this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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Einstein is known to have supported the Labor Zionism movement, and to have opposed groups such as Irgun (considered to be terrorists by many).
The letter doesn't even have the word Zionist in it
Edit: From Wikipedia:
Pretty sure he was a Zionist
Einstein may have supported Labor Zionism, until it betrayed its purported socialist principles.
Zionist Left: The ‘Pacifist’ Arm of the Nakba
You're making shit up
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Albert_Einstein#Zionism
I’m not making shit up, as the letter that OP posted plainly shows. I made no claim that he stopped believing in Zionism as a concept, only that he stopped supporting the actual Zionists in Israel who were ethnically cleansing Palestine in 1948. And if he’d actually actually drafted that supposed 1955 speech as Israel claims, then I’d say that he was no Einstein. That sounds like some hasbara to me.
The letter plainly shows he doesn't support terrorists. As I wrote in my original comment, it makes no reference to Zionism at all.
You're claiming that draft, that I had to tell you about, which was written 7 years after the establishment of the state of Israel (when it was barely a functioning state) is Hasbara?
Edit: Also, if he was against Zionism, why was he ashamed he couldn't accept being Israel's president? Why was he moved by the offer?
I’m not claiming that the draft speech and its contents are hasbara, only that I suspect they might be, and that if they aren’t, then I think less of Einstein if he wrote that, “the Arab hostility […] is the root cause of the tension,” because I think the root cause is Western settler-colonialism.
I won't tell you what to think of him but honestly, he was a Jew who saw firsthand the rise of violent antisemitism in Europe - he was extremely biased on this subject, his views don't really surprise me.
Edit: Btw after re-reading my replies to you, not sure why I was so hostile, sorry
The Haganah could disavow the Irgun (and the Stern Gang) with the same credibility that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp could disavow Hezbollah.
Menachem Begin, who led Irgun also founded Likud and as the sixth Prime Minister of Israel was in command of the IDF . So yes, many people (including the US) considered Irgun a terrorist organization, that didn't put it and it's leaders outside the mainstream of Israeli military, politics, or government. Besides, it's crimes during the Mandate and Nakba always served the Zionist cause, and even if the Haganah or "Consultancy" didn't approve or order their actions, they were happy to take the benefit, and occasionally the credit.
The Stern Gang was declared a terrorist organization when Israel was founded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group)#The_Lehi_trial_and_the_Fighters'_Party
As to the Irgun, the literally had armed conflicts with the Haganah (it is likely that some Irgun members were even kidnapped and tortured by the Haganah between 1944 and 1945, read up on "The Saison").