Quote by Christopher Hitchens

I regard anti-Semitism as ineradicable and as one element of the toxin with which religion has infected us. Perhaps partly for this reason, I have never been able to see Zionism as a cure for it. American and British and French Jews have told me with perfect sincerity that they are always prepared for the day when 'it happens again' and the Jew-baiters take over. (And I don't pretend not to know what they are talking about: I have actually seen the rabid phenomenon at work in modern and sunny Argentina and am unable to forget it.) So then, they seem to think, they will take refuge in the Law of Return, and in Haifa, or for all I know in Hebron. Never mind for now that if all of world Jewry settle in Palestine, this would actually necessitate further Israeli expansion, expulsion, and colonization, and that their departure under these apocalyptic conditions would leave the new brownshirts and blackshirts in possession of the French and British and American nuclear arsenals. This is ghetto thinking, hardly even fractionally updated to take into account what has changed. The important but delayed realization will have to come: Israeli Jews are the diaspora, not a group that has escaped from it. Why else does Israel daily beseech the often-flourishing Jews of other lands, urging them to help the most endangered Jews of all: the ones who rule Palestine by force of arms? Why else, having supposedly escaped from the need to rely on Gentile goodwill, has Israel come to depend more and more upon it? On this reckoning, Zionism must constitute one of the greatest potential non sequiturs in human history.


I regard anti-Semitism as ineradicable and as one element of

Summary

The quote criticizes the notion that Zionism can provide a solution to anti-Semitism, asserting that anti-Semitism is an inherent part of religious indoctrination and cannot be eradicated. The author believes that relying on Israel as a safe haven for persecuted Jews is problematic, as it overlooks the fact that Israeli Jews are part of the diaspora and not separate from it. The author questions the effectiveness of Zionism by emphasizing that if all world Jewry were to settle in Palestine, it would necessitate further Israeli expansion and conflict, and it would also leave other Jewish communities vulnerable. The quote argues that Zionism may not be the answer that some believe it to be.

By Christopher Hitchens
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