Zionism, Bacteria, and Viruses!

There is an aspect of Zionist thought that has not been sufficiently highlighted: it is based on the belief that anti-Semitism (i.e., hostility toward Jews and Judaism) is one of the constants of human nature—unchangeable regardless of circumstances, time, or place.

This is not surprising, for Zionism is a child of its time—nineteenth-century Europe—an age of imperialism that gave rise to racist, ethnocentric ideologies, including Nazism. Zionism is one of the odious products of this era.

Thus, it is not strange that Zionists have adopted many of the claims made by anti-Semites in the West, along with their stereotypical perceptions of Jews.

Zionist writings are filled with descriptions of the Jewish personality as sick, abnormal, marginal, and unproductive, with a natural inclination only for trade.

Max Nordau—and later Hitler—applied organic metaphors to Jewish communities. The organic metaphor holds that human phenomena are subject to biological determinism, and therefore cannot be overcome; they must be accepted as inevitable and natural.

This Darwinian view makes no distinction between humans and animals. Within this repugnant framework, Nordau likened Jews to microscopic organisms (like bacteria or viruses) that are harmless in open air but cause deadly diseases when deprived of oxygen. This racist thinker then goes on to warn governments and societies that Jews may pose such a threat.

From this racist perspective, Zionists assert that hostility toward Jews is a natural phenomenon—a normal response to the presence of Jews as a foreign body within host societies. In reality, they consider it a biological phenomenon (note the recurrence of the organic-biological metaphor implying the inevitability of anti-Semitism). Yehuda Gordon stated that the enlightened Jew’s superiority lies in acknowledging the truth—that is, in accepting the accusations made by anti-Semites. A deep friendship developed between Chaim Weizmann and Richard Crossman (the British Labour leader) after the latter confessed that he was naturally anti-Jewish (i.e., by the nature of things, the nature of Jews, and their relationship with non-Jews). Weizmann’s comment was: if Crossman had said otherwise, he would have been either lying to himself or to others.

The Zionist thinker Jacob Klatzkin described anti-Semitism as a legitimate (natural and inevitable) act of self-defense.

Yitzhak Shamir, former Israeli Prime Minister, expressed the view that Polish anti-Semitism is something they "suckle with their mothers’ milk."

Here, Shamir equates moral action with biological instinct. Weizmann described anti-Semitism as akin to bacteria—sometimes dormant, but always ready to come back to life when conditions allow.

Thus, Zionists make no distinction between the various forms of anti-Semitism. They see it as a singular, organic phenomenon that repeats itself in every era and place, and view the struggle against it as futile, since it is a constant, an inevitability.

Zionism proposes a vision of history based on the idea that Jews have been in a state of enforced exile since the destruction of the Temple, and that they are sick, fragmented personalities with divided loyalties as long as they live outside their national homeland—occupied Palestine. Zionists believe that, left to themselves, Jews would naturally return to Palestine without hesitation and be cured of all their ailments.

Zionist historiography suggests a repeated pattern in so-called Jewish history: exile from Palestine followed by return; exile to Egypt then return to Palestine; exile to Babylon then return; and finally, exile to the whole world followed by a final return to Israel (i.e., Palestine). The "happy ending" of this historical melodrama is the return to the Promised Land. This raises an obvious question: what about those who don’t want to return and prefer to stay in their countries of residence?

It was noted that after the establishment of Israel, Jews did not rush to the Promised Land. The exiled masses were not gathered, as Zionists had anticipated. This led David Ben-Gurion to coin the term “exiles of the soul” to describe Jews who live physically comfortable lives in exile but are supposedly spiritually tormented.

Yet these so-called “exiles of the soul” are the vast majority of Jews worldwide. Even after the establishment of the Zionist state, Judaism remains largely diasporic.

Thus, the Hebrew word galut (forced exile) came to be replaced with tefutsot (voluntary diaspora), a deep contradiction in terms. The United States poses a serious challenge to the idea of exile, being an enormous magnet for the overwhelming majority of the world’s Jews. Most Jews from Eastern Europe (Yiddish-speaking Jews) and other regions headed for the U.S., not Palestine, due to U.S. immigration restrictions.

American Jews began to view Israel not as a homeland, but as a place of ancestral origin, much like how Irish-Americans view Ireland.

This view assumes that the United States is not an exile but a voluntary migration destination, where Jews seek new opportunities of their own accord.

Even if the U.S. is not the Promised Land that fulfills their religious dreams—dreams which have largely withered—it is at least the goldene medina, a Yiddish term meaning “the golden land,” used by Eastern European Jewish immigrants to refer to the U.S. (where the streets were said to be silver and the sidewalks gold!).

The United States remains the goldene medina—the golden land—drawing Jews from around the world, including Israelis, away from the Promised Land. Some have even referred to it as the golden calf—the modern idol. The goldene medina is the secular promised land that offers no spiritual salvation, but guarantees bodily comfort, material abundance, and luxury.

Perhaps it is the rise of secularism among Jews that draws them increasingly toward the United States. Soviet Jewish immigrants, for instance, showed that their true allegiance lies with this secular Zion—not religious Israel—viewing Israel as a temporary shelter until they receive U.S. visas.

Even Israeli settlers (including sabra, native-born Israelis) are drawn to the secular Zion, the golden land, abandoning the religious Zion.

These settlers, who relocate to the secular Zion, are sometimes referred to as the "Israeli diaspora," which is absurd.

The term diaspora (like galut) implies forced displacement, so in what sense can it apply to those who were not forcibly expelled from the Promised Land but chose to leave it willingly? How can we call them a diaspora?

This is one of the characteristics of Zionist terminology—it is slippery and spongy, sometimes referring to a thing and its opposite. The number of so-called Israeli diaspora members in the U.S. is estimated at around 500,000 officially, 750,000 unofficially, and one million if including their children.

One Israeli newspaper noted that the population of the Zionist state at its founding in 1948 was only 700,000—making the scale of this outflow severely damaging to its legitimacy.

This phenomenon has been called the “second exodus.” The word "exodus" (of Greek origin) originally referred to the departure from Egypt (the land of slavery) to Palestine (the Promised Land and freedom). The second exodus is its opposite: a departure from the Promised Land—racked by conflict and under rocket fire from Qassam missiles—to the secular Promised Land, to the delightful exile of air-conditioned comfort and stable, safe living.

And Allah knows best.

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- Source: Dr. Abdelwahab Elmessiri’s website

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