Zionism
Nationalism is the ideology of promote or assertion of national identity. And nation is the political expression of an ethnicity. When an ethnic group have some socio-cultural characteristics then we can say, that is a nation. These four characteristics are:

1. Language

2. Religion

3. Common geographical territory and

4. Self definition

Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and the state of Israel is its political expression. Israel used to be a symbol of freedom and a source of pride for the Jews of the Diaspora. Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians, however, has turned it into a liability and a moral burden for the liberal segment of the Jewish community. By Zionism today I mean the ideological, ultra-nationalist settlers and their supporters in the Likud-led government. These settlers are a tiny minority but they maintain a stranglehold over the Israeli political system. They represent the unacceptable face of Zionism. Zionism does not equal racism, but many of these hard-line settlers and their leaders are blatant racists.

This paper will be divided into six parts. The introductory part will look at some conceptual issues related to the concepts of nationalism and nation. The second part will look at the detail overview of Zionism in Israel. In part three, I will focus on the scenario of Zionism through political aspect. Part four will look at the Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism. In fifth part, I will try to discuss about Judaism and Zionism including its pluralistic movement very briefly. The sixth and concluding part will discuss about the Organizations of Zionists.



1. Concept of Nationalism & Nation

We can say that nation is the political expression of ethnicity. There are three major stages for being a nation but every nation can not reach to the third stage. These tree stages are:

1. Define yourself as a political entity

2. Demanding rights

3. Demand for a nation state

Benedict Anderson defined a nation as "An imagined political community; that is imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign". An imagined community is different from an actual community because it is not based on everyday face-to-face interaction between its members. Instead, members hold in their minds a mental image of their affinity—for example, the nationhood you feel with other members of your nation when your "imagined community" participates in a larger event such as the Olympics. As Anderson puts it, a nation is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. Members of the community probably will never know one another face to face; however, they may have similar interests or identify as part of the same nation. The media also create imagined communities, through targeting a mass audience or generalizing and addressing citizens as the public.

So in extended words, Nationalism involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, a nation. Often, it is the belief that an ethnic group has a right to statehood or that citizenship in a state should be limited to one ethnic group or that multinationality in a single state should necessarily comprise the right to express and exercise national identity even by minorities. It can also include the belief that the state is of primary importance or the belief that one state is naturally superior to all other states. It is also used to describe a movement to establish or protect a homeland usually an autonomous state for an ethnic group. In some cases the identification of a national culture is combined with a negative view of other races or cultures. Conversely, nationalism might also be portrayed as collective identities towards imagined communities which are not naturally expressed in language, race or religion but rather socially constructed by the very individuals that belong to a given nation. Nationalism is sometimes reactionary, calling for a return to a national past, and sometimes for the expulsion of foreigners. Other forms of nationalism are revolutionary, calling for the establishment of an independent state as a homeland for an ethnic underclass. Nationalism emphasizes collective identity - a 'people' must be autonomous, united, and express a single national culture. However, some nationalists stress individualism as an important part of their own national identity. National flags, National anthems and other symbols of national identity are often considered sacred, as if they were religious rather than political symbols. Deep emotions are aroused. Gellner and Breuilly, in Nations and Nationalism, contrast nationalism and patriotism. "If the nobler word 'patriotism' then replaced 'civic/Western nationalism', nationalism as a phenomenon had ceased to exist."



2. Overview of Zionism

Zionism represents itself as a political movement concerned principally with the establishment of a state in Palestine to be controlled by and for Jews. It began in the late 19th Century and attained its stated objective with the creation in 1948 of the state of Israel by the United Nations at the insistence of the United States and without the agreement of existing Middle Eastern states. Subsequently Israel doubled the amount of territory it controlled by means of its illegal occupation of the West Bank in the 1967 and 1973 wars.

The origin of the term "Zionism" is the biblical word "Zion", often used as a synonym for Jerusalem and the Land of Israel. Zionism is an ideology which expresses the desire of Jews the world over for their historical homeland - Zion, the Land of Israel. The aspiration of returning to their homeland was first held by Jews exiled to Babylon some 2,500 years ago - a hope which subsequently became a reality. Thus political Zionism, which coalesced in the 19th century, invented neither the concept nor the practice of return. Rather, it appropriated an ancient idea and an ongoing active movement, and adapted them to meet the needs and spirit of the times.

