[News] The Right To Exist: Who has it? Where is it? Why?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

The Right To Exist: Who has it? Where is it? Why?

By Gary Corseri

05 June, 2010
http://countercurrents.org/corseri050610.htm

Does Israel have a “right to exist”? Do we?

It’s a shibboleth of the Zionist entity: “Israel has the right to exist!”

But what is this “Israel”? What is this “right to exist”?

Where is it written? Is it in Holy Scripture? 
“The Song of Songs”? “The Book of Job”? “Proverbs”? “Ecclesiastes”?

Is it written in stone on two tablets by the finger of God?

What does it mean when a people declare that they 
have the “right to exist” as they please because 
they are a “democracy,” but other people have no 
such right? I solemnly declare my elections 
legitimate­the will of my people--, but 
 it is 
obvious that you people over there (in Gaza, in 
Turkey, in Iran, etc.) do not have the capacity 
to choose leaders who can represent your true interests!

What does that mean?

Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas­will not 
recognize the political leadership that the 
Palestinians chose in internationally monitored 
elections­because, Israel declares, Hamas will 
not recognize Israel’s “right to exist.”

And why should Hamas recognize that “right”? What 
is always unspoken are the words, “the right to 
exist as we are now, as we have been, and as we 
shall become.” Recognize me, and suffer all my 
faults! Recognize my right to exist as I am, have 
been and will be­and forfeit your right to 
challenge me legally for illegal seizures of 
property, for expropriations and appropriations, 
for illegitimate detainments, incarcerations, torture, homicides.

In effect, Israeli commandos unilaterally 
declared that Aid Activists on a flotilla in 
international waters had no “right to exist.”

When Ahmadinijead of Iran quoted the Ayatollah 
Khomeini that the Zionist entity would wither 
away and disappear from the page of history, the 
entity and its media stooges in the U.S. and 
elsewhere accused Iran of threatening to “wipe 
Israel off the map of the earth.” Israel declared 
Iran an “existential threat” and threatened, in 
turn, to destroy the Iranians with the 200 
nuclear weapons that they will neither confirm 
nor deny possessing (even though everyone knows they have them!).

Orthodox Jews, including the ultra-conservative 
Hasidim, are among those most loudly proclaiming 
that the state of Israel has “no right to exist.” 
Their viewpoint is hermeneutical: they believe 
that Israel will be established among the nations 
after the Mashiach (the Messiah) comes. They 
believe it is heretical for politicians to 
reverse the process. First the Mashiach, then the 
state. That’s the way they read the Hebrew.

Then, do Orthodox Jews have the “right to exist”? 
(At last report, Israel had not threatened them with its nuclear bombs).

“We the people” in the infant republic of the 
United States, did not think much about the 
existence of Native Americans, women or slaves. 
Some three score years after our founding, we did 
not think Mexico had a “right to exist” north of 
the Rio Grande. We did not think Hawaii had the 
right to exist as a sovereign nation. Nor, in 
spite of promises made at the time of the 
Spanish-American War, did we think the 
Philippines had the “right to exist” as anything 
other than a U.S. colony in Asia (we needed the coaling stations!).

Is it simply power that determines the “right to exist”?

During the Cold War, the US and its allies 
decided the Soviet Union had no right to exist. 
We were prepared to obliterate the world to prove 
our point­certain nutjobs among us were. One of 
our soldiers, a Lieutenant Calley, thought he was 
“just following orders” when he decided that 
hundreds of villagers in a hamlet called My Lai 
in Vietnam­unarmed men, women and children­had no 
“right to exist.” He “wasted” them.

Does the U.N. determine who has the “right to 
exist”? Does Tibet have that right? Does Palestine? Does Kurdistan?

Suppose the good people of Vermont decide that 
they are sick and tired of bank bail-outs, 
oligopolies, kakistocracies, phony American 
elections, our media of the absurd, oil-slick 
corporations with more legal rights than 
“persons,” and artery-clogging, greasy fast food? 
In a sterling, transparent, democratic election, 
the vast majority of the state elects leadership 
that claims its place among the nations of the 
world as “The Glorious, Independent, Technicolor, 
Outstanding Republic of Vermont” (which a media 
wag soon dubs the “GIT OUT of “R” Vermont 
republic). Does the Glorious, Independent, 
Technicolor, Outstanding Republic of Vermont have the right to exist?

The Zionist state demands the right to exist as a 
Zionist state­a non-signatory of the Nuclear 
Non-proliferation Treaty, bristling with nuclear 
weapons. Did Yahweh come out of the clouds and 
declare that this state alone can break all the 
rules of international decorum with impunity, without censure?

When did Yahweh make that announcement? Was it on 
the Rachel Maddow show? Was it on Larry King?

Suppose we started from the other end? Suppose we 
assumed that no one had the “right to exist,” but 
that everyone­and every species­could enjoy the 
“privilege” of existence? How would we order the world then?

The Zionist zealots ask, Why don’t the 
Palestinians produce a Gandhi, a Martin Luther 
King to lead them? But where is the Zealots’ 
Martin Buber--a Jew who exhorted the Jews, and 
all humankind, to live in harmony with 
others­with different species, too­with God, 
too­in an “I and Thou” relationship?

The Zealots have raided the Kingdom of Heaven. 
Like Lucifer, the Angel of Light, they will be 
transmogrified by their pride and arrogance, and 
lust for power. And 
 they will fall, corrupted from within.

Gary Corseri has posted and published articles, 
fiction, poetry and dramas at Common Dreams, 
CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, The New York 
Times, Village Voice and hundreds of other venues 
internationally. His books include the novels, A 
FINE EXCESS and HOLY GRAIL, HOLY GRAIL.




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