AN ANARCHIST EXPLAINS WHY
Though nowhere near a worst
case scenario, the State of
Before the Jewish residents
of Gaza and two settlements in Shomron were forced
out of their homes by the Israeli army and police at the behest of the
government, I would not have said that Israel is a fascist state; though I was
certainly critical of the socio-economic methods that the powers that be in
Israel employ to subdue the population and keep in a continuous state of
uncertainty and insecurity. I, like most
Israelis, thought that the Israeli Defense Forces were exactly that – defense
forces. I thought of the IDF as an army
of the people, by the people, for the people. I thought that the army exists to
protect the state against invasion. I believed in the sworn purpose of the IDF,
as outlined to all new recruits, including "purity of arms". I, like
most Israelis, was horrified to see that our army was employed against us. That
event proved to me that the government of
Many of the evacuated
families still, almost nine months after the evacuation, do not have permanent
living quarters, despite the fact that they were promised "caravillas" by the government.
A pall of disappointment
and dread fell over the state of
The average Israeli was
aghast and sickened at seeing these events, even those who were principally in
favor of the "disengagement".
The terrorization of the
general population goes on, as this description of the detention of two girls,
That we veered off our
original course cannot be denied. Yet,
neither can it be denied that our original course was a magnificent social and
cultural undertaking, born of the noblest of Socialist spirit and ideology.
The first issue that must
be addressed is whether or not it is true that a traditional homeland of a
numerically significant, indigenous people who were the descendants and possessors
of an ancient culture and heritage that arose in the area was invaded,
conquered and supplanted by the Jews who returned to Israel.
On the following link you
will find versions of how the Palestinian people came to be in the area of
pre-state Israel that are at variance with the version the Palestinians
maintain. You will find first-hand
reports among the sources cited. They are the reports of individuals who had no
interest in falsifying either the number of Arabs or the conditions of their
lives in pre-state
The Miuhas
Dynasty has been in the
If the Palestinians had
been in possession of Palestine in substantial numbers from time immemorial, as
they claim, given their very high birth rate and the fact that polygyny is the norm among Muslims, we should expect that
there would have been mighty cities and many populous towns in Palestine
previous to the Jewish settlement in the area.
The eye witnesses cited on the site provided above describe a very
different situation indeed. They describe a desolate land, a land largely
devoid of population. Their reports
contain no descriptions of substantially-populated Palestinian centers or
Palestinian culture.
Palestinians routinely
disrupt archaeological digs and vandalize archaeological sites because the
archeological evidence proves that there never was a Palestinian culture or
major settlement in this area. It simply
does not exist.
As you can
see from this article: (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BILU),
the first wave of Jewish émigrés to Israel, called BILU, arrived
in July, 1882 fleeing anti-Semitic laws and pogroms in Russia. Parenthetically, in order to better put the
nature of Jewish resettlement of Israel into perspective, it is well to
consider the fact that 1882 was the same year that joint English-French
financial control over Egypt ended when Britain occupied, some describe it as
"acquired", Egypt (See: http://tinyurl.com/o5t7v). Sudan, which borders Egypt to the
south, was taken over by an indigenous radical Islamic movement.
The Jewish resettlers of
Receiving word that Jews
had settled successful farms, migrant Arabs and other Muslim workers from the
surrounding areas came to the area looking for work. They hailed from what is
now
They were taken on as cheap
labor. Therein, in betraying their
Socialist principles, and accepting cheap Arab labor, did the pioneers of BILU
sow the seeds of the unrest in
The families of the migrant
farmers joined the working men and they began to multiply rapidly. They are the progenitors of the Palestinian
people. Their present population would indicate that this must be true.
We see from the above
discussion that the Semitic radical p-l-sh or p-l-s
bespeaks 'invasion' or a 'sneaking in stealthily'. People who sit on their
native soil and are truly indigenous do not call themselves Stealthy Invaders
and they do not call their country The Land of the Stealthy Invaders. The very
name Palestinians tells the speaker of a Semitic language that they are
invaders, people who broke their way through into the area and are squatters on
it.
Author Lucien van der Walt has written an article, which he entitled:
"In This Struggle, Only The Workers and Peasants Will Go All the way to
the End: Towards a History of Anarchist Anti-Imperialism", the title of
which is a quote from Augustino
Cesar Sandino (1895-1934), (See: http://tinyurl.com/cnb85
). The essay provides a number of cases of the resistance of anarchists to
invasion and colonization by imperialists. In this work, we shall compare van
der Walt's excellent examples of imperialism to the modern state of Israel in
order to determine whether or not Israel is an imperialist state as van der
Walt and so many other Leftists and Anarchists would have it.
Van der Walt writes: "Our role as anarchists in relation to
nationalists is thus clear: we may fight alongside nationalists for limited
reforms and victories against imperialism but we fight the statism and
capitalism of the nationalists."
Van der
Walt quotes Mikhail Bakunin (1918-1876), who in
referring to European colonization, expressed "strong sympathy for any
national uprising against any form of oppression" and every people
"has the right to be itself…no one is entitled to impose its costume,
its customs its languages and its laws" (See van der
Walt's attributes). It would seem that an anarchist loyal to the teachings of Bakunin, who is revered as the "father of
anarchism", would be morally obliged to support the Palestinian people's
struggle against the Jewish state. However, as we demonstrated above, there
were no Palestinian people when the first group of Jewish resettlers
of the
After the State of
It was, in fact, we
Jews whose religion, costume, language, customs and laws were reasons for our
being discriminated against. It is we who were being denied our Human right to
practice our own religion, to dress, to live, to speak our language and
determine our laws as we will. The first
resettlers of the
Van der
Walt says the following, integrating quotes from Bakunin:
"The national struggle of oppressed nationalities must be internationalist
in character as it must supplant obsessions with cultural difference with
universal ideals of human freedom, it must align itself with the international
class struggle for "political and economic emancipation from the yoke
of the State" and the classes it represents, and it must take place,
ultimately, as part of an international revolution: "a social
revolution…is by its very nature international in scope" and the
oppressed nationalities "must therefore link their aspirations and forces
with the aspirations and forces of all other countries… The "statist
path involving the establishment of separate…States" is "entirely
ruinous for the great masses of the people" because it did not abolish
class power but simply changed the nationality of the ruling class. Instead the state system must be abolished
and replaced with a coalition of workplace and community structures."
