When anti-Zionists discuss the Middle East, the topic of Israel’s existence rarely arises. It’s almost exclusively a pro-Israel talking point. We’re focused on national liberation, on surviving repression, on strategies of resistance, on recovering subjugated histories, on the complex (and sometimes touchy) relationships among an Indigenous population disaggregated by decades of aggression. That a colonial state—or any state, really—possesses no ontological rights is an unspoken assumption.
“Do you recognize Israel’s right to exist?” pretends to honor the downtrodden, but it is an altogether different proposition, transforming sophisticated ideas of liberation into a crude test of political respectability. Prioritizing the state as worthy of relief, as something to which we automatically owe deference, subsumes life to the imperatives of capital.
The fundamental goal of the question is to attribute a sinister position to dissidents. It accomplishes that goal even when the dissidents haven’t promoted destruction. Mere defense of Palestinian life is enough to evoke the settler’s existential fear. For people socialized into orthodoxy, Israel is synonymous with progress, technology, and production. Affirming its existence is an endorsement of the status quo; no matter how ludicrous as a moral premise, in capitalist spaces it is a perfectly sensible demand.
There are plenty of reasons to eschew the demand. The first reason is practical: we don’t advocate for the destruction of human communities, but of ideologies conducive to racism and inequality. It’s both insidious and unethical to conflate Jewish people (of any national origin) with the existence of a violent, rapacious polity. That sort of conflation is a grave disservice to activists and intellectuals devoted to a better world—and to the communities for whom a better world is a necessity of survival. Nobody has ever asked me to affirm another nation-state’s existence, a demand I would likewise decline. Zionists constantly single out Israel for special treatment.
Moreover, it is remarkably impudent for champions of a state founded on the destruction of Palestine and now in its eighth decade of ethnic cleansing to ask the victims of its malevolence for recognition. Even worse, recognition is only the tip of the demand. We’re also being asked to legitimize apartheid and ignore the routine commission of war crimes. The upshot is to validate Israel as a militarized object of Western imperialism—in other words, to affirm the existence of a deeply antihuman entity.
Let’s consider the demand in context of North America, where it’s most frequently issued. Those of us operating in this geography haven’t the authority to abdicate nearly 80 (and arguably 100) percent of historical Palestine. It’s not any Westerner’s prerogative to relinquish Palestine under the pressure of a spuriously humanistic insistence by Zionists that their perfidy be excused because it will somehow make us more responsible citizens.
I am happy, eager even, to affirm the right of Jewish people to live in peace and security, wherever that may be, a right all humans deserve in no particular order of worthiness. But I won’t ratify Israel’s bloody founding or its devotion to racial supremacy. Ultimately, when Zionists demand that you affirm Israel’s right to exist, what they really seek is affirmation of Palestinian nonexistence.
Beyond these philosophical, political, and practical factors, there’s a worthy psychological reason to refuse the demand. Zionists are the bully in this supposed conflict and enjoy nearly universal support in centers of political and economic power. They have more funds, access to corporate media, and the backing of the US military. Palestinians, however, hold one form of power that doesn’t require money, platforms, or weaponry: the ability to withhold legitimacy from Israel. It is a small power, without a material apparatus, but it is power, nevertheless, one that only a fool or opportunist would relinquish. When an oppressor makes submission the basis of civic responsibility, insolence is the only dignified response.
As a member of JVP I follow any postings by you and the EI. It is so clear to me that being a Jew is not synonymous with supporting anything the Israel government does in the name of “security”. Keep up your posting.
Also in JVP, I support nothing done by the Zionist entity in the name of “security,” in the name of Judaism in any form, or, indeed, in the name of practically anything–and especially not in my name. Lenin correctly (if chauvinistically) defined “the state” as “an armed body of men.” The idea of a state reduces to the way in which the ruling class obtains its will: through its army (and police, and press, and all the other instruments of rule, but at bottom, through the army). The way to invert the evil of the state in the hands of capitalist rulers is through, ultimately, securing the noninterference (or, perhaps much better, the actual allegiance) of the armed forces in a program to transform all social and economic institutions into benign and humane forms. The order of march here is not preordained, predestined, or even necessarily fully controllable–but the step of taking apart the state by rendering the army nugatory is one that must be fully taken before a revolution can be secured. My point is simply this: no “state” has a right to exist, ipso facto, except for the actions taken by the oppressed classes to secure their program of transformation.
As long as you do not support a Palestinian Arab state, that is fine.
Lenin also called Russia under the tzars “a prisonhouse” of nations and thus he championed the right of an imprisoned nation to free itself from its bonds. Likewise, I support a Palestinian nation. Lenin’s writings on these questions were suppressed by the Stalinists, but they remain and form the basis of the path to freedom now being taken via BDS and other struggles.
Let me know when Israel installs a Romanoff dynasty and leads pogroms against Palestinian Arabs for the sole crime of being born an Arab. Until then, your platform is merely a recipe for genocide.
Coming from a supporter of genocide, Jack Sigman, who conveniently leaves out the fact that ‘countries’ are a 20th-century construct. 75% of the countries now in existence didn’t exist in 1918 when that famous anti-Semite, Balfour, gave away Palestine to European Jews, a state that was already populated by Jewish/Christian/Muslim Palestinians. Seems to me he conveniently forgets what the rabbis of Vienna said on the prospects for a Jewish state in Palestine. The report concluded that “the bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man”.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/sep/15/politics1
Thank you for that amazing bit of misinformation. Lord Balfour gave nothing to anyone. The British government, after much deliberation, decided to support the Zionist movement as far as establishing a national home, after the war, which would be a favorable condition for Jews to legally emigrate to their ancient homeland.
It is interesting that you repeat a thoroughly debunked invented story about some rabbis from Austria traveling to the ottoman Palestinian region. No one knows their supposed names, the date of their journey, the whereabouts of the telegram, or anything else about them. However, why the story is often repeated by hate mongers and liars is well known.
Professor, you are absolutely correct…this has been my position for over 60 years.
My father was Jewish. Born in 1918 in Romania. During WWII, he joined the resistance (Romania was an Axis state). He was caught, imprisoned, tortured and barely escaped with his life.
When in the 60’s he had a chance to emigrate to Israel he refused. He told me that Israel “was a stain upon the Jewish faith.”
Anyone who knows the history of the creation and expansion of the Zionist state would agree.
Thank you for that anecdotal information. Interesting that Romania did not expel the Germans, as did Poland and Czechoslovakia. But then Romania was exceptionally antisemitic.
Another worthwhile essay that should be distributed and read. Please keep on writing.
Thank you
Than you Steve Salaita, for your exemplary clarity and lucidity. Your writing is a beacon.
Israel has no right to exist. No country does or we would still have Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and a dozen African countries. Only people have the right to exist, and Israel has been denying Christian and Muslim Palestinians that right for 72 years. Greta
If the majority of the people of the state say it has the right to exist, then it has that right. In the cases that you make your illegitimate point, the people of those states agreed to split up the state or the federation, USSR, ceased to be able to exist and thus its components reverted back to the original states.
Ridiculous comment from someone who is obviously a Zionist. The majority of the people in Palestine/Israel DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE BECAUSE THEY ARE OCCUPIED. Your illegitimate argument is exactly why those of us who support the rights of Palestinians also support a one-state solution for everyone living there. We look forward to the time Israel ceases to exist as the racist/colonial state that it is and reverts back to Palestine, a state for Jews, Christians, Muslims, Druze, atheists or any other religion. It was once like that. And it will be again.
Wonderful rebuttal from someone who is obviously an ethical and moral person!
Thank you. I try hard.
Thanks Shiva. I believe you were referring to me and not the Zionist
Belief is not fact.
All of the citizens of Israel have the right to vote in Israel. All of the Palestinian Arabs believe they have a state named Palestine and when their task masters; Hamas and Fatah, allow them to vote, I am sure they will vote. Your support of the dictators who run the disputed territories is immoral and abhorrent. We look forward to the time the Palestinian Arab people rise up and destroy Hamas and Fatah so that they will be free to negotiate with Israel, honestly and openly, so that they can start to build their eventual state.
Palestine was never anything but a name. It was never a state. And as long as they listen to people like you, they will never be a state.
Wow, you really are a piece of work. Do you live there? Do you have any idea what an occupied people look like? I have lived and worked there. I have seen the brutality and the oppression of Israeli Jews against Christian and Muslim Palestinians, both in and out of the so-called state of Israel, a place that never existed before 1948.
Since you are such a firm believer in the Palestinians rising up and overthrowing their rightfully-elected representatives, Hamas (and we discount the quisling Fatah that works for Israel), I guess those of us who work for justice in Palestine have the same right to fervently hope the 12 million people living in what used to be Palestine will rise up and shake off the racist/colonial state of Israel. I look forward to that day.
Indeed, I am an exceptionally well educated piece of work. We all know that the Jewish State (as declared by the UNGA) of Israel did not exist until may of 1948. We all also know that there has never been a state called Palestine, but British Mandate Palestine did come close.
As the terms of office have expired for all elected leaders of the Palestinian Arabs, none are legitimately in office. As that same leadership refuses to allow elections, that makes them dictators, no longer rightfully-elected representatives, and you know that. Of course, I have seen the murder of Palestinian Arabs by the Hamas dictators. You have too.
As long as you continue to spread false information, you are not working for justice. You are working to fulfill your hate-filled agenda, which includes genocide.
Here’s the thing, jack. I’ve looked you up. You write Zionist revisionist nonsense. You don’t live in Palestine/Israel. You write a blog for that terrible rightwing rag, Times of Israel, founded by some hedge fund manager and a known Zionist so-called journalist who served in the IOF. You are also an American and an apologist for the Israeli genocide of Christian and Muslim Palestinians. You don’t even live in Israel, yet my Palestinian children have no right to return to Safad where their father was raised or Bethlehem where he was born. I consider that the height of evil. Why are you expecting the Palestinians to pay the price for what Europe did to the Jews? Palestinians are the final victims of WW II.
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/10/26/the-myth-of-the-u-n-creation-of-israel/
Here is the thing, Greta. There is no need to look you up. Posting drivel from a nutcase whose sole credential is a BA in the worthless field of communication is an indication of your intellectual bankruptcy.
As Israel has never committed genocide, no one need be an apologist for something that never happened. However, the Arabs committed acts of genocide that no one feels the need to apologize.
The height of evil is the denial of some Arab to travel to some place where they never lived? Really? Do you wonder why no one takes you seriously? For this you support the genocide of the Jews?
apparently, you really do need to look me up but perhaps your age and inability to learn how to GOOGLE has prevented you from doing that, Jack. My sympathies. My BA is in English and Theatre, my masters of fine arts is theatre and communication, and I’m one semester away from a degree in mechanical engineering, something I didn’t need to finish, since, after 35 years of working in the oil biz, I knew the technology quite well.
You, on the other hand, appear to be not only a neophyte when it comes to looking up people’s bios, but you continue to apologize for the genocidal policies of Israel. I’ve posted links. I’m sure you haven’t read them, perhaps you don’t know how to open a link.
And before you get all hissy again, and start frothing at the mouth, my second husband was an anti=Zionist Jew who didn’t believe Israel had the right to exist as a Jewish state. He would have laughed at your silly comments had he still been alive.
Check out http://www.freegaza.org. Maybe you’ll actually learn something.
PS. My Palestinian husband was born in Bethlehem, Palestine in 1929, and when he was 19, fought against the terrorist Jewish European gangs in Safad, Palestine where he was raised. He was forced to flee with his family in April 1948, and, according to all international laws, his children have the right to return. You do know that law, don’t you? He was a Nakba survivor
You, on the other hand, have no legal right to live in Palestine and you apparently don’t. So stop being a dog in the manger and retire gracefully and stop getting your information from a rag like Times of Israel.
Look you up? Why would I look up such a font of misinformation like you? if I have no desire to look someone like you up, how does that make me a “neophyte” of anything? Your second husband, an accidental Jew, is not interesting either. So you are not an engineer. This makes you what?
