Fact on Zionism, Israel, Palestine, Zionist thinkers, middle east peace and more

Zionism and Israel on the Web: Israel and Zionism logo

Navigation

To the old home page

Email me urgent news
NB: only a few sent each year

We support

The Israel Flag for the Future Project

Order 30x40cm (11x15 inches) piece of blue fabric
Decorate with crayons or permanent marker
Have them added to Israel's biggest flag
Be part of breaking a Guinness World Record!

Share this page!

You can help us by sharing the contents on this page with others.

To help, please bookmark this and other pages you find useful with Facebook, Digg, del.icio.us, google, etc.

Thank you for your help, it does make a difference

Resources

Expert discussion

Expert Blogs

References

Further Information

Zionism Sources

Know what Zionism is, or only the propoganda?

When talking about people's political views the best bet is to ask them.

Articles Our collection on Zionism, Israel, and Anti-Zionism

Definitions A collection of definitions of Zionism

Zionism in brief A brief into to Zionism

Zionism Blog Discussion and commentary

Zionism and Me Resources from a personal perspective

Site information

Zionist Quotes

The need for Zionism

"The Jews comprise a distinctive element among the nations under which they dwell, and as such can neither assimilate nor be readily digested by any nation"
- Leon Pinsker.

Zionist Dreams

"At Basle, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in 5 years, certainly in 50, everyone will know it."
- Theodor Herzl, 1897 Diaries.

Jews and Arabs a Zionist view

"When modern technique is introduced, and when the other obstacles are removed, there will be sufficient land to accommodate both the Jews and the Arabs. Normal relations between the Jews and Arabs will and must prevail"
- Ber Borochov, 1917

Israel as a spiritual center

"This Jewish settlement, which will be a gradual growth, will become in course of time the centre of the nation, wherein its spirit will find pure expression and develop in all its aspects up to the highest degree of perfection of which it is capable"
- Achad Ha'am

Socialist Zionist view

"The proclamation of human rights emancipated the Jews, with striking suddenness, from their medieval servitude and granted them civil and political equality... the Jews were accidentally liberated by the triumph of the principle of equality...The millennial Jewish condition of servitude came to an end; the wound that had been festering within Jewry since the fall of Jerusalem began to heal with the fall of the Bastille."
- Nachman Syrkin, The Jewish Problem and the Socialist Jewish State, 1898

Longing for Zion

"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres"
Psalms 137, 1-2.

Remember Jerusalem

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither, let my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy."
Psalms (137, 5-7).

Zionist & Israel History

Love of Zion in Jewish History, from the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE we trace the history of Zionism to the establishment of the state of Israel and beyond.

Our history looks at Jewish Emancipation and the French Revolution, the connections of both Ashkenazy Jews and Sephardic Jews with Israel while in exile, Zionists leaders such as Moses Hess, Leon Pinsker, Theodor Herzl and Arthur Ruppin. We look at the history of Israel before, during and after Israel's war of independence. The history of the British Mandate of Palestine is examined including the white paper. The first, secodn, third, fourth and fifth Aliya are explained. We then look at the Holocaust and it's impact on Israel. The history of the Arab-Israeli wars and the rise of Anti-Zionists is discussed.

Read our History of Israel in full

Introduction to Zionism

See our Zionism Introduction for a simple outline and useful resources for assignments or private study

"While there are honorable Anti-Zionist positions they are few. On the whole Anti-Zionism is close to, or a mask for, Anti-Semitism."
by John Strawson re: the 2005 UK Boycott of Israeli Universities

Get facts on: Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Academic Boycotts
Learn about: Critisism, Antisemitism, and new Antisemitism

Jump to:
News & Blogs, Recent Articles, Selected Articles, Selected Pages

Recent News & Blogs

Latest Israel news alerts, download the GIYUS tool to get these updates to your desktop

Comment is Free

Jonathan Hoffman has provided us with an advanced copy of his submission on Comment is Free to the UK Parliment's Committee on Antisemitism.

Facebook: JIDF takeover hate group

The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) has taken over the group "'Israel' is not a country!... delist it from Facebook as a country!". The are currently emptying this group of members. Andre Oboler discussed the matter with JIDF's David Appletree shortly after the take over. It appears to be within facebook's rules and is infact not an instance of hacking as it was portrayed in the press. Facebook should have dealt with this themselves, but well done to David, John and the JIDF.

A full analysis of this Facebook group's antisemitic nature was previously discussed by us in the "Antisemitism 2.0" paper. More on the JIDF and the current actions at Jerusalem Post (July 30 2008).

New section: Internet Warfare

Our articles related to the Internet can now be seen in a collection on Internet Warfare.

