Israel's Right To Be Racist
By Joseph Massad
17 March, 2007
Al Ahram
Israel's struggle for peace is a sincere one. In fact, Israel desires
to live at peace not only with its neighbours, but also and especially
with its own Palestinian population, and with Palestinians whose lands
its military occupies by force. Israel's desire for peace is not only
rhetorical but also substantive and deeply psychological. With few
exceptions, prominent Zionist leaders since the inception of colonial
Zionism have desired to establish peace with the Palestinians and other
Arabs whose lands they slated for colonisation and settlement. The only
thing Israel has asked for, and continues to ask for in order to end
the state of war with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours, is that
all recognise its right to be a racist state that discriminates by law
against Palestinians and other Arabs and grants differential legal
rights and privileges to its own Jewish citizens and to all other Jews
anywhere. The resistance that the Palestinian people and other Arabs
have launched against Israel's right to be a racist state is what
continues to stand between Israel and the peace for which it has
struggled and to which it has been committed for decades. Indeed, this
resistance is nothing less than the "New anti- Semitism".
Israel is willing to do anything to convince Palestinians and other
Arabs of why it needs and deserves to have the right to be racist. Even
at the level of theory, and before it began to realise itself on the
ground, the Zionist colonial project sought different means by which it
could convince the people whose lands it wanted to steal and against
whom it wanted to discriminate to accept as understandable its need to
be racist. All it required was that the Palestinians "recognise its
right to exist" as a racist state. Military methods were by no means
the only persuasive tools available; there were others, including
economic and cultural incentives. Zionism from the start offered some
Palestinians financial benefits if they would accede to its demand that
it should have the right to be racist. Indeed, the State of Israel
still does. Many Palestinian officials in the Palestinian Authority and
the Palestine Liberation Organisation have been offered and have
accepted numerous financial incentives to recognise this crucial
Israeli need. Those among the Palestinians who regrettably continue to
resist are being penalised for their intransigence by economic choking
and starvation, supplemented by regular bombardment and raids, as well
as international isolation. These persuasive methods, Israel hopes,
will finally convince a recalcitrant population to recognise the dire
need of Israel to be a racist state. After all, Israeli racism only
manifests in its flag, its national anthem, and a bunch of laws that
are necessary to safeguard Jewish privilege, including the Law of
Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the
State's Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law
(1952), the Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), the Construction
and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage
between Israelis and Palestinians of the occupied territories.
Let us start with why Israel and Zionism need to ensure that Israel
remains a racist state by law and why it deserves to have that right.
The rationale is primarily threefold and is based on the following
claims.
Jews are always in danger out in the wide world; only in a state that
privileges them racially and religiously can they be safe from gentile
oppression and can prosper. If Israel removed its racist laws and
symbols and became a non-racist democratic state, Jews would cease to
be a majority and would be like Diaspora Jews, a minority in a non-
Jewish state. These concerns are stated clearly by Israeli leaders
individually and collectively. Shimon Peres, for example, the dove of
official Israel, has been worried for some time about the Palestinian
demographic "danger", as the Green Line, which separates Israel from
the West Bank, is beginning to "disappear ... which may lead to the
linking of the futures of West Bank Palestinians with Israeli Arabs".
He hoped that the arrival of 100,000 Jews in Israel would postpone this
demographic "danger" for 10 more years, as ultimately, he stressed,
"demography will defeat geography".
In December 2000, the Institute of Policy and Strategy at the Herzliya
Interdisciplinary Centre in Israel held its first of a projected series
of annual conferences dealing with the strength and security of Israel,
especially with regards to maintaining Jewish demographic majority.
Israel's president and current and former prime ministers and cabinet
ministers were all in attendance. One of the "Main Points" identified
in the 52-page conference report is concern over the numbers needed to
maintain Jewish demographic and political supremacy of Israel: "The
high birth rate [of 'Israeli Arabs'] brings into question the future of
Israel as a Jewish state ... The present demographic trends, should
they continue, challenge the future of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel
has two alternative strategies: adaptation or containment. The latter
requires a long-term energetic Zionist demographic policy whose
political, economic, and educational effects would guarantee the Jewish
character of Israel."
The report adds affirmatively that, "those who support the
preservation of Israel's character as ... a Jewish state for the Jewish
nation ... constitute a majority among the Jewish population in
Israel." Of course, this means the maintenance of all the racist laws
that guarantee the Jewish character of the state. Subsequent annual
meetings have confirmed this commitment.
