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Can’t obscure Zionism

The terms of hegemonic discourse are in constant tension with the realities that they are meant to obscure. And every now and then a window opens that allows us to perceive things more clearly. We call Israel the “Jewish and democratic” state, for instance. The quotation marks might serve to remind us that the apartheid state is no more democratic than a “white and democratic” U.S. would be.

This year, the Israeli government passed a law prohibiting the observance of Nakba Day, the day on which Palestinians commemorate their catastrophe – the dispossession, concentration and ethnic cleansing that began well before Israel declared its independence and has continued up to the present day. Notwithstanding this prohibition, likely partly because of it, events surrounding Nakba Day last March displaced Israeli Independence Day in the international news media … even in the U.S.

New settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank used to be called “Israeli settlements” by the mainstream media of the U.S. They are now often called “Jewish settlements.” Indeed, we ought to call them “Jewish-only settlements,” the better to highlight their racist character.

Israel’s original sin is not the war of 1967 but the foundational racism of Zionism.

Wayne B. Kraft

Spokane



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