Dr_Eggman
31st July 2005, 10:51
This is indeed a touchy subject but thought I'd explain the three terms of "Zionism", "Anti-Zionism", and "Post-Zionism" as it is related to the Palestinian-Israeli disagreement.
Zionism is a political movement among Jews, although supported by some non-Jews and not supported by some Jews, which maintains that the Jewish people constitute a nation and are entitled to a national homeland in Palestine, the location of the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Since 1948, Zionism has been a movement to support the development and defense of the State of Israel, and to encourage Jews to settle there.
Anti-Zionism is a term that has been used to describe several very different political and religious points of view, both historically and in current debates. All these points of view have in common some form of opposition to Zionism, but their diversity of motivation and expression is so great that "anti-Zionism" cannot be seen as a single phenomenon.
Post-Zionism refers to the views of some Israeli and diaspora Jews, particularly in academia, that Zionism fulfilled its ideological mission with the creation of modern State of Israel in 1948 and that the ideology should therefore be considered to be at an end.
The term Post-Zionism also refers to a school of historical revisionism whose practitioners are known as the New Historians, in which the history of Israel and Zionism, particularly the events leading to the creation of the state of Israel and its early years are re-examined with an attempt to uncover events that have been hidden or de-emphasised by Zionist historians, particularly the alleged maltreatment of Palestinians, arguing that the state of Israel was created through violence against Arab residents.
In constrast to the Jewish state being the aim of political Zionism, many Post-Zionists advocate the evolution of Israel into a non-ideological, secular, liberal democratic state which is officially neither Jewish nor Arab in character.
I, personally, am a Post-Zionist currently. I think it'd be impossible for Israel to be dismantled now but it should be made into a more democratic nation. Ancestry and religion should not matter to politics.
Zionism is a political movement among Jews, although supported by some non-Jews and not supported by some Jews, which maintains that the Jewish people constitute a nation and are entitled to a national homeland in Palestine, the location of the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Since 1948, Zionism has been a movement to support the development and defense of the State of Israel, and to encourage Jews to settle there.
Anti-Zionism is a term that has been used to describe several very different political and religious points of view, both historically and in current debates. All these points of view have in common some form of opposition to Zionism, but their diversity of motivation and expression is so great that "anti-Zionism" cannot be seen as a single phenomenon.
Post-Zionism refers to the views of some Israeli and diaspora Jews, particularly in academia, that Zionism fulfilled its ideological mission with the creation of modern State of Israel in 1948 and that the ideology should therefore be considered to be at an end.
The term Post-Zionism also refers to a school of historical revisionism whose practitioners are known as the New Historians, in which the history of Israel and Zionism, particularly the events leading to the creation of the state of Israel and its early years are re-examined with an attempt to uncover events that have been hidden or de-emphasised by Zionist historians, particularly the alleged maltreatment of Palestinians, arguing that the state of Israel was created through violence against Arab residents.
In constrast to the Jewish state being the aim of political Zionism, many Post-Zionists advocate the evolution of Israel into a non-ideological, secular, liberal democratic state which is officially neither Jewish nor Arab in character.
I, personally, am a Post-Zionist currently. I think it'd be impossible for Israel to be dismantled now but it should be made into a more democratic nation. Ancestry and religion should not matter to politics.