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Zionism is in the Eye of the Beholder
(Los Angeles Times) Henry Chu - Yisrael Harel says what's at stake in the removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip is the very heart of Israel: the Zionist enterprise that brought Jews back to their homeland after centuries of exile. "In the Israeli ethos, the Zionist ethos, settlements are of the essence. That's why we came back," said Harel. Uprooting them, he said, would spell "the utmost negation of Zionism." Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is having none of that. "I am not prepared to listen to absurd claims that the disengagement from Gaza is the end of Zionism," he countered. On the contrary, he said, pulling out from territory of "negligible" security importance is a "process that will strengthen Zionism." The decision to abandon Gaza has called into question long-held beliefs about the meaning of Zionism, the founding ideology that led to Israel's creation as a Jewish state on the land of the ancient Hebrew patriarchs.