Haggai
Matar
In
her thought-provoking latest book, “Doppelganger,” the author and activist
Naomi Klein outlines how the political right has been strengthened by the
left’s neglect of certain issues or fields of discourse that directly affect
many people’s lives. By simply dismissing those areas of discussion as
“right-wing” without offering an alternative ideological approach, the left,
Klein argues, allows the right to frame the conversation entirely on its own
terms.
Palestinians at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis,
southern Gaza Strip, November 23, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)
The
left may well have good answers to some of these questions. But oftentimes, it
is timid or silent — perhaps due to concerns of camp purity, fear of being
“canceled,” or a hesitancy to venture into unfamiliar territory. But in doing
so, we vacate the playing field to right-wing forces, and the people we are
trying to mobilize will flock toward our political opponents — as this month’s
U.S. election made abundantly clear.
Over
the past year, I’ve thought a lot about the ways in which our camp — those who
support Palestinian liberation and the end of Israel’s apartheid regime — has
surrendered ground to the right, to the detriment of our struggle. And I
realized that I myself was guilty of it.
My
main, ever-present, tormenting regret of the past year is that although I have
been active in trying to stop Israel’s carnage of Palestinians in Gaza and to
end apartheid writ large, I am still not doing enough. But I also regret not
doing more to address the fears of my own people.
Fear
is deeply entrenched in Jewish identity. It stems from millennia of persecution
and pogroms, leading up to and including the slaughter of 6 million Jews in the
Holocaust, which has created intergenerational trauma that continues to be felt
today. In Israel, this trauma is sustained and narrated in the public discourse
in ways that aim to justify what we do to Palestinians, preserving it at the
center of how we see ourselves and the world around us.
The
Hamas-led massacres and kidnappings of October 7 reawakened deep-rooted fears
among Jews in Israel and the diaspora, leading many to liken aspects of that
attack to the Holocaust or the pogroms of the 19th century. Reinforcing the
trauma induced by October 7 itself are the Hezbollah attacks from the north
that have rendered an entire area unliveable, killed 48 civilians by the time
of writing, and forced tens of thousands — including some of my own relatives —
to flee for refuge; and the ever-growing threat of all-out regional war, which
has already translated into multiple missile attacks from Iran and Yemen.
It
is true that the worst of this violence has been immediately followed by
Israel’s total obliteration of Gaza and killing of over 43,000 Palestinians and
3,000 Lebanese. It is also true that October 7 was preceded by countless
nonviolent initiatives for Palestinian liberation that were quashed by Israel
and its allies — from diplomacy to BDS to the Great Return March — and occurred
at a time when the Palestinian cause seemed to be facing a dead end. But this
doesn’t make the fears of Israeli Jews any less real.
These
fears have been further reinforced by some of the reactions to October 7. In
the months since the attack, particularly online but also within certain
protests and movements around the world, there has been no shortage of denial
of the atrocities Hamas committed that day as well as outright justification.
Concurrently, we’ve seen a rise in calls for harming Israeli Jews or expelling
them from the land.
Among
other things, this has taken the form of comments overplaying the role of the
“Hannibal Directive” (which was indeed implemented on October 7, but on a scale
that comes nowhere close to accounting for the vast majority of Israeli
casualties), or a refusal to accept the basic facts of that day despite
countless survivor testimonies and video recordings by Hamas militants
exhibiting their own atrocities against civilians. It has manifested in several
people I used to call friends, and colleagues in pro-Palestinian media outlets,
going after anyone trying to bring up Israeli grief over the October 7 attack —
even when those grieving are devoted activists against the war and apartheid.
Some
pro-Palestine protesters in the United States have called, for example, to
“strike Tel Aviv” and “burn Tel Aviv to the ground,” and yelled at Israel’s
supporters to “go back to Poland.” The student group at the heart of last
year’s Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University recently praised an
attack that killed seven Israeli civilians in Jaffa, and retracted a previous
apology issued after one of its leaders had stated that “Zionists don’t deserve
to live.”
