transcription:
There is one word that explains the bloodshed, the genocide, the massacres, the bombing of hospitals and schools in Gaza today.
Zionism.
Many people will tell you that Zionism could mean different things to different people. Some people will say that Zionism is a liberal ideology. Some will even go as far as to say that Zionism is decolonization.
All of that is bullshit.
As a Palestinian, I am the direct subject of Zionism, I am an expert on it, in fact, because it is practiced on my body.
Zionism is a political ideology that was born in 19th century Europe that argued that the creation of a Jewish state would be the only solution for European anti-Semitism.
I can spend my time here quoting to you the pioneers of Zionism and how they explicitly stated that Zionism is a colonialist ideology, that it is a racist exclusionary ideology, but I'm not going to do this because Zionism is best defined by its material manifestations: home demolitions, military occupation, it is siege, apartheid, racial discrimination, racial elimination.
The facts speak for themselves. The latest being genocide.
Any project that can only achieve its goals through the elimination of one people, through dominating them and subjugating them is a genocidal project. It has not stopped since 1948 and it continues today. In fact, the past few months have been the most dramatic manifestation of Zionism, where over a million and a half Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in Gaza. Over 20,000 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli forces.
You only have to look at the laws and the policies that Zionism has produced to understand it. For example in 1950, two key laws were passed in the Israeli Knesset. One: The Absentee Property Law, which prevented Palestinians who were forcibly dispossessed from their lands in 1948 from reclaiming their property, and two: the Law of Return, which says that any person who is born Jewish around the world can emigrate and get citizenship. Meanwhile, there are over 6 million Palestinian refugees lingering in refugee camps around the world, stateless.
I mean, my own home in Jerusalem is a prime example of this, where US-based settler organizations that are backed by the Israeli government and military, can come to our home and claim it as theirs by divine decree [#SAVE SHEIKH JARRAH]
And then they can exploit an already asymmetrical judiciary to dispossess us of our home.
"You are stealing my house!"
"And if I don't steal it, someone else is gonna steal it."
"No!"
This is not just happening to us, it's happening to thousands and thousands of families across Palestine. [#SAVE MASAFER YATTA]
Today Israeli leaders hold maps of a "Greater Israel" that not only swallows up whatever remains of Palestine, but large parts of the Middle East. They talk about how there are no Palestinian people, how their aim is not only to make life in Gaza uninhabitable but to re-occupy the Gaza Strip, to re-establish the settlements in the Gaza Strip.
The Zionist desire for Palestinian land is insatiable. It is rooted in the logic of taking as much Palestinian land as possible while having as little Palestinians on it as possible.
Zionism is the most arrogant form of racism. This is one of the only movements across history where soldiers film themselves humiliating people, berating people, stomping on people, giving confessions without remorse about the children that they have killed. This is because they have been awarded impunity. This is an army that has never faced consequences for all of its aggression.
Many people in Gaza live just outside of their destroyed villages. I don't think we often contend with what those facts mean. Here is a world encircled by an abundance that it is owed and they are robbed of food, they are robbed of water, they are robbed of their right to movement. Meanwhile, settlers enjoy all of these things on their lands, and until we reject Zionism, it will continue eating up and swallowing our lands.
Israeli state reps work tirelessly to make Zionism synonymous with Judaism. We must reject this completely. They are choosing to put the Star of David on their military uniforms, it is not my decision and so it is not my responsibility.
The fact that the world superpowers are lobbying to ban criticism of Zionism is proof that Zionism is rooted in imperialism
"Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel!" -1986, Joe Biden
"If there was not an Israel, we would have to invent one." -2022, Joe Biden
because Israel serves the United States' interests in the region; economic interests, business interests, weapons interests. Meanwhile, people in the United States have no access to free healthcare or free education.
To be anti-racist means that you have to be anti-Zionist. The only meaning that Zionism can hold is the meaning it practices today,
"This is Jewish country, only!"
racial elimination and settler-expansion, and the only solution to Zionism is abolishing Zionism. Dismantling the Zionist enterprise, that is the only way we can have dignity, justice and peace in the region. It is a moral obligation, because it is a moral obligation for everybody to oppose murder, theft and erasure.
/end of transcription.