Israel Steals More Land!

Israel Steals More Land!

Nov. 2, 2022

Lee Camp

ZIONIST EXCEPTIONALISM?

Israeli Exceptionalism lucidly encapsulates in its relatively short 220-page narrative the essential aspects of the Zionist movement, showing how it has been able to rapidly advance from its birth to regional dominance, and how, concomitantly, its amazing success has brought the United States, its powerful patron, into the cauldron of never-ending Middle East wars. While undoubtedly hostile toward Zionism, Alam manages to write rather dispassionate prose. And it is difficult to take issue with the validity of his arguments.

The author states that book's "primary theme" is to "focus on the germ of the Zionist idea, its core ambition—clearly discernible at its launching—to create a Jewish state in the Middle East by displacing the natives. This exclusionary colonialism would unleash a deeply destabilizing logic, if it were to succeed. It could advance only by creating and promoting conflicts between the West and the Islamicate [the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam]. Since its creation, this primordial logic has driven the Jewish state to deepen this conflict. Overweening ambition launched Zionism, but the destabilizing logic of this idea has advanced and sustained it." (p. 3) Because of Zionism's unparalleled influence over American policymakers, this "destabilizing logic" has mired the United States in a Middle East morass from which it is now politically unable to extricate itself.

Interwoven in the narrative is the theme of Israeli and Jewish exceptionalism, which provides the title of the book. The Jews have historically seen themselves as an exceptional people—"God's chosen people"—and the Zionists expanded on this religious theme to make it serve as the intellectual basis for the modern state of Israel's existence and defense. Moreover, this exceptionalism is recognized, at least tacitly, by Western countries, and, consequently, Israel is able to ignore the norms and rules usually applied to other countries. Most significantly, Alam notes that Israel stands alone as the only European settler colonial state that was created and continues to exist in an era of anti-colonialism.

Alam emphasizes that Zionism originated as a very ambitious project that had to overcome a number of formidable hurdles. The Jews were a people without a homeland and without much of a national feeling, but the Zionists intended to establish a Jewish homeland on land fully inhabited by another people and, in the process, mold a national identity. Moreover, unlike other European colonizers, the Jews did not have a motherland to support their colonial venture, which required them to find one.

Unlike what many pro-Israel mythologists imagine to be the case, Zionism did not have a morally pure beginning—at least by the standards of modern international morality. From the outset, the Zionists intended to occupy land inhabited by others, bringing about the latter's displacement. The early Zionists did not give much consideration to the native Palestinians and thus did not dwell on the need to forcibly expel them from the land. It was the revisionist Zionist, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who in the 1920s brought out into the open the inevitable need for violence against the Palestinians in order to achieve the Zionist goals. Alam remarks, however, that the Zionist leaders had "always known what Jabotinsky now challenged them to acknowledge and confront openly" (p. 27).

The Zionists' choice of Palestine, a settled land, for a homeland guaranteed conflict. What was the reason for choosing Palestine? And why did the Zionists seek a homeland at all? A conventional argument, disputed by Alam, is that the Zionists sought a homeland abroad because hostility to Jews in Europe necessitated moving elsewhere.

To falsify the idea that finding a safe haven was the fundamental motive, Alam reviews the suggested alternative homelands for Jews, which were very sparsely inhabited and whose native occupants thus did not face displacement by Jewish emigrants. In short, Jews could have emigrated to areas where the likelihood of conflict was much less than in Palestine. Since the Zionists did not show much interest in these much safer, alternative homelands, it would seem apparent that finding a haven for Jews was not their overarching goal.

Review: Israeli Exceptionalism – The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism

Read More: https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/06/26/review-israeli-exceptionalism-the-destabilizing-logic-of-zionism/

Original: https://rumble.com/v1r4axa-israel-steals-more-land.html

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