I have lived in and visited Palestine and Israel five times since 1988 and worked closely with Israelis, North American Jews and Palestinians for eighteen years on this conflict. Many Jews agree with me in opposing the Israeli occupation and critically analyzing and resisting Zionist, British and U.S. projects for intentional and gradual displacement of the Palestinian population since they began during the British Mandate.
Such policies have inflamed West Asia and made life far more dangerous for everyone in the region. I do not take this position because Israelis and Zionists are Jewish. In fact, I understand fully why European Jews established a nationalist movement and sought a homeland after centuries of persecution and genocide, including the Holocaust in Christian (or secular!) Europe.
I also oppose and regret that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe, Tunisia, etc. I do not believe, however, that Palestinian militance, except in isolated cases, is anti-Semitic. Recent attacks on synagogues are imbricated with outrage at Israeli military atrocities against the Palestinian population, fighting for their independence, and thus much destructive confusion and suffering results. The IDF and settlers routinely humiliate and attack Palestinians, and this practice effectively teaches Palestinian children to hate Israelis, not some irrational ethnic hatred of Jews.
I join those who condemn anti-Semitism in all of its forms, as well as the growing and virulent racism against Arabs and Muslims in the United States and Israel.
Jewish activists have been leaders and invaluable allies in every social movement I have participated in over thirty years, (anti-Vietnam War, Nuclear Disarmament, Central America, South Africa, Feminist, Environmentalist, etc.) including the Palestinian solidarity movement.
I feel deeply indebted to Jewish intellectuals such as Adrienne Rich, Ella Shohat, Walter Benjamin, Franz Kafka, Karl Marx and Noam Chomsky. I also value Judaism as a religious tradition. I believe, like millions of Israelis and Jews, that working for Palestinian independence will also contribute to saving Jewish lives and diminishing anti-Semitism worldwide. The vast majority of Palestinians go to great lengths to express their openness to Jewish people and the specific political nature of their opposition to Israeli policies.
The central ethical and political problem with Zionism is the fact that an overwhelming Palestinian majority (700,000/15,000 in 1880) inhabited the territory that Zionists sought to colonize. Jews owned merely 6 percent, at most, of Palestine when they were allotted 55 percent in the proposed U.N. Partition Plan in 1947.
In addition, systematic terror was deployed by the Etzel, LECHI, and the Haganah in creating the Jewish State. Israel has now confiscated 60 percent of the West Bank and its offer to the Palestinians in the summer of 2000 was rejected and did not resolve the presence of the provocative and heavily armed settlements; it did not offer a contiguous land base, nor did it offer any sovereignty to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, any border with an Arab state or any hope of resolution of the crisis of millions of 1948 refugees. The Palestinians did not reject the offer because they secretly seek to destroy Israel. Arafat and Fatah have realistically sought a negotiated two-state solution since 1976.
I do not intend to portray Palestinians as only peace loving and friendly, despite their remarkably hospitable culture. In fact, I support their militant struggle for their land, their culture and their dignity. I am willing to critically analyze their strategies, but not with those who compare me to Nazis, propagandists or anti-Semites. My analysis and activism have no relationship to Nazism, fascism, propaganda or anti-intellectualism, despite Scott Peterson’s reductionism and consistent ad hominem attacks.
-Rich Wood,
sociology instructor