The Hidden History of Zionism
By Ralph Schoenman
Chapter 1
The Four Myths
It is not accidental that when anyone attempts to examine the nature of
Zionism – its
origins, history and dynamics – they meet with people who terrorize or
threaten them.
Quite recently, after mentioning a meeting on the plight of the
Palestinian people during
an interview on KPFK, a Los Angeles radio station, the organizers of the
public meeting
were deluged with bomb threats from anonymous callers.
Nor is it easy in the United States or Western Europe to disseminate
information about the
nature of Zionism or to analyze the specific events which denote Zionism
as a political
movement. Even the announcement on university campuses of authorized
forums or meetings on
the subject invariably engenders a campaign designed to close off
discussion. Posters are
torn down as fast as they are put up. Meetings are packed by flying squads
of Zionist
youth who seek to break them up. Literature tables are vandalized and
leaflets and
articles appear accusing the speaker of anti-Semitism or, in the case of
those of Jewish
origin, of self-hatred.
Vindictiveness and slander are so universally meted out to anti-Zionists
because the
disparity between the official fiction about Zionism and the Israeli
state, on the one
hand, and the barbarous practice of this colonial ideology and coercive
apparatus, on the
other, is so vast. People are in shock when they have an opportunity to
hear or read about
the century of persecution suffered by the Palestinians, and, thus, the
apologists for
Zionism are relentless in seeking to prevent coherent, dispassionate
examination of the
virulent and chauvinist record of the Zionist movement and of the state
which embodies its
values.
The irony of this is that when we study what the Zionists have written and
said –
particularly when addressing themselves – no doubt remains about what they
have done or of
their place in the political spectrum, dating from the last quarter of the
19th century to
the present day.
Four overriding myths have shaped the consciousness of most people in our
society about
Zionism.
The first is that of “A land without a people for a people without a
land.” This myth was
sedulously cultivated by early Zionists to promote the fiction that
Palestine was a
remote, desolate place ready for the taking. This claim was quickly
followed by denial of
Palestinian identity, nationhood or legitimate entitlement to the land in
which the
Palestinian people have lived throughout their recorded history.
The second is the myth of Israeli democracy. Innumerable newspaper stories
or television
references to the Israeli state are followed by the assertion that it is
the only “real”
democracy in the Middle East. In fact, Israel is as democratic as the
apartheid state of
South Africa. Civil liberty, due process and the most basic human rights
are by law denied
those who do not meet racial, religious criteria.
The third myth is that of “security” as the motor force of Israeli foreign
policy.
Zionists maintain that their state must be the fourth largest military
power in the world
because Israel has been forced to defend itself against imminent menace
from primitive,
hate-consumed Arab masses only recently dropped from the trees.
The fourth myth is that of Zionism as the moral legatee of the victims of
the Holocaust.
This is at once the most pervasive and insidious of the myths about
Zionism. Ideologues
for the Zionist movement have wrapped themselves in the collective shroud
of the six
million Jews who fell victim to Nazi mass murder. The bitter and cruel
irony of this false
claim is that the Zionist movement itself actively colluded with Nazism
from its inception.
To most people it appears anomalous that the Zionist movement, which
forever invokes the
horror of the Holocaust, should have collaborated actively with the most
vicious enemy
ever faced by the Jews. The record, however, reveals not merely common
interests but a
deep ideological affinity rooted in the extreme chauvinism which they
share.
Whole book online
http://takingaimradio.com/hhz/ch02.htm
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