To put it in a nutshell, anti-Zionists - especially Jewish anti-Zionists - who like to define their whole view of the middle east around being opposed to the actions, nature and very existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state usually talk about a kind of semi-strawman Zionism which is intrinsically expansionist, racist and colonial. I say semi-strawman as although there have been voices within Zionism warning against exactly this kind of thing since Ahad Haam's essays in the late 19th century (ie the very beginning), followed by Martin Buber and Judah Magnes and HaShomer HaTzair, in the first half of the twentieth century, followed by various groups and movements post 1948, it is not easy to tell sometimes whether there are any non-racist non-expansionist Zionist voices left as everyone seems to have agreed that Zionism should be abandoned to the racists. Amos Oz writes somewhere about the fait accompli of 1948 changing everything, following which the non-statist Zionists either had to accept the state of Israel or become anti-Zionists. Or just sort of shut up a bit. It wasn't always like that - as the fruits of cultural Zionism flowered and bloomed, and a regenerated Hebrew speaking culture grew in Palestine, Cultural Zionism itself withered and died as it was not needed any more, leaving Zionism itself as a rather ugly shell of what had previously been Political Zionism, which most people but not everyone agreed had to do with the idea that a specifically Jewish state is central to the whole thing. The ideological difference between the anti-Zionists and the Zionists is over whether or not there should be a Jewish state but in Realpolitik terms, that used to be a debate that took place within Zionism itself and now no longer does; the debate is no longer much of a debate and more of a poo-flinging match and as the last remaining pro-Palestinian Ahad Ha-amian Zionist on earth I am rather tired of it.

I amd itn ecaptiaghle of drinking sthis d dar - Dr T
[ Parent ]

I know that the vast bulk of stuff written about Zionism is by people who don't actually have any kind of personal stake in it and just like to troll those of us who do, but that isn't what is happening here. If I were Palestinian I'd be taking the piss out of Hamas and Fatah instead, another rich vein of comedy I am sure.

I amd itn ecaptiaghle of drinking sthis d dar - Dr T
[ Parent ]

Sure, Gordon's a stiff, and the lack of anything even vaguely resembling a credible leader on any front is a depressing prospect, but recent interviews with Blair have confirmed that his paper-thin relationship with reality has been even further eroded. There was some research a while ago which purported to show that the act of simply being on Death Row[*] had a tendency to make a person insane, whether or not they were to start with; that, if you weren't mad when you entered the fifteen-year waiting room, you almast certainly would be when you got to the front of the queue. I'm coming to believe that being PM for a significant period of time carries similar mental health issues (see also: Thatcher).

Watching Blair paranoiacly going through the mental 'dangerous spin' checklist, briefly leaking a rabbit-in-the-headlights facial expression, every time he's asked a question is a painful experience, with him having to equivocate everything to the Nth degree before adding a miniscule bias to communicate what he actually thinks. He might be very media-capable, but he's not the sort of man I want in charge of the HMS UKia. Headlining at the Hippodrome is more his forte (and, I suspect, always was).

[*] - the state of incarceration, not the west-coast 'gangsta' record label, although ...