As for your other husband, he was not born in Palestine. He was born in British Mandate Palestine. He could claim he was born in the Palestinian region, much as Spaniards can claim the were born in Iberia.
There is no international law granting any of your family the right to move into Israel. International opinion is just another name for mob rule. He had the conditional opportunity to return, but he refused to meet the condition which was the desire to live in peace with his Jewish neighbors.
Why would I want to live in the imaginary state of “Palestine?” You are so busy killing each other. However, there is an Israeli law giving me the opportunity to become an Israeli citizen if I chose to move to Israel.
Oh my God, I leave for a few days and the whiner, Jack, is still here spouting nonsense. The right of return is enshrined in international law, which means Palestinians have the right to return to their land. The law of return is some crazed bullshit passed by the Israeli government and has no standing anywhere except Israel, the rogue country busy committing genocide every day. Most of who have worked and lived, even some who are from that rogue nation know that. People like jack give Zionism a bad name.
There is no such human right as a ‘right to return.” Enshrined in UN res 194 was a very conditional opportunity for the Arabs who left to come into the Jewish state of Israel. They refused the condition.
I did notice your name associated with an amazing set of lies you told about the very violent activists of the Mavi Marmara.
The Israeli law of return is an Israeli law. Why would anyone expect an Israeli law to have standing anywhere but Israel? Croatia has a genocide law. It has no standing outside Croatia. The ICJ made that ruling in 2015.
Thank you for proving that you have no idea what genocide is.
I just learned you were thrown out of JVP for being an antisemite. Will wonders never cease?
I think “the right of Jewish people to live in peace and security” is also an ontological trap of a similar nature. No one has the “right” to live on stolen land, and whether the “Jewish people” (whatever that means) has a right to live in peace and security in Palestine is something that should be entirely up to the Palestinians, and no one else.
Yes, you make a great point, one that would require more elaboration than the scope of the piece here. I’m glad you pressed against the boundaries of this argument–Steve
As the land of Israel was not stolen, your point, well taken, is not relevant.
As there does appear to be a sinister position from those who support and promote BDS. That position is the ending of Israel as the state of the Jews. As Israel is not a “violent, rapacious polity,” there should be no issue regarding conflating the Jews with its existence.
Indeed, the reason for Israel’s existence is to be a refuge for the Jews. Particularly as no state sought to help the Jews during the Holocaust. The Palestinian Arab cause is identified with the Holocaust in a negative way as their leadership, bot physical and spiritual aligned with Nazi Germany. And it would seem the loudest voices coming out of the Palestinian Arab camp call for the annihilation of Israel.
So without security guarantees, all you dreams will come to naught.
All your posts here have been for naught, solely in virtue of the fact that stomping your foot and wishing that something is so, does not guarantee that it is.
And lo and behold, despite your aggressive foot-stomping and wishful thinking to the contrary, the blood-stained, racist, war-crime and apartheid tainted colonial history of Israel has not magically disappeared and been replaced by a benign one… you have failed in your purpose here, and wasted yours and everyone else’s time in the process.
Israel has no colonial history. It is blood stained, particularly the blood of Jews spilt by Arabs. There is no “Apartheid” in Israel. Your time has no worth and thus cannot be wasted.
Steve, one of the issues I have with the arguments you make is that they refuse to acknowledge the real reason Israel gained enough votes in the United Nations to become a country in 1948: that many Jewish survivors of the Holocaust had nowhere to go after the war and genocide. Most countries would not have them, so many Jewish refugees began emigrating to then-British-occupied Palestine, and were often met with aggression and sometimes violence (yes, many Palestinian Arabs assisted the Nazis during the war because of their anti-Semitism). Israel was voted into existence to give these Jewish “orphans” (from a country perspective) a place to legally go, build a life, and try to heal from the atrocities. As a Jew, it bothers me that this is NEVER acknowledged by the side claiming Israel has no right to exist. This history does give legitimacy to Israel’s exisistence without deligitimizing the Palestinians’ rights to exist too. Now, the legitamcy does NOT excuse Israel’s policy of Palestianian displacement, and it does NOT excuse the illegal Jewish settlements encroaching into Palestinian land. And as a Jew, this is where I disagree with the Israeli government and oppose its policies. And I stand with the Palestinian people who call for justice and the end to apartheid policies. However, I do think both sides are to blame for a portion of the violence that got us here today, and peace will never be possible until both sides admit their wrongs, both past and present. Currently, Israel has the greater power and is playing the part of oppressor, but even if we can move past such unjust policies, both Jews and Palestinians need their pain to be validated in order for true healing to begin.
