Way back in October 2001, a prominent and widely respected liberal London rabbi, Dr. David Goldberg, made what I thought at the time was the most remarkable statement ever made by a Jew in the 53 years that had passed since the creation, mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing, of the Zionist (not Jewish) state of Israel. He said that Israel’s “colonization” of Palestine had left many Jews “questioning their unconditional support for Israel.” Then this: “It may be time for Judaism and Zionism to go their separate ways.”
The report I read of Goldberg’s remarks was by Andrew Johnson in The Independent On Sunday. Its headline for his story was BRITISH JEWS AT ODDS AFTER RABBI CRITICISES ISRAEL’S “COLONIZATION”. As the report indicated, what Goldberg said had provoked a “passionate argument” in the pages of the Jewish Chronicle, editorially a standard bearer for Israel right or wrong,
I once had the pleasure of talking with Rabbi Goldberg over lunch, just the two of us. From my research I knew that he was what I like to call a GHB (Good Human Being) and a man worthy of respect. He was, for example, the first prominent Jew in the UK to call for recognition of legitimate Palestine rights – he did so in an article for The Times in 1978; and he was the first rabbi to initiate dialogue meetings between Judaism, Christianity and Islam when the Regent’s Park mosque opened in the same year. But what I liked about him most of all was the quite rare thing he had in common with my dear friend Ilan Pappe. He was without a trace of the self-righteousness that is the hallmark of Jews everywhere who have been brainwashed by Zionist propaganda.
He is also a thought provoking author. His books include The Jewish People, Their History and Their Religion, The Divided Self: Israel and the Jewish Psyche, and, in 2012, This (Zionism in action) Is Not the Way.
In his review and endorsement of the latter, Avi Shlaim, a leading Jewish “revisionist” meaning honest historian, wrote this. “In the aftermath of its victory in the June 1967 War, Israel lost its moral compass. Many diaspora Jews suffer from selective moral vision about Israel. Rabbi David Goldberg is an admirable exception. He places Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians under an uncompromising lens. After the critique comes an eloquent plea for ethical Zionism – Zionism grounded in Jewish values.”
Ethical Zionism? With due respect to Rabbi Goldberg (and Avi Shlaim), the Gentile me believes there could never be such a thing. From the beginning Zionism’s engine drivers knew their assertion that Palestine was “a land without people for a people with land” was propaganda nonsense, a Grand Deception. So I think it can be said without fear of contradiction that Zionism, founded in the knowledge that it would have to resort to ethnic cleansing to achieve its goal, never had a moral compass.
I think it can also be speculated that the discovery of a moral compass by a significant majority of Israeli Jews would mean the de-Zionization of Palestine that became Israel and thus the end of Zionism. Why? Proof that a moral compass had been discovered would include as Item Number One an acknowledgement of the wrong done to the Palestinians by Zionism and acceptance of the need to right the wrong. Zionism is never, ever, going to put itself out of business.
But even if Rabbi Goldberg did allow himself to entertain some wishful thinking about the possibility of Zionism becoming grounded in Jewish values (I presume he meant progressive, reformist, modern Jewish values), that would not detract from the significance of his very courageous and most profound statement – that it may be time for Judaism and Zionism to go their separate ways.
2001 was clearly not the time and 13 years on a provocative question seems to the Gentile me to be in order.
Why should Judaism unshackle itself from Zionism?
One part of the short answer is that the credibility of Judaism is being undermined by Zionism’s contempt for its moral values and ethical principles, In that sense there’s a case for saying that Zionism is a threat to survival of Judaism. (The detailed case was made by Auschwitz survivor Hajo G. Meyer, an anti-Zionist Dutch national of German-Jewish origin, in his 2007 book An Ethical Tradition Betrayed, The End of Judaism).
Also to be noted in the context of the paragraph above is that Zionism’s founders were secular. Their only interest in Judaism was using its idea of God as an estate agent.
The other part of the short answer is signalled by the title of my book – Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews.
Today the message of that title is being underlined by a rising, global tide of anti-Israelism. Contrary to what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and those of the neo-fascist tendency to the extreme right of him assert, this rising tide is NOT, generally speaking, a manifestation of anti-Semitism (meaning prejudice against and a loathing of all Jews everywhere just because they are Jews). It is a manifestation of concern and anger provoked by the Zionist (not Jewish) state’s arrogance of power and insufferable self-righteousness. And it is happening because more and more people of all faiths and none, including a still smallish but growing number of Jews, are beginning to see Israel for what it really is – the oppressor and not the victim.
