Depends on who you ask I guess, but a single state with equal citizenship rights to all its citizens, a two-state solution with equal sovereignty, or some sort of a confederation, would not involve "anti-Semitism". Obviously that's not going to happen in the short run, but political equality/equal rights, whether within a single state or between two states, would be something to aspire for. An anti-Zionist position would say people who were born and raised there can still live, in an equal standing, without one group being the colonial overlord over the other.
- A two-state solution would still require a State of Israel, so realistically it cannot be defined as anti-zionism, no? Zionism is about the building of a Jewish community through a State in Palestine, so it still works with a two-state solution.
- The other one, like you said, is a complete pipedream for now, and probably ever. As much as I despise nation-states and wish we could move away from them, I'm still very dubious when someone presents this as a defence against antisemitism, because it's such a cop-out when you know this has no way of realistically happening.
- The idea that "people who were born and raised there can still live, in an equal standing, without one group being the colonial overlord over the other." is a good one, but there's a pretty significant issue there for me. I find
this rebuttal to Zionism here quite interesting, and it certainly does posit that there is an antisemitism at play to the proposed deplacement of millions of people away from their community. And, like you suggested, it does stress the importance of people being able to live where they were born and raised.
The problem with his logic, of course, is that the Holocaust happened, and it turned out the communities across Europe were
very not safe. This regrettable lack of foresight aside, he is completely correct on his fears that a Jewish State in Palestine could turn into what we now see as a far right dominated government who enthusiastically pushes forward the idea of being an apartheid state. I think, like most people who can use logic, that Israel being criticized on these grounds is obviously completely fair.
But. How do we avoid the other part here? That if Edwin Montagu's main concerns were about the continued security of the Jewish communities, and how they should keep their identities... In a post Israel world, those things are, for better or worse, very much linked to the reality that Israel exists as a State. If you propose a two states solution, that's fine, though obviously it would need a lot of good will that is sorely lacking now. But if you propose purposefully destabilizing the security of the Jewish community in Israel in the somewhat utopian hope that a just and free society would guarantee the rights that the current State holds, that is a very different issue, and one that Montagu might actually raise as antisemitism based on that logic. And again there, you can talk about how the rights of the minority living in Israel are severely under threat, or how settlements in Palestinian lands are morally unjust and a brutal form of oppression. Or how claiming the whole of Jerusalem is an astonishingly bad decision in the way it was done. I hold all these views and definitely want a free Palestine. But going on about anti-zionism with what it would realistically causes just is something I do not quite get.
Ethnostates are bad, let's not have ethnostates.
That seems very shortsighted though? What is an ethnostate? Is Kosovo bad for existing? Is Pakistan? Is Ukraine? I am in favour of Québec's independance as I do not quite believe we share much with Canada in general. Am I in favour of an ethnostate? Am I... bad????
And yes, I know you said something about all States being bad, which like, sure. But for the sake of this question I wanted to keep realistic goals kek
