Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism – OpEd

 December 4, 2023  

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Is Zionism anything but crass racism? Do the Indigenous people have any right to exist in their homeland? Apparently not, if they are Palestinians who are evicted and killed by the Apartheid Zionist state of Israel.

Are not the Palestinian Arabs Semites? Apparently not – in the dictionary of the Zionists.

On Nov. 28, 2023, all but two members of the US House of Representatives voted in favor of a resolution (H.Res.888) which reaffirmed Israel’s right to exist and recognized that “denying Israel’s right to exist is a form of antisemitism.” 

Coming as it did in the midst of the latest genocidal campaign of Israel that witnessed the sheer barbarity of its settler-colonial occupation forces, the so-called Semites,  against the unarmed Palestinian civilians once again showed the moral bankruptcy of the Capitol Hill. It has become a mouthpiece for the Knesset, justifying and funding colonization, violence, and its genocidal agenda against the “other” people who happen to be non-Jewish. 

Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian in the US Congress, voted “present,” effectively an abstention. One may recall that earlier last month, Tlaib was censured by her colleagues in the House for her defense of Palestine. To the ‘Amen Corner’ humans are unequal, Palestinians lives do not matter, and the life of a single Israeli Jew is more important than lives of hundreds of Palestinians. 

Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) wrote on X that he voted against the resolution because “it equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Antisemitism is deplorable, but expanding it to include criticism of Israel is not helpful.” 

Such resolutions passed in the ‘Amen Corner’ that is long mortgaged to the interest of the pro-Israel, Zionist power-lobby should not surprise anyone. 

The 024 election is only 11 months away. With Israel’s latest brutality in Gaza — and the strong backlash from the American public that has come with it — we are told that AIPAC is expected to spend at least $100 million in the Democratic primaries to oust people like Tlaib and the rest of the “Squad” who support Palestinian human rights. 

Democratic candidate Nasser Beydoun posted a video on social media last week revealing that AIPAC offered him $20 million to run against Tlaib. Previously,  Politico reported that Hill Harper, another Democratic hopeful from Michigan, was offered $20 million in a phone call on October 15 from Michigan businessman Linden Nelson — who has long been involved with groups affiliated with AIPAC in efforts to unseat Tlaib — to drop out.

This corruption of U.S. politics with AIPAC’s dirty-money explains the reason why even the so-called most progressive representatives like Cori Bush, who introduced a ceasefire resolution, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, and Ilhan Omar voted in favor of this House resolution.

The House resolution is criminally silent about the Palestinian people, as if they do not exist. It also omitted the mere fact that  prior to the influx of European Zionists, 95 per cent of the population of Palestine comprised of Muslim and Christian Palestinians. More problematically, despite the fact that only 5 per cent of Jews were native and indigenous to Palestine, Tuesday’s resolution declared that Jewish people are “native to the land of Israel.” 

What a mockery! Truly, this resolution once again shows what is wrong with Zionism and its corrupting influence on the ‘Amen Corner’ that is complicit in crimes against humanity. 

Historical facts cannot be whitewashed by such irresponsible resolutions that try to sanctify Zionism and its horrendous crimes against humanity. 

As I have long maintained, political Zionism remains a curse for humanity. It betrayed Judaism and perverted Christianity. The entire policy of the state of Israel, internal or external, has been a colonial enterprise, but it wears the “chador” (cloak) of pseudo-theological myth. Israel remains a racist, settler-colonial enterprise that denies equality of humankind. 

To the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, universal brotherhood “is not even a beautiful dream, antagonism is essential to man’s greatest efforts.” [Jewish State, (1897)] In his Diary, Herzl writes about the establishment of a Jewish state: “We should form there a portion of rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.” Here, it clearly shows his colonial, racist mentality. He first disregards the rights of the Indigenous inhabitants of the Arab Palestinians, and then calls them barbarians. All the Israeli leaders since the establishment of the Zionist state in 1948 have ensured that Israel remains a “rampart” of the West. In so doing, Zionism has transformed Israel into an apartheid state. 

