Zionism and the creation of Israel

Mar 11, 2007

By Ahlam Akram

I do not want to flame the emotions, but I am here to present facts and to address you so that together we can think of a way to save our people.

I am not going to argue whether or not Israel has the right to exist, because Israel is internationally recognised and because there is a law that gives a squatter the ownership when he takes over an empty house.

But let's not forget that those houses were not empty; yet Israel is a fact today.

Based on the international acceptance of modern states, Israel has earned an acknowledgement of its existence. However, Israel is at risk of losing sympathy as it continues its brutal military occupation which is condemned by international law and which is brought into all our homes by TV pictures.

You ask me about the role of Zionism and the establishment of the Jewish state.
Do I care about it?
I cannot say I do. I know that Zionism started in 18.. something, long before the Jewish tragedy of the holocaust; and that anti Semitism and the holocaust together have drawn sympathy for Israel.
But do I care about Jewish people?
Yes I do. And some of them have become close friends who I care about like I care about members of my own family.

But I also understand and know that there was a nakba - a catastrophe - which culminated in the expulsion of the Palestinian people through acts of terrorism and barbarism, documented by Jewish writers like Avi Shliem and Benny Morris. Indeed, according to Benny Morris there were 18 more massacres perpetrated by Jewish forces between 1947 and 1949 than what is generally known.

People, who had nothing to do with the tragedy of the Jewish holocaust, still suffer a continuous tragedy even now. Those people - my people – those from whom I originally came prior to my own exile and subsequent emigration. My family still lives under the threat of being expelled for no crime whatsoever except that they were born Palestinians and demand their equal rights.

So to ask me to understand Zionism is like asking a rape victim to understand the rapist. We are survivors of that horror.
And for us, how did we see Zionism?
It was and remains a racist ideology that allows Jews from anywhere in the world to go to today's Israel, which is still Palestine in our souls, and to claim superior rights to the land at the expense of the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians. Using military governments to carry on discriminatory racist policies and settle by force, Jews have come from all over the world in the remaining 22 % that should belong to us in the West Bank and Gaza.

What is happening in the occupied territories is but a violation of Israel’s own declaration of independence which states that the country –Israel- will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants, irrespective of religion, race or sex. And that it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language education and culture, safeguard the holy places of all religions and be faithful to the principles of the charter of the United Nations.

Although I can empathise with Jewish fears today from any threat of repeat of such a horrible genocide as the holocaust was, I cannot condone this fear. For today the State of Israel is strong. It possesses the fifth strongest army in the world and is a nuclear power. It also has the support of the entire West and above all the support of the United States.

I believe that God created the land for all His people and we the Palestinians are not of a lesser God. Yet, for some people, Zionism was about creating a just, progressive and humane society based on "Jewish” values and the need to feel safe as a nation. But the reality is that the right wing fundamentalist Zionism has overrun any idea of a progressive and humane society based on "Jewish" values.

Where and how can I see Jewish values while the Palestinian trauma goes on and on under the pretence of national security and the constant fear from the repetition of the trauma? Israeli exaggeration makes it justifiable and acceptable to expel, torture, and oppress my own loved ones.

Is it the desperate need to have a national identity that keeps the militarisation of that identity? Is it that desperate need that is causing over determination and rigidity of identity and leading to the fortification of the settlement and of the soul?

From a psychoanalytical point of view, the human identity is always unstable, on the move capable of transformation. And after 60 years I do truly wonder why must Israel cling to the 'victim' status? Isn't it time to heal and move on?

Israel and the Jews around the world had the chance to stand up to the values of their declaration of independence and to stun the world with their moral adherence to international law, if not to maintain the claim of highest moral values then for self preservation. Israel is at risk as long as it continues its occupation of the West Bank–Gaza and its people.

Israeli Governments have violated the international law, but most importantly the moral grounds that earned Jews international sympathy. Israel is perusing an implicit ethnic cleansing policy, ridding itself from all the international obligations and acting as an occupying power.

When Avigdor Lieberman publicly calls for "Transfer", which means total expulsion of all non Jewish people including Israeli citizens with non Jewish origins; what does that means if not ethnic cleansing?

The besieging of Palestinian cities and villages and the continuous increase of settlements buildings are other manifestations of ethnic cleansing. There are 600 checkpoints and only 24 of them are between Israel and Palestine; the rest are inside the Palestinian occupied land.

Then there is the wall which is 650 kilometres long and the green line which is only 315 kilometres long. The wall or the barrier takes 53% of Palestinian water resources. The cost of water for the Palestinians is four times higher than in the illegal Israeli settlements even though settlers consume 600 CM while Palestinians consume only 140 CM. East Jerusalem, the occupied part of the city, represents 45% of the Palestinian economy. In 1975 the Israeli High Court ruled that no one can live in the old city except Jews. And there are hundreds of other examples of the brutality of the occupation……

So you ask me how I feel about Zionism and Jewish State? We are all enslaved in the 2,500 year-old concept of nation state.

In an interdependent world, today’s biggest threats are poverty and fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalism and extremism; Neo-conservative evangelism that encourages Jews to go back to the biblical land so that the Christ returns; and the Israeli settler ideology that gives him the exclusive right to the land as a biblical right.

Today it is our responsibility to safeguard our global future, to work together and support the rights of both people for a two states solution.

The conflict is between two different people with different national identities and aspirations, and each of the two people places the highest value on a national state of their own.

After separating the two people - perhaps after 100 years, although I hope less - movement from the two states to a federation or a confederation could happen. Such a transition is beginning to be seen, in spite of the discrimination and oppression in today's Israel – where Palestinian citizens, together with their Jewish fellow citizens are effectively and peacefully demanding their rights in an equal civil society – a "Sikkoun organisation". I hope for co-operation and good neighbourly relations, governed by international norms between the two countries; yet perhaps it is too daring to dream of a confederation similar to the European Union.

It is time to end the bloodshed and we should do that from the perspective of our responsibility to common humanity. Israel needs to be saved from its own policy through mobilising international public opinion against the criminal treatment of the Palestinian people by the Occupation Authorities.

More independent Jewish voices are needed at this stage, and a European contribution might be of a great value to change US policy that sympathises with the Israeli side. Europeans should stop thinking that they are not equal to the US and participate actively in shaping the Middle East.

What is needed is a political solution that truly conforms to universal human rights and international law; a solution that will restore to Israel the spirit it has lost, and guarantee the security and safety for Jews everywhere, and equally, not less, also for Palestinians everywhere.

God knows that we have committed the unforgivable. Then let us consider the words of the Algerian-French/Jewish-Arab philosopher Jacques Derrida: “only when it is impossible to forgive, can forgiveness take place. Now that we have gone beyond all limits, let us begin to forgive by using the skills and wisdom that God bestowed on us to build a better future for ALL our children: a future of mutual acknowledgement and mutual respect, equality and forgiveness”.