Zionism beyond control & Choices for the Palestinians
Another choice is to let events take their course as dictated by Zionism. In this scenario the most likely end game is a final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. (In my view a resort to armed struggle or violent confrontation in any shape or form is not a choice the Palestinians should make because it would play into Zionism’s hands and give Israel’s neo-fascist leaders the pretext they would otherwise have to create themselves to proceed with a final ethnic cleansing).
The third choice is to change the political dynamics by demanding and obtaining the dissolution of the corrupt and impotent PA (Palestinian Authority) and handing complete and full responsibility for occupation back to Israel. This, as I have indicated in previous articles, would impose significant security and financial burdens on Israel and, more to the point, it would make calling and holding the Zionist state to account for its crimes something less than what it currently is – a mission impossible.
As I have also asserted in previous articles, the momentum generated by changing the political dynamics as indicated above would be greatly assisted by the Palestinian diaspora putting its act together and becoming politically engaged for the purpose of bringing the PNC back to life, re-invigorated by elections to it in every country where Palestinians are living.
This would enable the Palestinians to be seen to be determining policy by truly democratic means and speaking with one credible voice; and that in turn would assist them to deploy the only weapon they have much more effectively than has been the case to date.
What is this weapon?
The justice of their cause.
Because there are no principles in politics I agree with Susan Abulhawa, the Palestinian author (and also the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an NGO for children). In a recent article she said there is nothing for the Palestinians in negotiations with powerful elites which, I add, either do Zionism’s bidding or are frightened of offending it too much; and that it is time to take the struggle to the “global street”.
What she meant and said in her own eloquent way is that is that Zionism’s oppression of the Palestinians does not appeal to popular notions of morality, and that if enough citizens of conscience everywhere were aware of Zionism’s on-going destruction of an indigenous population, they could be mobilised to demand justice for the Palestinians.
On that basis Susan Abulhawa sees hope for her people.
In principle so do I, but there’s a troubling question that has to be addressed.
What, really, explains why the Zionist state of Israel is not interested in peace on terms the Palestinians could accept?
Over the years I have written and said on public platforms that most Israeli Jews are beyond reason on the matter of justice for the Palestinians. To my way of thinking the best explanation of why this is so was provided by Israeli journalist Merav Michaeli in an article for Ha’aretz on 30 January 2012. The headline over it was Israel’s never-ending Holocaust. Here are five paragraphs from what she wrote (my emphasis added).
QUOTE
The Holocaust is the primary way Israel defines itself. And that definition is narrow and ailing in the extreme, because the Holocaust is remembered only in a very specific way, as are its lessons. It has long been used to justify the existence and the necessity of the state, and has been mentioned in the same breath as proof that the state is under a never-ending existential threat.
The Holocaust is the sole prism through which our leadership, followed by society at large, examines every situation. This prism distorts reality and leads inexorably to a foregone conclusion… that all our lives are simply one long Shoah (experience of persecution and extermination – my amplification not Merav’s).
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