Regarding
the latter example, it is important to remember that Zionism means vastly
different things to different people, and plenty of those who subscribe to that
label would say they are committed to justice and liberation for Palestinians;
we can argue with them about what that actually looks like, but they clearly
don’t deserve to die. And given that most Israelis and a great many Jews around
the world see themselves as Zionists, hearing statements against their right to
live evokes dark connotations.
The
proliferation of this kind of rhetoric appears symbolic of developments in
anti-colonial discourse, centering on a misinterpretation of the writings of
Frantz Fanon not as a warning of the dangers of colonialism and armed struggle
against it — dangers that, in the long run, mainly harm the colonized
population, long after liberation — but as an uncritical call for revolutionary
violence.
Compared
to the murderous war that Israel is currently waging against 2 million
Palestinians in Gaza, such issues may feel insignificant. But it is
nevertheless crucial that our camp takes these matters seriously, and doesn’t
seek to ignore or minimize them.
These
examples are by no means characteristic of our camp as a whole. It is clear to
me, from a deep and longstanding acquaintance with the Palestine solidarity
movement, that the vast majority of activists are motivated by a commitment to
liberation, justice, and equality for all people.
The
fact that they recognize that it is Palestinians who are being systematically
denied those rights by Israel, since long before October 7, does not reflect
disregard for the future of Jews in this land. Moreover, supporters of Israel
regularly wield allegations of antisemitism as a cudgel against pro-Palestine
activists in order to silence legitimate and essential criticism of Israeli
policies, Zionism, the occupation, and the army’s myriad war crimes.
It
should also be made clear that supporting Palestinians’ right to resist their
oppression, including through armed struggle, is not the same as justifying the
horrors of October 7. In fact, it is the opposite: the right to resist
occupation is enshrined in international law, and it is those same legal
principles that forbid the targeting of civilians.
Still,
and without losing sight of the vastly greater suffering to which Israel has
subjected Palestinians over the past year — and since the state’s foundation,
for that matter — we are obligated to deal with the very real and deeply-rooted
fears of Jews and Israelis, which are grounded in a concrete reality.
We
must do this, first of all, for the sake of ideological consistency: left-wing
politics necessitates concern for the safety of all peoples, and a commitment
to international law across the board — which includes challenging threats to
the collective existence of Jews in this land. But we must also do this because
these fears are a central driver of support not only for the current war, but
also for the perpetuation of occupation and apartheid. So long as our movement
dismisses Jewish fear, the Israeli and global right (and their centrist
accomplices) will keep weaponizing it to reject our demands and justify the
subjugation and mass killing of Palestinians.
These
kinds of conversations are by no means new or exclusive to Israel-Palestine;
similar conversations took place among the white South African left, where
white existential fears played a significant role in upholding support for
apartheid. Nor is talking about these issues a distraction from the urgent need
to end the war and dismantle apartheid.
As
one Palestinian friend and colleague recently emphasized to me: “The question
is not just about the future of Jews in this country. It’s also about defining
the current struggle: what are its strategic goals, what are its limits and red
lines, and who can be partners to advance it? We need to create buy-in among
Jewish Israelis in order to break the consensus behind the regime, and to
generate the necessary shifts and transformations in Israeli society that will
lead to justice and safety for all.”
New
horizons, new threats
Why,
then, have I and others on the left ceded this territory to the right? It is
clearer than ever that the right’s strategy of “managing the conflict,” and its
belief that Palestinian nationalism and aspirations for freedom can be
defeated, has led us to disaster, condemning us to live forever by the sword.
And when it comes to Jewish safety, the past year has proven definitively what
Israel’s anti-occupation left has long chanted at protests: “The right wing in
government will not bring us security” (which rhymes in Hebrew).
It
is also not difficult to make the case that we, as Jews in the Middle East,
have a deep interest in ending Israel’s oppressive structures of control over
the Palestinians. As Jordan’s foreign minister recently reminded us, such a
scenario would lead to peace agreements and security arrangements that could
help to significantly increase our safety for the long term.
