I understand where they’re coming from, but as I said I don’t think it’s useful. Kosovo and Rwanda are two other cases where you could see racism at work in the foundation of the (modern) states, but where reducing it to “racism” as a label is unhelpful.
A way you could look at this is through the question of whether Britain acted in a racist way when it tried to limit Zionism by placing limits on the immigration of Jews in the dying days of the Mandate.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 9 hours ago
Considering it was the explicit intention of those jews to emigrate in order to overthrow the government and subjugate the citizenry then I’d call it a brief moment of clarity.
FishFace@piefed.social 8 hours ago
So, you think that a racist policy can be rational when the purpose is to preserve peace, it seems. I think this is more or less what I’m getting at in the case of Zionism.
Of course there were a range of intentions, then as now, which the label of Zionism encompasses, ranging up to “emigrate and overthrow” then (stay here and genocide, now) but including “emigrate and coexist.” (a peaceful two-state solution with full rights for Israeli Arabs and for Palestinians) I certainly take issue with the former, but the idea of wanting to migrate somewhere for a better life, somewhere perhaps you feel a historical connection to and where many people like you already live, and to participate in a democratic process there, is quite acceptable to me and I think can be properly called Zionism too.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 7 hours ago
The establishment of Israel was itself an act of genocide, involving first the instigation of race wars and the surreptitious purchase of property, then developing to forcible ethnic cleansing and exile. You could take it to the logical extremity and claim any solution involving the existence of Israel condones the genocide that birthed it.
FishFace@piefed.social 7 hours ago
The Naqba was genocidal. But most states have some kind of horror in their past that is not condoned by their ongoing existence. The USA’s existence does not condone the ethnic cleansing of native Americans. England’s existence does not condone the Harrying of the North. France’s existence does not condone the Terror. This is just not how “condoning” works. And even if it were, human rights are more important, and the right to self-determination exists for the Israelis who are now, like it or not, in Israel. Just as Israeli Jews cannot be trusted with power over Palestinians, Palestinian Arabs cannot be trusted with power over Israelis - either situation (one of which we are seeing) results in intolerable ethnic cleansing.
I know it is horrible and feels racist and like it’s letting a crime go unpunished to have Israel continue to exist despite the Naqba. But the only way to avoid that is to just do another genocide against Israeli Jews. That’s not justifiable. Putting one of those other aspects before the necessity to protect a population against new war crimes is, as I said, unhelpful. By all means focus on the other population that needs protecting, and which is not being protected, but that’s not what this is.