The Israel on Campus Coalition’s (ICC) document “Countering Divestment and Encouraging Investment in Israel” is a Zionist effort to justify the existence of the state of Israel and its actions at a time when student activists all over the U.S. are taking up divestment campaigns as a result of the situation in Israel/Palestine.

Although support for Israel has never been in doubt among American policy makers and politicians, efforts from Washington insider Zionist organizations such as AIPAC, ADL, Campus Watch, and their student front/network groups like ICC, exist primarily to make sure it never does. As such, the document is just one of many of its kind. These are intended to equip young Zionists on college campuses with arguments to engage the serious debates being raised over Israel. The ICC and other Zionist organizations are coming up with strategies to counter and attack divestment supporters.

Worth reviewing not only to anticipate what Zionist students and allies say (for that you really just have to read Dershowitz, Debka, CNN and Fox News); to really understand the importance of these documents, including this particular ICC one, is to come to two definite conclusions. The first is that student Zionist and allied activity is engineered from above and highly centralized. This, evident on many campuses, is both a consequence and result of student demoralization. Therefore students must be coerced by guilt rather than motivated by belief and analysis arrived at independently of or erring from the inside-the-Beltway organizations and think-tanks that dominate their activities. Second, given this scenario and, relating to this, considering the perspectives and proposals outlined in these documents, one can happily come to the conclusion that Israel, as an Arab segregation state for Jews, is inevitably doomed.

Countering Parallels to Apartheid

The ICC’s document spends much effort refuting the claims by divestment proponents of the historical and analytical analogy between Israel and South Africa. According to the ICC, “Israel makes no distinction between its Arab and Jewish citizens. Israeli Arab citizens enjoy the same rights as their Jewish neighbors.”[1] The analogy finds its coherence, however, not simply because the situations in South Africa and in Israel have both similarities and differences, but also because both Apartheid South Africa and Israel are based on a racial colonial ideology where an exploited people came from Europe, displaced through force of arms an indigenous people considered inferior and imposed a regime from above. The laws and policies of these regimes are explicitly differentiated along racial lines, including citizenship classification, immigration, legal land use, tenancy, settlement patterns, zoning and building policies, not to mention military rule, unspoken policing rules, cultural war etc.

The full implications of the historical analogy cannot be expanded here. However, something can be said about a fundamental issue both colonial states face. The central problem of these types of states is how to establish internationally recognized sovereignty over the land without recognizing either the existence or rights of the indigenous people. Thus the classic racist slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land” is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Expulsion and death is one avenue for fulfilling this prophecy, pursued in 1948 and to a lesser extent in 1967 by the Jewish regime. More typically this problem is worked out through the relentless tyranny of laws established by the dominate racial group, in Israel’s case European Jews, who set up the regime with the help of the imperialist powers. In South Africa, the Afrikaaner regime realized too late that it had to take away citizenship of the black people living in South Africa. To do this it set up Bantustans with “governments,” tried to force African people to live there and got them internationally recognized as “states.” In Israel the problem is how not to give citizenship or when necessary, maintain limited citizenship. Nevertheless, both problems are worked out not only through brute military and police force through the state and associated vigilantes but also a legal framework. It is critical that everything operate through the law as way to maintain a claim to legitimacy and obscure authoritarian social relations – in this case the dominant one, though by no means the only one, is racial.

In the South Africa case the complications around full citizenship involved skin color, in Israel it revolves around geographic location. The Jewish state has no constitution and citizenship is based on a Jew and non-Jew definition. Obviously with millions of Palestinian Arabs under its control this presents historically an untenable situation. To address this problem the Israeli state has set up different classifications of citizenship for the indigenous population, which is nevertheless merely a slowly sinking ship. The Jewish regime controls all land in historic Palestine but it classifies the Palestinians who live in it (or out of it) differently. There are the 1948, the 1967 and the refugee Palestinians, referring to the period when they came under the control of the regime. The 1948 Palestinians are “citizens” of Israel, the 1967 Palestinians living in the West Bank or Gaza Strip (who aren’t refugees from destroyed towns in Israel) have no status, and the refugees are classified as “absentee,” meaning they were missing from their property when Israel confiscated it and therefore have no rights.