Jews are carriers of Western civilisation and constitute an Asian
station defending both Western civilisation and economic and political
interests against Oriental terrorism and barbarism. If Israel
transformed itself into a non-racist state, then its Arab population
would undermine the commitment to Western civilisation and its defence
of the West's economic and political interests, and might perhaps
transform Jews themselves into a Levantine barbaric population. Here is
how Ben Gurion once put it: "We do not want Israelis to become Arabs.
We are in duty bound to fight against the spirit of the Levant, which
corrupts individuals and societies, and preserve the authentic Jewish
values as they crystallised in the [European] Diaspora." Indeed Ben
Gurion was clear on the Zionist role of defending these principles: "We
are not Arabs, and others measure us by a different standard ... our
instruments of war are different from those of the Arabs, and only our
instruments can guarantee our victory." More recently, Israel's
ambassador to Australia, Naftali Tamir, stressed that: "We are in Asia
without the characteristics of Asians. We don't have yellow skin and
slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel
are not -- we are basically the white race."
God has given this land to the Jews and told them to safeguard
themselves against gentiles who hate them. To make Israel a non-Jewish
state then would run the risk of challenging God Himself. This position
is not only upheld by Jewish and Christian fundamentalists, but even by
erstwhile secular Zionists (Jews and Christians alike). Ben Gurion
himself understood, as does Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, that: "God
promised it to us."
It is important to stress that this Zionist rationale is correct on
all counts if one accepts the proposition of Jewish exceptionalism.
Remember that Zionism and Israel are very careful not to generalise the
principles that justify Israel's need to be racist but are rather
vehement in upholding it as an exceptional principle. It is not that no
other people has been oppressed historically, it is that Jews have been
oppressed more. It is not that no other people's cultural and physical
existence has been threatened; it is that the Jews' cultural and
physical existence is threatened more. This quantitative equation is
key to why the world, and especially Palestinians, should recognise
that Israel needs and deserves to have the right to be a racist state.
If the Palestinians, or anyone else, reject this, then they must be
committed to the annihilation of the Jewish people physically and
culturally, not to mention that they would be standing against the
Judeo-Christian God.
It is true that Palestinian and Arab leaders were not easily persuaded
of these special needs that Israel has; that it took decades of
assiduous efforts on the part of Israel to convince them, especially
through "military" means. In the last three decades they have shown
signs of coming around. Though Anwar El-Sadat inaugurated that shift in
1977, it would take Yasser Arafat longer to recognise Israel's needs.
But Israel remained patient and became more innovative in its
persuasive instruments, especially its military ones. When Arafat came
to his senses and signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, he finally
recognised Israel's right to be racist and to legally discriminate
against its own Palestinian citizens. For that belated recognition, a
magnanimous Israel, still eager for peace, decided to negotiate with
him. He, however, continued to resist on some issues. For Arafat had
hoped that his recognition of Israel's need to be racist inside Israel
was in exchange for Israel ending its racist apartheid system in the
occupied territories. That was clearly a misunderstanding on his part.
Israeli leaders explained to him and to his senior peace negotiator
Mahmoud Abbas in marathon discussions that lasted seven years, that
Israel's needs are not limited to imposing its racist laws inside
Israel but must extend to the occupied territories as well.
Surprisingly, Arafat was not content with the Bantustans the Israelis
offered to carve up for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and
Gaza around the Jewish colonial settlements that God had granted the
Jews. The United States was brought in to persuade the malleable leader
that the Bantustan solution was not a bad one. Indeed, equally
honourable collaborators as Arafat had enjoyed its benefits, such as
Mangosutho Gatcha Buthelezi in Apartheid South Africa. It was no shame
to accept it, President Clinton insisted to Arafat at Camp David in the
summer of 2000. While Abbas was convinced, Arafat remained unsure.
It is true that in 2002 Arafat came around some more and reaffirmed
his recognition of Israel's need for racist laws inside the country
when he gave up the right of return of the six million exiled
Palestinians who, by virtue of Israel's racist law of return, are
barred from returning to the homeland from which Israel had expelled
them while Jewish citizens of any other countries obtain automatic
citizenship in an Israel most of them have never before seen. In an op-
ed piece in The New York Times, Arafat declared: "We understand
Israel's demographic concerns and understand that the right of return
of Palestinian refugees, a right guaranteed under international law and
United Nations Resolution 194, must be implemented in a way that takes
into account such concerns." He proceeded to state that he was looking
to negotiate with Israel on "creative solutions to the plight of the
refugees while respecting Israel's demographic concerns". This however,
was not sufficient, as Arafat remained unpersuaded of Israel's need to
set up its racist apartheid in the occupied territories. Israel had no
choice but to isolate him, keep him under house arrest, and possibly
poison him at the end.
