What Being a Zionist Means

[jbg]

This is a response to a letter inquiring why I don't support Ron Paul. I was asked if I was a Zionist. I feel I need to explain what Zionism is and why I am a Zionist, though I'm not sure if the word "diehard" applies.

Yes, I am proudly a Zionist. I do not believe that you have an accurate picture of what the term means.

What it means, at least to me, is a relief that the state of Israel is essential to the existence of the Jewish people. Around the time of the start of the Common Era, or around 1 A.D. the events commenced that spelled the end of the politically independent existence of Judaism. That existence in the Diaspora did not have to end badly. But it did, and resoundingly so. The fact is that the so-called "Golden Era" of the Jews in Moorish Spain wasn't so golden. That is Muslim and leftist propaganda. In fact the Jews existed under a system, common to this day in the Muslim world called "dhimmitude" where "people of the book", namely Jews and Christians, are suffered to exist in relative safety if they pay a small but humiliating tax, called a "gizya" (sp). Their churches or synagoges can be built only with permission and their roofs must be lower than the top of a mosque. There are numerous and other humiliating outrages that were part of Jewish life in Moorish Spain and the Muslim world. There were pogroms, or organized riots against Jews but they were fewer and less deadly than in Christian Europe.

Life was, if anything, worse for the Jews in Christian Europe. The royalty frequently induced the Jews to come, since the Jews had business and financial resources otherwise unavailable. The Jews were safe only as long as the royalty or aristrocracy both wanted to protect Jews and was able to. Frequently, since the common people would have none of this "Jewish nonesense" the discontent erupted with deadly results. This was "rinse, wash, repeat" cycle that kept going through most of European history, with some undulations. Napolean sponsored a brief period of liberalization, which similarly ended badly. When a new Kaiser was crowned in Germany in 1888 his first promise was to protect the Jews. We all know how that went.

In the period from around 1891 through the beginning of WW I the Jews left Eastern Europe, along with others, by the millions. Most of the 2,000,000 left behind in Poland, and around 4,000,000 in other countries were butchered in the Holocaust. Seance talker King exemplified the West's indifferent with his Cabinet Minister's statement that "one Jew is too many" for Canada to admit to save from the Holocaust. It was against this backdrop that Theodore Herzl got the Zionist movement going in the mid-1890's. Basically, the seeds of the Holocaust were sewn. The U.S. and then later Canada slammed the door to more Jewish immigration. Thus, Zionism became an existential as well as political issue.

Israel may seem modern, advanced and strong but the birth rate in the surrounding countries, heavily fueled by Western aid, threatens to overwhelm Israel. There are simply too people (their behavior makes that characterization generous pounding at the door. Their tactics, laid out in the Old Testament as well as modern media, involves murdering the innocent and the helpless. Google "Amelkites" or "Sodom and Gomorrah" and you'll see my point. Or, while your at it, the Akedah (where G-d stopped Abraham from killing his son while Allah apparently loves the flesh of suicide bombers) or incidents where the Phillistines gratuitously destroyed Abraham's wells, just for the sake and fun of destruction.

I am a Jew and the Jews need Israel.

[olp1fan]

you want us to google bible stories?

[Shwa]

you want us to google bible stories?

Just old ones.

[bud]

palestine was not the first option for a state. some of the early plans for jewish resettlement were not even formally nationalist: they made no claim to a state. resettlement in a british colony, such as uganda, was for a time the most serious option. the negotiations came to nothing - but the idea influenced british policy, when palestine became a british mandate territory, after the first world war.

[jbg]

you want us to google bible stories?

Most of the ones I cited are pretty well known, at least by educated and/or intelligent people.

[Bonam]

resettlement in a british colony, such as uganda, was for a time the most serious option.

And how would that have been any better? People like you would today be talking about how the evil Jews are displacing poor oppressed native Ugandans (instead of Palestinians). Anyway, how many Jews would have really wanted to immigrate to some AIDS-infested tropical-disease-ridden hellhole in Africa? It wouldn't have gone any better than the USSR's attempts to resettle Jews in the "Jewish Autonomous Oblast", a frozen hellhole on the border with Manchuria...

Anyway, I agree with jbg. History has proven time and time again (very consistently over thousands of years) that Jews living as minorities in the nations of others will be periodically massacred, exterminated, oppressed, or otherwise mistreated. The existence of Israel is a safety valve for all Jews everywhere.

Edited December 5, 2011 by Bonam

[jbg]

Anyway, I agree with jbg. History has proven time and time again (very consistently over thousands of years) that Jews living as minorities in the nations of others will be periodically massacred, exterminated, oppressed, or otherwise mistreated. The existence of Israel is a safety valve for all Jews everywhere.

Thanks.

The U.S., Canada and Australia may be exceptions, as open societies. I don't see any of them eager to intak 6,000,000 Jews though. Certainly not from the tenor of posts of olp1fan, shwa and bud.

