Jewish supremacy
The concept of Jewish supremacy accompanies discourse pertaining to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, asserting that the ethno-nationalist views, policies, and identity politics of some Israeli Jews arise to the level of a form of supremacism vis-à-vis the Palestinians, who are an Arab people.[1][2][3] The term has been used by a variety of critics of Israeli policies, with some arguing that it reflects a broader pattern of discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.
In 2021, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem classified the State of Israel as "a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea" through laws amounting to apartheid. It also took note of the fact that, after it was established in 1989, it initially focused on the legal and social situation in the Israeli-occupied territories, but that "what happens in the Occupied Territories can no longer be treated as separate from the reality in the entire area under Israel’s control," owing to the fact that there "is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle."[4]
Proponents of the one-state solution cite the development of Jewish supremacy as one of the main reasons for the necessity of a single country that applies democratic principles across all sectors of society, regardless of ethnic or religious affiliations.[5]
Discourse
[edit]Ilan Pappé, an expatriate Israeli historian, writes that the First Aliyah to Israel "established a society based on Jewish supremacy" within "settlement-cooperatives" that were Jewish owned and operated.[6] Joseph Massad, a professor of Arab studies, holds that "Jewish supremacism" has always been a "dominating principle" in religious and secular Zionism.[7][8]
In 2002, Joseph Massad said that Israel imposes a "Jewish supremacist system of discrimination" on Palestinian citizens of Israel, and that this has been normalized within the discourse on how to end the conflict, with various parties arguing that "it is pragmatic for Palestinians to accept to live in a Jewish supremacist state as third class citizens".[1]
In the aftermath of the 2022 Israeli legislative election, the winning right-wing coalition included an alliance known as Religious Zionist Party, which was described by Jewish-American columnist David E. Rosenberg as a political party "driven by Jewish supremacy and anti-Arab racism".[9]
Examples
[edit]Various discriminatory (or allegedly discriminatory) policies and practices have been cited variously as perpetrating Jewish supremacy in Israel,[10] including the 1952 Citizenship Law and [11] the 2018 Nation-State Law.[12] The banned Israeli political party Kach, the phenomenon of Israeli settler violence, and all of the Netanyahu-led Israeli governments have been accused of pursuing a Jewish supremacist agenda, particularly against the Palestinians.[11][13]
See also
[edit]- Israeli apartheid
- Racism in Jewish communities
- Zionism as settler colonialism
- Chosen people
- Christian supremacy
- White supremacy
References
[edit]- ^ a b Massad, Joseph. "On Zionism and Jewish Supremacy". New Politics. 8 (4): 89.
- ^ The violent lies of Israel’s president
- ^ Chanting ‘burn Shu’afat’ and ‘flatten Gaza,’ masses attend Jerusalem Flag March
- ^ "A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid". B'Tselem. 12 January 2021.
- ^ Reiff, Ben (2023-07-30). "The only answer to the Israeli right's war: A state for all its citizens". +972 Magazine. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
- ^ Ilan Pappé (1999). The Israel/Palestine question. Psychology Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-0415169479.
Whereas the First Aliya established a society based on Jewish supremacy, the Second Aliya's method of colonization was separation from Palestinians.
- ^ David Hirsch, Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Cosmopolitan Reflections Archived 2008-10-11 at the Wayback Machine, The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism Working Paper Series; discussion of Joseph Massad's "The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle", Interventions, Vol. 5, No. 3, 440–451, 2003.
- ^ According to Joseph Massad's "Response to the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report" Archived 2006-09-13 at the Wayback Machine on his Columbia University web site during a 2002 rally he said "Israeli Jews will continue to feel threatened if they persist in supporting Jewish supremacy." Massad says others have misquoted him as saying Israel was a "Jewish supremacist and racist state." See for example David Horowitz, The professors: the 101 most dangerous academics in America, Regnery Publishing, 271, 2006
- ^ Rosenberg, David E. (30 October 2022). "What Makes Israel's Far Right Different". Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C.: Graham Holdings Company. ISSN 0015-7228. Archived from the original on 8 November 2022. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
- ^ Menchik, Jeremy (August 2024). "Introduction: Symposium on the Jewish Left". Critical Research on Religion. 12 (2): 210–214. doi:10.1177/20503032241269655.
- ^ a b "Supremacy Unleashed: The Ongoing Erosion of Palestinian Citizenship in Israel." Shira Robinson 2021, The Routledge Handbook of Citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa
- ^ Saïd, Ibrahim L. (1 October 2020). "Some are more equal than others: Palestinian citizens in the settler colonial Jewish State". Settler Colonial Studies. 10 (4): 481–507. doi:10.1080/2201473X.2020.1794210.
- ^ Segal, Raz (15 August 2024). "Settler Antisemitism, Israeli Mass Violence, and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies". Journal of Palestine Studies: 1–24. doi:10.1080/0377919X.2024.2384385.