What Supporting Zionism Actually Means
Zionism isn't an abstract idea but a project the implementation of which has required unimaginable levels of oppression and violence. What we're seeing in Gaza now is part of that.
To support an ideology or an ethno-national project means to support it all and not just an idea of it.
It means to support what it actually looks like on the ground for the people for whom it’s not an idea but a lived experience.
It can’t be clearer by now how much violence, killings, destruction, and different (decades-long) forms of oppression people who identify themselves as Zionists have to support and justify these days as Israel is starving and bombing the people of Gaza.
My episode is exactly on that.
In it, I talk about how liberal Zionism is an oxymoron: how one cannot claim to be a feminist, anti-racist, pro-indigenous rights, and supporting anti-colonialism while self-identifying as Zionist. To support an idea – a racist settler colonial project – and to completely separate that idea from how it’s been implemented requires a lot of active ignorance.
I also talk about how there’s simply no excuse to be actively doing that when all resources are there, available.
I cite and point to quite many in this episode. Here’s a list:
My video on the defunding of UNRWA
My video on how limitless Israeli brutality in Gaza has been
Writings and commentary by Mohammed El Kurd
The Silence of the Damned, article by Chris Hedges
A speech by Chris Hedges that I also highly recommend
This Year Has Been The Deadliest for Palestinian Children in The West Bank – What Should We Know?, my own article and podcast episode
A conversation between Daniel Maté and Zachary Thomas Waldman, a liberal Zionist
Israelism, a timely documentary recommendation
And a poem by Rupi Kaur:
As always: stay strong, check on others, and keep your heart open.
❤️💔❤️
Justina
PS. Find a beautiful resource on how to navigate difficult conversations about genocide in Gaza here (it’s with Dr. Gabor Maté and his son, Daniel).
Find all my work on Palestine here.
Originally published on The Exploding Head Blog and Podcast.