Resident calls Israel a racist, exclusive state
To the Editors:
Zionism is the colonialist ideology that brought the state of Israel into existence
by expropriating the land of the indigenous Arab population as its own. Zionism has become a form
of Jewish nationalism that preaches Jewish superiority, excludes non-Jews and is responsible for
todays political, racial and economic apartheid of Israelis and Palestinians. As many Rabbis
and Jews attest to, Zionism has no more of a place in Judaism, than does the Talibans ideology
in Islam, David Dukes vision of Christianity or the exclusivist claims of RSS and Hindutva
in Hindu sacred texts or history. Zionisms impact upon the Jewish elite in America has been
so vociferous and influential, however, that anyone who criticizes Israeli policy (which is in
contravention of international law and has been condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights
Watch, Btslem, Peace Now and others) or Zionism is accused of anti-Semitism, a charge often thrown
about to ward off critics of Israels apartheid-like policies towards Palestinians.
The truth is, Zionism did at first emerge in response to anti-Semitism in Europe in the late 19th
century, as a politically secular movement whose goal was the liberation of Jews from persecution.
However, Zionist ideology has also implied the separation and expulsion of the Arabs and has been
almost universally hijacked by those that would ideologically support a sign I saw recently in
New York City at a Women in Black protest: No Arabs = No Terror.
Israel today is a religiously exclusive and racist state.
Israels Law of Return is a clear example of racism. By it, the state must accommodate any
Jews from anywhere in the world that might, at any time, migrate to Israel. If four-million Jews
suddenly emigrate to Israel/Palestine, the Israeli government will accommodate them. In contrast,
four-million Palestinians that were dispossessed of their land and forced into exile when Israel
was formed have no right of return because - in Ehud Baraks words, [it would be] national
suicide.
National suicide when the returnees are Palestinians wanting to return to the land of their birth
but not when the immigrants are foreign Jews? This is racism.
Another example of Zionisms racism is that Israeli inhabitants are required to carry identity
cards; these must list the official nationality of a person - Jewish, Arab, Druze ... - but not
Israeli. When left-wing Israelis applied for identity cards identifying them as Israeli or Israeli-Jew,
the Interior Ministry rejected their requests. A democracy that requires citizens
identity cards stipulating ethno-religious identity without mentioning nationality? This is racism.
In addition, the Palestinians of the occupied territories, who, under the pretext of security and
as legitimized by the Peace Process (a farce that had initially long excluded Palestinians) are
locked into disconnected and crowded bantustans on their own land (from which the vast majority
of its natural resources, such as water, has been given to Israel under the Oslo Accords) and provide
Israel with its cheap slave-like labor. All this accurately fits the description of an apartheid
state. The examples go on and on.
Despite the atrocities committed under Zionism, the US liberal elite are not willing
to concede that Zionism is, at root, a conscious war of extermination and expropriation against
a native civilian population, and that the ideology is racist at its core. Those within the liberal
American elite who energetically condemn enemies of Zionism (while at the same time not bringing
to light the state sponsored atrocity of genocide forced onto the Palestinian people) are racist
at best and defiantly cowards - hiding behind privilege and deep seeded, pathetic, American guilt.
Bobby Bergeron
Town Resident
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