The phrase \u201cright to exist\u201d entered my consciousness in the 1990s just as the concept of the two-state solution became part of our collective lexicon. In any debate at university, when a Zionist was out of arguments, those three magic words were invoked to shut down the conversation with an outraged, \u201care you saying Israel doesn\u2019t have the right to exist??\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course you couldn\u2019t challenge Israel\u2019s right to exist \u2013 that was like saying you were negating a fundamental Jewish right to have\u2026rights, with all manner of Holocaust guilt thrown in for effect.<\/p>\n
Except of course the Holocaust is not my fault \u2013 or that of Palestinians. The cold-blooded program of ethnically cleansing Europe of its Jewish population has been so callously and opportunistically utilized to justify the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arab nation, that it leaves me utterly unmoved. I have even caught myself \u2013 shock – rolling my eyes when I hear Holocaust and Israel in the same sentence.<\/p>\n
What moves me instead in this post-two-state era, is the sheer audacity of Israel even existing.<\/p>\n
What a fantastical idea, this notion that a bunch of rank outsiders from another continent could appropriate an existing, populated nation for themselves \u2013 and convince the \u201cglobal community\u201d that it was the moral thing to do. I\u2019d laugh at the chutzpah if this wasn\u2019t so serious.<\/p>\n
Even more brazen is the mass ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population by persecuted Jews, newly arrived from their own experience of being ethnically cleansed.<\/p>\n
But what is truly frightening is the psychological manipulation of the masses into believing that Palestinians are somehow dangerous \u2013 \u201cterrorists\u201d intent on \u201cdriving Jews into the sea.\u201d As someone who makes a living through words, I find the use of language in creating perceptions to be intriguing. This practice \u2013 often termed \u201cpublic diplomacy\u201d has become an essential tool in the world of geopolitics. Words, after all, are the building blocks of our psychology.<\/em><\/p>\n Take, for example, the way we have come to view the Palestinian-Israeli \u201cdispute\u201d and any resolution of this enduring conflict. And here I borrow liberally from a previous article of mine\u2026<\/p>\n The United States and Israel have created the global discourse on this issue, setting stringent parameters that grow increasingly narrow regarding the content and direction of this debate. Anything discussed outside the set parameters has, until recently, widely been viewed as unrealistic, unproductive and even subversive.<\/p>\n Participation in the debate is limited only to those who prescribe to its main tenets: the acceptance of Israel, its regional hegemony and its qualitative military edge; acceptance of the shaky logic upon which the Jewish state’s claim to Palestine is based; and acceptance of the inclusion and exclusion of certain regional parties, movements and governments in any solution to the conflict.<\/p>\n Words like dove, hawk, militant, extremist, moderates, terrorists, Islamo-fascists, rejectionists, existential threat, holocaust-denier, mad mullah determine the participation of solution partners — and are capable of instantly excluding others.<\/p>\n Then there is the language that preserves “Israel’s Right To Exist” unquestioningly: anything that invokes the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and the myths about historic Jewish rights to the land bequeathed to them by the Almighty \u2013 as though God was in the real-estate business. This language seeks not only to ensure that a Jewish connection to Palestine remains unquestioned, but importantly, seeks to punish and marginalize those who tackle the legitimacy of this modern colonial-settler experiment.<\/p>\n But this group-think has led us nowhere. It has obfuscated, distracted, deflected, ducked, and diminished, and we are no closer to a satisfactory conclusion\u2026because the premise is wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n There is no fixing this problem. This is the kind of crisis in which you cut your losses, realize the error of your ways and reverse course. Israel is the problem. It is the last modern-day colonial-settler experiment, conducted at a time when these projects were being unraveled globally.<\/p>\n There is no \u201cPalestinian-Israeli conflict\u201d \u2013 that suggests some sort of equality in power, suffering, and negotiable tangibles, and there is no symmetry whatsoever in this equation. Israel is the Occupier and Oppressor; Palestinians are the Occupied and Oppressed. What is there to negotiate? Israel holds all the chips. They can give back some land, property, rights, but even that is an absurdity \u2013 what about everything else? What about ALL the land, property and rights? Why do they get to keep anything \u2013 how is the appropriation of land and property prior to 1948 fundamentally different from the appropriation of land and property on this arbitrary 1967 date?<\/p>\n