What we see here is an extraordinary degree of solidarity

Zionism is not a colonial movement with an interest in Palestine, as some scholars suggest. Zionism is actually a global movement that is fuelled by a unique tribal solidarity of third category members. To be a Zionist means to accept that, more than anything else, one is primarily a Jew. Ostrovsky continues: ‘You have at your disposal a non-risk recruitment system that actually gives you a pool of millions of Jewish people to tap from outside your own borders. It’s much easier to operate with what is available on the spot, and sayanim offer incredible practical support everywhere.’9

What we see here is an extraordinary degree of solidarity. But Jews are far from being a single race, so if it isn’t racial solidarity per se, what is it that leads the sayan to run the risk of years of imprisonment? What did Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard have in mind when he betrayed his country? What do those alleged 2,000 sayanim in London have in mind when they betray their Queen or their neighbour? What did Paul Wolfowitz have in mind when he set the strategy for his country to demolish the last pockets of Arab resistance to Israel?

I regard Ostrovsky’s testimony as a reliable report. As we know, the Israeli government used every possible means to stop the publication of his books.

In a radio interview Joseph Lapid, at the time a senior Israeli columnist, opened his heart and told the world what he thought of Ostrovsky: ‘Ostrovsky is the most treacherous Jew in modern Jewish history. And he has no right to live, except if he’s prepared to return to Israel and stand trial.’ Valerie Pringle, the journalist on the other side of the line, asked Lapid: ‘Do you feel it’s a responsible statement to say what you’ve said?’

Lapid: ‘Oh yes, I fully believe in that. And unfortunately the Mossad cannot do it because we cannot endanger our relations with Canada. But I hope there will be a decent Jew in Canada who does it for us.’

Pringle: ‘You hope this. You could live with his blood on your hands?’

Lapid: ‘Oh no. It’s to..only it will not be his blood on my hands. It will be justice to a man who does the most horrible thing that any Jew can think of, and that is that he’s selling out the Jewish state and the Jewish people for money to our enemies. There is absolutely nothing worse that a human being, if he can be called a human being, can do’.

Lapid, later a member of Sharon’s cabinet, makes it very clear: to be a Jew is a deep commitment that goes far beyond any legal or moral order. Clearly, for Lapid, Jewish-ness is not a spiritual or religious stand, it is a political commitment.
*
The Organism

It is of course possible that there is no decision-making process at all. It is more than likely that ‘Jews’ do not have a centre or headquarters. It is more than likely that they aren’t aware of their particular role within the entire system, the way an organ is not aware of its role within the complexity of the organism. No single operator within the collective is fully familiar with the collective’s operative mode but is only aware of his or her personal and limited role, function or duties within it. This is probably the Zionist movement’s greatest strength. It transformed the Jewish tribal mode into a collective functioning system.

Looking at Zionism as an organismus would lead to a major shift in our perspective of current world affairs. The Palestinians, for instance, aren’t just the victims of the Israeli occupation, they are actually the victims of a unique global political identity, namely the third category people who transformed the Holy Land into a Jewish bunker. The Iraqis are better seen as the victims of those third category infiltrators within British and American administrations, who succeed in transforming the American and British armies into a Zionist mission force. The Muslim world should be seen as subject to the third category attempt to make ‘moral interventionism’ ideology into the new Western expansionist Bible. Americans and Brits and, to a certain extent, the West are all subject to a financial turmoil known as the ‘credit crunch’. It could be seen as a Zio-punch.

Gilad Atzmon
The Wandering Who?
A Study of Jewish Identity Politics