People who have followed my post know that I have always objected blind Israel bashing and supported the two state solution.
But when you have people claiming anti-zionism is anti-semitism, then we have a problem here.
That is like claming being anti-Islamists is anti-muslim or anti-hindutva is being anti-Hindu. It is just not true.
Zionism is born out of the politicisation of Judaism just like political Islamist ideas or political Hindutva ideas are born out of the politicisation of their respective religions.
Ofcourse you can have secular Zionists who basically talk about religion in cultural terms and are humanist in their outlook. Sarvarkar who coined the word Hindutva was not a religious Hindu, ate beef and opposed Hindu rituals. David Ben Gurion called himself a secular Jewish nationalist. Jinnah is an example of a Muslim version of the same mould.
But this philopsohy leads to slippery slope of extremism and fanaticism. So you have the Jewish grou Irgun drawing inspiration from Zionism to launch terror attacks and an insurgency against the British in the then Palestine mandate.
In Egypt, after the more peaceful Muslim Brotherhood group which follows the political Islamic philosophy was supressed and pushed underground, a more radicalised spliter groups led by Zawahiri and other came up that assasinated Anwar Sadat and later collected themselves in Afghanistan. And post the Soviet "Jihad" such radicalised groups have gone further in their expertise to be able to even launch international terrorist plots.
The thing with these philosophies is that they all preach a beautiful utopia under Judaic, Islamic or Hindutva domination as well as the simultaneous fear mongering of how everyone else is out to destroy them. And because religion is used, they will begin to justify any path to reach political power no matter how abhorrent it is because of the religious justifications attached to it.
Currently, the political landscape in Israel is dominated by right wing groups like Shas party that would rollback the secular vision of David Ben Gurion if given half the chance. In Pakistan, Jinnah's ideals have been lost and despite no support to religious parties from the eletorate, militant groups that promise the Islamotupia under sharia law keep multiplying and have caused havoc there certainly contributed by the states own tacit involment in supporting such groups for their own objectives. Even in India we see groups like Ram Sene or Tagodia from the VHP who try to distort the polity with their views of how Hindus are being destroyed not just by non-Hindus but by Hindus who don't agree with their conspiracy theories.
I think we can all agree that mixing politics with religion is bad, it applies to all religions throughout. We have seen the mess it has caused with the Euripeans in the middle ages although the Republican party seems to have forgotten those lessons. In the Muslim world as well, these ideas first propunded by Syed Qutub in the 20th century is an anamoly and is being increasingly rejected and refuted. Isn't it time to differentiate between being anti-Zionist and anti-semite then? Why is it wrong to support that the Jewish majority areas of mandate Palestine to rightly belong to the state of Israel (particularly if you are a Pakistani since this was made on the same principle) and that Arabs were wrong in not accepting it but at the same time oppose the politicisation of Judaism like I do the politicisation of Islam or of Hinduism.
Apart from that, the statements attributed sound a lot like the those people who have joined the lucrative bussiness of "fake ex-terrorist".
People like Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem, Wafa Sultan e.t.c. have been exposed by mainstream news networks like CNN but there is an extreme fringe where these people can sell want they want to hear and make money in that process. I wouldn't be surprised if this person was also pulling a speakers fee for his speech.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/cnn-to-air-report-on-taxp_b_897761.html
In any case, I have read the case for Israel by Derwoshitz who lives in one of the most pro-Israeli academic environments in the world. So it would be worthwile to read a book by another jewish author whose parents actually survived the Holocaust
Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History which is in many ways a response to the book.
Alan's problem is that he blames everything on the Palestinians while Israeli mistakes are minor or inconsequential. He even considers settlement building as not an obstacle to peace when that is the primary issue resulting in the break down of the peace process and every country in the world including the US opposes the settlements. And I won't even go into the huge Plagiaraism controvery that came with his book.
Ofcourse, the opposite of balming everyting on the Israelis is also wrong but reading both books would help the "British Muslim Zionist" getting some correct prespective on the issue. That is ofcourse if he is genuine and not out to swindle money.
If anyone does want a good book on Israel or Zonism, I would recommend
The Crisis of Zionism by Peter Beinhart where he basically discussed the radicalisation of the Zionist philosophy from its liberal origins, somewhat like the strory of the Jinnahesque political Islamic ideology to what we see in Pakistan today.
and the ICG report
Identity Crisis: Israel and its Arab Citizens by Daniel Levy. Daniel was a top negotiater from the Israeli side on the Palestinian issue so he brings some really good insights and does a fair assement of what Israel faces today and how it is integrating or trying to intergrate its Arab citizens.