In its current form Zionism seeks to dominate all of Palestine and the Middle East by means of violence and the threat of violence, using weapons manufactured and purchased with billions of dollars of aid supplied by the United States at taxpayer expense and to maximize its influence in world affairs and in world history, principally by means of control of the government of the USA, at the expense of the social wellbeing not only of the Palestinians but of the peoples of all lands.

Zionists claim that Jews have the right to possess all land between the Nile and the Euphrates because this land was given to them by some entity they call "YAHWEH" as claimed in the Old Testament. But this would not be the first time that documents written by humans were used to justify land grabs. Zionists also lay claim to Palestine because this was territory controlled by two Jewish mini-states, Judah and Samaria, until their destruction by the Romans in the 1st CE. To which may be replied: If Zionist claims to a Jewish "homeland" in Palestine, based on Jewish occupation of that area 2000 years ago, are accepted as valid then the claims of North American Indians to their former homeland, all of the United States and the claims of Australian Aborigines to their former homeland, all of Australia should also be accepted as valid, and those homelands returned. Not to mention the descendants of the inhabitants of countless mini-states which have risen and fallen over the course of thousands of years of human history, Jews have no more rights than anyone else.Zionists are not content with having acquired a state of their own in Palestine, they also want this state to be for-Jews-only, thus the desire and intention to expel from Israeli-controlled territory all the indigenous inhabitants which is a practice sometimes known as ethnic cleansing, a concept derived from the Nazi practice of "cleansing" areas of all Jews so that those areas are then Judenrein.

The idea of transfer had accompanied the Zionist movement from its very beginnings, first appearing in Theodore Herzl's diary. It is considered one of the most important texts of early Zionism. As expressed in this book, Herzl envisioned the founding of a future independent Jewish state during the 20th century. He argued that the best way to avoid anti-Semitism in Europe was to create this independent Jewish state. Herzl, who had lived as a secular, largely assimedilat Jew, was fluent in neither Hebrew nor Yiddish. His lack of contact with Jewish culture and intellectual currents, and his limited contact with Jews less assimilated than he prior to hitting upon the idea of a Jewish return to Zion, led him to imagine that popular Jewish support for a Jewish State elsewhere than in Palestine was conceivable. In Der Judenstaat, Herzl noted the possibility of a Jewish state in Argentina. Herzl popularized the term "Zionism", which was coined by Nathan Birnbaum. The nationalist movement culminated in the birth of the State of Israel in 1948, though Zionism continues to be connected with political support of the State of Israel.



3. Rise of Political Zionism

Political Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, emerged in the 19th century within the context of the liberal nationalism then sweeping through Europe. This era, which began with a movement in Greece to free itself from the yoke of Ottoman occupation and included national liberation movements in Ireland, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy and later on in the century, Turkey and India, also inspired Zionist leaders, as evidenced by many references to the national struggles of other peoples in the writings of the founders of Zionism. Liberal nationalism usually aspired to two basic goals: liberation from foreign rule and national unity in countries which had been partitioned into many political entities like Italy and Germany. Its motto was "A state for every nation, and the entire nation in one state."

Zionism synthesized the two goals, liberation and unity, by aiming to free the Jews from hostile and oppressive alien rule and to re-establish Jewish unity by gathering Jewish exiles from the four corners of the world to the Jewish homeland. The rise of Zionism as a political movement was also a response to the failure of the Haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment, to solve the "Jewish problem." According to Zionist doctrine, the reason for this failure was that personal emancipation and equality were impossible without national emancipation and equality, since national problems require national solutions. The Zionist national solution was the establishment of a Jewish national state with a Jewish majority in the historical homeland, thus realizing the Jewish people's right to self-determination. Zionism did not consider the "normalization" of the Jewish condition contrary to universal aims and values. It advocated the right of every people on earth to its own home and argued that only a sovereign and autonomous people could become an equal member of the family of nations.

Israel's illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories since 1967 is the underlying problem. Occupation transformed the Zionist movement from a legitimate national liberation movement for the Jews into a colonial power and an oppressor of the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon personifies this xenophobic, exclusive, aggressive and expansionist brand of Zionism. One of the greatest accolades in Judaism is to be a rodeph shalom, a seeker of peace. Sharon is not that by any stretch of the imagination. He is a man of war and the champion of violent solutions. Sharon's purpose is politicizing: to deny the Palestinians any independent political existence in Palestine. His plan for withdrawal from Gaza is called "the unilateral disengagement plan." It is not a peace plan but a prelude to the annexation of large chunks of the West Bank to Israel. Sharon, the unilateralist par excellence, is a Jewish Rambo -the antithesis of the traditional Jewish values of truth, justice and tolerance. Sharon's government is waging a savage war against the Palestinian people. Its policies include the confiscation of land; the demolition of houses; the uprooting of trees; curfews, roadblocks and 736 checkpoints that inflict horrendous hardships; the systematic abuse of Palestinian human rights; and the building of the illegal wall on the West Bank, a wall that is as much about land-grabbing as it is about security.



4. Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

Zionists are experts at propaganda, disinformation, denying facts and outright lying. Any criticism of Zionism or of Israel is labeled as "anti-Semitism", where this is interpreted to mean "anti-Jewish". This is a slanderous falsehood. Criticism of Zionism is criticism of a particularly ugly political movement, not criticism of a religion or of the adherents of a religion. One may be critical of Zionism and of Zionists while at the same time being quite tolerant of, or well-disposed toward, or even an adherent of, the Jewish religion. Whether one approves of or dislikes the beliefs and practices of Judaism it remains that Jews have a right to hold those beliefs and maintain those practices. No-one, however, Jewish or non-Jewish, has a right to drive out people from their homes on land where they and their forebears have been living for centuries, to deprive people of their human rights, to cripple their society and to damage the welfare of others by a parasitic subversion of the government of another country for base political purposes, which is what Zionists have done and continue to do.

It is this brand of cruel Zionism that is the real enemy of what remains of liberal Israel and of the Jews outside Israel. It is the enemy because it fuels the flames of virulent and sometimes violent anti-Semitism. Israel's policies are the cause; hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism are the consequences.

There has been much talk in recent years about "the new anti-Semitism." The argument, in a nutshell, is that the resurgence of anti-Semitism has little or nothing to do with Israel's behavior. Anti-Zionism is merely a surrogate, so the argument runs, for bad, old-fashioned anti-Semitism. These arguments need to be addressed. First: What is anti-Semitism? Isaiah Berlin defined an anti-Semite as "someone who hates Jews more than is strictly necessary!" This mischievous definition has the merit of applying to all anti-Semitism, old as well as new. But we need to look beyond the labels. Is there a lot of classic anti-Semitism about? Yes. Is anti-Semitism spreading in Europe? Yes, at an alarming rate. Do some people use anti-Zionism as a respectable cover for their despicable Judeophobia? Alas, yes again. What is the relative weight of hatred of Israel on the one hand and Judeophobia on the other in the making of the new anti-Semitism? I don't know.

What I do know is that a lot of decent people, without any anti-Semitic baggage, are furious with Israel because of its oppression of the Palestinians. There is simply no getting away from the fact that attitudes toward Israel are changing as a result of its own shift towards the Zionism of the extreme right and of the radical rabbis. During the years of the Oslo peace process, Israel was in fact the favorite of the West because it was willing to withdraw from the occupied territories.

Israel's image today is negative not because it is a Jewish state but because it habitually transgresses the norms of acceptable international behavior. Indeed, Israel is increasingly perceived as a rogue state, as an international pariah, and as a threat to world peace.This perception of Israel is a major factor in the recent resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe and in the rest of the world. In this sense, Zionism today is the real enemy of the Jews. It is a tragedy that a state that was built as a haven for the Jewish people after the Holocaust is now one of the least safe places on earth for Jews to live in. Israel ought to withdraw from the occupied territories not as a favor to the Palestinians but as a favor to itself and to world Jewry for, as Karl Marx noted, a people that oppresses another cannot itself remain free.



5. Zionism and Judaism

Zionism should not be equated with Judaism. The contemptible treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli government is supported and approved of by most Israeli Jews but not by all Jews. There are some Jews who are totally opposed to Zionism and to Israel's policies in the occupied territories of the West Bank.

