[Peace-discuss] Support & critique of BDS

[David Green]

For the record, I submitted this transcript to both Counterpunch and
Mondoweiss prior to sending it to ZNet yesterday, which put it right up.

Given the current events in Gaza, perhaps the timing of entering these
comments (from earlier this year) into the discussion was problematic;
nevertheless, I feel it's important that they be considered.

In addition, here is my letter to the N-G which was put up this morning:

Settler-colonialism still taking place

Just as the settler-colonialist movement in the U.S. extended at least 114
years beyond independence (Wounded Knee), the movement that has promoted
136 years of Jewish/Zionist settlement in Palestine continues to struggle
with indigenous Arabs, 70 years after Israel’s independence.

Israel continues to deploy well-established means of settler-colonialism:
expulsion (i.e., ethnic cleansing, including Bedouins within Israel proper,
ongoing), occupation, confinement, imprisonment, deprivation and killing.

Zionism, like other settler-colonialist movements, justifies its actions in
terms of historical and religious destiny, civilizational and technological
(European) progress, seemingly contradictory persecution by incorrigible
European cultures (anti-Protestantism, anti-Semitism) and cultural
superiority over the indigenous (barbaric, economically undeveloped)
population.

Familiar racist stereotypes of Palestinians, in reference to their
indigeneity and ascribed (if updated) characteristics as Arabs and Muslims
— backward, stubborn, resistant, irrational, fanatical, hateful, cunning,
violent, terrorist — have developed accordingly and continue to flourish,
even in the liberal Jewish-American (and local academic, Steven Salaita)
context. These stereotypes were wellarticulated, with all avuncular
seriousness and sincerity as well as predictable bombast, by Alan
Dershowitz in his recent comments on campus.

For good measure, Dershowitz described Malcolm X, in unqualified terms, as
a “criminal and bigot,” thus reassuring the audience

that, history aside, a statue of any slaveowner is tantamount to a school
named after an uppity black radical.

This background is consistent with Gaza’s past 70 years, in relation to
ethnic cleansing, refugees, occupation, dedevelopment, blockade, siege and
(since 2005) regular, unprovoked massacres by Israeli forces. These
historical precedents should be considered prologue as current events
unfold. DAVID GREEN Champaign



On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 7:45 AM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> A cogent statement from a prophet without honor in his own country and
> elsewhere:
>
> https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/bds-one-state-two-states-
> tactics-goals-and-resistance/
>
> —CGE
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>
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