Why Zionism is racism

"Equating Zionism with racism may be a radical stance in the context of Anglophile electoral politics. But in a larger context isn't it blaming the Jews for what was an inevitability ever since British imperialism decided to rid Europe of them no matter the cost?" - Pharmakon, recent post on BC Let me explain to Pharmakon as succinctly as I can why Zionism is indeed racism, and why his suggested alibis for ethnic cleansing don't stack up. Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank who were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel were not allowed to return, and nor are their descendents. The reason they are not allowed to return is because their ethnicity is Arab rather than Jewish. A Jewish man from Brooklyn, however, is allowed to live in Israel and can live on the very land from which Palestinian Arabs have been expelled; he can do this because his ethnicity is Jewish and not Arab. That is what makes Zionism a racist project. And the cleansing of territory based on ethnicity is ongoing to this day. I would like Pharmakon to explain to me why the policies of the British government in Mandatory Palestine made the adoption of this racist policy "an inevitability" for the settlers. Even if his statement that "British imperialism decided to rid Europe of [the Jews] no matter the cost" had the slightest truth to it - which it does not* - it would still not follow that a policy of expelling ethnic Arabs from their own homes without right of return was somehow foisted on the settlers. * In 1939, as Nazi persecution intensified, Britain capped Jewish immigration to Palestine at 75,000 over five years, with further immigration afterward dependent on Arab agreement - a policy that was strongly opposed by Zionist organisations. Would Pharmakon care to explain how this is consistent with his notion that Britain had a policy to "rid Europe of [the Jews] no matter the cost".