"But we are not
nationalists. We recognize…that simply
replacing foreign elites with local elites will not solve the problem…"
"Establishing new
nation-states means, in effect, establishing new capitalist states that, in
turn, serve the interests of the local elite…In other words, internal
oppression continues in new forms."
"…local oppression
is no solution…"
Anarchists could not,
in remaining at all true to themselves and their professed ideology, support
the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside of the State of
In addition to the
oft-professed mission of believing Muslims to conquer the world and subject all
of Humanity to Islam, the Muslim states that existed before the establishment
of the Palestinian entity are among the most at variance with the anarchist
vision in the world: many are monarchies, all are led by the very richest,
government officials and the wealthy may act toward the poor populace
arbitrarily with virtual impunity, the gulf between rich and poor is abysmal,
Human and civil rights are virtually non-existent, dissent is met with utter
brutality on the part of the governments, acts of revenge are quite common,
women and children are considered chattel and have no rights to protect them,
Female Genital Mutilation is widely practiced, in some of the Muslim states
slave markets operate openly.
There was no reason to
believe that the Palestinian entity would operate differently than any other
backward Muslim state. They never so much as hid their intentions and said they
would. And they do not. The new Palestinian entity is a reign of
terror vis-à-vis the Palestinian people. Violence, not only toward the
now more vulnerable State of
Anarchists should have
been formulating, advocating and peacefully struggling politically for a
solution that would have solved the problem of the Palestinian people and
weakened the hold of the travesty that is the Israeli government on the Israeli
people rather than tacitly, if not actively, supporting the creation of another
Muslim state that perpetuates the widespread corruption of all of the
Palestinian groups vying for power and furthers the perpetration of some of the
ugliest Human rights violations in the Muslim world, as well as leaving the
lackeys of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Minister of Internal
Affairs ex-officio, his son Omri, in greater power in
the government of the State of Israel.
As matters stand, the Kadimah (Forward) party, the bastard offspring of
the Likud party with "enrichment" from
former pseudo-Leftist turncoats, with the generally-despised Ehud Olmert, the man who
destroyed much of what Teddy Kolleck built in
Jerusalem at the helm, is going to lead the next government of Israel, even
while the Palestinian people are now subjected to the reign of terror that is
their own government.
No improvements, either
in the lot of the Palestinians or in the lot of the Israelis, have been
realized by the establishment of a Palestinian state. We both still suffer the miserable lot of
poverty, hopelessness and governments of terror. We are still being pitted
against one another by American, European and Arab interests that are growing
wealthier from the war they fomented and perpetuate between us.
But we could not really
expect that anarchists would have exerted themselves trying to formulate an
amelioration of the situation for Jews who, filled with hope and the spirit of
emancipation, wished to found an entity in which we could realize our vision of
societal perfection and instead found ourselves in the collective nightmarish disappointment
that is the State of Israel. The vastly diverse Israeli population, who agree
of very little else, are united in our abysmal disappointment and dismay when
we view the puppet governments that have been ruling us - even as far too many
of us, who believe both in the Messiah and hail from dictatorships persist in
the vain hope that one day an official who really cares for our welfare will
arise and save us.
Anarchism has always
been a movement that tolerated anti-Semitic sentiment and pronouncements, from the
time of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first soi-disant Anarchist and among the
first anarchist thinkers, who despite writing: "The Jew is by temperament an anti-producer, neither a farmer
nor an industrialist nor even a true merchant. He is an intermediary, always
fraudulent and parasitic, who operates, in trade as in philosophy, by means of
falsification, counterfeiting, and horse-trading" was not castigated
for these statements in the least. Neither did they reduce his stature in the
eyes of those who drew from the wells of his thought and writings.
Gustav Landauer, unlike Karl Marx and most other Jewish Leftist
and Anarchist thinkers throughout the history of Communism, Socialism and
Anarchism to this day, did not renounce his heritage, but, rather, drew
inspiration and vision of a perfect society from her ancient wellsprings. He
was not only eclipsed by the self-hating Jew Marx, but was denied entry to the
1893 Congress of the Social Democratic International. August Bebel there denounced him as a police agent. He did manage
to attend the 1896 International Congress in
At this juncture let us
consider the imperialism that Lucien van der Walt is so against as an Anarchist,
and with which I would concur with him wholeheartedly, while demonstrating that
Israel is not to be subsumed under the rubric of imperialist states, as he and
the vast majority of anarchists blithely do, because it is de rigueur in the
Anarchist movement to do so. The author hopes that the irony of the existence
of de rigueur posturing in the Anarchist movement is not lost on the reader.
Van der Walt, true to anarchist form, states: "Anarchists cannot be 'neutral' in any
fight against imperialism. Whether it is the struggle against the third world
debt, the struggle against the Israeli occupation of
A consideration of the
examples of true imperialism that van der Walt lists
in his article will provide sufficient demonstration that the state of
A good working definition
of the term 'imperialism' is to be found in Wikipedia:
"Imperialism
is a policy of extending control or authority over foreign entities as a means
of acquisition and/or maintenance of empires, either through direct territorial
conquest or through indirect methods of exerting control on the politics and/or
economy of other countries. The term is often used to describe the policy of a
country in maintaining colonies and dominance over distant lands, regardless of
whether the country calls itself an empire." (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialist)
The article goes on to say: "Imperialism
draws heavy criticism on the grounds that historically it has been frequently
employed for economic exploitation in which the imperialist power makes use of
other countries as sources of raw materials and cheap labor, shaping their
economies to suit its own interests, and keeping their people in poverty."
Imperialism is always a
case in which a strong country sends its own citizens or denizens to an area
outside its present borders for the express purpose of colonizing that area and
increasing the strength of its own country, regardless of the deleterious
effects to the indigenous people in that area.
The initial
colonization as well as the eventual outcome of the colony may take many forms.
Yet in all cases, a strong country begins the settlement in a weaker country or
populated area, is supportive of it in some way and does so for the sake of
becoming an empire, not just a country defined by closed borders, whether that
intention is admitted to or not. A detailed listing of countries that have
undertaken colonization, the methods they employed and the eventual outcomes of
those undertakings is not the subject of this essay and would constitute a
digression to discuss. The litany of examples of colonialism that appears in
van der Walt's article will suffice nicely for the
purpose of this essay. While many more instances may be cited, van der Walt concentrates on those colonialist and imperialist
ventures that were met with the resistance of Anarchists.