The danger for the Jews of the world is that anti-Israelism could be transformed into anti-Semitism, setting the stage for Holocaust II, my shorthand for another great turning against Jews everywhere, and starting quite possibly in America. A warning of this danger was issued by Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s longest serving Director of Military Intelligence, in his 1988 book Israel’s Fateful Hour. He wrote:
Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots. Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism.
It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world.
Harkabi also had a message for Jews throughout the world.
They must dare to speak their minds candidly, without being afraid to disagree with Israel. The reticence of the American Jewish leadership is not to their credit. Instead of publicly expressing their concern they act as apologists for policies and conduct of which many of them privately disapprove, abdicating their responsibilities as leaders in America and as influential advisers in Israel. Muteness is not neutrality but an endorsement of current Likud policies.
If Harkabi was alive today I would suggest to him that in an updated text “Likud policies” should be replaced by “the policies of the neo-fascist right and the racist religious zealots”.
Peter Beinart recently noted that “The reality of the growth of racism and religious extremism in Israel has been largely ignored by those groups in the U.S. such as AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which devote so much time, energy and resources to promoting what they perceive, often mistakenly, to be Israel’s interests.”
As Harkabi explained in a chapter titled Nationalistic Judaism, religion in Israel was marginal and did not attempt to influence or guide Zionist policy until after the I967 war. Because of their mistaken belief (the product of one of Zionism’s biggest propaganda lies) that Israel’s existence was in danger on the eve of that war, very many religious Jews were inspired to interpret victory as “a manifestation of God’s intervention”; and to conclude that “the conquest of parts of the historic land of Israel cast a brilliant light on the Zionist enterprise.”
What Harkabi described as this awakening of a nationalistic Judaism was a slow and evolving process which has led to what he called “national religious extremism” demanding and getting a leading role in Zionist policy making.
Harkabi concluded his chapter on nationalistic Judaism with a statement about the need “to avert a crisis in Judaism” and “alleviate the blow to the Jewish religion when the political position of annexation of Judea and Samaria supported by religion comes to grief.”
The latest expression of despair about the reticence of American Jews to speak their minds was that of Allan C Brownfield in an article for Issues, the journal of the American Council for Judaism, of which he is editor. Under the headline ON THE GROWTH OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM IN ISRAEL: A CHALLENGE TO ITS AMERICAN FRIENDS, he wrote:
“In a thoughtful new study guide issued by the Israel/Palestine Mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a question is asked which few have thus far been willing to pose: ‘Given the liberal values shared by many American Jews and the long, proud tradition of Jewish participation in the struggle for human rights worldwide, why has there been so little outrage expressed at Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians in the decades since Israel’s founding?‘”
Brownfield then quoted the answer to that question given by Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist and New York Times columnist. “The truth is that like many liberal American Jews – and most American Jews are still liberal – I basically avoid thinking about where Israel is going.” Krugman’s explanation of why was “the high price for speaking out” which is “to bring yourself under intense attack from organized groups that try to make any criticism of Israel’s policies tantamount to anti-Semitism.”
Fear of being condemned and reviled by Zionism’s verbal hit-men and possibly ostracized is undoubtedly one reason for the silence of the majority of American and European Jews.
Another is that arguments about Israel and its policies can and do tear Jewish families apart, separating parents from children, husbands from wives and brothers from sisters.
Another is ignorance of what Zionism has done and is still doing in Palestine that became Israel. For very many American and European Jews, Zionism means nothing more than Jews from anywhere exercising their right to return to their God given, ancestral homeland. (For this article I’ll leave aside the fact that Israel/Palestine is not the ancestral homeland of most Jews of the world today). In other words, most American and European Jews have no idea that Zionism is an ethnic cleansing process in action.
Then there is what I believe to be the main reason for the silence of most Jews. Deep down, perhaps only in their sub-consciousness, they believe, because of their history and Zionist conditioning, that Holocaust II is a real possibility. In that light they see Israel as their refuge of last resort, their insurance policy. So, they tell themselves, do nothing and say nothing that could assist Israel’s enemies and put that insurance policy at risk.
The irony, perhaps the most tragic irony in all of human history to date, is in the fact (perhaps I should say probability) that if they continue to support Israel unconditionally and continue to be silent on Israel’s policies of oppression, the Jews of the world, in America and Europe especially, will lay themselves open at some point to a charge of COMPLICITY IN ZIONISM’S CRIMES. And that would greatly assist the transformation of anti-Israelism into anti-Semitism… This is the essence of the case for saying that the Jews of the world have a vested SELF-INTEREST in distancing themselves from the Zionist monster.
