Corbyn, Zionism, Jewish nationalism

When you disregard or insult Jews enough — as Jeremy Corbyn has done by calling Hamas and Hezbollah great friends of the left, or at least his version of it — not only do you betray a blinkered view of the world but you in effect dare Jews to do something about it. I mean, what can Jews do, cause they need the left, right?

Or maybe not.

And so, in the spirit of "If you prick us, do we not bleed?", London Jews have pricked back. They voted Labor out in seats long regarded as Labor sinecures.

Lest this be construed as yet another debate about Zionism, let me suggest it is but it is also much more. It is, for one thing, a debate about a leftism that has never matured an inch beyond Leninist conceptions of history. According to these, Israel is a "colonial settler state." That's the sort of nonsense Abbas revisits when he talks about imperial designs on the Levant that Zionism Europe a vehicle to fulfill.

In his apology for this dreck Abbas did admit that nothing worse than the Holocaust had ever happened, ever, so far as crimes against humanity go.

Holocaust on the one hand, worst crime ever, Zionism as handy imperialist conspiracy on the other.

Sense the disconnect?

I'm sure Abbas, an octogenarian, gets splitting headaches about this. Maybe. Or doesn't. Assuming a head. Same should be said of the left head. Or lack thereof.

But I want to move on, if only slightly, from the particular brain ache about Zionism and the Holocaust.

I want to say something ++ about the emptiness of Zionism, its failure, allure, insufficiency, void.

I support the state of Israel. Therefore, in the most basic sense, I am a Zionist. But Israel does not satisfy my sense of Jewish nationalism. Nor can it. Nor can it speak for or protect me and the likes of me outside its borders.

I support English labor initiatives much as I can, or the equivalents in the United States, but I support even more those Jewish voters in London who said, no you can't run over us.