Getting It: Another American Renounces His Zionism

If this guy can get it, every American can

In Mondoweiss, Lenny Lapon writes about Renouncing my Israeli citizenship:

On October 19, 2010 my plane landed in Israel and instantaneously I was awarded Israeli citizenship with identification card # 012706735, solely because I am Jewish. Through reflection and study I have come to realize that this act was a travesty of justice. There are several million Palestinians and their descendants who cannot enter and/or live and move freely in their native historical homeland...

Israel is not becoming an apartheid state—it already is one with separate and unequal laws and policing for its Jewish citizens on one hand and for its non-Jewish, mostly Arab citizens and victims of the occupation on the other hand.

It is with a newfound clarity of thinking and analyzing a very emotional tragedy that I have thrown off the shackles of Zionist propaganda and am proudly and publicly renouncing my Israeli citizenship effective immediately.  At the same time I denounce the ongoing colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, a terrible injustice that is greatly facilitated by US tax dollars supporting the vast Israeli military machine. I also encourage other Jews to educate themselves and to stand on the side of the oppressed.

Mondoweiss posts Lapon's article with this picture of a welcoming ceremony for Jews making “aliyah” to Israel, of a kind that Lapon himself may have experienced:



This, we can surmise, has now been replaced for Lapon--and should be for everyone--with images like this:

And this horrific dance of death, where the man in green (I think the same guy in picture above), a Palestinian civilian accompanying international workers on a search for dead relatives, is shot to death by an Israeli sniper:

It is we Americans who are pulling the trigger here. This cannot happen without the full support of American politicians and media, and the complicit silence of every self-identified "progressive" who lets that pass. It is us this boy is beseeching:

"He clung to the paramedic, crying, 'I want my father!' until he had to be forced to let go" 

http://t.co/QfWHHqXxFa pic.twitter.com/ssMOkvPr2g — Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) July 21, 2014

No more excuses. This is the violence of colonialism. Zionism is colonialism, and must be opposed. It takes a bit of intellectual honesty to recognize this, and a tiny (infinitely less than we require of that boy) to speak up about it. All PEP* boys and girls--from Bill Maher to Elizabeth Warren--have to be challenged on the spot, and every progressive has to, once and for all, as Lenny has, let go of the idea that s/he is doing something virtuous by supporting the Jewish colonization of Palestine.. 


*Progressive Except Palestine



Related Posts: Dropping a DIME: Max Blumenthal and the Erosion of Liberal Zionism,
"Without America this cannot happen." Jewish Grandmother Shows the Way,
Murder at a Discount: Pricing Lives in Israel