Anti-Semitism or Anti-Zionism
Reviewing Paul Johnson’s A History of the Jews, One Idea at a Time
The depth of this history was too much for me to write one review that did it justice, so I decided to discuss several ideas it sparked for me, one at a time.
With people flooding the streets protesting Israel’s actions against Hamas and vocalizing support for Hamas and/or the Palestinians, a lot of confusion around anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism has been created.
Can a person be against Zionism without being anti-Semetic?
Well, that depends largely on why you are against Jews having their own state. And to make it even more confusing, there are many pious Jews who stand against Zionism. So a non-Jew who declares they are against Zionism can point to some very religious Jews and say, “See, I’m not anti-Semetic. They’re against it too.”
But hold up…
Religious Anti-Zionism
It’s important to understand why these religious people are against the formation of a Jewish state, and to differentiate between religious convictions and secular convictions. If you are pointing to religious people to justify your views but reject religion in any other discussion as irrelevant, you’ve got a consistency problem. Or, at least you're being disingenuous.
“Many of them did not object to Greek rule in principle, any more than they had objected to the Persians, since they tended to accept Jeremiah’s arguments that religion and piety flourished more when pagans had to conduct the corrupting business of government.” — A History of the Jews, Paul Johnson
At least as far back in history as the prophet Jeremiah, Jews have been discussing the “corrupting” aspects that running a state would have on their religion. The idea was that they would leave the business of government to the pagans, or gentiles, so that they could focus on what is more important: Judaism.
So often when you see Orthodox Jews saying that they are against Zionism, it’s for a very specific religious reason. And I am not here to say they are right or wrong, but it is an interesting idea and understanding that aspect of Judaism goes a long way in helping us understand Judaism as a whole. It’s directly tied to the idea of the Jews being people chosen by God to lead the way ethically. Running a political organization may corrupt that top priority.
Secular Anti-Zionism
Now, the other side of that coin is a question of why would a person who is not religious think that the Jews should not be allowed to have their own state. The argument against it, among Jews, got a lot weaker after the Holocaust.
After the world showed its cards by allowing, perpetrating, or obfuscating what happened to the Jews in the twentieth-century, their need for a home was beyond doubt, wherever that may be.
Prior to the Holocaust, the process to argue for and start the creation of the Jewish state had already begun. There were several Jewish advocates as well as their supporters, mainly in Britain and oddly enough, from Russia. But the Russians simply thought having a place to put the Jews would be convenient and allow them to get out of their country. The British form of Zionism support was much more tied to the sovereignty of a people to decide their own fate and protect their own interests. And that was not easy for Jews who were a persistent minority spread out through Europe and Asia.
In the early 20th Century, as the idea of Zionism started to grow and get more and more support, the Jews had already gone through a few thousand years of displacement and murder. They were spread out into communities who assumed they needed means to support themselves that were highly mobile, because they never knew when they would be kicked out or just killed. This is why the stereotype of the merchant, peddler, and then banker was so widespread, and with a large kernel of truth. They were forced to find ways to support themselves that didn’t require staying in one place for too long, in generational terms. Those who created the situations that forced their hands, later punished them for reacting to the oppression, and turning it into a success.
The purpose of Zionism was to finally have a place they could live and be able to protect themselves from the resentment of humanity which took the ever shifting forms of anti-Semitism. Or to put it more bluntly, they wanted to be somewhere where people would just stop trying to kill them, or at least have the means to protect themselves.
So today, if you’re not taking a religious stand against the state corrupting Judaism, I’m not exactly sure why someone would not want Jews to be able to have their own state.
Someone recently asked me if I “believe that there should be an ethno-state”, which is an interesting question for about three seconds. But as soon as you think about the fact that Israel is surrounded by massive ethno-states, and that most countries are ethno-states, outside of maybe the United States and Canada, it sounds silly. Why would any group of people be allowed to form a nation and protect themselves? If Jews can’t do it, then nobody should be allowed to.
Even worse, why deny it to the people who need it the most? Even from a leftist, social justice viewpoint, the people who have had the most oppression over the past two thousand plus years should at least get a hearing.
But for some reason, people feel totally comfortable saying that Jews shouldn’t be allowed to have a state. It’s as if there aren’t billions of people today living in states formed to protect groups of people who have shared ethnicities, cultures, and religions.
So unless you’re an incredibly pious Jew, don’t point to them as “on your side” if you’re against Zionism. You’ll have to find another rationale for why you don’t want Jews to have a place of their own, regardless of where that is.