Van der
Walt mentions the imperialist ventures in East Europe, specifically that of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire against Bosnia and Herzegovina and that of the German
occupation of the Ukraine as well as the invasion of both the White and Red
armies of same.
He mentions the case of
The first colonial
forays into
Christopher Columbus made landfall in Cuba on October 28, 1492. Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar invaded
Cuba in 1511. He founded
The next examples of imperialism/colonialism that van der Walt offers are
those of Mexico and Nicaragua.
The 300-year-long colonial period of Mexico,
during which time Mexico City served as the base of the viceroy of "New Spain", began with the arrival
of the Spanish in the early 16th Century. New Spain included what is
now Mexico and Central America as far as the southern border of Costa Rica and
California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
In 1524 Francisco Hernández de Córdoba
founded the first permanent Spanish settlements in what was to become known as
Nicaragua. Nicaragua remained colonized until it achieved independence in 1821
when it was a province of the Audience of Guatemala and a part of the United
Provinces of Central America. Nicaragua became a completely sovereign republic
in 1838. The Mosquito Coast was a British "protectorate" from 1655 to
1850. This area was delegated to Honduras in 1859 and transferred to Nicaragua
in 1860. William Walker, an adventurer from
the United States, was elected to the Presidency of Nicaragua in 1856. He was
later executed in Honduras. José Santos Zelaya led a liberal revolt that
brought him to power in 1893. Zelaya reincorporated the Mosquito Coast into
Nicaragua in 1894. The revolt led by Zelaya forced the United States to
compromise and leave the country. Upon leaving in 1933, the Americans set up
the Guardia Nacional, a combined military and police force trained and equipped
by the Americans and designed to be loyal to US interests. Anastasio Somoza
García, a close friend of the American government, was put in charge of
the Guardia Nacional. He was one of the three rulers of the country, the others
being Augustino Cesar Sandino, the leader of the Nicaraguan guerilla war
against the United States occuption during the years 1927-1933, who has become
a legend among his fellow Nicaraguans, Leftists anarchists alike (See: http://www.sandino.org/bio_en.htm)
and the figurehead President Carlos Alberto Brenes Jarquín. Nicaragua
remained a socio-economically-politically volatile country well into the 20th
C., thus providing American Presidents ample excuses to intervene in the
country's internal affairs into the 1990s. Presidential and legislative
elections were held on November 4, 2001- the country's fourth free and fair
elections since 1990. Enrique Bolaños of the PLC was elected to the
Nicaraguan presidency. The elections were characterized by international
observers as free, fair and peaceful. President Bolaños was inaugurated
on January 10, 2002. During the campaign Bolaños promised to
reinvigorate the economy, create jobs, fight corruption and support the war
against terrorism. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Nicaragua).
Next on van der Walt's list of countries that were colonized by
imperialist empires are the cases of
The complexity of the
conquest, imperialism and colonization of
The last instance of imperialism that van der Walt cites is that of Japan. During the early 1900s,
Japan unilaterally proclaimed sovereignty over the entire island of
Sakhalin in 1845. Seeking
natural resources and with an eye to monopolizing trading rights on mainland Asia,
the Japanese engaged the Chinese in the Sino-Japanese War in 1894-95.
These same motives
brought them into conflict with
Russia and Japan signed the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905. The results of
which were: Japan
controlled Manchuria in China, Korea became a Japanese protectorate and the
southern part of Sakhalin was administrated by Japan. Russia retained control
of the other three-fifths of the area. By 1910, Japan controlled Korea, Taiwan,
and the southern half of Sakhalin.
A synopsis of
Imperialistic ventures
over the centuries are characterized by four of common factors.
In all cases, a country
that is not only established as independent, but has attained a great degree of
wealth and power sends emissaries on imperialistic ventures. The emissaries are sent at the behest of their
government and are representative of their government. In a few isolated
incidents, to wit: (part of) Australia, French Guiana, New Caledonia, San Cristobal and Siberia the imperialist
nation does not send respectable representatives to the area, but rather
establishes the colony as a penal colony. Yet even in these last examples, it
is at the behest of the government that the colony is founded and the
imperialist nation is politically strengthened and economically enriched by the
venture.
Second, imperialist settlements typically take root, become established and
spread their influence with impressive speed. As we have seen above,
Christopher Columbus, sailing at the behest of the Spanish monarchy, discovered
Cuba on October 28, 1492. Diego
Velázquez de Cuéllar invaded Cuba in 1511. He founded
Third, the methods utilized by imperialistic nations in order to subdue the
local population are brutal in the extreme.
Fourth, the local culture, customs, religion, language and laws are
systematically and deliberately, often brutally, supplanted by that of the
invaders, as Mikhail Bakunin alluded to.
Having considered the
characteristics of imperialistic states, imperialist ventures and the
emissaries and representatives that are sent on imperialistic missions, we are
in a position to determine whether the settling of the Land of Israel since
1882 resembles imperialism.
BILU, the first wave of
Jewish émigrés to Israel, which arrived in July, 1882, about whom
we spoke about briefly above when explaining how it was that the Palestinian
people came to be in the
Please note: I will allow
the text of this essay to remain as I wrote it initially. However, since
writing it; I have come to rethink the role that the House of Rothschild played
in the establishment of the settlement. I am no longer at all convinced that
their intentions were philanthropic, quite the opposite in fact. It should be
mentioned that at least one Montefiori married into
the Rothschild Dynasty.
For my current thinking
vis-à-vis the role of the Rothschilds, please
see: "The Federal Reserve System and Bank Yisra'el",
which can be found on this URL: http://tinyurl.com/2uwcbs and "Collateral Damage", which
you will find on this URL: http://tinyurl.com/3bf6gx . The text continues, as I originally wrote
it, immediately below.
They did enjoy financial
backing, it is true, but that of wealthy individuals, not that of a nation.
