‘UTTER Psychopaths!’ October 7, Three Years On + Is Zionism Racist?

Benjamin Moser (0:00)

Zionism was always about Jewish power over other people. It was not about self-determination, it was not about equality, it was always a racially-exclusive movement.

Emily Schrader (0:10)

That's not actually what Zionism is to the vast majority of the Jewish community.

Cenk Uygur (0:15)

The Israelis are in this sick, disgusting cult where they believe they have to murder the Palestinians, and it's the Palestinians' fault for getting murdered. And I would argue that the two people on this panel are also in that cult.

Emily Schrader (0:27)

And just on that, by the way. So you better run.

Cenk Uygur (0:29)

You better run. This is our land. We're going to steal all of this land, and we're going to murder your kids.

Piers Morgan (0:37)

Three years ago this morning, Hamas fighters, terrorists, poured across the Israeli border to begin a gruesome attack, which has changed the world. It's a day of grief, contemplation, and anger for Israelis. For different reasons, supporters of Palestinian cause now feel the same way. Most of the world stood in lockstep with Israel and the grim details of the Hamas terror attacks became clear. The White House, the Brandenburg Gate, the Eiffel Tower, and the Empire State Building, among many other landmarks, were illuminated by the colours of the Israeli flag. Demands for the release of Israel's hostages came even from its political enemies. But that goodwill is now gone, lost in the rubble of Gaza. And while Hamas undoubtedly began this cycle of violence, Israel's callous, fanatical government is now viewed by many with equal contempt.

The turnaround in public opinion should be alarming to all Israelis. More Americans now sympathise with Palestinians than them. The next candidates for president will not be judged by their devotion to Israel, but the level of their condemnation. A slew of Israel's allies have recognised the Palestinian state at the UN and the UK has hit Israel with sanctions for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Well, this week, Zach Polanski's left-wing Green Party in the UK went even further. Its members backed a policy to declare Zionism as a form of racism. The timing, the wording and the virtue signalling didn't land well with me. I thought it was wrong, but the subject is frankly more interesting and complicated than Zach Polanski. My first guest has written a new book which feels particularly apt, Benjamin Moser, author of Anti-Zionism, A Jewish History joins me now in the studio. Welcome to you, Benjamin. Thank you, thank you. You've flown in from Texas and you've had a long journey to get here, so I appreciate it.

This is your book, which is described on the top by Nathan Kroll as a book of extraordinary moral clarity.

Let me just, for viewers' benefit, the Anti-Defamation League defines Zionism as the movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel. It also states that Zionism does not preclude support for Palestinian self-determination and statehood. For some Zionists, support for a two-state solution is a realisation of self-determination for Jews and Palestinians alike. Is that how you see it?

Benjamin Moser (2:52)

You'll be shocked to see that I do not see it that way. That's a definition that has almost every word of it is wrong.

Piers Morgan (2:58)

Really?

Benjamin Moser (2:59)

Yes. I mean, Zionism was always about Jewish power over other people. It was not about self-determination. It was not about equality. It was always a racially exclusive movement.

And you've talked about how October 7th was a horrible event, which it was, of course. But I think what you didn't say is that it was a split in the Jewish world that has been deeper and more profound than any since the Holocaust. And that's what my book is about, is about trying to explain why people said that this idea with this quite okay sounding definition was absolutely distinct from the reality of what Zionism has always been.

Piers Morgan (3:37)

When did Zionism emerge as a concept, as a word?

Benjamin Moser (3:41)

Zionism, it's interesting to say, was actually a Christian concept. It's not a Jewish concept. So when I write about Anti-Zionist Jews, I'm writing about a tradition that goes back further among Jews than Zionism. It was about the end of the world and the second coming of Christ and all this kind of fantasy that Christian evangelicals had in the 18th and 19th century. Modern Jewish Zionism really begins with Theodor Herzl in 1896 when he publishes this pamphlet called The Jewish State.

I had never read this book. My grandfather brought a copy of it out of Nazi Germany when he escaped in 1938, and I was very moved by it. It seemed like a nice idea, sort of what you are citing in that definition.