Tolerance Is a Wasteland: Palestine and the Culture of Denial

One of the most startling aspects of Israel’s ongoing takeover of historic Palestine is how, despite the catalogue of human rights abuse, violations of international law and the practice of the crime of apartheid, the Zionist project has been able to maintain support for its cause amongst large sections of the Western liberal community. It is quite common, for example, to find celebrities and politicians who are instinctively opposed to racism, making generous donations and offering support to pro-Israel causes whose main function is to preserve a system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

This strange phenomenon, which has come to define the hypocrisy of liberals that continue to support Israel, has been given a special label: Progressive Except for Palestine (PEP).  The term was coined last year by Mark Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick in their book, Except for Palestine: The limits of progressive politics. It was awarded the best Academic Award during Palestine Book Awards 2021. As well as exposing the criminal double-standards in the Western discourse on Palestine, the book sparked a serious conversation about the moral and political cost of maintaining support for Israel, when near-global consensus has crystallised about the apartheid practice of the Occupation State.

This book is on the shortlist for the Palestine Book Awards 2022, please click here to read the full review on the Palestine Book Awards site.

MEMO announces Palestine Book Awards shortlist 2022