Solidarity from "Pro-Palestinian" Jews Revisited
Ibrahim Alloush
No Palestinian Arab would ever argue whether international solidarity with
our cause is welcome or not. In fact, it's our obligation to garner such
support wherever we may. Moreover, we can never neglect our obligation to
confront Zionist propaganda internationally and to debunk Zionist myths in any
language, shape, or form. So at least as far as this goes, ALL Palestinian
activists would NOT disagree.
The question remains, however, what actually constitutes support for the
Palestinian cause: sympathy with the victimization of Palestinians, like one
would sympathize with road kills for example, conscious political support for a
platform for liberation, or something in between?
There are plenty of people out there who claim to be 'pro-Palestinian' , or
to support 'Palestinian rights'. And many of us are taken in by such people,
especially that some of us have a soft spot for Westerners and therefore feel
flabbergasted when they see one of them leaning a tad our way... (Some call it
an inferiority complex but I will not get into that here).
Nevertheless, not everyone who claims to support us is actually a supporter.
Many such supporters actually oppose some of the most crucial things we stand
for, except they dislike some of the human rights violations that the Zionists
are visiting upon us. That is, they: 1) recognize the right of "Israel" to
exist and the alleged right of Jews to settle in Palestine, 2) they oppose our
strategy to liberate Palestine, and 3) they especially oppose the armed
struggle of Palestinian organizations. Such 'supporters' are not actually
supporting us, but simply trying to make themselves feel better...
In some cases, you find Jews claiming to support the Palestinian cause. But
when you scrutinize carefully what they stand for, you'll find they simply want
what amounts to a 'nice occupation', as opposed to a brutal one. In reality
they just wish there could be an occupation without administrative detentions,
targeted assassinations, land confiscations, house demolitions, and all the
rest. Otherwise, those same 'supporters' try as hard as they could to convince
Palestinians to present their case 'in a civilized manner' without resorting
human bombs and military operations, especially against what they call "Israeli
civilians". One such Jewish 'supporter' is Noam Chomsky who says that it would
be immoral for Palestinians to target even an off-duty "Israeli" soldier!
This makes one wonder whether these Jewish "supporters" are just trying to
whitewash the occupation with their own professed guilt, as Jews, or whether
they're simply out to present another 'positive' side of Zionism!
Some of us are so happy to see a Jew or a Westerner criticize Zionist
oppression that they trip all over themselves to the point of becoming
oblivious to the essence of the POLITICAL MESSAGE such 'criticism' of Zionism
is concealing. There are Zionists criticizing each other all the time for
goodness sakes. That doesn't make them anymore pro-Palestinian than Arabs
criticizing each other are pro-Zionist.
Let's put the issue in a nutshell: Palestine is occupied. Palestine is not
only occupied by an army of soldiers, but by an army of colonists. In any
country, when there is occuption, the natural anecdote is liberation. No one
in their right mind would have asked Europeans to tolerate or to coexist with
the Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe of France. Yet that is exactly what is
being asked of Palestinians today by 'our supporters'. These supporters are
basically asking us to either cede most of Palestine to colonists under a
two-state solution, or to embrace the right of colonists to live in Palestine
under a one-state solution. The latter 'solution', in fact, amounts to
embracing the fruits of Zionism in retrospect, since Zionism is nothing but the
project of building a Jewish colony in Palestine.
So, we don't need 'supporters' who try to dictate to us what our political
strategy should be.
Our cause is crystal clear, and the only thing that can possibly make us lose
our true supporters is allowing fake supporters of the Palestinian cause to
mystify it.
When there is occupation, the anecdote is liberation. Period. If you are an
anti-Zionist, that must mean by definition that you are against Jewish
settlement in Palestine that came on the heels of a Zionist project. It also
means you support our platform to liberate Palestine, our way, not some other
platform to make Palestinians more tolerant of Jews by parading a handful of
"pro-Palestinian" Jews!
Mind you, thoroughout the centuries, we never ever opposed Jews coming into
Palestine as individuals, BEFORE THE ONSET OF THE ZIONIST PROJECT. If you
check the annals of history, you'd find that Palestinians opposed Jewish
immigration into Palestine only AFTER the onset of the Zionist project. But
let's not wallow on that too much. Palestine is ours, and as such, it's our
prerogative to decide whom we want to let into our country just like any other
normal people on earth.
Hence, each and every Jew in Palestine today is objectively part and parcel
of the Zionist project. S/he is forcibly occupying space whence a Palestinian
was dislodged. For such a Jew to even claim, on top of my land and from within
my home, that s/he is an anti-Zionist, means that he either thinks we must be
complete idiots or... that we are complete idiots. In fact, we would be if we
accepted such preposterous claims. It would be exactly like believing George
Bush lecturing about 'world peace' for example. FOR STARTERS, anti-Zionism
necessarily implies that a Jew is practicing it OUTSIDE Palestine. Any Jew in
Palestine today cannot possibly be anti-Zionist by definition.
Furthermore, if you take revisionist historians in the Zionist entity for
example, you'll find that even those among them who have meticulously
documented Zionist atrocities against Palestinians do not think it amounts much
compared to the alleged "Holocaust". Take Ilan Pappe for example. He has said
repeatedly in articles and interviews that the Nakba is ethnic cleansing, but
that the "Holocaust" is mass genocide, and therefore as abhorant as the Nakba
may be, it cannot possibly be compared to the "Holocaust"; and that only the
Jews could have gotten away with something like the Nakba because of the
sympathy they harnessed in the West due to the "Holocaust". In essence, Jewish
colonists like Ilan Pappe justify the Zionist colonization of Palestine in
retrospect as a natural response to Nazi persecution. Indeed, if you check out
his website, you'll find he explains his parents coming into Palestine in that
manner. In the end, he's calling for Palestinians to accept
Zionism in retrospect under the thin veneer of a 'one-state solution'.
There is a real danger when our political vision becomes so hazy we cannot
distinguish colonist usurping our land and identity from true supporters of our
cause.
Such political myopia, however, remains rampant amongst some Arab
intellectuals, officials of Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority, and
Arabs bending over backwards to get themselves accepted by Westerners or by
Jews. But rarely would one see such pathetic overtures towards the enemy
amongst average Arabs on the Arab street, that is, among the overwhelming
majority of Arabs. Arabs on the street, by and large, still regard ANY
DEALINGS with the invader, under any pretext, as an act of normalization.
Normalization of course is the act of dealing with the enemy as if they were
not the oppressor, the invader, the murderers of our people, and the usurpers
of our Haifa, Akka, and Jalil.
Frequently Palestinians are set up in a guilt trip. They have to prove that
they do not hate Jews. The proving really never ends until you eventually
embrace the doctrine of "Israel's" security. But, really, Palestinians have
NOTHING to prove to the invader. It is exactly the other way around. A Jew
who claims to be anti-Zionist is the one who has something to prove (to
himself first of all), not a Palestinian who is fighting a Jewish
occupation.
If someone supports you, that means they support your cause to liberate your
land from an occupation. It doesn't mean that you have to change your
strategic objective away from liberation so they can start supporting you.
Otherwise, you have already lost your cause before even beginning.
'Support' which comes with attached strings is no support at all, but an
impediment.
