Israel

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Israel, formally the State of Israel,[a] is a Jewish settler-colonial and apartheid state in the Middle East that was established from the British territory of Mandatory Palestine on 14 May 1948. It was founded on the ideology of Zionism, which from its roots in the late 19th century sought a Jewish state in the area now occupied by Israel. In theory and in practice, this necessarily means degrading the local Arabs to second-class citizens, if not expulsion or mass murder. Israel has massive amounts of US backing due to its strategic geopolitical position, though almost universally has antagonistic relations with socialist states.

Former American President Trump meeting with Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel is frequently condemned internationally and especially so by leftists, who widely consider it necessary to support the nation of Palestine in the face of Israel in order to oppose Israeli and US imperialism as well as to establish solidarity with the Palestinian people. Other opponents of Israel such as Iran are viewed more critically by leftists, with the case of Iran being due to its harsh stance against communism while also being on better footing than Palestine.

History

Pre-foundation period (1800s - 1920)

In the late 19th century, the Ottoman Empire ruled over the land of Palestine, which at the time generally correlated to three districts: the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, the Nablus Sanjak, and the Acre Sanjak. The population of these three districts, according to the Ottoman census of 1878 and later scholar estimates of foreign-born Jews at the time, gave a population distribution of 86-87% Muslim, 9% Christian, and 4-5% Jewish.[6][7] In Jerusalem the religious populations were roughly equal in size, where they lived together peacefully.[citation needed] Then in parallel to nationalist movements of other peoples in Europe at that time, Zionism arose which caused many Jews to come to the Palestinian region in hopes of establishing their own state — most envisioned a secular one. In 1917, the United Kingdom, hoping to gain the support of Jewish people during the First World War, issued the Balfour Declaration promising "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". This is considered the ideological root of British support for political Zionism.

British rule (1920 - 1948)

After the British wrought control of the region from the Ottoman Empire following the war, they began segregating the region by establishing different institutions for Jews, Muslims, and Christians, making it difficult for these groups to cooperate and inciting division among them instead — part of the British plan to divide and rule. Meanwhile, the British also attempted to honor the Balfour Declaration's promise to "facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions", overseeing an influx of 320,000 Jews between 1920 and 1939. By 1938, Jews were just under 30% of the population of Palestine.

The growing Jewish population focused on purchasing land, with the Talmud mentioning that settlement of the Land of Israel is a religious duty,[8] going so far as to allowing for the lifting of certain religious restrictions of Sabbath observance to further its acquisition and settlement.[9] Privatization of land under the British Mandate accelerated the sale of territory to Zionist organizations, the most prominent of which is the Jewish National Fund. Through this, the settlers began to secure their position in the land and outnumber the Arabs. Tensions rose as political leaders like David Ben-Gurion (who later became the primary founder of Israel) began establishing Jewish-only settlements, with Ben-Gurion himself believing that the land could be conquered and "redeemed" only through Jewish labor, leading him to send militants to farms to threaten Arab workers and demand their jobs be given to Jews, who had trouble competing with the more experienced, less combative, and less expensive Arab workers that Jewish farmers tended to employ.[10] Simultaneously, the Palestinian Arabs were developing a national consciousness of their own, which manifested in the Palestinian revolt against the British in 1936, which lasted until 1939 when it was brutally put down with the help of Jewish militias. In the aftermath however, the British issued a white paper limiting Jewish immigration to the area, further calling for the establishment of a joint Arab-Jewish state in the region within ten years. This pleased neither side, with Jews angry at the British for limiting Jewish migration when Jews most needed to leave Europe, and the Arab Palestinians being unhappy at the prospect of waiting ten years for a state. During World War II the region was actually rather peaceful, however afterwards tensions resumed, which in the post-war situation made the United Kingdom give up the land to the newly created United Nations. In November 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into separate Palestinian and Jewish states, roughly equal in size. The plan however ceded more area to Jewish settlers than what they actually controlled, and thus was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine,[11][12] but rejected by Arab leaders, who further indicated that they were unwilling to accept any form of territorial division, arguing that it violated the principles of national self-determination in the UN Charter which granted people the right to decide their own destiny.[12][13][14][15]

The State of Israel

Soon after the plan was announced, there erupted a war from 1947 to 1949, the culmination of six decades of conflict between the native Arabs and the Jewish minority. In the middle of the war, in 1948, the Jewish settlers began forced resettlement of the Arabs[16] and between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were pillaged, with urban Palestinian lands almost entirely destroyed and properties such as homes, businesses, and places of worship demolished to prevent the return of Palestinians.[17] Over 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes and became stateless refugees,[18] calling the war Al-Nakba, or "the catastrophe". After Israel won the war, it illegaly seized land from Palestine, increasing its own territory by a third. In the three years following the war, about 700,000 Jews emigrated to Israel.[19] This is part of a process called aliyah, a Hebrew word meaning "ascent" which refers to the immigration of Jews to Israel. Israel's Law of Return gives Jews and their descendants automatic rights regarding residency and Israel citizenship, and encourages such immigration, which benefits the state by expanding its labor pool on top of providing more settlers to occupy Palestinian lands.

In 1948, Jordan would annex the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem, while Egypt would occupy the remaining Gaza strip the following year. Both countries would relinquish authority over Palestinian lands in 1967, when Israel seized them in the Six-Day War.

Six-Day War (1967)

The 1967 Arab–Israeli War or "Six-Day War" was itself a war of aggression dreamt up by Israeli hardliners who wanted to annex more land by exploiting people's fears over Egypt building up its military by (falsely) stating that Egypt was preparing for an invasion.[20] Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin had this to say afterwards:

The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Gamal Abdel Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.[21]

Syria and Jordan joined the war in support of Egypt, however were pushed back and Syria's Golan Heights region was invaded and occupied. Israel would later vote to illegally annex this region in 1981, despite the action being universally condemned by the United Nations security organization.[22]

1982 invasion of Lebanon

Since 1993

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993 and 1995, dividing the West Bank into three areas: Areas A, B, and C. The Palestinian Authority, an interim Palestinian government, was established as a result of these agreements and was granted limited control of Areas A and B. However, Palestinian control over the West Bank shrank once more, as the Accords gave Israel 60% of the region, designated as Area C, for administration.