President Abbas, however, learned well from the mistakes of his
predecessor and has shown more openness to Israeli arguments about its
dire need to have a racist apartheid system set up in the West Bank and
Gaza and that the legitimacy of this apartheid must also be recognised
by the Palestinians as a precondition for peace. Abbas was not the only
Palestinian leader to be beguiled. Several other Palestinian leaders
were so convinced that they offered to help build the infrastructure of
Israeli apartheid by providing Israel with most of the cement it needed
to build its Jews-only colonies and the apartheid wall.
The problem now was Hamas, who, while willing to recognise Israel,
still refused to recognise its special needs to be racist inside the
Green Line and to set up an apartheid system inside the occupied
territories. This is where Saudi Arabia was brought in last month in
the holy city of Mecca. Where else, pondered the Saudis, could one
broker an agreement where the leadership of the victims of Israeli
racism and oppression can be brought to solemnly swear that they
recognise their oppressor's special need to oppress them? Well, Hamas
has been resisting the formula, which Fatah has upheld for five years,
namely to "commit" to this crucial recognition. Hamas said that all it
could do was "respect" past agreements that the PA had signed with
Israel and which recognised its need to be racist. This, Israel and the
United States insist, is insufficient and the Palestinians will
continue to be isolated despite Hamas's "respect" for Israel's right to
be racist. The condition for peace as far as Israel and the US are
concerned is that both Hamas and Fatah recognise and be committed to
Israel's right to be an apartheid state inside the Green Line as well
as its imposition of apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza. Short of
this, there will be no deal. The ensuing summit between Condie Rice,
Ehud Olmert and the exalted PA President Abbas was spent with Olmert
interrogating Abbas on how much he remains committed to Israel's need
for apartheid in the occupied territories. A minor replay summit was
concluded on the same basis a few days ago. Abbas had hoped that the
two summits could coax Israel to finalise arrangements for the
Bantustans over which he wants to rule, but Israel, understandably,
felt insecure and had to ensure that Abbas himself was still committed
to its right to impose apartheid first. Meanwhile, ongoing "secret"
Israeli-Saudi talks have filled Israel with the hope and expectation
that the Arab League's upcoming summit in Riyadh might very well cancel
the Palestinian right of return that is guaranteed by international law
and affirm the inviolability of Israel's right to be a racist state as
guaranteed by international diplomacy. All of Israel's efforts to
achieve peace might finally bear fruit if the Arabs finally concede to
what international mediation had already conceded to Israel before
them.
It should be clear then that in this international context, all
existing solutions to what is called the Palestinian-Israeli "conflict"
guarantee Israel's need to maintain its racist laws and its racist
character and ensure its right to impose apartheid in the West Bank and
Gaza. What Abbas and the Palestinians are allowed to negotiate on, and
what the Palestinian people and other Arabs are being invited to
partake of, in these projected negotiations is the political and
economic (but not the geographic) character of the Bantustans that
Israel is carving up for them in the West Bank, and the conditions of
the siege around the Big Prison called Gaza and the smaller ones in the
West Bank. Make no mistake about it, Israel will not negotiate about
anything else, as to do so would be tantamount to giving up its racist
rule.
As for those among us who insist that no resolution will ever be
possible before Israel revokes all its racist laws and does away with
all its racist symbols, thus opening the way for a non-racist future
for Palestinians and Jews in a decolonised bi-national state, Israel
and its apologists have a ready-made response that has redefined the
meaning of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is no longer the hatred of and
discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group; in the age
of Zionism, we are told, anti-Semitism has metamorphosed into something
that is more insidious. Today, Israel and its Western defenders insist,
genocidal anti-Semitism consists mainly of any attempt to take away and
to refuse to uphold the absolute right of Israel to be a racist Jewish
state.
The writer is associate professor of modern Arab politics and
intellectual history at Columbia University. His latest book is The
Persistence of the Palestinian Question; Essays on Zionism and the
Palestinians. This commentary was originally published by Al-Ahram
Weekly.
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