So
why did we neglect talking about the fear and violence that drive so much of
Israeli politics? For my part, I find that I sidelined them under the
assumption that we have to deal first and foremost with the greater injustice
of the apartheid regime and its derivatives, such as the current assaults on
Gaza and Lebanon. And given that it is my own society committing this
injustice, it is all the more my responsibility to resist it; my main role as
an Israeli within the Palestine solidarity movement is to struggle to transform
the state from within.
Another
reason is that the security discourse in Israel — a central part of Israeli
psychology and identity — is entirely the terrain of the right and center
right. Even so-called “left-wing” security heads like Yair Golan, the leader of
the new merger of the Labor and Meretz parties called The Democrats, have much
in common with their right-wing counterparts.
During
his time as a brigadier general in the army, Golan authorized Israeli soldiers
to use Palestinian civilians as human shields; more recently, he has endorsed
starvation as a form of collective punishment in Gaza, and called for Israel to
occupy a “security zone” in southern Lebanon. Given the dominance of such
views, it was easier to simply ignore the security discourse altogether than to
formulate a serious left-wing approach to it.
An
additional reason why I wasn’t particularly vocal about these issues is that
they felt obvious. I oppose attacks on civilians by Hamas or Hezbollah, I long
for the return of the hostages, and I hope that the tens of thousands of
Israelis displaced from the north and the south can go home as soon as
possible. These positions are self-evident to me both as a leftist and as an
Israeli — as my immediate family, my friends, and I are also affected by this
reality and living through missile and drone attacks.
Then
there are the changes in local and global power structures. My formative
political years were the 1990s — a decade in which, parallel to the PLO’s
decision to recognize Israel and negotiate for peace, Israelis also experienced
a spate of terror attacks by Hamas, some of which hit my immediate
surroundings. But at the macro level, these years were characterized by the
feeling that I live in a strong and stable country that does not face any
existential threats. Globally, that decade also witnessed the transition to
unipolar hegemony of Israel’s closest ally, the United States, after the fall
of the Soviet Union.
Growing
up on the left in those years, it was obvious who our main adversaries were:
capitalism, which tramples humanity and the planet in pursuit of profit; and
the American empire, with its ever-expanding military-industrial complex. And
in Israel, nothing posed a greater threat than the continuation of the military
occupation and the resistance it would naturally provoke from Palestinians;
that was part of the reason I refused compulsory military service, spending two
years in prison for my beliefs. To this day, these remain among the main
threats to humanity and to my personal future.
Yet
those contexts have changed. The decline of the United States has opened the
way for new global powers, such as Russia and China, to challenge American
hegemony in the Middle East. Iran has pursued the same, developing the “Axis of
Resistance” through significant backing to Hamas, Hezbollah, and now the
Houthis. With Benjamin Netanyahu’s blessing — driven, ironically, by his
ambition to fragment and weaken the Palestinian national movement — Hamas grew
stronger in Gaza in the lead-up to October 7, all while Israel continued to
suppress any popular Palestinian leadership or nonviolent resistance.
Taken
together, these developments have created a new geopolitical reality, in which
the long-term collective existence of Jews in this land is no longer as
self-evident as it was 30 years ago. Until now, with the military, financial,
and diplomatic backing of the United States, this existence has gone
hand-in-hand with the denial of Palestinians’ right to exist in the land. But
in the name of the latter, we risk throwing out the former, like the proverbial
baby with the bath water.
What
is needed instead is to reimagine a collective Jewish existence in
Israel-Palestine that is not based on relations of supremacy over Palestinians.
Accepting that Israeli Jews will stay in this land in the long run is
essential, and has actually been a central part of the platform of the
Palestinian liberation movement for decades.
Recognizing
the settler-colonial nature of Zionism, the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba and
ever since, and the Palestinian right of return: none of these basic tenants of
the movement should negate the recognition that Israeli Jews do constitute a
distinct people, with no less of a right to self-determination as any other
nation in the world — so long as that right does not come at the expense of the
same right of Palestinians.
Like
other settler-colonial projects, we are indeed a nation of immigrants. Some
came from afar; some, like many Palestinians, came from nearby lands that were
once all part of a single Ottoman Empire; and some have been here throughout
centuries of continued Jewish presence. But we have become a nation, with our
unique language, culture, art, communal bonds, history, and a deep sense of
belonging to this place. That connection might be religious, grounded in
millennia of Jewish longing for return to the biblical Land of Israel; or it
might be secular, based on the simple reality that we know no other home but
this.