Again, a detailed analysis of this system will have to wait another time but a couple examples of the implications of this will suffice for now. The Israeli regime inaugurated its form of Apartheid by razing hundreds of Palestinian villages and confiscated untold numbers of homes. 1948 Palestinians were herded into Arab only zones. The 1967 Palestinians were to face a repeat of such policy. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live in Arab only zones, surrounded by Jewish-only neighborhoods and Israeli-only roads, which at this time Israel, through Oslo or the Road Map, is trying to get internationally recognized as state(s), with a puppet local government and no sovereignty. This is what South Africa tried to do with its Bantustan strategy.

It is not surprising then that building permits, demolition orders and land confiscation by the state, as just a small part of the larger issue discussed here, are a major part of constructing Israeli Apartheid. Neither 1948, 1967, or refugee Palestinians get too many building permits. It isn’t that they cannot technically or “legally” get them, the point is that they very rarely do. For the haters of Arabs and Muslims this is a small peg to hang a lot of baggage on. Meanwhile, building homes for Jews, like Jewish birth rates, is a major strategic concern and effort for the regime. This logically leads to the concentrated effort of the regime to demolish, under law, Palestinian homes or to confiscate land for state purposes, which in turn are turned over to Jewish only neighborhoods. The 1948 Palestinians additionally face the fact that 93% of the land is excluded from them and provided to Jews only by the Jewish National Fund. Within Palestine/Israel, the majority of the Palestinian population has been forced to move into the ghettos of the West Bank and Gaza for no other reason in that they were not Jewish and therefore an impediment to the Zionist objective of creating a racially pure Jewish state. Even within the racial borders of their cinder block shanty towns, its not as if Palestinian people are free - unless you consider being able to move within a few mile radius the absolute liberty one can experience.

Next, the ICC document wants to argue that the West Bank and Gaza make up its own country, Palestine. Many liberal and hardline Zionists still say this of Jordan. Jordan is Palestine. In their racist fantasy world all the Arabs are part of the same dark mass, without culture or histories. "That’s for Europeans since they invented it," they say. Of course the West Bank and Gaza do not constitute what we would conceive of as an independent nation. Official discussion illustrates Gaza and the West Bank as a viable nation. It is not as if Palestinians living within the confines of the West Bank and Gaza are not allowed to move freely – they are restricted from using the major highways and have to subject themselves to checkpoints and the obstacles of Jewish only housing developments, often called settlements. What could be a 15-minute journey for an Israeli Jew could take 90 minutes for a Palestinian. Looking at detailed maps of the area shows the discontinuous and broken nature of the West Bank and Gaza.[2] Public utilities and water is disproportionately distributed among Zionist settlers and the Palestinian population. By continually attacking any economic initiatives, Israel also ensures cheap Palestinian labor. To act as if Palestine is a viable country on its own in the West Bank and Gaza is ludicrous – its economic, political, cultural and military affairs are subjugated to the Zionist government. But in the end these are symptoms of a more fundamental reality. It is that the regime is ideological committed to control of the tiny West Bank and Gaza and that a whole system has been developed over the last 55 years officially which sees that such a commitment operates even beyond the conscious ideological level.

It is clear that the ICC document is running on fumes – whether hope or delusion it hardly matters. Despite the evidence, the ICC maintains that “Democracy is the cornerstone of State of Israel."[3] Even after examining cursory evidence it is clear they mean democracy for Jews only. While it might hurt Zionists feelings to say so, the reality of the situation is that Israel manifests all the characteristics of an apartheid state.