They turned to Baron
The involvement of the
Rothschild Dynasty in resettling the land of Israel does not begin with the
request of BILU for economic and technical support from Baron Edmond de
Rothschild. It goes back a ways to the
pilgrimages of Sir Moses (Moshe) Chaim Montefiore (October 24, 1784-July
28, 1885, See: http://tinyurl.com/d6rvq). Sir
Moses' sister-in-law was married to Nathan Mayer Rotschild, who headed the family's
banking business in Britain and was a business partner of Sir Moses. Sir Moses' first pilgrimage to Israel
was in 1827, his seventh, and last, in 1875. Montifiore
was a great benefactor, helping the Jews who he found living in
It might be said by the
cynical that Moshe Chaim Montifiore's
interest in developing the
Though Sir Moshe Chaim Montifiore and Baron Edmond
James de Rothschild wielded enough economic power to support Jews in Israel and
establish business ventures that would allow the Jews in the Land of Israel to
become self-sufficient to some extent, they did not wield enough economic power
to influence heads of state to desist from their anti-Semitism. More than
the private fortunes of individuals, no matter how fabulous, was required to
protect the Jews from persecution.
Jewish billionaires, whose efforts to help their People were thwarted by
anti-Semitic states, whose resources they could not compete with, came to the
conclusion that the only hope of salvation for the Jews was having a state of
their own.
Jewish billionaires
were not funding an "imperialist state" in
In order to determine
whether the Zionist settlement in the
Certainly had the Zionist settlement in the Land of Israel, beginning in
the early 1880s, been an imperialist venture similar to that of the Spaniards
in the "New World" we should expect that those who arrived would have
been sent at the behest of a state, or at the very least a tremendously
powerful concern that could defend itself in the event that a state would
engage in a rival bid for the colony; that they would have been a sizable
number; would have had a good deal of wealth at their disposal; would have been
trained military experts equipped with state-of –the-art weaponry, which were
technologically advanced by some 370 years beyond the weapons that the Spanish
employed when they subdued Cuba in a few years; prepared to do combat in order
to subdue and conquer a people and, finally, would have spread their dominion
with at least the speed and efficiency of the Spanish some 370 years
before.
Let's examine in a bit more depth who the first Zionist settlers in Israel
in fact were. A detailed
history of the resettlement would constitute a digression and much of the
material would be irrelevant to the subject of this essay. With that, the
author is aware that inadvertent selectivity may have been involved in choosing
the excerpts quoted in this paper.
Therefore, the reader is encouraged to study the subject matter herself or himself in order to determine if the facts are,
in her or his opinion, misrepresented herein.
"In the Russian Empire, waves of anti-Jewish pogroms of 1881-1884
(some allegedly state-sponsored), as well as the May Laws introduced by Tsar
Alexander III of Russia in 1882, deeply affected Jewish communities. Numerous
informal groups sprung up, varied in their views, political and religious
affiliation, size and activities." (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovevei_Zion)
"The wave of pogroms during the years
1881-1884 and the anti-Semitic "May Laws" of 1882 introduced by Tsar
Alexander III of Russia prompted mass emigration of Jews from the Russian
Empire. More than 2 million Jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920. Vast majority
of them emigrated to the United States, but some decided to make aliyah
(literally 'to ascend' also used to mean 'to emigrate to the Land of Israel',
my translation)". (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BILU).
From the two passages above
it is clear that those who settled in the
"Rishon (LeTziyon, my parentheses) was
founded on 31 July 1882 by a group of 10 members (my italics) of the
Zionist group Hōvevey Tsiyyōn from Kharkov, in modern Ukraine. Led by
Zalman David Levontin, they purchased 835 acres (3.4 km²) of land south-east of
present-day Tel-Avīv for this purpose near an Arab village named Eyun
Kara. Along with Petah Tiqwāh, it is considered the first Zionist
settlement in Israel and its founders were members of the First `Aliyyāh
(the first wave of immigrants to the renewed settlement in Israel from
1882-1903, my explanation and parentheses). The land was owned by Tzvi
Leventine and was purchased by the "Pioneers of Jewish Settlement
Committee" that was formed in Jaffa, the port of arrival for many of the
immigrants to the area." (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishon_LeZion)
All-in-all the first settlers of the Land of
Israel from Russia, called Hovevei Zion, were ten souls.
"BILU was initiated when a fast was
held by the Jewish communities in Russia on Jan. 21, 1882, as a result of the
pogroms. Israel Belkind, then a student, invited a
group of young
"The name BILU stood for "Bet Ya'akov
L'chu V'Nelcha"(O
House of Jacob, come ye and let us go," quoted from Isaiah. The movement
was founded in
The ten members of Chovevei Tziyyon, then, were shored up by a group of BILU'im (members of
BILU, my translation) who
numbered fourteen souls. Twenty-four people is hardly a number sufficient
to wage invasion and conquest. It might be argued that 24 is a sufficient
number of people to scout an area out for the purpose of conquering it. That
may be true, but in that case they would have carried out their scouting
mission and returned to those who dispatched them with their findings. They did not.
They remained in pre-state Israel in order to make a home for
themselves. Their mission was clearly peaceful and they were clearly acting as
individuals. They were merely an
isolated group of young, untrained idealists, unsupported by either the Russian
empire or by wealthy Russian Jews or religious leaders, as we shall see
presently, who wanted a place to live as Jews independent and undisturbed.
"Some of the first Zionist groups were
established in Eastern European countries in the early 1880s with the aim to
promote Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel, then a part of Ottoman
Empire, and advance Jewish settlement there, particularly agricultural. Most
of them stayed away from the politics" (my italics). (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovevei_Zion).
The first Zionists intended to be farmers. Farming
is inconsistent with warfare, as is the fact that they were academics. In order to farm, one has to have a homestead
and fields. Farming requires a peaceful and predictable lifestyle. The fact
that the majority of the proto-Zionists who constituted the groups known as
Hovevei Tziyon (or Hibbat Tziyon) and BILU avoided politics is also a sign that
they were not interested in power or currying favor with the state in order to
get backing from the state for an imperialist venture.