And
even if one were to contemplate banishing the roughly 7 million Jews who now
live here — where would we go? My heritage, for example, is one-quarter
Ukrainian, one-quarter Lithuanian, one-quarter Belarusian, and one-quarter
Turkish. I speak none of those languages, and none of these countries would be
prepared to take in Jewish immigrants en masse. My wife is Moroccan on both
sides, but her parents, like mine, were born here. Our two children are a mix
of these backgrounds, which cannot be untangled, and are both distinctly
Israeli just like we are. The same is true of most Jews in Israel.
We
have already seen how the attempt to right the wrong done to Jews in Europe by
wronging Palestinians has led to a catastrophe. We must not think that righting
that wrong can be achieved by wronging Jews once again. The answer has to be
decolonizing this land with all its inhabitants having the right to stay here
along with returning Palestinian refugees — as two nations with equal
individual and collective rights.
Condemning
today’s horrors to the past
As
I write this, I am overcome with the familiar anxiety that in trying to inject
complexity and nuance into this conversation, I may end up serving the right
and distracting from the ethnic cleansing and mass killing in Gaza and Lebanon.
There is no symmetry between certain troubling discourses online or on campus
lawns on the one hand, and the military, economic, and diplomatic might of a
global superpower that facilitates Israel’s crimes on the other.
Still,
I want to learn from powerful voices on the left who take it upon themselves to
speak out against these dangerous trends — not to sabotage our movement, but to
strengthen it. Back in November, Rashid Khalidi, one of the most prominent
Palestinian intellectuals alive today, wrote that we must speak out morally,
legally, and politically against the targeting of civilians, and that “women,
children, the aged, and all unarmed noncombatants should unquestionably be
protected in wartime.” Naomi Klein, one of the intellectual heavyweights of the
international left, wrote similarly in the aftermath of October 7 that we must
always “side with the child over the gun.”
Those
are just two examples among many others. And with that, we must also think
seriously and practically about security solutions for Jewish Israelis as part
of our struggle.
We
shouldn’t be afraid of saying, for example, that the day after the Israeli army
withdraws from Gaza and southern Lebanon, it will need to stand on the border
to protect Israeli communities in the north and south during negotiations for
the end of the occupation and apartheid — unlike what actually happened in
October 2023, when the army was invested more in facilitating settler attacks
on Palestinians in the West Bank.
Nor
should we be afraid to say that within the framework of multilateral peace
agreements, there will also be a chapter on Israeli-Palestinian security
cooperation based on true mutual security — not like the arrangements
stipulated in the Oslo Accords, which have in practice enabled the entrenchment
of Israeli oppression for three decades with Palestinian security forces
serving as their subcontractors.
When
this wretched war ends, we will need to work urgently to promote real peace, be
it in the form of two states, one state, or a confederation. That peace must be
based on the principles put forward over the years by the UN, the PLO, the Arab
League, and the BDS movement, without neglecting the security of Israeli Jews.
It is precisely this attentiveness to the fears of all parties that can move us
closer to making sure the horrors of today will be condemned to the past, and
remedied for the future.
Shahid
Alam
Nearly all of these quotes are gathered from the chapter
epigraphs in the book, M. Shahid Alam, Israeli Exceptionalism: The
Destabilizing Logic of Zionism (Springer: 2008). A few of the quotes are from
non-Zionists. The sources for most these quotes can be found in this book.
David
Ben-Gurion with Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Rabin in the Negev, during the 1948
Arab–Israeli War. Photograph Source:ttps://www.flickr.com/people/45644610@N03 –
This is available from National Photo Collection of Israel, Photography dept.
