Summary
One of the leading liberal Zionist organizations in the US, and Liberal Zionism: A Pillar of Israel’s Settler Colonial Project’s case study in US Liberal Zionism: self-described as a “pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy” organization that works against “bigotry, inequality, and injustice” (Liberal Zionism: A Pillar of Israel’s Settler Colonial Project, lines 213-215).
Details
- As Ayyash presents its positions (lines 215-217): it holds that Israel shares “democratic principles” with the US; it paints the “intensive threat” to “liberal democracy” in Israel as part of a recent global wave of extremism and ethnonationalism also threatening the US; it purports to work “in multi-faith, multi-racial coalitions with communities in their efforts to overcome…oppression and to strengthen liberal democracy”; and it believes Israel faces “dangerous enemies” and has the right to defend itself — and, by extension, democracy, progress and civilization.
- Building on a foundation that renders “questioning Israel’s fundamental right to exist as a Jewish homeland” illegitimate, it constructs its opposition to the occupation: it acknowledges Palestinians “deserve full civil rights and an end to the systemic injustice of occupation” and “support[s] the creation of an independent, de-militarized state of Palestine with defined borders” (line 217).
- Ayyash’s critique of the demilitarized-state position: J Street fails to explain why a Palestinian state ought to be demilitarized, a telling example of liberal Zionists holding that Palestinians already are, or can always potentially become, dangerous enemies who will inevitably unleash organized military violence if given access to it; such language falls within decades-long Zionist discourses and policies that racialize Palestinian bodies as violent (line 219).
- Ayyash’s critique of its borders position: its website states Israel must “give up the vast majority of occupied territory on which a Palestinian state can be built in exchange for peace” — “give up” implicitly acknowledges Israel has rights to the territory, reflecting the foundational logic that Israel has a claim to the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea (line 223); and its peace-plan idea “would allow established Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and some of the large West Bank settlement blocs close to the Green Line to be incorporated into the State of Israel”, which Ayyash calls support for annexation, aligning with Israeli governments across the political spectrum (line 225).
- In the annexation conundrum, for J Street and similar organizations annexation has to be limited out of fear that expansion would expose Israel’s settler-colonial foundations (line 229).
Related pages
Liberal Zionism: A Pillar of Israel’s Settler Colonial Project, Liberal Zionism, Two-state solution, Right of Return