Zionism as a problem

The dominant form of political Zionism was, and is, about establishing a Jewish state for all the world’s Jews.

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The column I wrote in Aftenposten (12 April), “Why I am anti-Zionist”, has led to three replies. It is both interesting and disturbing that none of the three answers relate to Zionism as a real historical phenomenon.

It is not possible to get away from the fact that the dominant form of political Zionism was, and is, about establishing a Jewish state for all the Jews of the world.

It would have been nice if this project could be realized by “a people without a country getting a country without a people”. But it was impossible. Because the supposedly depopulated land – Palestine – was not without people.

Doesn’t change the fact

Hundreds of thousands of people lived there. So the project could only be realized by emptying the land of (the majority of) the native population. That an important part of the background for the rise of Zionism was pogroms pogromsOrganized violent attack on an ethnic or religious minority, especially used of the persecution of Jews. Source: ordbøkene.no and anti-Semitism in Europe, does not change this fact. Nor can it justify it.

Both Vebjørn Selbekk and Jan Benj. Rødner ignores the topic, while Haakon Riekeles believes this presentation is distorted to the point of demonizing. That Riekeles’ knowledge is so modest that he does not know what the case is about is his problem.

But not his alone. Many imagine that the starting point was different. But neither Riekeles, Selbekk, Rødner nor other friends of Israel are able to explain how the Zionist project – a Jewish state for Jews – could be realized at all without it happening at the expense of the Palestinians.

The attitudes still exist

If they acknowledge that this was the case, the Palestinians had to pay the price for the Jews to have their own state, they have at the same time adopted a racist position. Simply because they thereby say that Jews have greater right than the native Palestinian population of the territory where the Palestinians have centuries-old roots.

Without considering this “original sin” it is not possible to understand the conflict and the war. The Palestinian resistance becomes only the protest of “wild natives” against a superior culture and civilization, driven by religious fanaticism and anti-Semitism.

But who today dares to take such a view of the resistance of the colonized in Africa and Asia in the last century? The war against the Palestinians shows that discriminatory attitudes towards natives still exist.

Clear criticism over many years

Then there have been objections to the fact that I have not mentioned a number of other aspects of the colonization of Palestine and the conflict. But there are some limitations in Aftenposten’s column length. That said, there is much to criticize Israel’s opponents for, including Palestinian parties and groups and Israel’s neighboring countries. And my criticism has been clear over many years.

It is therefore an expression of a lack of knowledge when Rødner and Riekeles think I am selective in my criticism of Israel and let others get away with abuse and oppression which is worse. For my humanistic starting point, all people have a right to respect for their human dignity and their basic rights. So I have criticized and condemned Hamas, Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, the Syrian regime, Iran and so on.

I already characterized Hamas as Islamofascist in my book «Islam and the modern» (2006), and the condemnation of Hamas’ terrorist attack on 7 October is repeated on my Facebook page and in an article in Klassekampen, and is on BDS Norway’s Facebook page.

But there are limits to where and when I shall give an account of the countless posts, written and spoken, where the criticism of groups and regimes in the Muslim world has been made.

Derails the debate

In short, Rødner’s and Riekeles’ approach is to talk about something other than Zionism as a phenomenon and problem. They deliver a classic “whataboutism”. Indirectly, Selbekk does the same when he highlights Israel’s excellence compared to the lack of democracy and human rights in the region.

Much could be said about the perceptual shift that blinds them to Israel’s fundamentally unacceptable character as an inevitable apartheid project.

However, it is not unique. Until Israel’s New Historians presented irrefutable evidence based on Zionist/Israeli documents that ethnic cleansing was discussed early on, and that this is what happened in 1948, many believed it was a “voluntary” flight from war.

To draw in the migration of Arab Jews from Israel’s neighboring countries is therefore a derailment. This migration had several causes, including abuse and oppression in the Arab countries, but also systematic influence from Israeli-Zionist agents who worked for an influx to Israel, which the country badly needed.

This process, including the elements of abuse, is nevertheless something different from the massacres and rapes that were perpetrated against the Palestinians to force them to flee from farm and land, house and home.

In other words: If it is Zionism that is to be discussed, it would be an advantage if it is precisely Zionism – possibly in different versions – that is being discussed. Not a number of other phenomena and problems in the Middle East or elsewhere.