Zionism and Anti-Semitism George Lichtheim MacGaitskeIlism Christopher Hoskins So You
Want to be a Press Agent? George Fearon Rough Boys and Smooth E. W. Hildick Catholic Persecution in Spain Philip Farrer Homosexual Prosecutions A. E. G. Wright Undeveloped Countries Sir Arthur Rucker `Africa South' Appeal Ronald M. Segal
Mau Mau Rev. A. B. Webster
The 'Spectator' Crossword Mrs. D. W. Boileau, D. G. Randle ZIONISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM
SIR.—Mr. Gilmour's antipathy to Zionism seems to have blinded him to the fact that the movement he so greatly dislikes and fears no longer exists. This has recently been pointed out by none other than Mr. Ben-Gurion. Now that Israel is firmly established, Zionism as an active force inevitably fades out, though Colonel Nasser still has to make this dis- covery. One gathers that he feels hemmed in, but most of Israel's active friends in the Western world today are not Zionists or even pro-Zionists.
In retrospect it ought to be evident that Zionism never had a mass following outside Eastern Europe, where the great majority of non-assimilated Jews lived until they were massacred by the Nazis and their friends. This disposes of the pseudo-historical problems which so agitate Mr. Gilmour. These millions of Jews, though not a 'race,' were certainly a people, and were so regarded by their neighbours. They could not possibly assimilate as individuals, and nationalism arose among them in the later nine- teenth century for perfectly obvious reasons, just as it did elsewhere in the Tsarist and Hapsburg Empires. All this belongs to a chapter which ended in 1948, and there seems little point in reviving these ancient polemics.
Ideology is something else again. Mr. Gilmour fails to see why the Jews should have made such a fuss about Palestine. Presumably his philhellene ance ;tors, if any, who in the last century championed the Greek cause—unless of course they were restrained by statesmanlike concern over Britain's historic ties with the Ottoman Empire—must have wondered at times whether the Greeks they knew were really the lineal descendants of Pericles' contemporaries. National movements have this odd habit of relating themselves to the past. The relation- ship may be shadowy, but "pedantic insistence on `racial' continuity argues a kind of obtuseness to spiritual realities. It was Hitler who insisted that the Jews were a 'race.' They themselves thought other- wise. One can grant that the Zionists did themselves harm by laying so much stress on the uniqueness of their cause. In reality Zionism did not differ all that much from other national movements of the time. Mazzini's writings are full of fantasies about restor- ing the greatness of Rome. Polish nationalists were in the habit of referring to Poland as 'the Christ among the nations.' If one dislikes this kind of thing, one must do so impartially. So far, neither Mr. Gilmour nor any other British champion of Pan-Arabism has pointed out how silly it is of the Arabs to talk about reviving the glories of the Caliphate.
Israel is an altogether different matter, its politics forming part of the Eastern Mediterranean complex of realities and being no different in essentials from those of its non-Arab neighbours, Greece and Turkey. Zionism so to speak had an extra dimension. Israel is just a modern Nation-State, and its critics inevitably become involved in the Pan-Arab campaign to destroy it. As for its alleged influence over Western opinion, Mr. Gilmour might at least have drawn some qualified reassurance from the fact that at the time of what Israelis call the Sinai campaign, and what people in this country refer to as the Suez debacle, not a single newspaper in Britain or America championed the Israeli cause, while at the UN the French were alone in voting with them. Doubtless it is very wicked of the Israelis to prefer the retrograde French Republic to the en- lightened regimes of Colonel Nasser and General Kasscm; but even a permanent link between Paris and Tel Aviv would not be much of a threat to the Arab cause, whose interest the Spectator has so much at heart.—Yours faithfully,
GEORGE LICHTHEIM
(Formerly London Correspondent, The Jersualem Post) 11 Redington Road, NW3
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