Free Palestine! Contribute to the hottest topic on campus!

Last year, a vigorous debate arose on campus over the struggle for Palestine and what we can do in the US to support it. This year will be no different. Anti-Racist Action invites you to join the debate about this, the most pressing issue of our time.

Last year, ARA demanded that the university divest all holdings from companies doing business with the state of Israel. We provided the university a unique and powerful opportunity to become the first institution of its kind in the United States to take such a stand. The university unfortunately refused.

In order to promote dialogue regarding this crucial current event, ARA is once again raising the issue of divestment from Israel. Palestine must be free! Our case is simple and includes the following points.

1) What is Zionism? Who are Zionists?

Zionism is support for the creation and continued existence of the state of Israel. Its basic premises were spelled out by Theodor Herzl in his 1896 pamphlet, "The Jewish State." Zionism was both a reaction to anti-Semitism throughout Europe (though by no means the only reaction) as well as a justification for the colonization of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from the land. In this it is no different from the white supremacist argument about the "superiority" of European culture that justified the colonization and destruction of indigenous populations in North, Central and South America, or the colonization, enslavement and genocide of Africans since the discovery of the "dark continent." Make no mistake about it: Zionism is White Supremacy.

A Zionist is anyone who supports the state of Israel. Anyone can be a Zionist. Not all Jews are Zionists, just as not all Zionists are Jews. There are many instances of anti-Zionist Jews, and there are likewise many instances of non-Jewish Zionists. Jerry Falwell is a Christian Zionist. So is Glenn Plummer, a Detroit-area preacher who pimps the state of Israel's agenda around town. In the past, perhaps the most notable anti-Zionist Jews were members of the Bund, an all-Jewish labor union, in Russia and Poland around the turn of the twentieth century. Recently the Israeli Socialist Organization, better known as Matzpen, carried on the anti-Zionist Jewish tradition from within Israel itself! Today, anti-Zionist Jews include those that call themselves the True Torah Jews, as well as many others.

2) Why oppose Israel?

Far from an "outpost of civilization against barbarism" as Zionist ideologue Theodor Herzl once called it, Israel is an outpost of colonialism, an outmoded form of European barbarism, at a time when all other colonial regimes have been overthrown. In 1947, Israel was founded by UN decree, and historic Palestine was partitioned into an Arab territory and Israeli state. The next year, Zionists began to, "abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine," as first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion once declared. When this expansion, popularly known as “the catastrophe” among Palestinians,was over, around 700,000 Palestinians had been driven from historic Palestine. The origins of Israel show: Israel is a colonial-settler state.

3) Israel's Relationship with Imperialism

Israel has throughout its existence sought alliances with any imperialist it could persuade to support it. Around the turn of the century and following World War I, Great Britain was Israel's chief imperialist supporter. Great Britain supported Israel in order to check rising nationalist sentiments in Egypt. These sentiments threatened Britain's hold on the Suez Canal, an important trade route to India, which was itself firmly in the grips of the British Empire. At the end of World War II, British power waned, and the US replaced Britain as supporter of Israel in the Middle East. This relationship proved crucial during the Cold War, as Israel and the US developed an important mutual relationship, both assisting each other in opposing nationalist movements, Communist-inspired and otherwise. Last summer's war on Lebanon was an extension of this policy: its aim was to destroy the militant anti-colonial Hezbollah movement, which threatened both Israeli and US interests in the Middle East.

In addition, Zionism claims that it is a national liberation movement of the Jewish people. However, unlike nationalist movements throughout the world, which have fought colonialism and imperialism to achieve self-government, Israel has allied itself with imperialism at every turn in order to suppress and destroy nationalist movements throughout the Middle East. Zionist claims about "national liberation" would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire.

4) Israel is an apartheid state

From its inception, Israel has ruled by military checkpoints, racial segregation (Jewish-only neighborhoods), environmental racism (denying Palestinians access to water resources and proper sewage facilities), expropriation of land, and ethnic cleansing. These practices are not simply responses to suicide bombings in recent years, but have been a consistent set of tactics used to manage the lives of everyday Palestinians.

Although Palestinians can vote and even hold office within Israel, they are considered second-class citizens in the “Jewish state.” They are barred from jobs, they are kept out of Jewish-only neighborhoods, and if they demand that Israel be a nation of all its people, they are exiled.

If we do not act now to free Palestine, the Palestinian people will be entirely ethnically cleansed from their land or reduced to the same fate as Native Americans in the United States in our lifetimes! We cannot allow this to happen. Palestine must be free!