Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Disarm Israel


A Utopia or a Vision for Peace

A Good Piece
By Ilan Pappe
Znet

"......In Israel, as in the West, the vision of a demilitarized Palestine is accepted as feasible scenario where it would be regarded as totally insane and unhelpful to imagine a peace based on the demilitarization of Israel as well. This disparity in the attributes of statehood is part of a much larger imbalance in the international community perception of, and attitude towards, Israel and Palestine.....

Conclusions

The project of disarming Israel is thus presented here as an ideological diffusion. It begins with asking people concerned with the realities in Palestine and Israel, for whatever reason, to learn the history of the Zionist project, to understand its raison d'être and its long term impact on the indigenous people of Palestine. Hopefully such knowledge about the history would associate the violence raging in that land with the historical roots and the ideological background of Zionism as it developed throughout the years.

The recognition of the past and present role of the ideology that necessitated the building of a fortress with one of the most formidable armies in the world, and one of the most flourishing arms production industry, enables activists to tackle tangible goals in the struggle for peace and reconciliation in Israel and Palestine, and in the general struggle for disarmament in the world

An efficient process of ideological diffusion should avoid unnecessary demonization, a clear distinction between political systems and ‘people' as such, a good understanding of knowledge production, of information manipulation as well recognition in how educational systems are indoctrinated and who governments engage with conjuring up a world distorted representations and demonised images. This is an essence a strategy of activism that would begin a a very tough dialogue with a state and a society that wishes to be part of the ‘civilized' world, while remaining racist and supremacist. In it lives a society that does not wish, or is unable, to see that its ideological nature and its policies locate it within the group of rouge states of this world. For good or for worse, what academics in the West would teach about Israel, what journalists would report about it, what conscious and conscientious people would think about it and what eventually politicians would decide to do about it, is a key for a drastic change in the horrific reality on the ground in Israel and Palestine. This dismal reality has repercussion not only to peace in the Middle East but in the world as a whole. But it is not a lost case, and now is the time to act."

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