To wax ironic, Zionism's fatal weakness may be the effect of its greatest strength--its tenacious entwinement in our political culture, which is hard to overstate. We live in a country where powerful politicians and the wealthy donors who control them proclaim their fealty to Israel; where Israeli officials enjoy veto power over candidates for office down to the level of State Assembly. where the Secretary of State gives a "devoutly Zionist" speech and is still criticized for not being obsequious enough to Israel, where the Vice-President declares "I am a Zionist," and where a President who was excoriated for avoiding service in the American army can say "I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die" for Israel, and nobody bats an eyelash.
Really, think about it.
Perhaps most vomit-inducing in the present context, it's a country where the Congress has just overwhelmingly passed a bill de-funding the Palestinian Authority (except, at Israeli insistence, the PA security forces) if they give any support to any family member of a Palestinian convicted of what Israel calls "terrorism" (and others would call anti-colonial resistance), and at the same time that Congress allows the great charitable organization, The Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), to collect $50 million a night, tax-free to itself and tax-deductible to its donors. All that money is needed, over and above the $3.7+ billion the U.S. gives Israel every year, in order to provide extra-comfortable "well-being facilities" for the beleaguered Israeli "coed infantry units" who have the tough job of dragging Palestinian families from their homes and blowing them up--those families the PA is now forbidden to support. Friends of the IDF galas are hosted in New York by Republican billionaire Sheldon Adelson, and in Los Angeles by Democratic billionaire Haim Saban, and entertained by celebrities like Seal and Israeli-born KISS-er, Gene Simmons (Chaim Witz). Bi-partisanship rocks.
America has become a Zionist country. And it shows. And it's discomfiting. For the most powerful people and institutions in the United States, Zionism has become a core component of American ideology and politics, married, like nothing else is, to capitalism and imperialism as a co-equal existential imperative.
It's a peculiar relationship because capitalism and imperialism do not need Zionism, and may even be weakened by it. Zionism is a surplus oppression. The excessiveness and gratuity of Trump's declaration on Jerusalem, which so many people recognize, is only a reflection of the excessiveness and gratuity of Zionism itself, which too many people have for too long taken for granted.
Dragging people from their homes and blowing them up is excessive, an atrocity too far. A partner whose addicted to such behavior will inevitably create trouble for the capitalist-imperialist family, which has enough problems of its own to deal with. It's the U.S who insists, excessively, on including Zionism in a polyamorous arrangement, and who is, as can be expected in such cases, losing its mind over this misplaced affection, and endangering the core relationship.
This is what the German FM and other members of the European Frist Wives' Club see in Trump's Jerusalem declaration. This is what a lot of people see in all the state-destroying, jihadi-chaos-creating aggression from Iraq to Syria and heading toward Iran--all of which makes no sense until you understand that the American project throughout has been an overcomplicated me'nage---trois: capitalism-imperialism-Zionism.
As Shoshana Bryen says: "The United States military, then, is a Zionist institution." Bryen is herself a perfect example of the intimate relations between Israel and the American military, having made the rounds as former Director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA,, the prime meeting spot where Israelis entice senior American officers to see the world as Israel does), and as a lecturer at the National Defense University and the U.S. Army War College.
The hope is that it's all becoming too obvious and too much--an embarrassment of too many riches for Zionism. It's why Hillary Clinton's campaign decided not to highlight--except to donors--her passionate love for Israel: "We shouldn't have Israel at public events. Especially dem (Democratic) activists". What about this as a base, and then she can drop in Israel when she's with donors." While the donors and elite still swoon, the arc of the Democratic base is bending away from Zionism--and the Zionists know it.
There Is No Time
On the other hand, we have to recognize the persistent weaknesses of the Palestinians, who suffer constant, horrendous, human and material losses every day at the hands of a Zionist colonial machine. Israel, the Jewish State, has already established an apartheid regime, the late stage of colonialism, and has made clear that it is determined to extend that as far and as long as it can, with all necessary force. The illusion that America would do something to stop or reverse this has been finally shattered. Though it's stance may be changing, thanks to the likes of Trump, and it is a medium- to long-term weak spot for Israel, the "international community" still grants Israel effective impunity.
The Arab countries? Ha! Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies, and Egypt will supply the rope and tie the knot. The staunchest Arab supporters of Palestine--Iraq, Libya, and Syria--just happen to be the countries ravaged by that United States military institution. A weakened Syria and (non-Arab) Iran may give some assistance, but really, nobody's coming to save the Palestinians.
External support in the way of boycott and sanctions will help also, but significant victories can only come from organized resistance by Palestinians themselves. The Palestinian political leadership which, as Noura Erakat says, "has abandoned confrontation with Israel as a matter of policy" would have to be changed. New leadership would have to emerge that renounces Oslo and forges a militant struggle for equal political and social rights, a multi-level strategy of resistance against colonialism and apartheid. This will be very tough, in a community that's been ground down for decades by the Israeli-PA security apparatus, and the collaborationist mindset and economic interests that support it.
To be thoroughly frank: though militant non-violent civilian resistance must be the core of struggle, it has to be backed by some kind of armed power. The ANC's victorious fight against South African apartheid was not confined to "terrorist" Nelson Mandela's prison cell; his comrades were busy outside. A movement to defeat colonialism and apartheid must demonstrate the capacity not only to take punishment, but also to inflict it, to hurt the forces and institutions imposing Zionist oppression and to disrupt the normalcy of Zionist daily life. Everywhere, enemies of the IDF. No "well-being" respite. No justice, no peace. That is the only way victory over colonialism and apartheid ever has, or ever will be, won.
Since the Zionists' founding spasm of brutal ethnic cleansing--expelling over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs while killing thousands of others--and since colonialism fell into disgrace, Israel has been constrained to pursue further ethnic cleansing in a fitful series of measures, with levels of brutality adjusted for various international political and ideological exigencies. But it has not ceased to probe those limits. Israel is working very hard to compress political time and make it suddenly possible again to exterminate or expel enough Palestinians (we're talking at least tens of thousands) to stabilize Israel for most of a century. That's one of the things Israel's, and its American patron's, support of jihadi chaos in the region, as well as its attempt to foment war with Iran, is all about. The fat lady hasn't sung, but the orchestra is in full swing. The Palestinians don't have forever to stop the music.
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