Question: Will they ever do so in big enough numbers to cause Judaism and Zionism to go their separate ways?
If reason based on the facts as they actually are in Israel/Palestine was allowed to prevail, the combination of self-interest and moral necessity ought to be enough to guarantee a “Yes” answer. But could it be that it’s already too late because most Jews of the world, conditioned by their history and Zionist propaganda, are and will remain beyond reason on the matter of justice for the Palestinians?
I don’t pretend to know the answer to this question. I am only asking it.
Footnote
Under the headline Eradicating Israel, Gideon Levy’s latest article in Ha-aretz ought to be required reading for all Jews everywhere. It includes this:
“With the exception of a few anti-Semitic players, marginal and deluded, no one thinks about it (eradicating Israel). It is only we Israelis who cling to the concept: Caution, annihilation ahead… A highly armed regional power, with nearly every kind of weapon at its disposal, economically and scientifically advanced, recognized by most of the countries in the world, a member of nearly every important international organization and with global influence that far outstrips its size, an ally of the world’s sole superpower, claims that its existence is under threat. That’s bullshit.”
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Historically, Zionism is more closure to Nazism than true message of Torah. Both Zionism and Zionism are based on the superiority of their race and culture. Both survived on the mass propaganda of their lies and military power.
A great majority of Jews still support Jewish rights over Jerusalem, Judea and Samara. Some of Jews who do criticize the Zionist regime, don't meant to be against Israel but its occupation more Arab lands after the 1967 war.
I don't think the Israeli rulers give a damn what the American Jews think about Israel, as long as pro-Israel lobby groups have control over the Congress, Senate and the White House - and I think these powerful institutions are divorcing Israel in the near future.
On January 27, 2014, Israel National News reported the discovery of an important document which proves that several Jewish organizations in British mandated Palestine collaborated with the German Nazis.
“The Kfar Etzion Field School conducted a study into the acquisition of the land from the ‘El Hahar” real estate company in the 1930’s. To their amazement they uncovered a letter of S. Glazer, one of the company’s representatives, requesting from the Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler permission to sell pieces of land to German Jews, and then approve their immigration to Palestine. In return, Glazer promised to deposit 100,000 pounds in Germany’s account for the purchase of German goods to bring into Palestine,” said the newspaper.
http://rehmat1.com/2014/02/07/hitlers-israeli-jews/
for a better understanding of the first ten chapters of Genesis
for Jews as well as others to read and discover wisdom and
understanding www.idamingle.com and share
Jews of the world have had a vested self-interest in Zionism from the first. Most commentators recognize that Zionism is anti-Diaspora, it is a return to the ghetto only one a grander scale. This call for to create an exclusive ghetto in Palestine does not derive from the bad experience of diaspora (ie. Holocaust) but it present throughout Jewish history. I consider it plain that ghettos were built and sustained by the Jewish people, not the gentiles among whom they lived. At the very least, it is ambiguous who actually built the ghetto walls. One way or another, Jews define themselves by who they are not, by negation. They are adamantly even stridently not gentiles, but something else, the "chosen," distinct and separate. It is only the negation that defines Jewishness (Atzmon). Once it is gone as through assimilation in the US there is nothing left that is distinctly "Jewish" except chicken soup. I accept this as more true than not.
Rather than taking Jews out of the ghetto, Zionism simply at perfecting it. Israel is the result of Jewish racism, the inability to accommodate others AND remain "Jewish." Alan is right that Zionism never had a moral compass. It was an excuse, a rationalization for racism as the basis for the survival of "Jewishness." The Ashkenazi who rule Israel want to attract other Ashkenazi to Israel, not more Ethiopians or Moroccans. They want people JUST LIKE THEMSELVES to come to Israel and worship the State as an end in itself (hmmm....sounds familiar, no?). How can they attract other valuable Ashkenazi as long as there are Arabs around, next door, down the street, these "dirty" Arabs? Obviously, they cannot so the Arabs must go. It's that simple -- plain supremacism resulting in racism resulting in a monolithic and fascist state.
Jews who support Israel are simply idolators worshiping a false god, a temporal deity who kills people, blunders, lies and cheats. This is not the G*d that Yahweh became through Judaism, it is an alien creature, bristling with arms just to say "We're special!"
I've long thought that the practice of state worship in Israel should adopt the name "Zudiasm" so that the rest of us can practice and restore some of the remnants of Judaism after the Zionist fiasco.
