Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
June
18, 2004
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Iraqi Detainees Should Sue Michael Moore
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
June
11, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Reagan in Truth and Fiction
Ron
Jacobs
Ray Charles' Legacy of Spirit
Chris
Floyd
Funeral Games
Steven
Sherman
How Reagan Destroyed the Democrats and Paved the Way for Clinton
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Remembering Reagan
Norman
Solomon
Media's Mourning in America
Paul
Alexander
The Kerry Fantasies of Chalmers Johnson
CounterPunch
Wire
The Terror Hour: Miami TV Station Invites Commandoes to Talk
About Planned Attacks on Cuba
June
10, 2004
Noam
Chomsky
The Apotheosis of Reagan : Divinity
Through Marketing
Gary
Leupp
Bush, the Religious Scholar
Patrick
Cockburn
The Iraqi Street Has Spoken: New
Govt. Made Up of CIA Pawns
Saul
Landau
Force-Feeding Lies About Free Trade
Scott
Evans
Settling for the System: How Punkvoter.com Became Just Another
Tool of the Democrats
Jacob
Levich
John Kerry's World of Hurt: Senator Supports Beam Weapons
Zeynep
Toufe
Reagan, Neo-Cons and the "Intelligence Failures"
Nico
Pitney
Reform at Wal-Mart?
Dave
Zirin
Son of a Reagan: What a Sporty 6-Year Old Saw at the Revolution
Jack
McCarthy
Where Were You When Reagan Croaked?
Gary
Corseri
Nouns That Should be Acronyms
David
Price
Reagan and the Black Budget
Website
of the Day
Inequality by the Numbers
June
9, 2004
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Israel's Common Use of Torture
Must be Exposed
Mike
Whitney
Alan Dershowitz, Still Defending
Torture
John
Chuckman
Why the CIA will Always be a Costly Flop
Jim
Tarbell / Roger Burbach
Bush's Democratic Charade in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Put Reagan on the $3 Bill
Miguel
D'Escoto
Reagan was the Butcher of My People
Becky
Burgwin
The Betrayal of Smarty Jones: Flogging a Natural Born Hero
Patrick
Cockburn
The Rich Have Been Warned to Leave
Baghdad
June
8, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Nature of Ronald Reagan: Will
the Earth Accept His Corpse?
Dave
Lindorff
The March on Rumsfeld's House: Is
the US Anti-War Movement Running Out of Steam?
Phillip
Cryan
Torture, Bombings & the Press in
Colombia
Mark
Zepezauer
Getting Reagan Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Reagan, Radicals and Repetitive Reactions
John
L. Hess
Reagan and Bush in Normandy
Alex
Dawoody
Reagan and Saddam: the Unholy Alliance
Christopher
Fons
Reagan in a Word: Mean
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Some Tenets are More Important Than Others
Ahmed
Bouzid
Nothing New Under the Israeli Sun
Michael
Leon
Bush the Narcissist
June
7, 2004
Jason
Leopold
New Enron Docs Show Lay and Skilling
Knew of California Trading Schemes
Patrick
Cockburn
The Baghdad Bombings: the Pattern
of Attacks is Changing
Dennis
Hans
From Afghanistan to El Salvador: Reagan's
Dark Global Legacy
Tracy
McLellan
Nader at the National Press Club:
a Glimpse at a Different Kind of Politics
Bill
Blum
The Myth of the Gipper: Reagan Didn't
End the Cold War
Ben
Tripp
What I Owe Reagan: the Brylcreemed
Bullshitter
Susan
Davis
Reagan, In a Nutshell
Phil
Gasper
Reagan: Goodbye and Good Riddance
Website
of the Day
A Child's ABCs of Terrorism
June
5 / 6, 2004
C.
Douglas Lummis
Toward a Universal Declaration of
Human Wrongs
Saul
Landau
Five Cubans in Prison, Victims of Bush's Obsession
Dave
Lindorff
John Walker Lindh, Revisited
Brian
Cloughley
Apologies, Please, From Those Who Got It Wrong
Rich
Gibson
The Grenada 17: the Last Prisoners of the Cold War are Black
Elaine
Cassel
A Sorry FBI
Cathrin
Schütz
On the Ruins of Yugoslavia
Ben
Tripp
Call Me, Mr. Cassandra
Kurt
Nimmo
The Madness of King George
Ron
Jacobs
They Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Unless We Make It So)
Laura
Flanders
The Lynne Cheney Show?
Lenni
Brenner
Renaissance Noir: Caravaggio at the Met
Abigail
Jones
Whatever Happened to Lori Berenson, President Toledo's Trophy
Prisoner?
Mark
Latham
Nothing Bush Said Has Changed Our Hopes
Gerry
Adams
I Was Photographed While Tortured, Too
Toni
Solo
Venezuela 2004, Nicaragua's Contra War Reprised
Derek
Seidman
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old
M.
Junaid Alam
Torture is Just the Symptom
Matt
Siegfried
An American Way of War
Dave
Zirin
The Politics of Charles Barkley
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Krieger, St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
Overnight Sensations
June
4, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Masked and Anonymous: Inside America's
Animal House
Cornwell
/ Penketh
Exit Tenet: the Fall of a Fall Guy
Wayne
Madsen
Apprehension & Frustation: Neo-Cons on the Brink
Greg
Moses
Agitating for Workers' Rights in Iraq
Yitzak
Laor
Before Rafah
Ghali
Hassan
Ambassador to Death Squads: Who is Negroponte?
Jane
Stillwater
God, the Rapture and Vera Casey
CounterPunch
Wire
D-Day Reconsidered: Was It Really Worth the Carnage?
John
Borowski
Woo-Wooism v. Meteorites: Why the Dems Are No Match for Bush
Mike
Griffin
Caterpillar's Assault on the UAW
Alexander Cockburn
Has Bush Gone Over the Edge?
Website
of the Day
Aquae Urbis Romae:
Water and Empire
June
3, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Iran's Nuclear Dilemma
Dr.
Susan Block
America in tha Hood
Michael
Donnelly
The Bully and the Brahmin
John
Chuckman
Insanity in America: US Ranks Number
One in the Deranged
Christopher
Brauchli
The Return of Cardinal Law: Rome
on $12,000 a Month
Samia
Nassar Melki
Caravaggio in Iraq
Mike
Whitney
Subverting Justice: Pre-Trial Ruminations in the Padilla Case
Diane
Rejman
Memorial Day Isn't Just About the Dead
Scott
Morris
"WMDs" in Cuba
Paul
de Rooij
Palestinian Misery in Perspective
June
2, 2004
Brian
Cloughley
The Liars are Winning
Ray
McGovern
How Far Would They Go? Beware "Credible
Intelligence"
Josh
Frank
The Anybody But Bush Offensive
Mike
Whitney
The Afghanistan Failure: Bush's Warlord Patriots
Jackie
Corr
Iraq and Ireland: Three Tales from Butte, Montana
Robert
Jensen
The US Lost the Iraq War...and It's a Good Thing, Too
Alexander
Cockburn
"Bye, Bye Boonville!"
June
1, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Instant Karma: Bush's Sins Catch Up
with Him
William
A. Cook
Manufacturers of Fear and Loathing in
Rafah
Dave
Lindorff
Will the Times Clean House?
Kevin
Zeese
Inside the Kerry / Nader Meeting: Did
the Kerry Campaign Lie About What Was Discussed?
Jacob
Levich
Coming Soon: Return of the Draft,
a Bipartisan Production
Kathy
Kelly
Voices in the Wilderness v. the US
Government
Website
of the Day
Remind Us
May
29 / 31, 2004
Lee
Ballinger / Dave Marsh
The Origins of Memorial Day
Janine
Pommy Vega
Memo for Memorial Day
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
May
28, 2004
Rafael
Rodriguez Cruz
Curtain of Silence on the Cuban 5
Greg
Moses
Bush's Misleading Speech on Abu Ghraib
Dave
Lindorff
Dissing Independent Contractors:
Those Who Do the Dirty Work
Norman
Solomon
Leaping for Lies at the Times
Rep.
Bill Delahunt
Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba
Paul
McGeough
Chalabi Baba and the 40 Thieves
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India and Nehru: 40 Years After
Alexander
Cockburn
NYTs: "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a
Little"
May
27, 2004
Amy
Goodman / David Goodman
Fatal Errors: the Lies of Our Times
Douglas
Valentine
Ragging the Dogs of War at the
NYTs
John
L. Hess
The Times Confesses...Kind Of
Stew
Albert
Dellinger, the Wrestling Pacifist
Dave
Dellinger
a 1993 Interview
Christopher
Brauchli
Tax Breaks for Scions...to Hell with Poor Kids
Rampton
/ Stauber
Banana Republicans: Pumping Irony
May
26, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Goodbye, David Dellinger: He Was a
Friend of Ours
Robert
Fisk
The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech
Zeynep
Toufe
New Draft UN Resolution Permits Perpetual Occupation
Conn
Hallinan
Bush and Sharon: the Oil Connection
Tom
Stephens
2 + 2 is On My Mind: More Morons
and War Crimes
Derek
Medley
Protesting Gov. Bigot
CounterPunch
Wire
FBI Abducts Artist; Seizes Art
Andrew
Cockburn
The Trail to Tehran
May
25, 2004
Joe
Bageant
The Covert Kingdom: On Earth as It
is in Texas
Col.
Dan Smith
A Question of Human Dignity
Gary
Handschumacher
Visiting Lori Berenson: Time to Bring Her Home
Toni
Solo
A Developing War in the Andes
Marc
Estrin
September Song: Disturbing Questions
About 9/11
Stephen
Banko, III
A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the
Troops"
Website
of the Day
The Wizard of Whimsy
May
24, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Dan Senor is Safe!
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the
Missing Taguba Pages
Sam
Hamod
Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong
Place, Wrong Time"
Mike
Whitney
The Wedding was a Bomb
Stan
Goff
Open Season on MAMs
Image
of the Day
A Photo from Abu Ghraib We Didn't See on the Front Page of the
NYTs
May
22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
May 21, 2004
Ray
Close
The Canards of the Apologists
Christopher
Brauchli
"The Object of Torture is Torture"
Amira
Hass
Darkness at Noon
Jack
McCarthy
Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from
the US Army?
Bill
Kauffman
Nader v. Bush
Omar
Barghouti
No More Tears for America
Ghali
Hassan
Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza
Christopher
Reed
How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to
Torture
Website
of the Day
Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
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of the Day
Rafah Today
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Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
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Marcos
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|
June
17, 2004
Toward
a Single State Solution
Zionism,
Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine
By
NOEL IGNATIEV
Zionism as a political movement developed
in the late 19th century. Its founder, Theodore Herzl, was influenced
by two phenomena: the extent of French anti-Semitism revealed
by the Dreyfus Trial, and nationalist ideals then popular in
Europe. Herzl held that Jews cannot be assimilated by the nations
in which they live, and that the only solution to the "Jewish
question" was the formation of a "Jewish state"
in which all the Jews would come together. The early Zionists
contemplated as the site of the future state Argentina or Uganda,
among other locales. Herzl favored Palestine, because, although
an agnostic, he wanted to make use of the custom, widespread
among Jewish mystics, of going on pilgrimages to the "holy
land" and establishing religious communities there.
