The Grand Illusion of Jewish Ethnicity

By Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal

A provocative article by Dr. James Zogby, "The Two Anti-Semitisms," published as a pamphlet by Americans for Middle East Understanding, aroused both my interest and ire. I found myself in general agreement with the thrust of the piece by Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC, that anti-Semitism has been a weapon that has been directed against both Arabs and Jews. But I have to register a vigorous, strong dissent over his use of Jews and Israelis interchangeably and his defining Jews as a "separate national entity."

The Israelis indeed are a separate national entity. But the Jews most definitely are not, belonging as they do to 155 national entities. Mind you, it is not only Arabs who have rejected Zionism with its claim of Jewish nationhood. There were once many Christians as well as Jews—and still are some today—who refused to accept the Zionist concept of the ethnicity of the Jews.

I have devoted more than 50 years of my life toward maintaining vigilantly that Judaism is not Zionism, Zionism is not Judaism, and that to be anti-Zionist is in no way to be anti-Semitic. And at the same time, I have never ceased struggling—in writings, lectures, and television-radio appearances for more than a half-century, across the country and abroad, and against unimaginable odds—for a full, just and meaningful peace in the Middle East. Israel's flag has at no time become mine.

I was at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993, but I did not in any way interpret the Rabin-Arafat handshake as an acceptance of the Jews as a separate national entity with its base in Israel. In fact, while a lasting settlement has for long been possible among Palestinians, Arabs and Israelis, the principal obstacle blocking peace invariably has been the Israeli assertion of abnormal Jewish nationalism in contrast to normal Israeli nationalism—and Israel's implementation of that concept.

Such a concept of extra-territorial nationalism, indeed, makes the charge of dual loyalty, often invoked against Jews, more than a mere shibboleth. It turns it into a stark reality!

If Israel is held to be the Jewish state, then six million Jews in the United States, as well as an additional three million Jews living in some other 155 countries besides Israel, can indeed justifiably be charged with dual loyalty stemming from their dual identification as Jews with the Jewish state and as citizens of the nations in which they live. The "anti-Semitic" charge of dual loyalties, as defenders of Israel and Zionism invariably have labeled it, thus becomes very much a justified reality and possible nightmare.

Israelis indeed are a separate national entity. But Jews most definitely are not.

One must not forget that the concept of dual loyalties does not necessarily involve the conscious process of choice: It is very rare to be faced with a choice between this action in the interest of the United States and that action in the interest of Israel, and I choose that. Far more common is the unconscious choosing of that without the slightest consideration whatsoever being given to this.

The more the state of Israel is identified as "the Jewish state" rather than as "the Israeli state," as it ought to be, the more it is able both to influence national elections within the United States and to influence, even dictate, the entire course of U.S.-Middle East foreign policy. At the same time, "the Jewish state" concept could lead to vast complications in the lives of diaspora Jews, particularly those in the United States with their large number and tremendous affluence.

When I was growing up, Jews were lumped together with Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Catholics, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, etc., as a religious grouping. Today reference frequently is made to the French, Germans, English, Jews, Italians, etc.—ethnic groupings.

The near total acceptance of Israel as "the Jewish state" has intensified the special, unique relationship of Jews in the diaspora to the Israeli state. Consequently, one is forced to note, sadly, that the principal obligation today of those who identify themselves as Jews no longer is to follow the Ten Commandments, nor even to worship the Judaic god by following the humanistic, ethical principles of universal Judaism. Rather, it is to carry out, without pause or the slightest hesitation, the goals of the Israeli state, politically, culturally, economically and otherwise.

“The Jewish State”

In sum, the worship of the state of Israel by the vast majority of Jews unfortunately has supplanted the worship of Yahweh. And the guilt feeling engendered by the Holocaust and bolstered by accompanying day-in and day-out publicity given to past genocide, both real and alleged, has in turn furthered the acceptance of references to the political state of Israel as "the Jewish state."

As a result, most unfortunately, being a Jew, rather than believing in Judaism, now totally prevails in this complete triumph of nationalism over religion.

Israel's claim of extra-territorial nationalism, which Dr. Zogby supports in accepting Jews as a "separate national entity," can only cripple Jewish efforts in the diaspora toward complete integration in their many countries of residence, whereby gradually, joining with Christian and other co-nationals, they might be able to make serious inroads against existing prejudice and bigotry. In such a resultant world, Jews could gain the rights and freedoms Zionists claim to be realizable only in their own apartheid state of Israel.

Further, the promulgation of such a nationalism, because of its domestic political connotations, obliterates the objectivity required of the United States as a party, in fact, to the Oslo-Cairo-Washington Middle East "peace" pacts.

Those generally concerned with a lasting peace in the Middle East might harken back to a prophetic 1954 warning by Assistant Secretary of State Henry A. Byroade set forth in an address to the Dayton, Ohio World Affairs Council :

"To the Israelis I say: 'Look upon yourselves as a Middle East state and see your own future in that context, rather than as a headquarters, or nucleus so to speak, of worldwide groupings of peoples of a particular religious faith who must have special rights within and obligations to the Israeli state.'"

Only conditions of equality and legitimacy for the Palestinian culture and identity as a legitimate minority within an Israeli state—not a Jewish state—can make coexistence there possible. Only a two-state solution, the sovereign and normal states of Israel and Palestine, coexisting side-by-side, can bring the lasting peace and justice sought so long by the peoples of the Middle East and by the world around them.

Dr. Alfred M. Lilienthal is the author of What Price Israel?, The Other Side of the Coin, There Goes the Middle East, and The Zionist Connection, as well as translations into Arabic, Polish, Czech and Japanese.