Mondoweiss, an online publication led by Jewish journalist Philip Weiss, just ran an in-depth article by Jeff Halper on the events in Gaza. Titled ‘Foregrounding the political and decolonization after October 7”, it makes some very important points that are essential to understanding what’s going on. Here are two brief excerpts:
The present crisis did not begin on October 7, as Israel (and Biden) would have it. Focusing on immediate events, particularly the gruesome and indefensible killing of Israeli civilians, feeds right into Israeli hasbara*… . . .
* Hasbara is the widely-used Hebrew term for Israel’s propaganda strategy, generally defined as seeking to “explain actions, whether or not they are justified”.
This is not to deny genuine Jewish ties, historic and religious, to Palestine… or the national character of Zionism. The problem is not Jewish aspirations to nurture a national life in that country. What delegitimizes Zionism is that it chose violent conquest, displacement of the local population, and an exclusivist settler colonialism over acknowledging the presence of a local population and accommodating its national project to their prior rights. And if that could not be done — and it was never even considered by the Zionist movement — then the Jews had to accept their status in Palestine as one of the national, ethnic, and religious communities comprising that society, as Jews had long done peacefully under the Ottoman Empire. . . . .
I encourage you to take a few minutes to read the complete article!
[https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/foregrounding-the-political-and-decolonization-after-october-7/]
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