Important Data Explaining Zionism's Goals & Strategies

Our olive picking group heard a presentation by BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residence & Refugee Rights. BADIL describes itself as a "lobby for Palestinian refugee and internally displaced rights," and emphasizes that it is a "rights based" and not a "humanitarian based" organization (www.badil.org). Lubna, an American-Palestinian, gave an excellent power point talk describing nine distinct Israeli policies designed to displace Palestinians from within Israel, sometimes called the "on-going Nakba." (www.ongoingnakba.org) She asked us to keep in mind two questions as we listened to her: l) Is Zionism racism? and 2) Is Israel a Jewish or a democratic state?


BADIL represents two classifications of people: Refugees, and Internally Displaced Persons, but both are forcibly displaced persons, and as such are 66% of Palestinians, both inside Israel and in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. That is, two-thirds of Palestinians have been forcibly removed from their original homes, and only one-third continue to live in the home of their choice. BADIL defines "forcibly" as resulting from armed conflict causing eviction or flight, and from the imposition of conditions to make life intolerable.

I won't try to duplicate Lubna's talk, but share some details from my notes.

**Israel cannot legally claim "the right to defend itself" against Palestinians, because it is an occupying power with the responsibility to protect the population under occupation.

**Between 1922 and 1947, under British Mandate rule, 150,000 native Palestinians were displaced. In 1948, 750,000 were displaced to create a Jewish state, an event Palestinians call the "Nakba", or Catastrophe. In 1967 450,000 more were displaced during the Six Day War. Since 1967 displacement in smaller numbers constitutes the on-going Nakba.

**In order to create a nation-state, Zionists presented Jews as an ethnicity, not as a religion. Thus there are "ethnic Jews" which include "religious Jews".

**Three obstacles to the Zionist goal of a state in all of historic Palestine: a) the presence of an indigenous population; b) land ownership; and c) the need to colonize (settle) the whole area. To confront these obstacles, the Zionist leaders crafted "Plan Dalet", which went through 13 drafts in order to find the best way to displace the native population instead of massacring them. One result was the depopulation (evacuation) of over 500 villages, most of which were quickly razed to the ground so there would be no possibility of return of the Palestinian villagers. Plan Dalet is a strategic plan still being carried out today in one form or another. Some Christian villages were treated a little less harshly in order to avoid international condemnation.

**To deal with Palestinian property rights, the new state of Israel passed laws declaring that anyone who had abandoned their property (even if fleeing from war) forfeited the property, and anyone who was internally displaced became a "present absentee" with no right to return to their home. The language itself tells you something about the twisted logic that gave Israel control over 78% of historic Palestine, even though the U.N. partition plan had only granted 55% of the territory for a Jewish state.

**The "Israeli Nationality Law" distinguishes between Jews, who are "nationals", and non-Jews (i.e. Arabs) who are "citizens". Fifty other laws discriminate between these two groups. However, the legal definition of "Jewish" is left vague. It is "as determined by the State." This allows the Zionists to manipulate definitions to suit their colonizing needs. For example, when one million Russians applied to enter Israel, they were accepted as Jewish, even though at least 200,000 were known to be Christians.

**Gaza is surrounded by a buffer zone that reaches 3.5 to 5 kilometers into Gaza to include 40% of the richest agricultural land. No one is allowed to enter this zone, let alone farm it. Many Palestinians have been shot at and killed trespassing into the buffer zone.

**Oslo granted fishing rights to Gazans up to 20 kilometers into the Mediterranean. In 2002 this area was reduced to 12 miles, in 2006 to 6 miles, and in 2009 to 3 miles. Given the loss of a sewage system due to Israel's bombs last summer, raw sewage is dumped into the Mediterranean, undoubtedly polluting the fish in this limited area.

**According to BADIL, 60% of Palestinians would chose to return to their original lands and villages, given the opportunity.

Who is a Zionist? A Zionist is anyone who believes in the Zionist Project, which demands that the whole of historic Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and between Lebanon and Egypt, be an exclusively Jewish state.