[News] The Political Logic of Zionism

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://orinocotribune.com/the-political-logic-of-zionism/ 
<https://orinocotribune.com/the-political-logic-of-zionism/>


  The Political Logic of Zionism

By Yanis Iqbal  – Apr 5, 2021

Angela Davis – a famous activist and author – was scheduled to speak at 
an event by Butler University titled “Joint Struggle and Collective 
Liberation” on April 1, 2021, but the university authorities decided on 
March 29, 2021, to cancel it, without letting the organizers know.

Mark Apple, interim director of strategic communications at Butler, said 
that the event has only been postponed due to procedural irregularities. 
However, Butler senior Roua Daas, a member of the student government and 
a main organizer of the event, told “Electronic Intifada”: “they’ve had 
more than two months to come to talk to me about procedures and 
contracts…The fact that they have supposedly caught these things three 
days before the event doesn’t seem like it’s an accident.”

A joint statement by campus and community organizations states: “Days 
before Butler University’s shameless censorship of Dr. Angela Davis, the 
Student Government Association was bombarded by pressure from Zionist 
students who claimed to oppose Davis’ event because of her support for 
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement – a grassroots demand 
for nonviolent economic pressure against Israel’s illegal military 
occupation of Palestine.”

RELATED CONTENT: Facebook, the ADL and the Brewing Battle to Label 
Zionism as Hate Speech 
<https://orinocotribune.com/facebook-the-adl-and-the-brewing-battle-to-label-zionism-as-hate-speech/>

This is not the first time that Davis is being targeted for her vocal 
support of the Palestinian cause. In 2019, Israel advocates pressured 
the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to initially rescind a human 
rights award given to her. After public outcry, the institute reversed 
its decision and awarded Davis the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights award 
in 2020.

The persecution of Davis is indicative of the deeply reactionary 
political logic of Zionism, namely intolerance for resistance. This 
feature is the very soil upon which the ideology grows. It should not be 
forgotten that Zionism is a settler-colonial ideology and ipso facto, 
its entire existence is based on the permanent effort to erase Palestinians.

In fact, Patrick Wolfe says that Zionist is even more ruthless than 
traditionally practiced settler-colonialism: “Zionist policy in 
Palestine constituted an intensification of, rather than a departure 
from, settler colonialism. In stark contrast to the Australian or United 
States models, for instance, Zionism rigorously refused, as it continues 
to refuse, any suggestion of Native assimilation…Zionism constitutes a 
more exclusive exercise of the settler logic of elimination than we 
encounter in the Australian and US examples.”

Insofar that Zionism is foundationally integrated with the objective of 
erasing Palestinian presence, those who articulate and amplify 
resistance against Israeli colonialism have to be silenced. We saw this 
in Davis’ case where her support for Palestinians led to censorship and 
attempts at academic marginalization.

RELATED CONTENT: Port of Oakland Shutdown Commemorates Juneteenth 
<https://orinocotribune.com/port-of-oakland-shutdown-commemorates-juneteenth/>

*In Defense of BDS*
In recent years, the ideological war against pro-Palestinian voices has 
accelerated. The use of repression against these voices is not only 
being done by Israel; it is also being done by governments of other 
countries. In September 2020, the US State Department committed to 
“target,” “fight,” and “kill” the BDS movement. The BDS movement, 
conceived by Palestinians in 2005, seeks to exert pressure on Israel to 
finally end its brutal and illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, to 
recognize the right of return for displaced Palestinian refugees, and to 
grant equal rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

BDS is a call for consumers to boycott Israeli goods, producers to 
divest from Israel and, sanctions to be levied on the government of 
Israel in response to the violence inflicted by colonialists on the 
Palestinian population. The campaign has proven to be effective and that 
is why Zionists all over the world are frantically trying to thwart it. 
 From labeling it as “anti-Semitic” to “racist”, all sort of tactics 
have been tried to discredit it. In response to these allegations, Ramzy 
Baroud writes: “No anti-Semitic…love affair is at work here; just a 
beleaguered and oppressed people fighting for their most basic human 
rights…The boycott movement aims to hold the oppressor accountable, as 
it places a price tag on military occupation and apartheid. Not only is 
the Palestinian boycott movement not racist, it is essentially a 
rallying cry against racism and oppression.”

*Ideological Battle*
Israel’s past and ongoing illegal seizure of Palestinian land, the 
racialization of every minute aspect of daily life, the large-scale and 
piecemeal demolition of Palestinian homes, destruction of livelihoods, 
and efforts to destroy the social and family fabric are calculated and 
concerted tactics aimed at the decimation of Palestinians. In sum, 
Zionism is directly equivalent to colonialism.

In the 2010 “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human 
Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967”, Richard Falk 
wrote: “Colonialism constitutes a repudiation of the essential rights of 
territorial integrity and self-determination, and apartheid has come to 
be formally treated as a crime against humanity…The entrenching of 
colonialist and apartheid features of the Israeli occupation has been a 
cumulative process.”

Since Zionism is criminal, it needs to be vehemently opposed. 
Consequently, all efforts designed to criminalize resistance against 
Zionism need to be unequivocally denounced. Ideological wars over the 
hegemony of Zionism need to be fought. The need for such an ideological 
battle can’t be stressed more.

/Featured image: File Photo/

(Antiwar.com 
<https://original.antiwar.com/yanis_iqbal/2021/04/04/the-political-logic-of-zionism/>)


          Yanis Iqbal

Yanis Iqbal is an independent researcher and freelance writer based in 
Aligarh, India and can be contacted at yanisiqbal at gmail.com 
<mailto:yanisiqbal at gmail.com>. His articles have been published by 
different magazines and websites such as Monthly Review Online, ZNet, 
Green Social Thought, Orinoco Tribune, Weekly Worker, News and Letters 
Weekly, Economic and Political Weekly, Arena, Eurasia Review, Coventry 
University Press, Culture Matters, Global Research, Dissident Voice, 
Countercurrents, Counterview, Hampton Institute, Ecuador Today, People’s 
Review, Eleventh Column, Karvaan India, Clarion India, OpEd News, The 
Iraq File, Portside and the Institute of Latin American Studies.

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