Is Zionism racist?

The US has effectively boycotted the UN conference on racism (September, 2001) largely because the conference was being used as a platform to denounce Zionism as racism. I support both the US withdrawal from the conference and the claim that Zionism is racist. Labeling Zionism as racist is unhelpful unless it is a small part of a wider context which labels all nationalism as racist.

The concept of a state (or some legal entity with some state-like powers) whose express purpose is to serve or promote a specific ethnicity is racist. Zionism is racist, but no more so than Palestinian Nationalism. A UN conference on racism should not be turned into a farce that way.

Note: Eventually this will turn into a document discussing and condemning nationalist. I suppose, given the opener, I should also state what I think of Israel (which doesn't deserve the US support it has continued to receive over the decades). So maybe some day, this two paragraph point will turn into another long winded essay.

Version: $Revision: 1.1 $
Last Modified: $Date: 2001/09/05 23:39:51 $ GMT
First established September 5, 2001
Author: Jeffrey Goldberg