Government Press – CC BY-SA 3.0
Chosenness
“Israel
is not another example of the species nation; it is the only example of the
species Israel.” Martin Buber
“Only
Israel lives in, and constitutes, God’s kingdom…” Jacob Neusner
“For
me the supreme morality is that the Jewish people has a right to exist. Without
that there is no morality in the world.” Golda Meier, 1967
“We
do not fit the general pattern of humanity…” David Ben-Gurion
“…only
God could have created a people so special as the Jewish people.” Gideon Levy
Zionism
“There
are upwards of seven million Jews known to be in existence throughout the
world… possessing more wealth, activity, influence and talents, than any body
of people their number on earth….they will march in triumphant numbers, and
possess themselves once more of Syria, and take their rank among the
governments of the earth.” Mordecai Noah, 1818
“The
ultimate goal . . . is, in time, to take over the Land of Israel and to restore
to the Jews the political independence they have been deprived of for these two
thousand years. . . . The Jews will yet arise and, arms in hand (if need be),
declare that they are the masters of their ancient homeland.” Vladimir Dubnow,
1882
“…the
spirit of the age is approaching ever closer to the essential Jewish emphasis
on real life.” Moses Hess, 1862
“…Jews
are a nation which, having once acted as the leaven of the social world, is
destined to be resurrected with the rest of the civilized nations.” Moses Hess,
1862
“Today
we may be moribund, but tomorrow we shall surely awaken to life; today we may
be in a strange land, but tomorrow we will dwell in the land of our fathers;
today we may be speaking alien tongues, but tomorrow we shall speak Hebrew.”
Eliezer Ben-Yehudah, 1880
“…we
must seek a home with all our hearts, our spirit, our soul.” Peretz Smolenskin,
1881
“Let
sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy
the rightful requirements of a nation: the rest we shall manage for ourselves.”
Theodore Herzl, 1896
“Palestine
is first and foremost not a refuge for East European Jews, but the incarnation
of a reawakening sense of national solidarity.” Albert Einstein, 1921
Zionism:
Weaponizing Antisemitism
“The
anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic
countries our allies.” Theodore Herzl, 1896
“The
struggle of Jews for unity and independence…is calculated to attract the
sympathy of people to whom we are rightly or wrongly obnoxious.” Leo Pinsker
“The
Western form of anti-Semitism—the cosmic, satanic version of Jew
hatred—provided solace to wounded [Arab] feelings.” Bernard Lewis, 2006
Zionism:
Ethnic Cleansing
“Will
those [Palestinians] evicted really hold their peace and calmly accept what was
done to them? Will they not in the end rise up to take back what was taken from
them by the power of gold…And who knows, if they will not then be both
prosecutors and judges…” Yitzhak Epstein, 1907
Zionism:
Ambition
“Discussed
with Bodenheimer the demands we will make. Area: from the Brook of Egypt to the
Euphrates. Stipulate a transitional period with our own institutions. A Jewish
governor for this period. Afterwards, a relationship like that between Egypt
and the Sultan.” Theodore Herzl, 1898
“We
should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon,
Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is
artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state
there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria
will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and
Sinai.” David Ben-Gurion May 1948
Zionism:
Destabilizing Logic
“Will
those [Palestinians] evicted really hold their peace and calmly accept what was
done to them? Will they not in the end rise up to take back what was taken from
them by the power of gold…And who knows, if they will not then be both
prosecutors and judges…” Yitzhak Epstein, 1907
“God
forbid that we should harm any people, much less a great people whose hatred is
most dangerous to us.” Yitzhak Epstein, 1907
“As
to the war against the Jews in Palestine….it was evident twenty years ago that
the day would come when the Arabs would stand up against us.”Ahad Ha’am, 1911
“Two
important phenomena, of the same nature, but opposed, are emerging at this
moment in Asiatic Turkey. They are the awakening of the Arab nation and the
latent effort of the Jews to reconstitute on a very large scale the ancient
kingdom of Israel. These movements are destined to fight each other continually
until one of them wins.” Najib Azouri, 1905
“It
is all bad and I told Balfour so. They are making [the Middle East] a breeding
place for future war.” Col. Edward Mandell House, 1917
“The
question is, do we want to conquer Palestine now as Joshua did in his day –
with fire and sword?” Judah L. Magnes, 1929
“It
is our destiny to be in a state of continued war with the Arabs.” Arthur Rupin,
1936
“The
day we lick the Arabs, that is the day, I think, when we shall be sowing the
seeds of an eternal hatred of such dimensions that Jews will not be able to
live in that part of the world for centuries to come.” Judah L. Magnes, 1947
“The
state of Israel has had explosives – the grievances of hundreds of thousands of
displaced Arabs – built into its very foundations.” Isaac Deutscher, 1954
“Why
should the Arabs make peace? If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms
with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country.” David Ben-Gurion,
1956
“Historical
logic points to the eventual dissolution of the Jewish state. The powers around
us are so great. There is such a strong will to annihilate us that the odds
look very poor.” Benny Morris, 2008
Zionism:
Demographic Threat
“In
Jewish cities, villages and kibbutzim . . . families are having 1.2 children.