In 1868, there were 13,000
Jews in Palestine, out of an estimated population of 400,000.
The majority were religious pilgrims supported by charity from
overseas. They encountered no opposition from the Muslims, and
their presence led to no clashes with the Arab population, whether
Muslim or Christian.
In 1882, Baron Rothschild,
combining philanthropy and investment, began to bring Jewish
settlers from Eastern Europe to build a plantation system along
the model the French used in Algeria. They spoke Yiddish, Arabic,
Persian, and Georgian. Significantly, Hebrew was not among the
languages spoken. The outcome of Rothschild's experiment was
predictable: Jews managed the land, while Arabs worked it. This
was not the result the Zionists had in mind; a Jewish society
could not be based on Arab labor. Consequently, they began to
encourage the immigration of Jews to work in agriculture, industry,
and transport.
In 1917 British Foreign Minister
Lord Balfour, seeking support for Britain's efforts in World
War I, issued his famous declaration expressing sympathy with
efforts to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Zionists
immediately seized upon this statement, which they interpreted
to mean support for a Jewish state. At the time of Balfour's
declaration, Jews comprised less than 10% of the population and
owned 2.5% of the land of Palestine.
The problem of building a Jewish
society among an overwhelming Arab majority came to be known
as the "conquest of land and labor." Land, once acquired,
had to remain in Jewish hands. The other half of this project,
known as Labor Zionism, called for the exclusive use of Jewish
labor on the land acquired by the Jews in Palestine. The Labor
Zionists maintained this dual exclusionism (or apartheid, as
we would now call it) in order to build up purely Jewish institutions.
To achieve the conquest of
the land, the Zionists set up an arrangement whereby land was
acquired not by individuals, but by a corporation, known as the
Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF acquired land and leased
it only to Jews, who were not allowed to sublet it. Thus land
was acquired in the name of "the Jewish people," held
for their use, and not subject to market conditions. The idea
was for the JNF to gradually acquire as much land as possible
as the basis for the expected Jewish state.
Naturally, in order for the
land to serve this function, Arab labor had to be excluded. Leases
from the JNF specifically prohibited the use of non-Jewish labor
on JNF plots. One way to achieve this goal was to lease land
only to those Jews who intended to work it themselves. In some
cases, when land was bought from Arab absentee landlords, the
peasants who resided on and worked the land were expelled. Jewish
landholders who refused to exclude Arab labor could lose their
leases or be faced with a boycott.
The conquest of labor pertained
not only to agriculture but also to industry. The Labor Zionists
formed an institution to organize Jewish labor and exclude Arabs:
the Histadrut. The Histadrut was (and largely is) an all-Jewish
combination trade union and cooperative society providing its
members with a number of services. From the beginning it was
a means of segregating Arab and Jewish labor and bringing into
existence a strictly Jewish economic sector. Even when Arab and
Jewish laborers performed precisely the same job, Jewish workers
were paid significantly higher salaries. These policies were
the death knell for any attempt to organize labor on a non-racial
basis. The "laborism" of Labor Zionism killed and continues
to kill efforts at building a unified labor movement.
Despite these policies and
even with the encouragement of the British government, in the
thirty years following the Balfour Declaration, the Zionists
were able to increase the Jewish-owned portion of the land of
Palestine to only 7%. Moreover, the majority of the world's Jews
showed no interest in settling there. In the years between 1920
and 1932, only 118,000 Jews moved to Palestine, less than 1%
of world Jewry. Even after the rise of Hitler, Jews in Europe
did not choose Israel: out of 2.5 million Jewish victims of Nazism
who fled abroad between 1935 and 1943, scarcely 8.5% went to
Palestine. 182,000 went to the U.S., 67,000 to Britain, and almost
2 million to the Soviet Union. After the war, the U.S. began
to encourage Jewish settlement in Palestine. Aneurin Bevin, postwar
British Foreign Minister, publicly blurted out that American
policy mainly arose from the fact that "they did not want
too many of them in New York." The Pakistani delegate to
the UN was to make the same point sarcastically:
Australia, an overpopulated
small country with congested areas, says no, no, no; Canada,
equally congested and overpopulated, says no; the United States,
a great humanitarian country, a small area, with small resources,
says no. This is their contribution to the humanitarian principle.
But they state, let them go into Palestine, where there are vast
areas, a large economy and no trouble; they can easily be taken
in there (Weinstock, 226).
The U.S. limitation on the
number of Jews allowed into the country coincided with Zionist
policy, as enunciated by David Ben-Gurion, first prime minister
of Israel: "If I knew that it would be possible to save
all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England,
and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael,
then I would opt for the second alternative. For we must weigh
not only the life of these children, but also the history of
the People of Israel." (Yoav Gelber, "Zionist Policy
and the Fate of European Jewry (1932-1945)" Yad Vashem
Studies, vol. XII, 199.)
