Explaining Zionism
What
Do Zionists Believe? by Colin
Shindler,
London: Granta Books, 2007,
112 pp., $14.16
by Mitchell Bard
A
lonely voice of reason among the academic
advocates of boycotting Israel, Colin Shindler
teaches courses on Israel in one of the hotbeds
of anti-Israel activity in Britain, the School
of Oriental and African Studies at the University
of London. Shindler has taken up the challenge
of explaining and making the case for Zionism at a time when even Jews seem allergic to
the term.
In this thin volume, Shindler
does a masterful job of tracing the ideological
and political roots of the notion that Jews
are a people entitled to self-determination
in their homeland, which is Israel. As someone
mired in the ethos of left-wing radicalism,
Shindler does his best to explain how this
seemingly progressive idea has come to be
associated with the worst 'isms and to be
epitomized as the root of all problems in
the Middle East. Alas, it is difficult to
convince the irrational mind with facts and
logic. For everyone else, What
Do Zionists Believe? offers a
brief but valuable primer on the much maligned
concept that should be required reading for
young people, especially Jews, for whom Zionism
has little or no positive meaning.
Sources: Mitchell Bard is the AICE Executive Director |