I wish to reiterate my main point: Israel is racist not Zionist. The Zionism is just an ideological cover for the gut feeling of so many of my landsmen.
In the paragraph following the heading 'Ethical Zionism?', you quote the Zioinist mantra as "a land without people for people with land". I think there is a mistake here; it should be 'for people without land'.
Another gem. So glad to see that reports of the imminent demise of your site were vastly exaggerated.
And cheer up, chaps. We're already beginning to witness the first timid stirrings of the divorce between Jewishness (as in simply being Jewish, period) and PsychoIsraelism (as in "Israel-right-or-wrong...or else!"). With a bit of luck we may live to see the serving of the (nisi decree)papers.
Keep them coming, Alan.
Refuge children and there Palestine families, now bleeding out. Gives the continuing death testimony of Zionism.
As the scholastics (medieval sages, philosphers) found out: "Ex falso sequitur aliquid."
Put in today's English: If you make something (logically) wrong the basis of your reasoning, thinking, acting then anything you deduce logically from it is right (however preposterous it may be ("materially")!
From antiquity there is the famous example of the "Sophist" "Menon of Pharsalos" (ca. 423 - ca. 400). From Hermann Diels, "Fragmente der Vorsokratiker" I've translated this: "Nothing pre-exists; if there does we cannot perceive it adequately; if we can perceive it adequately we cannot communicate it adequately....." Is there any doubt some place that this basis of Menon is a logically (and materially) wrong basis for one's reasoning, thinking, acting ???
Menon has been reported to mean to "conquer the world" on this basis..... (was he intrigued to try this by "the freedom of deducing" on this wrong basis?) We know that the attempt to live on this basis led him into desaster. What are the details, circumstances that made him betray the generals of his (Greek) army?? ..... Such a behaviour can perhaps logically be correctly deduced from the clearly wrong basis cited????!!!!!......
Do the preposterous data in Franz Kafka's "Der Prozess" point to a logically wrong basis from which the reasoning, thinking, acting in the book starts?
Do the preposterous data in George Orwell's "1984" point to a logically wrong basis from which the reasoning, thinking, acting in the book starts?
A text that states that "all texts are invalid" is clearly invalid, wrong, does clearly make itself logically inconsistent!
An oath that says that "all oaths are invalid" is clearly invalid, wrong, does clearly make itself logically inconsistent!
Is this "the way out of the fly-glass" that Ludwig Wittgenstein says is the aim of his philosophizing (logische untersuchungen, No. 309)?
another excellent article by a wise GHB.
An obvious but rarely mentioned point about Israel is that it clearly- unless, perhaps, and even then,the Zionist State takes over all Greater Israel from the Med to the Euphrates (!!)-is simply far too small to accommodate all the world's Jews. That is, in any case, supposing that the more sensible Jews in the rest of the world really wanted to go there,and had the means to immigrate and prosper in a country which would become a total fortress-state.A militarised nation to an anti-human extent.
I find it hard to see how more Israelis cannot see the current situation as inexorably leading to a suffocating, truly totalitarian regime, worthy of the odium of people around the world who detest all forms of fascism, militaristic, clerico/religious or more crudely political. Orthodox Jews, I understand, theoretically accept that the State of Israel is contrary to the torah's teachings.Sadly, the most insane "Zionist" pressure group now is probably the US (etc) "Christian Zionist" lobby, which is nakedly apocalyptic. In a nutshell, the prophetic tradition of Judaism needs to be re-discovered and promoted, not any re-configuration of Zionism.
Yes, my hope for an eventual solution to the plight of the Palestinians has always lain with Jewish people themselves, including many within Israel. Norman Finkelstein has been vociferous for some time now about the extensive change in the attitudes of younger Jewish Americans.
If you consider history, most revolutions, for that's what a solution to this problem would be, involve some help from the established side, as it were, and I'm becoming more optimistic. Thanks for the encouraging article, Alan; I can only echo Dodo's compliments.
By the way, David Goldberg taught me at Salford Grammar School fifty-odd years ago. A very thoughtful character he was then, too and a great influence on many of my friends. It's so good to see him being one of the modern Jews who have a liberal attitude to the matter and are not afraid to voice it.
