Talk:Zionism
Must sleep soon...more later.--PalMD-If it looks like a donut, eat it 23:01, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- With the Metapedia scum hanging around, we need to keep an extra-special watch on this article though. Does our MediaWiki software offer sprotect capability? EVDebs 23:04, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- It can be protected, but I don't know if it can allow specific editors.--PalMD-If it looks like a donut, eat it 23:05, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- It's already been attacked a few times (and fixed by Jeeves, if I recall). It's here in part to rebut many of the most common memes from the MP types. Researcher 23:07, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- I guess because I'm not a sysop, I can't edit it now. (Not that I particularly need to, since you all have made it so much better, but just saying.) Researcher 23:09, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- Nah. I think it only works that way on CP. There's more democratic ways to handle it. EVDebs 23:13, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- Well, I don't fully understand how the semiprotect thing works, but as I understand it there's a certain threshhold of numbers of edits that can be set so that only people with established track records can access it. The idea is that presumably any recently-registered usernames with a grudge can be prevented from messing around with controversial topics; it's not exactly protection against sleeper vandals, but it's the only thing I can think of. Wikipedia seems to use it to good advantage. EVDebs 23:10, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- It still won't let me edit it, and I have (I think) a whole freaking bunch of edits on here. (Plus some 100+ articles I've created.) Though it's not important to me to be able to edit it now that's it's been so improved, but it could prove problematic for others with legitimate things to add. (Unless I'm the only regular non-sysop. Which could be useful for testing purposes.) Researcher 23:16, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- Though, reading the history, it looks like you semi-protected this page rather than the main one, and I *can* (obviously) edit this one. Researcher 23:18, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- It can be protected, but I don't know if it can allow specific editors.--PalMD-If it looks like a donut, eat it 23:05, 28 November 2007 (EST)
Woot! I feel special now. Researcher 23:23, 28 November 2007 (EST)
- Semi protection on WP (not sure how custom that is) block IP edits and edits by users less than three days "old". Used to ward off waves of excited vandals. It might be nice to have here for some of these articles. But then again, sometimes it's fun hitting that "rollback" link... human
15:34, 29 November 2007 (EST)
- Honestly, I get a perverse pleasure dealing with vandals and trolls. (I like to go into teacher mode, even when it does no good.) Researcher 16:42, 29 November 2007 (EST)
- Semi protection on WP (not sure how custom that is) block IP edits and edits by users less than three days "old". Used to ward off waves of excited vandals. It might be nice to have here for some of these articles. But then again, sometimes it's fun hitting that "rollback" link... human
Contents |
[edit] Protection
I'm tempted to release the page. Any votes in favor or against? Researcher 21:59, 20 December 2007 (EST)
- Go ahead, we can always revert ugly wandalism and reprotect if we feel the need. Really, unless some editors start to burn out on reverting, etc., we shouldn't need to protect much, if anything. human
22:40, 20 December 2007 (EST)
[edit] Jewish Nationalism
I know little about this area of politics, but the article mentions "jewish nationalism is not the same as Zionism", can anyone explain that better? Also, how does Zionism fit into the now (virtually ridiculous) behaviors of the State against Gaza, cause I do hear people say "Zionism and/or Nationalism is the cause". Some days my ignorance slaps me in teh face, I must admit.--
En attendant Godot"To-morrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of to-day?" 11:20, 18 February 2009 (EST)
[edit] Issues
There's a few issues with this, though given the topic want to discuss first.
- As already mentioned, how is modern day Jewish nationalism different from Zionism in practical terms? Before the creation of Israel I can see how they were distinct, but now the two are so conflated as to be pretty much one and the same.
- If we are going to discuss the liking of Zionism to Nazism, something should be said of comparisons to apartheid South Africa, where, at least in terms of where Zionism has led, regardless of the original ideology, does hold some valid points of debate re: segregation, political and legal rights, economic exploitation, and bantustans.