At Christian Attitudes

Monitoring the reactions of the Church to Israel and the Jews

See the latest Christian Issues postings, popular items include:

At Dr Ginosar Recalls

Israel and the Middle East, a former Lechi member comments

See the latest Dr Ginosar Recalls articles, popular article include:

Responding to Hamas rockets
ISRAELI STYLE JUDAISM
Note- Why not try a 2 states solution?
Breach in Gaza
Pre-empting Iran
The Powerful Lessons of Gaza
Israel Insecurity (then and now)
They kill, we feel guilty
Trimming My Roses - peace and security in Israel
Security vs. Morality in Israel
An Old Family Story
Meet Dr Ginosar

News in videos

Palestinian snipers - after killing Carlos Andres Muscara Chavez, a volunteer from Ecuador at an Israeli Kibbutz, the snipe targets a news crew reporting on the story. Clip filmed live as the news crew was being shot at.

Jerusalem - a clip with pictures of Jerusalem. Prior to Annapolis, Olmet said Jerusalem is an issue for Israel and not the Jewish people, see Ted's response.

Meet Hamas - a short clip showing Hamas behind the scenes.

Israeli Doctors - Above Politics. British physicians have called to boycott Israeli doctors for being inhuman. An Israeli doctor responds in a film taken at a paramedic intensive care unit in Israel. Given Israeli hospitals both employ and treat people regardless of their whether they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Bahai or athiest, not to mention whether they are Israeli, Arab, or Palestinian... this boycott, like the academic one shows nothing more than discrimination by the British doctors union.

Recent Articles

Google Earth highlights the 'Nakba'

Including a detailed interview with Zionism On The Web's Dr Andre Oboler, Stephanie Rubenstein from the Jerusalem Post reports (July 1st 2008) how anti-Israel activity on the Google Earth application has been stepped up. The message "Nakba - The Palestinian Catastrophe" now appears when users scroll over the orange dots that speckle locations across the entire map of Israel.

Google Earth: A New Platform for Anti-Israel Propaganda and Replacement Geography

Dr Andre Oboler's report into Google Earth in Jerusalem Issue Briefs, Vol. 8, No. 5, (26 June 2008) highlighted how Google Earth is littered with orange dots, which claim to represent destroyed Palestinian villages. Israel is depicted as a state born out of colonial conquest rather than the return of a people from exile. This use of Google Earth for anti-Israel propoganda is examined. The results have caused interest around the globe, including in the offices of Google itself.

http://Web of Hatred

The issue of internet hate was picked up in the cover story for the Jerusalem Report, July 7th 2008. Zionism On The Web's Dr Andre Oboler is quoted extensively. Natan Sharansky comes out in support of efforts (such as this site) to counter online antisemitism, "We need to have our own sites answering all their claims, and to get a lot of people involved. This is too important to ignore."

MidEast Wars hits Wikipedia

The story on Wikipedia warfare was covered by the Jewish Week. Tamar Snyder gives additional background, citing the Honest Reporting special report and interviewing key commentators including Zionism On The Web's Dr Andre Oboler.

Wiki-Warfare: Wikipedia manipulated

Palestinian advocacy group Electronic Intifada manipulated Wikipedia (read exclusive analysis) in order to discredit and eliminate CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America). Penalties for CAMERA (who were trying to start an initiative to improve Wikipedia, in response to increasing Palestinian activism at the site) were made particularly harsh amid claims that this was a "first" and strong message needed to be sent to other organisations. Our exclusive research shows that Palestinian activists have been gaming wikipedia for years.

Zionism On The Web's Dr Andre Oboler raised this issue in the Jerusalem Post Wiki-Warfare: Battle for the on-line encyclopedia on May. 13, 2008. An Honest Reporting special report Exposed - Anti-Israeli Subversion on Wikipedia co-authored by Dr Oboler and Honest Reporting staff provided additional detail and recieved significant coverage.

Israel, Facebook and National Security

IDF soldiers (like many other 18 to 21 year olds) are taking photos of their lives and uploading them to Facebook. In Israel however, 18-21 years are typically in the army and the pictures which have on occasion included sensitive equipment, restricted areas and unit makeup pose a threat to national security. Zionism On The Web's Dr Andre Oboler examins the Facebook threat in the Jerusalem Post (April 24th).

UK Academic Boycotts are coming back

The executive of the UCU, the lecturers union in the UK, will propose a boycott motion at the unions next annual conference. For more see our Academic Boycott Resource Center

Antisemitism 2.0 Report

The Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism series from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs features a report by Dr Andre Oboler, CEO of Zionism On The Web, and provides an analysis of Antisemitism 2.0 - a new form of antisemitism which uses Web 2.0 as a platform for hate.

