"Yet Israeli colonization embodies a type of barbarity normally assigned to the Palestinians, which saves Israelis the inconvenience of confronting the ugliness of the occupation. The racists are barbaric, but they assign barbarity to the victims of their racism. Has racism ever been enacted differently where it has existed?"

I take serious issue with the protrayal of Israelis as "colonialists" and in general with the description of Zionism as racism.

I also find it ironic that you feel as though we've gained "little wisdom" on the issue, right before you tag Israelis with words as racists and colonialists.

The current situation in Israel is the result of colonialism, but British colonialism, not Jewish colonialism. Israel is home to millions of people, who I would no more expect to leave than I would expect people in LA to give California back to the Navajo.

Furthermore, Zionism, which holds that Jews should have a Jewish homeland in Israel, is no more or less racist than any other form of nationalism that holds that a people of common history and language should have their own country. This is certainly true of the Palestinians, who deserve a free, unoccupied, sovereign state with a capital in Jerusalem. The Israelis deserve no less.

But by casting them as "colonialists", you have given weight to the idea that only one group deserves to have a country, and it just so happens that group is the Palestinians. After fifty years of conflict, that hardly seems like wisdom, or a solution.

"Israel’s brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the reason for the Israel-Palestine conflict. The conflict isn’t about religious acrimony or irrational hatred; it exists because one people, the Palestinians, are being colonized by the State of Israel. The Israeli occupation, like most forms of
settler colonialism, involves land appropriation, home demolition, crop destruction, and resource expropriation."

That is entirely one-sided. If you remember, the Palestinians, encouraged by surrounding Arab countries, attacked Israel in the war of 1948, not the other way around. While there are certainly many valid reasons to criticize the occupation, some which you list here, casting it as the prime reason for the Israeli Palestinan conflict, without any mention of Anti-Semitism as motivation, is quite dishonest.

There are no good guys or bad guys here. There are only two people, horrendously exploited througout history, who are continuing to destroy each other. Suggesting that one has more right to destroy the other is not a solution.

Displacing people and occupying their land is a colonialist act. I don't understand why dnA cannot grasp that.

Here's a news article from Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, which dnA might be interested in, which lends credence to the fact that the occupation is highly racialized.

"Israel and Australia are like sisters in Asia," Tamir said in an interview with Haaretz during a visit to Israel this week. "We are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We don't have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not - we are basically the white race. We are on the western side of Asia and they are on the southeastern side."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/774471.html

My only response would be to suggest to folks to do five minutes worth of research and see if dNA's claim that Israel isn't engaged in colonization stands up; even devoted Zionists admit openly that Israel is a colonial state (they just happen not to care).

It is interesting that only the Arab refugees are ever mentioned. How about the thousands upon thousands of Jews who were forced out of Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, etc. during the 1950's and 1960's. Most left with nothing, running for their lives because they were being slaughtered by the Arabs on the street.

I am truly disappointed that Colorlines would publish this kind of an article which just promotes anti-Semitism. There are two sides to a political reality. Presenting only one side is certainly not worthy of a good publication.

And by the way, what other country has ever given back land won in a war?

To put Israelis to a higher set of rules than we put on any other country is prejudicial.

Oviously, the Arab propaganda machine has done a great job convincing many people of facts that are based on distortions of the truth or out and out lies. Gee, when did something like this last occur on such a great scale last? In Germany in the 30's!

This is anti-Semitism at its best.

Katalin,

I couldn't disagree with you more. Offering a place for people to weigh in on important, highly controversial debates is exactly the purpose of ColorLines and RaceWire.

As usual, this critique of Israel somehow ends up in the black hole of "anti-Semitism". In fact, your comment doesn't challenge any of the facts or assertions Stephen lays out as he looks at the occupation from a Palestinian point-of-view; you only argue that it shouldn't matter to us. And if we do care to hear? Well, then we're anti-Semites.

I disagree.

We should be debating the merits of his argument, not whether or not he's permitted to make one.