- Mention of the 1967 war, but not mention of the 1948 war, which is directly relevant, as is the first time the Zionist ideals came into contact with real on-the-ground problems of carving out a Jewish state/homeland in Palestine/Israel.
- Changing dynamics of support for Zionism. US was initially uncertain of support for Israel, but quickly adopts a fervent pro-Israel stance, whilst Soviet Union turns against Israel and arms nations in the region that are hostile. Zionism becomes part of the cold war games.
- Debate over whether or not Zionism in it's current form is inherently a racist ideology, is a mostly neutral ideal exploited by politicians to justify racist policies, or neither?
- Those all sound, to me, like legitimate issues to be dealt with. I am not remotely qualified to write much about them, however. Researcher (talk) 00:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
- The issues brought up are all very good points. As a Jew who is very focused on Middle Eastern politics I will try to address all of them.
- Zionism and Jewish Nationalism: Jewish Nationalism is belief that the Jews constitute a "nation", because of Jewish history it was a rather far-fetched idea that the Jews could act on that nationalism and create a nation. This is because the Jews historically were stateless. Zionism is the belief that grew out of Jewish nationalism which addresses this problem by moving Jews to into Palestine where they can crate their own state there. In essence Zionism is Nationalism, it is the idea that the Jews must have an independent homeland in Palestine. Distinguishing between Jewish national and Zionism is not really useful because Zionism is simply Jewish nationalism made into reality.
- Zionism and Nazism. If the differences between Zionism and Jewish nationalism are small, the differences between Nazism and German nationalism are giant. Nazism promotes irredentism taken to the extreme in the form of lebensraum. Most irredentist claims are historically based, Nazi irredentism wasn't. Furthermore nationalism in general treats race a minor issue, nationalists are more concerned about ethnicity and borders. Eugenics and by extension race, was a giant component of Nazism, and borders were regarded as an obstacle to world domination. German nationalism and irredentism attempts to unite all German speaking people into the same country; Nazism by contrast seeks to dominate the globe and rid it of undesirables. Despite what most of the people at metapedia and stormfront seem to believe Zionism does not seek to dominate the Globe, it seeks to create a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. Zionists could care less what the rest of the world does so long as it does not conflict with there interests of creating a Jewish state in Palestine.
- Apartheid and Zionism. An Israeli apartheid only exists in light of a one state solution. In the light of a two state solution the situation in the West Bank is an occupation but not an apartheid. One can make the argument that in the West Bank there is a de facto apartheid but whether or not you regard it as an full apartheid depends on how you choose to view the conflict as a whole and what outcome you want to see. Now a major difference between any hypothetical Israeli apartheid and the South African apartheid is that the Israeli one is based on nationality and religion, it is NOT based on race.
- The article should discuss the 1948 war. My view on what happened during the war is similar to views taken by Benny Morris. The Palestinians fled from there homes for the same reason why the current Syrian refugees fled from there homes. They didn't want to be living in war zone. Zionism doesn't take into account the Palestinians natives for several reasons. Firstly, the province Palestine was in fact underdeveloped and underpopulated, the Ottoman Empire neglected the entire Levant. Mark Twain (not a man known for having conservative views I may add) describing it as Palestine as "desolate" probably is a bit of an overstatement but the reality was the entire Middle East was a backwater in the 19th century. For the past one hundred and fifty years Palestine and its people have undergone a massive population boom. Secondly, the Palestinians were not seen as such and for most of their history never really asserted their identity as Palestinian. Without question the Palestinians are a people even without Israel, but that just meant and to some extant still just means that they are Arabs who live in Palestine. This is a major Zionist talking point. For most of the Cold War Arab nationalism was a major force in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was seen in that light. And from that perspective the conflict seems lopsided in favor of the Arabs since the Arabs are quite numerous and the Jews are not (Linguistically and historically the conflict gets quite confusing because whereas Hebrew is a Canaanite language Arabic is not. For instance I recall seeing a post to a news article describing how Hebrew usage is widespread in Gaza. The post lamented the fact the Palestinians were being forced to learn the "language of the imperialists," from a historical linguistic perspective that comment completely shatters the irony meter. Arabic is not native to Palestine, or Iraq, or Syria, or Lebanon, or Egypt, or North Africa; it is not even native to Jordan and Yemen). Thirdly, even if they had to move people around at gunpoint (which is what they did eventually do) they had no qualms about doing so. In this light the entire refugee crisis is no different than any of the other "populations exchanges" that happened during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The position of the Palestinians in this perspective is comparable to the Greeks of Ionia, the Muslims of the Balkans (during the Balkan wars), the Armenians, and all the other refugees who ended up on the wrong side of the borders during the early 20th century. Making the Palestinians Arabs further justifies these actions. Basically when you take into account all of the "population exchanges" done in the name of nationalism during the first half of the 20th century the plight of the Palestinians does not stand out.
- Zionism and the Cold War. The American state department officials didn't like Zionism because they feared that the founding of the state of Israel would negatively impact relations with Saudi Arabia. The soviets for there part were communists, why they supported Zionism at all is a bit of a mystery since according to Communist thought all nationalism is evil. However in the cold war the Soviets found it beneficial to use the decolonization movement to forward their own agenda. Israel was and still is a big target for the anti imperialists due to the circumstances surrounding its creation. The anti imperialist perspective claims that Israel is a colonialist creation rather than a nationalist one, this is not surprising since Zionists like Ben Gurion gave speeches making it seem like it was. The problem with this assumption is that it completely ignores the fact that Zionism is a Nationalist ideology and that Zionists ally with whomever supports there goal of Jewish state in Palestine. This leads to pro palestinian activists and zionists activists having shouting matches talking about completely different things. This all brings me back to the difference between nationalism and Communism. From a Marxist perspective the only possible explanation for Israels existence is that it is a colonial endeavor. From a nationalist perspective Israel's exists to serve as a homeland for the Jewish people and it came into existence because of out of control antisemitism.
- Zionism today. Zionism is for all intents and purposes nationalism, if it is a racist ideology than so is every other nationalist ideology on this planet. The only possible way to describe Zionism as racism while portraying Palestinian Nationalism as something different is to redefine racism to the "prejudice plus power" definition which borders on moral relativism. Indeed rationalwiki does not view the concept favorably because it imposes an artificial definition on a concept in order to reconcile positions that seem contradictory. 96.238.26.73 (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC) Alex
[edit] Possible error
Zionist history is not my strong point, so bear with me. I find this line curious though; Most forms of Zionism focused on creating a state in the land that is now Israel, since that land had strong symbolic meaning for the Jewish people. I don't think this is true. Although the Kibbutz movements in the 19th century were clearly Zionist in nature, the international Zionist leadership were not particularly concerned if Israel became their homeland or not. David Ben-Gurion, for example, wasn't overly bothered if Israel became the home of the Jews, so long as they had one.
On another note, one of the last relatively unsettled parts of the world capable of sustaining a nation state would have been Patagonia in Argentina. Considering Argentina went on to possess a large Jewish population (c. 200,000), was this ever considered as a likely site? Just an idle notion I had. MarcusCicero (talk) 23:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- I have heard it suggested that they should have given up part of Germany for a Jewish nation. I don't know if that idea was floated at the time, but it does have some interesting pluses to it. - π 23:39, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
- The Soviet Union actually made an internal division specifically for the Jewish people...it just happened to be out in Siberia. Not so popular. Researcher (talk) 03:37, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Definition
Grow up. Swearing at me on my talk page is not helpful. Why do you feel that the assertion that Zionism is often used as a code word for supporting apartheid in Israel is incorrect? Can we compromise, at least? What we have now is about as fair and logical as CP is. Zionism is more than just the idea that people shouldn't kill Jews, and we both know it.— Unsigned, by: 67.194.169.29 / talk / contribs
- It just so happens that I do not disagree with you BoN. But there are ways to amend an article without just posting inflammatory additions. 23:16, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
- I was going to emend it to:
"Zionism in some circles (especially on the Internet) can also refer to the idea that Israel is justified in what some consider the continued and unabashed oppression of the Palestinian people and more widely all Arabs, including forcibly evicting Arab or Muslim families from their homes in Jerusalem as part of a government program to 'de-Arabify' the city."
