Activism

Israeli protest movement must dismantle the foundations of society to be successful

For the Palestinian people to achieve justice, Zionism must be dismantled. And for Jewish Israelis to achieve peace, we too must free ourselves from this project of Jewish supremacy.

The Israeli protest movement against planned judicial reforms is entering its 12th week, with little sign of slowing down. The Netanyahu government has passed its initial plans, and the protest movement is redoubling its efforts with growing support from Jewish communities in the United States. In many ways, this is an extraordinary moment for Israel and Jewish communities’ connection to it around the world. 

Still, in the midst of the struggle against the current government, we must remember that the root of the problem lies with the colonialist regime as a whole rather than bemoan a democracy that has never existed here. As the Jewish supremacist militias grow stronger, as the dispossession and oppression of the Palestinians grow deeper, we keep staring directly at the roots of racism and violence and insisting on a vision of a shared society that respects the rights of all the country’s inhabitants and the refugees who seek to return. 

Sadly, even though the protest against the current government is energetic, committed, and quite unprecedented in Israeli history, it’s still clear that it and the Israeli opposition have little to offer and no way out so long as they refuse to look at those roots, at the violence upon which the state of Israel is founded. 

Time and again, protesters and opposition leaders stress democratic values while refusing to even mention the occupation and refusing to work together or even recognize Palestinian citizens of Israel and their representatives, even though simple math shows the so-called “center-left” will never be able to form a government without them.

This internal crisis, the protest movement, and its limitations reveal a simple truth: the Jewish state as it is cannot tolerate Palestinians because it is built on the logic of their elimination. This was not only carried out by way of expulsion and murder during the Nakba in 1948. The ongoing displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people continues today as we also see the complete denial of Palestinian existence (“There is no Palestinian People”), the erasure of history, and the continued dehumanization of Palestinians throughout Israeli society. For the Palestinian people to achieve justice, the Zionist project itself must be dismantled. For Jewish Israelis to achieve peace, we too, must free ourselves from this project of Jewish supremacy.

It is time to call on more and more people to learn, think, dare imagine a different reality, and choose real change. Today, more than ever, we remember that things can be different. 

Zochrot has been active since the beginning of the millennium in raising the issue of the Nakba and the right of return within the political consciousness of the Jewish public in Israel while promoting recognition, accountability, and a just solution. Inspired by this vision, we have created the most extensive database about the Nakba in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. We have led thousands of tours to depopulated Palestinian towns and villages and developed the iReturn app for navigating ethnically cleansed Palestinian lands. We have produced hundreds of publications, learning materials, maps, and exhibitions. We have trained and supported hundreds of educators, tour guides, and activists. We are proud to have created a community of courageous Israelis who want to live in a truly just and equal society and believe that a better reality is attainable. Zochrot has led this way for over two decades.

Zochrot has just launched a crowdfunding campaign to support our efforts to crack the walls of denial about the ongoing Nakba and drive a profound change in Israeli political culture to achieve true reform.

When most Palestinians and most Israelis have long despaired of the possibility of reconciliation, we know that despair is not an option and that reconciliation can only come from acknowledgment and redress of the harm that was done. This is a pivotal moment when the Israeli state, which was built on so much violence and denial, is destabilizing. This is when as many of us as possible need to re-imagine life in Palestine beyond Zionism and work towards it. 

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I,m struck by the images of so many “terrorists ” committing treasonous crimes while waving Israeli Flags,(religious symbols) so they cannot be Palestinians .All we see is lots of precious water being wasted and the odd kick in the butt.Tut tut.

Where is the “Live Ammunition “. Where are the Rubber Bullets.Show us the real IDF and Civil (bad choice of word )Police.They should be able to calm this lot in quick time if they simply employ the same tactics they do on Palestinians.

Indeed – Ian Lustick ( who wrote “Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality” )has this essay in Foreign Policy ( delete FP cookies for access):
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/26/israel-civil-war-protests-lincoln-united-states/

There is a good deal of hullabaloo about whether the Jewish state will remain, become, or stop being a genuine democracy, but virtually no discussion of the impossibility of it being both a Jewish state and a democracy when half the country’s inhabitants are Palestinian Arabs.
Approximately 6.8 million Palestinian Arabs live under the actual if not formally declared rule of the government of Israel. If half a million non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union are taken into account, this means there are more Arabs living in Israel than there are Jews….So what is at stake is not just whether Israel is or will be a democracy (or can get away with calling itself a democracy even if it is not). What is at stake, really, is whether a regime of Jewish supremacy will be established so that the full weight of the state’s laws can be explicitly used to enforce the disenfranchisement and subjugation of half the population.

Indeed, to sustain itself and protect against Jewish-Arab alliances that could end the racist regime it aims to create, the government will need to not only outlaw Arab participation in politics but also ban activity by Jews that might lead to Arab emancipation. That is why, if the Supreme Court of Israel is successfully neutered, the present government will move to outlaw anti-Zionist (i.e., Arab) parties as just another step toward the eventual exclusion of all Palestinians from political life.

Although of Jewish background…I’ve been anti Zionist for quite some time already. Jews were rescued to escape the horrours of Nazism…and now we need to rescue Palestinians to escape the Zionists??? :-(

Bibi and his right wing goons are setting the country on fire. The real Bibi has been revealed.

“Analysis | Netanyahu Is Now Pyromaniac-in-chief of a Government of ArsonistsNetanyahu has made it clear to Israel that he is not only prepared to risk a constitutional crisis, but he is willing to take on the entire security establishment just so he can pass a law that allows his coalition to pick the next Supreme Court justices.”

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The understanding of this seems to be seeping into the MSM. This is from the Washington Post:

If Netanyahu has lost control, it’s because the maelstrom he has unleashed is about much more than him. To come to power, he mainstreamed extremist far-right settler factions and brought them into the heart of his coalition. He has also leaned heavily on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties, which see the proposed judicial reforms as a key vehicle to push their religious project on broader Israeli society. He gave momentum to a hard right, illiberal agenda that has been gaining traction for years.
The mass protests in Tel Aviv and other cities, often attended by more well-heeled and secular Israelis, are in part a reflection of a profound ideological divide within the country. The government’s legislative plans are “breaking the very delicate balance between mainstream Israel and the ultra-Orthodox who understood that they depend on a liberal, prosperous society with a strong military,” Yofi Tirosh, a vice dean of law at Tel Aviv University, told my colleague Shira Rubin.
But some analysts on the Israeli left point to an even deeper set of forces at play. Millions of Palestinians live under de facto Israeli military control, shorn of many of the same rights afforded to their Israeli neighbors. Their mere existence casts into shadow any substantive debates over what Israeli democracy stands for, especially when you consider how Belazel Smotrich — a far-right settler leader turned leading member of Netanyahu’s cabinet with civilian administrative powers over the occupied West Bank — recently publicly declared that Palestinians as a people don’t actually exist.