(Graffiti left by Israeli soldiers in a house in Al-Zeytoun from the recent war in Gaza. Photo: Rose Mishaan)
Yesterday the LA Times ran an article by Judea Pearl entitled "Is anti-Zionism hate?" to go along side Ben Ehrenreich's blockbuster anti-Zionist op-ed "Zionism is the problem." Gabriel over at Jews sans frontieres offers a great rejoinder to most of Pearl's arguments. I wanted to take on just one.
In his article Pearl writes:
Anti-Zionism rejects the very notion that Jews
are a nation — a collective bonded by a common history — and,
accordingly, denies Jews the right to self-determination in their
historical birthplace. It seeks the dismantling of the Jewish
nation-state: Israel.Anti-Zionism earns its discriminatory character
by denying the Jewish people what it grants to other historically
bonded collectives (e.g. French, Spanish, Palestinians), namely, the
right to nationhood, self-determination and legitimate coexistence with
other indigenous claimants.Anti-Semitism rejects Jews as equal
members of the human race; anti-Zionism rejects Israel as an equal
member in the family of nations.
My first response to this was that my historical birthplace is Philadelphia and not Israel. Then I thought about Pearl's claim that anti-Zionists are denying Israel's rightful place in the "family of nations" where they can exercise "the
right to nationhood, self-determination and legitimate coexistence with
other indigenous claimants." To this, I would only ask Pearl to respond to the photo above. What about this photo says "legitimate coexistence with
other indigenous claimants"?
Earlier in his article Pearl tries to claim the two-state solution as the vision of Zionism. That may have been possible at one point but no longer. Revisionist Zionism has become the dominant strand of Zionist thinking. It is doctrinally opposed to a just two-state solution and instead sees endless conflict as the only future with the "indigenous claimants" of Palestine. The war in Gaza, and the ongoing siege, is just the latest example of this militaristic and racist mindset.
The war in Gaza has made it clear to more and more people that it is not
possible for Zionism to legitimately coexist with Palestinians. It has opened space for the LA Times to run articles like Ehrenreich's and led many more people to ask the same questions he's asking. In the end, the irony is that Israel is providing the world all the evidence it needs to question Israel's place in the "family of nations." Anti-Zionists are simply connecting the dots.
