Is anti-Zionism coming in from the cold? Jonathan Chait denounced me for saying I was an anti-Zionist, as if that proved everything, and put me in steerage. But here is Kevin Coval, a poet who was disinvited from the J Street conference, saying why he is not a Zionist for a lot of good modern American reasons. Sure sounds kinda anti-Zionist to me. What do you think?
I cannot believe in the integrity of the Zionist project. It’s built on bodies and lies. It denies the existence of people and a people. One of its slogans, rooted in the same malicious revisionism as American History and Holocaust denial, is, A land without people, for a people without land. Columbus didn’t discover shit. He enacted the desires of Empire and the fetishization of "discovery". The formation of the State of Israel is rooted in blood and deceit, is the same story as all colonies built in the name of Imperialism, Capitalism and Dehumanization. Therefore, I am not Zionist.
I am not Pro-Israel because in January Israel murdered over 1400 Palestinians. They bombed schools and hospitals. They bulldoze homes and bodies. Israel builds a separation wall, as Germany did, as the United States does between here and Mexico, as the rich do between themselves and the rest of us. I am not a believer in borders. I have been mistaken for Italian, Puerto Rican, Arab and Muslim, but I am a suburban Jew who sought out hip-hop cultural space across red lines and Chicago segregation. I learned borders are to be contended and crossed. Israel believes in borders. Israel practices apartheid. On one side, irrigated lawns and swimming pools in illegal Israeli settlements. On the other side, Palestinian disenfranchisement, people denied access to drinking water, medical assistance, jobs, the ability to earn an income or vote in the country that governs them, that limits their movement with passports, checkpoints and curfews and closes them into open-air prisons. I cannot be in favor of these practices, nor the state that enacts them. These practices are to be resisted, protested and pushed against. People whose bodies are legislated against, contained, detained, and maimed by state sanctioned terror are to be stood with and listened to.
This week has provided clarity. This is not a complex issue. There is the brutality of government(s) and the need for the liberation of a people, all people. I am a Jewish person who stands with Palestinian people relegated to second-class citizenship and Israeli soldiers who refuse to enact racist militarism. I am not a nationalist; therefore I am not a Zionist. I am against the oppression of any person and people. I am not a builder of walls. I believe in equity and democratic practice, therefore I am not pro-Israel. I am an advocate for truth, justice and reconciliation. I believe in this. I believe in this now. I believe in the work ahead.
One voice at a time.
It used to be the norm that Jewish Americans were ant-Zionist or non-Zionist. So why should it be such a big deal now?
i guess one could be called anti-insane, but it wouldn’t be a negative thing… consider this similar….
knock ‘em out da box, kev!
There are physical walls you can touch, e.g., on certain stretches of the USA-Mexican border; those Israeli walls dividing Palestinians from their own self-preservation and ambition;
the former Berlin wall I spent my later teen years monitoring; in antiquity, the Chinese Wall. And there are walls of the mind; us versus the Other, both racist and religious.
Frolic down J-Street?
Please.
What is it about walls? Certainly they’ve been erected all over the place for a long time, both physically and mentally.
Walls, Phil’s shiksa (Yankee) wife speaks through her ancestors:
link to bartleby.com
View of Mending Wall:
link to english.illinois.edu
I am not a nationalist This muddies the “dual loyalty” issue a bit doesn’t it. Well I like it – but where I come from there are more people who already become nervous at the mere sight of a flag.
Well,
I’m still pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-Palestinian.
One of these things is not like the other… one of these things does not belong…
The expansion project is built on bodies and lies. The Zionist project is built on need and rising to it.
The Arab project is similarly built on bodies and lies, as is the militant Palestinian, as is the Marxist, as is the imperialist.
In that silhouette (those that aren’t built on bodies and lies), there isn’t anybody left.
Actually, there is some left, civilian Israelis and civilian Palestinians.
J Street’s people. Lovers of Israel. Lovers of Palestine.
Well. If you forget Israel’s mandatory military conscription, of course. Though I suppose you’ll come up with some moral equivocation that makes those 300 children slaughtered in Gaza culpable as “military targets,” so.
The Zionist project is the expansion project. It always has been. Name a time in Israel’s history when Israel wasn’t razing Palestinian homes. Or assassinating Palestinian leaders. Or confiscating natural resources from others.
I recognize the legality of Israel with its 7.5 million citizens. I recognize the legality of the nation of Switzerland with its 7.6 million citizens. But I’m not a Zionist, and I don’t even know the word for someone who recognizes the rights of the Swiss to their own state. It seems quite unnecessary.
Just like Zionism.
There is no need for Jews to feel bad about not being Zionists.