Yes, Israel has the fourth-largest army in the world, with nuclear weapons, and the support of the Imperial High Command in Washington. Yes, per Bresheeth-Ã... ½abner, "Israelis, of left, right and center, do not doubt that they can continue to oppress and suppress Palestinians with impunity." Yes, "Palestinians have been abandoned by the west, by the Arabs, by Israeli liberals, and by liberals the world over." And, yes, after securing the betrayal of a few Arab monarchies, Jared Kushner crowed, "We are witnessing the last vestiges of what has been known as the Arab-Israeli conflict." So, Mission Accomplished?
Problem is, there's those seven million Palestinians whose lives Israel must control, and who, despite being betrayed by Arab countries, ignored by Western liberals, and crushed again and again by arrogant Israelis armed with American-supplied weapons and impunity, just won't stop rebelling against their subjugation. The impossible-to-ignore breadth of betrayal itself, capped off by the accelerated ethnic cleansing that, it is now evident, none of them can escape, has only created unprecedented Palestinian unity and solidarity. Even the streets of '48 Israel are burning with rage. Israel has erased the Green Line, and the Palestinian General Strike has forgotten it.
As David Hearst says, the Abraham Accords--Netanyahu and Trump's gambit "that opening relations with Arab states was the means by which he could bypass a Palestinian state and ignore Palestinian rights"--have been revealed as a "delusion," and the Arab signatories to be fools as well as traitors. Add to that the always-obvious but always-ignored fact that, as Sharmine Narwani put it: "Strip away the spin and the gloss, and you quickly realize that Israel doesn't even have the basics of a normal state. After 64 [now 73] years, it doesn't have borders... and it needs a gargantuan military just to stop Palestinians from walking home." Add to that the fact that the deceptive historical and ethical narrative of Zionism has been exposed and discredited for everyone who peers outside the mainstream-media Overton window--and that's too many people. Israel's feared "de-legitimization" has already left the barn; Gaza and Sheikh Jarrah are just sealing the door.
All of which makes it possible for Hearst to say: "The project to establish Israel as a Jewish state has never been in more peril than it is now, when it thinks it is on the cusp of victory." After all, Israel, as the "regime of Jewish supremacy," depends on a program of brutally colonizing seven million people forever, with the necessary acceptance and approval of the rest of the world. History has some lessons about that. "No justice, no peace," isn't just a slogan; it's political analysis. Given who has what to lose in the actual context, if those seven million Palestinians continually rile thing up and make life uncomfortable for their colonial masters, there'll be a lot of the latter re-settling on the East Bank. Of the Hudson.
Like Hearst, I have favored words like "project" and "enterprise" over "state" because I also see an Israeli state as the unfinished project of the Zionist enterprise. As I've remarked before, the question: "Does Israel have a right to exist?"--which we rightfully deconstruct as demanding our ratification of the colonial ethnic cleansing whereby Zionists have established 1948 Israel, should really be deconstructed further. It is not about the past, but the present and the future. It is actually asking--and that is why Zionists are so insistent on getting our answer--"Will Israel exist?" It is asking: "Do you accept the legitimacy of Zionists to be establishing a colonial-settler Jewish State, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, brutally enforced submission, and all?" The settlers' motto is "Finish '48!" Because the Nakba isn't over, and never will be. Just look.
Israel does not yet exist, because seven million Palestinians still do. And we have to be aware, as Bresheeth-Ã... ½abner warns us, that: "Israel has been preparing for many years for a window of political opportunity - a historical juncture which will enable it to vacate Palestine of most of its remaining indigenous population." We cannot let this uprising or the next become Zionism's next big opportunity.
Every American is engaged in this fight now, and must make a choice--because their government has already made one for them, the choice for Zionism, which silence and inaction ratify. The clear and simple choice we all make is either to continue to support Israeli Zionism, which is colonialism, ethno-religious supremacy, and apartheid, or to oppose and defeat it.
Don't overcomplicate it. It really is a simple choice. This is Zionism:
These settlers taking over Palestinian homes are exactly right: This is the essential activity of Zionism: Taking other people's homes. This is what how the unfinished project of Israel was started, what it still is, and always will be, "at the expense of the Arabs who lived here." This is what Palestinians are being asked to reconcile themselves to.
This is colonialism, ethno-religious supremacism, ethnic cleansing--intrinsically, apartheid. The notion that the historical burden of one people is to surrender their land and homes to, and be subjugated by, another. There is no defense of it.
This is what one supports if one supports Israel and Zionism. This is what one accepts if one accepts Zionism.
This is what every major US politician, every media institution, and every major academic institution support when they support Israel.
This--which is only possible because of US military, political, diplomatic, and financial support--is what you abet when you ignore and stay silent about it. This, and all the past (Iraq, Libya), ongoing (Syria), and future (Iran) wars and aggressions in support of it
This is just wrong.
How much longer?
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