As expected, the western leaders have seen the emergence and protection thereof the Zionist state as a necessary, small investment. Its unholy establishment in the Holy Land allowed them to get rid of the Untermensch from Christian Europe and plant them in the heart of an oil-rich region that had no prior history of antisemitism (in contrast to the false allegation in the H.Res. 888). Zionism sanctioned eviction, dispossession and slaughter of the native Palestinians who are denied the right to return to their ancestral home while allowing non-native Jews to settle in as bona fide citizens. 

Thus, it was no surprise that on Nov. 10, 1975, General Assembly of the UN equated Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. The Resolution 3379 was approved by a vote of 72 to 35 (opposition coming mostly from former colonial and racist regimes like the USA, UK, FRG, Australia, New Zealand, France, Canada, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and some client states and of course, Israel). 

The text of Resolution 3379 (XXX), Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, reads:  

“The General Assembly, Recalling its resolution 1904 (XVIII) of 20 November 1963, proclaiming the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and in particular its affirmation that “any doctrine of racial differentiation or superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous” and its expression of alarm at “the manifestations of racial discrimination still in evidence in some areas in the world, some of which are imposed by certain Governments by means of legislative, administrative or other measures”,

Recalling also that, in its resolution 3151 G (XXVIII) of 14 December 1973, the General Assembly condemned, inter alia, the unholy alliance between South African racism and Zionism…”

The resolution also stated that international co-operation and peace require the achievement of “national liberation and independence, the elimination of colonialism and neo-colonialism, foreign occupation, zionism, apartheid and racial discrimination in all its forms, as well as the recognition of the dignity of peoples and their right to self-determination”. Additionally, it recognized, “the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regime in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure and being organically linked in their policy aimed at repression of the dignity and integrity of the human being”.

It continued, “Taking note also of the Political Declaration and Strategy to Strengthen International Peace and Security and to Intensify Solidarity and Mutual Assistance among Non-Aligned Countries, adopted at the Conference of Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Non-Aligned Countries held at Lima from 25 to 30 August 1975, which most severely condemned zionism as a threat to world peace and security and called upon all countries to oppose this racist and imperialist ideology,

Determines that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”

It took another 16 years when the UN General Assembly revoked the Resolution 3379. Why? Israel had made revocation of Resolution 3379 a condition of its participation in the Madrid Peace Conference, which was aimed  at reviving the Israeli–Palestinian peace process through negotiations in the last quarter of 1991. 

George H. W. Bush personally introduced the motion to revoke 3379. He said: “To equate Zionism with racism is to reject Israel itself, a member of good standing of the United Nations. This body cannot claim to seek peace and at the same time challenge Israel’s right to exist. By repealing this resolution unconditionally, the United Nations will enhance its credibility and serve the cause of peace.”

As the subsequent events proved, Bush Sr. was grossly wrong and so was the UN, which lost its credibility. Peace has been a mirage in the holy land. The UN-revocation simply emboldened Israel to disregard Palestinian rights altogether and commit its genocidal crimes with more vigor, thanks to its powerful backers within the UN Security Council. 

International criminal law, including the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the 1998 Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court, define apartheid as a crime against humanity consisting of three primary elements: (1) an intent by one racial group to dominate another; (2) systematic oppression by the dominant group over the marginalized group; and (3) particularly grave abuses known as inhumane acts.

Under the Rome Statute and customary international law, persecution consists of severe deprivation of fundamental rights of a racial, ethnic, or other group with discriminatory intent.

Israel has remained an Apartheid state that epitomizes racism and bigotry. It is a slap on our collective intelligence and wisdom to say otherwise. 

The charge that Israel is committing apartheid has long been made and supported by United Nations investigators, the African National Congress (ANC), several human rights groups, and many prominent Israeli and Jewish political and cultural figures. 

“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land,” wrote the Nobel Peace Prize-winning bishop Desmond Tutu in 2002. “It reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa.” 

The testimonies of prominent South Africans who defeated apartheid have been harsher. “The current situation” is “worse than conditions were for blacks under the apartheid regime,” said the former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe; it is “far worse than apartheid,” said the speaker of the South African parliament Baleka Mbete; “the Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic,” said the former South African intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils who served in the ANC’s armed wing from its inception in 1961. 

