Cape Times oped
The State of Israel Feeds Anti-Semitism
Zionism a ‘Terrible Enemy’ of Jewish People
By Yakov M Rabkin
(source: Cape Times,March 10, 2010 Edition 1)
All Jews are Zionists. All Zionists are Jews. All Jews support Israel. These cliches are not only wrong; they are dangerous.
What is Zionism?
Zionism is a product of European history. Among the many tendencies within Zionism, the one that has triumphed formulated four objectives:
to transform the transnational and extraterritorial Jewish identity centred on the Torah into a national identity, like ones then common in Europe;
- to develop a new national language based on biblical and rabbinical Hebrew;
- to transfer the Jews from their countries of origin to Palestine; and
- to establish political and economic control over the land, if need be by force.
While other European nationalists, such as Poles or Lithuanians, needed only to wrest control of their countries from imperial powers to become "masters in their own houses," Zionists faced a far greater challenge in trying to achieve their objectives.
Both Zionists and their opponents agree that Zionism and the state of Israel constitute a break with Jewish history, a break that began with the emancipation and the secularisation of European Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries.