Is Ralph Bunche a zionist

Answer 1

Answer 1

If the "religious" claim of the Zionists is true that they were to be led to the promised land by their messiah, and Israel's present occupation of Arab Palestine is the fulfilment of that prophesy: where is their messiah whom their prophets said would get the credit for leading them there? It was Ralph Bunche who "negotiated" the Zionists into possession of Occupied Palestine! Is Ralph Bunche the messiah of Zionism? If Ralph Bunche is not their messiah, and their messiah has not yet come, then what are they doing in Palestine ahead of their messiah?

=======================================

Distributed as one of the final Four Finalists

in the competition for

2013 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Answer 2

It depends on how low you set the bar for being a Zionist. Most people do not consider Ralph Bunche a Zionist since he did not advocate for the creation, maintenance, or desirability of a Jewish State. There are those who say that mere recognition of the State of Israel makes someone a Zionist, which would make every non-Islamic government (and some Islamic ones like Egypt and Jordan) de facto Zionists for recognizing Israel and would make the term "Zionist" useless.

The one major pro-Israeli action that he took was negotiating a ceasefire between the Egyptian and Israeli forces in 1949 at Egypt's request. He received the Nobel Prize specifically for the way he held that negotiation. Bunche did this in his general capacity as a part of the US State Department and not to protect either Israel or Egypt. Bunche had nothing to do with UN Resolution 181 (II) which created the UN Partition Plan nor did he have anything to do with US President Truman's endorsement of Israel.

To respond to the nonsense in answer 1, the entire point of modern Zionism was that secular Jews were tired of waiting for the Messiah and therefore chose to realize their own return to the Land of Israel without waiting. The religious Zionists (which was a movement that came over 50 years later) say that the current secular country of Israel is merely the forerunner of a religious state whose establishment would bring the Messiah. It took the extra fifty years because of the exact problem of supporting a return to Israel without the Messiah in religious Judaism.