This policy of attaching more
importance to the establishment of Israel than to the survival
of the Jews led the Zionists to collaborate with Nazism and even
be decorated by Hitler's government. The best known case was
that of Rudolf Kastner, who negotiated the emigration to Palestine
of some of Hungary's most prominent Jews in return for his help
in arranging the orderly deportation of the remainder of Hungary's
Jews to the camps. For his efforts, Kastner was praised as an
"idealist" by no less an authority than Adolf Eichmann.
(The best study of Zionist-Nazi relations is Lenni Brenner, Zionism
in the Age of the Dictators.)
The Zionists knew they had
to rid themselves of the Arab majority in order to have a specifically
Jewish state. Although 75,000 Jews moved to Israel between 1945
and 1948, Jews still constituted a minority in Palestine. The
1948 war afforded the Zionists an excellent opportunity to rectify
this; as a result of the war, more than three-quarters of a million
Arabs fled their homes. The case of Deir Yasin, in which Israeli
paramilitary forces, under the command of future prime minister
Menachem Begin, massacred over 250 civilians, sending a message
to Palestinians that they should depart, is the most well known
example of how this flight was brought about. In his book, The
Revolt, Begin boasted that without Deir Yasin there would have
been no Israel, and adds, "The Arabs began fleeing in panic,
shouting 'Deir Yasin'" (quoted in Menuhin, 120). Recent
writings by Israeli revisionist historians have refuted the longtime
insistence of Israeli officials that the departures were voluntary.
Some of the refugees went to neighboring Arab countries; others
became refugees in their own country. Those 750,000 expelled
from their homes and their descendants, who together total 2.2
million people, make up the so-called refugee problem. Although
the United Nation has repeatedly demanded they be allowed to
return, the Israeli government has refused to agree. The war
ended with the Zionists in control of 80% of Palestine. In the
next year, nearly 400 Arab villages were completely destroyed.
This was no accident but the result of deliberate policy, as
shown is the following statement by one of the most authoritative
officials of the Zionist state:
Among ourselves it must be
clear that there is no place in our country for both peoples
together The only solution is Eretz Israel, or at least the western
half of Eretz Israel, without Arabs, and there is no other way
but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries,
transfer all of them, not one village or tribe should remain
Joseph Weitz, Deputy Chairman of the Board of directors of the
Jewish National Fund (JNF) from 1951 to 1973, former Chairman
of the Israel Land Authority (Davis, 5).
Moshe Dayan, former Defense
Minister, stated in a famous speech before students at the Israeli
Institute of Technology in Haifa in 1969:
Jewish villages were built
in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names
of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography
books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab
villages are not there either. Nahial arose in the place of Mahlul;
Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place
of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman.
There is not a single place built in this country that did not
have a former Arab population (Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969,
quoted in Davis, 21).
It is a mistake to draw a moral
line between Israel and the Occupied Territories; it is all occupied
territory. The 1967 war, as a result of which Israel conquered
and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank of the Jordan River,
and the Sinai Peninsula, was a continuation of the process that
began in 1948. It will be drearily familiar to any who know the
history of the displacement of the Indians from the lands they
occupied in North America. Today it would be called "ethnic
cleansing."
The first census of the state
of Israel, conducted in 1949, counted a total of 650,000 Jews
and 150,000 Arabs. The legal foundation for the racial state
was laid down in two laws passed in 1950. The first, the Law
of Return, permitted any Jew, anywhere in the world, the right
to "return" to Israel. This right did not apply to
non-Jews, including the Palestinian Arabs who had recently become
refugees. In addition, the Absentee Property Law confiscated
the property of Arab "absentees," and turned it over
to the Custodian of Absentee Property. Arab refugees within their
own country were termed "present absentees" (what a
phrase!), and not allowed to return to their property. A number
of refugees who attempted to do so were termed "infiltrators,"
and some were shot in the attempt. Confiscated property accounted
for the vast majority of new settlements. These confiscated lands,
in accordance with the procedures that were established in the
Mandate period by the JNF, have become Israel Lands, with their
own administration. This administration, controlling 92.6% of
all of the lands in Israel, only leases these lands to Jews.
Unlike many countries, including
the United States, the Israeli state does not belong, even in
principle, to those who reside within its borders, but is defined
as the state of the Jewish people, wherever they may be. That
peculiar definition is one reason why the state has to this day
failed to produce a written constitution, define its borders,
or even declare the existence of an Israeli nationality. Moreover,
in this "outpost of democracy," no party that opposes
the existence of the Jewish state is permitted to take part in
elections. It is as if the United States were to declare itself
a Christian state, define "Christian" not by religious
belief but by descent, and then pass a "gag law" prohibiting
public discussion of the issue.
If one part of the Zionist
project is the expulsion of the indigenous population, the other
part is expanding the so-called Jewish population. But here arises
the problem, which has tormented Israeli legal officials for
fifty years, what is a Jew? (For a century-and-a-half U.S. courts
faced similar problems determining who is white.) The Zionists
set forth two criteria for determining who is a Jew. The first
is race, which is a myth generally and is particularly a myth
in the case of the Jews. The "Jewish" population of
Israel includes people from fifty countries, of different physical
types, speaking different languages and practicing different
religions (or no religion at all), defined as a single people
based on the fiction that they, and only they, are descended
from the Biblical Abraham. It is so patently false that only
Zionists and Nazis even pretend to take it seriously. In fact,
given Jewish intermingling with others for two thousand years,
it is likely that the Palestinians-themselves the result of the
mixture of the various peoples of Canaan plus later waves of
Greeks and Arabs-are more directly descended from the ancient
inhabitants of the Holy Land than the Europeans displacing them.
