Terror, anti-zionism, anti-semitism?

I am fed up arguing with people who see life as taking sides. I do not take sides, not because I am indecisive, not because it’s too easy to take sides, but because it is simplistic.
My goal in life (at this point in my life) is to seek answers. I am not interested in the easy answers. What I want to know is truth-in so far as there is truth. I describe myself as being beyond borders, but I am all too aware of my European-Judeo-Christian roots, and of the society in which I live. Therefore in my search for answers, I obviously concentrate on the sphere in which I believe I can effect the most change.
Nowadays, the ‘great threat’ is apparently terrorism. This is a very vague term. What does terrorism mean? Well, it means different things to different people. The problem is, how are we going to find answers, if we define things only by our own views of these things?
Terror has a definition. The closest to what I am discussing here would be the following:

“Violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes.”

Well, if we take this as the definition, terror exists in different forms, in different parts of the globe, and is used by very different ‘groups’.
These days, we tend to see terror as the monopoly of one group : Islamic fundamentalists. I do not wish to spend much time on the obvious fact that these fundamentalists do not represent Muslims the world over. To me, as to most reasoned people, the terror which certain Islamic fundamentalists unleash is unbearable. It is, to me contrary to human nature.
More importantly, however, there are and have been many other kinds of terrorism. Obvious examples for us in the ‘West’, are Catholic and Protestant acts of terror in Northern Ireland, Basque terror or Corsican terror.
In the past, there have been other kinds of Christian terror, as the example of attacks on Protestants by Catholics in France shows.
Here I’d like to mark a pause, to point out that this last example proves my point that it is impossible to ‘take sides’. The Protestants in France in the 16th century were not the same as those in Northern Ireland in the 20th and 21st centuries. Also, it can be said that Catholics suffered from Protestant attacks prior to the anti-Protestant pogroms. So, it is therefore impossible to say members of the Catholic religion are worse than those of the Protestant religion and vice-versa.
If we return to the Islamic fundamentalist strain of terror, we must also point out that this brand of ‘Islam’ is not representative of Islam throughout history. At the time of the crusades, there was a Muslim general by the name of Saladin who was
“renowned in both the Christian and Muslim worlds for his leadership and military prowess tempered by his chivalry and merciful nature during the Crusades.”(Wikipedia).
I feel the need here to point out that I am still not taking sides. The battles for influence over ‘the holy land’ were not, in my opinion, justifiable on one side or another. I am simply pointing out that one side was not necessarily better than the other.
Too often, people try to explain modern day attitudes by the past. We are different from our ancestors. I am not a believer, but as I have said, I am a member of a Judeo-Christian society. The acts of previous generations of Christians of Jews do not, however, define who I am. That is also the case for those who call themselves believers. Thankfully, today’s Catholics are not out to murder or forcefully convert members of the Protestant community.
Incidentally, the same goes for more recent history. Today’s generations of Germans are not responsible for the acts of the Nazis, even if we are all responsible for ‘remembering’ the past.
Then there is state-terror. Well-known examples of this took place in Latin American dictatorships, such as those in Chile, Guatemala and El Salvador. These dictatorships were supported by western ‘democracies’, as were so-called counter-revolutionary forces in Nicaragua which unleashed terror in innocent civilians.
If we talk about ethnic and religious violence in general (not necessarily defined as ‘terror’), we can mention examples of Muslim-Hindu clashes in India. The origins of these clashes can be debated, but there are most definitely violent organizations on both sides, and the victims, whatever their faith, are mostly innocent.
As I have said, I believe I can effect more change in my socio-geographical sphere than in another. Also, I believe it is important to see which ‘groups’, on a global level, are the most capable of bringing about change. That is to say, who has the most power to deliver change.
It is obvious that there are few democratic Muslim states. I do not claim the contrary. I choose, however, to criticize Israel because it is a state, which is closer to my culture than Muslim states. Also, it is a state, which is protected by the US, a state which is closer still to my culture, and which is also the world’s only remaining super power. The US has the world’s mightiest military force, and Israel is close behind. An opinion often put forward is that Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab states, and therefore needs to defend it’s self. Israel’s military successes on several fronts shows it is far from being the victim it would like to be seen as.
For me, a Jewish state is no more democratic than an Islamic state. The fact, that Israeli-Arabs enjoy more freedom than Jews in an Islamic state, does not make Israel, as a Jewish state, anymore democratic. The survival of Israel as Jewish state depends on limiting the rights of Arabs, or on limiting the Arab population of Israel. In both cases, this is contrary to my view of a democracy. In practice there is no doubt more democracy in Israel-for its citizens-than in most Muslim states.
There are several reasons as to why Israel is a unique case. Obviously it is the sole Jewish state in the world. It is presented as the ‘only democracy in the middle east’, though you’ve probably realized I don’t agree with that statement. Furthermore it is probably the only state in which nationality is bound up not only with a religion but also an ethnic group : though it is debatable as to whether the Jews are an ethnic group, that is how they are presented. Imagine if to be French you had to prove descent from the Francs, if to be British you had to be of Celtic or Pictish(!) descent. And what of Americans? They’d have to descend from Native Americans…Also, Israel is said to represent the world’s Jews. No Muslim state is said to represent the world’s Muslims. India doesn’t represent the world’s Hindus. The only other state to represent members of a religion throughout the world is to my knowledge the Vatican…
Often, and argument ‘in defense’ of Israel, is that surrounding Muslim states are undemocratic, and that critics of Israel ‘ignore’ that. Israel’s ‘defenders’ claim it’s critics deny the right only to Jews to have a state. While there may well be people who have a wish to deny that right specifically to Jews, most thinking people would give no more no less right to the Jews to have a state than any other ethnic/religious group. Actually, it’s not about the ‘right’ to have a state. It’s about what one views as a democracy. To me and to many others, a democracy welcomes people regardless of religious belief or ethnicity. Furthermore, those who criticize Israel quite often denounce the support given by Western powers to Muslim dictatorships, such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. The same people often support groups such as Amnesty International, which regularly condemns Muslim dictatorships, despite the ludicrous claim by some, that Amnesty reserves most of it’s criticism for Israel. Finally, Israel is a state, which was formed just 60 years ago by the United Nations with the support of Western nations.
Another claim is that Zionists would have been happy to share ‘Palestine’ with the Arabs in 1947. There is, however, plenty of evidence, that these early Zionists (there were also those who opposed a Jewish state within the Zionist movement) wanted the whole of the land for their state. Here are some quotes :
Chaim Weizmann (worked on Balfour declaration, 1917, and Israel’s first president):
“With regard to the Arab question-the British told me that there are several hundred thousand negroes there but that this matter has no significance”(quoted by Arthur Ruppin) (Yossef Heller, Bama’ avak Lamdina, p140, in Chomsky, p481)
David Ben-Gurion Israel’s first PM:
“The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan; one does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today, but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them”.(speech of 1937, cited in New Outlook (Tel Aviv), April 1977, from Ben-Gurion’s Memoirs, in Chomsky, p161).

