Put aside what they profess to believe and consider instead how Zionists understand Israel. Not “Israel and Palestine.” (You might want to lose that formulation altogether.) Just Israel, as in the settler colony built atop Palestine.
Part of the reason to drop “Palestine” from the equation is that a majority of Zionists are loath to think about it. To them, Palestine is a nonentity or a negation; at best it is an Arab conspiracy. Their imagination begins and ends at the settler colony. This stubbornness leads to a painfully narrow understanding of the geography they claim to own.
Although Zionists think of Israel as a natural occurrence, a timeless and stable geography, in reality they must deterritorialize the state in order to defend it. In other words, they can only defend it as a conceit, not as a tangible project. It has to exist outside of history or else it loses its exceptional character and thus its special claim to adulation. Within the actual world of geopolitics, it becomes just another settler colony, prone to the ugly behavior that imperialism demands of such entities.
To look at Israel as a typical colonial power, embodied within a legible system of economics and policy, means acknowledging features of the state that undermine its mythologies. To the Zionist, Israel is an idea that transcends the normal rules of lesser organisms. (This is why it can be a European country that isn’t located in Europe or a self-identified Western enterprise at the intersection of Asia and Africa.) Instead, Israel has to be made into an abstraction, the personal possession of anyone in the world who identifies as Jewish. It is an entity constructed of ideological claims of belonging and in turn inhabited by a global multitude with no civic responsibilities.
If you try to offer some context for what Zionists like to conceptualize as incomprehensible Palestinian violence, as I did the other day, then you’re in for a whole lot of outrage and that particular type of defamation in which Zionists specialize. Essentially you become a bloodthirsty Jew-killer. According to the logic of Zionism—that Jews magically inhabit a godly land with no history beyond what they’ve applied to it—there’s no other choice. Israel personifies virtue—it is the pinnacle of human achievement—and so only a degenerate would be unimpressed.
For the Zionist, there’s little (or no) difference between the white nationalist who shot up a Pittsburgh synagogue and the militant who fires a rocket into Israel from the Gaza Strip. Both are attacks on Jewish people with no impetus beyond mindless hatred. The geographical distance between Pennsylvania and Palestine doesn’t matter because the Zionist has decided that Jewish peoplehood is coterminous with the Israeli state.
The material and psychological differences are harder to rationalize, so Zionists simply ignore them (to the extent that they even know about those differences). The militant in Gaza, for example, is almost certainly a refugee. He has no freedom of movement. He has witnessed the destruction of entire neighborhoods. He has survived a massive death toll. He has no access to necessary medicine. He lives under a crippling embargo. He is constantly deemed an outcast, an insect, a terrorist.
He might well be an orphan or a bereaved parent. There’s a decent chance he’s undernourished. He has certainly seen widespread starvation.
Moreover, the militant in Gaza can claim a moral and legal right to fire the rocket. He has a reason to do it. He has never experienced a single moment of life without Israeli violence. His action isn’t some atavistic mystery; it is perfectly coherent. He is oppressed. He wishes to strike back against his oppressor. If he stays passive, then he will have no opportunity to live. If he accepts the oppressor’s logic, then he will never see freedom. In fact, the militant in Gaza might not be a militant at all. He might simply be a nondescript participant among millions of others in a bitter struggle for liberation.
This person in Gaza—this human being who is native to Palestine—exists among a vast community of the dispossessed. Zionists expelled 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948. They expelled a few hundred-thousand more in 1967. Not too long ago, Israel murdered 2,300 people in the Gaza Strip within a single summer. The state continues its (illegal) settlement of the West Bank. It bulldozes homes. It expropriates land. It hauls children into prison. It offers civil liberties according to religion. Even timid human rights groups have deemed Israel an apartheid state.
But in the event that a Palestinian stabs a soldier, or fires a munition, or, hell, merely signs on to BDS, none of this stuff matters. None of it exists anymore.
In the Zionist imagination, some terrorist decided to attack Jews just because. It could have happened anywhere: Pittsburgh, Miami, Tel Aviv, Vienna. Because there is no Israeli oppression as a preliminary factor. There is only a community of innocents terrorized by interlopers to whom harming Jews is a natural inclination. The mentality of neo-Nazism has been superimposed onto the Palestinian. The Zionist is subsequently absolved of racialized violence.
The idea that people in Israel are targeted as Jews is the most gratuitous flaw of the Zionist’s thinking. For the Palestinian struggling to survive, and thereby struggling for freedom, the most relevant descriptor isn’t “Jew,” but “settler.” Palestinians aren’t fighting Jews qua Jews; they’re fighting settlers who identify as Jewish. Those settlers deprive Palestinians of civil and political rights and subject them to systemic abuse for one reason only: because they’re not Jewish. The identity that Zionists claim as besieged is actually the basis of the Palestinian’s dispossession. Had Palestine been colonized by outsiders identifying as Mormon, then we never would have heard anything about inherent Palestinian antisemitism.
