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ZIONISM: A FORM OF RACISM AND RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Fayez Sayegh
International Symposium on Zionism and Racism, Baghdad November 1976
Much controversy and protracted debate preceded the adoption of the U.N. resolution which determined that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. During these debates not one of the defenders of the Zionist movement came out with any statement or advanced any evidence to the effect that Zionism is not a form of racism or that its practices do not constitute racial discrimination.
Two substantive points were raised from the pro-Zionist side. The representative of Barbados said that racism as he understood it referred to a matter of color, and that there could be no racism where the target of discrimination was not 'black'. This was immediately answered by envoking the International Convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. Article I of the Convention explicitly states that the word 'race' in the U.N. context is used not in the narrow biological genetic sense, but in the generic sense - subsuming under it the concept of 'race', 'color', 'descent', 'national origin' and 'ethnic origin'. If there is discrimination on any of these grounds it constitutes racial discrimination according to the Convention. The Convention had been adopted unanimously by every member of the United Nations including Israel, the United States, and Barbados, ten years earlier. The second argument of substance was raised by the U.S. ambassador, Daniel Moynihan, who simply said that if it were true that the United Nations had defined 'racial discrimination', it was certainly also true that the United Nations had not defined 'racism'. How could the General Assembly then determine that Zionism was a form of racism, when it did not have at hand a definition of racism, Moynihan continued.
The background of Moynihan's argument requires the interjection of a personal episode. I had been honoured by the twenty Arab delegation by being named the sole debater on the Arab side. Only four days before the vote, the U.S. Ambassador asked that we meet. At that meeting he requested my definition of racial discrimination. I replied that my definition was unimportant and quoted the U.N. definition in Article I of the International Convention. "I swear to God I have not heard of it," was the U.S. Ambassador's answer. The New York Times reported that a shaken Moynihan later spoke to the editor of Commentary who verified my statement adding, "but there is no definition of racism." At this, the article reported, Moynihan jumped to the ceiling saying, "Good .... Now I can get back at them."
In fact there is a U.N. definition of racism. The four essential components of racism are in the International Convention - interspersed and prohibited throughout its Articles:
1 - The concept of racial supremacy and any discrimination or ideas based on racial supremacy is prohibited (Article IV).
2 - Racial segregation is condemned and an undertaking is made to prohibit it (Article III).
3 - Racial discrimination is the bulk of the Convention. It is defined (Article I) and there are undertakings to prohibit it (Article II, Parts 4,56 and 7).
4 - The advisability and desirability of racial harmony. Parties to the Convention undertake to promote organizations which foster racial harmony and tolerance (Article II) and to initiate educational programs to create, in the minds of the youth, ideas of racial harmony instead of racial intolerance (Article VII).
What is racism? Stripping it of all particulars, racism exists wherever there is a belief that racial identification is paramount and of decisive significance. Six ideas are subsumed under this general statement: two implications, two principles of faith and two principles of practice. The implications are (1) that mankind is divided into groups of ethnic or racial or color distinctiveness and these groups are distinct from one another and different from one another, and (2) belonging to any of these groups has an important - if not a decisive effect on the aptitude, qualities and capabilities of the persons who compose the group.
The principles of belief are (1) that some races, or at least one race, are superior and therefore the others are inferior. The superior races are entitled to privileges to which the inferior races are not entitled. (2) Races cannot live in harmony with one another; coexistence is precluded by the very nature of the relationship; racial incompatibility is an essential corollary to racial diversity. Two principles of practice follow: (1) since races cannot live with one another, since they are essentially diverse, they must be separated; racial segregation is an essential prerequisite of a healthy international existence. (2) Where races coexist, supremacy and discrimination by one race against another are the inevitable consequence.
Every racist movement in the world consciously or unconsciously subscribes to these premises, believes in these principles, and practices racial segregation and racial discrimination. Where you do not have all these ingredients together, you do not have a perfect racism. This century has witnessed three perfect racisms: Aryan or Nazi Racism, Zionist Racism and Apartheid Racism. Zionism while agreeing with all the others in the application of the theoretical and practical principles, nevertheless differs in the form of application.
