Never Again What?: Perspective of an Anti-Zionist Jew

I wrote this article in response to an email I got through the SFWAR (San Francisco Women Against Rape) listserve, requesting contributions to a blog, seeking to "foster understanding" between Jews and Persians in light of the recent Holocaust Conference in Iran and the events which took place there.

"Never Again What?": Perspective of an Anti-Zionist Jew

I am an Ashkenazi Jewish-American woman. On 12/22, I am going to Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement (www.palsolidarity.org). When I saw an email requesting contributions to this blog, I was confused and angered by the opening line "given the state of affairs between Jews and Persian and/or Israel and Iran…." This sentence reinforces the notion that Jews are, always and inherently, tied to the State of Israel. As an anti-Zionist Jew, I strongly disagree.

The question of Israel/Palestine is not one of religion. It is one of European colonization of non-European land. In 1948 alone, over 530 Palestinian villages were completely destroyed. To date, approximately six million Palestinian refugees cannot return to their homes and about 250,00 are live as second-class citizens in Israel but are also prevented from returning to their homes and villages (http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/171.shtml). Israel is a racist, colonial, apartheid State. It does not speak for all Jewish people. Anti-Zionist and Anti-Occupation Jews have been saying for years that the equation of Jewish people with the State of Israel as well as the implication that anyone who speaks out against Israel is automatically "anti-Semitic" will eventually lead the term "anti-Semitism" to lose meaning, thus discrediting real instances of anti-Semitism in the world, past or present. In the president of Iran's denial of the Holocaust, we see this prediction coming to fruition.

Both the Israeli and the U.S. media bombard us with lies about Israeli self-defense against "Muslim and Arab terrorists" in the Middle East, and deny the real causes of the conflict: Occupation, denial of human rights, theft of land. The buzzword in the media, when it comes to the Palestine, is "terrorism.". So let's talk about terrorism. If terrorism means the use of violence to cause entire populations to live in fear then I can't think of any act of terrorism more extreme than military occupation. If we want to talk about terrorism in the Middle East, we should be talking about Israel's Occupation of Palestine, the constant presence of soldiers in the street, indiscriminate killing and arrest, torture in prisons, checkpoints, and denial of free speech and freedom of movement to Palestinians. Israel's Occupation of Palestine is terrorism. It is the worst kind of terrorism, because it is enforced by the fourth largest military in the world.

The European Holocaust was one atrocious example of genocide against a People. It is important that we remember this. Yet if we want to challenge the denial of the Holocaust in instances such as this, our goal should not be reconciliation between Israel and Iran. Is it even reasonable for us to expect other nations to acknowledge genocide against us while we continue to deny the current attempts at genocide and ethnic cleansing committed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people? It is important for all people, but especially Jewish people, especially Jewish people in the United States, which gives $15,139,178 dollars in aid to Israel each day (www.ifamericansknew.org), to speak out against the racist policies of Israel and the media's attempt to silence all voices which resist those policies, calling them "anti-Semitic." As Jews, we have a unique place in this struggle, because simply by raising our dissident voices we disprove this accusation.