"In order to attain legal recognition by the authorities, the Russian
branch of Hovevei Zion had to meet a demand to be registered as a
charity. Early in 1890 its establishment was approved by the Russian government
as "The Society for the Support of Jewish Farmers and Artisans in Syria
and Eretz-Israel," which came to be known as "The Odessa
Committee". (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovevei_Zion)
This legal recognition of "The Odessa Committee on the part of the
Russian authorities was not easily attained (See: subheading "Draft
of the Statutes of the Odessa Committee" http://tinyurl.com/mtclw) The legal
recognition was not sought in order to procure support from the Russian
government. It would have been utterly futile to attempt to obtain any such
support. They merely did not wish to be considered a subversive body and thus
give the government excuses to target them for still more persecutory measures
than the Jews were already suffering in Russia. (See: http://tinyurl.com/ry55e)
"At
first the BILU'im hoped to receive support from
wealthy Russian Jews. Disappointed by their lack of interest, they turned to
Laurence Oliphant, then living in
*Due to the fact that this essay will be published
on the internet, I will not use the convention of writing "ibid."
when I quote from the same CD or site two or more consecutive times. This will
allow the reader to refer to the source.
From the passage above we learn that not
only did Hovevei Tziyyon
and BILU not receive support from the Russian government; they could not so
much as convince wealthy Russian Jews or even the leaders of the Jewish
national movement in Russia to support them. Additionally, most Orthodox Rabbis
were adamant in their rejection of any idea of moving to the holy land before
the coming of the Messiah and they ordered their students not to go.
"Among
the BILU'im themselves two trends emerged. One
advocated immediate aliyah to Erez
"Founded
with only a handful of members, BILU rapidly increased its membership to over
500 (in Russia, my parentheses) as a result of effective recruitment campaigns,
though only a few were ready to leave for Erez (properly pronounced
eretz, meaning 'land', my translation) Israel. Kharkov became the BILU headquarters,
and Belkind its leader. BILU ideology was expressed
in different and even contradictory ways. Of the many statutes formulated by
the group, one defined the aim as the creation of "a political center for
the Jewish people," while another stated that the society pursues "an
economic and national-spiritual aim" for the Jewish people "in
The "practical" activities of Hibbat Zion, i.e., encouraging Jews to emigrate to the land of Israel, gave rise to harsh criticism among some Jews of the "Enlightenment" who wished to take their place in European society, especially on the part of Asher Ginsberg, popularly known by his nom de plume, Ahad Ha-Am (See: http://tinyurl.com/z4s99). This criticism was partially inspired by Ahad Ha-Am's view that Erez Israel could not provide a solution for the masses of emigrants, but should rather serve as a "spiritual center" to unite all parts of the disintegrating nation. It was in this spirit that the Benei Moshe society was founded. The crisis in settlement activities after the short-lived increase in aliyah at the beginning of the 1890s sowed fresh disillusionment in the ranks of Hibbat Zion and strengthened the influence of Ahad Ha-Am, who had several supporters among the members of the Odessa Committee. Emphasis on the need for spiritual preparation brought about an intensification of the ideological and cultural activities of Hibbat Zion, especially after the founding of the Ahi'asaf publishing house**. Despite the importance of Ahad Ha-Am's criticism, however, his approach could not serve as a basis for the activities of the movement. It is not surprising, therefore, that upon the appearance of Herzl and political Zionism, the vast majority of the Hovevei Zion societies joined the new Zionist Organization.
**"The nationalist movement whose
slogan was "Rebellion against the Exile" (see Hibbat Zion and Zionism) considered as one of its first tasks a renewal of
Jewish historic consciousness by imparting to the intelligentsia a knowledge of
Judaism and its values, based on the results of scientific research. The
nationalist movement did in fact initiate literary activities with the aim of
"ingathering" the outstanding works of the past in accordance with
contemporary requirements (Ahad Ha-Am and the establishment of the publishing
house Achiasaf)." (Entry:
WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS,
ENCYCLOPAEDIA
JUADICA CD-ROM EDITION, Text: ©Keter Publishing
House, Ltd.; © Judaica Multimedia (Israel) Ltd.
1997). This
point is very important. We learn from
the establishment of the Achiasaf Publishing House
that by the time of the formation of the proto-Zionist organizations
Jewish intellectuals had assimilated so deeply into Western culture that they
had to be taught about Judaism and the meaning of living in
The pogroms in
The members of BILU (the BILU'im), then, were not a monolithic ideological and
methodical bloc as an imperialistic invading army that is loyal to and acting
at the behest of a government must necessarily be. They differed in their
opinions and viewpoints (as we Jews invariably do). Moreover, most, but not all, of the
constituent groups of Hovevei Zion joined the World
Zionist Organization with its establishment at the First Zionist Congress in
1897 (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hovevei_Zion).
That Hibbat
Tzion and BILU were not of single purpose, as are
invading imperialists, the purpose being to conquer swiftly and subdue the
indigenous population efficiently, but, rather, were of quite divergent
viewpoints. Some of those viewpoints went counter to the immediate settlement
of the land of Israel, as can be seen quite clearly from the position taken
by Asher Ginsberg, known as Achad Ha'am (1856-1927), whose writings were quite influential.
(See: http://tinyurl.com/a9b54).
Of the two million Jews who
fled
"The new settlers, (Chovevei Tziyyon, my
parentheses) faced a lot of difficulties: sandy soil, lack of water, poverty,
and lack of agricultural experience. After the digging of the Great Well and a
wave of new settlers arriving (members of another Zionist group, the
BĪLŪ), the new settlement started to develop. Soon, Baron Edmond
James de Rothschild gained control of the settlement and helped develop its
agriculture, citrus fruit ("Pri Adar") (should be "Pri
Hadar", my correction), and wine industry." See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishon_LeZion).
"It lacked sufficient fresh water and within a few months, facing
starvation, most of them left…They turned to Baron Edmond James de Rothschild
for help, and he provided funds in order to create wine industry [sic]
in Palestine. In 1886, construction began on the Rishon Le-Zion winery and
eventually it became a successful wine-exporting enterprise." (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BILU).
"In November 1882 some of the
members of BILU, under Belkind's leadership, moved to
Rishon le-Zion, working as hired laborers,
sharecroppers, and manual laborers for the village council. Poor yields and
difficult relationships between the settlers and hired laborers in the village
were greatly disappointing, especially as the BILU'im
hoped to found their own settlement eventually. They continued their search for
satisfactory work between Rishon le-Zion and Mikveh
We see that the little tract of land that Hovevei
Zion and BILU built Rishon LeZion on was not prime land. Until Baron Edmond
James de Rothschild oversaw and funded the digging of a deep well, they lacked
so much as sufficient fresh water. Had Hovevei Zion and BILU been the warlike
imperialists that they have been cavalierly and irresponsibly described as,
they would, no doubt, have procured a large, easily arable tract of land by
robbing it from the Arabs, as is the way of imperialist conquerers. Records show that this the land was purchased
from the Arabs (See: History of Rishon LeZion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishon_LeZion).
In fact, there were no such large tracts of arable land in Israel, because
there were no more than a few isolated Arab settlements at the time that
Hovevei Zion and BILU arrived. The land, as we have seen above, not having been
populated and tilled for ages, was desolate when Hovevei Zion and BILU arrived.
Conquerers simply do not work as hired laborers, sharecroppers,
and manual laborers for village councils.
"According to Brockhaus
and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (86-volume edition), the
region's export of wine and cognac in 1895 alone amounted to ₣
277,000." [1] (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BILU)
"The population numbered 266 in 1890. Five
years later it increased to 450, and by 1898 rose to 531."
(See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishon_LeZion).
"The moshavah's (collective agricultural
settlement, my translation) holdings gradually expanded to 3,225 acres (12,900 dunams) in 1907 with a population of 500 in 1897, and 2,130
in 1917." (Entry: RISHON
LE-ZION, ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUADICA CD-ROM EDITION, Text: ©Keter
Publishing House, Ltd.; © Judaica Multimedia (Israel)
Ltd. 1997)
In order to give as fair a treatment to the question of whether or not
the founding of the Jewish state was an imperialist enterprise, we should quote
a Jewish voice that called for conquering the land and assuming a militaristic
stance:
"Ze'ev Dubnow, a member of BILU,
wrote: "The aim of our journey is rich in plans. We want to conquer
Dubnow's words sound belligerent and cocky indeed. The
degree to which they should be taken seriously can be determined from a bit of
information about the person who pronounced those words:
("DUBNOW, ZE'EV (1858–1940?), BILU member. Dubnow, who was born in Mstislavl,
Belorussia, was the elder brother of Simon Dubnow, the historian. He tended to assimilation in his
youth and became interested in the Russian radical movement. After the 1881
pogroms he joined BILU and went to Erez
As the brief biography of Ze'ev Dubnow above clearly shows,
despite the frenzy and bravado of his declarations and call to arms, he was an
artisan, not a soldier. Moreover, he could not tolerate the hardships of living
in the
No discussion of Zionism is complete
without a discussion of religious Zionism. Today we think of the religious sector of
One might ask if
From the following
site: http://tinyurl.com/m5ydn we learn that the religious Zionist movement began in
1902, i.e., while certainly during the period of the first wave of immigrants,
called The First Aliyah, it was after the arrival of
BILU in
Rabbi Kook was not the founder of religious Zionism, however, that would be Rabbi Samuel Mohilever (See: http://tinyurl.com/ret5l). The "Haskalah" (loosely translated as the "Enlightenment", which the article mentions, refers to the movement of secularized Jews who began to study non-Jewish literature, entered the world of the non-Jewish intelligentsia to a considerable extent and hoped to take their place in mainstream non-Jewish society. It is about them that we spoke above.) The article about Rabbi Mohilever cited directly above says the following: "When other religious leaders withdrew their support of the movements encouraging Aliyah of their contact with members of the Enlightenment movement [sic], Mohilever did not join them." Once again, we see a going against the traditional Orthodox establishment in order to forge religious Zionism.
Though living in the Land of Israel is a religious commandment according to all Orthodox opinions, at the time of the foundation of religious Zionism it was the opinion of the vast majority of Orthodox Rabbis that there must not be a return to the Land of Israel until the Messiah comes. Even Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (June 20, 1808 – December 31, 1888), the German-born founder of what was to become modern Orthodox Judaism, a school of Torah interpretation that greatly influenced the approach of the modern Israeli National-Religious camp, did not support political Zionism. Anti-Zionism was the majority, adamant, opinion of traditional Orthodox, what today would be called ultra-Orthodox, Jewry until end of WWII, when many ultra-Orthodox Rabbis were faced with recognizing the devastating effect that advising their followers not to go to Israel, when other ports of refuge were closed to the Jews, had on the Jewish People. Prior to the end of WWII, the Jews who emigrated to the Land of Israel did so despite the rulings of their Rabbis and, as such, were considered renegades and pariah among their still-observant family, teachers and friends.
To this day, there are ultra-Orthodox non-Zionists
and even anti-Zionists, the staunchest of whom are the Naturei
Karta (See: http://tinyurl.com/nbfql). The Naturei Karta do not avail
themselves of the services of the State of
The ideology of religious Zionism,
then, was the afflatus of settling the
The
intention of the author in providing the reader with an overview of the history
of the first wave of immigration to the Land of Israel, called the First Aliyah
that began in 1882 and ended in 1903 during which a number of agricultural
communities were founded, was to compare the arrival of the first Jews in
Israel in modern times with the invasions for expressly imperialistic
purposes that are sited in Lucien van
der Walt's article "In This Struggle, Only The Workers and Peasants Will
Go All the way to the End: Towards a History of Anarchist
Anti-Imperialism", in which he mentions that anarchists are against all
forms of imperialism and includes the State of Israel among forms of
imperialism. The author feels confident that the discussion above has
demonstrated to the satisfaction of the reader that the inclusion of Israel
among imperialistic adventures is wholly spurious and the result of ignorance
of the rudiments of the history of the State of Israel, if not out-and-out
anti-Semitism, which, we have seen, has been present throughout the history of
the Anarchist movement since its inception.
The author
could bring further evidence to support her position that Israel is not an
imperialist venture to bear by examining the successive waves of immigration to
the Land of Israel, each of which was the reaction of the Jews to persecution,
but it is not her purpose to provide an in-depth study of each of the waves of
immigration to Israel from the time of BILU through the year 2005, during which
a 35-year record high number of Jews from France and the highest number of
Jewish immigrants from North America since 1983 have arrived in Israel. The interested reader is encouraged to
research the topic for his or her own edification and interest. Each wave of immigration is called an
"aliyah", plural "aliyot". They are: The First Aliyah
(1882-1903), that of Hovevei Tzion and BILU, which we have discussed; The
Second Aliyah (1904-1914); The Third Aliyah (1919-1923); The Fourth Aliyah
(1924-1929); The Fifth Aliyah (1929-1939); Aliyah Beit: "Illegal"
Immigration (1933-1948); Immigration after the founding of the State from
1948-1950; Middle Eastern Jewish Aliyah (early 1950s); Ethiopian Aliyah (1985
and 1991) ; The Mass Russian Aliyah (after the collapse of the USSR); Argentine
Aliyah (1999 – 2002); French Aliyah (2000-2005); North American Aliyah (after
the Six-Day War in the late 1960s; after the Yom Kippur War, after 1973; the
most recent coming after, and in reaction to, the Intifada as well as growing
uncertainty about America's future). The dates of the aliyot have been provided
as they bespeak the times of danger and distress for the Jews that they are
concurrent with or immediately succeed.