The claim that the Jews have a special right to Palestine has
no more validity than would an Irish claim of a divine right
to establish a Celtic state all across Germany, France, and Spain
on the basis that Celtic tribes once lived there. Nevertheless,
on the basis of ascribed descent, the Zionist officials assign
those they have selected a privileged place within the state.
If that is not racism, then the term has no meaning.
The Zionist commitment to racial
purity has led to expressions of bigotry at the highest levels
of Israeli society that would inspire outrage in respectable
circles in the U.S. An Israeli company has required thousands
of Chinese workers to sign a contract promising not to have sex
with Israelis. A company spokesman said there was nothing illegal
about the requirement. Israeli law forbids the marriage of a
Jew with a non-Jew. (Associated Press, December 23, 2003)
Prejudice breeds arrogance:
this past January the Israeli ambassador to Sweden destroyed
an art installation in a Stockholm museum which he found offensive.
The work commemorated a young Palestinian woman who killed herself
and nineteen others in an attack in Haifa. (It does not become
Americans, who learn as schoolchildren to recite the last words
of Nathan Hale, "My only regret is that I have but one life
to give for my country," to denounce Palestinian patriots
as "suicide bombers.") The museum director pointed
out that if the Ambassador did not like the exhibit he was free
to leave. (Agence France Press, 17 January 2004)
The Zionists are so desperate
to increase the loyal population of the state that they are willing
to admit hundreds of thousands of people, mainly from the former
Soviet Union, who do not meet the official definition of a Jew
because they have only a male grandparent or are merely married
to a Jew. Since there is no such thing as Israeli nationality
in Israel (there being only Jewish nationality and "undetermined"),
these people, who do not qualify as Jews, are therefore registered
as "under consideration."
Those whom the gods would destroy
they first make mad. Recently the Israeli press reported on a
group of Indians from Peru who had converted to Judaism and moved
to Israel, where they were relocated on what was once Palestinian
land. Nachson Ben-Haim (formerly Pedro Mendosa) said he had no
problem with that. "You cannot conquer what has in any case
belonged to you since the time of the patriarch, Abraham."
Ben-Haim said he was looking forward to joining the Israeli army
to defend the country. Ben-Haim and his coreligionists had moved
to Israel with the agreement of the Jewish community in Peru,
which did not want them because of the Indians' low socioeconomic
status." (Ha'aretz, 18 July 2002.)
The Peruvian case points to
the second criterion for being recognized as Jewish: conversion
by an approved religious official, which means Orthodox rabbis
only. In Israel today, Conservative and Reform rabbis are prohibited
from leading their congregations, there is no civil marriage
for Jews, and-in a measure reminiscent of medieval Spain-all
residents support the established church, in this case the Orthodox
rabbinate. The stranglehold of organized religion in a state
where the majority of the Jewish population is secular and even
atheistic is the price paid to maintain the Biblical justification
for Zionist occupation. "God does not exist," runs
the popular quip, "and he gave us this land."
Israel is a racial state, where
rights are assigned on the basis of ascribed descent or the approval
of the superior race. In this respect it resembles the American
South prior to the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights
acts, Ireland under the Protestant Ascendancy, and, yes, Hitlerite
Germany. But in its basic structures it most closely resembles
the old South Africa. It is therefore not surprising that Israel
should have developed a close alliance with South Africa when
that country was still under apartheid. After the first talks
held in 1970 between Shimon Peres and South Africa's defense
minister, Botha, cultural, commercial, and military cooperation
between the two racial regimes developed. These relations were
publicly celebrated during the visit of South African Prime Minister
Vorster to Israel in 1976-the same Vorster who held during the
Second World War the rank of general in the pro-Nazi organisation
Ossewabrandwag
Of course Israel's greatest
support comes from the United States, $3 to $5 billion a year,
more than what the U.S. gives to any other country and exceeding
the total of U.S. grants to the whole of Africa south of the
Sahara. Every shell fired into a Palestinian village, every tank
used to bulldoze a home, every helicopter gunship is paid for
by U.S. dollars.
Is one permitted to say above
the level of a whisper that U.S. policy toward Israel has something
to do with Jewish influence in the U.S.? Perhaps Nobel Peace
Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa can get away
with it: "The Israel government," he observed, "is
placed on a pedestal [in the U.S.] People are scared in this
country to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful-very
powerful" (Guardian 29 April 2002).
Not only does Zionism shape
U.S. policy, it stifles discussion of alternatives. To cite a
personal example: Two years ago a PBS reporter interviewed me
on the eve of the UN-sponsored conference on racism about to
be held in S. Africa. I made some remarks about Israel, and afterwards
I asked her if she would use what I said. "Of course not,"
she replied. "I agree with you, and so do all the journalists
I know, but we can't run any criticism of Israel without following
it by at least ten refutations." Harvard Professor Daniel
Pipes and Martin Kramer of the Middle East Forum have begun a
website, Campus Watch," to denounce academics deemed to
have shown "hatred of Israel." Students are to inform
on professors.
