So much has been made of the conflation of the phrases ‘anti-Zionist’ and ‘anti-Semitism’ of late I think it is always worthwhile seeking out thoughtful opinion from respected commentators who do not have an axe to grind on what is so often a deliberate muddling. I think Albert Einstein, a Jew, probably fits this category. He ardently described himself as a Zionist, but it’s not quite the Zionism that supporters of the state of Israel might wish to hear:
‘I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from the political consideration, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain– especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state. We are no longer the Jews of the Maccabee period. A return to a nation in the political sense of the word would be equivalent to running away from the spiritualisation of our community which we owe to the genius of our prophets. If external necessity should after all compel us to assume this burden, let us bear it with tact and patience.’ (Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, Wings Books 1954 p.190) Einstein wrote those words in 1938, when the horrors of the holocaust hadn’t yet been fully unleashed but the oppression of Jews in Germany was in full swing. The idea of a spiritual and cultural home for Jews was important—not as he said to nurture a narrow nationalism, which was one of the ills faced by Jews and not just in Germany. After the war, Einstein’s views had shifted somewhat, and he appears to have welcomed the creation of a political state, due no doubt to an ‘external necessity,’ initiated by what now appears the inevitability of local ethnic hostilities. Perhaps Einstein was naïve to think such hostilities could be avoided. Now we could loosely call Einstein’s approach a ‘one state solution’ (if indeed he ever wanted to see a political state). This was never on the cards. It seems to me that the problem of the Israel/Palestine conflict was precisely what Einstein wished to avoid, and the thing is, it might have been if his version of Zionism had prevailed. Instead, the Jewish political state he didn’t originally want to see has, perhaps inevitably, determined that it is an exclusive endeavour which barely (if at all in some of Netanyahu’s allies' eyes) recognises the Palestinians as a people at all.
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