Zionism is blocking the path to peace
Israel/Palestine
Mohammed Alhammami on November 23, 2015 1 Comments
Israelis gathered on a hilltop outside the town of Sderot on Monday to watch
the bombardment of Gaza. (Photo: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
“If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their
story and to start with ‘secondly’.” — Palestinian writer Mourid Barghouti
The importance of context
The most dangerous threat Palestinians face in their struggle for freedom and
human rights, besides the Israeli war machine, is the absence of historical
context, or any context for that matter, in political discussions and media
coverage of the conflict. This deliberate omission is demeaning, demonizing and
dehumanizing.
When people talk about the current state of unrest, “the Third Intifada,” they
typically start the conversation with Palestinian stabbings of Israelis. There
rarely is a discussion of what might have triggered such anger. Likewise, when
the media covered Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, they started their reporting
with Hamas “militants” firing rockets at Israel, omitting the inhumane,
seven-year Israeli blockade of Gaza, and positioning Israel as merely defending
itself.
Even when talking about the rise of the Palestinian Liberation Organization or
the emergence of Hamas, or when the “O-word” is finally used, people naively
believe the conflict between the two peoples started in 1967, when the Israel
military occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They ignore altogether the
Nakba and the refugee crisis the Zionist creators of Israel orchestrated.
This narrow focus not only is careless, it is dangerous–making impossible a
full understanding of the nature of the conflict and its causes and factors, as
well as the negotiation of a just and lasting solution to the impasse.
What the absence of historical context does—intentionally or unintentionally—is
lead people to believe that Israel is merely responding to provocation, that
Palestinians are only those living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. So when
talking about the causes of the conflict, it is easy to reach the conclusion
that “merely” the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is the cause and ending
it would be the ultimate solution. But what about Palestinians who live in
Israel as second-class citizens? What about Palestinians living in refugee
camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in degrading conditions, often without the
basic right to work in many types of jobs? What about the internationally
recognized right of return to their lands that were unilaterally annexed by
Israel in 1948? And finally, what about Palestinians who have been accepted as
citizens in countries like the United States, but who are denied the ability to
visit their ancestral homeland?
Root causes and understanding Zionism
I recently wrote a piece titled “It’s the occupation, stupid!” explaining
Palestinians’ position on the current state of unrest. The conflict is not an
independent action, but rather a reaction to institutionalized violence and
harassment by Israeli settlers and soldiers, expanding illegal Israeli
settlements, the segregation wall and military checkpoints—all which play a
vital role in dividing Palestinian communities and ruining their social and
economic structure. But in that commentary, I only scratched the surface. I
didn’t explain the conflict; rather, I described the forces driving Palestinian
frustration and desperation.
We could aimlessly argue back and forth about the so-called “Palestinian
incitement,” or “Israeli security necessities,” or how “Palestinians teach
their children to hate” (a supremacist, demonizing and dehumanizing statement
in itself), with total disregard to Palestinian lives and Israeli policies.
However, to truly understand the conflict, one must recognize and comprehend
the ideology behind it: political Zionism. Today, political Zionism is woven
into the very fabric of Israeli society. It is a leading force, significantly
shaping the Israeli mindset and policies on all levels.
Political Zionism emerged as a movement in the late 1800s, with Theodor Herzl
its founder. Herzl created the movement as a reaction to anti-Semitism, which
was swamping Europe at the time. For Herzl and political Zionist leaders who
came after him, the answer to anti-Semitism was not integration or a homefront
fight against racism, but expulsion—the expulsion of Jews from Europe to a
“Jewish homeland,” and the expulsion of the non-Jewish indigenous population
from that homeland (which explains the cooperation and transfer agreement
between Zionists and the Nazis during the 1933 international boycott of
Germany). However, what is interesting is that political Zionism was not the
only form of Zionism that emerged as a reaction to anti-Semitism. A competing
movement also started called “cultural Zionism.” While both types concurred on
the necessity of creating a Jewish homeland, they disagreed on the nature,
structure and methods of creation.
For political Zionists, a homeland meant a political state where Jews must hold
an absolute majority. For such a state to be created, the land had to be
cleansed of its non-Jewish indigenous people. On the other hand, cultural
Zionism sought the revival of a universal Jewish spirit, Hebrew language and
Judaic culture. It desired a cultural homeland with intellectual centers, not a
political state with borders and a Jewish army to enforce those borders.
