Zionism, anti-Semitism and colonialism

More on  "anti semtiism" and colonialism. from the 'other' side . Worth a read and  a rethink about the  history and reality behind the terms.


Ever since the inception of the Zionist movement, Zionist thinkers presented their national colonial project as a response to anti-Semitism. Whereas Zionists saw anti-Semitism as a symptom, if not a diagnosis, of the Jewish Question, they offered Zionism as the final cure that would eradicate anti-Semitism in Europe once and for all. 

That Arthur Balfour was a well-known Protestant anti-Semite who in 1905 sponsored a bill (The Aliens Act) to prevent East European Jews fleeing pogroms from immigrating to England was not incidental to the fact that the Zionists rushed to court him, let alone to his own support of the Zionist project through the "Balfour Declaration", which would reroute Jews away from England. 

When the Nazis took over power in Germany, the Zionists, sharing Herzl's understanding that anti-Semitism is the ally of Zionism, were the only Jewish group who would collaborate with them. In fact, contra all other German Jews (and everyone else inside and outside Germany) who recognised Nazism as the Jews' bitterest enemy, Zionism saw an opportunity to strengthen its colonisation of Palestine. 

In 1933, Labour Zionism signed the Transfer "Ha'avara" Agreement with the Nazis, breaking the international boycott against the regime: Nazi Germany would compensate German Jews who emigrate to Palestine for their lost property by exporting German goods to the Zionists in the country thus breaking the boycott. Between 1933 and 1939, 60 percent of all capital invested in Jewish Palestine came from German Jewish money through the Transfer Agreement. Thus, Nazism was a boon to Zionism throughout the 1930s. 

In light of the new post-war period that saw the end of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, the Zionists set out to attack Jews in a number of countries and to conjure up the spectre of anti-Semitism in countries that opposed Zionism. In Iraq, the Israeli Mossad planted bombs in synagogues, libraries and cafes in the early 1950s, which killed and injured Iraqi Jews and spread panic amongst them that Iraqi Muslims and Christians were targeting them. Collaboration ensued between Israel and the British-sponsored Iraqi regime to bring about the exodus of Iraqi Jews to Israel. 

When Egyptian Jews still refused to go to Israel, the Mossad again placed bombs in Egyptian cinemas, train stations and post offices. When the Egyptian authorities uncovered the terrorist operation, later made famous under the name the "Lavon Affair", and its Jewish perpetrators were captured and tried, Israel launched a major propaganda campaign claiming that Nasser was "Hitler on the Nile". 

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Herzl's strategy continues to be the strategy of Zionism and the State of Israel. Whereas state-sponsored anti-Semitism has disappeared, Israel must create it and conjure it up, as this is its major line of defence against any and all international criticisms and censure of its ongoing colonisation of Palestine. 

While the four permanent members of the UN Security Council censured Israel last week for its plans to expand yet again its colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the US will surely veto a possible UN Security Council resolution condemning these colonial activities. Should this happen, we will immediately hear the Israeli and pro-Israeli chorus of condemnation of the international body as "anti-Semitic" yet again. 

That this strategy has now run its course and no longer intimidates international actors has led to much panic in Zionist and Israeli circles. Israel and Zionism now understand well that when the world, including the United States (excepting Barack Obama), hears "anti-Semitism" as an argument to defend Israel, they understand it as an Israeli diversionary tactic to distract the world from Israeli Jewish colonialism and colonial-settlements on Palestinian land. 

Make no mistake about it, anti-Semitism in Israeli discourse is and has been nothing short of camouflage for the continuation of Jewish colonisation of Palestine. Only the gullible continue to be fooled. 

Joseph Massad is author of The Persistence of the Palestinian Question published by Routledge.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/201212249122912381.html