The idea that anti-zionism is merely a front for anti-semitism is also a false argument. Again, while there may well be some people who are anti-zionist and anti-semitic, this does nothing to refute the argument of those who are anti-zionist, but in no way anti-semitic. There are also many anti-zionist Jews. In fact early Zionism was often opposed to a Jewish state. In those days, Zionism meant settling in Palestine, but not necessarily building a Jewish state.
Here is another quote from Chomsky’s book, Fateful Triangle:
“Earlier, it’s leaders-particularly those from the labor movement that dominated the Palestinian Yishuv (Jewish settlement)-forcefully opposed the concept of a Jewish state on the explicit grounds that ‘the rule of one national group over another ‘ is illegitimate”. (Chomsky, p160).
I’d like to point out that dismissing the use of these examples of Jewish anti-zionism as a front for anti-semitism, in no way diminishes the view that a Jewish state is undemocratic.
That's it for today...
UPDATE:
I am a realist as well as a humanist. I do not equate Israeli Jews with their 'leaders', just as i do not equate Jews with Israelis. I do not believe Israeli Jews should suddenly give up their homes-though I do believe it was right to evacuate the colonies, since the settlers were totally aware of the illegality and immorality of their settlements. Obviously the children could not be held responsible, but they were well recieved in Israel proper, which was not the case for Palestinian refugees who were forced out of their rightful homes.
I believe Israelis, particularly second and third generations, have every right to remain where they are at least in the short to middle term. In the long term I believe in a bi-national (or even multi-national) state. That would be the only way towards a truly middle-eastern democracy.