- For a rational Wiki, it's surprising to see the canard of Zionism being like apartheid. Under apartheid, black people could not live in South Africa except as servants to white people. In contrast, Israeli Arabs can live anywhere secular Israelis live (some religious communities exclude both), can become hospital directors, members of the Knesset, and even Supreme Court Justices. So how is this like apartheid.
- As for Gaza, any discussion of that should include the fact that Israel gave de-facto internal sovereignty to that area; their response was to elect a government sworn to destroy Israel and to lob rockets at Israeli civilians. Whether this justifies Israel's actions in Gaza is not the point; however, it should be considered in the discussion. Zvi the Fiddler. Dec 11, 2011 — Unsigned, by: Fiddlerzvi / talk / contribs
- These kinds of additions make The New Statesman seem like a measured, reasonable political journal. For God sake, do we have to use language that would make a Soviet propagandist blush when talking about Israel? MarcusCicero (talk) 13:30, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
- That's why I put it here, to tear it apart. If the "what some consider" had a solid reference to some who consider it, that would be different. ħuman
18:06, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
- I wasn't having a go at you, unfortunately many in the west seem incapable of either thinking or debating about Israel in proportion, it all seems to be black and white, good and evil. Never mind that Hamas is a fascist organisation that seems impervious to compromise. MarcusCicero (talk) 23:41, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
- That's why I put it here, to tear it apart. If the "what some consider" had a solid reference to some who consider it, that would be different. ħuman
- These kinds of additions make The New Statesman seem like a measured, reasonable political journal. For God sake, do we have to use language that would make a Soviet propagandist blush when talking about Israel? MarcusCicero (talk) 13:30, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
[edit] Incoherence
I deleted this sentence because I have no idea what it means:
- This usage "Zionism" has also been accepted to some degree by other groups that are not anti-Semitic, particularly on the Internet. These people, thus, use the term to refer to the idea that Jews should not be killed, or that the State of Israel has a right to self-defense against Palestinian terrorists, etc.
Some people, who aren't anti-Semitic, take the term "Zionism" to mean Jews should not be killed, or Israel has a right to self-defence? I am not sure why the "that are not anti-Semitic" qualifier is there, it goes without saying there is nothing particularly antisemitic about these positions, quite the opposite. It seems to be confusing the likely consequences of support for Zionism with Zionism itself. If someone supports Zionism, one would expect them to oppose the idea of killing Jews, and support Israel's right to self-defence. But neither are part of the definition of Zionism -- they are consequences of Zionism. --Maratrean (talk) 20:12, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
[edit] Zionism and Nazism
I don't believe the section should be present, at least not in this article. Perhaps a new article (criticism of Israel?) or on the Israel article. I'm the one that put Norman Finkelstein in there, but I regret it since he's not the best example of anti-Zionism (he's an example, but not the best) and because he talks more of Israel than Zionism itself.--"Shut up, Brx." 19:23, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
- Brxbrx, is you argument that people don't compare Zionism to Nazism, but rather compare Israel to Nazi Germany? But, people actually do compare Zionism to Nazism. Try googling the portmanteau word zionazism. It's not a fair comparison, in fact it's one designed to be as offensive as possible, but it is without doubt a comparison that gets made. Zack Martin
20:34, 26 December 2011 (UTC)