Anti-Peace, Not Anti-War

The ICC document also claims that divestment is “anti-peace” not “anti-war” and divestment activists are “more interested in demonizing Israel than truly promoting peace and reconciliation and deliberately ignore fundamental facts about Israeli democracy and its pursuit of peace.”[4] Of course Zionists want be left in “peace” – so they can peacefully oppress and continue to cleanse the region of Palestinians. We’ve already gone over the absence of “peace” caused by the function of the Jewish state.

The charge of not being anti-war is a funny one. Obviously, there is a war going on in Palestine. But the ICC knows this, that’s why they are “anti-terror,” so it turns out they aren’t anti-war. But we all know what side of this war against systematic oppression they are on, a fact in the future when their Apartheid system is destroyed they will have to spend some time covering up.

The racial overtones of the anti-peace argument are well worn, constructing the image of the “savage” behavior of Palestinians who resist oppression and colonization. Further, as the logic goes, divestment campaigners building support in America for Palestinian resistance to the oppressive practices of the Zionist state must support the “terrorist” activity against Israel in the form of suicide attacks. In fact, any form of resistance against Israeli oppression, whether it be children hurling stones at the heavily armed Israeli military or Molotov cocktails to counter tanks, has been dubbed as terrorist, savage behavior. In the white supremacist logic of Zionism the mere presence of the Arab is a potentially terrorist situation – the long list of aphorisms about Arabs in Israel and among Zionists and Americans testifies to this.

The Search for Therapists

The criminal conscious naturally seeks the balm of the victim’s consent. The right-wing Zionist dispenses with such luxuries, assured that the victim deserves complete destruction, but the liberal and left-wing Zionist wants consent by the ruled. This gives him comfortable legitimacy in his own mind and his supporters. The left-wing Zionist practices “soft” Zionism.

“Soft” Zionism, while not as blatantly obvious, takes a more “concerned” position on the Israel/Palestine conflict. While ready to admit that Israel is responsible for human rights violations, in the process it paints the “difficult” situation of Israeli Jews. Wanting a homeland, yet faced with an ethical personal conflict, they will convey a sense of shared despair. Their sentiment, whether genuine or not, is expressed in the hopes of placating student activists or other sympathizers of the Palestinian struggle. Two positions in the ICC document illustrate the way soft Zionism functions to counter the divestment campaign. One argument put forward is that “Divestment violates academic freedom.”[5] The ICC document puts forth the rationale offered by Harvard University president Laurence Summers. The excerpt included in the ICC document is his position on the Harvard-MIT petition. He argues “Members of our community are free to express diverse views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the conduct of the parties involved. The university protects that freedom and affirms its proper role, by resisting calls to issue institutional judgments on that conflict.”[6] This is related to criticizing particular policies of the Israeli state. In Summers’ power play he is seeking to declare what is by definition a collective struggle, either liberation of the Palestinian community in Palestine/Israel or the divestment struggle on campus or stopping U.S. aid, to an individual one of conscience. The liberal or leftist Zionist, like many “leftists” today, believe that the situation is defined and can be remedied by an adjustment in the individual conscience. How many times has an organizer seen the “soft” Zionist group, in a Laurence Summer like move, try to start a dialogue group with Palestinian, Muslim and divestment organizers as a way to take away both the collective basis of the struggle and to erase its political and social dimensions to one of personal psychological interaction. They want to stand in good with Arabs and Muslims, shake hands for the cameras, without accepting any change in the social relations – without any acceptance of the campaign program. Unfortunately, for Summers and the like, the question is not the psychological burdens of conflicted racist feelings of liberals and social democratic defenders of Israel, but its system and structure, and its relation to the university and the U.S. government.

Another aspect of this guilt, fear and loathing by “soft” Zionists and liberal and social democratic supporters of Israel is encapsulated in the ICC document in the phrase “divestment singles out Israel alone.”[7] Again, this is a move to obscure the exceptional status, the particular oppression, that is occurring in Palestine/Israel and to characterize it as a typical repressive function and its accidents that all states carry out and face. Yet at this time states and ruling classes do not function this way. Systematic and legal state driven racial oppression on such a scale as discussed here does not exist elsewhere. With the fall of the Afrikaaner regime in South Africa only the Jewish regime in Israel remains.

