Online Journal
Front Page 
 
 Donate
 
 Submissions
 
 Announcements
 
 NewsLinks
 
 Special Reports
 
 News Media
 
 Elections & Voting
 
 Health
 
 Religion
 
 Social Security
 
 Analysis
 
 Commentary
 
 Editors' Blog
 
 Reclaiming America
 
 The Splendid Failure of Occupation
 
 The Lighter Side
 
 Reviews
 
 The Mailbag
 
 Online Journal Stores
 Official Merchandise
 Amazon.com
 
 Links
 
 Join Mailing List
Search

Analysis Last Updated: Jan 21st, 2008 - 00:48:33


Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 11 of 12
By Kim Petersen & B. J. Sabri
Online Journal Contributing Writers


Jan 21, 2008, 00:12

Email this article
 Printer friendly page

Section 2: Deconstructing Kay�s statement

After we outlined a comprehensive account on the definition of Israeli Zionist racism as a premise to rebutting Barbara Kay�s comments on �Defining Racism," we wanted to reaffirm the following: Zionist Israeli racism is different from many other forms of racism. This is mainly because it has an international cover, and it enjoys impunity, and benefits from prodigious supplies of armaments and money from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, and Zionist organizations.

As for Zionist Israeli racism being diverse from other racism, let us discuss the matter briefly. For instance, Japanese acts of fascist racism in Korea and China, although belonging to the same racial matrix as Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese, stemmed from Japanese supremacist feelings, because, at that time, it had an advanced economy based on incipient Western-style industrialization, aggressive militarization, and fanatic nationalism. Another example is the current American fascist racism, which is more advanced and complex than that of Japan for multiple reasons. Among these is the persistence of militarized racism in international relations, rampant cultural and economic discrimination against ethnic and religious groups making up the American nation, persistent economic disparities among social groups, the dominance of white British and Anglo-Saxon culture in a multi-ethnic society, rampant Zionization of the American culture and institutions, poverty among minorities, and so on.

Yet, while both American and Israeli racisms have many traits in common (since both societies derive their existence from colonialism and expropriation of land belonging to others), they, nevertheless, differ in one crucial respect: American racism is a product of self-styled and self-generated colonialism; Israeli colonialism is dependent, that is, Israel cannot sustain its colonialism from inside. In fact, without Western aid, Israel�s collapse is a distinct possibility notwithstanding its nuclear weapons and so-called military superiority over its adversaries. Paradoxically, Zionism itself (as a racist doctrine) is the causative factor in making Israel insecure psychologically.

This insecurity finds its justification in a paradox whereby Jews believe they are superior since a mythological deity chose them to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth,� (Deuteronomy 7:6). For the record, fundamentalist Christian zealots back Jews� (accepting that they are the successor of the Israelites) self-bestowed sense of superiority despite the fact that the Zionist state discriminates against Palestinian Christians under its occupation.

In his book, Ballam�s Curse, Moshe Leshem, a former Israeli diplomat, summarized the essence of Israeli supremacist beliefs as follows: � . . . But in order to win support from the mass of European Jews, the early Zionists misappropriated the trappings of religious Judaism, portraying their hopes -- for Jewish state as the fulfillment of the Jewish people�s theological destiny -- their Biblically ordained role as the Chosen People that through whom God would redeem mankind.� [1, italics added]

Interestingly, and based on Leshem�s statement, the problem that makes Israel such a busy nest of racism is, then, twofold:

  1. The dogma of the Judaic religion that makes its adherents believe in their uniqueness,

  2. The Zionist belief that they can create a state exclusive for the Jews at the expense of the Palestinians while they can still control the entire globe with extensive networks of Jews having diverse nationalities.

The other reason for Israeli racism is a material-ideological sickness that tends to view the Arabs and Palestinians as necessarily wicked because they refuse subjugation to the Zionist order in the Middle East. Ultimately, a sense of Zionist superiority must be at play because no matter what atrocities they commit, Western imperialist states are on their side but that, of course, is not because of tender mercies or love; it is because Israel is the right instrument to revamp colonialism.

Having said that, discussing Israeli Zionist racism should serve principally to uncover the propaganda terrain on which Zionist operatives conduct their ceaseless efforts to rewrite and falsify history, as well as to expose as baseless the rationales that lubricate the racist engine of the Jewish state and its illegal and illegitimate practices in Palestine and in the Arab world.

Consequently, we will treat Kay�s comments as being representative of operational Zionism and complete our rebuttal based on two levels: 1) general context, and 2) the deconstructed contents. We will demonstrate that, aside from ingrained racism, Israel and its Western imperialist supporters are keen at falsifying events in the history of Palestine and the Middle East to suit Zionist Israel�s version of the same, while counting on controlled media and on the passage of time to lobotomize the memory of nations and its verifiable chronicled events.

Zionists may be able to rewrite history and believe in it too, but objective forces of history would always be able to erase the spurious chapters and rewrite things differently. History is just the recordings of past events by humans; this matter, evidenced by rewritings and re-analysis of historical events illustrates the fluidity of history. This argues resolutely against any era of history that some try to depict as sacrosanct and beyond reproach.

Then, the greatest challenge we face is, how can we verify historical facts and what source can we trust for historical truths in the age of mass manipulation? Opening history for scrutiny, refutation, affirmation, and confirmation is just a first step in the right direction, and that is if the word �right� can still make sense in a world dominated by imperialist ideologies, globalist corporations, and fascist institutions whose principle aim is repackaging information, distorting news, and detaching reality from real events.

However, despite what we call �mastodontic confusion by disinformation," academic rigor, epistemological validity, and honest scholarship still demand untrammeled, unexpurgated disclosures of history -- otherwise the �truth� is in danger of concealment, obfuscation, or even outright perversion. Yes, it is the job of historians to arrive at the truth, but also it is everyone else�s responsibility to apply open-minded skepticism to history as some quarters want to present it. On the specific issue of ideological Zionism, since disinformation, propaganda, and falsification of history are its hallmarks, it rejects the history of humanity. Yet, it is only a matter of time before the entire Zionist structure of deception will permanently collapse because, materially and pragmatically, Israeli society cannot and will not be able to sustain itself in its current form indefinitely.

General context

In her rebuttal, Kay fallaciously attempts to legitimize Zionist Jews� theft of land from the indigenous Palestinians. She offers no justification for this usurpation other than the UN Partition Plan of 1947. Usually, Zionist Jews appeal to sympathy stemming from their victimization by Nazis. This is without basis in any elementary morality. Clearly, a group victimized by a second group does not earn some right to victimize a third group uninvolved in perpetration of the original act of victimization. If, indeed, such a morality-defying right did exist, then, consequently, the group that has forcibly transferred another group cannot later complain when it ends up suffering a similar fate.

In addition, a societal entity cannot claim a right to existence based on its extinguishment of the same right for a previously existing societal entity. For arguments sake, if a state has a right to exist (which we do not agree with), then in the case of the state of Israel, its right to exist would be no greater than the right of a Palestinian state to exist.

Dialectically, despite its illegal origins, but under the existing reality of Israel as a society and as �state," the Palestinian rights to exist as a state and as a society are equal in every respect to that of Israel. However, another natural principle comes into play: the preeminent right owing to primordial existence. Since if a state has a right to exist, then no other entity has a right to extinguish this state�s right to exist. It is illegitimate by the principles of the natural law to argue for the right of Israel to exist over and above the right of Palestine to exist and to continue to exist. Rights, for the greater part, owe their existence to universally recognized concepts of human respect for others to exist and continue in endless time. This is what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) posits: a universality of human rights. While the UDHR is legally non-binding, no UN member state opposed the ratification of the UDHR, and it has the compelling force of morality behind it.

Furthermore, hypothetically, if there is such a beast as the right of a state to exist, then that right to exist must be retroactive universally. An asserted right of one group cannot exist on the extinguishment of a right for another group -- to do so would be reductio ad absurdum. Arguably, therefore, if the existence of a state to exist is to be a universally recognized right, then this universality must be equally applicable to all. Racism and dispossession of the Palestinians violate their human rights. Palestinian human rights activist Omar Barghouti recently stated: �No state has the right to exist as a racist state.� Israeli rejectionism of this reality is a rejection of peace since wars, including future wars, would be, by default, the method to resolve the history of dispossession and occupation.

Also, referring to a widespread acceptance of a grotesque violation of law does not legitimize that violation of law. That the UN sanctions the violation of the human rights of a group, that the UN violates its very own charter that recognizes the right of a people to self-determination does not wrap the dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian people in any legitimate legality and certainly not in any morality. The fact is that European Jews were invaders and colonizers. They had the right to immigrate legally, they had the right to buy land legally, but they did not have the right to dispossess the Palestinians. Few people are ready to unequivocally agree that theft is a right. But that is, in effect, the unethical nonsense supporters of Zionism are arguing.

People create laws for many reasons. Presumably, the guiding reason is to prevent crimes and keep society ordered equitably for the good and security of all citizens. Whatever laws humans may devise, there are guiding principles that have some basis in morality, and these principles should supersede and underlie law. Legal positions without a basis in morality are, arguably, of dubious legitimacy. We stand by a principle: Forcible transfer of a targeted people -- especially an indigenous people -- is not only a quintessential crime but also an act of war that only resistance can reverse.

We also agree with the principle enshrined in international law: People have a right to resist their occupation and oppression.

In the wider discussion on Israeli Zionist racism, however, brazen deception, premeditated historical fallacies, straightforward disinformation, unmitigated, bogus analogies, and artificial, lopsided conclusions cannot add up to a critical study or be propagandistically elevated to substitute material realities or dissection of it. We are determined to avoid Byzantine discussions on the subject of Israel and Zionism, since the value of a debate is not about upholding one�s own position dogmatically, but rather to rediscover alternative realities based on factual events. Consequently, simple analysis is all that is required to refute the entirety of the National Post columnist Barbara Kay's propaganda.


Deconstructed contents


The following are measured refutations to Kay�s statements:


Kay: They [Palestinians] were transferred for two reasons: i) because their own leaders told them to leave so they would not be in the path of war, which the Arab countries initiated in 1948 and fully expected to win, after which the people would return and take back all the land and homes of the Jews;

Refutation: The statement does not address the primordial question: did Europeans of Jewish faith and other converts to Judaism have right to colonize Palestine? The answer is a resolute no, and the reason for such resoluteness resides in one fact: their ancestors never inhabited the land they colonized. In addition, Zionist colonists have been basing their colonization on either blatant historical falsification that their ancestors once inhabited the land or on the theological mythology that �God� gave it to them. This latest claim requires, dialectically, two proofs: 1) God�s existence beyond ontological sensations, and 2) at least some credible witness hearing (including specification of spoken language) God promising a land called Palestine to European, Iraqi, Yemeni, Ethiopian, Arab, Persian, and other groups adhering to Judaism.

Pointedly, and contrary to Kay�s claim, Palestinians did not leave voluntarily or by insinuation -- Jewish immigrants expelled them through well-documented acts of terrorism. [2] Second, even if they left because their leaders told them to do so, as she claims, that still does not eliminate their inalienable right to the land they inherited through millennia of continuous existence as a people.

Moreover, as she falsifies history and engages in naked lies, Kay moves to make puerile hypotheses such as this one: �after which the people would return and take back all the land and homes of the Jews.� This is why we think it is puerile: If you take something from someone with violence, your act will not: 1) make you automatically the owner of the thing you take by violence, and 2) confer legal ownership of what you take by violence. Arguably, therefore, if the Palestinians struggle to retake their homes and recover their lands, this is their right. Another analogy on ownership by violence: If a thief robs a bank, and the bank tries to recover its money, would the thief then proclaim that the bank is trying to rob him or her illegally?

