Alain Alameddine
The Electronic Intifada / January 17, 2025
It is not easy for Palestinians and allies who espouse Palestinian liberation to navigate dealing with Jewish Israelis.
On the one hand, they are occupying Palestinian land in several ways.
First, most of them are geographically living in the territory of Palestine, some literally in robbed Palestinian homes. Second, they are benefiting from colonial privileges at the expense of all Palestinians inside and outside Palestine.
Third, their collective existence as Israeli citizens is what makes the continued existence of the settler state possible. And fourth, the overwhelming majority of them support the continued existence of the settler state rather than decolonization and the transition to a democratic state.
On the other hand, around 80 percent of Israelis were born in Palestine. This means that, unlike those who actively chose to settle Palestine, millions of Jewish Israelis share with Palestinians the fact that they were born with a choice imposed on them.
Of course, as Israelis grow into adulthood and political understanding, they can make a different choice. Some have chosen to leave Palestine or even to give up Israeli citizenship.
More importantly, others have chosen to side with the Palestinian right to their own state on all of their land.
It is easy to deal with Israelis who have taken such radical, clearcut decisions. But what about those who express a certain amount of support for Palestinian rights, perhaps in terms of equal rights or ending apartheid, but who still support the existence of the settler state?
Haggai Matar’s article in +972 Magazine, “Grappling with Jewish fears in a just Palestinian struggle”, is an interesting case of such limited support.
Understanding “less than anti-Zionist” stances
In his article, Mattar recognizes “the settler-colonial nature of Zionism.” He affirms his support for “Palestinian liberation and the end of Israel’s apartheid regime.”
What exactly does this entail? In his words, “we must not think that righting that wrong can be achieved by wronging Jews once again. The answer has to be decolonizing this land with all its inhabitants having the right to stay here along with returning Palestinian refugees – as two nations with equal individual and collective rights.”
There are, of course, many positive points there. At the same time, there are at least three pitfalls.
First, considering that Jews are “a nation with collective rights.”
Jews, like any people with a religious or other identity, have the right to feel they form a nation with those who share their identity. Muslims also speak of belonging to one umma or nation.
This, however, does not grant “collective rights.”
For example, non-Saudi Muslims are entitled to view Mecca as holy.
But this does not grant them the political right to enter it without proper authorization by the Saudi authorities. Muslims do not have a collective national right to Islamic holy lands.
Politicizing Jewish identity, i.e. granting political rights on the basis of one’s being Jewish, is the core component of the Zionist settler-colonial project.
Second, lumping all Jewish inhabitants of the land – again, ostensibly, on the basis of their identity – as a single group with similar rights, including the right to remain there. Depoliticize identity, however, and this makes little sense.
Why would someone born in a land have the same right to remain there as someone who just unpacked last week?
Why would someone who wishes to integrate into a society have the same right to remain there as someone who wishes to subjugate or ethnically raze it? Just because these four individuals are of the same religion or culture?
It is the state of Israel that grants citizenship to any Jew in the world as a central pillar of its settler-colonial nature.
Recognizing this nature as Mattar does is not enough. Israelis must break free from it.
This does not mean that Jews must leave. The Palestinian liberation movement has consistently voiced, over the decades, that there is absolutely no issue with Jews remaining as equals in Palestine.
But this is on the basis of their being human and of their citizenship in the decolonized state, not on the basis of their identity – neither Jews nor Muslims, nor any other identity have any collective political rights to/in Palestine.
Third, limiting the required change to “ending Israel’s apartheid regime.”
A political regime is defined as a system, method or form of government. The problem with Israel is not its current form of government, it is its whole existence as a settler-colonial state.
This includes its two basic foundations which are the core of settler-colonialism, and which are not covered by most understandings of the term “apartheid”: Bringing settlers in (Israel’s “Law of Return” and “Citizenship Law”) and getting or keeping indigenous out (economic, legal and military ethnic razing, in addition to the denial of the Palestinian right of return, since 1948).
It also includes a third foundation which is the politicization of identity within the existing population.
Ending these three pillars would not merely end the current form of government. It would end Israel as we know it, i.e. as a settler state.
This means that, unlike Mattar’s claim, “two states” – a euphemism for the continued existence of the settler state – cannot be a solution for real peace.
This failure to break with Zionism leads to other fallacies.
For example, Mattar mentions that Hizballah attacks from the north had killed 48 civilians. He fails to mention that this happened over 13 months, that Israel killed more than 3,700 Lebanese in the same period and that most of these 48 civilians died following an Israeli massacre of around 500 Lebanese in a single day.
Similarly, he speaks of Hizballah displacing tens of thousands of Israelis while failing to mention Israel displaced over 1.5 million Lebanese. He also fails to mention that Hizballah implicitly said Israelis could return as soon as the genocide in Gaza was over, whereas Israeli officials were explicit about their plans to occupy, settle and annex South Lebanon.
Mattar’s article also fails to mention near-daily Israeli aggressions over Lebanese sovereignty prior to 7 October 2023 and the fact that it was Israel that broke the “April understanding” that protected both Lebanese and Israeli lives.
A settler state or a Palestinian state ?
The above helps Palestinians, as well as Israeli allies, understand how failing to break with Zionism’s settler-colonial foundations leads to faulty reasoning and rhetoric. However, it still doesn’t answer the basic question: How should Palestinians navigate dealing with “less than anti-Zionist” support?
Although a reaction of “we should not engage with them as part of a solid stance of anti-normalization” is perfectly understandable, Mattar’s admonition – actually the main point of his article – fully stands: “Recognizing Zionism’s settler-colonial nature shouldn’t prevent us from reimagining a Jewish existence in this land, or taking seriously the fears that are weaponized to justify Palestinian subjugation.”
This reimagining, however, must be based on the right of Palestinians to self-determination via liberation and the establishment of a democratic state over all of their land. And it must be recognized that the fears of Israelis can only be truly claimed in the context of such a democratic state.
It follows that the first step should be for all – Palestinians and Israeli allies – to refine their understanding of what decolonization means: The complete dismantling of all colonial relations of power imposed in/on Palestine.
That involves the three foundations mentioned above – bringing settlers in, getting and keeping indigenous out and granting or denying rights on the basis of identity.
In other words, a transition from the settler state that defines itself as “exclusive to the Jewish people” to a democratic Palestinian state for all its citizens. The second step would be to offer help to sincere Israelis to progress toward this objective.
In other words, Israelis should be sincerely willing to consider an actual rupture with Zionism, and Palestinians should be willing to help them progress toward this – including efforts to recognize and alleviate their legitimate fears.
And this effort should not be merely individual.
The Palestinian liberation movement has historically supported the establishment of one democratic state that welcomes Jews willing to remain as equal citizens. Although the Oslo accords threw confusion among Palestinian ranks, this view has been recently reiterated by leaders of the Palestinian resistance.
However, it must be made clearer and more prominent in the Palestinian liberation discourse, a change that requires concerted work.
This will give Israelis what Zionism has deprived them of: a choice. A choice that a growing number of Israelis are starting to make.
Finally, this will succeed at redrawing the lines of this struggle from identitarian – “Palestinians against Jews” – to political – “colonization versus decolonization.”
Alain Alameddine is a coordinator at the One Democratic State Initiative