Shari, I would love for that to be the real reason as it would show the humanity of the world. However, there was certainly a lot of arm twisting that went into ensuring a few states either voted in favor or abstained.
As for Israeli citizens building communities on disputed territory; it is ill-advised and not accepted by International opinion, but it is not illegal. No sovereign state has had “legal” sovereignty over that particular piece of land since the British mandate ended. Therefore, no building anywhere by anyone since 1949 has any legal status.
There are no apartheid practices occurring in Israel. The Palestinian Arab concept of justice is different than western civilizations concept of justice. However, while I do not agree with all of Israel’s policies, I do not see much difference between the institutional racism seen in many western states and that in Israel. It is wrong, but the state is run by human beings, not machines.
Israel is not the oppressor. Israel is the defender of the rights of the citizens of Israel, especially the right to life. By the way, what current Israeli policy calls for Arab displacement other than from illegally built structures?
Jack, there was a fantastic documentary I watched from PBS a couple of years ago -I forget its name, so I will have to research it and get back on that-which interviewed dozens of Palestinians, mostly from Gaza, who were displaced from their homes by the state soon after Israel was established, to allow for some of the Jewish refugees from the war to live there. I was horrified when I learned of this because it felt betraying: how could we implement the same policies that was done to our people by the Nazis? Even our own U.S. representative, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, has told the story of her Palestianian grandmother who was forced from her land in Israel and never allowed to return. Many of these stories are now coming to light, so it does appear Israel had a policy of Palestinian displacement, as many of these peoples’ grandchildren are now fighting for their parents to be allowed to return. This is why I say the Israeli government is acting as the oppressor right now, but yes, you’re right, it still does defend its citizens as well and has every right to. Also, on the topic of the Jewish settlements, they have been deemed illegal by the international community, but no one enforces it, which is where the conflict brews from. I have been on Birthright and seen the beauty that is Israel, and visited Yad Vashem, and placed my hand on The Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, and I love Israel. But the Palestinians are fighting a valid fight too. I draw the line at dissolving Israel though. Its reason for existence has nothing to do with creating an ethnostate based in Jewish supremacy. It is about preserving a part of our culture that was almost eliminated, and giving the survivors of that genocide a place to start anew. This is why I support a two-state solution, but both sides need to get onboard to live peacefully side by side.
Shari,
Israel did not implement the same policies as Nazi Germany. Appearances are deceiving. However, your statement could be a reflection on how so many Jewish Israelis brush their teeth in the same manner as German Nazis. In 2005, the Israeli government ethnically cleansed Gaza of Jews, making it Judenrein. Force had to be used. One could honestly state that Jews were taking the same actions Nazis did. However, intention counts despite the road it paves.
Israel did have a policy of clearing out villages near the front lines during the civil war and during the first Arab-Israeli War. As the Arab rhetoric was certainly genocidal, it seems quite reasonable. After all, the only real lesson of the Holocaust is that when a state threatens to kill you and your family, believe the threat and act accordingly.
International opinion is not international law. UNGA resolutions do not have the force of law. UNGA resolutions do not dictate international law.
The re-creation of Israel has nothing to do with preserving Jewish culture. That is just gravy. The meat of the matter is establishing a place of refuge, controlled and defended by Jews, from an antisemitic world. I cannot stand the institutional racism, which appears in most liberal democracies, especially the US, but all Israeli citizens have the same civil, political, and human rights, if not the same obligations. There is nothing that Nazi Germany did to Jews that Israel is doing to Palestinian Arabs who are under the Palestinian Authority or who are voluntarily non-citizen residents of Jerusalem.