perfidy

Remember Ross, that for a significant number of people, "I don't like Zionists" is as indicative of prejudice as the phrase, "Some of my best friends are black." Actually even more so.

It is not as simple as being against Zionism since Zionism is an ideology of nationalism. Whereas some of the practices of Zionists are reprehensible, anti-Zionism is not simply a critique of those practices but a critique of the existence of a/the Jewish state--it is akin to antisemitism. Attempts to link Zionism to Apartheid are excessive and show a profound misunderstanding of both.

While it is theoretically (and in a few cases, actually) possible to be a hardcore "anti-Zionist" without being an anti-semite, I cannot help but think that in practice, from observation, the former is generally code for the latter, especially among people who would never admit to themselves that they're being anti-Semitic.

Part of this perception may be the increasingly sloppy and vituperatuve rhetoric of the "anti-Zionists", though. Especially, of course, their Arab allies and the sad tendency to not disown said allies when they call for actual anti-semitic actions and propose actually anti-semitic policies.

What NDR said, really. The desire to call Israel an "apartheid state" (last I checked, blacks in the apartheid-era RSA couldn't serve at high levels in the RSA government, wheras Arabs (ie, "Palestinians") who are Israeli citizens can and do do so.) is rhetorical, rather than factual, and inappropriate emotional condemnation of Zionism (ie, Israel's statehood) shades very easily and rapidly into anti-semitism, especially with Arab groups who, unfortunately, seem to generally conflate "Jew" and "Zionist".

Nice. Zionism is generally understood to be that segment of Jewish Israel that seeks to expand the borders of the Jewish homeland into its ancient historical boundaries; to reform that state.

I think the settlements suck. I think it sucks that there are so many dead Palestinian kids. I think it also sucks that there are so many dead Israeli kids.

I am not an anti-semite. I don't give a crap about whether you're Jewish or not.

It seems to me that there has to be at least some element of intent before you can label someone "anti-semitic". Do you toss around "racist" and "sexist" the same way?

And who said anything about being "hardcore"? That's a qualifier you can drive a truck through.

No one said you're anti-Semitic, Ross. Just that it's much rarer than you seem to think to be anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic.

Zionism is not generally understood to be the desire to expand the current borders of Israel - Zionism is the movement that led to the creation of a Jewish state. Now, it's a bit odd to refer to someone who supports the continued existence of that state as a Zionist. Generally, the word Zionist is used by Arabs, as a code word for "Jew" in the western media. The communists used to use the word that way before they ceased to matter much.

To go back to Herzl, the fundemental assertion of Zionism is that Jews are threatened everywhere without the existence of a nation that represents them. While there are variations and extremes of this nation ideology, it is a its core a raison d'être, not a logic of expansion and imperialism.

Ross (et al):

Anti-Zionist is a much cleaner label than "anti-Semitic", as I'm sure you know. Many of those in the Middle East who are labeled anti-Semites are, themselves, Semitic, including "Phoenecians, Hebrews, and Arabs". It's become fashionable to equate the two, but as I read your comments, you might not care so much about Zionism itself (as in "you don't mind if the Jews have a country"), but there are clearly problems with the implementation of such a concept. Do I read correctly?

Huge problems. Fifty years' worth of problems.

Israel's a relatively tiny place and, much like Tokyo, there are near-term limits to how big it can get within its current geography. One reason that friends of mine in the Middle East see the problems there going on forever (or until there is no more Israel) is this fundamental problem of time and space.

I don't know the solution to the problem, and I'm afraid it's more intractable than simple hard-heads on both sides of the issue.

But the deaths of more Palestinians and Israelis (kids or adults) are a cursed shame, one which seems unlikely to change soon.

Oh, and I couldn't really grasp the combination of Will's headline and his story either. But his larger issue, largely unrelated to Gibson's movie, had to do with the quashed study he quoted from the EU about where the alleged rise in anti-Jewish activity in Europe was coming from.

What it has to do with the movie is really still a mystery to me.

I'm going to have to say that I am anti-Zionist, but not an anti-Semite. For the same reasons above. I've read Herzl for a class on nationalist movements, and while I understand the need for self-determination and a state homeland since I have what amounts to two countries (yay me!). What disturbs me about the original Zionst proposition is that it specifically seeks to drive out Palestinians who have been there for just as long. Sorry, but that strikes me as being unfair to the Palestinian's right to their own state. (by the way, 'Semite' sometimes also refers to Palestinians in some contexts, or do I have that wrong? I was under the impression that Semitic peoples were generally all of them hailing from that part of the Levant...) Meir Kahane and Kahane'hai aren't exactly poster children for why Zionism is good.

I'm opposed to the movie and I have no intention of seeing it partly due to the gory violence. I just don't like seeing that in front of me. I want to remain sensitized to violence and be appalled when it's real and people are dying in torture chambers in Iraq.. Heck, I watched the Exorcist (director's cut) through my fingers when I was 25. But mainly, I disagree with the Catholic movement the Gibson family follows. Sure, I reject some ideas from Vatican II (namely the loss of Latin mass because I think Latin is beautiful, though not as beautiful as Greek). But the notion that the Holocaust did not exist is just crazy. Read Night by Elie Weisel. How can you deny that it happened? How can you downplay it on the grand scheme of things? Horrible things like it have happened in history before, but we can actually talk to its survivors so that we can never forget it and never let it happen again. Gibson's father makes me sick to my stomach.

My feeling about what's going on there is that the West will never be able to replace what Thomas L. Friedman calls "Hama Rules." The tit-for-tat lifestyle of tribal desert clans has been brought forward into the 21st century and has never been eradicated. I'm afaid that yes, we are going to have to let them all kill each other and leave it to the last man standing. Why? Because of Hama Rules.

Oh my! I am rambling. /me runs off to find some snacks. I am having low blood sugar.