Zionism: Managing Its Demise
It is increasingly becoming clear–even to some Western observers—that the Zionist project has run its course. It had an extraordinary run, but it has now reached the end of its settler-colonial track.
The creation of this exclusionary settler-colonial Jewish state was a historical anomaly, among the greatest blunders of Western civilization in the twentieth century. Despite the deep alliance—between Western Jews and their Western tormentors—that established Israel in the mid-20th century, this Jewish state could not in the long run resist the deep logic of history. A few sober Israelis too can read the writing on the wall.
At the same time, no one doubts that Israel is capable of inflicting devastating harm on the Western Islamicate. Some members of Israel’s extremist right-wing government, steeled by messianic delusions, are threatening to invoke the Samson option—b’rerat Shimshon. For sure, Israel could kill several million Iranians and Arabs with its arsenal of neutron bombs. But where would that leave the Jewish state?
Would Netanyahu, Biden and MBS be flying to a new Iranian capital—since they will have obliterated Tehran—to celebrate their victory over Iran, and then fly to Riyadh to seal an enduring Saudi-Israeli alliance, guaranteed for a thousand years by the USA, after Trump’s victory in this great democracy’s last election. It is likely that the inimitable Thomas Friedman will be rooting for this scenario in his next New York Times op-ed.
In order to prevent Israel from launching its neutron bombs, the Western powers that birthed and nurtured the Zionist project must now take responsibility for their historic blunder, and manage the transition of this abnormal Jewish state to a normal one that accords equal rights to all its inhabitants—Jews and Arabs alike. Western powers have shielded this rogue state for more than 76 years. It is now time to make amends.
Acting resolutely and quickly, the UN Security Council needs to sanction Israel until it ends its long-standing violations of multiple international laws. Simultaneously, the USA, Britain and Germany will need to shut off their arms pipeline to Israel. If Israel refuses to agree to a permanent ceasefire, then the UNSC may also need to impose an oil embargo on Israel.
If someone—Jew or Penguin—who has read this essay and understands my test of antisemitism, and still insists on accusing me of antisemitism, be aware that this accusations fails this test.[1]
I oppose Zionism not because it is led by Jews, but because of what Zionism proposed to do, what it has done, and continues to do to the Palestinians. I have made it clear that I would have opposed exclusionary settler-colonial project even if it were by Penguins, Pelicans or Pakistanis.
Future historians of Zionism will acknowledge that Zionism was a trap set up by British antisemites—in addition to securing control over their oil in the Middle East—to be rid of Europe’s Jewish population. Zionist leaders, overambitious and myopic, sold their Zionist vision with ease to Western Jews once they had ‘recruited’ Britain, the leading imperialist power, to their cause.
It is quite astonishing how a brilliant people who produced perhaps a fourth of the world’s most extraordinary minds—from the mid-19th to mid-20th century—espoused two flawed utopian visions, Communism and Zionism, that might dazzle with their surface brilliance, but were not aligned with the heavenly forces.
The first utopian vision, because of its extreme demands on human nature, collapsed in 1990. This totalitarian socialism also blocked the transition—when the historic window was still open—from the destructive capitalism of the 19th century to humane, democratic socialist alternatives.
The second utopian vision may have run its course, but while the vast Soviet Union—a superpower with the second largest military and a vast nuclear arsenal—collapsed peaceably, without causing any wars, Israel, the embodiment of the Zionist utopia, threatens its neighbors with nuclear apocalypse.
Israeli Jews cannot save Israel from itself, but the Jewish diaspora has a chance—because of its distance from the war psychosis generated by the Jewish Spartan state—to use its influence and organizing powers to try to re-orient the ruling elites in the USA, Canada and Britain towards rescuing Jews in Palestine from the Zionist quagmire. Is this even possible since Zionism has dominated the discourse in the Jewish diaspora too?
Nevertheless, there are signs that important sections of Jewish diaspora are beginning to see past their own propaganda. Over the last ten months, many Jews, especially young Jews, have been taking a moral stand against Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians that began in 1947, not October 7, 2024. Also, for the first time, the International Court of Justice has spoken if not clearly and loudly. The International Criminal Court too has filed applications for warrants for the arrest of two Israeli leaders, Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.
The Jewish diaspora can and should mobilize to save Israel’s Jews from the worst instincts of its right-wing Messianic government. For more than 76 years, the Jewish diaspora has mobilized in support of Israeli governments, no matter their crimes against Palestinians. It is time now to mobilize to restrain Israel’s extremist leadership. It may not be too late. There may still be time to to do the right thing.
Notes.
[1] I explain this test in another essay that I will publish soon.
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