Facebook's "not a state" group

The Facebook group we examined in depth in our report on Antisemitism 2.0 has since made the news after it was mentioned on Palestinian TV and Palestinian Media Watch picked up the story. In a seperate report on the group, the UK's Jewish Chronicle ran an article on the clash of the facebook groups. In the Chronicle's report Zionism On The Web CEO, Dr Andre Oboler, describes the group as "basically a race-hate site" based on the analysis in the Antisemitism 2.0 report.

What To Do About Gaza: The Realistic Scenario

Israel's options in response to the rockets from Gaza are limit. Prof Barry Rubin discusses the Gaza options and suggests a new approach.

Anti-Semitism 2.0 Going Largely Unchallenged

This article by Tamar Snyder appeared on the front page of the Jewish Week and has been circulated by the JTA. The article focused on the work of Zionism On The Web and our recomendations to policy makers. Our policy work and monitoring work is not always on this website, but please contact us for more details.

Israel, Gaza and International Law

International Law expert Dr Abraham Bell examines the situation in Gaza and Israel's obligations under International Law. The article focuses on claims of "collective punishment" and condemnations for electricity and fuel cuts. Dr Bell explains the lack of legal basis behind such political claims.

Anti-apartheid week: Racism as anti-racism

Andre Oboler of Zionism On The Web explains the racism behind the "anti-apartheid week" in an article at the Guardian's Comment is Free.

Racism Online: can't do it alone

In a Jerusalem Post op-ed, Andre Oboler of Zionism On The Web explains why combatting online antisemitism needs more from the community than a request for young people to use the internet to fight racism.

NGOs another moral compass

Andre Oboler comments in the Wall Street Journal on Judea Pearl's suggested standard for journalists and suggests NGOs could benefit from moral clarity as well

A standard for Journalists

On the 6th anniversary of the murder of his son by terrorists, Judea Pearl proposes a simple test, the "Daniel Pearl standard of responsible journalism" and hopes other journalists like his son will consider adopting it to ensure fair reporting and moral clarity.

Palestinian Aid and Gaza's Closure

We report the information that was missing from a December 17 article in the Times (UK). The article caused concern for many who care about fair reporting, human rights and effective assistance to the Palestinians. This article highlights what the Times missed in their reporting.

Zionism and the UN: The vote for Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu commemorates the UN vote to recognise Israel on November 29, 1947, but warns that it is Zionism and strength that allow Israel to exist - not simply good will.

Christian Zionism: Land for Peace?

A Christian Zionism perspective on Land for Peace, from the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem

Jerusalem is a Jewish Issue

Ted Belman traced the legal position of Jerusalem, explaining how UN resolutions recognise Jerusalem and Israel as the Jewish historical homeland. The issue of Jerusalem is therefore a Jewish one, not just one for the State of Israel

Media Bias: Watching the Watchdog

Nir Boms and Elliot Chodoff discuss the Mohammad al-Dura case and other media fabrications and the implications for peace

The Jews - religion or nation?

A new article The Jewish people: Religion or Nation? looks at this discussion which occurs regularly, but makes little sense once the facts and context are considered.

Palestinian Refugees and right of return

In his article Factoids and the Palestinians right of return, Maurice Ostroff clarifys the myths and facts of UN Resolution 194, the rights of Palestinian Refugees and their treatment in various places.

Recent Discussions

A few topic with recent discussion include...

Selected Articles

We invite Zionist, Israel and Middle East related articles and request permission to reproduce others we find on topics such as the culture and history of Israel, Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism

Work with us to comabat racism

Your support is needed! If you manage a website or blog please show your support by linking to us. We've made this easy for you by providing code for you to copy to add a link or banner.

Major Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli organisations (government and non-government) are also invited to join our list of supporters.

Christian supports are invited to send us their articles on Christian Zionism as we built a new section on this topic.

Google being used to spread racism

Andre Oboler reports how Google is being used to spread hate as racist sites climb the ranking of this popular search engine. In this Special Report we discuss the factors leading to this rise in racism online and what ordinary websites can do to combat it.

Update: March 24 2007 - Jew Watch hits page 1 for a google search on Zionism.

Expert Search Launched!

A new expert search launch by Zionism On The Web aims to help students and researchers find infomation on Israel and Zionism while avoiding antisemitic and racist hate sites. Far too many of the results usually returned by Google on searches for Zionism, Jew or Israel are nothing more than hate sites. With your help we can turn this around. Visit the Expert Search on Zionism & Israel

Under attack online?

In an interesting twist, a website called Electronic Jihad has been launched to coordinating Hacker Jihad using a tools they've developed. The tool allows supporters to take part in DDOS attacks... but also allows law enforcement to monitor them and may lead to some arrests.

