My Journey Out of Zionism: A Personal-Political Testimony

Credo

Needless to say, the collapse of the genocidal apartheid Israeli regime is a necessary condition for any decent vision regarding the future of Palestinians. Assisted by the global BDS movement, such a collapse is within reach.

In 1984—following some two decades as a human rights activist young man committed to the defence of Palestinian rights in genocidal apartheid Israel and subsequently in the USA and Canada as New School for Social Research (NSSR) PhD student and graduate and in the UK and Europe as a University Lecturer at the School of Peace Studies, University of Bradford (where I set-up the Bradford University School of Peace Studies Placement Programme in Palestine) and as Honorary Research Fellow (founder of the Palestine Studies Programme/Palestine Studies Trust adjacent to the University of Exeter) and then later as an independent academic researcher—I was invited by the late supreme Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat (Abu Ammar) to join the 17^th Palestine National Council (PNC) convened in Amman (at first as Guest, then, upon arrival, as Observer-Member, subsequently as Full-Member then eventually as member of the Central Council) as well as recommended by his FATEH Deputy Leader the late Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) to FATEH membership (and to appointment as Director of FATEH office in London, registered as a company entitled “Jerusalem & Peace Service”).

The nutshell of my contribution at the Political Meeting of the said 1984 PNC meeting (Chaired by Dr Nabil Shaath) can be rephrased as follows:

When formulating a vision of an anti-Zionist liberated Palestine,

the PLO (the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian People) could do worse than take as point of departure a page of the narrative of the late President Nelson Mandela’s vision for a future liberated South Africa which reads:

“During my lifetime, I have dedicated my life to the struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve, but, if need be, my lord, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

(Nelson Mandela and others v. The State in 1963-64, better known as the Rivonia Trial; https://history.vcu.edu/news/newsroom/history-news/humanity-equality-and-peace-the-life-and-vision-of-nelson-mandela.html)

Subject to underlining that by taking the liberty to rephrase Nelson Mandela’s vision in personal terms does not and ought not be interpreted in any way as suggesting that my modest leadership stature in FATEH and the PLO is comparable to that of Mandela’s iconic leadership, I suggest that given the specific history of the conflict between the genocidal settler-colonial apartheid Israel Vs the indigenous Palestinian-Arab people where the ethnically cleansed and dispossessed Palestinian people (notably Palestinian middle-class) have TABU registration in respect of their respective titles to their properties - a personalized Mandela vision contextualized in terms of the conflict between genocidal settler-colonial apartheid Israel Vs the indigenous Palestinian-Arab people would read:

Political-Zionism is nothing other than politization of the Jewish religion similar to ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq & Syria) and the CFPA (Christian Falangist Party of America). During my lifetime, I have dedicated my life to the struggle of the Palestinian people. I have fought against political-Zionist genocidal apartheid domination and against all forms of confessional domination as well as cherished the ideal of a liberal-democratic Constitution and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal rights and opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve, but, if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

It would be correct to say that until I was introduced to the New School for Social Research (New York, NY USA) for my PhD studies I was a radical human rights activist Jewish citizen of Israel and the UK citizenship – but only vaguely aware of the centrality of the legal implications of decent implementation of the Palestinian right of return as per UN General Assembly Resolution 194(ii) of 1948 to achieving a just and stable solution of the conflict between the genocidal settler-colonial apartheid Israel Vs the indigenous Palestinian-Arab people.

As a young man fortunate to have been imparted by my quintessential liberal-democratic British-Jewish father, Joseph Stanley Davis, and Czechoslovak-Jewish mother, Blanka Davis (née Kacerova), fundamental humanitarian values (best articulated by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights also of 1948) the voice of my conscience has remained loud and clear – but (not surprisingly) my awareness of the of the legal implications of the centrality of a decent implementation of the Palestinian right of return and the centrality of taking the 1948 Palestinian Nakba as point zero for a valid understanding of the Palestinian-Israel conflict was rather limited.

After all, the implications of the 1948 Palestinian Nakba are not included in the teaching curriculum of genocidal apartheid Israel schools and my awareness of the said centrality came about in stages culminating at the turning point of having refused (again in stages) compulsory military service in the Israeli army and as a Gandhian pacifist sent by the Ministry of Defence Manpower Department to do alternative military service in the genocidal apartheid Kibbutz Erez located next to the borders of the Gaza Strip on the lands of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian village of Dimra (see screenshot below).

(Yet to be updated https://uridavis-official-website.info/autobio_pdfs/chapter2.pdf).

At the time (early 1960s), the equation I had in my mind when responding with the single sentence: “Then why not let them return” could only have been “and have them join you on an equal footing as members of the Kibbutz”

How pathetic. 

The ethnically cleansed Dimra refugees have British Madate and/or Ottoman TABU registration of their respective properties.

Thus, the only decent implementation of Nelson Mandela’s vision is definitely not “on an equal footing as members of the Kibbutz” but, rather, as former squatter illegal criminal settler-colonial Kibbutz members, their status now legalized as fixed-term tenants residing on Palestinian properties in terms of an interim contract correlatively acknowledging the respective Palestinian British Mandate and/or Ottoman TABU title registration of the respective properties in question.

Compensations due to the respective title owners for the range of damages caused by to them and their respective families by the political-Zionist genocidal apartheid invasion of historical Palestine be offset against the increase in value of the properties in question since the 1948 Palestinian Nakba (in some areas a thousandfold - if not more - increase in value).

Informed by the “Oslo” Accords, the only decent implementation I can conceive of is in terms of an interim five year contracts (subject to renewal, but at the discretion of the Palestinian title holder)—not unlike any tenancy contract common in New York, Berlin or London – thereby transforming the genocidal apartheid Kibbutz (only for persons classified under the 1950 Law of Return/1970 Amendment as “Jews”) into a decent open “mixed” community under the sovereignty of a middle-class liberal-democratic Constitution^[1] – again, not unlike any tenancy contract common in New York, Berlin or London.