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PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)
Zionism Is The Problem
The long-running Israel / Palestine conflict is not simply the result of misguided leaders or political parties. The problem is more fundamental than that: it is Zionism, the political philosophy on which Israel was founded.
Zionism gave Israel a single ethnic and religious identity but Israel was created in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse. This has led directly to the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian People.
From the beginning, Zionism "overlooked" the presence of Palestinians in Palestine. The results have been disastrous: Israel has lived in a constant state of war; Israeli Arabs (20% of Israelis) are second-class citizens; and over 5 million Palestinians are deprived of their most basic political and human rights.
Because of this, Zionist Israel is often compared to Apartheid South Africa. Yet this actually understates the situation, for Apartheid South Africa never attacked the 'black' Bantustans with anything like the fire power Israel used against Gaza in the last few months, killing 1,300 Palestinians, one third of them children.
Zionist policies have made the 'two-state solution' less and less possible. Years of Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has methodically diminished the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. And today Israel's new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuses to even endorse the idea of an independent Palestinian state.
What is the solution to this impasse? It is to discard Zionism and set about creating a single, secular bi-national state in which Jews and Arabs have equal political rights. Establishing a secular, pluralist, democratic government in all of Israel and Palestine will not be easy and it will mean the abandonment of the Zionist dream, but it is the right and proper thing to do.
For opposing Zionism is neither anti-Semitic nor radical. On the contrary, it is a matter of justice and hope for the peoples of both Israel and Palestine.
Adapted from the op-ed article "Zionism is the problem", written by American journalist and novelist Ben Ehrenreich, and published in the Los Angeles Times on March 15, 2009. Full text on line at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ehrenreich15-2009mar15,0,6684861.story