In short, there’s nothing unusual about the Palestinian’s supposedly aberrant behavior. There has never been an amicable colonization. Natives in North America sometimes attacked what colonists would have considered civilian targets. Algerians did the same with French installations. Likewise with Black South Africans during the Apartheid era. Contra the settler’s longtime delusions, colonization doesn’t produce compliant natives. Its continuous hostility has always inspired vigorous response, both peaceful and violent (not that these categories are as distinctive as corporate media like to suggest). Because of Zionism’s insistence that Israel exists outside of ordinary human relations, beyond the known properties of conquest and opposition, we’re forced to discuss Palestine differently than any other asymmetrical conflict in the modern world.
It is ahistorical and grotesque to be deemed antisemitic for thinking about Palestinian resistance in an appropriate context or for supporting any incarnation of that resistance. There’s no contradiction between abhorring antisemitism and rejecting Zionism. In fact, they are complementary attitudes. I watch in horror as the pundit class across the ideological spectrum minimizes or soft-sells Nazism and then tries to blame antisemitism on a beleaguered population struggling for freedom.
There’s no legitimate case that antisemitism originates from Palestinian nationalism or from the Palestine solidarity movement. That kind of claim disregards a huge body of material, spanning decades, in which intellectuals and activists explore the tenets of decolonization. In fact, many antisemites are also Zionists. And supporting Israel is a terrific way to avoid being called antisemitic. (Just ask J.K. Rowling.)
Like a great many peers, I’ve grown accustomed to being portrayed as a monster for refusing to accept crude (and usually racist) narratives about Palestinian society and culture. I’ve been listening to defenses of Israel for many years that amount to little more than “Palestinians very bad fake people.” I used to resent Zionists for their obvious ethical deficiencies. Now the best I can do is muster a bit of pity that a regressive ideology has consigned them to ignorance about the world everyone else inhabits.
On a certain meta-level they are to be pitied.
On the more day-to-day level it is the Palestinal people’s *human right* to fight the settler-aggressors, the occupiers, the child-snatchers, the shooters-to-kill-unarmed-human beings in whatever way they deem to be appropriate.
And then the absurdity of claiming God: These people follow a degenerate ‘occupier religion’, because the crimes they are committing against the Palestinians day-in-and-day-out are not at all condoned by G-d/ God / Allah, who did of course not tell the tribes of Israel to become thieves, liars and killers.
May the people of Israel think deeply about what disgraceful state (and state of mind) they are in, and the Judgment is imminent.
Thank you for your pity. You can pity us more when we retaliate with overwhelming force. I appreciate your candor when you indicate that beheading a baby is okay with Allah as long as it was done with the thought of being your human right to do so.
Force is the only language that the apartheid Israel state understands. From the 19th century, through the Nakba of 1948 right up to the present day. Zionists have known they can never win the obedience of the Palestinian people so Zionists continually resort to that ‘overwhelming force’ which is steadily and heroically resisted by the people.
Indeed, Jimmy. And since you lack sufficient force, you and yours will never be able to exercise self-determination. So sad.
But then it’s ok to run over a 5 year old Palestinian child on her way to kindergarten by an Israeli settler with no repercussions because Palestinians are not human right?
Robert, in a recent opinion piece in Haaretz, I was struck by the comment below
He Was a Child, Why Did They Kill Him?’: Israeli Troops Ambush Palestinian Teens With Gunfire
Gideon Levy
Jan 7, 2023
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/twilight-zone/2023-01-07/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/he-was-a-boy-why-did-they-kill-him-idf-troops-ambush-palestinian-teens-with-gunfire/00000185-893d-d9f4-abf7-89ff70600000
Comment:
This pointless and sadistic killing of Palestinian youth by the army youth of Israel is no less than the practice of a genocidal force intent on going even beyond impunity. Every one of these robotic thugs should be down on the list for war crimes including their commanders and the whole echelon of the IOF (Israel Occupation Force). We should stop calling it the IDF. The fact that the daily death toll never stops indicates a deliberate intention to chip away at the Palestinian population, and to ensure that every single family is imbued with a hatred of Israel, so they can say ‘The Palestinians hate us’ and are prone to ‘terrorism’. The ICC and the ICJ must be presented with a daily list of these killings so that all these criminals will face being punished for their crimes.
One cannot speak the truth any better than that!
Israel was not “built atop
Palestine”.
“Palestine” was a conceptual framework born out of 19th century nationalist aspirations, the main one being the rejection of the desire by some Jews to reconstitute their ancient country in their historic and eternal homeland.
Suggesting that a country – and by that I mean a sovereign, independent, and functioning form of self-government and self-determination – existed in that land before modern-Israel is folly, unless you were to reference the previous entity that embodies said description, which was also called Israel.
Jerusalem has been the Capitol of Israel since time immemorial, and remains the eternal Capitol of the Jewish people, irrespective of any such aspersions you wish to cast on that a statement.
One cannot speak the truth any better than that.
You have some truth in that: since the times that the descendants of Abraham, as so clearly described in the Old Testament, used the excuse that their monotheistic deity commanded them to slaughter every last man, woman and child living in the Cities of the Plain because they were polytheistic pagans, the project has continued. Zionists believe they have a god-given right to the land and must use ‘overwhelming force’ to deny anyone else citizenship or even life.
Of course. Absolute truth. I wonder who will complain about a Zionist saying Simpson’s criticism of Israel is antisemitic?
“there’s little (or no) difference between the white nationalist who shot up a Pittsburgh synagogue and the militant who fires a rocket into Israel from the Gaza Strip.” Indeed, both desire to kill Jews. Any Jews. It does not matter if it is a woman, man, nor child. It does not matter if it is a soldier, a police officer, a doctor, or milkman. Just as long as it is a Jew. One difference is the antisemite in America is sorrowful if he accidentally killed a non-Jew. For the Arab Muslim in Gaza, accidentally killing an Israeli Arab Muslim means tat the dead is martyr ad no sorrow needed.
The mother of the American antisemite wonders where she went wrong. The mother of the Arab Muslim praises her son for killing Jews.
Little difference? All depends on how you view the facts.
BTW, my proposal has been approved and I am now ABD! Two years and 10 drafts to go!
Thank you for illustrating the point of this article
If you mean the point is that Steve is justifying murder, then thank you.
Palestinian resistance to Israeli attacks doesnt compare to the daily Israeli aggressions. Just look at the casualties on both sides in any year, any month, or any time slot then you will see the truth if you want to see it. The claim that palestininans wish to kill jews just because they are jews is false. Palestinians are trying to retaliate using simple methods against those who came from nowhere and invaded their land, killed their children and made them into refugees. Palestinian Jews, Muslins and Christians lived together in peace for centuries and were good neighbours before zionists started coming from Europe to colonise the lands of palestie, why there were no killings at that time?
If you think it is a numbers game, think again. Deliberately decapitating a baby is not retaliation. Murdering a thirteen year old girl in her sleep is not retaliation. Murdering a grandmother in the street is not retaliation. Dancing in the street after these murders is not retaliation. It is an expression of genocidal minded hatred.
Jews only lived in peace in the Levant if they publicly acknowledged their inferiority. Just like Blacks in South Africa and the US south.
Occupied people have legal grounds to oppose the occupying force by any and all means necessary. Israel is an occupying force. Theres nothing else to say about it. I dont argue with Zionists, because they are brain poisoned… right Jack? Fckn villian
The Israeli military is in control through a belligerent occupation of a land wherein there has not been a legal sovereign power ownership since 1948. The residents of that land may certainly resist, but in turn they will legally pay for their resistance in kind, and they do not get to determine what that payment will be. So, keep at it and stop whining when the piper comes for payment.
Facts are something you seem incapable of digesting. Israel is a racist, fascist state, a brutal genocidal occupier.
“Moreover, the militant in Gaza can claim a moral and legal right to fire the rocket.” Steve, When you indicate that someone has the moral right to murder a child, you lost your moral compass.
Thank you for totally validating the article with your comments. Couldn’t have asked for a better demonstration of Zionism.
If you think my statement validates Steve’s argument, you have another think coming. Basically, Steve is justifying Israel’s overwhelming response to Hamas’ terrorist tactics.
However, I will accept your judgment that my statement as that typical of a Zionist.
“In the freezer of their home in Kafr Qaddum in the West Bank, the family is preserving the last memories they have of their youngest child: a chocolate-banana popsicle and a piece of watermelon on a toothpick. Abd el-Rahman Shatawi had bought them about half an hour before an Israel Defense Forces sniper knelt on the slope of the rocky hill overlooking the village, and from a distance of 100 meters fired one live round into the 9-year-old’s head. The bullet exploded into dozens of pieces of shrapnel in his brain.
Footage from the security camera of the grocery store where he made his purchases last Friday captured the disturbing moments before the shooting: Abd el-Rahman is wandering between the shelves of candy and the ice-cream freezer, trying to decide what to buy. A little boy in flip-flops, a T-shirt and sweatpants. That’s also how he looked to the IDF shooter, peering through his sophisticated optic sights, before squeezing the trigger.
After depositing the frozen treats in the freezer at home, Abd el-Rahman had gone to stand at the entrance to his friend’s house at the edge of town. Although the focal point of the weekly demonstration in town was not nearby – the soldier took aim, fired and hit the child in the head.”
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-the-protest-dispersed-then-an-israeli-sniper-shot-a-9-year-old-boy-in-the-head-1.7542674
Gordon Levy was not there. This is a guess. It has been denied. The majority of the “narrative” is invented. Good try. This is one reason why Gordon Levy is considered one of Israel’s best gifts to antisemites everywhere.
Thank you for this clear analysis. Your conclusion that Israel and its backers are the ones isolating themselves from reality is absolutely spot on.
In the Jewish community, synagogue membership is in continuous decline. This has several reasons, not all inherent to Judaism. However, it was hoped that “We Stand with Israel” would provide the compelling ideological content to replace the observance of Jewish laws or Jewish study which is what sustains Orthodox Jewish communities. But this Zionist strategy continues to fail synagogues as a majority – and continuously growing number – of Jews disassociate themselves from synagogue – i.e. Zionist – Judaism. Synagogues are failing with no hope for a turnaround. Yet synagogues still wave the Israeli flag claiming it is synonymous with Judaism, just as Israel makes the same claim that it is coterminous with the Jewish people.
So, we who stand with Palestinians and against Israeli injustice should make the decision to be ok with being excommunicated, shunned, blacklisted by mainstream Jewish, Zionist organizations.
As you did.
P.S. At the same time, there seems to be a new opening to work with Zionists. As a fellow Illinoisan, you may be interested in this project. This was only possible because of longstanding relationships and our willingness to work together. https://mondoweiss.net/2022/03/we-rabbis-and-cantors-object-to-illinois-divesting-from-unilever-to-punish-ben-jerrys-settlement-boycott/
Thank you! I’ll take a look–Steve
Anyone utilizing the borderline antisemitic MondoWeiss as a source does not have the interests of the Jews at heart. The issue with the board of directors at Ben&Jerry is not only over the demand to boycott Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem, it is that they demanded a boycott of Israel. Unilever, violating the terms of sale wherein the board had autonomy, forced the board to walk back that decision.
Regardless, the action of Unilever violates US law and its contract with the Israeli company that fronts B&J in Israel. The lawsuit filed should solve that issue.
Steve, utilizing what he believed to be academic freedom, encouraged the murder of Jews in Israel. He may deny that, but his words on paper mean more than what comes out of his mouth. What antisemite admits to it?
Yes Jack, we all see you flailing your arms out here. You’re a real special boy
Of course you do. You see right through walls, logic, facts, and truth. Whatever you need to do to feed your fantasy.
Bless your heart
He needs it. Those who curse Israel will be cursed by God. Look at Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.
Many thanks Rabbi for your comments and the link, much appreciated. I know there are many in Israel that condemn the barbaric treatment of Palestinians. We hope that someday soon the Palestinians will be free of the Zionist boot on their necks.
“If you think about the way the Russian government portrays the war against Ukraine to their own citizens, as if somehow the Ukrainians are at fault, and Russia’s military incursion is justified, it is easier to understand how internally the Palestinian administrations benefit from violence. Terrorists are portrayed as heroes and martyrs. Their victims are portrayed as Zionist settlers from whom it is the Palestinians’ sacred duty to reclaim their land. Every violent incident is an opportunity to reinforce public support of what they portray as resistance against the Jews’ confiscation of their territory.
Externally, sporadic violence maintains the attention of the international community towards the conflict. Today especially, when all eyes are on Ukraine, Palestinians are desperate for any attention they can get.
The Palestinians have been building their image as the victims of the conflict for nearly half a century. The violence is consistently perpetrated by Palestinians, or responses to hostilities by Palestinians against Israeli citizens, yet what people hear on the news is “more violence in Israel and/or the occupied territories” and they presume that it is Israel that is perpetrating atrocities against poor innocent Palestinians.
Israelis are informed about all about who the victims are, where they lived, what they did for a living, how many children were orphaned, etc. We view them as human beings. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, teachers, students, co-workers. All the rest of the world hears is that there was yet another incident in the cycle of violence, followed by a recounting of the excuses given by PLO and Hamas officials to justify their ongoing conflict with Israel.
The result is that, on the basis of the limited, context-free information that they receive from the media, people are convinced that Israel need only respond positively to the Palestinians complaints and there would be no more violence. In other words, by committing acts of violence Palestinians, with the media’s help, successfully manage to apply international pressure upon Israel to accede to Palestinian demands. That being the case I think you would agree that acts of violence by Palestinians do indeed promote support for the Palestinian cause, because people are naive and gullible and because the media has an interest in continuing to promote the Palestinian narrative.”
https://www.quora.com/How-is-killing-a-Jewish-woman-in-the-middle-of-the-street-by-a-Hammas-activist-helping-the-Palestinian-cause-I-m-asking-not-to-be-a-troll-but-to-actually-understand-why-they-are-doing-that/answer/Chaim-Handler?ch=3&oid=345884970&share=9b1fab8d&srid=uPynJR&target_type=answer
It’s of course a tragedy for civilians to get killed, especially that well, it hasn’t changed anything on the material basis for Palestinians.
But since you seem in complete denial of quite literally everything, let me reverse things for you.
Does the “Palestinian government” occupy lets say, northern & central Israel with cities like Haifa, Netanya, Nahariyya, Pardes Hanna, Ramat Gan, Bat Yam, Rishon Lezion? Then, does it deny the Israelis living there to go visit relatives in Tel Aviv? Does the Palestinian state enforce a suffocating blockade on Tel Aviv, where million of Israelis are denied access to clean water & electricity, where the Palestinian State gives only 4 hours of electricity and 3 hours of barely potable water? Does it ensure the Israelis don’t have an army, a port, as well as sea & air access? Does it make sure Tel Aviv cannot receive imports & exports? Then, does it call the current head of government in Tel Aviv (being a Jewish Racist extremist government) a Muslim-Hating savage who just wants every single Arab to disappear? Despite the Israelis repeating over and over that the reason why they chose a radical leader was because they simply had enough of the entire Palestinian society who turns a deaf ear on them? Does the Palestinian government have a policy where it can arrest any Israeli civilian and can deny them a right to a trial, lawyer and can also deny them the very right of knowing why they were arrested? Does it also have a prosecution rate of 99.94% of Israeli civilians in their military courts? Does it receive billions in military aid from the USA? Does it possess nuclear weapons? Does it deny Israelis to use certain roads and segregate their cities (see: Hebron)? Did this palestinian government put the Jewish citizens of the west bank under military/martial law from 1948 to 1966 (see: Israeli Arabs)? Was this government recognized as an apartheid state, with apartheid policies enforced all over Northern Israel (see: West Bank)? Does this government allow every single Palestinian living abroad to move there & receive immediate citizenship, all the while denying the right of return for Jews? And then, when the Israeli civilians & Jewish citizens living under Palestinian military rule say “enough” and lash out in desperation, are they called terrorists?
Were Jews in Europe terrorists for resisting against the Nazis? Were the Algerians terrorists for resisting the French? Were indigenous populations terrorists for resisting against the US, Canadian, Australian or New Zealand government? The Vietnamese? Any Nazi-occupied European country? The Koreans & Chinese against the Japanese, the Japanese against the Americans? The Haitian against the French, the Irish against the British?
The only reason why would you call Palestinians terrorists & not every single other population I’ve mentioned is that you somehow think the Israeli government is morally untouchable, that it can not be criticized, that it hasn’t done one single illegal thing since its existence and that everyone raising their voice against what it has done & what it is continuing to do are raging, bloodthirsty, Jew-hater born animals who just JUST despise Jews & want them all dead. I would’ve simply told you that the reason why Palestinians hate Israel & blame their civilians isn’t because they’re Jewish; in fact, Israel could’ve been a Mormon, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist nation-state and it would’ve been equally as hated. But, of course, you would disagree & yell against it because you think as a default starter that Israel is this perfect angelic country that cannot be called out, like any other fucking country.
You, my friend, are heavily brainwashed & thank you for proving Steve’s point 🙂
Interesting and long winded. I lied; not that interesting. What you have posted is nonsense and the mathematical equivalence of dividing by zero.
There is no Palestinian Arab government. There are two Arab authoritarian centers (one by Hamas, the other Fatah) that control the lives of 98% of the Arab population outside of Israel but within the borders of the former British Mandate Palestine.
Israel shares no compatibility with the Nazis in Germany, the French in Haiti, the English in the North America and Australia, the Spanish in North and South America, the Dutch in South Africa, nor the Russians in Ukraine.
The Jews did not invade the Palestinian region with an army. They joined their fellow Jews who had lived there for over 3000 years through legal immigration. They bought the land they lived on. They built homes, farms, schools, hospitals, industries, and democratic institutions. When they grew to be many, the Arab Supremacists, like the white supremacists of Europe and the Americas, rose up to slaughter this upstart minority who refused to acknowledge the superiority of the Arabs.
Yes, I agree, the Arabs would have risen up to try to commit genocide against any people who became a political threat merely because of their presence. You have proven that the Arabs of the region are racist supremacists. Congratulations. Where should I send your cigar?
thank u for proving my point bae!
Since your point was that the Palestinian Arabs are blood thirsty racists who want to kill anyone who might be a challenge to their “supremacy,” I was happy to prove it.
There have been four substantial reports by reputable organisations, accusing Israel of the crimes of apartheid. Can they all be wrong?
The New York Times has no opinion!
Four reports, one conclusion: Israel practices Apartheid.
1. ESCWA Launches Report on Israeli Practices Towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid. 2017
2. B’Tselem. A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid by B’Tselem. January 12, 2021
3. Human Rights Watch. Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.
4. Amnesty International. Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity from Amnesty. February 1, 2032
I see another one of our resident antisemites has no problem with the justification given to decapitate a baby as a moral act of resistance.
As all four reports invent a new definition of Apartheid, specifically written to ensure Israel fits, the NYT most likely believes it is a joke not worth repeating.
However, the 2032 report has yet to be seen.
“It is not uncommon today to see critics of Israel accusing it of being an apartheid state. Whether such a description is being used to describe Israeli policies towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or towards Arab citizens of Israel, the label is inaccurate, offensive, and often used to delegitimize and denigrate Israel as a whole. Moreover, the use of this inaccurate and highly charged label is also counterproductive to resolving issues related to injustices within Israeli society or the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Apartheid usually refers to the guiding policy of racial segregation in pre-1990s South Africa. Apartheid was a racist, repressive system, by which South Africa’s white minority enforced its domination, through a systematic framework of racist legislation, over black and other non-white racial groups who made up more than 90 percent of the country’s population.”
The accusation of apartheid fundamentally distorts what Israel is.
Steve, your readers might like to read this piece from today’s Irish Times.
By Cormac McQuinn 2022-04-06
Former minister for justice Alan Shatter has branded Amnesty International’s use of the term apartheid to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as a “headline-catching big lie”. Mr Shatter was among members of the Ireland Israel Alliance who criticised Amnesty’s recent report entitled “Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity” at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The report outlines what Amnesty International calls “Israel’s institutionalised and systematic discrimination against Palestinians”. The Israeli government has previously rejected the report’s findings claiming it is “biased and based on lies spread by terrorist organisations”. Mr Shatter told yesterday’s committee meeting that “words matter”, they can contribute to peace or they can “exacerbate division, foment hatred and incite and trigger violence, murder and terrorism”. He argued that Amnesty’s report falls into the latter category. He said the report misrepresents a territorial and political conflict relating to Israeli and Palestinian nationhood and identity as a racial conflict.
‘Israel’s apartheid’
Amnesty Ireland responded to Mr Shatter’s remarks with a statement saying “The claims made against Amnesty today have no basis”, arguing they are “intended to distract from the growing consensus on Israel’s apartheid system”. It highlighted similar views of Human Rights Watch and Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem as being part of this consensus. Amnesty said: “Claims that naming an apartheid system for what it is will trigger violence are disingenuous.”
Yousef Haddad, an Arab-Israeli citizen, told the committee that Muslim and Christian Arabs make up 20 per cent of Israel’s population and they work as doctors, diplomats, professional athletes and one was recently appointed as a supreme court judge. “It is true that Israel is a Jewish state but it is also a democratic state,” he said. “While Israel is imperfect and racism exists, it is not systematic but individual.
“Everyday Arabs and Jews are standing side by side working to resolve the problems in our society.” He added: “You know what doesn’t help our society? White Europeans and Amnesty International telling our sovereign nation of Arabs and Jews how to run our country.”
Amnesty responded to his remarks saying: “If some individuals enjoy more rights and protections than others, as our research found across Israel, the OPT [occupied Palestinian territory] and Palestinian refugees, that does not undo the system of domination and oppression imposed by the apartheid system.”
Alan Shatter is Ireland’s own Jock Sigman.
Listening to Alan and Jock is a Pitiful Experience.
It is a horrible experience for antisemites and those who espouse murdering children as moral “resistance.”
It is surprising, and gratifying, that someone in Ireland, famous for refusing to fight Hitler and condemning the Irish soldiers who deserted the Irish Army to help Canada and England fight Hitler, is supporting Israel.
I was on a conference call with supporters of the Palestinian Arab cause when Apartheid came up. I asked why use a concept that does not exist in Israel? The organizer stated, “Well, nothing else has worked.”
As BDS dies an ignoble death, and the Apartheid accusation collapses under its own intolerable weight, what is the next fake accusation? Genocide. Read my book: Israel Committed Genocide! Really? The Accusations and why they are Wrong. https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Committed-Genocide-Really-Accusations-ebook/dp/B01NH2YEZ3/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22KGFUFDJGORD&keywords=israel+committed+genocide%21&qid=1649258227&sprefix=israel+committed+genocide+%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-1
No one wants to read your shitty book, Zionist pig.
Related to breathless? Your prose is as great. Bt I must congratulate Steve on attracting such a well-educated audience.
JC,
Since I posted, 5 more books sold on Amazon. Best publicity in years.
Steve, this is a letter to the Irish Times on Alan Shatter’s statement to the Oireachtas committee.
Israel and Palestine
Sir, – Addressing the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs on behalf of the Ireland-Israel Alliance, Alan Shatter bemoans the alleged “incapacity of people on the Palestinian side to constructively engage” with Israeli leaders (“Alan Shatter claims ‘apartheid’ over Palestinians a ‘big lie’”, News, April 6th).
But what kind of constructive engagement does Mr Shatter propose in response to declarations by successive Israeli prime ministers that there will never be a Palestinian state on their watch, or in response to the 2018 Nation-State Bill which identifies the expansion of colonial settlements as “a national value” which the Israeli state “will labour to encourage and promote”?
Mr Shatter’s astonishing claim that “the settlements are not the obstacle to a resolution of all of this” is gravely at odds with political consensus in Ireland, as demonstrated by last year’s overwhelming Dáil Éireann motion which identified the Israeli state’s settlement project as amounting to “de facto annexation”.
Amnesty International’s thoroughly documented report concurs with earlier reports by Human Rights Watch, the Israeli NGOs B’Tselem and Yesh Din, and of course numerous Palestinian human rights bodies. It is high time that our Government acknowledged the growing consensus among human rights organisations, recognised that the Israeli state does indeed practise the crime of apartheid, and took strong measures accordingly. There is nothing to be gained by the appeasement of expansionist states. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.
Nice whine about no constructive answer to “incapacity of people on the Palestinian side to constructively engage” with Israeli leaders” Is Brian endorsing murdering children as a moral response. The Irish government recognizes the supposed HR NGOs accusations. They are, hopefully, trying to stop laughing while they compose a reply.
But as the Irish government. a democracy that reflects the will of the Irish people, refused to fight Hitler and condemned those Irish soldiers who joined the British and Canadians to fight Hitler, one cannot expect a less than bigoted reply.
Steve, as someone commented to Jock Sigman in a previous article of yours.
“Why are you in these comments? You must feel that Steve Salaita’s words threaten to shed light on the evil that is settler colonialism.”
Cutting to the bone, thanks Thomas Friedman.
shedding light on the evil that is settler colonialism
in Israel especially
and in other places: Kashmir, Xinjiang, …
Okn,
Thank you for pointing out and reminding us that the Arab invasion of Judea in the mid 600s, followed by the Arab settler colonialism of the region, as well as the subjugation of the indigenous population, and the ensuing cultural genocide that followed, was as evil as what China is doing in Xinjang.
Steve,
Your demoralized supporters (they just cannot get over their inferiority complex) might want to read the latest in the legal attack on Ben & Jerry’s antisemitic demands:
“In a rebuttal brief filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, attorneys for Ben & Jerry’s in Israel, also known as American Quality Products (AQP), and its owner Avi Zinger note that Defendant Unilever (in its opposition brief) “Effectively concede[s] that the only reason for not renewing AQP’s license is AQP’s refusal to engage in illegal conduct.”
AQP maintains that Unilever not only ignores but derides as a “side show” the central legal doctrine of the case: universally accepted law condemns termination of a business relationship for one party’s refusal to commit an unlawful act. In this case, that act is: discriminating against customers who live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Moreover, Unilever pejoratively diminishes as a “red herring” the fact that its unlawful demand – AQP stop selling Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in those areas – violates: Israeli law, the 2001 antitrust Consent Decree of the Israeli Competition Authority, United States export law, and the pro-competition and anti-boycott laws and public policies of the United States and many States including New York and New Jersey.
Unilever’s insistence that it possesses an “absolute” right to terminate – or refuse renewal – of AQP’s contract disregards abundant legal precedent that refusal to obey unlawful orders is itself an unlawful precondition for termination or non-renewal. As AQP notes in its brief: “Many courts recognize, and New Jersey law emphatically declares, that even at-will employment, which is terminable for any reason or for no reason at all ‘may not be terminated…in retaliation for…refusal to perform an illegal act.’”
In the absence of the owner of this blog, hopefully to reconsider his “moral” stance of supporting antisemitism, his writings are being re-examined to rebuke the misinformation that is the hallmark of so much of his academic work.
Salaita starts this propaganda piece with “Put aside what they profess to believe and consider instead how Zionists understand Israel. Not “Israel and Palestine.” (You might want to lose that formulation altogether.) Just Israel, as in the settler colony built atop Palestine.”
An interesting allusion. No matter what “Zionists” (read Jews living in Israel and Jews supporting Israel) state about Israel, they are lying, Salaita knows. Salaita knows the truth. That is because Salaita is a Palestinian Arab imbued with the innate sacred knowledge all Palestinian Arabs share. Except Salaita holds no credentials regarding this sacred knowledge, he is an expert on the struggles of Native Americans, of which Edward Said would laugh with scorn, as Salaita is not Native American, making him the equivalent of a British Orientalist.
Putting that aside, let us discuss Salaita’s first misconception – Israel as a settler colony. When the concept was proposed in 1964 by the European father of the settler colonialism accusation, Maxime Rodinson, a French student union retorted:
“Not one of the traits that characterize colonialism the military lending a strong hand to missionaries in order to open up a path for merchants and to make it possible to exploit the labor of the colonized-can be found in the Jewish immigration movement in Palestine. In place of a mother country-Jews chased from one country to another in Europe; in place of soldiers- proletarians and intellectuals armed with pickaxes; merchants (Jews=merchants?) -there were none; as for missionaries, it would be well to recall that Zionism was a lay movement inspired by socialism.”
But this is the guiding principle of those who, like Salaita, continue to make the accusation:
“How is it possible to equate Israel with such odious colonial empires and white racist states as South Africa, Rhodesia, French Algeria? The answer lies in rejecting any single model of colonial takeover, discarding rigidly conceived social formulas, and getting past the abstractions to the essential and concrete features of the complex, contradictory, and unique process which resulted in the creation of Israel.”
Only by rejecting the truth and distorting definitions can Israel be accused of being anything other than one of the most successful “Settler-Refugee” states on Earth.
Mr Sigman, hatred of Jews isn’t taught, it’s through the system of oppression that Israel imposes on Palestinians exclusively that is teaching Palestinians to hate Jews because Jews with the “Jewish only” state is the one doing the oppression. It’s not religious either. Because the Jewish state is doing it to all Palestinians whether they be Jewish, Muslim, or Catholic. Israel is causing it’s own problem by not allowing equality of All it’s citizens. That’s a democracy. Israel now has proven over and over that it certainly is not by it’s own actions. That’s not anti-semitism.
Steve, interesting comment on an Amira Hass article in Haaretz Israeli newspaper.
“ Alas, what Amira and Gideon have proven with their courageous and truthful recording, is the disaster of the most extreme form of settler colonialism that the Israeli population have consented to by their silence, and the election of the ultimate porto-fascistic apartheid regime that is beyond description. They are all participants, serving in an army of occupation and aggression, not a defence force. Now the whole picture is being finalised with no restraint , while the bulldozers are supercharged to search and destroy, and the crazed settlers, armed to the teeth are let loose to terrify, burn and bash, steal and destroy, while still being allowed impunity by the US, Uk and EU, all collaborators in this crime against humanity. The world must act, the UN must come alive, and Diaspora Jewry should wake up to stop the shame being wrought on the very essence of Judaism in their name. Enough is enough!”
To put it simply, Palestinians are fighting for their freedom, Israelis are fighting to ethically cleanse Palestinians and steal their land.
“ Israel – foundling of a failing empire (British) on the backyard of another (Ottoman), within the nightmare shadow of a third (Nazi), adopted by a fourth (US), whose exploitative bid to establish a proxy imperial force in the Middle East and scatter competing candidates for imperial failure (including Soviet, Arab, and Iranian), has helped beget and stiffen this settler-dominated, nuclear, dependent, theocratic, apartheid, political entity (i.e. a state and the territories it has forcibly annexed) of approximately seven million Israelis (mainly Jews) and seven million Palestinians (mainly Muslim) – equivalent to only a third of the population of California – whose perennial conflict is a disproportionately fractious threat to a planet of eight billion.”
https://www.unz.com/article/one-state-terror-and-two-state-bunkum/
Well said! Wish I could talk like that!
So Jack, so it would be ok with you for me to come and hold you at gunpoint to say I’m moving into your house and I’m keeping all your stuff, meanwhile I don’t care where you’ll go because it’s my house now and if you don’t like it I’ll accuse you of antisemitism because a different race owned the land it was on thousands of years ago. Would that be ok Jack? When are you moving out?
Steve, this statement by Gush Shalom is worth a read.
“Please, don’t take away our alibi!”
Why are Biden, Macron, Scholz and Sunak so afraid of Netanyahu’s “judicial reform”?
The plans of the Government of Israel to carry out a “judicial reform”,
aimed at breaking the power of the Supreme Court, are getting enormous attention around the world.
The President of The United States expressed deep concern for the future of Israeli democracy. So did the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany and the British PM and even the European Parliament in its plenary session.
That’s actually a bit strange. The relationship between the Executive Branch
and the Judicial Branch is clearly an internal matter of the State of Israel.
Usually, sovereign states do not interfere in the internal affairs of other states.
But in this case there is good reason for an unusual diplomatic conduct.
Immediately upon its creation, Israel was accepted into a prestigious club called “The Western Democracies”. Israel remained a respected member of the club even after 1967, when it established an occupation rule over millions of Palestinians, which has no resemblance to democracy.
The Western countries say that the occupation is a regrettable but temporary situation, to be resolved by the Two-State Solution. Even when the occupation
has been going on for 55 years, the western countries persist in waiting for
the Two-State Solution. Even if long delayed, come it will!
And meanwhile, Israel is still a democratic country. (Americans like to say “A Vibrant Democracy”.) With democratic Israel it is possible to trade and supply it with submarines and advanced fighter jets and impose on its behalf a veto in the UN and defend it before the International Court in the Hague.
But for all that to happen, Israel – at least, the Israel which is inside the Green Line – must remain democratic. And in recent months this is starting to be cast in doubt. In effect, the Western countries are asking and begging the Government of Israel: “Please don’t take away our alibi! Please, allow us to
continue supporting you!”
A very simple and a reasonable request. But apparently, the Government of Israel is about to reject it.
Gush Shalom statement.