NYT Debate on Zionism: A Small Positive Step Short of a Giant Leap Needed

by Stephen Lendman

Most Times "Room for Debate" discussions are more one-sided advocacy than legitimate debates, establishment views drowning out alternative ones.

On April 4, it asked "(i)s anti-Zionism anti-Semitism? One has nothing to do with the other. Two of five contributors correctly equated Zionism with racism.

Two others were one-sidedly pro-Israeli. One other expressed support for "legitimate political expression." Most important is full and accurate reporting and analysis, truth-telling alone.

Debate has no room for deception and defending the indefensible. Legitimate journalism demands explaining Zionism's true nature.

It's ideologically racist, extremist, undemocratic, militant and harmful to Jews and non-Jews alike - incompatible and irreconcilable with Judaism, violating Torah doctrine.

Israeli scholar, critic, and life-long human rights activist Israel Shahak (1933 - 2001) explained the dangers of Jewish chauvinism, religious fanaticism, and its influence on American polity.

He wrote extensively on how Israel discriminates in favor of Jews in virtually all aspects of life, including what he called most important - "residency rights, the right to work (and to have) equality before the law."

Zionist ideology demeans non-Jews, denying them equal rights. Israeli law and practices enforce discrimination against non-Jewish Israeli citizens (for their religion), mainly Arab Muslims, unimaginable in just societies.

According to Shahak, "(t)he obvious intention of such discriminatory measures is to decrease the number of non-Jewish citizens of Israel (to affirm its existence as a) 'Jewish' state" - hostile to and demeaning of other religious faiths.

In his book, titled "The Hidden History of Zionism," Ralph Schoenman exposed four Zionist myths:

the notion of "(a) land without people for a people without a land" to justify stealing land inhabited by Palestinians for centuries;

calling Israeli democracy the only "real" one in the Middle East - an utter fiction concealing apartheid governance worse than South Africa's, enforcing police state ruthlessness against unwanted Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens;

"Civil libert(ies), due process and the most basic human rights" apply only for Jews;

"security (is) the motor force of Israeli foreign policy" based on the myth of being surrounded by hostile Arab states; and

"Zionism (is) the moral legatee of the victims of the holocaust...the most pervasive and insidious of" its myths.

Zionists, like future prime minister Yitzhak Shamir and others, openly colluded with the Nazis for their own purposes - using holocaust persecution as justification for a future Zionist state and more.

Plans since the late 19th century called for colonizing Palestine, ethnically cleansing unwanted Arabs, exploiting others as cheap labor, denying an entire people the right to their native land.

Historical records were falsified, Palestinians reinvented as semi-savage, nomadic remnants. Hardline revisionists like Ze'ev Jabotinsky (1880 - 1940) argued peaceful coexistence was unattainable.

Jews had to build "an iron wall of (superior) military force" - discouraging Arab hopes of destroying Israel, state terror the method of choice.

In 1937, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, urged "expel(ling) the Arabs and tak(ing) their place…us(ing) force to guarantee our own right to settle in" what became the future Israeli state.

Zionism is racist, ruthless and destructive. Exposing, not debating, its viciousness is vital. A baby step The Times took isn't good enough.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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