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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20957893
By MEE staff. Published date: 2 October 2024 11:34 BST
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/20957893
By MEE staff. Published date: 2 October 2024 11:34 BST
The slogan From the River to the Sea is about Palestinian liberation that started in the 60s by the PLO for a democratic secular state, not Genocide. The Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad in 1966 maybe, but he’s not Palestinian.
You again are conflating Zionism with Judaism, which are 2 very different things. Israel has never represented all Jewish people and never will, nor are it’s actions done to benefit all Jewish people. The conflation is itself antisemitic. Adi Callai, an Israeli, does a great analysis of how Antisemitism has been weaponized (see 29:01) by Zionism during its history.
Origins of Zionism
Zionism is a settler colonialism project that was able to really start with the support of British Imperialism. Zionism as a political movement started with Theodore Herzl in the 1880s as a ‘modern’ way to ‘solve’ the ‘Jewish Question’ of Europe.
Since at least the 1860’s, Europe was increasingly antisemitic and hostile to Jewish people. Zionism was explicitly a Setter Colonialist movement and the native Palestinians were not considered People but Savages by the Europeans. While Zionist Colonization began before it, the Balfor Declaration is when Britain gave it’s backing of the movement in order to ‘solve’ the ‘Jewish Question’ while also creating a Colony in the newly conquered Middle East after WWI in order to exhibit military force in the region and extract natural resources.
That’s when Zionist immigration started to pick up, out of necessity for most as Europe became more hostile and antisemitic. That continued into and during WWII, European countries and even the US refused to expand immigration quotas for Jewish people seeking asylum. The idea that the creation of Israel is a reparation for Jewish people is an after-the-fact justification. While most Jewish immigrants had no choice and just wanted a place to live in peace, it was the Zionist Leadership that developed and implemented the forced transfer, ethnic cleansing, of the native population, Palestinians. Without any Occupation, Apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, there would not be any Palestinian resistance to it.
Herzl himself explicitly considered Zionism a Settler Colonialist project, Setter Colonialism is always violent. The difficulty in creating a democratic Jewish state in an area inhabited by people who are not Jewish, is that enough Palestinian people need to be ‘Transferred’ to have a demographic majority that is Jewish. Ben-Gurion explicitly rejected Secular Bi-national state solutions in favor of partition.
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Settlements, Occupation, and Apartheid
Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
Visualizing the Ethnic Cleansing
Historian Works on the History
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha
The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 - Nur Masalha
A History of Modern Palestine - Ilan Pappe
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences - Avi Shlaim
The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe
The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development - Sara Roy
10 Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe (summery)