Mondoweiss has two posts up which to me are reminders of why I am not a Zionist.
Adam Horowitz writes about a prominent Georgia rabbi, Rabbi Shalom Lewis, whose Rosh Hashanah sermon was filled with anti-Muslim and anti-Islam rhetoric, and a call for a “holy crusade” to “exterminate” the “enemy” (i.e. Muslims). This collectivist rabbi says that “most Muslims are not terrorists – but it does not matter.” The rabbi cites the “Koran-waving, Allah Akbar-howling Muslim murderers out there planning to slit our throats,” and he believes that 5% of the 1 billion Muslims in the world — or 50 million — are “committed Islamists who embrace terror.” Whether that’s accurate or not, he certainly doesn’t cite how millions of westerners are committed warmongers and interventionists who embrace terror of Muslim countries. He doesn’t mention how some of the inhabitants of those Muslim countries actually do get radicalized — which is partly the consequences of our own government’s wars of aggression, invasions and occupations, false imprisonments, torture and murders of their people, all actions of which only provoke retaliations. And it’s also partly from our own government’s CIA and other extremists intentionally radicalizing them as the U.S. government schemers have been doing since the 1980s. And the rabbi doesn’t cite how the current state of Israel came to existence by way of violence, conquest, land takings, forced expulsions of many amongst the indigenous population, and ethnic cleansing.
Which brings me to the second post to which I refer at Mondoweiss, Philip Weiss’s post on WaPo writer Richard Cohen’s new book, Israel: Is It Good for the Jews? Already in the title Cohen shows a lack of understanding of how collectivism has destroyed modern civilization. What does he mean by “the Jews“? I have heard Christian Zionists such as Glenn Beck refer to “the Jews,” and that has always bothered me. It’s very collectivistic, in my view. A further bit of evidence which shows Cohen’s collectivism is his praising of “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians to make way for “the Jews.” In fact, a chapter in his book is titled, “Ethnic Cleansing for a Better World.” (No, I am not making that up!) In the zeal for creating a new Jewish State, the Zionists with the aid of western governments attempted to forcibly rid the territory of Palestinians. As quoted in Philip Weiss’s post, Cohen writes, “European Jews, no matter how noble their cause, established themselves in a part of the world occupied by another people and, by dint of their advanced culture… forced those occupants to make way. This, essentially, is the argument made by the enemies of Zionism, and they are right . . . This was not a case of racism or colonialism but of security based on common sense. The Palestinian was the enemy, and the enemy had to go.”
Hmmm. That’s “common sense,” for sure. And he’s full of it. Yet more reasons for why I am not a Zionist.
1:37 pm on October 5, 2014
