The new Rome, Israel has shaped itself a virtual empire through the influence its many lobbies have carried across the world.
The new Rome, Israel has shaped itself a virtual empire through the influence its many lobbies have carried across the world.
If Europe has long declared its loyalty to secularism, claiming “á corps et á cris” that democracy requires a clear separation of powers for the will, and welfare of the people to be truly expressed and manifested, the Old Continent has fallen prey to a covert form of political dogmatism in the Zionist lobby.
European capitals it needs to be said are but shadows of their former self – their institutions sold to the hunger of unfettered capitalism, their national sovereignty squandered to the will of Tel Aviv, as communities’ consciousness remain contained within the perimeter of a pre-determined narrative.
While the activities of pro-Israel pressure groups and lobbyists in Europe are not as visible and well-known as they are in the United States – relations in between Tel Aviv and European capitals are more fraught than many politicians, or state officials care to admit, this is not to say that Zionism reach has not been felt. Â
A living, breathing dragon, the Zionist lobby has been as insidious in its manner of infiltration as it has been nefarious in leading Europe towards socio-political and economic enslavement. A supra-state within many states, the Zionist lobby has imposed a powerful form of political and financial feudalism onto Europe, eroding at those very principles democracies are built upon: national sovereignty, national identity, civil liberties, social justice, human rights.
The new Rome, Israel has shaped itself a virtual empire through the influence its many lobbies have carried across the world – in this particular instance Europe.
But if Israel is in fact a powerful player and a force to be reckoned with, its leverage, influence and political traction have reached stalling point in Europe thus far – such dynamics have been greatly influenced by recent developments: mass migration, socio-economic tensions, rise of nationalism, demography, the rise of the Eastern axis.
Among such factors one most of all has been dismissed, overlooked even, due to lingering political stigma: the pull of Iran Islamic Revolution and the principles it has championed – resistance against imperialism, social justice, pluralism, freedom.
If the Palestinian cause has long been seen as a driving factor in this thaw between Israel and Europe, I would argue that European’s support of Palestine has been together a by-product, and the expression of an innate rejection of imperialism.
For all its many great efforts the pro-Israel lobby in Europe is less prominent in both academic and media account – there lies an opportunity to lay waste the structure and modus operandi of Zionism control.
While I am the first to admit that many and grave conspiracy theories have surrounded Zionism over the decades, each fed from an innate understanding that Israel – the political entity, sits beyond a simple exercise in imperialism, or so-called right of return, it is nevertheless important to compute Israel’s urban legend into the current geopolitical algorithm – if anything for accuracy’s sake.
It is often that we dismiss dynamics or in this case, theories, for we refuse ourselves to give them credence, when we ought to recognise that reality lies beyond our own subjectivity. In other words, some realities manifest out of sheer belief rather than concrete empirical evidences.
Before Israel, as expressed by Zionism, was a tangible reality, it existed in the minds of political zealots as an idea – an ideal yet to be manifested, an ethereal political ideology without any real substance. It is through systematic indoctrination, coercion and manipulations which Israel was manifested. One could argue that in its very creation lies the seed of its destruction, since its reality is based on an ideological fabrication.
Israel’s creation it needs to be understood far precede 1947. Before such Zionist territorial construct could become an institutional reality, it had first to find itself a vessel, and a powerful patron.
The deception of all deceptions, Israel has claimed for itself many qualities, rights and affiliations while being something else altogether. A religious aberration, a political apostasy, a democratic antinomy, Zionism has nevertheless insinuated, and embedded itself in the global political fabric – going as far as becoming the scale against which all is measured.
One only needs to witness with which passion European powers will argue anti-Semitism to understand the socio-political sanctity which Israel enjoys – so much so in fact that its needs often supersede that of national rights.
How many times have we witnessed self-identified superpowers bow to the needs of Israel against their own national interests?
How many wars have we seen waged against sovereign states so Israel could assert its power?
How long before we realise that Israel never sat within any territorial borders?
Israel’s power lies in its ability to exert financial and ideological control.
The website of the Anti-Defamation League defines Zionism as:
“The Jewish national movement of rebirth and renewal in the land of Israel–the historical birthplace of the Jewish people. The yearning to return to Zion, the biblical term for both the Land of Israel and Jerusalem, has been the cornerstone of Jewish religious life since the Jewish exile from the land two thousand years ago…. Zionism, the national aspiration of the Jewish people to a homeland, is to the Jewish people what the liberation movements of Africa and Asia have been to their peoples…a vindication of the fundamental concepts of the equality of nations and of self-determination. To question the Jewish people’s right to national existence and freedom is…to deny to the Jewish people the right accorded to every other people on this globe.”
From the very beginning, Zionism has presented its claim as righteous, anchored in those very values it has denied others: religious freedom, national sovereignty, human rights. Zionism most unsung prowess has been to claim for itself the martyrdom of its victims and demand absolute sympathy, even in its inhumanity.
Zionism calls itself a liberation movement, but what liberation is there to claim in an alliance with imperialism? How can a people assert righteous sovereignty when in a state of colonialism? How can a movement argue a religious cleansing and commit another?
Under Zionism, Palestinians have seen their very humanity denied. Under Zionism Palestine’s history, future, and present have been obliterated as to rise a new engineered reality – one at the image of its Zio-makers.
The founding fathers of Zionism one may argue were more honest about what they stood for, than our contemporaries.
Over and over, one word appears in their writing: not national “liberation,” but “colonization.”
Vladimir Jabotinsky, one of the founding fathers of the Zionist movement, wrote in 1923:
“It is the iron law of every colonizing movement, a law which knows of no exceptions, a law which existed in all times and under all circumstances. If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison on your behalf. Or else–or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempts to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not “difficult,” not “dangerous” but impossible!… Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot–or else I am through with playing at colonization.”
Even among today’s peace activists who call for an end to Israel’s decades’ long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is still a general assumption that Zionism itself is a legitimate movement and that the State of Israel must be defended.
The organization Americans for Peace Now issued this statement in December 2001:
“Continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip will, within one generation, mean the end to Israel as a democratic state with a Jewish majority … This scenario would be a nightmare for Israel and all of us who support the Jewish state. It is not the Zionist vision for Israel’s future for which APN, or the majority of Jews and Israelis, have fought for generations.”
These activists are right to oppose the occupation. But they fail to recognize that the current occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is a continuation of the process of occupation and colonization of Palestine that began with the first Zionist settlers in the 19th century.
Zionism itself is an expression of colonialism – one so violent and anchored in theo-political fascism that is can only assert its existence in annihilation. Before one can hope to free Palestine it is the ideology which is Zionism which needs to be first exposed, and then debunked.
It is deconstruction of the Zionist mindset which can allow for liberation. In this particular case the phrase: mind over matter applies perfectly.
Born in the mind of its forefathers, Israel became a reality by the sheer determination of its makers – logic would command that liberation must then be thought, before it can become manifest.
Note that Israel lobby, this political web, Israel has worked to weave around the world – in the case of our study: within the perimeter of the European Union, ambitions first and foremost to impose a way of thinking and politicking.
The entire state of Israel occupies stolen land that is backed up with armed force. Sharon’s military invasions, the massacres of Palestinians in Jenin, the widespread call for the “transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of Palestinians in Israel today, are not aberrations from the Zionist project but are absolutely consistent with “the Zionist vision for Israel’s future for which…the majority of Jews and Israelis have fought for generations.”
Zionism is not a “two-thousand-year-old yearning,” but a modern movement that was born in the last quarter of the 19th century. The development of Zionism as a political movement was entirely a product of European society in the age of imperialism and it is impossible to understand outside of this context. Zionism was one response–the nationalist response–of a section of Jews to the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe.
Modern Jewish history begins with the French Revolution. In the wake of its revolutionary ideals of “liberty, equality and brotherhood,” Jews won emancipation throughout Western Europe. The old ghetto walls were torn down. Jews gained new civil rights, and were able to join professions that had been closed to them for generations. The vast majority of European Jews welcomed emancipation. They wanted to be able to assimilate and participate as equal members in society.
Writing in 1946, George Orwell stated that political language is “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” Once could safely assert that Israel lobby has elevated this language into an art form, making a point at defending the indefensible.
In truth, the very creation of the Zionist state has flown in the face of international law – notwithstanding natural law, since it has denied a nation-state the right to resist institutionalised oppression.
Since 1947 the world, and in this particular case Europe has been taught to accept Israel’s semantic paradoxes as normative.
For example, in political speech the bombing of civilians has been labelled as “pacification”, and forcible displacement: “transfer of population.”
Israel’s power has lied in its ability to rearrange reality to fit its narrative.
In 2014, a United Nations (UN) inquiry found that Israel’s military assault resulted in the death of 2,251 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly civilians, and 73 people in Israel, mostly soldiers; nevertheless, the Israelis named it “Operation Protective Edge.”
When Palestinian children living in one of the most densely populated places on earth, became meat to Israel’s canons, media argued civilians were used as human shield by dangerous outlaws.
Israel’s political speech has been echoed at the highest levels of European governments. As Israel began its assault on Gaza in July 2014, French President François Hollande declared that “it was up to the Israeli government to take all measures to protect its population.” Â
A statement from British Prime Minister David Cameron’s office reiterated “the UK’s staunch support for Israel” and “underlined Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Michael Mann, the European Union’s (EU) then spokesperson on foreign policy, said that Israel was resorting to “retaliatory fire” – as opposed to wanton murder.
These statements failed to mention that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow ministers had been extremely hostile to the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and its rival party Fatah in April 2014 and the subsequent formation of a Palestinian national unity government.
They ignored how Netanyahu used the horrific killing of three teenage Israeli settlers in June as a pretext for a brutal wave of house demolitions, arrests and bomb attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Â And they disregarded how Israel had repeatedly violated the terms of a 2012 ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
More fundamentally, in their haste to depict Israel as the victim, there was no mention of how Israel subjects the Palestinians to a brutal occupation and, in the case of the 1.8 million living in Gaza, an oppressive siege by land, sea and air. Nor was there any account of how Israel has been ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their homeland for decades, whether by demolishing their homes acquiring their land and building illegal settlements, imprisoning them without charge, severely restricting their movement, or resorting to the full horror of military force.
Nor did they refer to Israel as practicing apartheid. As defined by the UN, apartheid is the domination of one racial or ethnic group over another.
Apartheid was originally an Afrikaans term; the Israeli establishment prefers the Hebrew word hafrada (segregation) to describe its own policies, as the term inspires less disgust.
While Israel is not identical to South Africa under white minority rule, many of its practices are comparable. Both Israel and apartheid South Africa, for example, declared a “state of emergency” in order to introduce measures to curb freedoms and discriminate against those deemed to have the “wrong” colour or follow the “wrong” creed.
Israel’s policy of exclusion is, interestingly enough, not limited to Palestinians, but all those who do not fit within Zion’s criteria. Under Zionist neo-ethno-politico-centrism, sectarianism is only one colour of the rainbow.