The
readers' attention is requested to be turned to the period of
"Illegal" Immigration from 1933 to 1948. This is the period called
Aliyah Beit. During that time, when Jews were in the greatest peril since the
time of the Inquisition, the British authorities in Israel limited Jewish
immigration to Palestine (See: The White Paper 1939 – 1947 http://tinyurl.com/hm7e4). This,
and more damning still, it was British policy that, in large measure, created
the Palistinian problem. Not only did
the British set Jewish immigration quotas starting in 1920, they attempted to
create an artificial Arab majority in Israel by requesting France to stop
curbing illegal Arab immigration to Israel and by bringing Arabs in illegally
themselves during the years 1920 – 1948 (See: http://tinyurl.com/dkpsu). It was not
for naught that Ben Gurion, who would become the first Prime Minister of
Israel, said: "The Zionists should fight the
war as if there were no White Paper and fight the White Paper as if there were
no war."
Incidentally, the Mossad,
much-maligned by
Neither could the Jews count on the
It might be argued that
That
the UN Partition Plan for
The
State of
When
There
were those in the State Department who realized that the arms embargo was a
means of obstructing partition. President Truman went along with the embargo on
the pretext of the arms embargo being a means of averting bloodshed. Instead,
the Jews were left to fight the War of
During the War of
Did the
The fact that the US is no true and
trustworthy ally of Israel, and most certainly not Israel's imperialist
sponsor, is further borne out by the fact that the United States government
exerted a great deal of pressure on the Israeli government to cooperate in the
establishment of a Palestinian state, to the detriment of the Jewish residents
who lived in Gaza as well as the security of the entire State of Israel. The
next stage of "disengagement" is being planned, at the behest of the
The
sentence handed down to Jonathan Pollard was unprecedented in its cruelty and
harshness, because he dared to aid a protectorate. Jonathan Pollard was guilty
of a crime more unforgivable to the
The most recent case in
which the
Israel has never been, and is not,
treated as an equal, an ally, a dear friend, a cherished poodle or even a
useful employee by the
In
order to understand the status of the State of Israel vis-à-vis the US,
let us consider another case of superpower intervention, which Lucien van der Walt mentions but does not elaborate upon in his essay
"In This Struggle, Only the Workers and Peasants Will Go All the Way To
the End: Towards a History of Anarchist Anti-Imperialism" – that of
The
very name of an article entitled "Needed: Honest Imperialism (In
In his article "The People's Struggle Against
War" Jose Maria Sison writes: "The sole superpower is more arrogant
than ever before in herding its imperialist allies towards war and in imposing
itself on client countries. It is quick to make and carry out threats. The
weapons it uses against other countries include political interference in
internal affairs, withholding of loans and supplies, reduction of market
accommodations and military pressure, intervention and aggression, including
use of high-tech military weaponry. It demonizes as "rogue" states
those states that defend their national independence and thereby seeks to
intimidate all countries to stay under the sway of neocolonialism" (See: http://tinyurl.com/zpkr6). The US brought every
one of those methods of applying pressure and intimidation to bear in order to
compel Israel to act in contradiction to its own needs, and in contradiction to
the genuine needs of the Palestinian people, and accept George W. Bush's
"road map", which was designed to lead to the creation of a
Palestinian state. Sison goes on to write: "
Now, the US-directed military forces manipulate ethnic and religious
differences and instigate communal strife in order to draw away the people’s
wrath from US imperialism and from Suharto and his
henchmen, prolong the role of the military fascists as social arbiters and
preempt the advance of the people’s revolutionary movement." The very same
methods of "divide and conquer" are being employed by the
Though not similar
demographically, and not comparable economically or in industrial development,
a brief overview of Macedonia's and Israel's religious-cultural history and
geo-political situation reveals that they share common elements that make them
attractive to the US as protectorates. We are struck immediately by the fact
that both
Both
Also, as Tim Lessells of the Socialist Party of
Michael
Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics at the
University of Ottawa, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal,
states the following in his article "NATO Invades Macedonia": "While the media
upholds the NLA as a liberation army fighting for the social rights of an
oppressed minority, the process of "demonisation"
of the Macedonians has commenced with one-sided news stories relating to
presumed war crimes and alleged atrocities committed by the Macedonian police
and security forces" (See:
http://tinyurl.com/gausc). The very same might be said about how
In that same article,
Professor Chossudovsky quotes a letter that
Macedonia's Prime Minister Ljubo Georgevski
wrote to the Secretary General of the United Nation, Kofi
Anan in August, 6 2001: " I, personally, consider this (i.e., a UN-sponsored invasion of Macedonia, a
member of the UN, using UN equipment and resources, with the knowledge and
approval of NATO, my parentheses based on text in the article) an official
declaration of war by the international protectorate of Kosovo and by the
Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), which is unfortunately part of the UN civil
administration in Kosovo." Professor Chossudovsky goes
on to comment: "While
representing a dissenting political voice, Prime Minister Georgevski,
nonetheless signed the "framework document" opening the door to the
invasion of his country by NATO troops." A very similar situation occurred
in
In "The People's Struggle Against
War" Jose Maria Sison writes: "Whenever possible, the
In carrying out under UN
banner the wars of aggression against
It stirs up troubles in the Balkans in order to gain more ground
from its bases in
If
we substitute the names Israel for Macedonia; former Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon for Prime Minister Ljubo Georgevski;
PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc., for KLA-NLA and
Palestinians for Albanians; we see clearly that one and the same programme is being carried out in Israel as in Macedonia.
