[A-List] Jewish challenges to Zionism on the rise in the US

[Bill Totten]

by Gabriel Ash, Emily Katz Kashawi, Mich Levy, Sara Kershnar

The Electronic Intifada (June 14 2010)


In June 2010, two opposite ends of the Jewish political spectrum
will vie for one historical moment. As Israel and the Zionist
movement struggle to maintain their century-long pull on Jewish
minds, a new project is emerging to rechart the course away from
Zionism and toward embracing a renewed commitment to a shared
humanity.

On 19-22 June, just prior to the US Social Forum, North American
Jews will gather in Detroit to challenge racism, colonialism and
imperialism - first and foremost by contributing to efforts to
overcome Zionism and decolonize Palestine. The 2010 US Assembly of
Jews: Confronting Racism and Israeli Apartheid -
www.jewsconfrontapartheid.org - comes at a time when there is great
urgency to build on recent successes of the Palestine solidarity
movement, and as United States corporations and the government
continue to commit grave injustices in Palestine - not to mention
in its own communities.

This event follows on the heels of the 36th Congress of the World
Zionist Organization (WZO) to be held in Jerusalem that same week.
The WZO was founded in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress to serve
as the umbrella organization for the Zionist movement. At this
upcoming gathering, the Congress will no doubt reassert and refocus
its strategies for defending Israel's legitimacy against growing
condemnations, attempts to hold Israel accountable for war crimes,
and the successes of the movement for boycott, divestment and
sanctions.

The WZO is both a symbol and a founding institution of Zionist
political thought and action that brought us to this current
historical moment. One finds an illustration of this disastrous
trajectory in the press releases the WZO published during Israel's
2008-09 winter invasion of Gaza. For example, on 12 January, by the
time most of the horrible facts of the massacre were already public
knowledge, the WZO opposed UN Security Council Resolution 1860
calling for an immediate ceasefire, labeling it "anti-Israel", and
criticized it for failing to demand "humanitarian assistance" to
Israel. Many leading Zionist organizations echoed similar
positions, whereas "softer" Zionist organizations waffled and
fumbled. Reading their expressions of apology, support and indeed
even encouragement for unconscionable crimes, it is painful to
imagine that a beating heart was linked with the hand that typed
them.

Likewise, on 31 May of this year, a monumental effort to break the
illegal and crippling siege on Gaza was recently thwarted by the
Israeli government. A flotilla comprised of six boats, 700 peace
and solidarity activists from more than forty countries delivering
10,000 tons of humanitarian aid was attacked by the Israeli navy
and taken control of by killing and injuring people on a boat
flying a Turkish flag in international waters. The inhumanity and
illegality of these acts are undeniable and increasingly in the
public eye. As awareness of Israel's moral and political bankruptcy
is growing worldwide, so does the authoritarianism, violence and
self-righteous fanaticism of the Israeli authorities and of growing
sections of the Israeli public.

Overcoming Zionist ideas and practice is crucial, first and
foremost, because of the impact of its institutionalized racism and
colonialism on the people of Palestine and the broader region. This
impact manifests in the demand for political, legal and economic
power for Jews and European people and cultures over indigenous
people and cultures. This racism is also the cause of the extensive
displacement and alienation of Mizrahi Jews (Jews of African and
Asian descent) from their diverse histories, languages, traditions
and cultures and in the marginalization and economic exploitation
of its Mizrahi population and migrant workers within Israeli
society.

Zionism is also anti-Semitic in its rejection of Jewish cultures
and histories - including both Jews who are "other" than European
and the European Jewish "victim" which it attempted to distance
itself from in the creation of the "new Jew". While rejecting the
feminized Jewish victims of Christian Europe, it then uses their
memory to justify and perpetuate European racism and colonialism
and a militarized Jewish state. Likewise, Zionism promotes
Islamophobia in Palestine, the broader region, the US and around
the world. And the resentment and anger toward Jews living in
Israel and elsewhere, aroused by Israeli violence and military
domination, is used to justify further Zionist violence.

Zionism perpetuates Jewish exceptionalism and tells a version of
Jewish history that is disconnected from the history and
experiences of other people. By exceptionalizing the Nazi genocide,
Jews are set apart from the victims and survivors of that and other
genocides instead of being united with them. As such, Zionism
implicates us in the oppression of the Palestinian people and in
the debasement of our own heritages, struggles for justice and
alliances with our fellow human beings.

The strategy to promote an understanding of Israel as an apartheid
state is having increasing success, particularly in its explanation
of why boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel are
justified. Advances in this arena are rattling Zionist
organizations in Israel and around the world. However, Zionist
institutions like the WZO, American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League, The Simon Wiesenthal Center,
B'nai B'rith and others in the US and elsewhere have access to
millions of dollars to spend on shielding Israel from
accountability for its apartheid policies and its accelerating war
crimes, and for furthering the colonization, ethnic cleansing and
the theft and destruction of Palestinian land.

