Israel is a Western colony in the Middle East created after 1945 through genocide, extermination, and forcible displacement of the native population of Palestine—the Palestinians—and their neighbors. Israel’s defenders deploy the standard repertoire of colonial pretexts to justify Israel’s existence, from the defense of civilization and the fulfillment of religious prophecy to the need to provide a refuge for a group that has suffered oppression in the West. In the context of Israel, these pretexts are called “Zionism.”
Israel was founded by both American and European colonists. But because Israel is entirely dependent upon the United States for diplomatic, economic, and military support, Israel is not just a Western colony in the Middle East but a specifically American one.
Formed at the same time as dozens of other Western colonies, from India to Indochina, were being dismantled after World War II, Israel represents a fundamental challenge to the norm against Western colonization. As such, Israel also represents a fundamental challenge to international peace and human freedom.
Antizionist legal scholars share
1
opposition to the existence of Israel
2
opposition to any right of self-determination for Jewish people as such in Palestine, with Palestine understood to mean the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea (Jewish Palestinians—the tiny minority of Jewish people whose ancestors lived in Palestine immediately prior to the arrival of the first Zionist colonists in Palestine in 1882—share in the right of Palestinians to self determination in Palestine)
3
the view that Israel is an American colony in Palestine
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the view that military action is required to end Israel and liberate Palestine
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the view that the liberation of Palestine means that the Palestinian people alone should decide how Palestine should be governed after independence, including the legal status of the Zionist colonizer population—so, no two-state solution, one-state solution, or any other externally imposed solution. In other words, Palestinians have a right to govern the land between the river and the sea however they see fit
6
the view that while apartheid is an accurate description of Israeli policy toward some Palestinians in Palestine over certain periods of time, it understates the criminality of Israeli policy toward Palestinians, which is to genocide, exterminate, and forcibly displace them, not merely to segregate them. Zionism is not just racism, but colonialism, and the remedy is not just equality but rather decolonization, understood to mean that Palestinians alone decide how Palestine is governed
7
the view that Israel’s continued existence is made possible by American political and military domination of the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia, and that ending Israel, liberating Palestine, and ending American domination of the region are different ways of articulating the same basic moral imperative
8
the belief that the software runs the hardware—practical men are the slaves of academic scribblers
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a commitment to an intellectual style that emphasizes clarity of exposition, internal coherence of argument, and attention to premises in tackling the problem of ending Israel and liberating Palestine
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interest in leveraging insights from a broad range of disciplines, from law and economics to the psychology of colonial domination and military theory
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