly born, the capitalist system was already showing all the signs of senility.

The general decay of capitalism manifested itself in crises and unemployment throughout Eastern Europe. Jews began to face great hostility from both the petty bourgeoisiewho saw them as a "threat"-and the working class who, suffering from permanent unemployment and poverty, blamed Jews for their problems.

Governments and capitalists engaged themselves in organizing anti-Jewish sentiment. In Poland in the 1920s, the state organized an effort to "de-Judify" and "Polanize" all professions.

Western and Central Europe were also soon to become theaters of a frightful rise in anti-Semitism. After World War I, these countries saw tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants-most of them destitute poor from Eastern Europe.

The Jewish bourgeoisie in Western Europe viewed this mass arrival with alarm, and began lobbying for the colonization of Palestine-not for themselves of course, but to help the "poor Galina Sankova Ostjuden" (Eastern Jews) return to the land of their ancestors. In other words, the Jewish bourgeoisie, who with reason feared the rise of anti-Semitism, wanted them to go as far away as possible.

Myth of "Jewish capitalism"

The seeming post-war prosperity permitted many Jewish immigrants to penetrate branches of business and artisanry. But not for long. The economic catastrophe of 1929 threw the petty bourgeoisie into a hopeless situation.

The primarily commercial and artisan character of Judaism, heritage of a long historical past, made it the principal enemy of the middle classes on the domestic market. The concept of "Jewish wealth" was (and probably still is) solidly entrenched in the consciousness of the majority.

For the racists it was only a question of reawakening and giving "presence"— by means of well-orchestrated propaganda-to the image of the "usurious" Jew.

Simply, we can say that the violent racism against Jews during this period not only expressed the will of the ruling classes, it also expressed the hatred of the middle classes in particular toward "foreign'" elements within the domestic market.

Capitalism used this racism and saved itself by resurrecting the Jew and the hatred of Jews. This elementary anti-Semitism of the working and middle Classes was fashioned into a major component of fascist ideology.

But it is precisely because Jews did not play the role attributed to them that antiSemitic persecution could take on such magnitude. "Jewish capitalism" is a A capitulation to racism Zionism came about in response to virulent anti-Semitism, its "solution"' being to remove Jews from among non-Jews and concentrate them in a country exclusively their own.

It is often claimed that Zionism is "the national liberation movement of the Jewish people," a claim which assumes that the 16 million Jews around the world constitute a national entity. Yet, a liberation movement of any oppressed group of people should exist, by definition, to fight their oppressors.

According to Zionism, however, rather than waste time in a futile fight against anti-Semitism, Jews should simply emigrate to the "Jewish homeland."

Zionist propaganda claims that the extermination of millions of Jews by the Nazis "proves" the necessity of an exclusive "Jewish homeland." However, many more Jews were saved from the gas chambers and the concentration camps by escaping to the depths of Russia, or to the United States, or to this country [Britain], than by going to Palestine.

The simple fact is that Jews were exterminated wherever the Nazis reached, and were saved otherwise. The only thing that this proves is that the fate of the Jews (as of other persecuted groups) is inseparable from the fight against racism, fascism, and reaction.

Zionism is a response to anti-Semitism. However, it is a response which capitulates to racism. According to Zionist logic, the struggle against anti-Semitism should be given up as "pointless" and the problem "solved" by segregation—exactly as the racists recommend.

Zionism as colonization

Zionism came into being in the heyday of European colonial expansion, when "colonization" was not regarded as a dirty word—certainly not in the European middle-class circles in which Zionist leaders moved.

A country whose population was not European was regarded as "uninhabited," "a land without a people." In the many places colonized by Europeans, the "natives" were used as a source of cheap and super-exploited labor power in the service of the settlers.

This practice was not to be followed by the Zionist settlers. The specific feature of Zionism which distinguishes it from all other modern settler-colonization movements is that it wanted not simply the resources of Palestine but the country itself, for the establishment of a new national state which through immigration would create its own classes, including a working class.

In order to implement the aims of Zionism, it was necessary to dispossess the Palestinians and to violate not only their national rights as a people but also their human and civil rights as individuals.

The rationalization of the colonization of Palestine at the expense of its Arab inhabitants created an ideology and society which is racist to the core.

From the start, it was clear to the Zionist leaders that in order to colonize Palestine they would need the backing and support of the major imperialist powers. Accordingly, they worked hard in order to obtain from these powers a "charter" for the colonization of Palestine. It takes two to tango, and Zionism had to offer something in exchange for such a charter.

In the bible of the Zionist movement, "The Jewish State" by Theodor Herzl, the author explains what that "something" would be: "For Europe, we shall serve there as part of the rampart against Asia, and function as the vanguard of civilization Donald McCullin against the barbarians... We shall keep our ties with all the European nations, who will guarantee our existence there."

Since that time, Israel's role as imperialism's cop in the Middle East-particularly after the United States took over as the major imperialist power in the area-has greatly increased in importance.

Are Jews a race?

And what of the concept of "the Jewish people" and their "right" to national self-determination? Surely, left-wing Zionists argue, Jews constitute a race and it must be anti-Semitic not to support both Palestinian and Jewish self-determination.

In reality, because of the diaspora character of Judaism, Jews constitute a mixture of the most diverse races. Even in Palestine, Jews far from constitute a "pure race."

There is no racial homogeneity between the Syrian Jews, for example, and the Jews of Russia. The first are Oriental in type (Sephardic), while the second are European (Ashkenazy). There are Black Jews in India, Ethiopian Jews (Falasha), and "Troglodite" Jews in Africa.

Judaism has no "racial characteristics," and it is thoroughly racist to think otherwise. In this respect however, Zionism shares many of the assumptions of the racists.

Zionism is a false solution to the problem of anti-Semitism and is based on a capitulation to anti-Semitic arguments.

Indeed, if you believe that Jews can and should live in freedom and dignity among non-Jews-that anti-Semitism can be fought and beaten-then you are thinking as an anti-racist and a socialist.