Today, Israel is no longer facing a fleeting military or security crisis, but a deep moral and historical crisis that touches the very essence of the Zionist project itself, after the masks have fallen before the world, and the reality of the colonial and racist practices upon which the occupation state was founded, from its inception until today, has been exposed.
For many decades, the Zionist movement sought to present Israel as the "eternal victim" and the state representing Jews worldwide, exploiting the historical tragedy suffered by Jews in Europe during World War II to create unprecedented political, moral, and media immunity for itself. But what is happening in Palestine, especially in Gaza, has brought forth the great moral question before humanity: How can those who claimed to represent the historical victim practice such a degree of killing, starvation, destruction, and siege against an unarmed people under occupation?
The behavior of the occupation state, especially under the governments of the extreme religious and nationalist right led by Benjamin Netanyahu, reveals an arrogant mentality that considers Israel an entity above international law and above human values themselves. The Palestinian, in the extreme Israeli political and security discourse, is not seen as a human being with a natural right to life, freedom, and dignity, but as a demographic and security obstacle that must be subjugated, uprooted, or isolated.
Hence, war crimes and daily violations are no longer mere "military errors," but have become a systematic policy: killing civilians, destroying infrastructure, starving populations, targeting hospitals, torturing prisoners, and destroying the conditions for human life. These are practices that are no longer hidden from the world despite all attempts at media and political cover-up.
More dangerous than that, however, is that these policies are based, among wide segments of the Zionist and religious right, on a biblical and mythical narrative that considers Palestine a "promised land," and deals with Palestinians as mere "gentiles" who do not possess equal rights. Herein lies the danger of mixing religion, politics, and colonialism, when interpreted religious texts become a cover for settlement, uprooting, and military force.
However, this narrative is not exclusive to Jewish Zionism alone, but also intersects with evangelical Christian Zionist currents in the United States and Europe, which have linked support for Israel to religious doctrines and mystical prophecies, and have given the Zionist project broad political and ideological cover. This was clearly evident during the era of Donald Trump, who provided Israel with unprecedented political, strategic, and symbolic support.
But history holds its cruel ironies. Israel, which always tried to monopolize the role of the victim, has gradually begun to transform in the eyes of wide segments of global public opinion into a model of an occupation state, apartheid, and settler colonialism. This transformation is no longer limited to the peoples of the Arab and Islamic world, but has extended to Western universities, trade unions, human rights organizations, independent media, and even within Jewish circles themselves.
The Gaza war has revealed the extent of the moral contradiction within the Western system that speaks of human rights and democracy, while continuing to support the occupation politically and militarily. Therefore, the ready accusations of "anti-Semitism" are no longer able to silence free voices as before, because the world is increasingly distinguishing between Judaism as a respected heavenly religion and Zionism as a colonial and racist political project.
Here it must be clearly emphasized: rejecting the occupation and exposing its crimes does not mean hostility to Jews as Jews, but rather it is a humanitarian, moral, and legal stance against colonialism, discrimination, and organized violence. The Palestinian issue is not a religious conflict, but rather the issue of a people whose land has been uprooted, whose people have been displaced, and who continue to struggle for their natural right to freedom, independence, and self-determination.
History has proven that military force alone does not create legitimacy, and that all colonial projects, no matter how much military superiority and international support they possess, collapse when they lose their moral and human legitimacy. From South Africa to Algeria to other experiences of peoples, the moment the moral narrative collapsed was the beginning of the countdown to the collapse of systems of oppression and colonialism.
Today, Israel appears to be in an unprecedented historical dilemma: it possesses military power, but it is losing its moral image; it has official Western support, but it is losing global public opinion; and it triumphs with fire and destruction, but it defeats itself at the level of human consciousness and conscience.
As for the Palestinian people, despite the killing, siege, starvation, and attempts at annihilation, they continue to assert their historical and human presence, and affirm that peoples are not defeated as long as they cling to their right to life, freedom, and dignity.
شارك برأيك
Israel Between the Myth of the "Chosen People" and the Collapse of the Zionist Narrative