The greatest ideological weapon
in the Zionist arsenal is the charge of anti-semitism. Students
and faculty members at Harvard begin a campaign to make the university
sell off its stock in companies that sell weapons to Israel (modeled
on past campaigns seeking divestment from South Africa), and
the president of Harvard denounces the organizers of the campaign
as "antisemitic in effect, if not in intent." A faculty
committee at the Massachusetts College of Art invites eminent
poet Amiri Baraka to deliver a lecture, and members of the Critical
Studies faculty circulate a petition calling upon the college
president to denounce Baraka as an antisemite, citing as its
main evidence a poem he wrote about the historic oppression of
black people in which he refers to reported actions by the Israeli
government prior to the World Trade center attack. As the Israeli
commentator Ran HaCohen points out:
When Palestinians attack soldiers
of Israel's occupation army in their own village, it's anti-semitism.
When the UN general assembly votes 133 to 4 to condemn Israel's
decision to murder the elected Palestinian leader, it means that
every country on the planet except the U.S., Micronesia, and
the Marshall Islands is antisemitic.
This is ironic, he says, given
present reality:
With one revealing exception
(Israel, where non-orthodox religious Jews are discriminated
against), Jews enjoy full religious freedom wherever they are.
They have full citizenship wherever they live, with full political,
civic and human rights like every other citizen..
Nowadays, an Orthodox Jew can
run for the most powerful office on earth, the president of the
United States. A Jew can be mayor of Amsterdam in "anti-semitic"
Holland, a minister in "anti-semitic" Britain, a leading
intellectual in "anti-semitic" France, a president
of "anti-semitic" Switzerland, editor-in-chief of a
major daily in "anti-semitic" Denmark, or an industrial
tycoon in "anti-semitic" Russia. [A]nti-semitic Germany
gives Israel three military submarines, anti-semitic France has
proliferated to Israel the nuclear technology for its weapons
of mass destruction, and anti-semitic Europe welcomes Israel
as the single non-European country to everything from football
and basketball leagues to the Eurovision Song contest, and has
granted Israeli universities a special status for scientific
fund-raising.
"The use of alleged anti-semitism
is morally despicable," says HaCohen.
. People abusing this taboo
in order to support Israel's racist and genocidal policy towards
the Palestinians do nothing less than desecrate the memory of
those Jewish victims, whose death is meaningful only inasmuch
as it serves as an eternal warning to the human kind against
all kinds of discrimination, racism, and genocide ("Abusing
'anti-semitism'", Sept. 29, 2003; some of Ran HaCohen's
writings can be found at www.antiwar.com).
If I accomplish nothing else
in this talk, I hope to create space for some who are repelled
by Israeli actions but are held back from condemning Zionism
by a desire not to be antisemitic.
Does what I have just said
mean that I dismiss the possibility of a revival of anti-semitism?
No, it does not. History shows that anti-semitism ebbs and flows,
and that it may return. Time prevents me from exploring that
history in any depth; let me instead recommend two books: The
Jewish Question by Abram Leon and The Origins of Totalitarianism
by Hannah Arendt (in particular the first part, "anti-semitism").
For now I will say only that anti-semitism (or more accurately
anti-Jewish sentiment) is rooted neither in human nature or Christian
theology; it is the product of social relations, including the
historic concentration of Jews as representatives of commerce
in non-commercial societies. The peculiar occupational distribution
of European Jews led members of the dispossessed classes among
the non-Jewish population to direct their animosity toward the
Jews as the visible agents of oppression. "anti-semitism,"
as the 19th-century German Socialist August Bebel put it, "is
the socialism of fools." It is not beyond historical explanation
(as is implied by a term like "The Holocaust," which
takes anti-semitism out of history and relocates it the realm
of natural phenomena).
But of course the Jews by themselves
could not determine U.S. Middle East policy, any more than the
Florida Cubans by themselves could determine U.S. Caribbean policy.
By no means does all the organized support for Israel inside
of U.S. politics comes from Jews. Aside from imperialist interests-and
it is not clear whether Israel is an asset or a liability in
this regard-Israel has gained support from a surprising quarter.
From the Guardian, Feb. 28, 2002:
At first sight, the scene is
very familiar: one that happens in Washington DC and other major
American cities all the time. On the platform, an Israeli student
is telling thousands of supporters how the horrors of the year
have only reinforced his people's determination. "Despite
the terror attacks, they'll never drive us away out of our God-given
land," he says.
This is greeted with whoops
and hollers and the waving of Israeli flags and the blowing of
the shofar, the Jewish ceremonial ram's horn. Then comes the
mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, who is received even more rapturously.
"God is with us. You are with us." And there are more
whoops and hollers and flag-waves and shofar-blows.
But something very strange
is going on here. There are thousands of people cheering for
Israel in the huge Washington Convention Centre. But not one
of them appears to be Jewish, at least not in the conventional
sense. For this is the annual gathering of a very non-Jewish
Organization indeed: the Christian Coalition of America.
[T]here is little doubt that,
last spring, when President Bush dithered and dallied over his
Middle East policy before finally coming down on Israel's side,
he was influenced not by the overrated Jewish vote, but by the
opinion of Christian "religious conservatives"-the
self-description of between 15 and 18% of the electorate. When
the president demanded that Israel withdraw its tanks from the
West Bank in April, the White House allegedly received 100,000
angry emails from Christian conservatives.
What's changed? Not the Book
of Genesis
What has really changed is
the emergence of the doctrine known as "dispensationalism",
popularized in the novels of the Rev. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.
Central to the theory is the
Rapture, the second coming of Christ, which will presage the
end of the world. A happy ending depends on the conversion of
the Jews. And that, to cut a long story very short, can only
happen if the Jews are in possession of all the lands given to
them by God. In other words, these Christians are supporting
the Jews in order to abolish them.