Rotting Inside the Beltway

As stated in the introduction the ICC document exhibits all the fatal symptoms of the organizing of Zionists and their friends. The ICC document produces nothing original. It is a collection of quotes by authorities in Zionist organizations, American politicians, Israeli government officials, and university administrations. One gets the overwhelming impression that this is a marketing product and focus group tested and distributed to mostly half-hearted passive students who are conscripted to in effect, “do their duty.” Independent student activity, not even but especially by Zionists, is frowned upon which can only mean the stifling of original analysis and organizing. Such methods are inefficient, slow and, ultimately, demoralizing for the conscripted rank and file. Belief and a sense of right against wrong cannot be manufactured from above or managed by lobbyists. It can only be worked out and tested by ground level based activists – something that they cannot do. Why?

Because these organizations and their friends are heavily supported by the state domestically, just like Israel is supported against the Palestinians abroad. They cannot get out of the trap of not only being oppressors, but appearing as oppressors. These organizations and their allies openly collaborate with the FBI, local police and university security apparatuses to attack solidarity activists, and conspire with politicians, university administrations and agents of the state. In the end, like the predicament of Israel, this is an impossible situation. Colonialism and imperialism are obvious failures in the Middle East and Palestine/Israel. They have been fought for a century and cannot endure forever. Yet these organizations and allies cannot put forward alternative perspectives or proposals because they are built and operate irredeemably on these sandy foundations. Here is their only (and hopeless) way of trying to get around this.

Organizations like the ICC, ADL, and AIPIC, or Hillel promote what they would like to call Jewish “activist” activity, and attempt to create the appearance of independent Jewish student groups raising serious ethical concerns over “anti-Semetic” attacks and the supposed tolerance that institutions are granting those attackers. They attempt to appropriate the identity of the historically oppressed Jew.

It reminds the young Zionists that they must defend Israel, their veritable homeland and that “Israel is under attack…its very existence is uncertain…” In reality these Washington based organizations are openly brokering deals with policymakers successfully securing support for Israel for the past half century. They work with and collaborate with the FBI. But an important component of these organizations strategy is to reinforce their own Zionist community’s support for Israel by constructing a critical crisis for Israel in order to reinforce a strong connection between Jewish identity and the Zionist state.

But what does this defense amount to? If Israel were really in a crisis, organizations such as the ICC would not be advocating a buy Israeli goods campaign, selling cookies or buying care packages for Israel, as they do in this document. If the existence of Israel’s Apartheid is under attack, wouldn’t they call on the youth to come to and defend the country, not resorting to Girl Scout fundraising tactics? This is middle class charity. It isn’t that elements in these organizations don’t understand the total attack on the Zionist system and its implications. They simply know that there is no defense of this system beyond the racist slogans they concocted, which only further reveals the basis of the system they attempt to defend. How can young Zionist students, student “committees on terror,” or the college Democrats and Republicans handle such a disaster without going all the way and endorsing and organizing for the right-wing Zionist paramilitaries and the like? They cannot.

The coordination from above and the inability to change history, turning Zionists and imperialists into victims, demonstrates that any support or movement for Israel is doomed to fail and Israel is a dying project. It is not rooted on the ground with the everyday people and has no internationalism or universality. Realistically, since support for Israel has to be maintained by strategic planning from above, the lack of connection to everyday people and engineered antics are bound to fall under the pressure of a grass roots, multi-racial American solidarity movement for Palestinian freedom. While Palestinians struggle for basic liberties, the Zionist objective will divert attention away from the issue at hand by labeling the struggle and the movement as anti-peace. If solidarity activists are anti-peace, it is because they are reject peace the way Zionists have defined it – on their terms and at the expense of the native Palestinian population.