True Left

History => Colonial Era => Topic started by: Starling on July 11, 2020, 11:09:32 pm


Title: Under Zionism, Jewish lives have always mattered more
Post by: Starling on July 11, 2020, 11:09:32 pm
Under Zionism, Jewish lives have always mattered more

(https://static.972mag.com/www/uploads/2020/07/Herzl-on-a-Boat-1000x668.png)
Herzl, front center, with his cohorts in 1898

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In late June, The Forward published an article by Moshe Daniel Levine under the headline “Zionism Is the Jewish Black Lives Matter.” In the article, Levine, the senior Jewish educator at Orange County Hillel, calls on Jews to support the Black Lives Matter movement as an extension of their Zionism.
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Zionism is, therefore, Levine writes, “the ultimate claim that Jewish lives matter. Jews have come to the difficult but important realization that we need to occasionally thrust aside universalism in favor of particularism.
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Levine is arguing, in short, is that Jewish support for Black Lives Matter is an imperative, precisely because Jewish support for Zionism is an imperative.
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The problem is that Levine’s reasoning effectively legitimizes a slew of racist practices that Zionism enabled — practices that devalued the lives of others. Levine is, in other words, whitewashing history.
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In particular, his description misses out one crucial factor: Herzl’s admiration for colonialism. Today, any association of Herzl and colonialism is likely to raise strong objections from Zionists such as Levine. Yet Herzl’s Zionism was indeed rooted in his wish to imitate the European colonialism of his period.

Herzl’s diary mentions a letter that he sent to Cecil Rhodes in 1902, a British businessman and one of the most famous colonialists of his period.
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Herzl writes to Rhodes: “You are being invited to help make history. It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.”

Apologists for Herzl may well argue that he was a man of his time. Yet colonialism was, in fact, considered controversial even as it was unfolding — not just retroactively, and not just among its victims.
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Herzl’s decision to approach Rhodes was far from coincidental.
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In his 1896 pamphlet “The Jewish State,” Herzl’s plan for the creation of the state hinges on the creation of a “Jewish Company.”
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The model for the operation of Herzl’s Jewish Company turns out to have been Rhodes’ British South Africa Company, the major party responsible for gold-digging in the Transvaal region of South Africa — at the expense of Africans and their resources.
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Under Herzl’s plan, native Palestinians, or whoever happened to live in the territory chosen for colonization, would be forced to forgo their land, just as South African minerals ended up in the hands of Rhodes. Herzl predicted that the natives may “feel threatened” by this arrangement, but put his trust in a European power to resolve the issue.
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...unlike what Levine claims, Zionism was never simply about the idea that Jewish Lives Matter: from the beginning, it meant the lives of Jewish colonists would be valued more than the lives of indigenous groups — from Herzl’s time, until today.
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Title: Re: Under Zionism, Jewish lives have always mattered more
Post by: 90sRetroFan on May 25, 2021, 02:45:33 am
https://twitter.com/genevievejoelle/status/1392561867483086852

Quote
Here is @NDP leader Jagmeet Singh demanding that Canada commit to an arms embargo against #Israel

Trudeau’s response is to blame "both sides", and commit to nothing.

Cowardly inaction from a fellow settler colonial state. #GazaUnderAttack #SaveSheikhJarrah

Always good to see more people picking up our way of talking.