This is a cross-post from falsedichotomies.com
One reader responded to my article admitting my preference for Zionism over universal liberalism by applauding me for my intellectual honesty. It would be good if anti-Zionists could respond in kind. A case in point of their dishonesty is provided by Muhammed Jabali’s “On democracy: There’s nothing ‘Left’ about the Zionist left” on the +972 blog.
The final paragraph is key: “That’s why there is nothing “left” about the “Zionist left.” And there’s a clear connection between voting for Tzipi Livni or Shelly Yachimovich, and supporting a Price Tag crime. The difference is encapsulated by your stance on the Altalena Affair: it is an internal discussion within the colonial forces. Whether colonization should be carried out with by more or less force, and whether it should consider international law or not. There is nothing in all of that to help you produce your social democratic identity in a shared space.”
In short, even the left-wing of Israeli society is racist and despicable. We can assume that Jabali feels the same about the right-wing. And yet at the same time we are told that Jabali and other anti-Zionists are pursuing a one-state solution in which everyone will be accorded the same rights. Given that you consider a vast majority of Israeli society to be beyond the pale, why on earth would you want them to be part of your new state? If I were surrounded by people who held such awful views, I would demand immediate separation and perhaps even international protection from them. But we are told that Jalabi & Co want to join together with the despised in creating a new polity without precedent in world history.
But wait. If the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza get a vote, as well as the descendants of Palestinian refugees, then sharing no longer becomes necessary. Because democracy would then mean a Palestinian-Arab state with Jews as second-class citizens, a mirror image of the state we’re told currently exists between the river and the sea, the state Jabali and the other anti-Zionists despise.
In short, the one-state solution is a vision for Palestinian victory. The high-minded rhetoric about peace and justice and democracy is a ruse; it cannot sit alongside the widely held view – honestly expressed by Jalabi – that Israel is a country where even the left-wing are irredeemably racist. That is, without us going through some kind of de-Nazification programme. But even the Germans were able to keep living in Germany. If you sincerely believe that there is a “connection” between voting for Tzipi Livni and setting fire to mosques (perhaps it’s akin to the “connection” between a BDS activist and a suicide bomber), then you are very optimistic if you think that a single democratic state will bring peace. That is, unless it is not peace you seek, but victory.
