Israel’s Crimes and Jewish People – A Clarification
While the imperialists threaten us with a possible nuclear war and continue to devastate the environment, the Palestinian struggle for freedom from the US and Israeli oppressors is today at the crux of the struggle for human existence.
Activists in the struggle to end the Palestinian genocide need to deepen their understanding of the history of Palestine and the Israeli aim of establishing a colonial settler state. Books such as A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Ilan Pappé (2024, Oneworld), and The Battle for Justice in Palestine by Ali Abunimah (2014, Haymarket Books) offer a good starting point for further study.
Solidarity for social justice is built on truth. The Palestinian resistance has never equated Judaism, the religion, with Zionism, the political program of racism and settler colonialism. Zionism is the horror that makes Palestinians pay for the crimes of the German Nazis.
Jews across the globe are notably visible among the millions demonstrating in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance. The Palestinians of Gaza do not blame the Jewish people for the Naqba. They do not hold the Jewish people responsible for the present-day US-Israeli genocide.
In A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, Ilan Pappé notes that “the Palestinian national movement is an anti-colonialist resistance, first and foremost, notwithstanding the professed ideologies of its participants.” The goals of the imperialist war against the Palestinians are to conquer the land and its natural resources and to control the resulting cheap labour.
A Shameful Assertion
There are some who argue that individual Jews or the Jewish community in Canada or another country bear some particular responsibility for the ongoing genocide. This assertion is made in ignorance. It shamefully mis-educates and divides the ranks of the movement for peace and justice for Palestinians.
Those who equate Judaism with Zionism are doing immeasurable harm to the Palestinian struggle. They contribute to Zionist racist ambitions and goals. They give succour to the efforts of the US, Israel, and other collaborating powers to silence Palestinians and to remove them from humanity.
We who love life, the Palestinians, and humanity, must focus on the urgency for an immediate end to the genocide. We insist that our own governments act instantly and unconditionally to force an end to the war on Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Our governments must act to break the Israeli blockade and send food and medical aid to the besieged Palestinians.
Our job as activists is to redouble our efforts in unity and solidarity for Palestinian freedom. We must take meaningful collective action that strikes at the military and economy of Israel and at the complicit governments and corporations in our home countries. •
