Zionism Unpacked | A non-Jewish, Jewish Identity

You know how there's this whole thing going on now whereby if you criticize Israel, then you are accused of being antisemitic. And so now anyone who criticizes Israel has to go to great pains to make the very obvious distinction that no, I'm criticizing Zionism. I'm not engaging in anti Jewish hate speech. And for most of us, we see this as sort of gaslighting and manipulation by the Zionists so that they can deflect, valid criticism of Israel by just accusing anyone who criticized Israel of being, you know, an anti Jewish bigot. But I would like to look at it from another angle because I think it's entirely plausible that there are many sincere people who genuinely believe that if you criticize Israel or you criticize Zionism that you are being anti Semitic and anti Jewish.

And I'll tell you why. The reason is because it is incredibly murky to even define what it means to be a Jew. Now from the Muslim perspective and as far as I know from the rabbinical perspective, a Jew is someone who believes in the Torah and to one extent or another tries to adhere to that. A Jew is an adherent of the religion of Judaism. But in the modern era, the majority of people who are defined as Jews do not believe in or follow the Torah.

They are not adherents of Judaism and a large percentage of them are atheists. They don't even believe in God. Now from the Islamic perspective again and as far as I know again from the rabbinical perspective, these people would not be regarded as Jews. They would just be regarded as people of no religion the same as any other people who have no religion. I mean, that's how such people would have been regarded by the inhabitants of ancient Judea after all and that's how they should be regarded today.

Regardless of whether or they can trace some thin thread of their DNA back to ancient Judea, it doesn't matter. Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians can trace their DNA, a greater degree of their DNA back to the holy land of antiquity and that doesn't make them Jews. But even though a large percentage of people who are defined as Jews today are not religious I e not actually Jews, still many strongly identify as Jewish. So what can that even mean? What's the basis for that identity?

Well, Israeli historian Shlomo san suggests that atheistic or secular Jews base their identity on one of or a combination of three things. One, so called Jewish blood which is more or less an antisemitic myth. Or two, the holocaust which was of course the climax of antisemitism in Europe. Or three, the state of Israel. The justification for which is that Jews face antisemitism everywhere else in the world and thus need a safe place to be their homeland, where they can be protected from antisemitism in the world.

So anyway you look at it, the basis for a non religious Jewish identity is derived from, if not directly defined by, antisemites. In other words, Jews who do not believe in Judaism are only still regarded as Jews because non Jews who hate Jews insist that they are Jews and they will not allow them to be anything else. Now being in that situation, since Jewishness is being imposed upon them, what are non Judaic Jews supposed to do? They don't believe in the Torah. They don't believe in God.

Their actual blood is a mixture of DNA just like everybody else, but to antisemites they will always be Jews. So they cannot escape Jewishness in the eyes of non Jews despite themselves being essentially non Jews in every meaningful way. So what to do but identify Jewishness with Zionism? There's no other way to make sense of that inescapable classification that is not inherently negating. They cannot gather around Judaism because they don't believe it.

They can't gather around the Torah because they don't believe it or follow it. But they can't avoid being gathered together because no one will ever let them not be Jews. So they gather around the state of Israel and they turn the box that everyone puts them in into a fortress. So if you really want to dissipate Zionism, it seems to me that you have to let these people who you insist are Jews have some other source of identity And you have to accept and recognize that an atheist Jew is just an atheist. A Jew who does not believe in or follow the Torah is just like anybody else who doesn't believe in or follow the Torah.

They're just Americans. They're just Germans. They're just French. They're just whatever else people define themselves as who do not have a religious identity. It's because anti Semites insist that there is actually some version of Jewishness separate from Judaism.

It's because these are the kind of people who will scan through the directories of companies and count all the names that end with Stein or Berg or what have you. And then say that Jews are overrepresented in this company despite the fact that probably most of the names that they have found are people who don't even believe in God or people who anyway are not religious. These kind of people, these anti semitic obsessed, Jewish obsessed people are perpetuating Zionism. They are giving the people whom they insist upon defining as Jews no alternative source of identity because let's face it, there is no secular Jewish culture. There's no secular Jewish identity that is not essentially the byproduct of non Jews anti Jewish obsession.

So all there really is is identification with the Jewish state because historically and even now, actually religious Jews, e actual Jews, knowledgeable religious Jews, rabbis, scholars, and orthodox Judaism, generally are not Zionist. Zionism is a fake Jewish identity for secular Jews who are only Jews because non Jews insist that they are Jews. So I'm saying, stop with the insistence already. Over half the global population of people who are defined as Jews self identify as secular or non religious, meaning they have no religion. And over 20% of Americans who are defined as Jews don't even believe that God exists.

Okay. Stop calling them Jews. By Islamic understanding, they would not be Jews. We wouldn't make any differentiation between them and any other group of people who are not religious or have no religion or don't believe in God because they are not any different from any other atheistic secular group of people. So stop imposing the label of Jewish upon people who don't even believe in God, people who don't even follow Judaism.

Because when you insist that they are Jewish, then that forces them to create some sort of alternative meaning to that identity and that's probably going to be Zionism. So for them, you are being antisemitic when you criticize Zionism because for them, Zionism is the only thing that forms the basis of Jewish identity when Judaism has been removed from the equation. So I'm saying, don't remove Judaism from the equation. And if somebody leaves Judaism, then accept that they are not Jews. And let them just be like anybody else who doesn't have a religion, and then you will see Zionism fade.

You're forcing them to find some way to define themselves as Jew because you're defining them as Jew. And if you if you're not forcing them to come up with a definition of what it means to be Jew, then they won't have to find one and they can just be like anybody else and then Zionism will disappear. You created this problem. Anti Semis created this problem and you perpetuate this problem. A secular Jew is not a Jew.

An atheist Jew is not a Jew. Someone who doesn't believe in Judaism is not a Jew, it's very simple. You're just like anybody else who doesn't have a religion. That's the Islamic perspective on it and that's the way it would have been looked upon by the practitioners and the adherence of the religion of Judaism back in ancient Judaea. If you don't believe in it and you don't practice it, then you're not yet.

We don't have to accept and perpetuate the Nazi antisemitic, belief that there's actually something called Jewish blood to where someone will be a Jew forever regardless of what their beliefs are, what regardless of what their religion is or if they have no religion. That's not true. If you don't practice Judaism, you're not a Jew. If you don't practice Islam, you're not a Muslim. If you don't practice Christianity, you're not a Christian.

It doesn't matter where your great great great great grandfather came from. Who cares? So stop calling what are essentially non Jews, Jews, and they will no longer have to find some way to invest meaning in that nonsensical classification.