By Lawrence Davidson
October 19, 2021 -- "Information
Clearing House -
What sort of gap exists when it comes to
American support for Palestinian rights? Is it a
generation gap or perhaps a perceptual gap leading
to an argument over what is and is not true? This
question was suggested, at least in my mind, on 28
September 2021 when Vice President Harris (age 56)
paid a visit to George Mason University in northern
Virginia. Actually, she was there for reasons that
had nothing to do with Palestine or U.S. foreign
policy. She was on a public relations excursion to
“honor national voter registration day.” I do not
know why her staff chose this venue, but it being a
university, they built in a brief Q & A session.
There is absolutely no doubt that she and her
staff see what followed as a minor political
disaster. Here is what happened. One of the students
(probably in her early 20s) noted that, on a
previous occasion, the vice resident had said that
“the power of the people and demonstrations and
organizing is very valuable in America.” Then the
student described recent impressive demonstrations
across the country against Israeli treatment of
Palestinians, adding that it all added up to “ethnic
genocide and a displacement of people—the same that
[once] happened in America.” So, the student asked,
how come the U.S. continues to give Israel aid and
support? She closed by observing that “I feel like
there’s a lack of listening” on the part of
government officials.
The student was correct in her description,
though perhaps inexact in the use of the term
genocide. Even so, her assertion of “ethnic
genocide” (a charge the Zionists immediately labeled
a “patent lie”) was warranted if not in the sense of
gas chambers—the only way the Zionists choose to
define genocide—but in the sense of the forced death
of a culture. Mass displacement, be it through
imposed exile or apartheid ghettoization, is
historically equivalent to cultural genocide. It was
Harris’s failure to challenge the student’s use of
the term “ethnic genocide” that subsequently got her
in political trouble with the Zionists.
At the Q & A session, Harris responded that she
was glad that the student spoke her mind. “This is
about the fact that your voice, your perspective,
your experience, your truth cannot be suppressed,
and it must be heard. . . . Our goal should be
unity, but not uniformity,” Harris said. “And the
point that you’re making about policies that relates
to Middle East policy, foreign policy. We still have
healthy debates in our country, about what is the
right path. And nobody’s voice should be suppressed
on that.”
Well, that is not exactly the Zionist line.
Almost immediately, various Zionist organizations
started contacting the White House—present residence
of the confirmed Zionist President Joe Biden—complaining
that Harris failed to “correct the student” when she
used the term “ethnic genocide.” The Zionists passed
over the bit about “a displacement of people.” The
VP’s team just as quickly started to mend fences.
“Herbie Ziskend, the vice president’s deputy
communications director, led the outreach . . .
making clear that Harris’s silence did not equate
agreement with the students’ claims of ‘ethnic
genocide.’”
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Speaking of ethnic cleansing, if not genocide, on
the same day that the student was explaining the
oppression of the Palestinians to the vice president
of the United States, that oppression was being
actualized on the southeastern portion of the
occupied West Bank. It was on that same 28 September
that Israeli “settlers” launched what, according to
the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, can be described as a
“state sanctioned pogrom” against the village of
Khirbat al-Mufkara. This was not a unique event.
Part II—What Is Real?
The episode at George Mason University and its
aftermath is based on a dispute over what is real.
—First, there is an assertion of Palestinian
oppression. Is the opression real? The answer to
this question might seem all too obvious. The
Palestinians say it is real. Much of the rest of the
Arab world says it is real. The United Nations
General Assembly and its Human Rights Commission
says it is real. Various human rights organizations
operating worldwide say it is real. Indeed, there is
an overwhelming body of evidence—which includes
pictorial documentation and eyewitness accounts—as
to this reality. It can only be denied by
ideologically induced blindness, censored education,
propaganda and/or the distortions that come when
one’s status and income depend on the denial of this
reality.
—Second, there is the Zionist claim that the land
of “greater Israel” has always belonged to the
Jewish people. In turn, the Palestinian situation,
to the extent that it may involve some actual
discomfort, is a self-induced reality. The land of
Israel/Palestine was divinely deeded to the Jews by
God thousands of years ago. Initially, the Jews took
possession of this land, but soon thereafter were
forced out by enemy conquerors. However, the Jewish
people never forgot about their lost patrimony and,
when conditions were right, some 2,000 years later,
they invaded Palestine and took the land back. Now
comes the other half the story. The alleged
self-induced nature of the Palestinian reality. The
Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian, were the
indigenous occupants when the Jews (not all Jews,
but mostly European Jews of Zionist persuasion)
showed up at the end of World War I. They resisted
the Zionist effort to gain control of the land, and
this led to the eventual war in 1947-48, their
subsequent defeat, and the forced deportation of
750,000 Palestinians. In the Zionist story this was
the consequence of Palestinian and Arab choices: (1)
the Palestinian choice to resist the Zionist act of
“repossession” and (2) the choice of most of the
Arab states not to integrate the fleeing refugees
into their societies. Are these Zionist claims real?
Well, the official Israeli histories say they are
real, although independent Israeli historians have
challenged this account in important details.
Zionist organizations in Western countries say it is
real. The U.S., British, German, French and other
governments act diplomatically as if it is real.
Further, repetitive assertions within a mostly
closed and censored information environment such as
the Israeli educational system, the diaspora Hebrew
school system, or much of the U.S. media, appear to
confirm this reality. However, a close examination
reveals that most of Zionism’s “reality” as to
Palestine is based on biblical mythology, the absurd
idea that Palestinian resistance to invasion is not
legitimate, and ultimately, the notion that Zionist
might makes right.
Part III—The Zero-Sum Struggle
At George Mason University, Vice President Harris
was confronted with a student who opened a brief
window on Palestinian reality. The VP was not able
to respond to the substance of this reality. Why?
Maybe this is a function of her superficial
knowledge and/or she just recognized its politically
controversial nature; in either case, she
sidestepped the issue of Israeli oppression by
dealing with the student’s statement as an
acceptable exercise of free speech.
But for the Zionists, even this is unacceptable.
For them the clash of realities is a zero-sum
struggle. Therefore they can never rest easy. Even
with solid backing at all U.S. government levels,
the Zionists feel they cannot ignore this damning
assertion of a twenty-something college student. An
endless insecurity lurks behind Zionist strength and
creates a hypersensitivity to all criticism.
So the American Zionists got mad at Harris for
not “correcting” the student over the use of the
charge of “ethnic genocide.” If that charge is
allowed to stand, Israel must be put in the same
category as Myanmar and its persecution of the
Rohingya; China and the persecution of the Uighurs
as well as its effort to erase Tibetan culture;
Russia and its treatment of the Jews during much of
the 19th and 20th centuries; the United States and
the racist treatment of Native and Black Americans—a
point of comparison the student had the presence of
mind to raise; and finally, apartheid South Africa
and its treatment of its African black majority. The
last-mentioned comparison calls attention to the
Zionist revival of apartheid in greater Israel—a
crime against humanity. So either Zionist practices
in Israel are among the most racist on the planet or
the George Mason student is bearing false testimony.
For the Zionists there is no middle ground.
Part IV—Kamala Harris’s Reality
Vice President Harris has her own problems with
reality—the substantial reality of her political
world. She lives in an environment where the
Zionists, despite the false nature of their claims,
have created a stranglehold on the political fate of
many American politicians. With their ability to
pour millions of dollars into local political
coffers, and to shift that support to the
competitors of anyone who does not stick to a
pro-Zionist line, the Zionist lobby has been able to
create solid support for an oppressive apartheid
state whose founding rationale is based on myth.
That is why, when the heated reaction to Vice
President Harris’s reply to the George Mason student
occurred, her communications director and foreign
policy adviser were scrambling to damp down Zionist
criticism. In other words, the vice president’s
concerns are focused on the reality of her political
situation even if it means denying the reality of
millions of Palestinians. In reference to the
Palestinians, Harris is no doubt willing to
sacrifice other important realities, such as those
international laws originally established to protect
minorities, including Jews. The Zionists no longer
find any use for these laws because these are now
called upon to protect Palestinians.
Part V—Conclusion
If you have enough ideological determination and
control of the information environment, you can
create a faux reality. That is, you can convince
yourself and others that a set of assumptions and
assertions that have no basis in fact are true. It
also helps if you are strong enough to punish those
who might challenge your claims. That is the case of
Israel and the Zionists. In Israel the media,
synagogues, the educational system, and political
environment all support stories based on myth—the
idea that Israel/Palestine belongs to the Jews by
divine sanction, and the claim that the Palestinians
are responsible for their own situation. There are,
of course, Jewish Israelis who have broken free from
this closed information environment. However, they
are the exceptions.
In the U.S. and Europe, there is more information
to be had and a greater devotion to free speech.
Therefore, challenges to the Zionist storyline are
broad and growing. As a consequence many Jews,
particularly of a younger generation, have
recognized that the Zionist faux reality is a cover
for oppression and state-sponsored racism. Against
this realization the Zionists, having rallied their
bought and bullied allies in most of the Western
governments, still fight as if their anachronistic
notion of national existence depends on it—as if it
is a zero-sum struggle.
Lawrence Davidson is professor of history
emeritus at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.
He has been publishing his analyses of topics in
U.S. domestic and foreign policy, international and
humanitarian law and Israel/Zionist practices and
policies since 2010.
https://tothepointanalyses.com
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