Editor’s Note: The One Democratic State Campaign released this statement on February 21, 2023. Mondoweiss occasionally publishes press releases and statements from organizations in an effort to draw attention to overlooked issues.
The Alternative: Building a Movement of Liberation Against a Colonial Regime, not Demonstrating to Defend “Jewish Democracy”
February 21, 2023
Since Israel’s Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, announced sweeping “reforms” in Israel’s judicial system, intended to nullify the power of the Supreme Court to declare laws unconstitutional and to pack the judiciary with political appointees, a regime based on settler colonialism, apartheid and Jewish supremacy over Palestinians has been debating how to preserve itself as “a democracy”. A growing protest movement has arisen calling for civil disobedience, including “militant” statements of defiance by former senior political, security and military officials.
No one can predict how this confrontation will end. It is clear, however, that it represents solely an internal Zionist dispute. The protests never reference the other side of Israeli “democracy”: the exclusion of Arab citizens, who the “opposition” leaders make clear are neither welcome to join the protests nor are even considered a legitimate part of the political system. On the contrary. The leadership of the opposition believes that conspicuous participation of Palestinians in the demonstrations might actually harm their struggle against the government, since it gives the ruling coalition of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich a pretext for smearing the protests as “anti-Zionist”. And, needless to say, those who struggle to “preserve democracy”, the Zionist “liberals”, have never even pretended to recognize the national and democratic rights of the Palestinians living under a cruel regime of colonial apartheid in the 1967 Occupied Territories, the refugee camps and the Exile.
Regardless whether the coalition and the opposition in Israel reach a settlement or whether the rifts that have developed within the state and the settler society will remain incurable, our Palestinian people continue their struggle and their legendary steadfastness. Nonetheless, given the political realities, a debate has arisen within the political elite of the 1948 Palestinians over how to best respond to the events. Leaders of some Arab political parties and a handful of activists do call for participation in the demonstrations of the Zionist opposition. The overwhelming majority of our people, however, refrain from participating, realizing the moral contradiction and political harm that such participation entails.
We are not observing a class struggle. The colonial project and the privileges it provides to the settler society prevent the development of class consciousness. Nor is it a struggle over the solutions required to end the crimes of occupation, colonialism and apartheid or to end the suffering of the Palestinian people. Rather, we are witnessing merely a struggle over who shapes and controls the apartheid system, all with the aim of preserving Jewish supremacy and colonial rule. And, for Palestinians, it matters little who does control the court system. Whether liberal or conservative Zionists, the Israeli courts, from the lowest to the highest, will continue to legitimize and enforce the crimes of expulsion, massacres, and ethnic cleansing, all of which are essential to preserving the Israeli state apparatus’ control over the Palestinian majority between the River and the Sea.
For all these reasons, Palestinian citizens refuse to participate in demonstrations aimed at protecting “Jewish democracy”. Palestinians and the Jews who oppose apartheid and settler colonialism must continue building a united resistance movement; they must not get distracted by “protests” that only legitimize a fake democracy and in fact strengthen its repressive system of colonization and control. A genuine movement of liberation requires a long-term resistance strategy, a national and human liberation vision. It should unite those who live in Palestine and those who were expelled by the Zionist movement and its embodiment, the state of Israel. This movement should pose a clear alternative: building a single democratic state in historic Palestine on the ruins of the apartheid regime and its criminal offshoots.
This is the real alternative to participating in a protest movement intended to preserve a racist colonial regime. It is a realistic alternative, demanding long, hard struggle. But it leads us in the right political direction, unlike protests that only offer cosmetic improvements to an unjust and violent system of oppression. This goal can only be achieved by a Palestinian national, democratic movement, after rebuilding itself, recovering its liberating, humane vision and mobilizing around a political program – in our view, that of a single democratic state over all of historic Palestine. It requires the articulate combination of internal popular struggle with external struggle as represented by the boycott strategy and the force of international solidarity.
The settlers have always “taken the law into their own hands” as we know.
“Israeli Settlers Rampage Through West Bank Town; Palestinians Report One Killed, Dozens WoundedIsraeli army enters Palestinian town to stop rampaging settlers ■ One Palestinian dead and dozens wounded, houses and vehicles set on fire ■ Netanyahu asks citizens ‘not to take law into own hands.
A few hours after Sunday’s shooting which killed two Israelis, a large group of settlers entered the West Bank town of Hawara and began throwing rocks at houses and setting trees and cars in the village on fire.
At least 15 houses have been burned along with 25 cars and 9 families have been evacuated.”
If the US does not use its influence to end this brutal occupation, the violence will only get worse.
The illegal settlers (also referred to as terrorists) have been condemned for provoking, attacking, injuring and killing. It is time the right wing leadership reined them in, or are they incapable of doing that?
Violence and killings have always been justified by even Rabbis. The hatred for those they control and treat like they are sub human, is so obvious when it comes to Palestinians/Arabs.
“When an 11-year-old Palestinian girl from Nablus was killed by settlers in 1983, in their defense, the chief rabbi of the Sephardic community reportedly cited a Talmudic text justifying killing an enemy on occasions when one may see from a child’s perspective that he or she will grow up to become your enemy.[33] Rabbis have been asked by settler militants to provide rulings to justify acts that are aimed to block peace with, or the return of land to, Palestinians.[34] The theft of Palestinian olive harvests has been justified by some rabbis. Former chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahustated that: “Since the land is the inheritance of the People of Israel, planting on this land by gentiles is planting on land that does not belong to them. If someone puts a tree on my land, both the tree and the fruit it yields belongs to me.”[35] Some rabbinical extremists cite the biblical edict to exterminate the Amalekites to justify both expelling Palestinians from the land and killing Arab civilians in wartime.”
The UN has condemned these acts of violence against the Palestinians by the illegal settlers.
It seems they dish out, but cannot take the consequenc
Reply to WorldCitizen: I see that you are definitely a world citizen, a citizen of the colonialist and imperialistic world order. You don’t care whether the majority of Israeli citizens demand democracy for themselves and themselves alone. Who don’t want Palestinian Israeli citizens to join protests about democracy because to do so would muddy their water and lay them open to anti-semitism. They are merely demanding going back to their tight apartheid regime which protects them under the law, whatever they say or do. They know the judiciary doesn’t protect Arab Israeli citizens whatever they say or do, and they couldn’t care less.
Personally I had no trouble understanding this article and am grateful that unlike the journalists of so many established world publications the journalist is capable of speaking truth to lies. I am sad that you don’t see the hypocrisy and double standards of the publications that are supposed world leaders in world news.
So according to this article the Arab citizens of Israel are not “invited” to be part of the demonstrations but a paragraph later the article says they refuse to be part of it so which is it?
It’s time for Palestinians to get politically engaged in a way that makes sense to them.
One of the points that bothers me here is the anonymity. Why are those behind the “campaign” unwilling to come forth with their names? What are they afraid of? or ashamed of? Maybe it’s Hamas? or Zionist false-flag? The anonymity certainly doesn’t imply moral courage. Reminds me of the Anti-Semitic “Mapping project”.