The forms of government of
The Republic of Macedonia is a parliamentary democracy with an executive
government composed of a coalition of parties from the unicameral legislature
and an independent judicial branch with a constitutional court. The Assembly is
made up of 120 seats, the members of which are elected every four years. The
role of the President of the Republic is mostly ceremonial, with the real power
resting in the hands of the President of the government of Macedonia. The
President is the Commander-in-Chief of the state armed forces and a president
of the state Security Council. The President of the Republic is elected every
five years and cannot be elected more than twice. This passage is a close paraphrase, not a
quote, from the Wikipedia entry: Rebublic of Macedonia because the
article is a candidate for the
encyclopedia's Article Improvement Drive (See: http://tinyurl.com/8pcmn
).
The government of Israel is described thus: "Israel's unicameral
legislative branch is a 120-member parliament known as the Knesset. Membership
in the Knesset is allocated to parties based on their proportion of the vote,
via a proportional representation voting system. Elections to the Knesset are
normally held every four years, but the Knesset can decide to dissolve itself
ahead of time by a simple majority, known as a vote of no-confidence. The President of Israel is head of state, serving as a
largely ceremonial figurehead. The President selects the leader of the majority
party or ruling coalition in the Knesset as the Prime Minister, who serves as
head of government."
(See: http://tinyurl.com/s886u)
One hundred
and twenty is a very significant number in Jewish culture (See: http://tinyurl.com/nxj9y). One hundred and twenty is also the number of
members of a legislative body that was historically most significant to the
Jews. HaKnessest HaGedolah
(the Great Assembly from which the Knesset of the modern State of Israel takes
its name) was an assembly that ruled in
the period after the time of the Prophets of Israel (the last Prophet, Malakhi, flourished ca. 475 BCE).
Over that period of time 120 Sages were members of HaKnesset
HaGedolah. The last member of the Great Assembly, Shim'on HaTzaddik (Simon the
Righteous), died in 273 BCE. HaKnesset HaGadolah canonized the Hebrew Bible. It was they who
enacted democratization of Jewish education, making the learning of Torah the
possession of all and not just the priestly class. We see, then, that a legislative body being comprised of 120 members has
deep and long roots in Jewish history and is of great significance to us. The
institution of two leaders of the legislative body (the Zugot),
each with separate functions, one being subordinate to the other, is likewise a
Jewish innovation extending back in antiquity to the time of the Roman Empire
(See: http://tinyurl.com/gtcrx). One of the functionaries was called HaNasi. That is the same term used for the President of the
modern State of
We might ask: Did
The last point the author
wishes to highlight in this essay is the fact that although the borders of the
Kingdom of Israel at the height of its power, during the reign of King Solomon,
were far more extensive than they are today (See: http://tinyurl.com/r6rom); Israel has never attacked
another country in order to regain its territory in the way that Germany, a
paradigmatic imperialist state, attacked Poland and France.
While it is most certainly
true that when bordering countries attacked us we retrieved territory, it was
on a limited basis. For instance, the
Demonstrative too of the
fact that the State of
It is worth mentioning that
both
In summation: We
successfully refuted the contention of the people who assumed the egregiously
erroneous misnomer "Palestinians" that the Jews who resettled
In examining the etymology
of the Semitic root p-l-s or p-l-sh we have seen that
the assumption of the name "Palestinian" is utterly ridiculous if one
is attempting to prove in so doing that one's people is indigenous, as the
radical means the very opposite in the large number of extant and extinct
Semitic languages in which the root is found.
We have seen that the Jewish settlement in the land of Israel can in no wise be compared to the imperialist exploits of Spain, as described by Friar Bartolomé de las Casas in his account Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies) written by in 1552 (See: http://tinyurl.com/7fjak), or the imperialist excesses of Japan (See: http://tinyurl.com/95rge) or those Britain (See: http://tinyurl.com/7mdwt; "The sugar-producing colonies of the Caribbean, where slavery became the basis of the economy, were at first England's most important and lucrative colonies", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire) or other true imperialists.
It is beyond ironic that the
very same nations that carried out unthinkable acts as part of their own
imperialism, acts for which they have not yet apologized, have not made amends
or paid reparations for and have not so much as expressed a willingness to do
so, nations that still enjoy the wealth they made at the expense of others are
those that judge Israel as an "imperialist country". What could be
more absurd that
The
As it was the intention of
the author to write an essay, not a book, the subjects in this paper have been
treated, perforce, perfunctorily. Every attempt has been made to be fair-minded
and maintain intellectual honesty as well as historical accuracy. However, selectivity of material was
necessary in order to achieve the brevity of an essay. Selectivity opens the door to skewing despite
every endeavor to be fair and accurate. The reader, therefore, is encouraged to
examine the subject matter contained herein and measure its credibility and
reliability against parallel records of history proffered by those who call
themselves "Palestinians" and those who represent, or are sympathetic
to, their interests.
The author
of this essay is an anarchist in the authentic, pure and uncompromising
tradition of Gustav Landauer (See my web site: http://tinyurl.com/8wugt) and abhors imperialism in all of its forms no less
than Mr. van der Walt or any other person who self-identifies as an anarchist.
If it were the case that the State of Israel is an imperialist state there
would have been no point to my having emigrated from the US to Israel almost
twenty-four years ago. My leaving the United States at the age of almost
twenty-five was not an easy transition. There were many luxuries, advantages
and opportunities that I left behind in order to live in a country where I
could feel considerably more, if certainly not wholly, morally upright and
sound. In addition to being a citizen by birth of the US, I am a citizen of the
Republic of Ireland. I do not have to
live in Israel. It is not for naught that I continue to tolerate the
difficulties of living in Israel. In any other country my domicile would
constitute a trespass on another People's land and/or I would be exposing
myself to anti-Semitism. Of course, as an anarchist, I would prefer to live in
a stateless world in which cultural differences are celebrated. Until such time comes, I cannot think of a
country in the world wherein I might live that would demand less compromise
with my conscience than does the State of Israel.
Finally, it
has been demonstrated that the State of Israel has never attacked another
country in order to retrieve land that was part of the Kingdom of Israel in the
past. This is certainly not in keeping with the actions of imperialistic
nations. Imperialistic nations first and foremost seize the lands that they are
of the opinion belong to them historically, as did Germany when it attacked
Poland and France in the early stages of its imperialistic frenzies.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan,
March-April 2006