[…] AlanHart.net, 2/17/14 – Way back in October 2001, a prominent and widely respected liberal London rabbi, Dr. David Goldberg, made what I thought at the time was the most remarkable statement ever made by a Jew in the 53 years that had passed since the creation, mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing, of the Zionist (not Jewish) state of Israel. He said that Israel’s “colonization” of Palestine had left many Jews “questioning their unconditional support for Israel.” Then this: “It may be time for Judaism and Zionism to go their separate ways.” […]
[…] 18 February, 2014 Alanhart.net […]
Who know the basic principles of judaism know that can't have separation of judaism and sionism. The "torah" confirm the supremacy of jews over others peoples, confirmed by the "talmud". The core of judaism is the sionism.
Why are you surprised that such a divorce is in the making? Indeed why do you miss that it seems (unless I am misinformed) already to have been made and that long ago? Have you not noticed that many Orthodox Jewish groups have been utterly opposed to Zionism since its very outset.
I can recommend a website, that of Neturei Karta nkusa.org one among a few I know of, and there are others
They argue passionately that as the Zionist State was founded by men it was not founded by God and is therefore a counterfeit.
they hold that there will be a zionist state but only after the Messiah as come and that man has no business running ahead of God's timetable to produce a counterfeit work which has committed crimes, desecrates Jewish grave sites (among other things) and is secular
They also insist that they are the majority position as regards religious Jews. I do not know if this is true but if it is that changes the complexion of things immensely.
I myself oppose the Zionist state for its violations of the Law of Moses whereby they harass non jews within their borders in violation of the Law of Moses.
Take a look at nkusa.org 's site
I do not believe I have made anything up. I may be misled but am not an inventor of error here
This week, the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York banned a scheduled appearance by The New Republic’s Jewish senior editor John B. Judis who in his latest book, ‘Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the origin of the Arab/Israeli Conflict‘ has refuted several of Zionist lies about Harry Truman. Judis is also a “visiting scholar” at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Jewish group lobbying for Israel.
The book challenges the Zionist narrative about President Truman’s recognition of Israel in 1948, showing him as a hard-nosed politician trailing in the polls in May of an election year, and being heavily lobbied by American Zionists who then helped ensure his re-election.
http://rehmat1.com/2014/02/22/jewish-museum-bans-truman-israel-discussion/
as an example of my point, here is a press release from Neturei Karta Jews United Against Israel
27 January 2014
Holocaust Conference, Auschwitz
Anti-Zionist Rabbis Call Israeli Ceremony at Auschwitz an Affront to the Memory of the Victims
January 28, 2014 – Berlin
Orthodox Rabbis, holocaust survivors and descendents of survivors, held a press conference in Berlin yesterday in response to a memorial ceremony, held at Auschwitz by 69 Israeli politicians, who warned of rising anti-Semitism in Europe.
The Rabbis found it repugnant that the State of Israel, whose founders refused to rescue Jews while the Holocaust was happening, should be commemorating the Holocaust.
"We survived by hiding in a bunker in Budapest during the Holocaust," said Rabbi Moshe Dov Beck, 79. "It is well known that the Zionist policy during the Holocaust was that only Jewish bloodshed on a massive scale could help them achieve their state after the war, as a gift from the guilt ridden and sympathetic victors. They provoked anti-Semitism and sabotaged rescue efforts, all for their political goal."
"As for today's anti-Semitism, the Israelis complaining is duplicitous, because the existence of the Israeli State and it's atrocities is largely the cause. And of course it is obvious, that they reap the benefits – more world anti-Semitism, more Jews immigrate to their state", said Rabbi Dovid Feldman.
"The Zionists want the world to believe that they represent world Jewry and Judaism, that is false," said Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss. "They accuse everyone who criticizes their vile actions of anti-Semitism, that is also a lie. Unfortunately there are those who hate all Jews because they consider Judaism and Zionism one and the same. Thus Zionists bring danger upon Jews and then they present themselves as the saviors of the Jewish people."
"The Torah teaches that Jews are in exile by a Divine decree. Jews are required to respect the nations amongst whom they live. The Torah forbids Jews to have their own state. Jews accept the Almighty's decree and wait patiently for His redemption, without any human intervention. It goes without saying that Jews are forbidden to steal land, kill or expel anyone. Precisely because we experienced the Holocaust, we must learn tolerance and respect for others - not use our suffering as an excuse to oppress others."
"Subsequently, this Zionist ceremony is nothing less than a brutal affront to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust."
Dr. Norman Finkelstein was recently interviewed by Israeli journalist Jamie Stern-Weiner in which Finkelstein claimed that if Mahmoud Abbas accepts John Kerry’s plan, it would be the end of Palestine.
http://rehmat1.com/2014/02/26/norman-finkelstein-the-end-of-palestine/
Why do we need a jew to tell us its wrong?