We are pleased to republish this article from Soni Lloyd’s blog, Loyal to the Truth. Soni spoke at one of our Coalition Web seminars this Tuesday, and while we may not always agree on every point, this post seemed to us to be worth sharing.
The Human Cost of Zionism
Can you put yourself into the shoes of a Palestinian living with no human rights under the longest military occupation in recent history? The military checkpoints, separation walls used to steal land, racist discriminatory political system, unemployment and poverty among the worst in world, the blockade by land, air and sea preventing essential materials needed to sustain life, home and business demolitions, ethnic cleansing and settlement expansion, the constant fear of military invasion and bombardment, having no state to protect you? This is the human cost of establishing and maintaining a Jewish supremacist nation-state in Palestine, otherwise known as modern Zionism.
The modern Zionist project of creating an ethno-religious state cannot be reconciled with democracy. This same contradiction makes democracy impossible in Muslim and Christian states that have their own terrible history of expelling and killing people of the Jewish faith. Dehumanizing one group of people to keep another “safe” is not sustainable or moral and just fuels the cycle of violence. Democracy will keep us safe, not bigoted and racist political systems.
Israel was born out of the same nationalism and imperialism that brought about the genocide of the Native Americans, the African slave trade and subjugation of Black people in the United States, the colonization of the globe by Europe and the United States and eventually two world wars. If we have learned anything from history it is that colonization and racism leads to immense human suffering.
The teachers of LA refuse to stay silent during this developing genocide and have passed resolutions that call on United Teachers Los Angeles to support the end of U.S. military aid to Israel, the end to Israeli occupation and war crimes and the right of return for Palestinians. Educators in Seattle, San Francisco and Vermont have done the same.