The Hijacking of the Word "Zionism"

I couldn't have said it better:

Distorted Zionism (Hebrew here)

Im Tirtzu will hand out 'Zionist' tags to those who think as they do, and will silence everyone else.

By Avirama Golan, Haaretz, September 1, 2010 

I almost began this opinion piece by ceremoniously declaring, "The undersigned is a Zionist," but then I realized that this is exactly the kind of self-justification that those in the ideological camp of Im Tirtzu and the Institute for Zionist Strategies are hoping for, and gave up on the idea. If Zionism means blind extreme nationalism that is disconnected from all historical, humanitarian and universal contexts, then the undersigned is not a Zionist.


Both the institute and Im Tirtzu are the vanguard of a new orientation, one that carries out a brutal rape of the concept of Zionism. The concept has never before sounded so trite, shallow, frightened and aggressive. In effect, the "Zionism" of the "new patriots" consists of nothing besides the coarse division into "post-Zionists" (that is, deserters, draft-dodgers, Tel Avivans, those who are disloyal and "Arab-loving" leftists who are against the occupation ), and "Zionists" (that is, loyalists, patriots, preferably settlers, and anyone who is outraged by the slightest hint of criticism of the state and the army in particular, and Jews in general ).

What a tragicomic reversal this is. Precisely the two communities that battled against Zionism as conceived by Herzl and realized by Israel's founding generation (each in its own time and manner ) are now demanding to be recognized as the real Zionists, and anyone else is a traitor worthy of denunciation.

The first group is the Haredim. Many, albeit not all, of them have in recent years been showing clear signs of extreme nationalism: a burning hatred of Arabs, of course, but also adulation for the army (the Hasidic newspaper Hamodia covered the Gaza flotilla incident as if the finest sons of its readers served in Shayetet 13, the naval commando unit that boarded the Turkish ship ), and the use of the terms "enthusiastic Zionist" and "good Jew" as if they were synonymous.

To grasp the extent to which the Zionist idea has been distorted it's enough to simply scroll through readers' comments on the Opinions page of the Haaretz website: Among those who insult the commentators with remarks like "Go live in Gaza, you're not a Jew or a Zionist anyway," it seems to me that there are more than a few Jewish-American Haredim.

The second group is the settlers. After more than 40 years it may be difficult to explain just how ironic it is that Israel Harel, one of the leaders of Gush Emunim, has become the oracle of the "Zionist strategy." He and the institute he heads dictate the standards for who is a Zionist. If there is anything that is antithetical to the spirit of Zionism, the settlements are its embodiment. Zionism is a secular national movement that sought to sever the Jewish people from the ahistorical messianic religious elements, to create a normal national home that would join the family of nations as an equal member.

It's no coincidence that the most virulent opponents of the state (the non-Zionist national religious, as Rabbi Chaim Navon dubbed them ) grow on the hills of Judea and Samaria. That is what gave rise to the deadly marriage between messianic Judaism and racist extreme nationalism. An extreme example of this is the abomination known as the book "Torat Hamelekh" (The King's Torah" ), many of whose Haredi-religious Zionist fans define themselves as good "Jews and Zionists" and claim that the "leftists" are neither of these.

The purpose of nationalist movements is to liberate peoples from subjugation and to give them independence and a national identity. When this mission is completed, the movements are supposed to silently disappear into the pages of history and clear the stage for the vital phase of creating a normal society, for which the state is merely a tool. But Israel, which for 62 years has been mired in a struggle for self-definition (democratic, Jewish - where's the democracy, where's the Judaism? ), also mired Zionism.

The secular and the sane traditional religious public (the "silent majority" ) have long since been ready for the next stage, but the abovementioned two groups, and especially their leaders (and above all politicians from and to the right of Likud who know which way the bad winds are blowing ) won't let them. They will hand out "Zionist" tags to those who think as they do, and will silence everyone else.

Im Tirtzu vs. BGU

After targeting the New Israel Fund, "Im Tirtzu" ("If You Will It") is now taking aim at the political science department at Ben-Gurion University. It claims that a majority of its faculty members are left wing extremists and it has sent a letter to Prof. Rivka Carmi, the BGU president, saying that if steps aren't taken to make sure that the faculty and course content will be more balanced, Im Tirtzu will discourage students from studying there and will ask donors to stop the flow of cash. Since "balancing" the faculty without firing anyone would cost a lot of money by adding several new lecturers,  Im Tirtzu is actually calling for the firing of faculty members they don't like. They were careful not to actually use the word "fire". They must have been thinking of another word - "deniability" - when they wrote the letter. "You're calling us McCarthyites? But we never said anything about black-listing or terminating anyone's job!"

