OpEdNews - Article: When You Say No, Or -- Poisonous Mushrooms

Before the victory of feminism, there was a popular Israeli song in which the boy asks the girl: "When you say No, what do you mean?"

This question has already been answered. Now I am more and more tempted to ask: "When you say Zionism, what do you mean?"

That is also my answer when asked whether I am a Zionist.

When you say Zionist, what do you mean?

Lately, associations for the defense of Zionism have been springing up like mushrooms after rain. Poisonous mushrooms.

All kinds of American Jewish multi-millionaires -- many of them Casino kings, brothel moguls, money launderers and tax evaders -- are financing "patriotic" Israeli groups in Israel, to fight the holy war for "Zionism."

The assault takes place along all fronts. Jewish organizations aim at cleansing the universities of post-Zionists. They threaten to induce other donors to withhold their donations, they terrorize presidents and rectors and frighten professors and students.

Americans may be reminded of the sinister era of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who blighted the life of thousands of intellectuals and artists, pushing many of them into exile or suicide. Europeans might be reminded of the days when "Aryan" professors informed on their treasonous colleagues, and students in brown shirts threw their Jewish colleagues out of the windows.

This is only one sector of the broad offensive. One group has proudly announced that it is teaching hundreds of professional Zionists how to cleanse Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia, of post-Zionist items and plant Zionist ones in their stead.

The term, "post-Zionism" is starring in the propaganda of all the dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- of the associations financed by the Las Vegas multi-millionaires and their likes in the United States in order to restore the Zionist glory of old.

Why this term, of all others? They mean the leftists, but those who attack the "leftists" are liable to be called "rightists." However, the members of the extreme right want to be seen as belonging to the patriotic center. Nor is it nice or enlightened to speak out against "liberal" or "progressive" professors. "Post-Zionists" is the Israeli equivalent of the "Reds" of Senator McCarthy or the "Jews" of his predecessors in Germany.

But what is "post-Zionism"? Why not simply "anti-Zionism"?

As far as I know, I was the first to use this term. That was in 1976. I was testifying in a libel case that my friends and I had lodged against a publication that had accused the "Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace," that we had just founded, of being "anti-Zionist." In trying to explain my view to the judge, I said that Zionism was a historic movement, with both light and shadow, which had fulfilled its role with the establishment of the State of Israel. From then on, Israeli patriotism has taken its place. "Post-Zionism" means that with the founding of the state, a new historic era began. A "post-Zionist" can admire the achievements of Zionism or criticize them. He is not by definition an anti-Zionist.

The judge accepted my arguments and found in our favor. She awarded us handsome compensation. Now I am the only living Israeli who has a judicial confirmation that he is not an anti-Zionist -- much as only a person released from a psychiatric hospital has an official confirmation that he is sane.

Since then, the term "post-Zionist" has acquired wide currency in academic circles. It has also acquired many shades of meaning, according to the people who use it.

But in the mouths of our new mini-McCarthys, it has become a simple denunciation. A post-Zionist is a traitor, an Arab-lover, a lackey of the enemy, an agent of the sinister world-wide conspiracy to destroy the Jewish State.

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