PALESTINIAN REFLECTIONS ON ANTI-ZIONISM

The First Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress

The first Jewish anti-Zionist Congress took place in Vienna in mid-June of this year. I had wanted to write before about this historic moment, but it has taken me this long to digest and mull over its significance.

When I first heard about the meeting, it brought to mind that other First Jewish Congress, held in Basel in 1897. Then, a group of Jews came together to affirm a new creed, Zionism, that subsequently brought ruin on Palestine and its people, and wrenched Jews away from the societies they were part of. Now, more than a century later, another group of Jews met in Vienna to affirm their opposition to that same destructive creed.

How fitting, I thought, that a Jewish initiative which brought Zionism into being should end with another Jewish initiative dedicated to Zionism’s extinction. Hence, when I was invited to contribute a Palestinian voice to this important Congress I declined. Much as I commended the Jewish organisers for taking this courageous step, for me the congress was not about Palestinians, even if it would actually benefit their cause.

As I see it, the fight against Zionism is primarily an intra-Jewish affair in which Palestinians have no direct part to play. It is for Jews themselves to turn away from Zionism: to recognise the harm it has done them by striving to reverse a process of Jewish integration into European societies since the end of the eighteenth century. Zionism encouraged de-assimilation amongst these communities, and obliged them to split their allegiances and sense of belonging between a foreign country, Israel, and the places where they lived.

In addition, Zionism demanded acceptance of Israel’s claim to represent the Jews of the world, and to aspire to immigrate there. Identifying with Israel meant that Zionist Jews had to support what it did, including the genocide in Gaza. They must believe its lies and accept its justifications for its murderous behaviour

I imagined anti-Zionist Jews taking these messages to their Zionist fellow Jews, explaining what damage Zionism had done them, and urging them to abandon it. I saw this as opposition to Zionism in its own right, regardless of Jewish solidarity with the Palestinians. Had the Palestine cause not existed, Zionism would still be an evil, supremacist ideology to be opposed.

Despite a growing number of Jews who will now stand out against Zionism, the reality is they are a small minority. The vast majority of Jews in Israel and the west traditionally remain either active or passive supporters of Zionism.

For that reason, an anti-Zionist campaign was an urgent necessity and it needed to spread far and wide amongst Jews, its primary target. This had to be the task of anti-Zionist Jews who had seen the light, so to speak. Only they can do this work, no easy task for Zionist Jews to emancipate themselves from something which is more like a cult than a political ideology.

Armed with these thoughts when I was eventually persuaded to attend, I found to my disappointment that the Congress saw things differently. It aimed for an anti-Zionist movement involving Jews and non-Jews. Arriving at the conference hall in Vienna I found it filled with Palestinian cultural symbols like the kuffiyya and the Palestine flag. It looked like any number of meetings by Palestine solidarity groups with nothing to distinguish it as a Jewish initiative, although a majority of the audience was in fact Jewish. There was much personal warmth extended by Jewish participants towards the Palestinians who were there. As one Jewish attendee pointed out to me when I stressed the need for Jews like him to convert Zionist Jews to the cause, “Frankly, it’s more rewarding to deal with Palestinians than Zionists”.

A determined insistence on a partnership with the Palestinians seemed to be a key objective of the Congress. I thought this was a serious mistake. Much as it pains me to say it, involving the Palestinian cause in an anti-Zionist campaign would have the effect of weakening it, and make it little different from so many other pro-Palestinian initiatives. Though comforting for their members, these have never achieved proper official notice in the west and remain on the margins.

Decades of skillful Zionist propaganda, denigrating the Palestine cause in Western centres of power and media outlets, have ensured the delegitimisation of the Palestinian point of view. Even today, and despite the genocidal war in Gaza endured by Palestinians, it remains the case that Palestinian spokespeople are less trusted than either Jewish or ‘neutral’ ones. Israeli lies are still broadcast on the mainstream media as valid opinions, and Israeli voices, including those critical of Israel, are more listened to than Palestinian ones, however eloquent these might be.

To recognise these realities is not to condone them. But they should help us to understand that the power of the Jewish anti-Zionist campaign lies precisely in the fact that it is Jewish and undiluted by other considerations, including the cause of Palestine. If that advice is followed, then the First Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress would have truly fulfilled its promise.