Judaism is a religion, Zionism is a political ideology. As anti-Zionism is increasingly being equated with anti-Semitism, there is a need to analyze these terms in the historical context and how they are being used today. The implications of how these terms are defined are not only limited to Israelis, Palestinians, or people in the Middle East but also to Jewish people living all over the world and their relationship with the majorities in the countries they live in. Richard Silverstein, in his famous blog, Tikun Olam, discusses in detail Zionism, Isreali democracy, BDS, fascism, Holocaust, white supremism links with Judeo-supremism, BLM-Jewish relations, etc. Some excerpts of blog are reproduced below (Entire blog can be accessed Conflating Judaism and Zoinism: Bad New for Jews):
Often arguments over political or religious terms used in everyday discourse are dry or the province purely of zealots. But these terms can develop a power all their own. Religious or political azealots take them to heart and make life and death decisions based on their interpretation. This is the case regarding Judaism and Zionism.
Israel’s founding document and sacred text of Zionism, the Declaration of Independence, defined the state as “Jewish” and inextricably tied to the Diaspora, which was anticipated to ensure its future by furnishing much of its immigrant population. Later in 1985, Israel’s Basic Law added the term “democratic,” thus yoking the two words inextricably.
After 1977, and the ascendancy of the far-right Likud and other ultra-nationalist parties, the unresolvable tension between “Jewish” and “democratic” become clear. They paid lip-service to Israel’s democracy and embraced the supremacy of Israeli Jews. Passage in 2018 of the nation-state law as a Basic Law enshrined the notion of Judeo-supremacy. It also defined with solemn permanence the subjugation of Palestinian citizens of Israel.But the seeds of Israeli racism were there from the state’s inception. It was not democratic because it did not offer non-Jewish citizens equal rights. In fact, Palestinians lived under martial law from 1948-1966.
Israel offered Jewish citizens superior rights, the definition of an ethnocracy. That is, a nation in which the majority ethnic or religious group enjoys a set of rights which the minority is denied. This phenomenon was strengthened after 1967, when the settler movement became a de facto form of Judeo-supremacy. Its original focus was on “settling” Jews outside the Green Line in what it called the Greater Land of Israel (i.e. Palestine). But its political ambitions gradually became much more expansive till today, when it maintains a firm grip on virtually all the levers of state power.
Many Diaspora and Israeli Jews shared a liberal Zionist dream of a Jewish democratic state. But we have come to understand that democracy and “Jewishness,” in terms of the Israeli state, cannot be reconciled. They simply cannot coexist.The same is true of Judaism and Zionism. Israel, in the beginning, was a secular state in which the ruling parties endorsed socialism and offered a version of the welfare state. But when Benjamin Netanyahu became finance minister in 2003, he dismantled it with a series of harsh Thatcherite polices. They in turn rendered socialism obsolete. Even more recently Israel has dropped secularism as well. A plurality of Jews continue to be secular, but overwhelming political power and social control rests on a system of Judeo-supremacism...
For this reason, it’s critical to distinguish between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political ideology. Israel is a nation, not a religion. Zionism is a political movement, not a theology. Judaism as a religion is a spiritual expression which eschews, at least in the Diaspora, political power. Remember Zechariah’s famous dictum: “Not by might, now by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord of Hosts.”
Mixing politics and religion poses tremendous danger. When a conflict lies in the realm of politics it is often possible to arrive at compromise. It might not be easy, and it may take years. But political differences can be negotiated and resolved. Politics are not always rational, but at their best they are. Conflicting political views can be resolved through rational discussion and analysis.
But once a conflict takes on a religious dimension, compromise becomes almost impossible. You have moved from the material world to the divine. A nation which believes that God has sanctified it has assumed a mantle of omnipotence and infallibility. With God on your side, you are invincible. Such beliefs have been the cause of immense human suffering over the ages.
Israel’s prevailing religious ultra-nationalism has succeeded in wielding religion as a powerful tool in a political conflict. Just as von Clausewitz said that war was “politics by other means,” so Israel’s political-religious extremists offer warrior Judaism as politics by other means. This is the malady afflicting Israel today.