Edited December 5, 2011 by jbg

[Bonam]

Thanks.

The U.S., Canada and Australia may be excceptions, as open societies.

They may be, may be for a while, or may not be. Former British colonies are no more immune to antisemitism than other places. Especially not if they keep importing Muslim immigrants by the millions.

[olp1fan]

Most of the ones I cited are pretty well known, at least by educated and/or intelligent people.

yes they are well known but I find anyone who takes them as fact to be unintelligent

[jbg]

yes they are well known but I find anyone who takes them as fact to be unintelligent

Are you saying that the fact that the people I listed are acting roughly the same way as the "Palestinians" do now is a coincidence? I'd like to be able to write fiction that predictively and that well.

[dre]

Zionism in many ways is actually an anti-jewish phisolophy. Early zionists actually encouraged other countries to turn jews away and collaborated with the Nazis to kick jews out of Germany. Zionists cared more about their new nationalist aspirations than they did about Judaism, and actually worked to promote anti-semitism around the world so that jews would have to move to Israel to escape it.

Ben Gurion said...

If I knew it was possible to save all the children in Germany by taking them to England, and only half of the children by taking them to Eretz Israel, I would choose the second solution

In other words he would rather have half of those jews die and the other half move to Israel then have them all live, and end up in North America, the USSR or Europe.

Heres a quote from Theodor Herzl's diary...

It is essential that the sufferings of Jews. . . become worse. . . this will assist in realization of our plans. . .I have an excellent idea. . . I shall induce anti-semites to liquidate Jewish wealth. . . The anti-semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-semites shall be our best friends.

These people, obsessed with nationalism NOT Judaism helped destroy jewish communities around the world, and worked to foster distrust of jews in many nations.

In 1921 Jacob Klatzkin, a prominent political zionist in Germany wrote this to try to build suspicion and distrust of jews in Germany...

“We Jews are aliens… a foreign people in your midst and we… wish to stay that way. A Jew can never be a loyal German; whoever calls the foreign land his Fatherland is a traitor to the Jewish people“.

Chaim Weizman, who would later become the first Israeli president made the following statement in a public address.

Germany… has too many Jews

Sounds like something Hitler or Gobels might say.

Zionist, Rabbi Klaussner, who was in charge of displaced persons presented a report before the Jewish American Conference on May 2nd, 1948 :

"I am convinced people must be forced to go to Palestine...For them, an American dollar appears as the highest of goals. By the word "force", I am suggesting a programme. It served for the evacuation of the Jews in Poland, and in the history of the 'Exodus'... To apply this programme we must, instead of providing 'displaced persons' with comfort, create the greatest possible discomfort for them...At a second stage, a procedure calling upon the Haganah to harass the Jews."

Edited December 5, 2011 by dre

[Bonam]

Zionism in many ways is actually an anti-jewish phisolophy. Early zionists actually encouraged other countries to turn jews away and collaborated with the Nazis to kick jews out of Germany.

Zionist writings were brutally honest, and you are cherrypicking. They were essentially trying to find the few positives out of a horrible situation. That antisemitism could speed the immigration of Jews to a Jewish state is obviously true. As for helping the Nazis to kick the Jews out of Germany, I think we'd all agree that any Jew that managed to get "kicked out" of Germany was extremely lucky.

[Shwa]

Thanks.

The U.S., Canada and Australia may be excceptions, as open societies. I don't see any of them eager to intak 6,000,000 Jews though. Certainly not from the tenor of posts of olp1fan, shwa and bud.

Intake 6 million Jewish people from where exactly?

[GostHacked]

If you are a Jew and not living in Israel, chances are that Israel is not key to Jewish survival. I mean how did they last this long through the ages?

[Post To The Left]

If you are a Jew and not living in Israel, chances are that Israel is not key to Jewish survival. I mean how did they last this long through the ages?

Not to mention that if you're Jewish and you don't live in Israel, the current government under the joke that is Benjamin Netanyahu, thinks you're betraying the Zionist cause.

[Guest American Woman]

If you are a Jew and not living in Israel, chances are that Israel is not key to Jewish survival. I mean how did they last this long through the ages?

Obviously, unfortunately, the lives of millions of Jews did not "last long," as recently as WWII - when Canada and the U.S. didn't give refuge to nearly the number of Jews seeking it, desperately needing it. So Israel, as a place of refuge for Jews, most definitely could be perceived as a key to Jews' survival.

[dre]

Obviously, unfortunately, the lives of millions of Jews did not "last long," as recently as WWII - when Canada and the U.S. didn't give refuge to nearly the number of Jews seeking it, desperately needing it. So Israel, as a place of refuge for Jews, most definitely could be perceived as a key to Jews' survival.

The problem is like I said, the early zionists played a part in all that. They encouraged anti-semitism, and encouraged countries to turn jews away. Their "plan" to achieve their nationalist vision was to spread hatred of jews throughout the world.