Oh yes, agreed Madon Pollard,
a charming lady from Dallas who was selling hand-painted Jerusalem
crystal in the exhibition hall at the conference. "God is
the sovereign. He'll do what he pleases. But based on the scripture,
those are the guidelines." She calls herself a fervent supporter
of Israel
This conference began with
a videotaped benediction straight from the Oval office. Some
of the most influential Republicans in Congress addressed the
gathering including-not once, but twice-Tom DeLay [majority leader
of the House of Representatives, arguably the most powerful man
on Capitol Hill].
"Are you tired of all
this, are you?" he yelled to the audience.
"Nooooooo!" they
roared back. "Not when you're standing up for Jews and Jesus,
that's for sure," he replied.
Ariel Sharon, the Israeli
prime minister, [was] reportedly greeted "like a rock star"
by Christian evangelicals in Jerusalem last month.
DeLay was followed by Pat Robertson,
the coalition's founder, sometime presidential candidate and
the very personification of the successful American TV evangelist.
Robertson cites the stories of Joshua and David to prove Israel's
ownership of Jerusalem "long before anyone had heard of
Mohammed".
These are the people my grandfather
warned me about-the people who want to ban Darwin from the schools,
who want to send to camps people who have sex with members of
their own sex-and antisemeets (as he used to say), Jew-haters
to the backbone of their souls.
Osama Bin-Laden was telling
no more than the truth when he said that the Muslim world is
facing an alliance of Zionists and Crusaders.
Before I get around to proposing
solutions, I want to address the present state of the Israeli
peace movement. As everyone knows, there are forces inside of
Israel who oppose the government now in office. Some of these
people, particularly the soldiers who refuse service in what
they call the occupied territories or who refuse to carry out
atrocities such as bombing civilians, and those who encourage
them, are people of exemplary courage. Yet all of them, with
one notable exception (to which I shall return), are handicapped
and in the long run rendered ineffective by their acceptance
of the fundamental premise of Zionism, the legitimacy of the
Jewish state. "Land for peace" implies the permanent
partition of Palestine. It was under the leadership of the Labour
Party, with which much of the opposition is affiliated, that
the initial dispossession and exclusion of the Palestinian people
from their homeland took place and the expansion into the West
Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights was carried out.
History has shown, in Ireland,
India, and everyplace else it has been tried, that partition
of a territory along lines of descentæwhether called "racial"
or "religious"æis a guarantee of permanent war.
It is understandable that some Palestinians, having been subjected
to torture for over two generations, have reluctantly agreed
to accept as a substitute for justice a Palestinian State built
on less than a fourth of their original land. But they are making
a mistake. Such a State, if it is ever established, will be a
Bantustan, a reservation where the only attributes of a free
nation will be a flag and a national anthem. I am no more a Palestinian
Zionist than I am a Jewish Zionist.
What solution, therefore, do
I propose? A simple and moderate one: within historic Palestine,
the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River,
live ten million people. I propose that there be established
there a single state, in which every person who declares his
intention to live there and adopt citizenship be recognized as
a citizen and have one vote. I propose further that the special
advantages given to Jews be terminated, that the Palestinians
who were forced into exile after 1948, and their descendants,
be granted the right to live there, and that the state undertake
practical measures to make it possible for them to do so by building
housing and extending to them to right to rent or buy, if necessary
providing funds to help them. I propose further that both Hebrew
and Arabic be declared official state languages to be taught
in the schools, that all residents be granted the right to publish
newspapers and maintain cultural institutions in any language
they choose, that the special position of Orthodox Judaism be
ended and that the state declare freedom of worship and make
no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof.
It is a simple and, I repeat,
a moderate program. It does not entail driving anybody into the
sea, and it recognizes the elementary right of people to live
where they choose.
Some might object that such
a thing is impossible, that after all the blood that has been
shed and the bitterness that has accumulated, it will not be
possible for Jews and Arabs to live peacefully together. To that
argument I have three responses: the first is the experience
of South Africa, a place whose history of bitterness is no less
than Palestine's; there the establishment of majority rule did
not cause the gods to weep or the earth to open and swallow the
people. My second response comes from Sherlock Holmes: after
you have eliminated all the impossible solutions, Watson, the
one remaining, no matter how improbable, must be the right one.
My third response is to cite recent indications that the idea
of the single democratic secular state-once the official goal
of the PLO and then abandoned under U.S. pressure-is once again
emerging as a pole of discussion. Its reemergence is in part
a response to Israel's gobbling up so much territory that nothing
is left for a Palestinian state. The new reality is acknowledged
by no less than columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who quotes a prominent
Israeli Arab:
If Palestinians lose their
dream to have an independent state, then the only thing that
might guarantee for them a dignified life will be asking to live
in one state with the Israelis. When this struggle starts, it
will find allies among the one million Palestinian Arabs inside
Israel We will say, 'Don't evacuate even a single West Bank settlement.
Just give us the vote and let us be part of one community.'
Friedman reports a poll showing
that 25 to 30 percent of Palestinians now support the idea of
one state-"a stunning figure, considering it's never been
proposed by any Palestinian or Israeli party." He calls
it "the law of unintended consequences." (New York
Times, Sept. 14, 2003)
The one exception to my earlier
generalization about the Israeli opposition is a fraction of
Orthodox Jews in Israel, who reject the State of Israel on religious
grounds; according to them, the exile from the holy land was
divinely ordained, and therefore the Jews are to live among the
nations in every corner of the earth and not attempt to establish
a State before the coming of the Messiah. Allow me to read from
a statement by one of them, Rabbi Mordechi Weberman:
It is precisely because we
are Jews that we march with the Palestinians and raise their
flag! It is precisely because we are Jews that we demand that
the Palestinian peoples be returned to their homes and properties!
