Most Palestine supporters in Canada are racist. They refuse to name Israel’s form of supremacism and some will even label you antisemitic for doing so.
“A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This Is Apartheid”, was the title of a 2021 report published by liberal Jewish Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. The landmark study details how Jewish supremacy predominates throughout the territory controlled by Israel in policies on land use, movement, citizenship and political rights. It explains, “The key tool Israel uses to implement the principle of Jewish supremacy is engineering space geographically, demographically and politically. Jews go about their lives in a single, contiguous space where they enjoy full rights and self-determination. In contrast, Palestinians live in a space that is fragmented into several units, each with a different set of rights – given or denied by Israel, but always inferior to the rights accorded to Jews.”
Some are seeking to extend Jewish supremacist colonialism to Lebanon notes Haaretz in “‘Judaize the Litani’’ Under Cover of War, Israel’s Right-wing Camp Pushes to Expand Borders – and Settle Lebanon.” The recent article discusses an effort to depopulate southern Lebanon of Muslims, Christians and atheists and to replace them with Jewish colonists.
The former head of Canada’s Jewish Defence League openly backs “Judaizing” southern Lebanon. Meir Weinstein also backs the racist road network in the West Bank in which thousands of Canadian Jewish colonists who live in the occupied territory can travel but that bars Palestinian Muslims, Christians and atheists. More honest about the form of supremacy than many on the left, Weinstein openly calls to “Make Gaza Jewish”.
For a century a series of parastatal institutions have pursued this aim. The Jewish Agency for Israel, which Canada’s Jewish federations are formally tied to, seeks to implement the supremacist doctrine of ‘Aliyah’ by assisting any Jewish person in the world — be they from Morocco, Canada or Ethiopia — to become an automatic citizen. Another parastatal was established over a century ago to acquire land in historic Palestine for exclusively Jewish settlement. Owner of the land on which most Israelis live today, the Jewish National Fund systematically excludes Palestinian citizens of Israel from leasing its property. A 1998 UN report concluded that JNF lands are “chartered to benefit Jews exclusively,” which has led to an “institutionalized form of discrimination.”
Who could deny that Israel has always been a Jewish supremacist state? Yet nearly a decade after Israel adopted its openly discriminatory “Nation-State of the Jewish People” law many ‘pro-Palestinian’ Canadians deny it. Mathew Behrens has repeatedly called those employing the term “Jewish supremacy” antisemitic. He recently posted an article that argues “Framing Zionism as Jewish and not white supremacy is a dangerous proposition.” Former Ontario Coalition Against Poverty organizer John Clarke also recently posted Yoav Litvin’s 2019 article alongside the statement “An interesting challenge to the practice of presenting Zionism as ‘Jewish Supremacy.’”
A year ago I was publicly chastised by an Independent Jewish Voices member for employing the term “Jewish supremacy” and Breech editor Martin Lukacs has long reproached those who describe Zionism as “Jewish supremacy”.
As is widely understood in anti-racist circles, protecting a supremacist ideology/system from challenge is well … racism. How many leftists have employed the word “antisemitism” more than “Jewish supremacy” during two and a half years of genocide to advance Jewish supremacy? That’s pretty racist, no?
Israel is a genocidal Jewish supremacist state. If you want to stop it from destroying Palestinians and further convulsing the region it’s necessary to say so.
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