Zionism is Anti-Semitic in Its Essence

Before they took over Palestine, Zionists first had to colonize Judaism.

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

People sometimes say, ‘Every accusation is a confession.’ People project their own uncomfortable feelings on to others, or accuse their enemies of doing exactly what they themselves do, behavior sometimes called ‘Accusation in a Mirror.’

Remember that tendency when you hear Israel’s backers call their critics ‘antisemites’ or ‘self-hating Jews’. Occasionally, they may be right, but most often they’re projections about themselves. Looking at their history, Zionism’s founders despised the mostly-poor Jews of their time, the workers, scholars, artists, and peddlers, with their old fashioned clothing and beliefs. Leaders of Zionism like Theodore Herzl and Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky planned to remake the Jewish people into a nation of middle-class Europeans. They wanted to be among the colonizers, not the colonized.

In 21st century language, they wanted to be white.

In his book, From Herzl to Rabin, The Changing Image of Zionism historian Amnon Rubenstein quotes Jabotinsky: “Our starting point is to take the typical Yid [the widely-used derogatory term for the poor Jew] of today and to imagine his diametrical opposite … The Yid is ugly, sickly, and lacks…