Addressing UAL for Palestine's false claims about Zionism and Israel  

Written as part of a personal project that aimed to shed light on the issues of my university’s UAL For Palestine movement

The UAL For Palestine movement has made some very serious claims about Zionism and Israel. Whilst we fully support freedom of speech, including speech that does not necessarily align with our views, we condemn the dissemination of false information and libel. We wanted to address these statements as we believe that they have the potential to create a false narrative surrounding the conflict that is harmful to Jewish students. Above all, these statements also convey a lack of comprehensive understanding about the conflict and leave no room for alternative voices, inhibiting constructive debate and discussion which is vital to academic environments.

To start, let's address what Zionism actually is. Zionism is support for Jewish self-determination in the Land of Israel, the indigenous land of the Jewish People.

Zionism is not ‘racist’. Arabs and Jews live together in Israel. If it was racist, this would simply not be the case. Israeli Arabs make up 20% of Israel's population, more than the 10% of ultra-orthodox Jews. Arab Israelis and other minorities such as Druze Israeli citizens have the same civil rights as Jewish Israelis. There is universal suffrage and the Arab minority actively contributes to politics with Arab politicians present in the Knesset. Israeli citizens who consider themselves Palestinian, including those in areas B and C in the West Bank and Palestinians of East Jerusalem, are free to vote in the Israeli elections. Racial discrimination in Israel is a criminal offence, and so is any form of discrimination concerning the registration of students by governmental or educational institutions (section 144A-B of the Penal Law, 1977, providing a penalty of up to five years imprisonment for a person who incites racism). Israeli schools, hospitals and the justice system make no distinction between Jews and Arabs. Finally, it is important to note that race does not exist in the Middle East in the same way that it exists in the West. Jews and Arabs can look identical.

To address the next claim made, Zionism is also not ‘colonial’. Both Jews and Palestinians have historical ties to the land, and the Land of Israel is deeply rooted in Jewish history, religion and culture, distinct from colonialists' motivations. The Zionist movement is aimed at coexistence, as seen in their acceptance of the 1947 UN partition plan. Colonialism requires a mother country to impose imperialism and profits off the native people, yet Israel doesn't have a mother country. Criticising Israel's settlement policies is valid but labelling it as settler colonialism is a distortion.

Zionism is not built on ethnic cleansing because again, Arabs and Jews live together within Israel and they have the same civil rights. Furthermore, the population growth rate of Palestinians within Palestinian territories is 2.4%, which is 33% higher than Israel's growth rate. This simply wouldn't be the case if Israel’s goal was to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. During the First Aliyah (mass migration to Ottoman Palestine between 1881 and 1903) Jews moved to vastly underpopulated land bought from absentee landlords, and at the time of the UN partition of 1947, there was a substantial Jewish majority in the areas partitioned for a Jewish state. It is entirely justifiable to criticise Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West bank and Gaza, but there is no significant Israeli ideology to exterminate or expel Palestinian populations from those areas.

Finally, Zionism is not white supremacy. Almost half of Jews living in Israel are Mizrahim "Arab" Jews who have been ethnically cleansed from Muslim countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Furthermore, by erasing the multicultural identity of the Jewish people and labelling all Jews as ‘white’ despite being persecuted by Europeans for not being white, this argument is invalid and even offensive.

In a recent Instagram post, the UAL for Palestine movement referred to Israel as an 'apartheid state'. This is not a statement based on facts and is easily debunked. As previously mentioned, Arab Israelis have the same civil rights as Jewish Israelis and racial discrimination is a criminal offence. This does not mean that Israel is immune to racism entirely, but the racism is not institutionalised, just like in any other country. However, the lack of any racial discrimination enforced by the government or authority omits Israel from being an apartheid state, where a part of the definition contains “institutionalised discrimination” as seen in apartheid South Africa. Using the term apartheid is also extremely harmful as it de-individualises Israelis and classifies them all as participants in an apartheid regime. It delegitimises Israel’s fundamental right to self-defence and national identity, and demonises Zionism, ergo reinforcing old antisemitic stereotypes and beliefs but in a more digestible way for the modern liberal. Finally, we reiterate that it's justifiable to critique the discrimination against Arabs in the West Bank, however this is not apartheid as they are not Israeli citizens.

We would also like to draw a comparison of ‘apartheid’ between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries during the 20th century. In the late 1920s to 1930s, Afghanistan enforced antisemitic pogroms, broadcasting an Arabic translation of Mein Kampf over the radio. By 1933, Afghan Jews were declared non-citizens. Ghetto rules were enforced on Afghan Jews, requiring them to wear particular clothes and restricting them from entering markets or living near mosques. In the 1940s, throughout Bahrain, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Jordan, Afghanistan and Iraq, Jewish bank accounts were frozen. Jews were forced to leave, or forced to remain, synagogues were blown up, Jewish homes were pillaged, and Jewish people were tortured and arrested. At the beginning of the 20th century, approximately 800,000 Jews lived within the Middle East. Today, many of these countries have no Jews living there, including Libya, Sudan and Afghanistan, and other countries have suffered a 99.9% Jewish population decrease. Compared to a country where the minority Muslim population growth rate is 2% and Palestinian population growth is 2.4% compared to overall Israeli growth which is 1.8%, apartheid suddenly seems to be the wrong term. This double standard that Israel is held against is antisemitism by the standard of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which the University of the Arts London has adopted. 

Making these kinds of grand claims based on falsehoods is extremely harmful to Jewish students in the university. It should be said that criticism of the Israeli government is not antisemitic, in fact, it is necessary for the democratic Zionist movement. However, labelling Zionism, the support for Jewish self-determination, as racist and colonial, things it is not, is antisemitic. Calling against the existence of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, is a form of xenophobic hate speech just like calling against the existence of any other state would be.

These buzzwords are easy to use but not only do they not apply to this situation, they distort and oversimplify an extremely complex conflict and impose a Western narrative upon it. This kind of language eliminates any room for constructive debate and promotes extremism and polarisation. We advise that the UAL for Palestine movement and all other groups and individuals speaking about this conflict be more mindful of the words they choose to use.