Kay: because you cannot have hostile people in your own state if they will not agree to live as citizens.

Refutation: This is nonsense. Kay cast labels around freely and in a discriminatory fashion. She labels the dispossessed as a �hostile people.� The Jewish Zionist dispossessors who violently perpetrated the Nakba (�catastrophe� in Arabic referring to the takeover of Palestine by Zionists) are presumably non-hostile. By Kay�s logic, if she and her family were invaded in their residence, stripped of the residence, and cast out, then if she opposed being dispossessed, she would be a �hostile person�!

Simply, colonists of all colors cannot take the land of others, make a state, and ask the land-stripped people to leave because they refuse to be a part of the new state formed by colonists. However, there never was an intention that Zionists would share the stolen land with the Palestinians; it was to be a Jewish state with land reserved for Jews. This does not work in modern times. Yes, it worked on Turtle Island (Canada and the US), Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, and elsewhere in the western hemisphere. This took a few centuries to accomplish, and happened in a historical period where universal mass communication or modern illuminating principles were not widespread in acceptance among states. The dispossession of the Original Peoples, however, is a moral outrage that still demands official apology, rectification, return of land title (a Western capitalist concept), and reparations. A principled approach recognizes this and demands expiation.

Kay: Transfers of populations go on all the time.

Refutation: That is not true in any context except when, at affecting such a transfer, are colonialist authorities. Regardless of socio-economic conditions, an established society would never transfer a population unless such transfer is deemed necessary to protect the population from impending natural calamities such earthquakes, flooding, etc. Any transfer of a large number of a certain population by another ethnic group under any guise, including enforcement by violence, induction by intimidation, or propitiation with selective bribes, is pure �ethnic cleansing,� especially if coupled with appropriation of lands, homes, or cities belonging to the transferred population. Examples of this type of transfer include the entire experience sustained by the in indigenous populations of the western hemisphere, Australia, Aotearoa, South Africa, and, of course, Palestine.

But logical thinking is also a victim in Kay�s Zionist game of explanation. Is she stating that just because something has been occurring for a long time, then it is acceptable that it continues to occur, whether it be legal, illegal, moral, immoral? If that was not her inferred conclusion, then why make such a statement, unless she was attempting to induct by false analogy? Yet, if what she is proposing is permissible, then a transfer of Jews from historical Palestine must also be also be feasible as directed by the vicissitudes of power and streams of time. This is nonsense as it implies a never-ending cycle of transfers depending on which group is most powerful at a given moment.

Next: Part 12 of 12

NOTES

[1] Moshe Leshem, Ballam�s Curse (Simon and Shuster: 1989, inside jacket).

[2] Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Israel (Oneworld Publications, 2006). Ari Shavit, �Survival of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris,� Haaretz, 16 January 2004. Available at CounterPunch. The big difference between Pappe and Morris is that Morris thinks the �ethnic cleansing� was proper and that it should have been complete.

Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice and B. J. Sabri is an Iraqi-American antiwar activist Email them at Petersen_sabri@yahoo.com.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
Email Online Journal Editor

Top of Page

Analysis
Latest Headlines
Russia flaunts its nuclear card
Bush to abandon supply-side economics?
Bush's �stimulus� cash giveaway; �gentlemen, start the helicopters�
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 12 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 11 of 12
Canada Report 2007, part II: Canada�s policy on Israel/Palestine
Bush's voodoo stimulus package: $250 rebate for every taxpayer
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 10 of 12
Canada Report 2007, Part I: Reaching for sub-nation status
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 9 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 8 of 12
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 7 of 12
The deflation time bomb
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- Part 6 of 12
No escape from war and unemployment
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 5 of 12
No jobs for the new economy or the old
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- part 4 of 12
9/11 and the incompetence excuse: Could a bunch of sociopathic screw-ups really pull off the crime of the century?
Defining Israeli Zionist racism -- Part 3 of 12