ZIONISM FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ITS VICTIMS S9 N B C presentation o f Holocaust was aware that at least pan o f the program was intended as a justification for Zionism — even while at about the same time Israeli troops in Lebanon produced devastation, thousands o f civilian casualties, and untold suffering o f a sort likened by a few courageous reporters to the U .S. devastation o f Vietnam (see, for exam ple, H .D .S . G reenw ay, “ Vietnam -style Raids G ut South Lebanon: Israel Leaves a Path of D estruction,” Washington Post. March 25, 1978). Similarly, the furor created by the package deal in early 1978 as a result o f which U .S . war planes were sold to Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia made the predicament o f A rab liberation interlocking with right-wing A rab regimes even more acute. The task of criticism, or, to put it another way, the role o f the critical consciousness in such cases is to be able to make distinctions, to produce differences where at present there are none. T o write critically about Zionism in Palestine has therefore never meant, and does not mean now, being anti-Semitic; conversely, the struggle for Palestinian rights and self-determination does not mean support for the Saudi royal fam ily, nor for the antiquated and oppressive state structures o f most o f the A rab nations. One must adm it, however, that all liberals and even most “ radicals” have been unable to overcom e the Zionist habit of equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, A n y well-meaning person can thus oppose South African or Am erican racism and at the same time tacitly support Zionist racial discrimination against non-Jews in Palestine. The almost total absence of any handily available historical knowledge from non-Zionist sources, the dissemination by the media o f malicious simplifi­ cations (e.g. ,Jews vs. Arabs), thecynical opportunism o f various Zionist pressure groups, the tendency endemic to university intellectuals uncritically to repeat cant phrases and political cliches (this is the role Gram sci assigned to traditional intellec­ tuals, that o f being “ experts in legitim ation"), the fear of treading upon the highly sensitive terrain o f what Jews did to their victims, in an age o f genocidal extermination o f Jews— all this contributes to the dulling, regulated enforcem ent o f almost unanimous support for Israel. B ut, as I. F. Stone recently