Notes on Zionism, anti-semitism and Jewishness By Mike Marquesee

"Until 1945, most Jews rejected the Zionist analysis – which was that anti-semitism was a permanent feature of non-Jewish societies, could not be challenged, and the only solution was a separate Jewish homeland...Most Jews thought the "back to the Holy Land" types were irrelevant eccentrics  – something like Back to Africa preachers among diaspora black communities."

Jews and Zionism
There is a Jewish tradition of opposition to Zionism and criticism of Israel – a tradition that was weakened for several decades following the birth of Israel but is now once again gathering strength.

To cut a long story very short, modern anti-semitism erupted across central and eastern Europe (and in France and Britain) in the later 19th century – at precisely the moment Jews were moving out of the ghettos, struggling for equality and participation in society. In some ways the crisis that gripped the diaspora from 1880 mirrors the crisis in the Muslim communities in Europe and North America today. The rise of anti-semitism prompted all kinds of responses – ideological, political, spiritual, personal and collective. One of these responses was political Zionism.

Zionism is a European nationalism – based on making an analogy between Jews and Italians, Czechs, Poles, Greeks, etc. As such it was always problematic ... . Where was our country, our territory? To find a country the Jewish nationalists had to fall back in theory on the Bible and in practise on colonialism.

Historically, Jews had been subject to special restrictions and formally denied equal rights in every European country until the French revolution. In the late 19th century, the greatest concentration of Jews was in the Czarist empire, where they were subject to a wide array of residential and occupational restrictions, and were victims of racist violence, frequently sponsored by the state. Anti-semitic ideas were widely propagated and enjoyed extensive support in mainstream European culture. There were anti-semitic movements and attacks on Jews in France, Britain and the USA, but of course the culmination of this was the systematic extermination of six million Jews by one of Europe's most advanced capitalist states.

Until 1945, most Jews rejected the Zionist analysis – which was that anti-semitism was a permanent feature of non-Jewish societies, could not be challenged, and the only solution was a separate Jewish homeland. In Europe and North America, the bulk of Jews struggled to achieve equality as a minority group within larger societies. Many Jews went further and worked to change those societies as a whole, for the betterment of all minorities and oppressed people. Most Jews thought the "back to the Holy Land" types were irrelevant eccentrics  – something like Back to Africa preachers among diaspora black communities.

Historically, anti-Zionism was a Jewish ideology long before the rest of the world had thought about the issue. Eminent Jews who rejected or criticised political Zionism included not only the Marxists Trotsky and Rosa Luxembourg, but also Freud, Einstein, Martin Buber (mystic philosopher) and Judah L. Magnes (founder of Hebrew University).

However, the holocaust profoundly altered the balance of Jewish opinion. While most Jews still did not want to emigrate to Palestine, they did now believe it was necessary for there to be, somewhere, a Jewish nation-state, a place of last resort, a refuge. The tragedy was that the Palestinians were made to pay the bill owed by Europe and North America (which had failed to aid the Jews in their hour of need).

From the 1960s on, Israeli propaganda within diaspora communities has been intense and unremitting and sometimes astonishingly ruthless. Anyone who steps out of line is a 'self-hater' or a 'traitor' to his people. Nonetheless, more and more Jews are stepping out of line and speaking up. The growth of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and other groups, as well as Jewish participation in the broader Palestinian solidarity movement, is a hugely heartening development – for all of us. It needs to be nurtured, not undermined by careless or insensitive behaviour. I say this not because I feel that the sensibilities of Jews in the movement need special protecting but because Jewish opposition to Israel is among the most effective forms of opposition to Israel – it helps strip the mask from the oppressor's face. And, of course, because Jews are entitled to the same respect as anyone else in the movement.

Jews and the left
When Jews haven't been stereotyped as capitalists, they've been stereotyped as Reds and lefties. There is a long and rich tradition of Jewish left thought and action – Marx, Trotsky, Noam Chomsky, Abbie Hoffman, Bob Dylan...   the fact that most of these people did not write or act specifically as or for Jews, but rather as and for the human race as a whole, marks them out as what Isaac Deutscher proudly called "non-Jewish Jews" – the Jews who belonged more to humanity than to their tribe. Throughout most of the 20th century, Jews in Europe and North America have been disproportionately committed to the labour movement and the causes of social justice. And though that tradition is now weaker than it was, partly as a result of the influence of Zionism, it still exists. There's nothing mystical about it and nothing genetic – it emerges from the particular historical experiences that shaped European Jewry.

Some would trace it further back, to the prophets of the Old Testament, but much as I value their tradition, I don't think it explains the Jewish presence on the modern left. My own view is that almost all the things people have admired in Jewish culture – critical thought, ironic humour, ethical universality, intellectuality, experiment, individualism – are the products of the movement out of the ghettos, away from Rabbincal governance, a result of the encounter between a marginal and oppressed people and an emergent and volatile modern society.

Extraced from  Mike Marquesee