On November 10 of 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 3379 which said that Zionism; the Jewish people’s national liberation and Independence movement, is racism. By December of 1991 when the Soviet Union was disintegrating, the resolution was revoked by the UN but by then, the harm has been done.
From then till the present times, detractors of the Jewish state have plastered racism to every thing Israel does. Be it that Israel called itself the nation state of the Jewish ethnic group or that it stopped illegal immigrants from flooding the country, the term racism, racist, gets to be plastered on it. .
I think that the word racism is gradually losing it meaning with the way it is been used on Israeli issues.
Meriam Webster defined racism as “A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race”. So any action that has this definition as its base could be classified as racist.
The above definition means that racism has to do with believing that social rights, abilities or achievements are primarily based on biological inheritance.
The Jim Crow laws, Nazi ideology and apartheid laws are typical examples of where racism principles were applied. They were based on the races of those who are concerned having social rights which should be denied others that are not of the same race with them.
Now, one of the reasons Israel detractors and UN have against Zionism and Israel to call it racist is cos Israel defines itself as a Jewish state and Zionism is for self determination of the Jewish people.
The difference between what Israel has and racism is that the Jews are not a race but an ethnic group and the detractors conflate race with ethnicity. And I bet it is only in the case of Israel that the conflation exists.
Meriam Webster defined ethnic groups as “of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background”
Dictionary.com defined it as “pertaining to or characteristic of a people, especially a group (ethnic group) sharing a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.”
Wikipedia explained it more this way as “An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities such as common ancestral, language, social, cultural or national experiences.Unlike other social groups (wealth, age, hobbies), ethnicity is often an inherited status based on the society in which one lives. In some cases, it can be adopted if a person moves into another society. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, and physical appearance.
The above definitions help to understand that rather than been based on race or biological inheritance, ethnicity is more of a social construct than biological. It is true that a common descent is described for each ethnic group, but it differs in practice and what is observed is no ethnic group can claim to be of “pure blood” in modern times. And as a social construct like nations, schools, clubs, societies, religions, etc, it also grants some favors or rights to members of its group that is not extended to other non members.
Lets take some examples.
Citizens of a nation get some benefits like voting rights which is denied other non citizens
Students of a particular school are allowed to take lectures in it which is denied other students.
A non member in a golf club will not be allowed to play in their course while members are allowed such.
Members of a thrift society in a community share their gains at the end of a season that are not given to non members.
Members of a religious group are allowed to participate in some services that are denied non members.
The above, just like ethnicity are social benefits of belonging to a particular group.
And for ethnic groups, many of them have benefits and sentiments for members of their identity. Many ethnic nation states exist and also have laws beneficial to members of their ethnic identities that are not extended to other ethnicities living in the same nation.
Just like the Jewish state of Israel has law of return for members of the Jewish ethnic group, many other nations also have the same laws of return for their people.
Greece has theirs and it extended to millennia for members of Greek ethnic group.
Russia has for Russians and went about sometime ago encouraging them to come back home.
Turkey has for the Turks.
China has for the Han Chinese.
Poland has for the Poles.
Armenia has for the Hayk ethnic group.
Serbia has for the Serbs
Even Germany has passed such for Germans residing in eastern Europe
Even the Irish and Britain has had one form of this law or the other, etc.
Eyelids are not batted for the nations above because at the back of our minds, we know that like other social construct’s rights and benefits extended to their members only, that of ethnic groups also apply.
Now, why should the fact that Israel is a Jewish state and has law of return for their ethnic group members be racism when such is not plastered on others? If benefits of belonging to a social group should be frowned upon, then it has to be applied worldwide before picking on Israel.
Why should Zionism have anything to do with racism when other ethnic groups nation states like Poles, Greeks, Khmers, Hayk, Serbs, have had their own national liberation movement and is not labelled such?
Why should the Tibetans, Kurdish, Sahrawi, etc national determination and Independence movement now be supported by the leftists and not called racism?
These are questions that purveyors of this racism thing against Zionism have to answer.
The Longest Prejudice 