VICTIMS OF VICTIMS…
..is not from me. Edward Said, a Palestinian-American Scholar, who died in 2003 was writing about Zionism, the Jews and the Palestinians. It needs to be noted that Edward Said acknowledged that millions of Jews were persecuted, killed and butchered in Nazi Germany. This phrase captures the core irony Said identified: a people who suffered profound persecution in Europe (Jews) established a nation through the dispossession of another people (Palestinians).
Zionism thinking worked for many years to establish a permanent home for Jews. The British helped with their Balfour Declaration and in 1947, the United Nations proposed partitioning Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. This led to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, a moment celebrated by Jews as independence and mourned by Palestinians as the Nakba (Catastrophe), marking the start of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Zionism saw the country as being an “Empty Land.” It never was, but Israel laws have been enacted to get rid of Arabs who have been there for centuries e.g. Absentee Property Law 1950. I am also told, but I have not seen, about Israeli books for children that appear to legitimise the removal of Arabs.
Who will deny Jews the right to exist, certainly not me. But powerful Zionism supporters are working to deny Palestinians, the same rights they have. Edward Said says Palestine was a populated land and Zionism must be understood as a form of settler colonialism to systematically displace and erase the Palestinian people. The philosophy of Zionism
· Denies the humanity and existence of the native population.
· Presents the act of settlement as a benign act of cultivation and progress (“making the desert bloom”).
· Avoids moral or political responsibility toward the people displaced.
The Palestinian people, with their complex society were rendered invisible or placed into a category of “non-Jewish natives” or “terrorists.” Their deep historical connection to the land was erased and replaced with a narrative that emphasised only ancient Jewish history.
Edward Said separated Anti-Zionism from Anti- Semitism. He distinguished between anti-Zionism (criticism of a political ideology) and anti-Semitism (hatred of Jews), insisting that challenging the Zionist narrative was not an expression of hatred toward Jews .
I want the peace plan to work, but where are the many Arab nations in this? It is being discussed in Egypt by the “killers” who act as peacemakers. Where are the neighbours? The US is hardly a neighbour.
I think Edward Said was spot on with his words about Zionism as a form of settler colonialism that systematically set out to displace and erase the Palestinian people. Netanyahu, Trump and “silent” nations know this too. It’s so sad that people like Greta Thunberg have to be the loud voice for you and I.
