It's
Not Just The Occupation
By Ali Abunimah
09 June, 2007
The
Electronic Intifada
"Forty years ago today was
the last day the citizens of Israel were a free people in their own
land," wrote Ha'aretz columnist Akiva Eldar on June 4. "It
was the last day we lived here without living other peoples' lives."
This sums up the cherished
mythology of what is still called the Israeli left and much of the international
peace process industry -- that prior to the 1967 war, Israel was pure
and on the right path. Had it not "become an occupier" the
region would have had a happier history and Israel would be an accepted
member of the international community rather than a pariah wearing the
"apartheid" label.
The exclusive focus on the
occupation serves increasingly to obscure that the conflict in Palestine
is at its core a colonial struggle whose boundaries do not conveniently
coincide with the lines of June 4, 1967.
I do not often agree with
leaders of the settler movement, but they speak a truth Israeli and
American liberals prefer to ignore when they point out that the settlements
in Gaza and the West Bank built after 1967 are not morally different
from towns and kibbutzim inside Israel's pre-1967 borders. The Israel
that was created in 1948 was established on land violently expropriated
from ethnically-cleansed Palestinians. Israel has been maintained as
a "Jewish state" only by the imposition of numerous laws that
maintain the inferior status of its Palestinian citizens and forcibly
exclude Palestinian refugees.
Even Israelis who condemn
the occupation support these racist laws. There is an Israeli consensus
that it is legitimate to defend the Jewish state against the so-called
"demographic threat" from Palestinians who will be again,
as they were prior to 1948, the majority population group in Palestine-Israel
despite six decades of Israeli efforts to reduce their numbers with
expulsions, massacres and administrative ethnic cleansing. It is the
imperative to gerrymander an enclave with a Jewish majority rather than
any recognition of Palestinian equality that underpins whatever limited
rhetorical Israeli support exists for a Palestinian state.
The slogan "end the
occupation" has come to mean all things to all people. For Israel's
ruling elites, the quisling leaders of Fateh and the Quartet it can
even include Israel's permanent annexation of most settlements. Demanding
an end to the occupation only so Israel can continue to function as
a racist ethnocracy within "recognized borders" is not a progressive
position any more than supporting apartheid South Africa's bantustans
would have been.
Because Israel's colonialism
harms all Palestinians, not just those living in the 1967 occupied territories,
we cannot limit ourselves to demanding that the 40-year old infrastructure
of military dictatorship be dismantled in the West Bank and Gaza. We
must simultaneously demand the abolition of all racist laws throughout
the country, including those allowing foreign Jews to immigrate while
Palestinians are kept out, as well as discrimination in land allocation,
housing, education and the economy.
We must recast the struggle
as one for democracy and equal rights for all the people who live in
the country. This involves two kinds of work: solidarity in the form
of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli apartheid system
in all its disguises, and the articulation of a vision of a shared future
inspired by the values of the peace settlements in Northern Ireland
and South Africa. Leaders of Israel's one million Palestinian citizens
have put forward imaginative and concrete proposals for democratization
and equality. They are already paying the price: Israel's Shin Bet secret
police has received official blessing to subvert even legal activities
that challenge the superior rights reserved for Jews. Palestinian leaders
in the West Bank and Gaza have failed to offer a compelling vision,
even though many recognize that the two-state solution is a mirage.
Of course Israelis will not
easily give up their privileges any more than whites in Alabama, Georgia
or Mississippi did in the face of the American civil rights movement.
But racism is not a lifestyle choice the rest of the world is obligated
to respect. Determined movements can bring about transformations that
seem scarcely imaginable from the depths of the gloom. We have seen
enough shining examples to maintain our hope and inspire us to action.
Ali Abunimah is
cofounder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
This article was originally
published by bitterlemons-international, Edition
22 volume 5 - June 07, 2007.
Leave
A Comment
&
Share Your Insights
Comment
Policy
Digg
it! And spread the word!
Here is a unique chance to help this article to be read by thousands
of people more. You just Digg it, and it will appear in the home page
of Digg.com and thousands more will read it. Digg is nothing but an
vote, the article with most votes will go to the top of the page. So,
as you read just give a digg and help thousands more to read this article.