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Contemporary Zionism pursues its assigned role as an advanced military and intelligence base of Anglo-American, European imperialism - Part V

  • Niloufer Bhagwat Niloufer Bhagwat
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 8 Sep 2022 16:32
  • 3 Shares
6 Min Read

The theoretical and ideological origins of Zionism are European, not Semitic. Zionism is ideologically rooted in European imperialism, colonialism and racism.

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  • Contemporary Zionism pursues its assigned role as an advanced military and intelligence base of Anglo-American, European imperialism - Part V
    Contemporary Zionism pursues its assigned role as an advanced military and intelligence base of Anglo-American, European imperialism - Part V

To read Part III, click here.

The theoretical and ideological origins of Zionism and its political construct in "Israel"  are European and not Semitic. The Zionist movement dates back to the 1880s, and is predominantly a European movement transplanted into the Middle East and into the United States of America. The World Zionist Organization was founded in 1897 by Theodore Herzl, born in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. In 1896, Herzl, in a pamphlet, ‘Der Judenstaat’, written in German, and published both in Leipzig and Vienna, envisioned the formation of a "Jewish State". This organization was later led by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who was one of those “central to the discussions” with Zionist organizations in the UK and the USA which led to the Balfour Declaration and very early proposed that a future Zionist state could safeguard the trade route of the Suez Canal among other such promises to protect Western strategic interests in the Arab heartlands then controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Dr. Chaim Weizmann was born at Minsk in Tsarist Russia in 1874, in the then region of Belarus; educated in Switzerland and Germany, and later worked and resided in the UK for many years teaching Chemistry at Manchester University in Britain and became a scientist. Zionism was an offshoot of the political conditions of Europe fostered by European monarchies over centuries, using the religion and ethnicity of minorities for frequent pogroms against minority populations, whether Christian or Protestant or Jewish, as a political diversion from the political failures of the monarchical political system, and by demonizing minorities to justify the autocratic and arbitrary rule, to ensure absolute control of their citizens. 

The Zionist ideology was inspired both by the 19th Century monarchical and European concept of a dominant absolute militarist state based on religious loyalty, and the European Colonial project to establish settler societies in vast continents, initiated by the British in North America in the United States and Canada, in Australia, and New Zealand (now known as the five eyes); and in former apartheid South Africa and former Rhodesia; in the French colonial settler project in North Africa in Algeria and the Maghreb; the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Latin America; Portuguese Colonial territories in South America; Belgian territories in the Congo; Dutch settlements in the East Indies and South Africa, and German settlements in South West Africa and East Africa among others; for the seizure of resources and exploitation of colonial surpluses to fuel the European development project of global economic and political expansionism. Conquest and colonial settlements were accelerated by the technological developments of the Industrial Revolution, enabling rapid commercial exploitation of vast areas of the world. 

“To remake immense stretches of terrain to suit the lifestyles of another continent inevitably entailed the undermining and elimination of ways of life of those who had inhabited those lands for thousands of years. The project of terraforming was therefore fundamentally conflictual, it was in itself a mode of warfare of a distinct kind”. * (Amitav Ghosh, ‘The Nutmeg’s Curse, Parables for a Planet in Crisis’, published in 2021 by Allen Lane, Penguin Random House India)      

The British and European imperial, racist colonial-settler projects and the Zionist imperial colonial- settler apartheid project of "Israel" are both based on a similar theory of an exceptional or superior or ‘chosen people’ and race with the same strategies. 

The important features of Zionism are identical to the settlement strategy of the British and European Colonial Settler Project in North America, to Spanish and Portuguese colonial settlements  in South America; to French colonial settlements in Algeria and to Boer and British colonial settlements in South Africa, in Australia and New Zealand among European settlements in other regions of the world are :

a)      The myth of a superior or exceptional race or ‘chosen people’ entitled to the seizure of land and resources;

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b)     The European narrative of a subhuman or inferior Indigenous or tribal or heathen population in territories to  be seized, alleging underutilization or incompetent use of land, resources and water;

c)      The right to kill, exterminate or ethnically cleanse the Indigenous population of territories forcibly occupied to re-settle European races for colonization with the settlers maintaining social, cultural and political linkages with European countries of origin;

d)      To stealthily and by design adopt strategies to reduce the Indigenous population, to monopolize land and resources for the European settler community through military means, or the use of bio-weapons, or both, like the germ warfare on Native Americans and their elimination through war.

e)       Prohibition of Inter-racial marriages;

f)       Control of water reservoirs, lakes and river waters of the occupied land;

g)    Cultural erasures directed at national identity, history, names of cities, towns, settlements and geographical sites and cultural expressions;

h)      Military and political domination. 

An examination of Zionism and its political entity "Israel" lays bare the reality that it shares all the above characteristics of the earlier Anglo-Saxon and European Imperial project of Settler Colonization, and is based on the Zionist myth of a ‘Chosen People’, in reality another theory of a ‘Superior Race’ or ‘Exceptional’ race similar to the Nazi theory of the superior  ‘Aryan race’ with its pursuit of ‘Lebensraum’ in the territories of the Slavs; which in the case of the European settler colonization was also sought to be justified through the encyclical of the Pope conferring the religious right on European nations to exploit the world, though Christianity is an Asian or Eastern religious faith later re-interpreted and adopted by the Roman Empire with political objectives. It is time to roll back all these racial myths, which have led to barbarism and rivers of blood flowing across continents, to restore human civilization. 

To dismantle the Israeli Apartheid State and its genocidal policies necessitates a united resistance in the region and worldwide support, adopting diverse strategies to roll back the racist and apartheid Zionist and NATO military and intelligence Israeli project in Palestine. The Palestinian National Liberation movement is one of the oldest national liberations in the world. Like the Hezbollah the National Resistance Movement of Lebanon, the people of Palestine have never surrendered and need wider support, as Zionism is a global economic and financial project integrated with Western Imperialism against peoples' interests everywhere, in Asia, Africa, Eurasia, the United States of America and Europe.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • Zionism
  • British colonialism
  • European colonialism
  • Palestine
  • Settler colonialism
  • Israel
  • Colonialism
  • imperialism
Niloufer Bhagwat

Niloufer Bhagwat

Vice President of the Indian Association of Lawyers and Vice President of the Confederation of Lawyers for Asia and Africa.

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