Hasbara and hafrada

By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

"Israeli Hebrew words for propaganda and separation

Up until now and while leading Democratic and Republican elites debate “managing” Iraqi lives (orientalist racism at its worst), some 4 percent of Iraqis were killed and 17 percent made refugees/internally displaced in the past four years. This would be equivalent to killing 12 million and displacing over 50 million US citizens. I discussed elsewhere the role of the Israel lobby in pushing for the war on Iraq [1].

This lobby represented by the Israel Hasbara (propaganda) Committee is now fretting about Jewish intermarriage and lack of identification with Zionism or the state of Israel [2]. As someone who is "intermarried," I ask what is wrong with assimilation and intermarriage?

This reminded me that Yaakov Herzog, close advisor to four Israeli Prime Ministers, wrote: “We are not a normal people, we are not free from the Galut (exile) burden and we are not accepted by the world . . . Political Zionism maintained that the concept of ‘people who dwell alone’ is, in fact, an abnormal condition. In reality, the concept of ‘people who dwell alone’ is the natural condition of the Jewish people.” [3].

He was wrong in characterizing political Zionism because most political Zionists believed in segregation and that was the whole idea of a "Jewish State." He is also wrong to blame the whole world for the Zionist tribalistic mentality which exists out of its own desires to be separate and treat any non-Jew with contempt. It is the same idea that lets Zionists express that the world is always "against us" and privately claim to each other that any support they get is because of their might and muscle......."