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The Myth of Zionism

So, I say to myself, no God, no promise to Jews (or anybody else). In my perception of the scheme of things, God is the potential for good inside each and every one of us.

The Jews who “returned” in answer to Zionism’s call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. They were converts to Judaism long after the end of the Hebrew conquest and short-lived domination of much of Canaan, the name as in the Bible by which Palestine was first known to the world. They therefore had no legitimate claim on the land.

The Jews who did have a legitimate claim, probably not more than about 10,000 at the time of Zionism’s first dishonest mission statement in 1897, were the direct descendants of the Israelites who stayed in place on the land through time. They regarded themselves as Palestinians, and they were fiercely opposed to Zionism’s colonial enterprise because they feared it would make them as well as the incoming alien Jews enemies of the Palestinian Arabs.

Also true is that prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, most Jews of the world were not at all interested in Zionism’s colonial enterprise and many were opposed to it.

The most informed and thoughtful of those who did express their opposition believed that Zionism was 
morally wrong.

They also feared that Zionism’s colonial enterprise would lead to unending conflict. But most of all they feared that Zionism, if it was allowed to have its way, would one day provoke anti-Semitism. Which is precisely what is happening today.

In reality it is how the Zionists created their state that best defines what Zionism actually is. Israel was created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing—a pre-planned process that saw three-quarters of the indigenous Arab inhabitants of Palestine dispossessed of their homes, their land and their rights.

Zionism asserts that its state was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. That is utter nonsense. The truth can be summarised as follows:

· In the first place, the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.

· By the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either.

· The General Assembly’s recommendation never went to the Security Council for consideration because the US knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.

· So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what to do about Palestine—after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism—was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion.

The truth of the time was that the Zionist state had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist unless it was recognised and legitimised by those Zionism had dispossessed of their land and their rights. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.

So what is a Zionist today? Short answer: One, not necessarily a Jew, who (to quote Balfour) supports the Zionist state of Israel “right or wrong” and who cannot or will not admit that a terrible wrong was done to the Palestinians by Zionism — a wrong that must be acknowledged and then corrected on terms acceptable to the Palestinians if there is ever to be peace and the countdown to catastrophe for all is to be stopped.

The Arab word for the catastrophe of the original dispossession of the Palestinians is Nakba. In my view, Zionism’s Nakba denial is as obscene as denial of the Nazi holocaust.

One thing nobody can deny is the effectiveness of Zionism’s propaganda machine. Zionism’s spin doctors probably learned from the Nazis that the bigger the lies and the more frequently they are told, the more likely it is that they will be believed in the mainly Gentile, Judeo-Christian or Western world; and all the more so when the mainstream media is terrified of offending Zionism either too much or at all.

The biggest of all of Zionism’s propaganda lies is the one which asserts that Israel has lived in constant danger of annihilation, the “driving into the sea” of its Jews.

Zionism’s assertion to the contrary was the cover which allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most, in North America and Western Europe, with presenting its aggression (often state terrorism) as self-defence, and itself as the victim when actually it was, and is, the oppressor.

The companion propaganda lie is that Israel never had Arab partners for peace. Zionism has two hallmarks.

One is self-righteousness of a most extraordinary kind. In 1986 this self-righteousness was described by 
Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former director of Israeli Military Intelligence, as “the biggest real danger” to the Jewish state.

The other hallmark is a shocking and awesome arrogance of military and economic power and the influence the latter buys, most critically in the US Congress where what passes for democracy is for sale to the highest bidders.

Alan Hart is a veteran British journalist and former ITN and BBC foreign correspondent who has covered the Middle East for nearly four decades. For comments, write to opinion@khaleejtimes.com