Area A is 18% of the West Bank, with the Palestinian Authority controlling most affairs of this area, including internal security. Area B is 21% of the West Bank, wherein the Authority controls education, health, and economy. In both Areas A and B, however, Israeli authorities have full external security control, meaning the Israeli military can enter these areas at any time, typically to raid homes or detain individuals under the pretext of safety. Area C, on the other hand, is just about entirely controlled by Israel, despite part of it being intended to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority in 1999 as per the Oslo Accords — though this did not materialize. Area C is where the vast majority of the over 200 illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank are, where more than 400,000 settlers live. According to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, Israel has restricted Palestinians from building on, and even accessing much of the land in Area C, regularly denying requests for building permits. According to the United Nations, Palestinians who attempt to build in the area are subject to home demolition orders, resulting in displacement and the disruption of livelihoods. B'Tselem further states that Israel's blocking of Palestinian development in the area is also carried out by “designating large swaths of land as state land, survey land, firing zones, nature reserves and national parks". On the other hand, Israeli settlements there are allocated large plots of land that are connected to advanced infrastructure, such as Jewish-only bypass roads that circumvent Palestinian areas. Besides severe restrictions on planning and construction, Palestinians are also unable to access basic resources such as water, with the result being the indirect expulsion of Palestinians from the area. According to B'Tselem and other groups, the forcible transfer of Palestinians from an occupied territory is considered a war crime, whether direct or indirect.

In 2019, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to annex parts of Area C, in particular the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea region — this is despite the fact that Palestinians outnumber Israelis there nearly six-to-one, however there is pressure to annex it nonetheless as it is considered to be the most fertile land in the West Bank, which has also proven lucrative for Israeli companies that have been exploiting the area's land and natural resources.[23]

In October 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched an unprecedented surprise invasion of Israeli settlements and kibbutzim in southwestern Israel, triggering a massive onslaught by Israel on Gaza. Israeli attacks have so far killed over 30,000 and displaced (ethnically cleansed) nearly 2 million Palestinian Arabs. The situation is still developing and will have major repercussions for the conflict.

Politics

Nation-State Bill

In 2018, Israel adopted its 14th Basic Law, which is akin to a constitutional amendment, which declares that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country — essentially formalizing Israel as an explicit ethnostate. Arabic was stripped of its official language status and downgraded to a "special status" where for now, it would be continued to be used within Israeli institutions, however is implicitly to be phased out. The law was criticized by a multitude of different groups, including Israeli Arab political leaders, Israeli opposition politicians, liberal Jewish groups in the US, the European Union, and the Turkish foreign ministry. The 1.89 million Arabs in Israel, who are about 21% of the population, are thus to be excluded even further through this law.[24]

Leftism

Historical socialist elements

A kibbutz, Hebrew for "gathering" or "clustering", is an Israeli commune, traditionally based in agriculture, whose members share property, decide on matters through direct democracy, and distribute profits equally. They began to be established in 1909, with the first one being Degania,[25] however in modern times only a quarter of kibbutzim still operate in such a manner — the vast majority, including the first one, have since been privatized.[26]

There also existed in Israeli history a trend of "labour Zionism", which was part of the left-wing of the Zionist movement. Though it was prominent in the early 20th century, its dedication to leftism has since died down, with many labour Zionists ending up taking leadership positions in the Israeli military and collaborating with the Israeli bourgeoisie, aiding them in imperialism.[citation needed] Leftist parties are now a minority in the Israeli parliament as the country continues to move to the far right.

Communism

Foreign relations

Socialist world

The Soviet Union was one of the first nations to recognize Israel following its creation in 1948. However, Stalin soon became angered with it due to its growing alliance with the United States, a reason which led the majority of socialist countries to oppose Israel as well. This would manifest in selling arms to Israel's enemies and even participating in conflicts against Israel more directly, such as in the Six-Day War where some Soviet Marines secretly joined in on the fighting.[27] The Soviet Union would later fight against Israel again in the War of Attrition from 1967 to 1970, and in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 both Cuba and North Korea would fight against Israel. North Korea has never recognized Israel, while Cuba withdrew recognition in 1973.

United States

If there were not an Israel, we'd have to invent one.

— US President Joe Biden, speaking to Speaking Israeli President Isaac Herzog on October 2022[28]

Israel rests at the strategic location between the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, serving as a foothold in the contested Middle East for the US, allowing for the destabilization of the region and more broadly power projection into it. Besides this, Israel is also a customer for weapons and other products. The close relations between the two countries are further due to the large amount of Jews in the US, as a total sum and proportionately. Jews therefore have more influence in the US than in many other countries, with the presence of Jews and anti-Semitism being more tangible to the rest of the populace than for instance the plight of Armenians. The Holocaust and empathy for it is also a large part of the American collective consciousness, arguably due to a propaganda effort from American Zionists starting in the 1960s. Places where genocides have occurred, such as Rwanda or the Ottoman Empire, are also generally felt to be more foreign to Americans than Germany. Though the Holocaust was in fact comparatively extensive and systematic, it has been cemented as the genocide through various institutions, including the media, and with this there is the attitude of singling out the Holocaust for punishment, since almost nothing was done about the Armenian Genocide (Hitler himself is widely believed to have said "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"). America also directly fought against Nazi Germany in what American propaganda portrayed as a battle of ideals. Though Jews were only about half of those who died in the Holocaust, they are emphasized since persecution of Slavs was downplayed because of the Cold War, with few caring about what had happened to homosexuals or Roma on top of this. There is also the belief of many evangelical Christians which existed long before the State of Israel,[citation needed] that the "reestablishment" of Israel in modern times must happen. For instance, Clark Clifford, an adviser to President Harry S. Truman, stated:

There was language in Deuteronomy, [Truman] said, in which the Bible promised the Jews. The language went something like, "The day will come when you will be led into the land of your fathers and it shall become your own." He believed that he was going to do everything he could to help them get their homeland.

This sentiment nowadays has morphed into evangelicals zealously defending Israeli policy against Palestinians and arguing that the State of Israel must exist for Jesus to come back.