Cultural Zionists were dissidents within political Zionism and urged equality
between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in Palestine, mainly through the formation
of a binational state. The source of this dissention was the bleak future that
would inevitably result from political Zionism, which unfortunately has become
today’s reality: a heavily militarized, undemocratic Jewish state driven by
blind chauvinism.
Abuse, exploitation and blind nationalism
Political Zionists abused Jewish suffering to appeal to and impose their
ideology on Jews so they could carry out their colonial project in Palestine
without much fuss. Many Jewish intellectuals, such as Albert Einstein,
recognized that if political Zionists succeeded in creating a “Jewish state,”
they would do so at the expense of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the land, who
would be forced out. In addition, he understood that Jews in a Jewish state
would naturally develop blind nationalism, which ultimately would result in the
suffering and abuse of Palestinians, who were in fact the majority inhabitants
of historic Palestine.
In April 1935, Albert Einstein addressed the National Labor Committee for
Palestine, stating:
“If Palestine is to become a Jewish national center, then the Palestinian
settlement must develop into a model way of life for all Jewry through the
cultivation of spiritual values.
Under the guise of nationalist propaganda Revisionism [right-wing branch of
Political Zionism] seeks to support the destructive speculation in land; it
seeks to exploit the people and deprive them of their rights…
Furthermore, the state of mind fed by revisionism is the most serious obstacle
in the way of our peaceable and friendly cooperation with the Arab people, who
are racially our kin.”
Past and present
Indeed, the destruction of land, the exploitation of people and the deprivation
of rights are what followed and still is happening. In 1948, Zionist militias
expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and erased more than
530 Palestinian villages and towns from the face of the earth, ethnic cleansing
at its best. Near the end of the 1948 war, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted Resolution 194, which stated that Palestinian “refugees wishing to
return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be
permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation
should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of
or damage to property.” Israel has yet to comply.
Resolution 194 was passed to recognize the efforts of UN peace mediator Folke
Bernadotte, who had helped save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. He was
assassinated by the Zionists in September 1948.
In 1967, when Israel won the Six-Day War, it occupied the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, and annexed East Jerusalem, which is also considered an occupied
Palestinian territory under international law. The UN Security Council then
passed Resolution 242, calling on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian
territories. Israel has yet to comply.
Desmond Tutu, who fought apartheid in South Africa, compared Israel’s
oppression of Palestinians to the abuse of black South Africans under
apartheid. “I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women
and children by members of the Israeli security forces,” Tutu said in a
statement. “Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were
corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the
apartheid government.”
This is today’s reality in historic Palestine (Israel and Palestinian
territories): apartheid. There are three classes of citizens: Jews, with all
privileges and entitlements; Palestinian second-class citizens of Israel, who
have some rights but are institutionally discriminated against; and stateless
Palestinians living in the Bantustans of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who
are deprived of virtually all rights.
Noam Chomsky went even further, calling Israeli policies toward Palestinians
“much worse than apartheid” in South Africa.
The path to peace
Therefore, it is no surprise to see Israelis sitting on top of a hill, drinking
beer and cheering as they watch their army bombing Gaza and lighting the night
sky; to see Jewish youths full of hate, taking to the streets and chanting
“Death to Arabs!” (even when they wish us death, they cannot bring themselves
to call us Palestinians); and to see Israeli ministers calling for genocide
against Palestinians, from Interior Minister Eli Yishai urging people “to send
Gaza back to the Middle Ages,” to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked declaring “the
entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and calling for the destruction of
Palestine’s “elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property
and its infrastructure.” To top it off, she called for the death of Palestinian
mothers, who give birth to “little snakes.” Should you be surprised to hear
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserting the “need to control all of the
territory for the foreseeable future,” to “forever live by the sword”? This is
blind nationalism, blind chauvinism. This is political Zionism.
Political Zionism is an ideology that is inherently racist, supremacist, and
exclusivist. If you seek to understand the conflict, if you believe in and
strive for a just peace in Israel-Palestine, this is where your fight starts.
Ultimately, until Israelis break away from the chains of Zionism, until
Palestinians regain their dignity, humanity, and civil, political and human
rights, this land will see no lasting peace.
Originally written for We Are Not Numbers.
About Mohammed Alhammami
Mohammed Alhammami is Gaza project manager for the youth storytelling
initiative We Are Not Numbers.
