(Ha'aretz) Steven Lubet and Jonathan Zasloff - When academics call Israel a "settler colonial" state, it is meant to isolate the Jewish state from the legitimate family of nations. Yet historically, colonies have related to a mother country. The Puritans saw themselves as English, Afrikaaners as Dutch, Muslim conquerors as Arabs. They spoke the mother country's language and attempted to transfer its culture to their new land. The early, pre-state Zionists, however, sought to escape Europe, not to replicate it. They rejected Yiddish and adopted an old Middle East language - Hebrew - which they updated for modern purposes, while changing their German or Russian-sounding names. Central to the Zionist enterprise was the conviction that they were returning home. No other transplanted society made such a claim. Jews had lived in the area continuously for thousands of years. The Hebrew language is Semitic, not Indo-European. Ancient Jewish artifacts could be found everywhere. It is therefore more accurate to see Zionism as a form of nationalism - and Zionists as fulfilling a people's aspiration for self-determination in what they regard as their own land. Steven Lubet is a professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Rabbi Jonathan Zasloff is a professor of law at UCLA.
2021-07-08 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive