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Joseph Massad 1
JOSEPH MASSAD is assistant professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University. He is author of Colonial Effects, The Making of National Identity in Jordan (Columbia University Press, 2001) and numerous articles on the Palestinian Israeli conflict.
IT IS NO LONGER CONTESTED, EVEN AMONG MANY ISRAELIS, that the impact of Zionism on the Palestinian people in the last 100 years includes: the expulsion of a majority of Palestinians from their lands and homes and the subsequent confiscation of their property for the exclusive use of Jews and the prevention of the refugees from returning; imposing a military apartheid system on those Palestinians who remained in Israel from 1948 until 1966, which since then has been relaxed to a civilian Jewish supremacist system of discrimination; and the military occupation and apartheid system imposed on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and their population for the last 34 years as well as continued colonization of these occupied territories. Can there be a solution to the conflict that Zionism brought from Europe and imposed on a mostly peasant population?
Ever since the Oslo "peace process" began in 1993, most debates among official Israelis, Americans, and Palestinians about how to "end" the conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians stressed the question of pragmatism as opposed to idealism. The logic runs as follows: it is not pragmatic to give the refugees the right of return; it is not pragmatic to give them back their property; it is not pragmatic to dismantle the colonial settlements in the Occupied Territories; it is not pragmatic to return all the territories to Palestinian control; it is not pragmatic to end all aspects of the occupation. Moreover, although Israel's Jewish character was never part of the negotiations, it has always been made explicit that transforming Israel into a non-Jewish (read non-racist) state is "not pragmatic."
On the pragmatic side, the arguments run as follows: it is pragmatic for Palestinians to give up the right of return; it is pragmatic for Palestinians to accept to live in a Jewish supremacist state as third class citizens; it is pragmatic for Palestinians to live in Israeli-controlled and besieged bantustans rather than opt for independence; and it is pragmatic for Israel to...