WHAT DOES ZIONISM MEAN TODAY AS A CULTURAL PHENOMENON?
Culturally, Zionism affects the world and the United States in two basic ways: it creates political strife and resentment and it creates cultural resentment and anti-semitism. Politically, the support of Zionism is seen as the support of Israel’s continual attacks against Palestinians and Hamas. In this sense, the expansionist aims of Israel are seen as blatant aggression and even anti-semitic (meaning anti-Arab) in their effects. The Israeli justifications for this continued warfare are beginning to grow thin to the world’s eye. Culturally, especially in the United States, the terms “Zionism” and “Jew” or “Judaism” are seen as one-in-the-same. So anyone who opposes Zionism is automatically labeled an anti-semite Jew-hater as a knee-jerk reaction.
