Is Zionism Racist? A Debate on Jewish Statehood and Assimilation

I was borrowing this book- Okay. So, so the, the- From Ben, from Ben Felon ... do you agree, do you agree with the Green Party stance that Zionism is racism?

Well, I, I... Brianna, we're gonna have a serious discussion now.

You're trained as a lawyer, and I'm gonna speak to you and hope that we, hopefully we can, uh, be precise.

What the, what the, uh, Green Party did was it contr- it created a definition which was racist the way they described Zionism. They created a definition which was racist, and then they condemned it as racism. So if you, if you yourself make the definition- Well, how would you define Zionism as something other than an ethnonational

project? You might... Okay. Fine. Good question.

Permit me, allow me a credential. I wrote my doctorate dissertation on Zionism, on the theory of Zionism.

That was my, it was called From the Jewish Question to the Jewish State: An Essay on the Theory of Zionism. So I know it pretty well. Okay?

I know the subject even though it's a half century ago.

I still know the subject pretty well. How would I define Zionism?

I would say Zionism is the following. Zionism came to the conclu- the Zionists.

What distinguished the Zionists from all the other branches, the Bund, Jewish communists, Jewish socialists, what distin- what distinguished Zionism was the following.

They said there's no future for Jews in what was called the diaspora or Galut. Galut is the term for exile.

There was no J- uh, future for Jews there.

One of two things was gonna happen. Either they would be persecuted, continue to be persecuted, namely antisemitism would persist in the non-Jewish, uh, in the n- in the, uh, diaspora, or, um, antisemitism would disappear and then Jews would disappear.

They would just assimilate. So either the two possible outcomes for Jews in the non-Jewish world was either continued persecution or assimilation.

So their view was we had to create a Jewish state, a state which was predominantly Jewish, in order to prevent or overcome persecution and assimilation.

Now, the, the truth of the matter is, in my opinion, their diag- their, uh, their analysis is probably fundamentally correct. The reason we don't have huge levels of antisemitism in Europe now, it's because Hitler solved the Jewish question.

There is no- What do you mean? What do you mean by that?

There are no... The, the six million Jews were exterminated.

That solved the Jewish question. If they had still stayed in Europe, had there not been the Nazi extermination, I suspect that the levels of antisemitism would still be quite high in Europe. So- I, I don't- But, but assuming- Okay. But ju- just to reorient us- Whatever. Yeah, yeah ... just to re-

Allow me, and then you go. And then the second aspect is the assimilation.

You see that in the United States. Jews are disappearing in numbers.

Assimilation is happening at a very high rate.

Uh, 60% of Jews, you know, are intermarrying, and intermarriage is essentially the death knell of an ethnical group. Now, you may say of c- you know, love should triumph over ethnicity, and I totally, I can get that.

But I'm just saying as an analysis, the Zionists were fundamentally correct, that in a non-Jewish state, the prospect was either persecution or assimilation.

So their solution, quote, unquote, was to create a Jewish state.

Now, that in itself, in my view, that in itself is not racist.

Uh, re-