Dave Kersting: Racism inherent in 'Jewish State.' Equality should not be negotiable

Rabbi Joel Timmerman writes:

There are several millions of Jews living in the United States. The bulk of us are Reformed Jews. A much smaller percentage of American Jews are Zionists. These miserable, vicious and ideological creatures have nothing to do with the great majority of American Jews.

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Dave Kersting comments:

Rabbi Timmerman's letter is refreshing. His distinct separation of "Zionists" from "the great majority of American Jews" serves to help Jews distance themselves from Zionism, as its inevitable realities keep showing themselves and stabbing our consciences.

But let's be clear: Who is Rabbi Timmerman referring to, in his contempt for "Zionists"? A "Zionist," by the universal, dictionary, and idiomatic definition, is any person, whether "Jewish" or not, who calls for a preferentially "Jewish" state in Palestine.

In other words, those who ask for a "two-state" solution (as anything more than an extremely regrettable interim measure) are Zionists. Their call for continued ethnic prejudice, forced perpetuation of ethnic-cleansing, and apartheid, thoroughly fits the definitions of "Zionism" and "violent racism."

It is perhaps THE bizarre political fluke of our era that such classic racists, in our time and place, have been able to pose as "progressives" and "peace activists" - and so to eviscerate genuine, equality-based peace efforts. Racism is very easy to define, and no amount of wishful subjectivity can distinguish a "soft" form of racism from the "bad" kind.

We must acknowledge that many "peace" organizations are deeply embedded with "two-state" Zionists; these people are certainly among the intended targets of Timmerman's scorn.

Let us also note that these "peace" Zionists, in trying to preserve the dream of a "Jewish" state in Palestine, have very actively - with obscenities, personal aspersions, threats, and violence when necessary - deleted the anti-racist arguments from the anti-war movement, thus eliminating our one morally decisive talking-point. Unfortunately, many real peace activists have trusted people who seem like pacifists and talk like pacifists, though they are demonstrably soft on Zionist racism, as they make Zionism SEEM feasible, in "soft" two-state form.

The major "anti-war" organizations, such as A.N.S.W.E.R. and United for Peace, have have also shown morally fatal compromise with racist violence, in their systematic downplay of the Zionist ethnic-cleansing at the root and core of US-Israeli provocation and Middle East destabilization. Nearly all the old-school "anti-war" leadership groups have either been dominated by Zionists, or have made the explicitly racist error of silencing any anti-racist position, which might "alienate" the Zionists and thus "divide the movement."

That Zionist or Zionist-friendly approach has succeeded in blocking the one argument that has most appeal to ordinary Americans and ordinary progressives alike - so it has subverted the "anti-war" movement, guaranteed its failure, and (unwittingly or otherwise) fit perfectly into the hopes and plans of the most overtly hawkish Zionists.

In recent months, many carefully written efforts to articulate this problem have merely drawn it farther into the light, as every response against such efforts, by local "peace and justice" groups, has consisted of nothing but irrational and personal attacks, without a trace of specific argument or logic: certainly not the behavior of real peace activists - yet exactly what one expects from proponents of violent racism, whether intentional or "just" stubbornly unwitting. Please note that Rabbi Timmerman's opinion of Zionists applies explicitly to such people.

No, there is no circumstance in which we may withhold our objections to violent state-racism, even for a moment. No strategy is so brilliant, in its promise of peace, as to justify a single act of ethnic violence, for the sake of "strategy" or "realism." We were all supposed to know that.

As hundreds of thousands of people are increasingly drawn into opposition against the seemingly unstoppable Middle East horror, they must be told that the anti-war movement has so far been prevented from playing its strongest cards. That is the deepest influence of Zionism into our society; and (non-violently) ejecting the Zionists from the anti-war movement is the foremost front of real anti-war and anti-racist efforts.

Every person in the "peace movement" who refuses to protest the US-Israeli measures which prevent the displaced Palestinian families from returning to what's left of their homes is - beyond denial - a "Zionist." The "anti-war" movement's narrow emphasis on oil companies has presented a standard image of "peace activism," while preserving the "dream" of "Jewish" supremacy in Palestine, by diverting attention from Israel's blazing atrocities, at the root of Middle East provocation.

The crucial distinction is not between two distinct groups: "Zionists" and "the great majority of American Jews." The real distinction more often pertains to an inner, identity-conflict. Many people who truly believe in ethnic equality have been seduced into Zionism - into calling for a "Jewish" state in Palestine - as if it COULD be peaceful: and their minds shut down when the conflict between equality and "a Jewish state" is proposed to them. But when people, including Jews, face up to that conflict, and must choose a side, very few of them can let go of equality. In that sense, equality, or "anti-Zionism," is certainly a majority Jewish view.

These days we see the results of trying to accommodate "soft" racism. It is time to drop the calls for "two-state" racism, and start liberating Americans, including American Jews, from Zionism.

When the people change, the "anti-war" leaders - and the corporations - follow.

Dave Kersting


"I really can't believe that something like this can happen in the
world without a bigger outcry about it."

Rachel Corrie,
February 27, 2003