Friday, May 23, 2008
Zionism's flirtation (and alliance) with anti-Semitism. I was thinking about the item below about Rev. Hagee's anti-Semitic, pro-Zionist past (and present). As you know there is a long history of Zionist embrace or flirtation with anti-Semitism. I was just reading in the new book (new collection, really), The Jewish Writings by Hannah Arendt. Read her article on Herzl and his Der Judenstaat (which begins on p. 375). As you may know, Herzl made appeals to "honest anti-Semites" to make small donations to help found a Zionist state. Arendt wrote that Herzl believed that "anti-Semites would be the Jews' best friends and anti-Semitic governments their best allies."(p. 376) (Arendt also commented that "Palestinian reality has turned out to be almost the opposite of what Herzl dreamed."(p. 375)