So, is Zionism = racism?

Great Debates
21

The actual document in question. The Zionism crap seems to be around page 22. The reparations crap seems to be around page 31 (but that’s another debate)
http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/(Symbol)/A.conf.189.4.En/$file/G0115581.pdf?OpenElement
(Link may need to have a space or %20 removed from it to work)

Personally, I think it’s the natural outcome of a process that allows blocks of thug states to outvote democratic countries, based solely on the number of states on each side. It’s all crap (Sturgeaon’s Law is a vast understatement when it comes to UN pronouncements).

22

If this is a reference to the Great “The Jews Are Really All Khazars” Theory, you should be aware that this is a load of racist garbage which is usually indulged in by the same people who believe that blacks were cursed by God to be slaves because they are the descendants of Ham, or who go on about “Adamites” vs. “mud people”. In other words, a fine example of how often the slope from opposition to Zionism to outright anti-Semitism seems distressingly well-greased.

23

Agreed. All we have to do is look at who is on the UN’s commission on human rights (or whatever it’s called) and who threw the U.S. off of that same commission.

It’s the wolf guarding the henhouse.

24

Yet another point to make. Anti-Semitism is defined as hatred against Jewish people. I know that is not what it lexicographally means – Semites = descendants of Shem = Christians, Muslims, Jews. Anti-Semitism was coined in Germany in the 19th century by a Jew hater as a replacement for the word judenhass, IIRC. Note that the Arab nations are now ardently trying to redefine it as to assert that Israel is the “anti-Semitic” state. Their theory is that Arabs are Semites while Jews (at least the Ashkenazi who form a majority of Judaism in Israel) are not semitic.

25

To those interested, I recommend reading the chapter “Anti-Zionist Antisemitism” in Why The Jews? The Reason for Antisemtism by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin. (The book is good for info on other types of antisemtism as well).

On page 174, they write:

By the way, it is refreshing to see the tone of this discussion. As an Israeli, it is difficult to watch the news and see how so many “enlightened” organizations can be against us. But I can see that when it comes to those dedicated to fighting ignorance, there are less lies and hate in the air.

26

I see you haven’t visited the BBQ Pit yet.

:smiley:

27

While there’s nothing new about Arab nations using the U.N. to hurl vitriol at Israel, it’s unfortunate that Secretary General Kofi Annan has also jumped on the bandwagon. Annan’s ludicrously one-sided critique of Israel as the conference got underway might just as well have been scripted by the Arab League.

What’s gotten less attention than the issues of dumping on Israel and reparations, is the continued focus by conference organizers on how governments can “help” the news media to combat racism. Proposals to be discussed at the racism conference were to include official guidelines for news organizations on how to handle race-related stories. The overt goal is to make the news media partners in fighting “hate speech” rather than independent reporters of the news. Restrictions on Internet sites are part of the game plan.

But that bad ol’ USA with its outmoded concepts of press freedom would probably have gotten in the way of these reforms too.

28

Thank god. In Germany “hate speech” was illegal in the 1940s. If you hated the Nazi’s you weren’t allowed to speak about it. I hope you were being sarcastic, because this post scared the crap out of me.
[newspeak]attempted self-actualization doubleplusgood. actual self-actualization doubleplusungood.[/newspeak]

Actually if you want to see what you can do to human rights JUST by limiting the language that is allowed to be used, read 1984.

Erek

29

Time to leap to the defence of the UN. This is all straying away from the OP, but I couldn’t let such comments as these below pass by without comment.

Probably because they had insufficient support. I don’t see more than a few US soldiers on peacekeeping missions right now. We’ve recently been through this on another thread. The US and its citizens are in no position to be complaining about the UN’s effectiveness when the US doesn’t contribute soldiers to peace-keeping and owes over $2 billion in overdue fees.

Give me an example of that. Like who exactly? Lots of countries contribute to the UN in various ways, regardless of whether the US pays its dues or doesn’t contribute peacekeepers. Australia and New Zealand in East Timor is a great example.

“If proper support” means a failure of funding because the US won’t pay its dues, then that’s not the UN’s fault.

Actually a lot gets done. Go visit the UN website and have a look.

Yes, the failings of the US diplomatic corp should not be placed with the diplomatic corp, but with the UN.

After flubbing the 1993 Vienna Human Rights Conference, the US diplomatic corp shows its true worth by allowing the US to get kicked off the UNHRC.

But of course, this is the UN’s fault.

About the same amount of time the US hasn’t paid its dues.

OK, lets dismantle everything but WHO and UNICEF. So much for international meteological efforts. So much for keeping the peace in Cyprus and East Timor. So much for the International Atomic Energy Agency. Oh, so the US wants to take over these chores? Yeah, right.

Go and read this:

http://www.un.org/geninfo/ir/ch6/ch6.htm

30

“Kicked off”?

I don’t keep up on the UN but the way I remember hearing it was that we failed to win an election for the Human Rights Commission. The seat we had always held was instead won by Sweden or Sudan ( not poor memory, I heard both and didn’t get around to investigating the discrepancy ). I understood that our NATO allies must have voted for someone else without letting us know. I also had the impression that this had something to do with dissatisfaction with our failure to agree to an anti-torture treaty ( which our prison system wouldn’t comply with ) and our reluctance to forgo landmines.

What gives?

Just my 2sense

31

Like I said, the UN is ineffective if the US doesn’t bail them out. Let’s dissolve them.

Give me an example of that. Like who exactly? Lots of countries contribute to the UN in various ways, regardless of whether the US pays its dues or doesn’t contribute peacekeepers. Australia and New Zealand in East Timor is a great example.**
[/quote]

Sierra Leone would be a good example.

**

That’s not the United States problem. As I said, if it were worth keeping it would be able to survive without the United States as a member. Not to mention the US historically paid far and beyond any other country.

**

Yeah it’s amazing the bloated bureaucracy could afford a website without that 2 billion.

**

Please reread what you responded to. In otherwords

**

As I said, if the UN is crippled without the US then it is an useless organization. Either the US should run it, or it should be effective without the US. Give the US 25% of the power in the UN and then maybe the US should keep going. That would be a nightmare scenario so the UN should be dissolved except as a charity organization.
Erek

32

In most cases, whether the UN works or not is less important than the externalities that yield from increased international cooperation. Here I am not talking about military intervention, but NGO pseudo-charitable organizations aimed to solve international social and human rights problems. The very fact that countries are joining forces to combat them is in some ways more useful than the relatively minimal amount of alleviation these organizations can provide. Mutual interdependence, greater trade opportunities, strategic stability, etc are all precipitated by small-scale cooperation.

The flipside is that increased contact increases the chance of conflict, especially with long-time trading partners with whom we already have close relations. Thems the breaks.

I would not blame the organization so roundly as the individuals responsible for the UN’s recent foibles. Its interests and spheres of activity are far too wide and deep for that. UNICEF and the WHO are merely the tip of the iceberg.

MR

33

Once upon a time, long long ago, MEBruckner’s distinction was a valid one – Zionism was the movement for the creation of an independent state as a Jewish homeland, and was a distinct political movement.

However, today, there is effectively no difference between Zionism and Judaism. Yes, I will grant you, there are perhaps 100 or so radical lunatic fringe Jews who call themselves anti-Zionist, but these are the nut cases.

Arab propaganda uses the word “Zionist” because if they came out and said “Jewish”, the mask would be torn from their carefully concealed agenda of destroying Israel and the Jewish people.

Sometimes they use the term “Zionist” to mean any Jews who arrived in Israel after 1948, and they talk about how they are willing to allow a Jewish homeland (for Jews who were in Israel before 1948) but not a Zionist homeland (for Jews who arrived after 1948.)

The wording on the afore-mentioned declaration deliberately singles out one country (Israel) as the arch-example of racism. How would the French have reacted if the declaration condemned “racism, anti-semitism, and France”? Or “racism, anti-semitism, and Japan”? But they tolerate it when “racism, anti-semitism, and Israel” are condemned.

What is appalling to me is that the rest of the world lets the oil-rich racist dictatorship Arab governments get away with this kind of crap.

If you look around the Middle East, at all the Arab/Moslem countries, and ask about human rights, which country has a free press? Only Israel. Which country has a democratically elected government? Only Israel. Which country has equal rights laws that prohibit discrimination based on race, national origin, etc? Only Israel.

Not Syria. Not Jordan. Not Egypt. Not Saudi Arabia. Not Iran. Not Iraq.

This double-speak on the part of the Arab nations is a shame and a blight on efforts at progress in realms of humanitarianism, human rights, and civilization.

Pfaugh.

34

I see that I did not answer the immediate question.

No, Zionism/Judaism is not racist, at least not in the common sense of the word.

Yes, it is true that Judaism is partly a people – as are the Irish, the French, the Italians, the Americans, and the Japanese – with their own traditions and customs. It is possible to become Jewish by conversion, as it is possible to become Irish, French, Italian, American, or Japanese by changing citizenship. If Judaism is racist, then so are all nationalities.

When the Ethiopian Jews were being persecuted, Israel rescued them. No other nation bothered. There are Jews of all races, and all are welcomed as citizens of Israel by nature of being Jewish. This is one of the broadest open-door policies of any country.

So the answer is, no, Judaism/Zionism is not racist. At least, no more than any other nationalism. Like every other nation, Israel is not perfect, but there is no point in singling her out.