Although Zionism was basically a political movement aspiring to a return to the Jewish homeland with freedom, independence, statehood and security for the Jewish people, it also promoted a reassertion of Jewish culture. An important element in this reawakening was the revival of Hebrew, long restricted to liturgy and literature, as a living national language, for use in government and the military, education and science, the market and the street.

Like any other nationalism, Zionism interrelated with other ideologies, resulting in the formation of Zionist currents and sub currents. The combination of nationalism and liberalism gave birth to liberal Zionism; the integration of socialism gave rise to socialist Zionism; the blending of Zionism with deep religious faith resulted in religious Zionism; and the influence of European nationalism inspired a rightist-nationalism which also espouse various liberal, traditional, socialist (leftist) and conservative (rightist) leanings.


6.Organization

Members and delegates at the 1939 Zionist congress, by country/region (Zionism was banned in the Soviet Union). 70,000 Polish Jews supported the Revisionist Zionism movement, which was not represented.

Country/Region Members Delegates

Poland 299,165 109

USA 263,741 114

Palestine 167,562 134

Romania 60,013 28

United Kingdom 23,513 15

South Africa 22,343 14

Canada 15,220 8



The multi-national, worldwide Zionist movement is structured on representative democratic principles. Congresses are held every four years (they were held every two years before the Second World War) and delegates to the congress are elected by the membership. Members are required to pay dues known as a shekel. At the congress, delegates elect a 30-man executive council, which in turn elects the movement's leader. The movement was democratic from its inception and women had the right to vote.

Until 1917, the World Zionist Organization pursued a strategy of building a Jewish National Home through persistent small-scale immigration and the founding of such bodies as the Jewish National Fund (1901—a charity that bought land for Jewish settlement) and the Anglo-Palestine Bank (1903 - provided loans for Jewish businesses and farmers). In 1942, at the Biltmore Conference, the movement included for the first time an express objective of the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.

The 28th Zionist Congress, meeting in Jerusalem in 1968, adopted the five points of the "Jerusalem Program" as the aims of Zionism today. They are:

* Unity of the Jewish People and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life
* Ingathering of the Jewish People in its historic homeland, Eretz Israel, through Aliyah from all countries
* Strengthening of the State of Israel, based on the prophetic vision of justice and peace
* Preservation of the identity of the Jewish People through fostering of Jewish and Hebrew education, and of Jewish spiritual and cultural values
* Protection of Jewish rights everywhere

Since the creation of modern Israel, the role of the movement has declined and it is now a peripheral factor in Israeli politics, though different perceptions of Zionism continue to play a role in Israeli and Jewish political discussion.



6.1 Labor Zionism

Labor Zionism originated in Eastern Europe. Socialist Zionists believed that centuries of oppression in anti-Semitic societies had reduced Jews to a meek, vulnerable, despairing existence that invited further anti-Semitism, a view originally stipulated by Theodor Herzl. They argued that a revolution of the Jewish soul and society was necessary and achievable in part by Jews moving to Israel and becoming farmers, workers, and soldiers in a country of their own. Most socialist Zionists rejected the observance of traditional religious Judaism as perpetuating a "Diaspora mentality" among the Jewish people, and established rural communes in Israel called "kibbutzim". Though socialist Zionism draws its inspiration and is philosophically founded on the fundamental values and spirituality of Judaism, its progressive expression of that Judaism has often fostered an antagonistic relationship with Orthodox Judaism.

Labor Zionism became the dominant force in the political and economic life of the Yishuv during the British Mandate of Palestine and was the dominant ideology of the political establishment in Israel until the 1977 election when the Israeli Labor Party was defeated. The Israeli Labor Party continues the tradition, although the most popular party in the kibbutzim is Meretz.



6.2 Liberal Zionism

General Zionism (or Liberal Zionism) was initially the dominant trend within the Zionist movement from the First Zionist Congress in 1897 until after the First World War. General Zionists identified with the liberal European middle class to which many Zionist leaders such as Herzl and Chaim Weizmann aspired. Liberal Zionism, although not associated with any single party in modern Israel, remains a strong trend in Israeli politics advocating free market principles, democracy and adherence to human rights. Kadima, however, does identify with many of the fundamental policies of Liberal Zionist ideology, advocating among other things the need for Palestinian statehood in order to form a more democratic society in Israel, affirming the free market, and calling for equal rights for Arab citizens of Israel.



