Anti-Zionism in Parliament, 1923

On June 21, 1923, Lord Islington, among others, spoke in the British House of Lords to move to reconsider the Mandate over Palestine.

One of his points was to separate "Zionism" from the Jews residing in the area, as if Zionism is not the Jewish national liberation movement, as if Jews do not want an independent polity in their historic homeland and as if Zionism is illegitimate.  And as if only super isolationist insular religious messianic-beleiving Jews are the only 'true' and 'genuine' Jews. As if only non-Jewish anti-Zionists have the right and privilege of telling the vast majority of Jews that they're wrong about the centrality of Israel.

Here is how he phrased it:

The Jewish people in Palestine have lived in the past in harmony with the Arab community. They have enjoyed in largo measure the same privileges as their Ottoman fellow subjects and, I venture to say also as a fact, they never agitated for Zionism. I do not think—I speak subject to correction—that there has ever been a demand from the Jewish Community in Palestine for the introduction of a Zionist Home in that country. The whole agitation has conic from outside, from Jews in other parts of the world. I go further, and say—I think I have said it before; if so, I repeat—that a very large number of the Jewish community in Palestine to-day look with considerable aversion not only upon the Zionist Home but upon the Jews who are being introduced into the country from Eastern Europe.

That claim, as presented, continues to be voiced, by Jews and non-Jews to this day - and we'll ignore his historical untruths and prejudice against East European Jewry.

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