Mr. Slivnick’s promotion of Zionism and rebuttal of Ms. Gartel’s column makes little or no sense at all. Ms. Gartel does not assume she will be called anti-Semitic, she knows it and demonstrates how other Jews that criticize Zionism and Israel are labeled unjustly as anti-Semitic as a means to discredit them, as shown with Finklestein.

Furthermore, believing that there should be a Jewish state is extremely different from believing that there should be a French, Chinese or Palestinian state. First of all, the creation of the Zionist state is what has happened, not a Jewish one. Second, this has lead to the displacement, oppression and occupation of millions of Palestinians, murder of thousands, theft of over 75 percent of their land, and erasing them from the history books. If you do not call this fanaticism, then I’m afraid of what is in your eyes. Zionism is racism on all levels, not Judaism, period.

And so yes, if you believe that Zionists had the right to commit all these atrocities, that does make you a fanatic. Judaism is about love and compassion, not theft, murder and manipulation of your fellow man and religion, which is exactly what Zionism is. If Zionism was justified, then the hundreds of news reports made by Israeli stations every year would not have to be censored and stopped from ever reaching the Israeli public or the rest of the world for that matter. Israel wouldn’t have human rights watchers in the West Bank and Gaza, American protestors wouldn’t be bulldozed over and murdered by Israel, and a Berlin-type wall wouldn’t have been built.

It is the implementation of Zionism that makes it fanatical because it displaces an entire people and destroys their homeland, which goes against Judaism and God itself.

Jon Paul Youakim

Students for Justice in Palestine