Isn’t It Time for the Lethal Zionist Masquerade To Come to an End?
In Defense of the Dream During the Night of the Long Zionist Nightmare:
“When you were still swinging from trees, we had a state here,” Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, said to an Arab member of Knesset.
Zionism is Jewish nationalism. Whether the Jews are a people or not, a nation or not, is for the Jews themselves to decide. For Arabs and Muslims, the issue of Zionism is not a theoretical issue; it is how the Zionist project has been carried out in Palestine. It is a settler colonial project that has been inflicting catastrophes on the indigenous people of Palestine. The indigenous people of Palestine include Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The Zionist violence in the West Bank and Gaza is the most recent chapter in the settler colonial book of horrors.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) got in trouble with some in the Jewish community for using the common, perfectly moral, and just slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” This slogan captures a vision for the Palestine Mandate and is a common slogan among the peace and justice community. It’s a slogan that has been repeated by millions of people from all backgrounds all around the world. It means a state for all its citizens. The horror! Congresswoman Tlaib does not need to apologize to anyone.
James Zogby from AAI shared a poll stat on X, “On the ‘the river to the sea” controversy: 7 yrs ago we polled Israelis & Palestinians. A strong plurality in both favored 1 state. When asked how that would look: Israelis said it meant expelling all Palestinians; Palestinians said it meant equal rights in 1 state. Just sayin’.”
While American Zionists are largely watching in silence the approval of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and are “hurt” by a mere slogan, Arabs and Muslims feel anger and helplessness when they see Israel with unlimited U.S. support engaging in the genocide in Gaza and pogroms in the West Bank.
Any fair observer of Palestine realizes that there is a one-state reality today from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The ugly reality of a Jewish supremacist ethnostate. A state with second-class citizenship in the Green Line for Muslim and Christian Arab Israelis, Apartheid in the West Bank, and a big prison in Gaza that is being bombed to smithereens. This is untenable and patently unjust.
Patrick Wolf, neither a Muslim nor an Arab, a theorist of settler colonial studies, considers Israel an example of a settler colonial state. It is a project of ongoing violence against the natives of Palestine, seeking to erase them.
It is built on ethnic cleansing. 700,000 fled — or were forced to flee — from day one, and naturally and predictably has produced deplorables like Yitzhak Shamir, terrorist Menachem Begin, Sabra and Shatila massacre architect Ariel Sharon, mass murderer native New Yorker Baruch Goldstein (a hero of Ben Gvir, a current member of the Israeli cabinet), “Palestinians are Amalek” corrupt Netanyahu, racist Smotrich, fascist Ben Gvir and “Let’s Nuke Gaza’s heritage” Minister Amichai Eliyahu!
There are millions of Zionists in the U.S., with political influence and important backers. They are mostly Christian Zionists who have, as Coptic Pope Shenouda put it, misunderstood Lord Balfour’s 1917 promise for God’s Promise.
Rashida Tlaib, as a Muslim Palestinian, will not ever endorse the Zionist project in Palestine. In the eyes of the victims, there is no legitimacy to settler colonialism. It is a project to be resisted. Advocating a one-state for all citizens is the only solution. American policymakers know that. Mitt Romney said all the U.S. can do is “kick the can down the road.”
American officials talk about managing the conflict, not about peace and justice. Honest people admit that the talk of a two-state solution is a pipe dream. It has been made impossible by planting half a million settlers in the West Bank. A Palestinian state will not happen. Therefore, a just solution is a state for all its citizens. This is a humane vision for Mandatory Palestine. Who is against peace, justice, and equality?
There are millions of Zionists in the U.S., with political influence and important backers. They are mostly Christian Zionists who have, as Coptic Pope Shenouda put it, misunderstood Lord Balfour’s 1917 promise for God’s Promise. The truth is, it is perfectly fine if a just vision hurts and offends them. The beneficiaries of an unjust reality do not voluntarily give up privileges.
While American Zionists are largely watching in silence the approval of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and are “hurt” by a mere slogan, Arabs and Muslims feel anger and helplessness when they see Israel with unlimited U.S. support engaging in the genocide in Gaza and pogroms in the West Bank. Arabs and Muslims expect all people of good conscience to condemn Israel’s Final Solution in Gaza.
Palestinians and their allies have a dream of a one-state that will end the nightmare that the Zionist colonial settler enterprise has visited upon Palestine. All nightmares come to an end.
Dr. Ihsan Alkhatib is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Murray State University.