Zionism is blocking the path to peace
Israel/Palestine
Mohammed Alhammami on November 23, 2015 1 Comments
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Israelis gathered on a hilltop outside the town of Sderot on Monday to watch
the bombardment of Gaza. (Photo: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
“If you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their
story and to start with ‘secondly’.” — Palestinian writer Mourid Barghouti
The importance of context
The most dangerous threat Palestinians face in their struggle for freedom and
human rights, besides the Israeli war machine, is the absence of historical
context, or any context for that matter, in political discussions and media
coverage of the conflict. This deliberate omission is demeaning, demonizing and
dehumanizing.
When people talk about the current state of unrest, “the Third Intifada,” they
typically start the conversation with Palestinian stabbings of Israelis. There
rarely is a discussion of what might have triggered such anger. Likewise, when
the media covered Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, they started their reporting
with Hamas “militants” firing rockets at Israel, omitting the inhumane,
seven-year Israeli blockade of Gaza, and positioning Israel as merely defending
itself.
Even when talking about the rise of the Palestinian Liberation Organization or
the emergence of Hamas, or when the “O-word” is finally used, people naively
believe the conflict between the two peoples started in 1967, when the Israel
military occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They ignore altogether the
Nakba and the refugee crisis the Zionist creators of Israel orchestrated.
This narrow focus not only is careless, it is dangerous–making impossible a
full understanding of the nature of the conflict and its causes and factors, as
well as the negotiation of a just and lasting solution to the impasse.
What the absence of historical context does—intentionally or unintentionally—is
lead people to believe that Israel is merely responding to provocation, that
Palestinians are only those living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. So when
talking about the causes of the conflict, it is easy to reach the conclusion
that “merely” the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is the cause and ending
it would be the ultimate solution. But what about Palestinians who live in
Israel as second-class citizens? What about Palestinians living in refugee
camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria in degrading conditions, often without the
basic right to work in many types of jobs? What about the internationally
recognized right of return to their lands that were unilaterally annexed by
Israel in 1948? And finally, what about Palestinians who have been accepted as
citizens in countries like the United States, but who are denied the ability to
visit their ancestral homeland?
Root causes and understanding Zionism
I recently wrote a piece titled “It’s the occupation, stupid!” explaining
Palestinians’ position on the current state of unrest. The conflict is not an
independent action, but rather a reaction to institutionalized violence and
harassment by Israeli settlers and soldiers, expanding illegal Israeli
settlements, the segregation wall and military checkpoints—all which play a
vital role in dividing Palestinian communities and ruining their social and
economic structure. But in that commentary, I only scratched the surface. I
didn’t explain the conflict; rather, I described the forces driving Palestinian
frustration and desperation.
We could aimlessly argue back and forth about the so-called “Palestinian
incitement,” or “Israeli security necessities,” or how “Palestinians teach
their children to hate” (a supremacist, demonizing and dehumanizing statement
in itself), with total disregard to Palestinian lives and Israeli policies.
However, to truly understand the conflict, one must recognize and comprehend
the ideology behind it: political Zionism. Today, political Zionism is woven
into the very fabric of Israeli society. It is a leading force, significantly
shaping the Israeli mindset and policies on all levels.
Political Zionism emerged as a movement in the late 1800s, with Theodor Herzl
its founder. Herzl created the movement as a reaction to anti-Semitism, which
was swamping Europe at the time. For Herzl and political Zionist leaders who
came after him, the answer to anti-Semitism was not integration or a homefront
fight against racism, but expulsion—the expulsion of Jews from Europe to a
“Jewish homeland,” and the expulsion of the non-Jewish indigenous population
from that homeland (which explains the cooperation and transfer agreement
between Zionists and the Nazis during the 1933 international boycott of
Germany). However, what is interesting is that political Zionism was not the
only form of Zionism that emerged as a reaction to anti-Semitism. A competing
movement also started called “cultural Zionism.” While both types concurred on
the necessity of creating a Jewish homeland, they disagreed on the nature,
structure and methods of creation.
For political Zionists, a homeland meant a political state where Jews must hold
an absolute majority. For such a state to be created, the land had to be
cleansed of its non-Jewish indigenous people. On the other hand, cultural
Zionism sought the revival of a universal Jewish spirit, Hebrew language and
Judaic culture. It desired a cultural homeland with intellectual centers, not a
political state with borders and a Jewish army to enforce those borders.