There is the idea that Israel is an outpost of "Western civilization", hence phrases like "Israel is the only democracy in the region" (which besides being nonsense is implying that Arabs cannot build a functioning civilization). Ayn Rand's support for Israel is a case in point, from a 1974 talk:

The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it’s the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are. Israel is a mixed economy inclined toward socialism. But when it comes to the power of the mind—the development of industry in that wasted desert continent—versus savages who don’t want to use their minds, then if one cares about the future of civilization, don’t wait for the government to do something. Give whatever you can.

By the early 1970s the Israeli–Palestinian conflict became viewed as part of the Cold War, with the PLO, Egypt, and Syria being supported by the USSR. Zionists and other anti-communists in the United States therefore argued that reducing ties with Israel would strengthen the position of socialism in the Middle East. This attitude led to America continuing to support Israel even where it was severely costly, such as when OPEC embargoed oil to the United States in 1973 because it supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

AIPAC, the US's most powerful pro-Israel lobby group, has spent millions of dollars influencing Democratic congressional primary races in an attempt to defeat progressive Democrats that criticize Israeli atrocities.[29]

From 1948 to 2022, the United States provided over $150 billion (not adjusted for inflation) to Israel in military aid, which is subject to virtually no checks on ensuring that such weapons are not used to commit war crimes, destroy US-funded projects, or even damage the property of US citizens — among these are many hundreds of schools, hospitals, water treatment plants, and factories owned by US nationals. In contrast, the US has stringent regulations on aid to Palestine, whose audits sometimes cost more than the aid being audited.[30]

China

The People's Republic of China, on the other hand, recognizes Israel and has sold weapons to it for many years, and has further developed close strategic military links with the country as well. Bilateral military relations have also developed into a close strategic partnership, and the two countries also began an extensive military cooperation as early as the 1980s.[31][32][33] However, China is also in favor of a two-state solution, and has repeatedly voiced concerns about Israel's plan of annexing parts of the West Bank. The Palestinian state that China publicly favors, nonetheless, is one based on 1967 borders, which though represents some reversal of Israeli occupation, is still far less than what the Palestinians had before Jewish seizures of land had begun, and is still considerably less than even the 1947 UN Partition Plan.[34] Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu condemned Israel after the May 31, 2010 Gaza flotilla raid,[35] and China voted in favor of UN General Assembly Resolution 67/19, which upgraded Palestine's status in the United Nations from non-state observer entity to non-member observer state.[36]

South Africa

"Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples."

– Official yearbook of the South African government, 1978[37]

Up to the 1960s Israel had a critical stance of South Africa's policy of apartheid as it sought to build relations with newly independent states of sub-Saharan Africa.[38] This venture largely proved to be a failure, especially after Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, whose occupation of the Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank alienated it diplomatically from many African states as well as the Third World at large and caused some Black nationalist movements beginning to see it as a colonial state.[39] South Africans, however, particularly the country's leadership, admired Israel for its victory, and though Israel still continued to denounce apartheid, it began secretly cultivating relations with South Africa. Both were isolated, and Israel also had an interest in the safety of South Africa's Jewish population.[40][41] Within a decade the two were among each other's closest military allies, and Israel also propped up South Africa's economy to a considerable degree.[citation needed] Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Arab oil-producing states threatened to place an oil embargo on states which have relations with Israel, leading most African states to fully break ties with it and deepening its relationship with South Africa.[42] In 1975, South Africa discussed purchasing nuclear warheads from Israel; Israel publicly denied that these talks took place and, after the fall of apartheid, pressured the new South African government to keep documents relating to these talks classified.[43] Relations between the two countries generally deteriorated after the apartheid era. Prominent South African citizens such as Desmond Tutu[44][45] as well as organizations like the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU),[46] representing 1.2 million South African workers, have explicitly likened Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the apartheid system and many, including COSATU, are in favor of a boycott of Israeli products[46] just as international boycotts had helped to destroy the South African apartheid regime. In April 2019, one year after withdrawing its ambassador to Israel after the 2018 Gaza border protests and urging Israel to end its incursions into Palestine, South Africa stated that it will not nominate a new ambassador to Israel and downgraded its office in Tel Aviv to a liaison office.[47]

Zionist ideology

Zionism is the international Jewish statist and nationalist movement, originally for the establishment of a Jewish community in Palestine and later, after 1948, in support of the State of Israel. It is reactionary for many reasons: for one, it tries to posit the idea that Jews across the globe, from those residing in New York to those living in Russia, Yemen, China, or wherever else, are all part of a single "nation" with a single land as "their own", which just about none of them have ever inhabited and whose ancestors haven't been there in millennia. This is illogical, which is why religious, and especially fundamentalist strains of Zionism have become more prominent over time as they use the Old Testament for "justification". Moreover, before the creation of Israel, Zionists appealed to the British Empire arguing that they would bring "civilization" to Palestine and help provide a bulwark for Britain's imperialist interests in the region. Even today Zionists portray Israel as a frontline state in the battle against "Islamo-fascism" and as an outpost of the West in the Middle East. Zionists also preach class collaboration between Jewish workers and Jewish capitalists, seeking to split Jews from the rest of the workers' movement. The Israeli government is also notorious for their repression of Palestinians, occupying their land and treating them as an inferior people fit only for certain kinds of manual labor on behalf of Jews, if not to be expelled from the land altogether. In this respect they are not vastly different from the likes of apartheid South Africa, which Israel was closely allied with. For these and other reasons, the United Nations characterized Zionism as a racist ideology back in the 1970s.[48]

Many early ideologues of the Zionist movement were heavily influenced by European racialist ideas. As such, the idea of establishing a Jewish colony in Palestine was largely rooted in European racialism. An ideological and practical collaboration between European racialists and Zionists was formed on the basis of deporting Jews from Europe, and the historical precedent of Zionists collaborating with European fascists continues into the modern day. Despite what became of the Zionist movement, its founding father Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) had somewhat differing views, as expressed in his diary:

It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example ... Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas [who would not sell their property to us], we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us.[49]

Likewise, in Altneuland, a novel in which Herzl outlined his vision for a Jewish state:

It is founded on the ideas which are a common product of all civilized nations ... It would be immoral if we would exclude anyone, whatever his origin, his descent, or his religion, from participating in our achievements. For we stand on the shoulders of other civilized peoples ... What we own we owe to the preparatory work of other peoples. Therefore, we have to repay our debt. There is only one way to do it, the highest tolerance. Our motto must therefore be, now and ever: 'Man, you are my brother.'[50]

However, even Herzl, like other Zionist leaders, also wondered what to do with the Palestinians that already resided in most of the land, and decided that the only solution was to "transfer" them (a euphemism for ethnic cleansing):

We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country ... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.[49]

Hasbara


Jewish Academic and Harvard professor Ruth Wisse urges Jewish youth
to engage in a "army of words" to defend Israel against criticism (29:45-32:01)

As Israel has accumulated criticism from diverse groups around the world, Zionists have developed a public relations technique called "hasbara", i.e. efforts to influence citizens of other countries to support or tolerate the Israeli government's objectives. The justifications Israel gives for its atrocities however do not hold up to scrutiny and frequently involve historical revisionism.