I don't know how Im Tirtzu came to the conclusion that a majority of the faculty members are extremists (9 of 11, they claim). I find this doubtful. Yes, this is the same department headed by Neve Gordon, who supports a boycott of Israel, and there probably is a vast majority of left-wingers among the faculty members, but not a majority of extreme leftists. Besides, what is important isn't their views but whether they abuse their roles as teachers and researchers to advance their agenda. If there's evidence of such conduct it's worthy of further scrutiny. If there isn't, it's just an attempt to shut up people whose views "Im Tirtzu" doesn't like.

Shutting Up Opposing Views

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon were heckled by pro-Palestinian protesters during recent appearances at respected universities. Oren was treated to a series of shout downs at the University of California, Irvine (see Youtube video below), while Ayalon was heckled during a speech at Oxford. The protesters chose not to ask difficult questions during the Q&A, but rather to try to shut the Israeli speakers up by shouting all kinds of slogans. It seemed to be pre-organized, but not in a very smart way. The UC-Irvine protesters (and maybe the ones in Oxford, too, but I haven't seen a video of them) had written their slogans on little notes beforehand, and shouted them out one person at a time, with no connection between what Amb. Oren was saying at that point and what they were shouting.

There is no difference between what these protesters did and what the right-wing organization "Im Tirtzu" is trying to do to the New Israel Fund and left wing organizations. Both groups are fighting to shut up their own opposition while claiming that what they themselves are doing is an exercise in free speech. How can an attempt to silence free speech be itself protected by free speech?

You might say that there is a difference between NGOs like the New Israel Fund and government officials like the deputy foreign minister and a diplomat. You might try to claim that the protesters were speaking truth to power. That isn't the case. People in the audience only heard slogans. They didn't really hear in depth arguments in favor of the Palestinian cause, which the Arab protesters could have made during the Q&A. Audience members didn't hear a debate that would make them understand the situation better. Instead, they got fragments of the Israeli view and even smaller fragments of the pro-Palestinian view, but no interaction between the two. The hecklers turned the event into a disgrace unworthy of an academic venue.

UC-Irvine video after the jump.

Im Tirtzu's Attack on the New Israel Fund

Im Tirtzu, a right-wing student organization who for some reason insists on calling itself a centrist movement, has started a campaign against the New Israel Fund and its chairwoman, former MK Prof. Naomi Chazan. In ads in newspapers and online, Im Tirtzu claims that 92 percent of the negative claims against Israel and the IDF in the Goldstone Report whose source is Israeli, came from organizations funded by the NIF. They invite people to read a report they prepared, and I assume they hope people won't actually read the report. I read it, and checked out some of their refrences to the Goldstone Report.

They're careful to say it is 92% of negatives claims against Israel made by Israeli organizations, but most people who read it would think it is a whopping 92% of all claims, which isn't the case. Remember, that NIF sources are less than 14% of the whole sources of the Goldstone Report. The Palestinians' claims would still be there even if it weren't for NIF-funded organizations.

Now, how did they get to the exact 92% figure. They took 191 references to NIF sources (including "New Profile", which Naomi Chazan has already said is not affiliated with the NIF), plus 56 references to non-NIF Israeli organizations. At this stage, the NIF is responsible for only 77% of the references. That isn't bad enough, so Im Tirtzu needed to increase the percentage. What did they do? They split the 56 non-NIF references to those who are either supportive of Israel or neutral (40) and those who criticize it (16). So those critical of Israel are now 191 NIF sources (92%) and 16 non-NIF sources (8%). But wait, why didn't they perform a similar split between NIF sources criticizing Israel and those supporting it? I noticed that at least a few of the NIF sources they listed actually talk about life under the threat of the Qassams. If I had the time to go over all the references, I'm sure I'd be able to find more NIF sources in the Goldstone Report that are either supportive of Israel or neutral.

I have to say that I'm not too thrilled with the organizations that did give the Goldstone Commission certain one-sided information, but it's their right to give the Commission information as they see it. This McCarthyist campaign by Im Tirtzu is disgusting.

The New Israel Fund has many great programs in Israel, most of them not related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I would hate to see them lose contributions because of this slanted report.