Our Wednesday News Analysis | Opinion | Israel Cannot Boycott the Whole World - So It Must Listen Instead

On Thursday, people hold placards during a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside Leiden University in The Hague. Credit: Yves Herman /

What will the [Israeli] government do in the face of a chain reaction

of countries recognizing a Palestinian state?
Scold all their ambassadors?
Boycott the entire world?
Isolate itself as punishment?

Israel is at a historic crossroads. It faces two roads that have never been more apparent, and one must be chosen. The world has gone out of its way to depict the alternatives: One of the roads leads to a Palestinian state, with Israel saying yes to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, to normalization of relations with the latter, to a military alliance, to ending the war and reaching a deal for getting the hostages back, with Gaza transferred to the Palestinian Authority. As a bonus, the legal proceedings in The Hague against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant are suspended.

The second road leads to The Hague. If Israel rejects the Saudi move it will abandon the hostages, the war will continue, Itamar Ben-Gvir will repeatedly return to the Temple Mount compound in an attempt to open new fronts and will ultimately succeed. The settlers will establish outposts in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu and Gallant will become personae non grata around the world and Israel will be condemned as a criminal state, and begin a downward spiral.

Israel's elites will leave, military service will be extended, the middle class will be shattered. Terror attacks will spread to the country's cities, the West Bank will burn, Jewish-Arab tensions will erupt, Kahanism will spread, armed militias will roam the streets, crime will surge, American Jews will turn their backs on Israel and the U.S. will lose its political interest in this country. When people think of Israel, they'll conjure up characters such as Ben-Gvir and Limor Son Har-Melech. After a while, pictures of contemporary Israel will look like pictures of Tehran before the revolution. The Israeli way of life will disappear...

Read more: Opinion | Israel Cannot Boycott the Whole World - So It Must Listen Instead

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ZIONISM WILL NEVER BE A SOLUTION TO ANTISEMITISM

Source: Truthout
https://truthout.org/articles/zionism-will-never-be-a-solution-to-antisemitism/

By Ben Lorber & Shane Burley
Published May 16, 2024

Zionism has relied on strategic alliances with antisemitic ethnonationalists since its earliest days.

Thousands of Jewish and Palestinian protesters take over the Grand Central Station lobby, demanding an immediate ceasefire of attacks on Gaza by Israeli forces, on Friday, October 27, 2023, in New York. LUIZ C. RIBEIRO / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS/TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE VIA GETTY IMAGES

… it’s more apparent than ever that the Zionist project

has failed in its supposed mission to ensure Jewish safety.

More and more Jews realize that a nuclear-armed, ultra-militarized garrison state, founded on the unjust oppression of another people and condemned to the endless cycles of bloodshed necessary to maintain that oppression, wedged in the tightening contradictions of empire, sliding deeper into outright fascism and allying with far-right nationalist antisemites, is a dangerously precarious vehicle for our people to seek dependable safety — and is undoubtedly a far cry from the moral “light unto the nations” many of us imagined Israel to be.

Zionist hegemony dominates Jewish scholarship, civic life, and religious discourses,
making non-Zionist political solutions appear unrealistic or impossible.

Over seven months since the start of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, Israel’s defenders are increasingly desperate to delegitimize the growing movement for justice in Palestine, especially on college campuses. When anti-Zionist and non-Zionist Jews are targeted by their rhetoric, we often notice something surprising — much of the slander directed at us is deeply antisemitic. MAGA politicians, Christian nationalists and even many Jewish establishment leaders call Jewish dissenters “fake” Jews or “traitors.” We are called “weak,” and we are told we would have sold our people out to the Nazis. Right-wing Zionists ally with white Christian nationalists to attack protests, and claim that student encampments are controlled by George Soros or “outside agitators” — mobilizing the very antisemitism they claim to oppose! Meanwhile, Zionists insist that “we are not the Jews of trembling knees,” as Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt put it in early May. “We will not flee — we will fight.” Beneath the hypermasculine bravado in statements like this, one senses a deep internalized shame — Jewish victims of antisemitism in the past, they seem to say, weren’t “manly” enough to fight back.

What we’re seeing today isn’t new. From the beginning, the Zionist movement inherited deep strains of antisemitism, misogyny and nationalism from its European milieu, and today, those tendencies burst to the surface as the movement goes on the offensive. A movement like this can’t keep Jews safe — only solidarity can. We discuss this relationship between Zionism and antisemitism in the following excerpt from our new book Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, which will be released on June 4 by Melville House Publishing.

This excerpt was lightly edited to adapt it for publication...

Read more: Zionism Will Never Be a Solution to Antisemitism

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I MISS YOU, MY BROTHER

Source: Mondoweiss
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/i-miss-you-my-brother/

By MAHMOUD ALYAZJI
Published May 25, 2024

I never thought I’d lose you like this. I want to reach you. I want to see you, my friend, so bad. I want to give you one last hug.

MOHAMMED AND MAHMOUD. PHOTO PROVIDED BY MAHMOUD ALYAZJI

Before I sleep, I have this image of your body under the rubble. Then I picked up my phone and looked at our photos.

Mohammed, did you die while holding your mom?

Today, I ate ice cream. It’s been a long time since I did. I know you’re in a better place, but I wanted you here with me. I wanted to buy you the chocolate flavor that you liked; it would be my treat.

When coming from my exchange program in the United States, I wanted to bring you that Barcelona T-shirt you liked, and heavy winter gloves because your hands are always cold in the winter.

I’m trying to heal, my friend. I go for long runs. At the end of the road, I see you, standing tall. You don’t seem happy though. You’re making that face you used when complaining about your unhappy times.

Why are you fading? I’m coming. I’m running faster. I can hear your “Jadah ya Hoda — you’re a strong and great person, Hoda.” You always told me this.

Before I sleep, I have this image of your body under the rubble. It flashes into my mind and makes my heart sink. Then I pick up my phone and go to our photos...

Read more: I miss you, my brother