A Point of View: Zionism, racism and a misbegotten encyclopedia entry

When Jimmy Carter published his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" he was appropriately criticized for linking Israel's policies in the territories to that of apartheid South Africa. Whatever one's views of Israeli policy, comparing it to the ideological, race-based approach of South African white supremacists was outrageous.
 
Some of us, at the time, also noted that as bad as Carter's perspective was, it wasn't even the worst use of the term or the concept with regard to Israel. Even worse would be the accusation that Israel itself -- forget about the territories -- is a manifestation of racism and apartheid ideology. This, of course, was not a new concept; recall the abominable Zionism is racism resolution of the United Nations, passed in 1975 and on the books until the early 1990s, and the Durban UN Conference Against Racism in 2001 with its focus on alleged Israeli racism.
 
Now there has emerged another full-blown legitimization of the Zionism is racism theme with the publication of "The Encyclopedia of Race and Racism," published by Gale, a division of Cengage Learning.
 
In the encyclopedia, first published in November 2007, there is an article on Zionism by Noel Ignatiev, a professor of Harvard and an individual with a long anti-Zionist record.  Ignatiev is the co-founder of "Race Traitor: Journal of the New Abolitionism," an online publication that has featured anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic authors who demonize Israel and the Zionist movement.
 
We at ADL, and other Jewish organizations, have condemned the appearance of an article on Zionism in a volume on racism.  Its very presence in that volume is inappropriate and will give continued legitimacy to the "racism" charge against Israel, particularly with a Durban follow-up conference scheduled for Geneva in April 2009.
 
The article itself contains a range of assaults on Israeli and Zionist history. It is notable for taking events and quotes out of context, in ignoring the complete picture of Israel and for selecting isolated facts to prove the author's preconception that Zionism is racist. One doesn't have to be a defender of all Israeli policies to see that here we have a distorted view of the Zionist movement and Israeli society.
 
Just a few examples. Ignatiev claims that Zionism seeks falsely to say Jews are a race. In fact, what Zionists talk about is the Jewish "people," reflecting the complex reality of Jews as a religion, as a group with a history and a tradition, and an attachment to a particular land.
 
Ignatiev tries to disassociate or trivialize the connection of Jews to the land of Israel, emphasizing early Zionist discussions about Uganda and other places for Jewish settlement. In fact, the founders understood that the only true link of the Jewish people was to the land of Israel -- that's how Jews survived in exile; that’s why Zionism succeeded as a movement.
 
He tries to separate Zionists from Jews by rehashing the charge that David Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders were ready to sacrifice European Jews during the Nazi era to further the Zionist goals. This despicable charge is an effort to suggest that Zionists are not only not true Jews but work against the interests of the Jewish people.
 
On the 1948 War of Independence, he removes complexity and sees only a bad Israel. He claims that 750,000 Palestinians were "driven" from their homes, as opposed to the complex reality of the origins of the refugee problem. Today, he notes, one-quarter of the refugees in the world are Palestinian, ignoring the question: Why haven’t they been resettled?
 
And, of course, in Ignatiev's world Israel is deemed racist by its Law of Return, ignoring the fact that every nation has preferential policies for its nationals and associated peoples regarding immigration.
 
The danger in all of these arguments is that they were included in an encyclopedia on racism that purports to give factual and educational information on a subject that is central to our understanding of cultures, religions and society. Putting these deliberately misleading arguments against Zionism into an encyclopedia gives them a legitimacy they do not deserve. It is especially troubling that students who come across the entry might see it as a true representation of fact, rather than an argument that needs to be read with a highly skeptical eye. 
 
One is tempted to say: "So what's new, we've been there before." But efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel on the grounds that it is a racist state continue unabated.
 
Whether it is a renewed initiative to condemn Israel at Durban II, or boycott efforts, or intellectual or religion arguments, the line that Israel is racist and therefore not a legitimate state, will continue to resonate. We must therefore counter the kinds of arguments that appear in the Ignatiev article at every point.
 
Only that way can we turn around these efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel.