Joe, are you suggesting that the perspectives of Palestinians and other victims of Zionism should not be included in discussions of what "Zionism" is?
Zionism is a word with so much baggage attatched in that it only applies to Israeli aggression as part of the extension of a Jewish State or Empire in the middle east.
Calling it Zionism gives it some religious cred and a tag word for all the Nazis in the west to jump on. If you think those people give a flying fuck what happens to anyone in the middle east you are sadly mistaken.
Its simply neo colonialist fascism, and to call it by any name gives it some sort of glamour and legitamacy as something other than yet another example of stupid dumbfuck banal thuggery.
And it makes all sorts of assumptions about what is going on. Who is using who here, Israel using the US for its purposes or the other way around?
Maybe only men should be allowed to discuss the implications of sexism. Only Whites should explore the moral dimensions of racism. Only Germans should legitimately debate the ethics of Nazism...etc
Yeah all jews are by extension Zionists...
the more I think about this the more I see Zionism fitting into the same category as the Holocaust.
Something that identifies one particular groups suffering as somehow more special and significant than another.
Its Zionism cos the Jews are doing it, and thats somehow worse than what happens in Africa, the assaults on the indigenous people of West Papua, or Mindinao?
They have no keyword to call on to claim added legitamacy to their suffering.
There are humans doing brutal things to other humans and Zionism as a concept just distracts from the violence.
People hear it and think "Evil Israel" or (and this is as bad as any other racism) "Evil Jews" or "Anti semeticism".
It is a form of mind control and it seperates people into ideological camps instead of giving them a chance to deal with the facts as they are.
if you can't see that you are missing something important.
My favorite T Shirt, its falling to rags now cos its 20 years old and worbn to death, has a picture of a school crossing, a bomb falling with a star of david on it, and the words "Palestinian Children some don't even make it to school."
I didn't need the word Zionism back then to be able to tell that this was bullshit, like Pinochet, like the Holocaust, like the genocide in rawanda and a truckload of other crap. i had never heard of it cept through Bob Marley.
Does anyone here give a fuck abut the plight of poor farmers in Equador on the Columbian Border? No of course not. Have you even heard what is happening there?
I never want to use the word again.
Its the same old shit, there is nothing special about that particular conflict, its the same sad ugly story and the ideology that drives it has its own defense hidden in its name.
No one can deny Israel Aggression. call it that thats what it is.
Not some bullshit name.
When Bob Marley said he wanted to be Iron like a Lion In zion, he did not mean he wanted to invade Palestine steal their land and dispossess them.
For the last four or five years, probably longer, Palestinian politicians have been coming on the abc and stating their case, about the abuse and destruction they suffer at the hands of the IDF implementing the Israel govts policies, sometimes they are interviewed to the sound of cconflivct in the background.
I have never once heard one of them use the term Zionism.Its a bullshit meme designed to distract from the conflict and split any effective resistance to Israel's aggression, well right wing psycho's that run and drive Israel's aggression.
Anybody else notice how views that make perfect, obvious moral and logical sense in any other context, provoke hysteria in the context of Zionism? Ya think that's accidental?
Yes. And that Hysteria wouldn't be there if people used the term Israeli aggression would it?
Never was.