DISMANTLING OF ZIONISM

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The "Special Relationship" Comes Home, Israelization of the United States
by M. SHAHID ALAM

a settler state has to overcome three challenges

• It has to solve the native problem;
• break away from its mother country; and
• gain the recognition of neighboring states and peoples
  

NATIVE PROBLEM

1948, in one fell swoop. It had expelled 80 percent of the Palestinians. Palestinians were soon reduced to less than ten percent. But, Palestinians inside had high natural rate of growth and currently has grown to above 20 percent.

Palestinians expelled in 1948 have set up camp in areas around Israel – the West Bank, Gaza, southern Lebanon and Jordan. In 1967, Israel conquered Gaza and the West Bank, it could expel a much smaller fraction. Now, with more than a million additional Palestinians, Israeli had recreated its native problem.

since 1967, Palestinians equal or outnumber Israeli Jews and will continue to rise. Having run out of solutions of rising net immigration of Jews and ethnic cleansing Israel has now taken draconian measures for the native problem

• siege over Gaza,
• apartheid wall,
• expansion of settlements,
• settler-only roads,
• intimidation and humiliation,
• military control over the Jordan Valley.
  

But this has only created new problems. Israel is an apartheid society not a democracy and this has led campaign to divest from, boycott and impose sanctions

HAS ISRAEL BROKEN AWAY FROM DEPENDENCE ON ITS MOTHER COUNTRY/COUNTRIES?

Israel lost the support of Britain during the early years of World War II but retained it long enough to create their own state. Over the next few years, new surrogates: not counting the Jewish diaspora: including the Soviet Union, France, Germany and the United States.

In the late 1950s, the United States became the leading mother country. a powerful dynamic directed by Israel and the Jewish lobby which subsidized Israel, armed it, provided for nuclear weapons, immunity from international laws.

Under the protection of the US, Israel quickly gained hegemony and became a law unto itself

Still Israel is not an autonomous state. It cannot sustain its current military posture without the annual military grant from the US in the amount of three billion dollars, and the tax-free donations from American Jews. without US veto United Nations, it could not continue its occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights, siege of Gaza, pre-emptive wars, policy of assassinations against Arabs. without US-backed immunity, Israel would become a pariah state.

It is an artifact of the Israel lobby. Over time, the damage that Israel causes to US interests filters to the American electorate, unqualified US support for Israel may be in jeopardy.

FINALLY, THERE IS THE QUESTION OF GAINING THE RECOGNITION OF ITS NEIGHBORS

gains more apparent than real. regimes that have recognized Israel have little legitimacy. Should these regimes collapse, confrontational posture towards Israel would result.

• Shah Iran.
  
• powers of the secular generals in Turkey.
• new problem: the loss of legitimacy with growing segments of civil society in the Western countries.

Driven by the contradictions of an exclusionary settler-state,

• it has ratcheted its violence against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians,
  
• tightened its siege of Gaza,
  
• deepens its apartheid regime in the West bank,
  
• threatens to strips Arab Israelis of their rights.

This has slowly called forth a new form opposition to its policies. Angry at the complicity of their governments in Israeli crimes, segments of civil society in Europe, Canada and the United States have come calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions, which is spreading among academics, students, trade unions, church groups, dissenting Jewish organizations, and human rights activists organizing convoys, over land and sea, to break the blockade of Gaza.

As failure of Israel’s colonial project looms larger, leaders will seek security in new wars. Israel will become an intolerable threat to the Middle East, the world, and to Jews everywhere.

Zionism was founded by secular Jews but it created

• a religious myth of Jewish restoration,
  
• galvanized messianic tendencies among Western Christians, and
  
• created the myth that Israel alone shields the West from a resurgent Islam and Islamicate.

It will not be easy putting these genies back in the bottle.

the best chance of unwinding lies with the Jews themselves. when liberal segments of the Jewish diaspora are convinced that Zionism endangers Jewish lives, only when they act to countervail the power of the Jewish lobby in Western societies, will Israel
be moved to dismantled its apartheid regime.

the alternative to an orderly dismantling is a destructive war which may not be limited to the region. Israel or US interests unlikely will survive such a war