Jews Sans Frontieres tweeted out the following article with the challenge, “Ynet, or The Onion? You decide!” Please register your vote in the comment section.
From the article “Addressing anti-Zionism“:
The root of anti-Zionism must be sought elsewhere [from antisemitism] – in anti-colonialism. The belief that colonialism was an absolute evil is so deeply engrained in the contemporary Western psyche that all enterprises bearing any parallels to it are automatically censored. This explains why people whose heroes are Bolivar and Gandhi instinctively side with the Palestinians.
To these people, claims that God promised the Land of Israel to the Jews reek of religious fanaticism. To make the argument that Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East invites allegations that it pursues apartheid policies. To counter all these claims is time-consuming and requires a taste for nuances. But why should anyone trade nuances for the facile certainty that colonialism is inherently evil?
Zionism will only cease being demonized in the politically correct corners of the West once our schools and film industry cease to demonize colonialism. The politically correct depiction of the colonialist as a racist and covetous brute must give space to the majority of well-meaning administrators that helped build roads, schools, and hospitals for the natives.
It must be shown that colonialists administered law and justice far more fairly than most pre-colonial chieftains or post-colonial despots. It must be taught that human development indicators plummeted in the majority of African and Asian countries following independence.
Once an honest discussion about colonialism is tabled, hostility to Zionism will wane in leftist circles. Not because they will shed the belief that Zionism is a form of colonialism, but because it will be possible for them to appreciate the merits of Zionism.
“The politically correct depiction of the colonialist as a racist and covetous brute must give space to the majority of well-meaning administrators that helped build roads, schools, and hospitals for the natives.”
Last time I looked, Israel was building walls against the natives and highways for the colonizers. Did I miss something.
I vote “Onion”
I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times they are not forgotten;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land where I was born,
Early on one frosty mornin,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
colonialism is good for indigenous peoples?
isn’t that what the colonizers say?
“we’re here to civilize the “barbarians”
(in return they get to steal the native’s land and resources)
except the colonizers invariably turn out to be the barbarians
able and willing to commit genocide
as from california to the coast of maine
Wot a pickle they’ve got themselves into!
So now they’ll be culling the net for publications quoting former colonial subjects stating there’s much to be grateful for from the colonial times. While I know there are some on the Brit Empire side (heard one or two just yesterday), I can’t see many on the US side favoring it – even though you’re a ‘post’ colonial state. Not white, black, brown or Native. Yet you’re their bestest fwend!
Atzmon claims Israel isn’t a colonial state since there wasn’t a ‘mother country’, though I’d disagree, in that there were ‘mother communities’. Which colonial model does Israel best mirror? It seems to have echoes and reflections of all the worst elements in any.
I do believe this argument is not original. It’s sort of a variation of the one the South has been using to defend the memory of their ante-bellum Shangri-la, oh whoops, Dan Crowther got there first.
Ah, the night they drove old Dixie down!