UCLA professor conflates Judaism and political doctrine of Zionism in an attempt to argue criticism of Israel is racist
Prison Planet.com | Mar 17, 2009
By Paul Joseph Watson
A prominent L.A. Times editorial confuses the political movement of Zionism with semites as a race in an attempt to argue that anti-Zionism is worse than anti-Semitism and should be treated as a hate crime.
The op-ed, written by Judea Pearl, the father of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, asks in its headline, Is anti-Zionism Hate? The question is answered by the sub headline, “Yes. It is more dangerous than anti-Semitism, threatening lives and peace in the Middle East.”
Pearl is a professor at UCLA and the president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, which includes amongst its honorary members Bill Clinton, the Queen of Jordan and writer Eliezer Wiesel, who has attracted controversy for his support of Jewish terrorist group Irgun and his indifference to historical massacres of Palestinians.
Noam Chomsky criticized Wiesel for once stating, “I support Israel—period. I identify with Israel—period. I never attack, never criticize Israel when I am not in Israel.”
The L.A. Times article essentially tries to argue that everyone, particularly academia, should adhere to Wiesel’s mantra and refrain from criticizing the government of Israel and its policies. It does so by deliberately and underhandedly conflating Jews, Israel and ZIonism into one single entity.
Pearl states that criticism of Zionism is “discriminatory,” “immoral,” and “dangerous,” because it “rejects the very notion that Jews are a nation — a collective bonded by a common history — and, accordingly, denies Jews the right to self-determination in their historical birthplace.”
Jews are a nation? That’s news to me – last time I checked Judaism was not a race or a nation, it was a religion.
Very early in the article, Jews, Zionism and Israel have lost all definition and are conflated as one and the same.
“Anti-Semitism rejects Jews as equal members of the human race; anti-Zionism rejects Israel as an equal member in the family of nations,” writes Pearl, further conflating Zionism with some kind of biblical legacy by claiming that, “Jews are a nation first and religion second….the unshaken conviction in their eventual repatriation to the birthplace of their history has been the engine behind Jewish endurance and hopes throughout their turbulent journey that started with the Roman expulsion in AD 70.”
Again, Pearl’s agenda is to veil Zionism with the camouflage of Judaism and the country of Israel. Zionism is not a country and it does not have a biblical history to ally it with Judaism as Pearl attempts to argue. According to the dictionary definition, Zionism is a “movement of world Jewry that arose late in the 19th century with the aim of creating a Jewish state in Palestine.” It has no connection whatsoever with “the birthplace of their history” or “the Roman expulsion in AD 70″ as Pearl claims.
Additionally, labeling Jews as a race is completely asinine. One can make the case that semites are a race, but even in this case such a definition would include “any of various ancient and modern people originating in southwestern Asia,” according to Wikipedia.
In attempting to make the case that Zionism wholly represents Jews as a race of people and Israel as a country, Pearl tries to scoff at and downplay the massive number of Jews who oppose the Zionist political doctrine.
Groups such as Jews Not Zionists, True Torah Jews Against Zionism, and Neturei Karta – Orthodox Jews United Against Zionism, represent a significant number of Jews who make the case that “The ideology of Zionism is in total opposition to the teachings of traditional Judaism”.
“There are in fact many Jewish movements, groups and organizations whose ideology regarding Zionism and the so-called “State of Israel” is that of the unadulterated Torah position that any form of Zionism is heresy and that the existence of the so-called “State of Israel” is illegitimate,” according to the JewsNotZionists organization.
As we have vehemently argued, Zionists are attempting to equate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism as a means of silencing opposition to their brutal political agenda. This has nothing to do with protecting Jewish people against racism and everything to do with shutting down criticism of the Israeli government and its warmongering policies which, with the support of the U.S. elite, have made life a living hell for both Jews and Muslims in the Middle East for centuries.
Aftermath News 
Paul Joseph Watson! before you wrote this article, you should do a research on subject and than post your theories. If you don’t believe the Jewish is a nation I can prove it by showing you my birth certificate. I was born to Jewish parents in Soviet Union in 1955. In my birth certificate there is a paragraph of parents nation and they said both of my parents are Jewish. And in paragraph of my nation it’s calls Jewish too. This birth certificate gave me right to come and live in Israel like a citizens from the first time my leg touched the ground of Israel land. The Israel Religious Law Galachah said that Jewish can be just people who’s mother and grandmother was Jewish (by blood, not religion). So according to you my nation is non exist? Strange to hear it from journalist who trying to write articles about religion. Maybe you need to return to school and learn some history lessons. Do you know that German Nazi killed Jewish people, even if they were Jewish in 4-th generation? Does it looks for you that Nazi killed 6 million Jewish because of their religious beliefs? I don’t think so. They committed Genocide on Jewish Nation and not on Jewish Religion. Because if it was about religion they could gave people choice to survive by converted them to Christians. But not, they didn’t gave Jewish people that choice, they killed them, because they simply wanted to kill Jewish nation. Nobody could kill Religion. But some people always would want to kill Jewish because they are Jewish by blood. I also want to add that there are many Jewish people, who are not religious at all but they still Jewish anyway. This is a problem of some Jewish. They are as delusional as you, thinking that being Jewish is a religious thing. It’s not, because if the time is come and in their country Jewish people would be in danger, they would be killed as Jewish, doesn’t matter whom they pretend to be.
Do I take it then then your entire objection to Prof. Pearl’s thesis is based on the premise that Judaism is not a nationality but strictly a religion?
It is pretty ignorant to claim this with such confidence. Spinoza in his exegesis of the Bible maintained that Judaism is more than just a religion since it contains within it its territorial past. In fact, Spinoza might be regarded as the very first “Zionist” since he realized the centrality of Zion (Israel) to Judaism.
The events over the centuries that followed him proved him amply insightful. During the early days of the enlightenment, German, French, English Jews imagined they could get away from their “nation” contagion by referring to themselves as Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, of the mosaic faith. We are Jews at home, Germans outside, was the mantra. They ended up being Germans at home and Jews outside.
If Jews were just a religion, they would not have been persecuted to the extent that they were by Hitler and Stalin, both avowed atheists.
So to say with such derision that “Jews are a nation? That’s news to me” is to spit on this history and on Jewish self-perception. It takes an education to develop this kind of contempt for Jews. Pearl’s son was beheaded because he was a Jew. His murderers did not make the distinction between a Jew, an Israeli, or a Zionist. Your position as expressed here is the obverse side of the same coin: it’s not for you Jews to tell us who you. We know better.
If you speak asajew, it changes nothing. You can decide for yourself privately what kind of Jew you want to be but you can’t force your opinion on other Jews.
To make such distinctions as you do is to try to dictate to Jews that for them to say “Next year in Jerusalem” every Passover is unnatural and criminal. When people try to tell Jews how to be Jews, better Jews, then they are coasting very close to antisemitism.
Your entire post is an exercise in obfuscation and contempt, a self indulgent rant, rather then serious engagement with the subject.