For example, Zionists often claim that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is too ancient, complex, and nuanced for people to understand or for Israel to be guilty, when in reality it began just last century with what was largely an aggressive and militant colonization effort. Related to this is the claim that Muslims have always been violent to Jews and thus Israel has to "fight back" until the Islamic threat is contained. Sometimes this involves bringing up certain hadiths, collections of deeds and sayings attributed to Muhammad outside of the Quran whose canonicity is disputed among Muslims from hadith to hadith. The Quran itself is brought up likewise as evidence of Islamic anti-Semitism because of Muhammad's conflict with Jewish tribes, although in reality it is a minor part of the Quran which is overshadowed by conflict with pagans, with accusations of anti-Semitism undermined also by factors such as Muhammad being known to have had a Jewish wife. Furthermore, Muhammad's disputes with neighboring Jewish tribes left no traces on the behavior of his successors (the Caliphs), the first several of which leaned on Quranic verses encouraging tolerance in their treatment of Jews.[51] Thus any anti-Semitic hadiths contrast with the Quran as well as the actions of early Islamic leaders, and regardless, the current conflict is modern in origin and lacks historical substance — the late Ottoman Empire prior to the Zionist colonization movement lacked the Islamic–Jewish conflict often depicted by Zionists as being inherent and unceasing.

Similarly, in order to distill the perception of Israeli wrongdoing, Zionists will say that Palestinians commit violence too, although this argument fails to account for the fact that such actions are a reaction to Israeli imperialist policy that initiated and drives this conflict to begin with. This false equivalency neglects the scale of violence, level of power, and motives of each side. By assumption, it also lumps in the actions of groups like Hamas with organic Palestinian response; this reasoning being faulty because Hamas was largely created by Israel as a strategic pawn to sabotage the secular Palestinian resistance. Besides this, such "both sides" thinking would logically extend to invalidate pretty much any anti-colonial and pro-civil rights movement in history, as the oppressed subjects used violence and even committed atrocities of their own, but the cause they were fighting for was still in the right — France has lost the Algerian War of Independence and has since begun admitting and apologizing for its role in colonialism, in spite of Algerians employing brutality themselves; similarly, the United States civil rights movement is today widely acknowledged as positive regardless of the presence of Black supremacist violence.

The manner in which the IDF sweepingly razes Palestinian neighborhoods with bombing campaigns and evicts all residents has drawn wide criticism, particularly for the manner in which the military is willing to sacrifice the lives of entire families for the chance of taking out a militant. Zionists in response say that the IDF gives warnings beforehand and practices "roof knocking", wherein a non-explosive or low-yield device is dropped onto the roofs of targeted civilian homes to give them time to flee. This narrative is especially poorly constructed however: for one, roof knocking would also alert actual militants, with mass destruction of Palestinian settlements because of suspected combatants also being disproportionate and unjustifiable on its face. The IDF has highly trained special forces that can perform much more deliberate and surgical strikes with snipers and tactical units — however, those do not conveniently cleanse the area of Arabs and their structures for the purpose of ever-expanding Jewish settlements.

Often said is that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, which is a sweeping statement that as a generalization is flatly wrong and manipulates Jewish suffering to erase that of other groups. This phrase lumps in legitimate criticism of Israel with people like neo-fascists and Holocaust deniers, also phrasing an ethnostate as a human right — by implication, all the ethnic cleansing and other atrocities Israel commits as well. This phrase is also intensely hypocritical given the prevalence of racism in Israel culturally and historically, all the way back to when it was being conceptualized. Not only is there plenty of discrimination against non-Ashkenazi Jews, but there is also widespread sentiment against Arabs (also a Semitic people), and yet further is the extent of Israeli racism in the way very many Jewish Israelis view sub-Saharan Africans, for example. There is further irony in Zionists calling national self-determination a right while aggressively denying such to the Palestinians. What makes the equation of anti-Zionism to antisemitism even more ludicrous is the sizable amount of Jews who criticize Israel on a variety of grounds. Moreover, opposing Zionism with Israel already existing is also not antisemitic, because Jewish culture can remain but without the component of ethnic nationalism, just like how white South Africans retained their culture and rights after apartheid ended, which guaranteed the right of all South Africans to self-determination rather than taking it away from a privileged minority. In the US, Pew Research Center studies also show that sympathy towards Israel is actually correlated with antisemitic beliefs, with some, as there had been plenty of in history, wanting a Jewish homeland because those people don't want Jews in their own country. Conversely, those that oppose discrimination against Jews also tend to oppose discrimination by Jews.[52] Modern white nationalist figures also often praise Israel, among them Milo Yiannopoulos and Steve Bannon, as well as Richard Spencer who said "You could say I am a white Zionist" and later described Israel as "the most important and perhaps most revolutionary ethno-state" — the "one that I turn to for guidance."[53]

Sometimes hasbara does not even involve argumentation, but merely the most base appeals to get people into associating Israel with good. Individual Israeli soldiers and official military channels use social media to post scantily-clad images of servicewomen in order to influence outsiders' perspective of Middle East conflict. These accounts are particularly active at times when the news and social media are reporting of Israeli atrocities during outbreaks of violence — naturally in those times, the IDF seeks to dilute the content people see, which in general depicts things like Palestinians fleeing from Israeli strikes and collapses of residential buildings after Israeli attacks. Such pro-Israel accounts are keen to jump on trends, such as catgirl and kawaii cosplay along with ASMR videos, while also making sure to put out the more European-looking women who make coquettish faces into the camera while showing their rear end, sometimes in a bikini while holding guns. These efforts are on the whole unsuccessful however, as comments on the IDF's posts on TikTok for example are largely negative and bring up Israel's myriad documented human rights abuses — meanwhile, the #freepalestine hashtag by itself has billions of views, with social media mostly effecting an increase in pro-Palestinian activism on the platform, especially as damning footage comes out in periods of intensified conflict.[54][55]

