I feel like I’m seeing with increasing frequency uses of the word “Zionist” that casually assume it’s a pejorative term. I’m not talking about anti-Israel firebrands here, but rather observers who perhaps are simply more used to seeing the word tossed about as a term of opprobrium than hearing it claimed as a point of pride and self-identification.
The latest example is from a newspaper report about a speaking appearance at the University of California, Santa Barbara by conservative activist David Horowitz. The aricle stated:
He is often perceived as having an anti-Muslim slant to his rhetoric, and being an outright Zionist, accusations which he regards as baseless and false. [Emphasis added.]
Meanwhile, here’s the quote from the paper on what Horowitz said on the issue:
“I feel totally American – I don’t have an identification with Israel; they are as foreign a country to me as any other foreign county – but Jews are the most persecuted people on the face of the earth, and that’s just the truth,” said Horowitz. “If the Arabs disarm there will be peace, if the Jews disarm there will be a massacre. I’m portrayed as a big Zionist but I’ve never been to Israel. I just know when a country needs to be defended.”
So Horowitz, founder and CEO of the eponymous David Horowitz Freedom Center, has made defending Israel a centerpiece of his activism. Yet he says he’s never even visited. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, to paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld. (After all only about a third of American Jews have ever visited Israel.)
But speaking of “Seinfeld”… Jerry Seinfeld once had a bit on his eponymous show about a dentist who he suspected had converted to Judaism solely for the Jewish jokes. One wonders if Horowitz got into pro-Israel activism solely for the fights.
At U.C. Santa Barbara at least, his pugnacious style of activism has managed to bring about a remarkable result: uniting the campus’s Hillel and the pro-Israel student group with Students for Justice in Palestine in criticizing him.
UPDATE: After posting this item, I saw that I was beaten on the David-Horowitz-has-never-been-to-Israel news by a few months.
