Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Can Israel be deprived of Zionism?

Can Israel be deprived of Zionism?  
 
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Marianna Belenkaya)
 - On August 29 it will be 110 years since the first Zionist Congress took
place in Basel. It gave birth to the Zionist organization led by its first
president Theodore Herzl. Disputes about Zionism have not abated since
then not only in the Jewish community but far beyond it. 
What is Zionism? What goals should it pursue? Should it exist at all? 
Let's make one point clear right away: the Zionist movement is
heterogeneous and consists of religious, practical and political Zionists.
At different times they engaged in heated debates, united and separated.
But they all had a common goal - to establish the State of Israel. They
specified at the Congress in Basel that Zionism was striving for the
formation of a national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel,
which would be guaranteed by international law. In simple terms, they
wanted to find a place on Earth where Jews would be safe, wouldn't feel
alien and could develop as a nation. The founders of Zionism believed that
this goal could not be achieved without their own land and state. 
Paradoxically, it is the Muslims, including those who do not recognize
Israel's right to exist, who use the phrase "Zionist formation" in its
true meaning. Israel embodies the Zionist dream and Zionist ideology forms
its foundation. This is a fact, not an opinion. This is exactly why
Israel's real birthday was August 29, 1897, on the opening day of the
First Zionist Congress. After the event, Herzl wrote in his diary: "At
Basel I founded the Jewish State..." At that time many thought he was
crazy, but the state of Israel exists today, although now, almost 60 years
after its foundation, there are still disputes as to what it should be
like and what role Zionism should play in it. 
An article by Dr. Daniel H. Gordis, Vice President of the Mandel
Foundation, written half a year after the recent Lebanese-Israeli war,
appeared on a Russian website to mark the event, and this is no accident.
This is what he wrote: "No, Israel's not a failure. The State is a huge
success. But, I would still claim, it's not doing for the Jews what the
original Zionists had hoped. And part of the national funk has to do with
precisely that." 
He emphasized that the first Zionist ideologists had promised that if a
Jewish state was created, it would be the only place on Earth where Jews
would be safe. For some time it seemed that Zionism carried out this
promise but the summer of 2006 put an end to the illusion of security. 
The publicist writes that many Israelis wonder - if Zionism has not
justified itself, why did they build the country in the marshlands and
send their children to wars? He himself replies to this question --
Israel's goal was the hope, not statehood as such. It is with good reason
that the Zionist movement and later on the state accepted the verse called
"The Hope" (HaTikvah) as its anthem. They wanted "To be a free people in
our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem." 
Gordis believes that if Israel seized to exist, everything Jewish would be
damaged. He makes this point: "A people cannot long for sovereignty for
two thousand years, find itself at the precipice of extinction, bounce
back, get a state and then lose that, too, and march on as if everything
was OK." 
It goes without saying that these words may be addressed to many members
of the Jewish community, for instance, to Avraham Burg, a former Knesset
speaker and the son of one of the founders of the State of Israel. His
recently published book "Defeating Hitler" has evoked a huge response. He
writes, among other things, that Zionism has not liberated the Jewish
people, but became a disaster, which led to the formation of a
concentration-camp-like ghetto. The Arab newspaper al-Shark al-Ausat
carried a review of the book under the title "Jews against Israel." But
this is not quite correct. Burg is rejecting today's Israel, not the
existence of the state as such. He writes about the return to "spiritual
Zionism," restoration of the Jewish identity, which is eclipsed by the
notion of "the Israeli." He is not alone - Jews voiced such ideas
throughout the history of Zionism. 
There are grounds to argue with Burg and his soul mates on many points.
One of them is whether Jews in Europe were safe during the last
millennium. We remember well the history of German Jews who dreamt of
assimilation but were burnt alive in Auschwitz; a century before similar
dreams of the French Jewry were ruined by the Dreyfus affair. This
happened throughout Jewish history. Now Israel gives hope to the Jews. 
On the other hand, thinkers like Burg are raising very important issues -
can a democratic state be exclusively Jewish in the modern world? Can a
state be a democracy if its laws are largely based on religious
principles? Doesn't Zionism lead to racism and why its criticism is
considered tantamount to antisemitism? Can a state live with a permanent
feeling that "the whole world is against it"? 
The Israelis will have to answer this question regardless of their
convictions - for the sake of their state's advance. It is a fact that
nobody is going to relinquish it. Today Israel and the Jewish people are
facing the same problems as the European Union, Russia and many other
countries. These are primarily issues of self-identification and survival.
The Russians, for one, smashed with abandon the myths of the past and
imperial Soviet ideology after the Soviet Union's disintegration. But a
nation cannot exist without myths and ideals, which form the gist of
ideology. Europe put tolerance on the pedestal of its ideology and lost
its instinct of self-preservation for some time. Many other countries,
above all Muslim, are on the horns of the dilemma of combining democracy
with religion, globalization with self-identity. 
In the same manner, Israel makes no sense without Zionist ideology. But
what will it be like in the modern world? 
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not
necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti. 
-- 
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 Can Israel be deprived of Zionism?  
Can Zionism  be depraved Israel?
Non so se č corretto in inglese, ma anagrammando la domanda il senso č piů
vero!
gus


Non so
E' la tua condizione naturale: non sapere un ca**o e aprire bocca per
sparare stronzate.
-Stefano

 Non so se è corretto in inglese
No. Sei la solita capra.
Tb
-- 
Libertà per i comunisti siriani in carcere: Fateh Jamus, 'Isam Dimashqi,
Basel Hurani, 'Abd al-Halim Rumieh, Ratib Sha'bu, and Doha 'Ashur
al-'Askari 
http://snipurl.com/1oqtm

 -Stefano
Beato te che sai di essere una merda razzista antisemita!


 Tb
Ma il senso ti è chiaro razzista depravato antisemita!


 Ma il senso ti è chiaro razzista depravato antisemita!
ROTFL.
No, non si capisce un cazzo, gus.
Prova a risifolare nel corno di terracotta di san gregorio armeno.
Firulì, firulà...


 Tb
Infilatelo dove sai il corno, ti traduco l'anagramma-assonanza per farti
capire?


 Infilatelo dove sai il corno
Eccotelo ---> STRUNK
Ora risifola. In effetti era messo male.
Sei la solita capra, gus.


 Tb
Infilatelo dove sai il corno, ti traduco l'anagramma-assonanza per farti
capire: Può il nazionalsionismo aver condotto alla depravazione Israele
(non il mostro, il popolo)?


 [cut]
Ora va decisamente meglio.
Non è inglese, ma ha una  sua musicalità.


Beato te che sai di essere una merda razzista antisemita!
...disse il bue all'asino...
-Stefano

Puň il nazionalsionismo
E che ca**o e?  Un parto della tua mente malata? :)
*LOL*
-Stefano

 Tb
OK. Adesso lasciami lavorare nazisionista antisemita nullafacente!


 OK. Adesso lasciami lavorare
Vai pure, gus.
Grazie per il concertino.
E tienilo lì il corno, mi raccomando.