Yes, in our Torah we are commanded to be fair.
We are called upon to pursue justice. And, what could be more
unjust then the century-old attempt of the Zionist movement to
invade another people's land, to drive them out and steal their
property?
We have no doubt that would
Jewish refugees have come to Palestine not with the intention
of dominating, not with the intention of making a Jewish state,
not with the intention of dispossessing, not with the intention
of depriving the Palestinians of their basic rights, that they
would have been welcomed by the Palestinians, with the same hospitality
that Islamic peoples have shown Jews throughout history. And
we would have lived together as Jews and Muslims lived before
in Palestine in peace and harmony.
To our Islamic and Palestinian
friends around the world, please hear our messageThere are Jews
around the world who support your cause. And when we support
your cause we do not mean some partition scheme proposed in 1947
by a UN that had no right to offer it.
When we say support your cause
we do not mean the cut off and cut up pieces of the West Bank
offered by Barak at Camp David together with justice for less
than 10% of the refugees.
We do not mean anything other
than returning the entire land, including Jerusalem, to Palestinian
sovereignty!
At that point justice demands
that the Palestinian people should decide if and how many Jews
should remain in the Land.
We have attended hundreds of
pro-Palestinian rallies over the years and everywhere we go the
leaders and audience greet us with the warmth of Middle Eastern
hospitality. What a lie it is to say that Palestinians in particular
or Muslims in general hate Jews. You hate injustice. Not Jews.
Fear not my friends. Evil cannot
long triumph. The Zionist nightmare is at its end. It is exhausted.
Its latest brutalities are the death rattle of the terminally
ill.
We will yet both live to see
the day when Jew and Palestinian will embrace in peace under
the Palestinian flag in Jerusalem. And ultimately when mankind's
Redeemer will come the sufferings of the present will long be
forgotten in the blessings of the future.
(http:www.marchforjustice.com/becauseweare
jews.php)
I am not a believer, but I
find Rabbi Weberman's words moving.
One last point: I spoke earlier
about the possibility of a resurgence of anti-semitism in the
United States. In 1991 George H.W. Bush, the father of the man
who sits in the White House and the only member of his family
ever to have been elected president, demanded that the Israelis
stop building new settlements in Palestinian territory. Unlike
previous presidents, Bush sounded serious, threatening to block
billions in loan guarantees if Israel disobeyed. As might have
been predicted, the dominant voices among American Jews were
outraged, and Bush responded by complaining at a press conference
that "Jews work insidiously behind the scenes." On
another occasion he reminded critics that the U.S. gives "Israel
the equivalent of $1,000 for every Israeli citizen," a remark
that detractors took as antisemitic. Later on Bush's Secretary
of State James Baker made his famous "fuck the Jews"
remark in private conversation, noting that Jews "didn't
vote for us anyway." And it was true: when he lost to Bill
Clinton in 1992, Bush got smallest percentage of the Jewish vote
of any Republican since 1964.
The present occupant of the
White House seems for the time being to have recouped much of
his party's loss of favor among Jews, in part due to his appointment
of so many to positions of power and influence in his administration.
But I will go out on a limb and make a prediction (something
I rarely do because I hate to be wrong): one-sided support for
Israel, while it may win votes among American Jews and some fundamentalist
Christians, is not necessarily wise from the standpoint of U.S.
oil interests, and may even cost votes among that increasing
number of Americans who can pick up the newspaper almost any
day and see another story about Israeli tanks surrounding the
residence of the Palestinian president, or massacring children,
or assassinating a crippled half-blind cleric. I predict that
if Dubya manages to extend his control of the White House in
2004, he will present the bill to whoever is in power in Israel,
and that bill will include withdrawal from some of the territories
occupied after 1967. If the Israelis respond negatively to this
demand, which there is every reason to believe they will, and
are supported by American Jews, which there is every reason to
believe they will be, the younger Bush, already born-again, will
be reborn yet one more time and will start making remarks about
special minorities with divided loyalties and so forth. In other
words, he will stoke up anti-semitism, carefully of course, as
befits the leader of the free world. And he will find a tremendous
response, more than anyone anticipates, from many ordinary people
who are tired of picking up the tab for the number one outlaw
state in the Middle East, the state that has defied scores of
United Nations resolutions, been condemned by the UN more than
any other member or non-member, the only state in the Middle
East that possesses actual weapons of mass destruction.
Cynthia McKinney, Afro-American
Congresswoman from Atlanta, was the most outspoken critic in
Congress of U.S. Middle East policy, including unconditional
support for Israel. As a result, Jewish groups around the country
targeted her and, by channeling money to her opponent, succeeded
in defeating her bid for reelection in 2002. Were they within
their legal rights to do so? Of course they were; there is no
law barring people in one district from contributing to a campaign
in another. But do they think their intervention went unnoticed
by black voters in Atlanta and around the country?
If American Jews insist on
identifying themselves with Israel, equating anti-Zionism with
anti-semitism, should they be surprised if others make the same
mistake?
Noel Ignatiev is author of How
the Irish Became White, cofounder and coeditor of Race Traitor:
Journal of the New Abolitionism, and a teacher at the Massachusetts
College of Art. This essay is based on a talk he delivered this
past March at the Massachusetts College of Art.
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