The confluence of interests between the Israeli state, global
capitalist interests, especially that of weapon manufacturers,
"post-conflict" construction and security companies and the oil
industry is going strong. Islamophobic reactions in Western Europe,
the US and Canada and general xenophobia seeks to use Muslims and
immigrants as the scapegoats for the universal crisis of capitalism
and excuses for perpetual war and occupation.

US and Israeli military aggression in the region support and
reinforce each other. Despite American concerns that Israeli policy
damages the image of the US, Israel's economic and military power
in the region is deemed vital by Washington. As a corollary, it is
ever more apparent that pro-Israel lobbies in the US are opposed to
anti-war efforts. The Zionist organizations and the Israeli lobby
increasingly align with the neoconservatives in the US and share
their investment in the agenda of war, occupation and/or sanctions
against Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon and Syria.

Anti-Zionist Jews in the US can play a role in asserting to the
anti-war movement that meaningful headway will not be possible
without confronting the role Israel plays in provoking and
justifying the US's war agenda. After decades of debate and
hesitation, Palestine is still a point of contention in the
American anti-war movement. Challenging the US funding of Israel is
avoided out of concern that it will detract from critiques of the
US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Contrary to this concern,
placing Palestine squarely in the center of an anti-war agenda in
the US is the key to a more fundamental shift in US policy and
practice of which war is a necessary strategy. In turn, through
building with the anti-war movement, we can contribute to efforts
to reduce the isolation of the Palestinian struggle, advance
challenges to Islamophobia, and directly challenge the mutually
beneficial relationship shared by the US and Israel.

Accountability of Israeli, US government and international Zionist
support for Israel will not come from a shift in US policy but
through shifting American public opinion and debate, fomenting
popular movement, using international and US legal sanctions and
supporting the Palestinian call for BDS. The 2010 US Assembly of
Jews seeks to contribute to these efforts and reflects a
significant departure from Zionism that has been building since the
second Palestinian intifada broke the stranglehold of the Oslo
accords. It has continuity with a long history of Jewish
participation in struggles for human emancipation. Ours are among
the growing voices of Jews who seek a departure from the course
that Zionism has been and continues down - a course that is a
betrayal of our humanity as it simultaneously denies that of
Palestinians.

Jews have an independent case against Zionism, and we are also part
of a solidarity movement. When Jews aren't clear - either about
their own confrontation of Zionism, or about the precedence of the
demands of the Palestinian grassroots struggle - Jewish
participation threatens to muddle rather than clarify and
strengthen the Palestine solidarity movement. We must be cautious
to not presume that our commitment and investment in overcoming
Zionism suggest "equality" in the struggle; overstepping our actual
role in the movement undermines Palestinian leadership in their own
struggle, thus reinforcing the centralization of Jewish voices that
Zionism promotes and racism suggests. Likewise, equating the need
for Palestinian liberation and safety with safety of most Jews in
contemporary Western countries is inaccurate.

The Assembly will be a chance to reflect on ourselves as a part of
US and international movements for justice and bring clarity to our
politics and practices so that we can increase our effectiveness.
Jewish anti-Zionism is not an identity, but a politic to develop
and actualize and a location from which to challenge Zionism.
Organizing to gain the approval of - or legitimacy in relationship
to - Jewish popular opinion, liberal Zionist organizations, or US
public opinion undermines our ability to be in solidarity.
Likewise, in the long-run, rewriting Palestinian demands (for
example, excluding the right of return from BDS campaigns) to fit
agendas that reinforce peace as a strategy for maintaining an
exclusive Jewish state does not challenge the foundations of
Zionist policies and principles. However, in the short-run any
participation that advances BDS is useful in delegitimizing Israel.
It is the development and sharing of distinctions such as these
that will deepen and increase the possibility of a real alternative
to Zionism and the ability of Jews to contribute to a powerful and
effective Palestine solidarity movement. These are the issues that
we hope to raise and explore with Jews and our partners in struggle
at the 2010 US Assembly of Jews.

Our commitment to confronting Zionism is part of our commitment to
cutting the threads of racism, anti-Semitism, elitism, fascism,
colonialism and imperialism that have nourished Zionism and were
institutionalized in the apartheid structures of Israel. Instead,
we build continuity with the historic and current movements for
human emancipation, class struggle, equality, democracy and
justice. These threads have always existed in Jewish histories,
against histories of Jewish collaboration with those that seek to
oppress.

_____

Gabriel Ash is an activist, writer and a core member of the
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN). He writes because
the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword and sometimes not.

Emily Katz Kashawi is an activist, communications professional and
a mother of twins.

Mich Levy is an activist, educator and an international organizer
with IJAN.

Sara Kershnar is an activist and an international organizer of IJAN.

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