After witnessing the genocide of July-August 2014 in Gaza, Kasrils said, “We have known apartheid. The freedom fighters among us visiting the occupied Palestinian territories have unanimously declared ‘we are reminded of apartheid but what we see is far worse’… no African (black) townships or Bantustan settlements were ever bombed from the sky or attacked by tanks and artillery.” He continued, “We cannot tolerate a critique that questions the Palestinian people’s right to resist by whatever means they deem necessary. We reject the attempts to equate the violence of the two sides as though there can be parity with Israel’s state terrorism and Palestinian resistance. We reject the nonsense of the “terrorism” of the Resistance having the sinister motive of “digging tunnels”. They have enough right to do so as we sometimes did during our armed struggle and as the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto did in their courageous action in their 1943 uprising against the Nazis. We easily understand that it was precisely those tunnels on the borders of Gaza that halted Israeli land forces from advancing to inflict greater carnage.”

To Nelson Mandela, justice for the Palestinians is ‘the greatest moral issue of our time’. “After we toppled the Apartheid regime in 1994,” he went further, saying “We, South Africans, cannot consider ourselves free until the Palestinian People are free”.

Sadly, the Palestinian people remain colonized by the Zionists thirty years after the fall of the Apartheid regime in South Africa. 

The 2017 UN Report argued that Israel is “guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid”, a “crime against humanity under customary international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court”. It urged governments to “support boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] activities and respond positively to calls for such initiatives”. It recommended that the UN and its member states should “revive the Special Committee against Apartheid, and the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid (1976-1991)”. 

As we know too well, thanks to Israel’s supporters, the UN recommendation was never put to practice. 

In a 2021 report, Human Rights Watch said, “Applying the facts to the laws, Human Rights Watch concluded that Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution. We found that the elements of the crimes come together in the occupied territory as part of a single Israeli government policy. That policy is to maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the occupied territory. It is coupled in the occupied territory with systematic oppression and inhumane acts against Palestinians living there.”

It further said, “Today, apartheid is not a hypothetical or future scenario. A 54-year-occupation is not temporary. The threshold has been crossed. Apartheid, and parallel persecution, is the reality for millions of Palestinians.”

It recommended, “Recognizing and correctly diagnosing a problem is the first step to solving it and ending apartheid is vital to the future of both Palestinians and Israelis and the cause of peace.”

The latest mass slaughter and wanton destruction in Gaza once again showed the evil of Zionism. Israel lives in an alternative reality in which genocide and apartheid have been normalized. It is high time that the UN General Assembly reinstates the Resolution 3379 and convict the mass murdering Israeli leaders, and their western backers in the Hague for crimes against humanity.

Zionism is hideous. Anti-Zionism is noble and humane. Zionism is oppression and colonization. Anti-Zionism is freedom. Humanity demands resistance against oppression and apartheid.

Desmond Tutu reminded us: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

The choice is ours. Let us choose what is morally and humanely right. 

Dr. Habib Siddiqui

Dr. Habib Siddiqui has a long history as a peaceful activist in an effort towards improving human rights and creating a just and equitable world. He has written extensively in the arena of humanity, global politics, social conscience and human rights since 1980, many of which have appeared in newspapers, magazines, journals and the Internet. He has tirelessly championed the cause of the disadvantaged, the poor and the forgotten here in Americas and abroad. Commenting on his articles, others have said, "His meticulously researched essays and articles combined with real human dimensions on the plight of the displaced peoples of Rohingya in Myanmar, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo and Palestine, and American Muslims in the post-9/11 era have made him a singular important intellectual offering a sane voice with counterpoints to the shrill threats of the oppressors and the powerful. He offers a fresh and insightful perspective on a whole generation of a misunderstood and displaced people with little or no voice of their own." He has authored 11 books, five of which are now available through Amazon.com. His latest book - Devotional Stories is published by A.S. Noordeen, Malaysia.