January 8, 2008
Section 1: [Continuation]
H: When Zionists Defends Zionism
One of the most risible things about Zionists, supremacist, racists, imperialists, and colonialists is when they rise to their own defense. One such example is of President George W. Bush who declared the United States not a "torturer nation," while his occupation force has been actively engaging in torturing and killing hundred of thousands of Iraqis since the first day it invaded Iraq; the other, when Condoleezza Rice compared the imperialist takeover of Iraq to the "American Civil War."
In her sheer shallowness, Rice overlooked that Americans fought the Civil War among themselves. In Iraq, American imperialists invaded it not to liberate it from "dictatorship" or to take part in an Iraqi civil war that did not exist but to conquer its oil wealth, partition it, elevate Israel to absolute military power in the Middle East, and use Iraq as a territorial springboard for further American expansion in Asia.
Similarly, Zionists deny that Israel is structurally violent, racist, and supremacist. Or, when Zionists do admit their racism, they blame the victim: "it is the fault of the people that they despise!" For example, at ynetnews: "The Association for Civil Rights’ poll, which showed a high incidence of racism within Israeli society, accurately reflects the attitude of the majority of the public to Israel’s Arabs. However, the reason for it does not stem from a racist attitude on the part of the Jews, but rather, it stems from security-based hostility and political disagreements. When Arabs convey the message that they do not accept us here as a majority in a Jewish state and in control of the Land of Israel, this is the result."
An example of propaganda put forward in defense of Zionism is by the Zionist website: Zionism and Israel Information Center. After stating that Zionism is not racist, the website proceeds to declare that everything negative written against Zionism is untrue, and that quotations attributed to Zionist politicians and theoreticians are either false or taken out of context. The website then continues by giving universally banal examples of "falsifications against Zionism."
To prove its contention, the website reports benign quotes by Israeli politicians and founders. In essence, the site editors try to substitute the objective reality of Zionism as the world witnessed it with rhetorical statements without merit. It is only conceivable but also eminently believable that everything said or analyzed about the criminal nature of Zionism is true except that the Israelis eat the livers of Arab babies at Yom Kippur. Said the editors of the website:
Scattered around the Web are numerous pages of "Zionist Quotes" that show Zionism as an evil, racist conspiracy. Many of the quotes are forgeries and inventions. There was never any Ariel Sharon interview with a "General Ouze Merham," and there was never any General Ouze Merham either. Amos Oz did not interview Ariel Sharon in 1982 or at any other time and denies that he interviewed Ariel Sharon. If you see any of those quotes, you can know the "information" on that page is a fake, and the people who present them are careless or liars. The intent of the doctored quotes is to "prove" that "Zionism is Racism." and that 'Zionists’ planned the transfer of Arabs from Palestine from the start. This false thesis is advanced by fabricating quotes in interviews that never took place, or by altering real quotes and taking them out of context.
Refutation: We are willing to consider such a statement by Zionists, if they agree to consider that anti-Zionist or anti-Jewish quotations attributed to Nazi leaders were just false Nazi quotes.
However, even in the absence of quotations and despite Zionists protestation to the contrary, facts on the ground and the history of the Zionist entity in the past fifty-nine years (since statehood in 1948) speak powerfully and irrefutably about the racism of the state of Israel. While Zionist quotations help to focus the attention on the guiding mentality of Zionists, the history of racism and violence by Zionist Israelis, on the other hand, is universal by its unique barbarity and pathological intensity. A limited sampling include,
The Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and Stern’s (headed by Itzhak Shamir) massacre of villagers at Deir Yassin, 1948.
The massacre of Palestinians refugees at Sabra and Shatila in 1982 by rightwing Lebanese Christian militia under the order of Ariel Sharon.
The Apartheid Wall in the occupied West bank (see photo)
The occupation and frequent bombardment of refugee camps in all of the occupied West Bank and Gaza,
The Jenin Massacre (read a debate on the issue by David Edwards of Media Lens)
The destruction of Lebanon and the U.S. proxy wars against the Arab and Muslim states, and so on.
Special Note
Certain websites vigorously pursue denunciation of false quotations attributed to Zionists. That some websites would publish loosely researched or unverified quotations of Zionists is sloppy and stupid. It undermines social activism on behalf of Palestinians and ultimately helps Zionist aims. Establishing the veracity of information is important, but to engage in denying racist quotations without denouncing the instances of verifiable racist comments presents an inescapable conclusion: the websites are not interested in fighting racism. These websites have another agenda, and that agenda is acting as cover for Zionist racism. These websites are, therefore, guilty of perpetuating racism.
Readers must be vigilant and consider information with sufficient skepticism. Readers should be skeptical of unsupported claims. Readers should demand that writers make known the sources upon which they made their claims.
Next: Part 11 of 12
Read also Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8, 9.
Kim Petersen is co-editor of Dissident Voice. B. J. Sabri is an Iraqi-American antiwar activist. They can be reached at: Petersen_sabri@yahoo.com. Read other articles by Kim Petersen.