Atrocities

Israel regularly commits a wide range of crimes against humanity and is continuously condemned by a variety of groups, with soldiers torturing and killing Palestinian children for entertainment rather frequently.[56][57] Israel's brutality towards Palestinians is so severe that it unites essentially the whole nation, even rival political factions such as Hamas and Fatah.[58] Israel also lobbies the US military through organizations like AIPAC into conducting imperialism on its behalf, and also tries to get evangelicals into positions of power to benefit itself. The rocket attacks, suicide bombings, etc. of militant Palestinian groups pale in comparison to the counter-insurgency that the IDF is capable of and has carried out since the establishment of the State of Israel. In large part, this is due to the funding Israel gets from the United States, and thus has a lot more firepower than Palestinian forces.

Groups such as Hamas tend to operate as guerillas in densely-populated areas, and because of this the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) often uses the excuse that Hamas is using "human shields" to justify the destruction of Palestinian schools, hospitals, houses, and other buildings. This ignores the fact that Palestine is highly urban to begin with though, as about 77% of its population lives in such areas,[59] with this figure continuously expanding as rural residences are taken over by the IDF and migrants walled into urban ghettos. There have also been plenty of times throughout Israel's history where the IDF has hit civilian buildings even when it was shown that there were no militants present. Whether or not Hamas actually does use human shields to a significant extent is debatable, but ironically the IDF has been proven to have done so itself extensively in the past.[60] The IDF also reportedly gives out orders to Palestinian neighborhoods to clear out just so that it will be easier to justify attacking Palestinian lands, claiming anyone who hasn't left as a combatant. This is in contrast to the narrative that Israel does this to minimize casualties for its own sake. Israel has been put under intense scrutiny for the ruthlessness with which it carries out attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, with many observers noting that Israel is very likely targeting civilians intentionally.[61]

There are all kinds of bad justifications that Israel gives for its offenses into Palestine, one of the worst being Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement to the World Zionist Congress that Hitler had not intended to kill Jews, only expel them, and that the Holocaust was a result of Jerusalem's Grand Mufti (a Palestinian) convincing him to exterminate them.[62]

In spite of its ever-increasing record of wide-ranging atrocities, Israel and its supporters still try to portray it as a humane and even progressive country. This is done for example by misrepresenting its actions, such as claiming that the IDF's evacuation orders are to save lives when really they seek to justify killing anyone left in a newly conquered territory. Like many other liberal countries, Israel also makes a show of some token form of progressivism as supposed proof that it is a good country, such as by holding up Tel Aviv, dubbed "the gayest city on earth", as an LGBT utopia.[63] Just 70 kilometers southwest however is Gaza, frequently referred to as "the world's largest open-air prison" for two million people who fell victim to Israel's plans for Lebensraum.

Open incitement to hatred and agitation against Palestinians is not only tolerated in Israel on a legal basis, on top of plentifully so societally, but is also sometimes voiced even by high-ranking politicians. In 2015 for example, Benjamin Netanyahu implored his constituents to vote for his party Likud because "Arabs are coming to the polls in droves" — implying a fundamental threat this different ethnicity poses (what is more, is that after losing the 2020 election, Likud blamed their loss on supposed election fraud by Palestinians). Betzalel Smotrich, now the head of the Religious Zionist party, a man who once proudly claimed that he would object to his wife giving birth next to an Arab woman in a maternity ward, claimed that the Bedouin birthrate in Israel's south was a “bomb” which, if Israel failed to defuse it, would “blow up in [Israel’s] face.” Such a narrative of a "demographic bomb" is used often to scare people into accepting the subjugation of Palestinians for the sake of Israel "keeping its Jewish character" and not purportedly becoming overrun by Arabs in the future. But aside from being invalid for its racism, this claim has no factual basis as Palestinians and Jews have roughly the same fertility rates.[64] In 2022, Matan Kahana, a senior member of the governing coalition, said that "If there was a button I could press that would take all the Arabs and put them on a train to Switzerland, I would."[65] In February 2023, following the killing of two settlers by a Palestinian that sparked a settler rampage against the West Bank town of Huwara in which Palestinians were assaulted and cars and homes were destroyed, parliament member Zvika Fogel of the extreme-right Otzma Yehudit party, also part of the ruling coalition, stated that "We need burning villages" and "A closed, burnt Huwara — that’s what I want to see".[66] Later in August, National Security Minister and leader of the far-right Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir stated that his rights outweigh those of Palestinians, which drew condemnation even from the US and EU.[67]

1967 War

Zionist apologists argue that the occupation of the West Bank is justifiable because they were captured in a "defensive" war against the Arab States of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Such a narrative begins by alleging that Egypt got a false report from the Soviet Union that Israel was preparing to attack.[68] However, the U.S. National Security Council disputes that:

In early May, it is probable that Soviet agents actually picked up intelligence reports of a planned Israeli raid into Syria. I would not be surprised if the reports were at least partly true. The Israeli have made such raids before; they have been under heavy provocation; and they maintain pretty good security (so we might well not know about a planned raid). Intelligence being an uncertain business, the Soviet agents may not have known the scale of the raid and may have exaggerated its scope and purpose.[69]

Similarly, Israeli historian Ami Gluska, citing declassified US records, suggests that “the Soviet assessment from mid-May 1967 that Israel was about to strike at Syria was correct and well founded, and was not merely based on the public threats issued by Eshkol, Rabin and Yariv."[70] It is then alleged that the Israeli attack was preventive, however, the six intelligence agencies reported to Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban "that an attack is not imminent" and that if the Arabs attack “you will whip hell out of them".[71][72][73] Mossad chief Meir Amit later informed the US Secretary of Defense McNamara that "there were no differences between the U.S. and the Israelis on the military intelligence picture or its interpretation."[72] which is to say that Israel was also not afraid of an imminent Arab threat. Former Israeli Foreign Minister and former history professor at the University of Tel Aviv Shlomo Ben-Ami observes that “up to the very eve of the war Nasser hoped he could avert it and win politically . . . Egypt was definitely not ready for war and Nasser did not want a war. ‘He wanted victory without a war,’ as Abba Eban preferred to put it”[74]

