Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Palestinian Cause
When I was six, my parents would tell me all about Palestine and the Israeli occupation. I heard stories about the Arab-Israeli wars my grandfather fought in and all the horrors he saw defending his land. I heard all about how, not only was Palestine occupied, but the Golan Heights, a part of our Syrian land, the land my grandfather came from, was occupied too.
“I hate the Jews” I’d say
“No you don’t hate the Jews. Not all Jewish people are bad. Don’t say that” they’d tell me
“Okay I hate Israelis”
“No you don’t hate Israelis. Not all Israeli people are bad”
“Then who do we hate?”
“Zionists”
“Isn’t it the same thing?”
“Not all Jewish people are Israeli, not all Israelis are zionists”
This conversation repeats a few times in my memory, but eventually I understood it.
In my early teens I learned about the Second World War and what happened during the holocaust. I read books filled with stories about the oppression of the Jewish people during the nazi regime. It broke my heart. I suddenly felt a solidarity with the Jewish people. One I hadn’t felt before. At the time however I still thought that although not all Jewish people are zionists, all zionists are Jewish, something I now know is incorrect. This however lead to a confusion I couldn’t settle: how could a group of people, who have experienced severe oppression, turn around the next day and inflict the same pain on others? Others who not only didn’t inflict the harm on them but also tried to help them. Why did never again not apply to all humanity?
Later on in my teenage years I started seeing the way that Zionists defended everything with accusations of antisemitism. It felt incredibly frustrating and I couldn’t help but think, the victims of the holocaust, who suffered as a result of antisemitism, wouldn’t they be offended by this clear manipulation of their pain as well?
Throughout my life I have heard antisemitic rhetorics everywhere. I make no claims that antisemitism doesn’t exist and thrive anymore. I’ve heard all sorts of conspiracies from “Jews own the media” to “Jews control the entire political world” etc. To be completely honest these “theories” have always sounded completely ridiculous to me. Not only that but harmful as well. There are people who use the Palestinian cause to justify their antisemitism. There are also people whose passion for the Palestinian cause has bred antisemitism in their hearts because no one taught them to differentiate a Jewish person from an Israeli person from a Zionist.
But now I have to wonder, how our two groups, so visibly similar, so similarly oppressed, so mutually hated, how do we not understand each other? We’re the most equipped to understand one another and yet we don’t.
The powerful grow more powerful on the backs of everybody else from whatever side. The scars are dealt to the middle men, while in my minds eye I see those who are instigating these wars sit in back rooms, unaffected, publicly smearing one another while they privately laugh amongst each other. Like two school friends playing video games on the internet, battling each other and laughing at the blows they deal against one another. Everyone else, to them, only computer generated images built to magnify the realism of their little games.