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.