The application of the concept of racial superiority is illustrative. To the Aryan, it was a matter of biological determination. To the proponent of Apartheid, it is color that makes the white man, in his own conviction and belief and practices, superior to the black or the colored in South Africa. What makes the Zionist believe that the Jew is superior? The answer is in the Biblical concept of the 'chosen people' which - like every other Biblical concept - the Zionist movement has assaulted, called out from its spiritual and religious context (in which it may or may not have been appropriate), secularized, and given a new political temporal meaning that was not implicit in the original Biblical spiritual connotation. The concept of the chosen people is at the root of the Zionist belief in the superiority of the Jew to the non-Jew and therefore in the necessity for the Jew to enjoy privileges which he denies to the non-Jew both in theory and in practice. This concept of the racial superiority of the Jew is rampant in Zionist literature. In November, 1972 The Jewish Press commented on the fact that three of the five American Nobel Prize winners were Jews - and it said that this percentage was certainly higher than the Jewish share of the U.S. population. That very same newspaper had castigated General Brown a few months earlier because he had said that Jews had greater influence in the press and in the banks and in the politics of America than is warranted by their numerical proportion. And that same newspaper castigated Congressman Stein of New York who disclosed a multimillion dollar nursing home scandal all of whose luminaries were Jews; the newspaper said: "People are going to say, all the people involved in this scandal are Jews, this is going to create anti-Semitism." Thus, it is fine for a Jewish newspaper to say, "We have more than our share of Nobel Prize winners." But it is not all right for any-one to say, "You have more than your share of influence in the press, or in the banks, or in politics, or in scandals." One is appropriate and expected and legitimate, the other is inappropriate. This is a manifestation of how the concept of superiority links into that of special privilege.
The second important principle is that of racial segregation. Under Nazism the important thing was to create Aryan purity, to remove those incompatible with that purity under Nazi jurisdiction and to extend that jurisdiction to wherever there were German ethnics in residence. The Nazis interpreted racial segregation in this manner: purify the Aryan land and extend it to incorporate all Aryans. The Apartheid regime understands segregation by putting people of different colors in separate residential areas, culminating now in the Bantustanization of Southern Africa.
Zionism's peculiar form of racial segregation is relocation of people throughout the world. Jews, wherever they are, must be separated and detached from their normal area to live on one piece of land from which the non-Jews must be ousted. It can be likened to a heartbeat: the heart of Zionism cannot beat until every non-Jew is 'pumped-out' of the coveted territory and every Jew is 'pumped-in' to create the Judenstaat. And the Judenstaat does not mean a Jewish state. Herzl protested when the title of his book was translated as "The Jewish State." He said "I am speaking of the State of Jews." The difference is that a Jewish state would be one characterized by Jewish law, governed by Jewish norms and manifesting the Jewish ethos, but a state of Jews is one whose population is made up of Jews. This exclusion is the heartbeat of Zionism. This is what Zionism means by racial segregation.
The fact of Zionist racial discrimination is written into the fundamental laws of Israel; the Jew has privileges which the non-Jew, the indigenous Palestinian Arab, does not have.
Finally, and most significantly, how does Zionism understand the principle of racial disharmony and racial incompatibility? The title for this concept, in Zionist literature, is the inevitability of anti-Semitism. In order to make Zionism possible, in order to make the Jew conscious of his distinct Jewishness, in order to make him want to immigrate and go to Palestine, in order to make him want not to assimilate and not to be integrated, anti-Semitism must be perpetuated. Zionism not only believes in the reality and eternity of anti-Semitism, but also in the need for anti-Semitism, for without it the Jew would be likely to lose his identity through assimilation.
It follows that where there is no anti-Semitism, the memories of past anti-Semitism must be recreated. According to Ben Gurion, that is why the Eichmann Trial was made, so that a generation which did not live with the experiences of Nazis would be able to know what the Nazis did to the Jews. If anti-Semitism does not exist, any slight hint of hatred to the Jew must be magnified into an international conspiracy. If anti-Semitism does not exist it must be simulated, as in Baghdad in the late 40s and early 50s when Zionist agents led Jews to believe that there was a conspiracy in order to expedite and accelerate their mass exodus.
Where anti-Semitism does not exist it must be, if need be, generated. The Zionists say, let us pretend, let us claim that any opposition to Zionism, any criticism of Israel, is anti-Semitism, directed at the entire Jewish people in order to make all Jews feel insecure. This was precisely the Zionist response to the U.N. Resolution. The moment the Resolution was adopted it was declared to be a declaration of war by the United Nations against the Jewish people and against Judaism. In full-page ads in the United States, Canada and in some places in Western Europe, the Zionist movement told Jews all over the world: "This Resolution is not against Zionism only, it is against the Jewish people, and against Judaism, because there is no distinction [the ad said] between Zionism, Judaism and world Jewry." The ultimate purpose is to keep the fear of self-determination alive in the heart of Jewry, because without it Zionism has no viability.
