Palestine is the enduring symbol of the failure of humankind to abandon violence as a (false) solution to every problem. The deafening hatred, the urge to hurt the other side as much as possible, the senseless pain inflicted on powerless victims… These emotions feel like they have been brought from a distant past, from when humans were behaving horribly to each other by ignorance and prejudice; it feels like humankind is a depressing failure. It actually makes me feel angry, powerless and depressed.1 I’ve read quite a lot about it for so many years; plenty of thoughtful people have said in many different ways what needs to happen, and they were not listened to. There was the start of a dialogue before Netanyahu’s Israel decided to simply ignore calls for peace in the 2000s, instead relying on military superiority to impose their domination. This is not an intractable conflict, but there are people who don’t want the conflict to be solved, most of them on the Israeli side.
Zionism appears in the 19th century, precisely when Western nations are colonizing the world. At the time, colonization was not only considered acceptable, it was seen as a proud achievement: as long as the colonizers represent the “modern civilization” as opposed to the “savages”, it was implicitly understood that they deserve to rule the place. Thus Zionism is a colonialist movement which appears in a colonialist (Western) world. It is clearly racist, in the same way that the Western world was racist at the time: indigenous populations were intended to be dominated at best, or fought and killed if they resist.
During the 20th century, colonialism is criticized and progressively seen as immoral. It downs slowly on the colonizing countries that the democratic ideals that they supposedly value don’t fit well with maintaining many people dominated by force, with less rights than regular citizens, and who often want out. The right to self-determination becomes the basis of international law, and everywhere in the world various movements fight and often win against colonizers. There is a huge decolonization movement, and even in places where colonizing countries still dominate they eventually organize referendums and let people self-determine.
The other huge event of the 20th century is World War 2 and the Holocaust. The genocide of the Jews organized by Nazi Germany is a massive moral failure of the Western world, and causes a lot of Jews to lose their families and their homes. So after WW2, there is a massive movement of Jewish people, often refugees, moving to Palestine. The combination of the Holocaust and the pressure (including terrorism) of Jewish groups in Palestine caused Western countries to accept the creation of Israel, and later to support it against the various Arab countries which of course disagreed with this colonization project. In 1945, the King of Saudi Arabia rightfully noted that Arabs were being punished for the crimes of Europeans against Europeans.
In other words, the Western world was encouraging a colonization project almost at the same time that the world was decolonizing. To this day, the colonizing nature of Israel2 goes against the progress of human rights which slowly took place almost everywhere else: in the modern world order, it is simply not considered acceptable to grab land by force anymore. Practically every such attempt has faced strong opposition (for example in Kuweit or Ukraine). But Israel’s violations are still tolerated by Western countries: Israel colonizes the West Bank, discriminates against Arab citizens, and implements ethnic cleansing (in particular through automatic citizenship and various advantages to Jewish immigrants: Aliyah). The confusion between anti-zionism and anti-semitism has often been used as a way to censor critics of Israel policies, leaving the international community apparently powerless despite clear violations of human rights. Contrary to previous Israeli governments, Netanyahu made it clear that he rejects the peace process and plans to keep illegally colonizing the West Bank. In fact, Israel is behaving like a rogue state, but doesn’t face any serious sanction so far. This is why it has become a symbol of the racism of Western countries in the Arab world and the global South.
This conflict is a tragic mess caused, developed and supported by the Western world, the US being clearly more and more isolated in defending the indefensible. The West has been responsible for the slave trade and colonization, and then the Holocaust and enabling a racist Israel. It’s as if the West behaved with the rest of the world like a man who beats his wife: as a hopeless attempt to get rid of his guilt, hitting and crying at the same time, and rationalizing by pretending that it’s for her own good.
There were so many failures and lost opportunities in the history of this conflict. A lot of originally well-intended actions were so horribly misguided. And of course, a lot of ill-intended actions by people who sincerely believe in violence to top it up.3 The cycle of violence is hopelessly predictable: victim, anger, hatred, revenge, then some new victims will seek revenge once again. On both sides, some people understand that this needs to stop, but they are not heard because peace is a fragile and risky effort, violence always looks more appealing. I admire the people who live in Palestine or in Israel and still believe in peace and justice: they are surrounded by hatred and violence, but they don’t give up. They are the fragile hope of humankind.
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In a futile attempt to do something at my humble level, I try to explain what happens in Palestine to other people. I strongly doubt that it changes anything, but it’s better than nothing. I regularly write questions on the topic on Politics StackExchange; I sometimes write answers there, too. ↩︎
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Some pro-Zionism people argue that there was a continuous Jewish presence in Palestine to justify the legitimacy of Jewish people there. While this is true, the Jewish population in nowadays Israel comes in their vast majority from post-WW2 immigration, i.e. colonization. In the 1880s, when the first colonies were formed, Jews made up only 3 or 4 percent of the inhabitants of what would become Palestine.. ↩︎
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Both well-intended and ill-intended actions have in common the fact that their authors believe that they are right, they know better and their action will produce the effect they hope. These people suffer from a sadly common illness: hubris. Hubris is the cause of so much pain and suffering. ↩︎
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