Team-Evil Arab hackers

A ZionismOnTheWeb Special Archive
By August 2006 this anti-Israel hacker group had taken down over 750 Israeli servers, and not content had started targetting Jewish servers mentioning Zionism. Our blogs and the forums were attacked a number of times. Together with an Israeli computer security company we tracked the hackers activities and tools. You can read about it in the Team Evil case Study (mirror). You can also see our initial story on Team Evil or post your own experience in the Hacked Topic in our Zionism forums.

Hezbollah's war on Israel

A ZionismOnTheWeb Special
Our report on including discussion from civilians in both Israel and Lebanon.

UK's NUS adopts definition of Antisemitism

In our special report on NUS 2007 and a definition of antisemitism we examine the motions that led the National Union of Students to insist that racism is wrong in all its forms, and the Middle East conflict is no excuse. New antisemitism is (as a result of this motion) no longer to be tolerated within the student movement.

Palestinian activists claim their speakers are antisemitic

Palestinian activists in preparation for the debate on antisemitism at NUS Conference produced a flier claiming that many of their speakers would be barred if the definition was addopted. They too appear to agree that if this is the measure of antisemitism, something on their side had got to change if we are ever to get peace in the Middle East.

Background to the Academic Boycotts

An academic boycott background document has been compiled to cover bocyott related events prior to the 2005 AUT boycott.

Middle East Challenged

In his article Don't Put the Impossible First, Prof Barry Rubin from the Gloria Center highlights the unmeetable challenges in governments Middle East stratagies and questions if putting efforting into more realistic goals might not be more productive.

Where Europe Fails

In his article Where Europe Fails, Prof Steinberg examines the tentions between national identity and multiculturalism in Europe, and how Israel is used as a scape goat to vent steam from this tention.

Hack attack on Israeli site

Analysis of the hack attack on the Israeli astronomical club by Team Evil Arab Hackers is now complete. To summarise, left wing, right wing, and Islamist antisemitism are being merged and combined with hacking as a mode of message delivery. There may be a tool with the message hard coded into it floating about. Part of the hard coded message related to Crisis 2007, the use of google to mislead people. In this case they are pushing people to search for Sharon's Master Plan.

The Six Day War (updated May 07)

This June marks the 40th anniverary of the Six Day War and Israel's victory against the odds as the countries surroundign her prepared to annialate the young state. The War also marks the reunification of Jerusalem which allowed people of all faiths access to their holy sites.

A Safer Campus

Andre Oboler et al
A resource document compiled before a vote to ban to the British National Party (a far right political group with a history of neo-Nazism) from a UK Campus

Jewish self determination

An introduction to the real meaning of Zionism, and the purpose of Israel. Israel is a Jewish state, much as Britain in a Christian one. Israel is not a state just for Jews, it never has been. What Israel wants are secure borders and peace with her neighbours - including a Palestinian State

A report on events at SOAS from Gavin Gross

When Anti-Israel bias gets out of hand on UK campuses

Letter over appointment

NGO Monitor
Durban Conference anti-Zionism organiser appointed to the UN Human Rights Commission

More...

Islamic antisemitism and anti-Zionism explained
A look at the history, religion and culture that leads to hate
Israel, Zionism and the Church
Church boycotts of Israel and Israel's right to exist from an expert on the Church's reaction to Israel
On Google, Jews, Zionism and the problem
What do Jewish people have fear from google? The fact that antisemitic material keep appearing at the top of google is not due to a compaign of racist hate, at least not by Google itself. However there is a problem and the Jewish community needs to wake up to it, or internet could grow.
Zionism is not a settler-colonial undertaking
Do not treat Israel like apartheid South Africa
Growing up Palestinian in the Israeli "Occupation"
The Twilight Zone

You can visit our full collection for more articles on Zionism, Israel and Palestine

Selected Pages

Nuclear Iran

Thoughts from Dr Ginosar

Meet Dr Ginosar

Matania Ginosar joined the Israeli underground LECHI as the state of Israel was being established. He was 15 at the time. At his blog he reflects on Zionism and Israel then as well as now. In this article he introduces himself to our readers.

UN-Biased

Israel and the UN

Hezbollah War

Our special forum section

Neturei Karta

How Neturei Karta abuse the memory of the Holocaust

UK Muslims and Holocaust Memorial Day

Active Campaigns

Campaign to free the three

A campaign to free the three Israelis Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev has been launched. While Alan Johnston was released after a lot of media attention, these three remain in captivity. Click the logo for more information and to sign the petition.

A family at the beach in Israel, note the
helicopters in the sky... they're need to pretect ordinary people's safty as they do ordinary things like take a day out at
the Tel-Aviv beach

A day at the beach

Note the Helicopters in the background at this family's day out at the beach. Welcome to Israel where nothing can be taken forgranted, not even on a sunny day at the sand and sea