Editing Isaac Deutscher (section)

==Relation to Judaism and Zionism==

Despite being an atheist, Deutscher emphasised the importance of his [[Cultural Judaism|Jewish heritage]]. He coined the expression "non-Jewish Jew", to apply to himself and other [[Humanistic Judaism|humanistic Jews]]. Deutscher admired [[Elisha ben Abuyah]], a Jewish [[Heresy|heretic]] of the 2nd century AD.<ref name="Deutscher, Isaac p. 51">Deutscher, Isaac. "Who is a Jew?" In ''The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays'', p. 51. Tamara Deutscher, ed. and Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.</ref> However, he did not engage in specifically Jewish politics. In Warsaw, he joined the communist party, not the [[General Jewish Labour Bund in Poland|Jewish Bund]], whose "[[Yiddishist movement|Yiddishist]]" views he opposed. Deutscher wrote: "Religion? I am an atheist. [[Zionism|Jewish nationalism]]? I am an [[Internationalism (politics)|internationalist]]. In neither sense am I therefore a Jew. I am, however, a Jew by force of my unconditional solidarity with the persecuted and exterminated. I am a Jew because I feel the pulse of [[Jewish history]]; because I should like to do all I can to assure the real, not spurious, security and self-respect of the Jews."<ref name="Deutscher, Isaac p. 51"/>

Before World War II, Deutscher opposed [[Zionism]] as economically retrograde and harmful to the cause of international socialism. But in the aftermath of [[the Holocaust]] he regretted his pre-war views, lamenting that "If, instead of arguing against Zionism in the 1920s and 1930s, I had urged European Jews to go to Palestine, I might have helped to save some of the lives that were to be extinguished in Hitler's gas chambers." He argued the case for establishing [[Israel]] as a "historic necessity", to provide a home for the surviving Jews of Europe; and said that his anti-Zionism, which "I have, of course, long since abandoned ... was based on a confidence in the European labour movement, or, more broadly, a confidence in European society and civilisation which that society and civilisation have not justified."<ref>Deutscher, Isaac. "Israel's Spiritual Climate," The Reporter, 27 April and 11 May 1954, available at https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1954/israel.htm</ref> In the 1960s, he became more critical of Israel for its failure to recognise the dispossession of the [[Palestinians]], and after the [[Six-Day War]] of 1967 he demanded that Israel withdraw from the [[Israeli-occupied territories|occupied territories]]. "This ''six-day wonder''", he commented, "the latest, all-too-easy triumph of Israeli arms will be seen one day ... to have been a disaster in the first instance for Israel itself."<ref>Deutscher, Isaac. An Interview: On the Israeli-Arab War, pp. 30–45. New Left Review I/44 (July–August 1967).</ref>

Regarding the [[Israeli–Palestinian conflict]], Deutscher wrote the following [[allegory]]: "A man once jumped from the top floor of a burning house in which many members of his family had already perished. He managed to save his life; but as he was falling he hit a person standing down below and broke that person's legs and arms. The jumping man had no choice; yet to the man with the broken limbs he was the cause of his misfortune. If both behaved rationally, they would not become enemies. The man who escaped from the blazing house, having recovered, would have tried to help and console the other sufferer; and the latter might have realized that he was the victim of circumstances over which neither of them had control. But look what happens when these people behave irrationally. The injured man blames the other for his misery and swears to make him pay for it. The other, afraid of the crippled man's revenge, insults him, kicks him, and beats him up whenever they meet. The kicked man again swears revenge and is again punched and punished. The bitter enmity, so fortuitous at first, hardens and comes to overshadow the whole existence of both men and to poison their minds."<ref>Deutscher, Isaac. ''The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays'', pp. 136–137.</ref>

Deutscher wrote the following passages in  "The Israeli Arab War, June 1967" (1967):
<blockquote>"Still we must exercise our judgment and must not allow it to be clouded by emotions and memories, however deep or haunting. We should not allow even invocations of [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] to blackmail us into supporting the wrong cause." (Quoted in ''Prophets Outcast'', p. 184, Nation Books, 2004.)</blockquote>
<blockquote>"To justify or condone Israel's wars against the [[Arabs]] is to render Israel a very bad service indeed and to harm its own long-term interest. Israel's security, let me repeat, was not enhanced by the wars of 1956 and 1967; it was undermined and compromised by them. The 'friends of Israel' have in fact abetted Israel in a ruinous course." (Quoted in ''Prophets Outcast'', p. 184, Nation Books, 2004.)</blockquote>