Apartheid

Israel's treatment of groups such as Palestinians and sometimes black Jews is often likened to South Africa's apartheid era (incidentally Israel was very close with South Africa during this time). Hendrik Verwoerd, Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 to 1966 and who was dubbed the "Architect of Apartheid" for his role in solidifying apartheid on theoretical and legal grounds, had this to say:

The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.[75][76]

Two Israeli ambassadors to South Africa, Ilan Baruch and Dr. Alon Liel, have said that their experience there has helped them understand that apartheid exists also in their own country in a way very similar to that which has been in South Africa.[77]

Human Rights Watch, a major rights group, stated in April 2021 that Israel was guilty of apartheid and crimes against humanity, advocating for an international commission of inquiry as well as sanctions that include travel bans and asset freezes against "officials and entities credibly implicated". The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded by saying that Human Rights Watch has an anti-Israel agenda and that its claims are "preposterous and false".[78] One month later, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the situation in Gaza "brings back terrible memories of apartheid" in his own country, further stating that South Africa stands by Palestinians.[79]

West Bank restriction on movement

Israel restricts the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank with a system of checkpoints and road closures in combination with the infamous barrier.

Israel has a 26-foot-tall wall around the West Bank, which Palestine calls an attempt at isolating the West Bank which also effects its economy, making it weaker against future incursions by Israel. Israel however claims that it was built only to prevent suicide bombers from reaching Israel, which is in fact substantiated by evidence however very conveniently, also strangles the Palestinian economy and the livelihood of its people — the wall even blocks many people's access to medical care. Palestine has trouble representing itself in the United Nations as it is only partially recognized, though despite this the United Nations has repeatedly attempted to pass resolutions condemning Israel, even declaring the wall illegal. However, any resolution against Israel is vetoed by the United States, which is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and very close ally of Israel. In 2003, the United Nations reached out to the International Court of Justice, requesting an advisory opinion on the legality of the wall, to which the ICJ responded that the construction of the wall, even for just the stated reason of security that Israel put forth, was a violation of international law. Specifically, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the United Nations' articles on state responsibility. The ICJ struck down Israel's "self defense" argument, stating that the Palestinian territories are in fact occupied by Israel. This occupation was noted to have violated the UN charter and several UN resolutions which prohibit territorial annexations by force, further denying the people of Palestine the right of self-determination. As an occupying power, Israel was also called out for violating Paragraph 6, Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which reads:

The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.[80]

The Court further cited Article 25 of Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts,[81] which states that:

Necessity [which Israel argues is the reason for the wall and occupation] may not be invoked by a State as a ground for precluding the wrongfulness of an act not in conformity with an international obligation of that State[82]

Israel, however, dismissed the jurisdiction of the court and no binding resolution was enacted. With the backing of the United States, which has veto power and worldwide influence, Israel generally acts with impunity when violating international law. The issue of the wall is the only one to have made it to court, although there are many other crimes against humanity which Israel is guilty of.

Home demolition, collective punishment, and land seizure

Israel has been condemned for demolishing homes belonging to families of those considered to be terrorists, with Human Rights Watch for one calling this form of collective punishment a war crime.[83] Demolition of Palestinian homes in general is done frequently and often arbitrarily by Israel, which does this hundreds of times per year, leaving Palestinians residents displaced and without compensation.[84] Ostensibly this is for the sake of the IDF's "operational freedom", with the courts repeatedly supporting the military's ability to clear out houses even in areas where the state does not have jurisdiction.[85] Many demolitions are also initiated by Israeli settler organizations, with the then-homeless Palestinians having no choice but to build "unrecognized" villages that Israel refuses to provide services to and which are vulnerable to even more demolition.[84]

In November 2015, Israel introduced a law that gives mandatory three-year minimum prison sentences for those throwing rocks at Israeli troops, civilians, or vehicles, furthermore allowing the state, through this law, to cancel national health insurance and other benefits for the parents of an imprisoned minor. The government however purports that this legislation is temporary, passed in response to an increase in Palestinian protests against Israel's ongoing occupation of their lands.[86] Years later, the law has since not been repealed or eased in any way.

Israel's plan for resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is to just wipe out Palestine, forcing out the Palestinians or killing them, then taking their land. This is done through means such as unilaterally building settlements on lands allocated for Palestine, institutionalizing violence against Palestinians, and denying Palestinians the right to develop land.[87] Around half of Jewish Israelis support the ethnic cleansing of Israel from Arabs, with this sentiment being more prominent in religious and right-wing individuals.[88] In customary international law, an occupying power is prohibited from confiscating the private property of the local population, however is allowed to temporarily deny control and usage of private property, despite it still being otherwise owned by its original owner. The IDF however stretches the pretext of "security", in seizing land, as about 40% of the land it seizes ends up going to settlers, with smaller portions being used for legitimate military activity and as barrier zones. With the right-wing Likud party in power, both the amount of land seized and the proportion of it given to settlements dramatically increases — up to 73% for the latter. Furthermore, about half of the land seized and allocated for any purpose by the military just remains empty and unused.[89]

Vaccine denial to Palestinians in occupied territory

During the COVID-19 pandemic Israel rushed to vaccinate its population, inoculating over 10% within two weeks of receiving vaccines. However, in this it neglected Palestinians in occupied areas, preferring its own settlers instead. Though Israel is not legally bound to provide lands governed by the Palestinian Authority with health services as per the Oslo Accords, it has denied Palestinians living within its own occupied areas such, despite being required to by the UN's human rights body which has cited the Fourth Geneva Convention that Israel signed.[90][91] Palestinians who live in Israeli settlements or came to work in Israel were only offered vaccinations in March 2021, four months after Israeli Jews began receiving their vaccinations, and during which Israel's Palestinians suffered a sharp rise in infections and deaths that led to a lockdown of the West Bank.[92]