For theYishuv, that spells extinction.” David Ben-Gurion, March 1943
Christian
Zionism
“…we
welcome the friendship of Christian Zionists.” Theodore Herzl, 1897
“The
entire Christian church, in its variety of branches… will be compelled… to
teach the history and development of the nascent Jewish state. No commonwealth
on earth will start with such propaganda for its exploitation in world thought,
or with such eager and minute scrutiny, by millions of people, of its slightest
detail.” A. A. Berle, 1918
“Christian
Zionists favor Jewish Zionism as a step leading not to the perpetuation but to
the disappearance of the Jews.” Morris Jastrow, 1919
“…Zionism
has but brought to light and given practical form and a recognized position to
a principle which had long consciously or unconsciously guided English
opinion.” Nahum Sokolow, 1919
“Christian
Zionism and Jewish Zionism have combined to create an international alliance
superseding anything that NATO or UN has to offer.” Daniel Lazare, 2003
“Put
positively: Other than Israel’s Defense Forces, American [Christian] Zionists
may be the Jewish state’s ultimate strategic asset.” Daniel Pipes, July 2003
Destabilizing
Logic: Alienating Muslims
“…it
seems to me and all members of my office acquainted with the Middle East that
the policy which we are following [support for partition]…is contrary to the
interests of the United States and will eventually involve us in international
difficulties….we are forfeiting the friendship of the Arab world…[and]
incurring long-term Arab hostility towards us.” Loy Henderson, November 1947
“US
prestige in the Muslim world has suffered a severe blow, and US strategic
interests in the Mediterranean and Near East have been seriously prejudiced.”
George F. Kennan, January 1948
“You
can trace the resurgence of what we call Islamic extremism to the Six Day War.”
Michael Oren, 2007
Destabilizing
Logic: Rise Of Israel/Six-Day War of June 1967
“Israel
was now [after 1967] seen by the West, and primarily Washington, as a regional
superpower and a desirable ally among a bevy of fickle, weak Arab states.”
Benny Morris, 2001
“The
glory of past ages no longer is to be seen at a distance but is, from now on,
part of the new state…” Editorial in Haaretz, June 8, 1967
“We
have returned to our holiest places, we have returned in order not to part from
them ever again.” Moshe Dayan, June 9, 1967
“A
messianic, expansionist wind swept over the country. Religious folk spoke of a
“miracle” and of “salvation”; the ancient lands of Israel had been restored to
God’s people.” Benny Morris, 2001
Zionism:
Support of Western Imperialist Powers
“If
His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine…[w]e should there form a
portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as
opposed to barbarism.” Theodore Herzl, 1896
“Don’t
worry, Dr. Wise, Palestine is yours.” Woodrow Wilson, March 1919
“The
United States has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East
comparable only to that which it has with Britain over a wide range of world
affairs…I think it is quite clear that in case of an invasion the United States
would come to the support of Israel.” John F. Kennedy, December 1962
Zionism:
Incremental Strategy
“Erect
a Jewish state at once, even if it is not on the whole land. The rest will come
in the course of time. It must come.” David Ben-Gurion, 1937
“Egypt
is the only state among the Arab countries that constitutes a real state and is
forging a people inside it. It is a big state. If we could arrive at the
conclusion of peace with it, it would be a tremendous conquest for us.” David
Ben-Gurion, 1949
Settler-Colonialism/Ethnic
Cleansing
“As
soon as we have a big settlement here we’ll seize the land, we’ll become
strong, and then we’ll take care of the Left Bank [of the Jordan River]. We’ll
expel them from there, too. Let them go back to the Arab countries.” A Jewish
settler, 1891
“[We]
must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in
possession as our forefathers did or grapple with the problem of a large alien
population, mostly Mohammedan and accustomed for centuries to hate us.” Israel
Zangwill, 1905
“…
Palestine shall be as Jewish as England is English, or America is American.”
