Edward Corrigan (a Canadian lawyer certified as a Specialist in Citizenship and Immigration Law and Immigration and Refugee Protection by the Law Society of Upper Canada in London, Ontario, Canada) in a must-read, detailed and documented analysis entitled “Jewish critics of Zionism and of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians (2010): “It may surprise some but most of the strongest critics of Zionism and Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians are Jewish. However, as Michael Selzer writes, “Zionism is a complex phenomenon, adequately understood by only a small percentage of its critics and by even a smaller percentage of its supporters.” As Professor Yakov M. Rabkin writes, “According to a sarcastic remark of an Israeli colleague, ‘Our claim to this land could be put in a nutshell: God does not exist, and he gave us this land.’ Indeed, secular nationalism and religious rhetoric lie at the root of the Zionist enterprise.
The political ideology of Zionism was the subject of intense debate, especially within the Jewish religious community. However, Zionism meant different things to different people. Zionism could be interpreted in a religious, political, national or racial light depending upon the circumstances. For some, Zionism was a solution for the age-old problem of anti-Semitism. For others merely an excuse for getting rid of the Jews. As Hannah Arendt noted, “The Zionist Organization had developed a genius for not answering, or answering ambiguously, all questions of political consequence. Everyone was free to interpret Zionism as he pleased …”
The only Jewish member of Lloyd George’s cabinet when Great Britain first threw its weight behind Zionism in 1917, Sir Edwin Montagu, was adamantly opposed to the creation of a Jewish state. He attacked the Balfour Declaration and Zionism because he believed they were anti-Semitic. Montagu argued that Zionism and anti-Semitism were based on the same premise, namely that Jews and non-Jews could not co-exist.
Montagu’s opposition to Zionism and the Balfour Declaration was supported by the leading representative bodies of Anglo-Jewry at the time, the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association, and in particular, by three prominent British Jews Claude Montefiore, David Alexander and Lucien Wolf.
Without the history of Christian anti-Semitism that has existed in Europe and the centuries of persecution of the European Jewish community political Zionism would have no legitimacy. As Hannah Arendt noted that on the question of anti-Semitism the Zionists “have indeed exploited it”…
[about 70] Other present day Jewish critics of Zionism and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians includes…
Collections of writings on Jewish criticism of Zionism…
There are a number of other anthologies and collections of writings from anti-Zionist Jews. These include Zionism Reconsidered, Michael Selzer ed. (London: The Macmillian Company, 1970); Zionism: The Dream and the Reality: A Jewish Critique, Gary V. Smith ed. (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1974); Jewish Critics of Zionism and the Stifling and Smearing of a Dissenter, by Moshe Menuhin, (Belmont, Massachusetts: Association of Arab University Graduates, 1976); Judaism or Zionism: What Difference for the Middle East?, EAFORD & AJAZ (American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism) eds., (London: Zed Books,1986); The End of Zionism and the Liberation of the Jewish People, Eibie Weizfeld ed. (Clarity Press: Atlanta, 1989); Radicals, Rabbis, and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jews Against the Occupation, Seth Faber ed. (Monroe ME: Common Courage Press, 2005).” (Edward Corrigan, “Jewish critics of Zionism and of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians”, Dissident Voice, 16 April 2010: https://dissidentvoice.org/2010/04/jewish-critics-of-zionism-and-of-israels-treatment-of-the-palestinians/ ).