School DaZe 2

In a 20/8/18 post, School DaZe, I drew your attention to a Sydney Morning Herald ad for a teaching position at Sydney's Moriah College. Among the criteria for the position was "an empathy with the Zionist ethos of our Modern Orthodox Jewish Day School is essential."

On 15 September, another such Moriah College ad appeared, but this time the word "Zionist" was conspicuous by its absence.

This could, of course, have been an oversight. Or could it perhaps be a sign of the times, namely that the term 'Zionist' has finally become something of a liability these days? First, there's the evidence of the eyes: the brutal treatment meted out on a daily basis to the Palestinians, with one Israeli outrage after another caught on camera.

But there's another aspect too. If we cut through the spin of Israel's defenders, who assert that Zionism is all about 'national self-determination for the Jewish people', or 'a national liberation movement' like any other, to the historical roots of the Zionist movement, we can see clearly that this is really a case of mutton dressed as lamb.

The fatal flaw in Zionist ideology can be seen in Theodor Herzl's The Jewish State (1896): The notion that the Jews are a 'people' or 'nation', as opposed to a faith community.

European nationalism was on the march back in the 19th century and, in many ways, it is understandable that the national idea was taken up by a segment of secular Jewish intellectuals as Zionism at the time. At the same time, too, the vast non-European world was the subject of a wave of European expansion, colonialism and settlement, with no regard whatever for the natural rights of existing non-European populations. The words of the Basel program, issued at the first ever Zionist conference in 1897, for example, tell us that "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel [The Land of Israel], and urges the "settlement" there of Jewish farmers, artisans, and manufacturers."

The simple truth of the matter is that Zionism is a form of European settler-colonialism and, like all forms of settler-colonialism, could only proceed by riding roughshod over the rights of the "existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," as the Balfour Declaration of 1917 dismissively referred to the 90% Arab majority population there.

So, no matter how much today's Zionists try to distance themselves from that fact, and dress up the term Zionism (as in, for example, the following Wikipedia entry on the subject: "Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel...the Holy Land or the region of Palestine," or as a national movement simply exercising its right of national self-determination), Zionism is really nothing more than a European colonial implant and impost on the indigenous Arab population of Palestine. This colonial-settler dynamic, with its complete disregard for the natural rights of the indigenous inhabitants of the land, is what lies behind the wanton cruelty of Israeli apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. Is it any wonder that, in a post-colonial world, the term Zionist has become a dirty word?