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The End of Zionism

An end to Zionism is a beginning of liberation for both Palestinians and Jewish people.

Hadar Cohen

The horrors of the now are unbearable. 30,000+ Palestinians murdered in Gaza over the course of a couple of months, massive displacement and destruction of homes, mosques, churches, hospitals, schools and more. Widespread starvation and sickness all over the Gaza strip. On top of that continuous escalation of extreme brutal settler violence in West Bank and a ruthless silencing campaign against anyone who speaks up about these atrocities. 

Every year it seems that another list of war crimes is added to the already long existing list of injustices committed by Israel towards Palestinians. Starting with the ethnic cleansing and displacement of 700,000+ Palestinians in 1948 barring them from returning to their homeland, continuing with the cruel military occupation of the West Bank controlling the lives of almost 3 million Palestinians with humiliating checkpoints, invasive surveillance technology, home demolitions and more, then the siege on Gaza caging 2.2 million people in and regularly bombing them. Now the ongoing violence has escalated into a full on genocide.

Zionism is not working. It is leading to a total annihilation of a people. And it won’t stop unless we stop it. 

The impact on Palestinians lives has and continues to be gruesome and unjustifiable. On top of that, Zionism has not actually saved the Jewish people as it claims to do. Rather it leads us into a demonic path of psychosis. 

Zionism was sold as a Jewish liberation movement. It was an answer to the question of the Jews that European Antisemitism created. Where will the Jewish people belong and feel safe? The colonization of Palestine was the answer given by European powers without Palestinian consent. 

This answer to the centuries long persecution of Jewish people in Europe is unacceptable and cannot continue. First for its blatant moral inconsistencies - the freedom of one people cannot come at the expense of another. And second, because Zionism is not actually a freedom movement for the Jewish people. It has failed to keep its promise of keeping Jewish people safe. Global Antisemitism is rising all over and even Israelis within Israel are not safe. Practically, Zionism has not worked in protecting the Jewish community. 

The premise of the Zionist project is that Jewish people are fundamentally unsafe in the world and the only way for us to exist is in a segregated reality, disconnected from relationship with other communities and from the impact of our actions on others. A certain ghetto in Palestine, that can only sustain itself with an excessive forceful military to defend our wounds to a world that will never accept us. 

The modern state of Israel was built on Jewish fear and requires Jewish fear to exist. The military feeds on fear and requires it to continue defending itself. That is why the Israeli media creates intense fear-mongering stoking the deep Jewish trauma buried in our hearts. It convinces us that the target of our pain is the Palestinian people - they are the enemy - not the vicious White Christian European Empire who has still not accounted for its oppression of Jewish people. 

This is a terrible answer to Jewish belonging. It tells us that the only way for us to be safe is to be in a constant state of fear. It tells us that it is not actually possible to be accepted by others and experience relational belonging. It tells us that the best we can ask of life is to cycle in our trauma wounds and that healing is not available to us. Zionism is extremely dehumanizing to the Jewish people. It exploits and manipulates our Jewish pain never offering us a space to rest. 

Zionism tells Jewish people that the only way for us to rest is by becoming subservient to the White Supremacist Imperialist Western project of Christian dominance. Colonialism carefully engineered this - uprooting Jews from Muslim societies for its sick Christianizing project. The West created a narrative that pits Jews against Muslims and uses Jewish people to further demonize Muslim people. Sadly, this has been dangerously successful.

For all these reasons and more, we need to end the Zionist ideology. An end to Zionism means re-visitng the original question of Jewish safety and actually providing an answer that dignifies Jewish people. It does not mean an abandonment of Jews but rather a re-understanding of who we are and how we got to where we are. 

I reject the premise that Jewish people are fundamentally unsafe in this world. And just as Jewish people survived through oppression and genocide, Palestinians will not be annihilated either. The desire for freedom is too strong and cannot be squashed by more militarization and defense mechanisms. The cycle of violence will continue ad infinitum so long as Zionism is not dismantled as an ideology. Whatever fantasy anyone has of what the Zionist project entails, the reality is showing us what it actually is. We need to face this reality with eyes wide open. We cannot let this level of inhumane suffering continue. 

There are those who try to salvage Zionism by re-defining what it means to them- it is not a colonial conquest but rather a Jewish longing for homeland, they claim. Well, that re-definition is an impossibility if you actually take seriously the impacts of Zionism on Palestinians. And it is not what the original founders of the Zionist movement have articulated about this project as is clearly evident from Zionist literature naming it as a colonial endeavor. It is also regularly dispelled by the genocidal rhetoric and explicit call for annihilation that Israeli politicians regularly chant. 

Zionism will inevitably crumble as the world is waking up to the ongoing cruelties and is losing patience for the weaponization of Antisemitism against Palestinians. Zionism will end, like all other fascist projects. The questions are at what cost of suffering and will we be the ones to show up for the much needed transformation of this political landscape. 

There are many conversations and healing work to be done about a future without Zionism. But in order to have them, we cannot hold onto Zionist ideology. We need an exorcism cleansing our minds from the propaganda and cult behavior it has conditioned us into. 

We do not know what will happen next. To let an old system die, we must be willing to enter into the unknown. Psychologically we grow when the fear of the unknown future becomes less painful than holding onto the current system in the present. We are at this moment where the pain is too much and it is not an option to let the current system be as it is. We need to welcome this shift from a vicious violent system into a fertile potentiality of liberation for all of us. 

This should not scare us. The current reality should scare us more than the possibilities of a world without Zionism. Letting go of Zionism frees the Jewish people from becoming the oppressor and will free Palestinians as the oppressed. 

Spirituality, we are collectively called to transform this system of fear into an ecosystem of love. Fear is running our minds, our perceptions of the Other, and our decision making process. This fear is creating more chaos, more violence, more destabilization. The spiritual task of turning fear to love is crucial. It is what will give us the power to let this system die.

My politics are rooted in an endless love for both communities: Palestinians and Jews. Our pain has been exposed on the global stage for the world to witness. Our suffering is immense and deep and there is another way. There is always another way, even when the mind cannot see the possibility of that. A great healing is possible not just for us but for the whole world through this process of shedding Zionism. 

Jewish and Palestinian freedom is interdependent. There is no possible way to sacrifice one community for the sake of the other. Zionism has wrecked both of our communities and lineages and we desperately need repair. It is time to stand united against the apartheid regime and build a new paradigm of equality in its place.

An end to Zionism is a beginning of liberation for both Palestinians and Jewish people. It is a myth that one needs to choose between Jewish safety and Palestinian safety. Actually, Jewish people can only be free if Palestinians are free too. Our collective freedom can only come with the end of Zionism.