[GostHacked]

Obviously, unfortunately, the lives of millions of Jews did not "last long," as recently as WWII - when Canada and the U.S. didn't give refuge to nearly the number of Jews seeking it, desperately needing it. So Israel, as a place of refuge for Jews, most definitely could be perceived as a key to Jews' survival.

So what about the Jews currently living in the USA and Canada? Is their Jewish survival soley dependant on the fact that Israel exists? How did they last this long without being eliminated? And even if you account for their centuries long struggle and all the hardships and genocide the Jews experienced, they still exist!

If you are a Jew living elsewhere and if Israel is wiped out tomorrow, are you still a Jew? Or is Zionism more or less dependant on Israel's survival? I think there needs to be a distinction here. Not all Jews see themselves as Zionists.

[olp1fan]

why do Jewish people talk as if they are the most important ethnicity?

Reminds me of the Nazis

Edited December 5, 2011 by olp1fan

[dre]

why do Jewish people talk as if they are the most important ethnicity?

Reminds me of the Nazis

"Jewish People" generally do NOT talk that way. The reality is that jews have been treated poorly... both by zionists, and by many other countries as well. Its natural for them to be a bit defensive.

Edited December 5, 2011 by dre

[olp1fan]

"Jewish People" generally do NOT talk that way. The reality is that jews have been treated poorly... both by zionists, and by many other countries as well. Its natural for them to be a bit defensive.

someone needs to tell them to shut up, yes the holocaust was terrible but you can't use it as a means for an elective war ...ahmacrazyjad isn't hitler

[dre]

someone needs to tell them to shut up, yes the holocaust was terrible but you can't use it as a means for an elective war ...ahmacrazyjad isn't hitler

Tell who to shut up exactly? Jews are not some monolithic group. Theres a big split between Jews on the issue of Israel, and its behavior as a modern nation state.

Edited December 5, 2011 by dre

[jbg]

The U.S., Canada and Australia may be exceptions, as open societies. I don't see any of them eager to intake 6,000,000 Jews though. Certainly not from the tenor of posts of olp1fan, shwa and bud.

Intake 6 million Jewish people from where exactly?

From Israel, if the Palestinians take control.

If you are a Jew and not living in Israel, chances are that Israel is not key to Jewish survival. I mean how did they last this long through the ages?

So what about the Jews currently living in the USA and Canada? Is their Jewish survival soley dependant on the fact that Israel exists? How did they last this long without being eliminated? And even if you account for their centuries long struggle and all the hardships and genocide the Jews experienced, they still exist!

If you read my opening post, the Jewish survival rate in Europe was decidedly underwhelming. Basically Europe turned into a human tomb for the Jews. Europe (with the partial exception of Great Britain) was a collection of countries, each with its own language, and an exclusive state religion. Most "legislation" until the later emergence of Parliaments was church-generated. Thus, people not part of the official religion had only such rights as the rulers chose to grant them. And that collection of rights changed repeatedly. This situation went from mediocre to bad to worse to deadly, as we all know. The Muslim world was frequently but not always a little better but even their the Jews' safety was fickle and subject to the whim of the local bey or sultan. Thus, without Israel, the Jews had better hope that nothing changes in the U.S. or Canada. Israel's survival is essential to the Jews' survival.

Not to mention that if you're Jewish and you don't live in Israel, the current government under the joke that is Benjamin Netanyahu, thinks you're betraying the Zionist cause.

I don't see what is funny about a government protecting the interests of its people rather than trying to make things convenient or easy for other leaders. Edited December 5, 2011 by jbg

[dre]

From Israel, if the Palestinians take control.

If you read my opening post, the Jewish survival rate in Europe was decidedly underwhelming. Basically Europe turned into a human tomb for the Jews. Europe (with the partial exception of Great Britain) was a collection of countries, each with its own language, and an exclusive state religion. Most "legislation" until the later emergence of Parliaments was church-generated. Thus, people not part of the official religion had only such rights as the rulers chose to grant them. And that collection of rights changed repeatedly. This situation went from mediocre to bad to worse to deadly, as we all know. The Muslim world was frequently but not always a little better but even their the Jews' safety was fickle and subject to the whim of the local bey or sultan. Thus, without Israel, the Jews had better hope that nothing changes in the U.S. or Canada. Israel's survival is essential to the Jews' survival.

I don't see what is funny about a government protecting the interests of its people rather than trying to make things convenient or easy for other leaders.

From Israel, if the Palestinians take control.

What kind of giberish is this? The area Palestinians might take control of isnt Israel. No comments on the zionist history of promoting anti-semitism around the world?

Edited December 5, 2011 by dre

[sharkman]

why do Jewish people talk as if they are the most important ethnicity?

Reminds me of the Nazis

I see. Remind me never to ask you for any kind of advice.

Edited December 5, 2011 by sharkman