6.3 Nationalist Zionism

Nationalist Zionism originated from the Revisionist Zionists led by Jabotinsky. The Revisionists left the World Zionist Organization in 1935 because it refused to state that the creation of a Jewish state was an objective of Zionism. The revisionists advocated the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine to force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration. Revisionist Zionism evolved into the Likud Party in Israel, which has dominated most governments since 1977. It advocates Israel maintaining control of the West-Bank and East Jerusalem and takes a hard-line approach in the Israeli-Arab conflict. In 2005 the Likud split over the issue of creation of a Palestinian state on the occupied territories and party members advocating peace talks helped form the Kadima party.


6.4 Religious Zionism

In the 1920s and 1930s Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine and his son Rabbi Zevi Judah Kook saw great religious and traditional value in many of Zionism's ideals, while rejecting its anti-religious undertones. They taught that Orthodox (Torah) Judaism embraces and mandates Zionism's positive ideals, such as the ingathering of exiles, and political activity to create and maintain a Jewish political entity in the Land of Israel. In this way, Zionism serves as a bridge between Orthodox and secular Jews.

While other Zionist groups tended to moderate their nationalism over time, the gains from the Six-Day War have led religious Zionism to play a significant role in Israeli political life. Now associated with the National Religious Party and Gush Emunim, religious Zionists have been at the forefront of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and efforts to assert Jewish control over the Old City of Jerusalem.



6.5 Green Zionism

Green Zionism is a branch of Zionism primarily concerned with the environment of Israel. The first and only environmental Zionist party is the .


6.6 Neo-Zionism and Post-Zionism

During the last quarter of the 20th century, classic nationalism in Israel declined. This led to the rise of two antagonistic movements: neo-Zionism and post-Zionism. Both movements mark the Israeli version of a worldwide phenomenon:

* Emergence of globalization, a market society and liberal culture
* Local backlash

Neo-Zionism and post-Zionism share traits with "classical" Zionism but differ by accentuating antagonist and diametrically opposed poles already present in Zionism. "Neo Zionism accentuates the messianic and particularistic dimensions of Zionist nationalism, while post-Zionism accentuates its normalizing and universalistic dimensions". Post-Zionism asserts that Israel should abandon the concept of a "state of the Jewish people" and strive to be a state of all its citizens or a binational state where Arabs and Jews live together while enjoying some type of autonomy.



6.7 Zionism and Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Judaism

Haredi Orthodox organizations do not belong to the Zionist movement; they view Zionism as secular, reject nationalism as a doctrine and consider Judaism to be first and foremost a religion.

Some Haredi rabbis do not consider Israel to be a halachic Jewish state because it is secular. However, they generally consider themselves responsible for ensuring that Jews maintain religious ideals and since most Israeli citizens are Jews they pursue this agenda within Israel. Others reject any possibility of a Jewish state, since according to them a Jewish state is completely forbidden by Jewish law, and a Jewish state is considered an oxymoron.

Two Haredi parties run in Israeli elections. They are sometimes associated with views that could be regarded as nationalist or Zionist, and have shown a preference for coalitions with more nationalist Zionist parties, probably because these are more interested in enhancing the Jewish nature of the Israeli state.

The Sephardi-Orthodox party Shas rejected association with the Zionist movement, however in 2010 it joined the World Zionist Organization, its voters also generally regard themselves as Zionist and Knesset members frequently pursue what others might consider a Zionist agenda. Shas has supported territorial compromise with the Arabs and Palestinians but generally opposes compromise over Jewish holy sites.

The Ashkenazi Agudat Israel/UTJ party has always avoided association with the Zionist movement and usually avoids voting on or discussing issues related to peace because its members do not serve in the army. The party does work towards ensuring that Israel and Israeli law are in tune with the halacha, on issues such as Shabbat rest.



Closing Remarks

Today Zionism means the ideological, ultra-nationalist settlers and their supporters in the Likud-led government. These settlers are a tiny minority but they maintain a stranglehold over the Israeli political system. They represent the unacceptable face of Zionism. Zionism does not equal racism, but many of these hard-line settlers and their leaders are blatant racists. Their extremism and their excesses have led some people to start questioning not just the Zionist colonial project beyond the 1967 borders but also the legitimacy of the state of Israel within those borders. And it is these settlers who also endanger the safety and well-being of Jews everywhere