Racism towards black people

In 2021, Israel's interior ministry has issued a statement that Uganda's Jewish community, which arose in the early 20th century, will be refused the ability to immigrate to Israel not on the basis of them being relatively recent converts, but that they are not a “recognised Jewish community”— a decision widely criticized as racist, with speculation abounding that Israel's political elites only want "acceptable" Jews, ones who have Jewish ancestry (blood).[93] This is in line with Israel's past treatment of Jews of non-White origin, such as Ethiopian Jews, who though were allowed to immigrate as they have closer ancestral ties to the rest of Jewry, face intense discrimination in various forms. One manifestation of this was the mandated sterilization of Ethiopian Jewish women against their wishes, who sometimes were intimidated or threatened into taking the shot, which by the policy's end in 2013 (probably massively) contributed to the collapse in birthrates within this community — an estimated 20%–50% decrease in fertility within the last decade of this policy.[94] Ethiopian Jews also suffer higher poverty and unemployment rates than the rest of the country's Jews,[95] receiving a lack of empathy for their hardships in Ethiopia and in their journey to Israel, on top of being discriminated against by both Israeli society and the state. There is wide recognition of the fact that Ethiopian Jews are not being integrated into Israel, who though receive basic services like healthcare and education, are still subject to racism from Israel's establishment, which frequently questions the Jewishness of this community on top of having general skepticism and mistrust towards it — one early incident was the revelation in the 1990s that the Israeli national blood bank had been destroying blood donated by Ethiopian Jews for fear of HIV. While Ethiopian Jews are just 2% of Israeli schoolchildren, they are often grouped into schools where they are the majority, segregated from the rest of society. Worse still, their attainment in school is much poorer than that of the general population, providing an obstacle to a successful future that compounds their situation of unemployment and scarce public resources. Ethiopian Jews also suffer from higher levels of stop-searches by the police, as well as higher rates of arrests and incarcerations. All together, this creates a cycle of discrimination, racism, poverty, hopelessness, academic failure, and higher levels of criminality that keeps the Ethiopian Jews at the lowest levels of Israeli society, whose position is systemically and otherwise maintained by the state which refuses to integrate them.[96]

A 2012 report by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 52% of Israeli Jews agree with the statement that African migrants are “a cancer in the body” of Israel, with over a third condoning anti-migrant violence. Meanwhile, only 19% of Arabs agreed that the migrants were “a cancer”. Furthermore, while between 30%-40% of Israeli Jews were found to be moderately or greatly disturbed by the presence of non-African foreign workers, that figure climbed to 57% when it came to workers from Ghana and Nigeria and 65% for Sudanese and Eritrean job seekers.[97]

Labor prohibitions and firings

The State of Israel originated largely with the premise that Jewish labour alone must develop and characterize Israel, with such an attitude persisting strongly to the modern day. In 2014, shortly after an attack in Jerusalem perpetrated by two Arabs, Ashkelon mayor Itamar Shimoni announced plans to terminate construction of bomb shelters in kindergartens if Arabs were employed to do so, also planning to send armed guards to kindergartens near construction sites with Arab workers. Though Shimoni drew plenty of condemnation for this, many demonstrated in support both in Ashkelon and in other cities, and a poll showed a majority of Israelis backed this move — 58% supported it, 32% did not, and 10% were unsure. Many supporters stated they believed Arabs are too untrustworthy, with some employers firing Arab workers out of fear of them. But as even the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "We mustn't generalize about an entire population because of a small minority of violent and belligerent [individuals]”.[98]

Racist marriage laws

On March 10, 2022, Israel's parliament passed a law, by a majority vote of 45–15 with wide support across different parties, denying naturalization to Palestinians from occupied West Bank territory or Gaza who are married to Israeli citizens, forcing thousands of Palestinian families to either emigrate or live apart. Though the law mostly affects Palestinian spouses, this extends to ones from "enemy states" such as Lebanon, Syria, or Iran who are also forbidden from uniting with their Israeli families.[99] Later that year in early September the Israeli government mandated that foreigners visiting the occupied West Bank must report to the Israeli defense ministry within 30 days if they begin a romantic relationship with a Palestinian there.[100]

Legitimacy of Jewish claims on the region


Modern Hebrew is a constructed language with only partial descent Biblical Hebrew

Israelis Are Not 'Indigenous' (and other ridiculous pro-Israel arguments)

Even on Zionism's nationalist and racialist premises, exclusive Jewish claims on the land of Palestine are invalid on several levels. Firstly because Jewish population of the area has been sparse for thousands of years, with the land rather having been predominantly inhabited by Palestinians — who further have the closest ethnic links to the ancient Canaanite people of that area than any other group, with most Jews having been Europeanized in that time, becoming their own ethnic group separate from the ancient inhabitants of Palestine.[101][102][103] Interestingly this has manifested with Israel, whose inhabitants generally have lighter skin than the natives, having the third-highest skin cancer rate in the world until a fairly recent awareness campaign.[104] As a people, Jews emerged around the time of the Egyptian conquest of Canaan in the 16th century BC,[105] and, according to their own mythology (specifically the Book of Joshua), conquered the land of Canaan by force — however, despite the early history of this area being unclear and difficult to accurately determine, modern archaeology broadly considers the account of the Torah on topics such as these as uncredible on the basis of existing evidence.[106]

Then there is the narrative of Exodus, which posits that the Land of Israel was set aside for the Jewish people by the Jewish god himself. Even though most Jews (at least 70% in Israel) do not even believe in that religion,[107] this talking point is often raised nonetheless in an attempt to justify Israel's existence, especially to religious groups such as American evangelical Christians who believe that it is their duty to support Israel, often as part of end times prophecy. A majority of Biblical scholars agree that while Exodus is not supported by archaeological evidence, it does likely have some historical basis, with the most prominent theory being that a small group of Egyptians left at one point to join the Israelites and later became a major factor in the creation of the Exodus narrative. The version of Exodus described in the Torah was itself likely put together between the 8th and 5th centuries BC, based on earlier oral traditions and collective memories possibly dating as far back as the 13th century BC.[108][109][110]

In any case, "historical claims to land" is nonsense. Especially considering just how long the ancestors of Jews have been absent from Israel, it is no justification to uproot the inhabitants from their homes who have since laid down real, existing roots and established communities in the region. By far most Jews had almost nothing to do with the Land of Israel prior to having moved there from the advent of Zionism, aside from some historical artifacts that remained there or some such (this point becomes even less significant considering that most Israeli Jews do not even believe in Judaism).

