FIFTY YEARS ago in May, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the founding of the State of Israel. Immediately, Jewish commandos in Palestine launched what Israel called its “War of Independence.” When Israel concluded an armistice with the armies of Egypt, Transjordan and Syria in 1949, more than 750,000 Palestinians had been forced to flee from their homes. They became refugees from their own country, which the Jewish Zionist armies now controlled. The founding of Israel marked the culmination of a 50-year-long campaign, waged by political Zionists, to establish a Jewish state.
The Zionists claimed that they expressed world Jewry’s yearning for “national liberation.” Yet, if Zionism was a movement for national liberation, it was like no other. Rather than seeking to break free from imperialism, it actively courted patronage from imperialist powers. Rather than promising self-determination to the people of Palestine–the vast majority of whom were Arab–it expelled them. And rather than representing a widely popular expression of the fight against national oppression, Zionism counted as little more than a sect for most of its existence prior to the Second World War.
No doubt all sorts of distorted history and ideological claptrap will accompany the media’s “celebration” of Israel’s 50th anniversary. This is understandable, if only because the real history of Zionism and Israel is so sordid.

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