There is one other notion that is sometimes mis-interpreted (by anti-semites) as racist, the notion that the Jews are a “chosen people.” This gets distorted all out of context by the virulent racists. The simple meaning of “chosen people” is that Jews were chosen by God to be the recipient of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, and to follow special religious precepts. That’s it. There’s no “superiority” in this concept – to the contrary, it’s a significant burden. And note that anyone, of any skin colour or national origin or gender, can take on that burden by conversion and so join the “chosen people.” If this is racist, then so is the Catholic Church, or any Protestant Church, or the Muslims, or the LDS, or any other religious group who feel that their religious practices were specially ordained by God.

Apparently mswas thinks that all nations and all religious groups are, in fact, all racist. I disagree, I think that blurs what really IS racist. However, even if I grant mswas’s point of view, there is no reason for the declaration to single out ONE such religion or nationality. If the declaration had condemned “racism, anti-semitism, and all religions,” or “racism, anti-semitism, and nationalism,” that would be a different kettle of phish. But to single out Israel is ludicrous.

35

I vehemently disagree with this. There are hundreds of thousands of Jews who are anti-Zionist on religious grounds. Myself being one.

However, the rest of your post is valid.

If you mean “anti-Zionist” to the point of not seeing through to the true contemporary meaning of “anti-Zionist” then yes, there are maybe 100 such people, maybe less. When you see these people showing up at various anti-Semitic function to declare that they are united with these anti-Semites in their opposition to Zionism, it is worthwhile to be aware that these people are not merely the heads of the organizations that they represent - they are the only members. (In particular, the Neturei Karta is very loosely organized, and anyone can claim to be the leader. The vast majority of the members of this group are not in symphathy with the tactics of it’s deluded self-proclaimed leader Moshe Hirsh and his few cronies).

36

Well, in that case I know alot of French North African jewish nutcases.

Your assertion may hold in re the anglophone world of jewry, but I’ve met more than my fair share of non-Zionist jews from this profile. Now to be fair that’s not the same as anti-zionist however I do think the assertion lunatic fringe is overstrong.

Inaccurate and overly broad.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. The Arab world has changed since the 1970s when this could be said to have been broadly true.

There are certianly radicals, some of Islamist background some of old fashioned pan-Arab/Nasserist/Socialist background who use the word with the agenda of destroying the Jewish state (and a minority among them of destroying jews generally0.

My sense as an near fluent Arabic speaker who’s long worked and lived in the Middle East that the usage Zionist is definately an ethnic insult, sometimes used by people who want to attack Israelis but not Jews in general, sometimes by the racist fringe noted above, most often an expression of abusive anger rather like the towel-head comments one sees in re Arabs after some flash point.

In any case, lumping all this together is false. It once was a fairly accurate generalization but the Arab world has changed and its about time some folks took note of that. (At the same time I also note the Arab world has a long way to go in re necessary changes but I rather dislike comments grounded in the 1970s)

True enough, although you’re describing one strain of discourse, one which admittedly has resurfaced with a vengeance since September 2000.

The majority of official discourse, and in general what I see in the press, admits Israel’s existance. There is a disturbing ambiguity in too much discourse in general about where Israel starts and occupied territories ends. I don’t like that myself and it does reveal some unreconstructed thinking going on. But again, this is not the same as driving the jews into the sea stuff of the 1970s.

Or the non-oil-rich dictatorships and quasi-democracies? Come on Dex you know better than this.

Very valid point, although the issue of the occupied territories gnaws away at it. However can we keep to balance? Some Muslim countries have very decent press and human rights records. Senegal leaps to mind, Morocco in recent years is not half bad to be frank. Nonetheless, yes Arab governments, I do mean Arab governments, modern track record on minority rights is positively abysmal. The Israel is racist (better prejudiced) ranting, while not without some limited basis (in the sense society understandbly has issues), is certainly stunningly hypocritical coming from any MENA region government.

Now I think I will leave dismantling the anti-UN stuff to someone else such as Dave.

37

I find this somewhat strange, IzzyR. You clearly supported the Irgun in another thread, but you claim to be anti-Zionist here? I’m interested in your definition of anti-Zionism on religious grounds.

38

My point is to speak of racism without applying a value judgement on the word. Singling out anyone on basis of race, or singling out yourself on basis of race is racism. For better or worse. I think that racism is part of the world and probably 99% of the reason that we have the problems that we do. The other 1% is personality conflicts.

Erek

39

It would have been nice if the UN Conference had been designed to fight racism thoroughout the world, along the definition of mswas. It’s too bad for everyone that the real purpose of the conference was to attack the US and to attack Jews.

40

Uh… yeah.

“Curses! The American dogs and their Israeli whelps refused to fall for our finely-baited trap! Well, there goes the conference – whatever shall we do now?”
“Parcheesi, anyone?”
“That won’t last the entire week; maybe just two days, at best.”
“I’ve got a deck of cards in my hotel room…”