War on Gaza: In Australia pro-Palestinian voices face a frenzy of Zionist McCarthyism by Randa Abdel-Fattah, Middle East Eye, July 19 2024 https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-australia-pro-palestinian-voices-face-frenzy-zionist-mccarthyism
*Zionism is a political ideology, not a religious or ethnic identity. The egregious, false equivalence between it and Judaism is the only way Israel and the West can justify genocide* . . . As coercive repression of anti-Zionist voices escalates at a frenzied pace in western society, what is at stake extends beyond individuals’ livelihoods and mental health, for these ultimately constitute collateral damage. The real target and objective of anti-Palestinian racism is discursive disarmament, specifically, disarming the Palestinian movement of its capacity to critique and resist Zionism and hold Israel to account. . . . It is impossible to overstate how the repression we are witnessing is occurring because governments, media, institutions and employers are legitimating disingenuous complaints and blatant hit-jobs by acquiescing to the egregious and false equivalence between Zionism and Judaism. Despite pro-Palestine voices explicitly critiquing and targeting Zionist ideology and practice in clear distinction to Judaism and Jewish identity, and despite standing alongside anti-Zionist Jews, we are accused of antisemitism. . . . Zionism is a political ideology that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century. It explicitly argued for settler colonialism to replace the majority indigenous population of Palestine. Zionism is not a religious, racial, ethnic or cultural identity. It is a political doctrine that a member of any culture, religion, race or ethnic category can subscribe to. Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. Jews and Judaism existed for thousands of years before Zionism. These are not controversial contentions. They are borne out by almost a century of academic scholarship and have been adopted by anti-Zionist Jewish scholars, lawyers, human rights organisations and clerics. They are supported by facts. Consider, for example, that the largest pro-Israel organisation in the United States is Christians United for Israel. . . . Zionist ideology is recognised as inherently racist because it denies the inalienable right of indigenous Palestinian people to self-determination, and the right to live free of genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism and domination. Palestinian subjugation is an existential necessity for the supremacist goal of Israel’s political project. This is not even contested. Israel’s 2018 nation-state law explicitly states that “the right to exercise national self-determination” in Israel is “unique to the Jewish people” and established “Jewish settlement as a national value”, mandating that the state “will labour to encourage and promote its establishment and development”. Anti-Zionism is directed at a state-building project and a political regime. Rather than protect people’s right to subject Zionism to normative interrogation, as is the case with all political ideologies, institutions panic at complaints and uncritically legitimate the false claim that anti-Zionism equals antisemitism. . . . In the context of a genocide that has so far, on a recent conservative [estimate] by the Lancet, one of the world's highest-impact academic journals, caused an estimated 186,000 deaths and counting, governments, institutions and mainstream media are prepared to effectively destroy any vestige of democratic principles, fundamental rights and intellectual rigour in order to exceptionalise Zionism and Israel and shield a political ideology and a state from critique. . . . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#31326): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/31326 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/107586223/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