Cultural Zionists were dissidents within political Zionism and urged equality
between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in Palestine, mainly through the formation
of a binational state. The source of this dissention was the bleak future that
would inevitably result from political Zionism, which unfortunately has become
today’s reality: a heavily militarized, undemocratic Jewish state driven by
blind chauvinism.
Abuse, exploitation and blind nationalism
Political Zionists abused Jewish suffering to appeal to and impose their
ideology on Jews so they could carry out their colonial project in Palestine
without much fuss. Many Jewish intellectuals, such as Albert Einstein,
recognized that if political Zionists succeeded in creating a “Jewish state,”
they would do so at the expense of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the land, who
would be forced out. In addition, he understood that Jews in a Jewish state
would naturally develop blind nationalism, which ultimately would result in the
suffering and abuse of Palestinians, who were in fact the majority inhabitants
of historic Palestine.
In April 1935, Albert Einstein addressed the National Labor Committee for
Palestine, stating:
“If Palestine is to become a Jewish national center, then the Palestinian
settlement must develop into a model way of life for all Jewry through the
cultivation of spiritual values.
Under the guise of nationalist propaganda Revisionism [right-wing branch of
Political Zionism] seeks to support the destructive speculation in land; it
seeks to exploit the people and deprive them of their rights…
Furthermore, the state of mind fed by revisionism is the most serious obstacle
in the way of our peaceable and friendly cooperation with the Arab people, who
are racially our kin.”
Past and present
Indeed, the destruction of land, the exploitation of people and the deprivation
of rights are what followed and still is happening. In 1948, Zionist militias
expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and erased more than
530 Palestinian villages and towns from the face of the earth, ethnic cleansing
at its best. Near the end of the 1948 war, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted Resolution 194, which stated that Palestinian “refugees wishing to
return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be
permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation
should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of
or damage to property.” Israel has yet to comply.
Resolution 194 was passed to recognize the efforts of UN peace mediator Folke
Bernadotte, who had helped save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. He was
assassinated by the Zionists in September 1948.
In 1967, when Israel won the Six-Day War, it occupied the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, and annexed East Jerusalem, which is also considered an occupied
Palestinian territory under international law. The UN Security Council then
passed Resolution 242, calling on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian
territories. Israel has yet to comply.
Desmond Tutu, who fought apartheid in South Africa, compared Israel’s
oppression of Palestinians to the abuse of black South Africans under
apartheid. “I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women
and children by members of the Israeli security forces,” Tutu said in a
statement. “Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were
corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the
apartheid government.”
This is today’s reality in historic Palestine (Israel and Palestinian
territories): apartheid. There are three classes of citizens: Jews, with all
privileges and entitlements; Palestinian second-class citizens of Israel, who
have some rights but are institutionally discriminated against; and stateless
Palestinians living in the Bantustans of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who
are deprived of virtually all rights.
Noam Chomsky went even further, calling Israeli policies toward Palestinians
“much worse than apartheid” in South Africa.
The path to peace
Therefore, it is no surprise to see Israelis sitting on top of a hill, drinking
beer and cheering as they watch their army bombing Gaza and lighting the night
sky; to see Jewish youths full of hate, taking to the streets and chanting
“Death to Arabs!” (even when they wish us death, they cannot bring themselves
to call us Palestinians); and to see Israeli ministers calling for genocide
against Palestinians, from Interior Minister Eli Yishai urging people “to send
Gaza back to the Middle Ages,” to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked declaring “the
entire Palestinian people is the enemy” and calling for the destruction of
Palestine’s “elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property
and its infrastructure.” To top it off, she called for the death of Palestinian
mothers, who give birth to “little snakes.” Should you be surprised to hear
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserting the “need to control all of the
territory for the foreseeable future,” to “forever live by the sword”? This is
blind nationalism, blind chauvinism. This is political Zionism.
Political Zionism is an ideology that is inherently racist, supremacist, and
exclusivist. If you seek to understand the conflict, if you believe in and
strive for a just peace in Israel-Palestine, this is where your fight starts.
Ultimately, until Israelis break away from the chains of Zionism, until
Palestinians regain their dignity, humanity, and civil, political and human
rights, this land will see no lasting peace.
Originally written for We Are Not Numbers.
About Mohammed Alhammami
Mohammed Alhammami is Gaza project manager for the youth storytelling
initiative We Are Not Numbers.
