"The best hope that Gaza has is if the riots and protests still erupting across the West Bank turn into a full-scale Third Intifada, the protests in Egypt become the basis for the final demolition of the Mubarak regime, and the rest of the Middle East explodes in rebellion." Lenin;Blogger
Do street protests really count? Do images of carnage and of mothers crying out their pain and sorrow really change any? Do experiences of the recent past taught the world any lessons?
Rami Zurayk blogging on Land & People deplores:
"Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in London against Tony Blair's decision to join the US in the Iraq war. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi victims later, the UK is still in Iraq, Labor is still in government and they made Blair a special peace envoy. In Palestine no less.
We worked and worked and worked for Nahr el Bared since day one of the war on the camp in 2007. Hundreds of people offered food and clothes and money. We channelled all that to the 30,000 refugees. We organized vigils, campaigns, talks. We rallied international support.
The camp is still destroyed, and there is no money to rebuild it in spite of all the pledges. The refugees are refugees again. The houses are still without walls, windows or heat."
What I know from years of personal struggle, is that you learn more from your enemy especially when he seems to be winning.
What is the smartest way of defeating an octopus enemy like Israel whose tentacles and strategies of attack are so multifaceted, adaptable, and far reaching?
Steady and disciplined steps may lead to what I would momentarily, and for semantic convenience, call: Counter-Zionism.
First, there must be a phase of learning from your enemy's successes, for Zionism, as much as I despise it for the racist, proto-fascist ideology it represents, is an interesting phenomenon. It has achieved in a relatively short period of time an ever lasting reality deeply affecting international relations. It has succeeded in federating much of the Jewish people under its umbrella whilst in the beginning (at the end of the nineteenth century,) Jews were mostly left leaning and attached to their home countries.
Money of course helped the movement quickly reach its goals, but money would have worth nothing without the ideological basis and the network of financial and logistical support that it received.
I'm not going to embark into a lengthy and boring forensic dissection of the history of Zionism because I want to elaborate on what can be practically learned from it, hopefully receiving help from any reader passing by (although I know this site's popularity figures should convince me to have much less ambitious schemes).
So, a Counter-Zionist movement should learn from Zionism itself and the steps as I imagine them are: First theoretical. Second, ideological. Third, logistical. And last, practical.
With the caveat that terrorist tactics used by Zionism since its inception and still today, should be utterly rejected.
To Be Continued.
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