"Two-State Solution"

A scheme by many supporters and defenders of the Zionist state of Israel, and by some “left” Zionists themselves, to try to resolve the long struggle between Jewish Zionists and Arab Palestinians (who the Zionists have been attempting to forcibly push out of Palestine for more than 75 years), by creating two separate states—one for Jews and one for Palestinians. It is possible that this may have been a somewhat feasible (if only temporary) “solution” early on, when Israel encompassed just a small portion of Palestine. But today, when only the tiny Gaza Strip and ever-more restricted parts of the West Bank still exist as formally being outside of Israel, and there are such very limited areas which are not yet occupied primarily by Jews, the notion of any “two-state solution” to the Palestine problem is simply absurd. There is just not enough left of Palestine outside of Israel to make a separate Palestinian state viable.

Most Zionists have totally opposed the idea of a “two-state solution” from the very start, and have always wanted all of Palestine (and perhaps well beyond) as their future state of “Greater Israel”. As of January 2024 the Israeli government has made it very clear that it will never agree to such a two-state arrangement.[111] The U.S. imperialists, however, are still pushing for such a “solution”, because they view it as a way of keeping to something close to the present status quo, and they don’t know where else the Palestinians being displaced can go. (Israel is trying to force them into refugee camps in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon or elsewhere, and doesn’t care what happens to them as long as they are gone.) A major reason why Israel is currently (as of February 2024) attempting to destroy Gaza as a livable place for Palestinians is to force them entirely out of Palestine, and put an end to any ideas of a “two-state solution” being pushed on Israel by the U.S. It seems virtually certain that the Israelis will be able to prevent such a “solution” from even being seriously attempted, and will likewise eventually force the U.S. to finally give up on the whole idea.

See also

Notes

  1. Anti-Zionists historically have sometimes referred to the State of Israel as the Zionist entity[1][2][3][4][5] (Arabic: الكيان الصهيوني), a term intended to reject its legitimacy even in name.

References

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  7. Mendel, Yonatan (5 October 2014). The Creation of Israeli Arabic: Security and Politics in Arabic Studies in Israel. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-137-33737-5. Note 28: The exact percentage of Jews in Palestine prior to the rise of Zionism is unknown. However, it probably ranged from 2 to 5 per cent. According to Ottoman records, a total population of 462,465 resided in 1878 in what is today Israel/Palestine. Of this number, 403,795 (87 per cent) were Muslim, 43,659 (10 per cent) were Christian and 15,011 (3 per cent) were Jewish (quoted in Alan Dowty, Israel/Palestine, Cambridge: Polity, 2008, p. 13). See also Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 43 and 124.
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    p. 75: "The night of 29–30 November passed in the Yishuv’s settlements in noisy public rejoicing. Most had sat glued to their radio sets broadcasting live from Flushing Meadow. A collective cry of joy went up when the two-thirds mark was achieved: a state had been sanctioned by the international community."
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    p. 66: at 1946 "The League demanded independence for Palestine as a “unitary” state, with an Arab majority and minority rights for the Jews."
    p. 67: at 1947 "The League’s Political Committee met in Sofar, Lebanon, on 16–19 September, and urged the Palestine Arabs to fight partition, which it called “aggression,” “without mercy.” The League promised them, in line with Bludan, assistance “in manpower, money and equipment” should the United Nations endorse partition."
    p. 72: at December 1947 "The League vowed, in very general language, “to try to stymie the partition plan and prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine"
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    p. 73: "All paid lip service to Arab unity and the Palestine Arab cause, and all opposed partition..."
    p. 396: "The immediate trigger of the 1948 War was the November 1947 UN partition resolution. … The Palestinian Arabs, along with the rest of the Arab world, said a flat “no”… The Arabs refused to accept the establishment of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. And, consistently with that “no,” the Palestinian Arabs, in November–December 1947, and the Arab states in May 1948, launched hostilities to scupper the resolution’s implementation"
    p. 409: "The mindset characterized both the public and the ruling elites. All vilified the Yishuv and opposed the existence of a Jewish state on “their” (sacred Islamic) soil, and all sought its extirpation, albeit with varying degrees of bloody-mindedness. Shouts of “Idbah al Yahud” (slaughter the Jews) characterized equally street demonstrations in Jaffa, Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad both before and during the war and were, in essence, echoed, usually in tamer language, by most Arab leaders."
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    Memo US Department of State, 4 May 1949, FRUS, 1949, p. 973: "One of the most important problems which must be cleared up before a lasting peace can be established in Palestine is the question of the more than 700,000 Arab refugees who during the Palestine conflict fled from their homes in what is now Israeli occupied territory and are at present living as refugees in Arab Palestine and the neighbouring Arab states.";
    Memorandum on the Palestine Refugee Problem, 4 May 1949, FRUS, 1949, p. 984: "Approximately 700,000 refugees from the Palestine hostilities, now located principally in Arab Palestine, Transjordan, Lebanon and Syria, will require repatriation to Israel or resettlement in the Arab states."
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  90. Palestinians excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout as jabs go to settlers
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  92. Covid-19: Palestinians lag behind in vaccine efforts as infections rise. BBC.
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  99. Israel's Knesset passes law barring Palestinian spouses. Reuters.
  100. Israeli rules say West Bank visitors must declare love interest. BBC.
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  102. Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History from Ancient Canaanite and Present-Day Lebanese Genome Sequences
  103. The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish
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  110. Israel Finklestein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, Free Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-684-86912-4.
  111. Netanyahu doubles down on opposition to any recognition of Palestinian state jns.

Further resources

  • The works of Norman Finkelstein, who specializes in examining the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust.
  • The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer, which describes a "loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction".
  • bdsmovement.net, which describes the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel over its treatment of Palestinians, giving guides to practical action as well.
  • Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation by Michael Lerner: a book which includes a theological case for how Israel is not a Jewish state by any measure of Judaic principles and must get itself on the right side of history or be forever spiritually lost because of the violence and hatred its policies have caused, encouraged, nurtured, and sanctioned.