The crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian people and the most recent terrorist attacks currently targeting the Gaza Strip are not surprising, but were actually consistent with Israel’s nature and in line with the intellect and vision it issues. The behaviour of Israel is the result of a series of ideological distortions, revivalist opinions, and colonial interests that have been combined together in one pot and then re-synthesised in a manner that allows for the creation of a political distortion that spearheads the imperialist project in the Arab region. What are the theoretical foundations on which Israel is established? How can its intellectual and political form be described, and what are the conditions that surrounded its establishment and helped it continue in a land that continuously rejects it?
Political Zionism (separate from religious Zionist, which believes that the return to the Promised Land is not an act determined by mankind, but that they will return when and how the Lord decides) is a result of what was known in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries as the Jewish problem. This was the purge of the European bourgeois who exploited the Jewish people by means of historical accumulation (the image of an unethical exploiter), using them to form a functional group in order to serve the imperialist expansion project. (See the definition of functional group as defined by Dr Abdel Wahab El-Messiri in The encyclopaedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism).
Marx also wrote about this trend in his book On the Jewish Question, in which he said Judaism continues to exist not in spite of history, but owing to history, and the bourgeois society constantly begot Judaism from the depths of themselves. He also said that this problem has no other source than the forms of contradiction that dominate the capitalist society, or bourgeois, and that, for example, what is known as anti-Semitism is only one type of oppression experienced by these communities.
Due to the fact that the bourgeoisie cannot solve the Jewish question in a fair manner, and “because the essence of Judaism was realised in the bourgeois society, and the bourgeois society cannot convince the Jews of the fictitious nature of their religious essence, which is nothing but the ideal concept that is a practical necessity” the capitalist governments and their imperialist extensions, utilised these outcast religious groups, at the time, to serve their interests.
When Marx wrote about the Jewish question, he was not thinking of Jews in their religious capacity, but as a functional individual; a human that is completely one with their function and has lost their humanity, dealing with others, as tools (a source of profit, a source of pleasure) thus disregarding their humanity.
With this in mind, we can understand the establishment of Israel in the following image:
First, this state is a human surplus sent by Europe to Palestine. Europe supported this surplus, armed them, and gave it the necessary military and political cover to carry out its forceful settlement function in service of the large imperialist project.
Second, Palestine was chosen due to its significant strategic location and due to the geopolitical role the state emerging from there can play in harming the Arab Liberation Movement, as well as the mobilisation capabilities that Palestine can provide (due to its symbolism and significance) in recruiting the target groups (Jewish groups).
Thirdly, due to Western support, specifically American support, the Jewish state plays a role in serving the colonial project militarily and strategically, acting as a tool that can be used outside the international legal system to serve the interests of the West, in a manner that eliminates any political or moral embarrassment for the latter.
Based on these grounds, we can understand the nature of this state and characterise it as follows:
- The state established on Palestinian land is not a homogeneous society with a clear identity that is governed by a normal system. Instead, it is a settlement bloc with an undetermined nature, and this perhaps explains its insistence on Palestinian recognition of what it calls a “Jewish state”.
- The ill-defined nature of the Zionist state explains why its political system is devoid of a constitution until now and has no clear geographical borders.
- The different human groups that make up the Zionist state co-exist on the basis of common interests and by taking advantage of the generous support coming from the United States and Europe. This is reflected in the state’s alleged links to the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organisation, something we do not find in any other normal state in the world.
- We cannot describe the political system of the Zionist state as a democracy, although it claims to be so, because the co-existence amongst the different groups inhabiting the state is a result of a game of common interests and benefiting from the services provided by international sponsors. Therefore, perhaps we can say this is similar to the coexistence of mafia gangs, which divide the influential areas in the scope of one state.
- The violating settlement nature of the Zionist state makes it, in principle, non-negotiable and will not give anything up by negotiation because it was established on the principle of slaughtering and displacing the indigenous people and then brining groups of settlers to settle instead of the indigenous people.
- The Zionist state is a form of political distortion that affects colonised communities as a result of conflicting interests of the colonisers and their desire to continue their influence (like the apartheid regime in South Africa, or the case of the Pied-Noirs (Black feet) in Algeria before its independence).
- The Zionist state is living in a state of permanent panic reflected by the constant militarisation of its society and its quick resort to violence against Palestinians first, and then against anyone sympathising with them (the killing of Rachel Corrie and the attack on the Freedom Flotilla, for example), as well as its refusal to abide by international laws and humanitarian principles, because it is originally the product of inhumane and illegal conflicts.
According to the aforementioned information, we can confirm that the Zionist state is aware that its survival is dependent on its functionality, and that its continuation is linked to playing the role of a rogue against all laws and principles, because, ultimately, it cannot act like a natural political system. This explains why the more the people of the world become aware of its colonial nature (by means of the work of civil society organisations, human rights bodies, and national political parties), the more it feels its time is coming to an end and the closer its liquidation and abandonment is. At that point, its fate will be the same as the colonial racist settlement groups that had come before; there are only two possibilities, either they merge into the majority indigenous population (the whites in South Africa) or go back to their original homelands (the settlers of Algeria). In the end, Zionism remains a historical phenomenon subject to the laws of social mobility, which means its demise will come sooner or later.
Translated from Al-Araby Al-Jadid, 18 July, 2014
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.