The Case Against Israel

The Case Against Israel
If you ever had the chance to get in an argument with a Zionist enthusiast, and if the argument takes an intellectual level, and if you both come to the importance of the most essential human values: freedom and justice, and if that Zionist is someone who reads, he is most likely going to suggest one book for you to read: The Case for Israel. To me, the book’s title sounds as if it was cut off one of the cheap tabloids you see at the newsagents’ but never get to know their name. Anyway, since I used four, next to impossible ifs (for, as a Palestinian you are very unlikely to be in the same street as an Israeli Zionist- that’s illegal, it is very likely for any potential argument to take an intellectual turn, for the slurs and “terrorist”, “Al-qaida”, “Suicide bombings” and all this flow of useless labelling and attaching of the Palestinian struggle to international terrorism would make you want to end right there and then, It is highly unlikely that a Zionist enthusiast would have a clear understanding of what justice and freedom are so long as they don’t relate to Jews. I would not like to make the fourth generalisation, for I am sure Zionists read, it is just that so many of them are so indulged in that utter nonsense propaganda, which makes it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.) I want to move on to my main concern, the Case Against Israel.
You see, nations exist by virtue of their belief of themselves as a nation. To me, there is no other determinant so long as a group of people decide to call themselves so. However, the right to a state of their own is different. Personally, I believe nation states were the worst development in Europe since the middle ages. The post-Westphalian political system, allowed for the establishment of such states that were totally unfamiliar to us in the East, it reinstated the concept of Cuius regio, eius religio a concept totally familiar to us in the East. However, that system considered the whole world to be centred in Europe, “Cuius regio, eius religio” only gave two choices: Catholicism and Lutheranism, the nation state sovereignty was only a European matter- from then on, colonialism fever swept across Europe like a plague of an unforgotten time.
So Zionists took up the idea, as it suited them. The elites of the Jewish people in Europe found that their interests are best protected by a nation state of their own. So they embarked on creating a nation for their envisioned state. This quest, of course, found fertile ground in anti-Semitic Europe of the time.
When they came to Palestine, there was no Palestinian state, that is true. It is also true that to a large extent Palestinian nationalism was only in its infancy. However, the people who nowadays consider themselves Palestinians were living on that land. They owned it, and lived of it, regardless of their way of life. Regardless if, in Europe, it was consider uncivilised to live as nomads, or to make a living almost absolutely of agriculture. Regardless, also, if these people have not got their way around colonising enough countries to steal enough cotton to create enough mills to constitute an industrial revolution. Regardless of everything, a group of people lived in Palestine.
Of course, they were not satisfied with the Ottomans. They were not satisfied with the tax laws. The low educational attainment was not satisfactory. They were not satisfied with the almost feudal power of a handful of elite families. But they continued to live there.
When the Zionists made their first arrivals in the late 19th century, these people lived and owned most of the land. The Zionists, who wanted a national homeland were oblivious to the existence of another people in the land. They established their yeshuv, literally, the settlement, a totally Jewish society that ran parallel to the existing Palestinian one.
When the presence of so many Zionists with a plan to create a “Jewish Homeland” in Palestine became a visible reality to Palestinians (who by then considered themselves so), they had to demand assurances from the British that such a plan would not be implemented. Such demands took various forms, some were violent, others were not. However, there is no reason to assume that such protest is not apt. For in no custom, except in that of colonialism, did the ownership of less than 7% of the total land area entitle a people for national sovereignty over the whole land.
The British were more Catholic than the Pope on this one. It was them who had earlier given the Balfour declaration, a promise to the Jews of Europe to National Homeland, in an area neither of them has control over or owns.
So contrary to all customs and traditions in international relations, the Zionists established a state of their own, having constituted less than a third of the total population, they occupied more than three quarters of the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. To top it, they forced the displacement of over half the population of Palestine, and dispossessed them of their property. Not only that, but they gave this property a Jew-Only tag when it was hastily transferred to Keren Kiyemet LiYesrael- The Israel arm of the Jewish National Fund.
Once Israel was established, and although it committed itself to “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex”, it continued to oppress its remaining non-Jewish citizens (Arabs) by enforcing Pass Laws, and stripping them of civil liberties and political rights.
Israel has thus been established based on a colonialist supremacist ideology that viewed its main beneficiaries to hold a higher status than others. It was a primarily elitist idea created in 19th century Europe thousands of miles away from the place it sought to establish its state in. It was primarily established on the ruins of another society, and its current inhabitants, while might not be directly guilty of the massacres committed on their behalf, and while they might not support the current and ongoing crimes committed by their state, they continue to benefit of the plight of others. Israel continues to oppress a whole nation, on the assumption that Jewish need for a safe haven is far more important than that of the Palestinians.
The nature of Israel, as a Jewish state, does not enable it to be even remotely responsive to the needs of non-Jews in its society. That’s why, when I cry out loud that I don’t support Israel’s right to exist, I am not anti-Semitic. I am not a criminal or a terrorist. I am not calling to drive the Jews into the sea. I am only seeing what others refuse to see, what everyone else is turning a blind eye to. That is: Israel’s right to exist is primarily, and most importantly, its right to dispossess and oppress another people. And if you are really supportive of justice and freedom, then you also will renounce this right- it is not a crime to renounce what is rotten at its roots. That, simply, is my case against Israel.