Ghada Karmi Exposes Israeli Racism

Her talk also exposed Jewish Zionist racism in Toronto.

Dear Friends:

There was a meeting last evening at University of Toronto sponsored by NECEF, Science for Peace, Canadian Arab Federation, Canadian Friends of Sabeel, and addressed by Dr. Ghada Karmi. Dr. Karmi is a Palestine refugee from Jerusalem, who has lived most of her life in England. Her topic was: Medicine, War and Occupation: The Case of Gaza. She reviewed some of the more startling statistics of the catastrophe imposed by Israel on Gaza.

One of the statistics referred to by Dr. Karmi was the infant mortality levels in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, and the comparison of those levels with the levels in Israel, which are about 90% lower. The clear inference is that, thanks to generous subsidization by US (and other) pro-Zionist governments and donations by Jewish (and other) pro-Zionist individuals, Israel is able to privilege its citizens with a First World standard of living, while thanks to the very same imperialist subsidization, Israel is able to impose Third World conditions on the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The upshot of Ghada Karmi’s presentation is that there is not a Palestinian-Israeli “war” between “equals”, but rather that the Palestinians are the victims of settler-colonialism, racism, and big-power domination, and are therefore waging a grossly unequal “war” for individual survival, national emancipation, and democratic development.

She urged practical, persistent work on the international boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) campaign, to raise public awareness of Palestinian victimization by Israel, and to make it stop.

In the question and answer period, one man took Dr. Karmi to task for the “bias” of her presentation, referring specifically to the infant mortality statistics. Citing World Health Organization data, this man asserted that the infant mortality rates in Gaza are close to infant mortality figures for Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab countries, although slightly lower. His point was: a. Arabs have high infant mortality rates, and b. Palestinians have benefited from Israel domination.

Dr. Karmi responded by saying that statistics from other Third World countries are not relevant. Her point had been that Third World conditions of poverty are imposed on the Palestinians by an Israeli regime that has the proven wherewithal to maintain First World standards. Only racism explains the Palestinians’ poverty and misery.

A subsequent speaker addressed the apologist for Israel, and he again responded. At this moment I shouted out that he is a racist, and that “I can smell a racist a mile away”. Later, one of my friends commented to me that he is not accustomed to seeing me “lose it”, and I agreed, but I need to explain.

A few years ago, I was at a large meeting in Toronto organized by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. During the discussion, one woman in the audience took the floor and went on about how the Torah and the Talmud are the basis for Jewish misconduct throughout the ages, including Zionist oppression. Veteran anti-racist campaigner Jaggi Singh immediately denounced her as an antisemite.

Let us remember that it is not illegal to be an antisemite or any other form of racist. At the same time, Jaggi Singh showed that it is completely legitimate (and beneficial) for anti-racists to identify and label racists and to shame them publicly.

Yesterday’s minor incident at the Ghada Karmi talk is an instance of the peculiar variety of racism embraced by Israel and its supporters. They don’t accept responsibility for the misery they impose on Palestine. In their public relations efforts, they attribute Palestine’s misery to the shortcomings of “the Arabs”. That is a racist position.

Racist positions are quite widely accepted in Israel, from right to left. The segregationist views of right-wing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman are well-known. On the Israeli left -- including the Israeli “Communist” Party, and including veteran peace activists like Uri Avnery – the accepted wisdom is “Palestine for the Palestinians; Israel for the Israelis”. Although the Israeli “Communist” Party advocates “Jewish and Arab unity in struggle”, and although Uri Avnery opposes discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, both uphold the State of Israel as the “state of the Jews”. While invoking the “principle” of the “right of national self-determination,” these peaceniks refuse to see that the demand for a “Palestinian state alongside Israel” is a demand for formalized segregation along ethnic lines. That is a racist position.

States should not be organized along ethnic lines, even if, at one or another moment in time, the majority of their residents have common ethnic characteristics. (The experiment of “the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidjan” in the former Soviet Union, which facilitated the preservation of Yiddish culture, also preserved the perception of Jews as people separate and apart, and thus laid the groundwork for Stalin’s antisemitic pogrom. Holding open the prospect of a Hebrew ethnic "Birobidjan" in a de-Zionized Palestine reproduces the same dynamic, and fosters racism. ).

In a globalized world, migration is more and more a fact of life, and free and unfettered migration of people should be encouraged. The ethnic composition of the populations of most states is constantly in flux, and the fact of multi-ethnicity requires more and more sophisticated policies of inclusion. Zionism is incompatible with a policy of inclusion.

In this world, the anachronism of “Aryan state”, “Jewish state”, “Islamic state”, “Hindu state”, “Sinhalese state” (and the like) is overwhelming.

Zionism is the only case of radical ethnic-nationalism that enjoys the explicit endorsement and blessing of all the great powers. This defines the scope of our political mission.

The “Zionist left” and the “non-Zionist left” live in a constant conflict between universalist values of solidarity and particularist Zionist values of apartheid. This conflict tends to paralyse them and distort their message and render them politically ineffectual.

For its part, the Zionist mainstream claims that it complies with moral values by claiming that Israeli conduct remains on “this side” of the genocidal line.

For example, when faced with rhetorical comparisons of Zionist conduct toward Palestinians with Nazi conduct toward Jews, one often hears Zionists ask, rhetorically and self-righteously: “Have we set up extermination camps like Auschwitz and Majdanek? No! So, how dare you compare us to the Nazis!”

Another example is the infamous Dov Weisglas, who said infamously that Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians in Gaza is “to make them get thin, not die of starvation”, claiming this to be a highly moral policy.

What no one mentions is that, before the Nazis erected extermination camps, the Nazi policy was “merely” to cause the Jews to get thin, not die of starvation.

The lesson is that, once you treat people in a de-humanizing way, anything is possible, especially if you legitimize the de-humanization on racist grounds. Racist demonization of the other is a fig-leaf for a genocidal policy. Israel and its apologists are masters at this manoeuvre.

We must be vigilant about this particular Israeli brand of genocidal racism towards Palestinians: "2 legged beasts" (Menahem Begin), "scurrying around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle" (Rafael Eitan), "we are a villa in a jungle" (Ehud Barak), "we are here; they are there" (Ehud Barak), "bring a holocaust upon themselves" (Matan Vilnai), "make them get thin, not die of starvation" (Dov Weisglas), "the most moral army in the world" (Ehud Barak)

The assertion that infant mortality rates in Gaza are “consistent with an Arab norm” -- except for the benevolence of the Israeli blockade -- falls into the same category.

That is why I was able to identify Dr. Karmi’s interlocutor as a racist. And, as Jaggi Singh did to an antisemitic “solidarity activist”, I was happy to “out” him.

Our message must be: Palestine will be free when all of its people (including the refugees!) enjoy the protection of a regime in which one’s ethnicity is irrelevant to determining one’s rights, liberties, access to resources, privileges, and duties.

That is why an effective BDS campaign cannot simply rely on the statistics of oppression. It must be based on generally-accepted values of democracy, decency and solidarity. That requires political education in the spirit of democratic revolution.

Regards,
Henry Lowi

Previous Articles Discussing Ghada and Her Writings

1. Ghada Karmi's Boston College Talk
2. Married to Another Man, Married to Another Woman
3. Followup: Married to Another Man, Married to Another Woman

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