Chaim Weizmann, 1919
“I
support compulsory transfer. I do not see in it anything immoral.” David
Ben-Gurion, 1938
“We
are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel,
we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house.” Moshe Dayan, April 1956
“Zionism
comprises a belief that Jews are a nation, and as such are entitled to
self-determination as all other nations are.” Emanuele Ottolenghi, 2003
“Without
the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here.”
Benny Morris, 2004
Jewish
Power
“There
are upwards of seven million Jews known to be in existence throughout the
world… possessing more wealth, activity, influence and talents, than anybody of
people their number on earth….they will march in triumphant numbers, and
possess themselves once more of Syria, and take their rank among the
governments of the earth.” Mordecai Noah, 1818
“When
we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat…when we rise, there rises also
our terrible power of the purse.” Theodore Herzl, 1896
““If
His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake
to regulate the whole finances of Turkey.” Theodore Herzl, 1896
“…Jews
are a great power in journalism throughout the world.” Israel Zangwill, 1914
“In
large parts of Eastern Europe [during the early decades of the twentieth
century], virtually the whole “middle class” was Jewish.” Yuri Slezkin, 2004
“The
expansion and consolidation of United States Jewry in the late nineteenth and
twentieth centuries was as important in Jewish history as the creation of
Israel itself; in some ways more important. For, if the fulfillment of Zionism
gave the harassed diaspora an ever-open refuge with sovereign rights to
determine and defend its destiny, the growth of US Jewry was an accession of
power of an altogether different order, which gave Jews an important,
legitimate and permanent part in shaping the policies of the greatest state on
earth.” Paul Johnson
“…the
Jews from every tribe have descended in force, and they are determined to break
in with a jimmy if they are not let in.” Edward House, October 1917
Jewish
Power: Jewish Lobby
“I’m
sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious
for the success of Zionism: I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among
my constituents.” President Harry Truman, November 1945
“I
know I was elected because of the votes of American Jews. I owe them my
election. Tell me, is there something I can do for the Jewish people?”
President John F. Kennedy, December 1961
“Without
this lobby Israel would have gone down the drain.” Isaiah (Si) Kenen
“During
every congressional campaign, each candidate for every seat is asked to
describe his or her views on the Middle East. Most office-seekers happily
comply in writing. AIPAC then shares the results with its members, helping them
to decide who is the most pro-Israel.” J. J. Goldberg, 1996
“AIPAC has one enormous advantage. It really
doesn’t have any opposition.” Douglas Bloomfield, 2003
“In
the last two decades between 1980 and 2000, American Jews gained power and
influence beyond anything that they had ever experienced.” Stephen Schwartz,
2006
“A
lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.”
Steven Rosen, 2005
“If
Israel nuked Chicago, Congress would approve.” Steve Reed, 2009
“1000
Jewish lobbyists are on Capitol Hill against little old me.” President George
H. Bush, September 1991
“…
before I was elected to office I vowed to be an unshakable supporter of Israel.
I have kept that commitment.” President Bill Clinton May 1995
“…I
will bring to the White House an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.”
Barack Obama, June 2008
Zionism
versus Saving Jewish Lives
“If
I knew that it was possible to save all the [Jewish] children in Germany by
transporting them to England, but only half by transporting them to Palestine,
I would choose the second.” David Ben-Gurion, 1938
“If
I am asked could you give money from UJA [United Jewish Appeal] moneys to
rescue Jews? I say ‘No; and I say again, No.” Itzhak Greenbaum, 1943
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