Avi Shlaim and the Zionist Project

Dr. Muhammad Amara Taqi al-Din
"It was not a land without a people for a people without a land."
This is one of the sayings attributed to the Israeli-British professor Avi Shlaim, refuting the famous Zionist narrative that raised the slogan "A land without a people for a people without a land."

This narrative contained a false premise that Zionism at the time reinforced in global consciousness, arguing that since they were a people without a land (the Jews), there was also a land without a people (Palestine), and the world should help the Jews settle this empty land!

Shlaim then asserts that the Zionist movement is nothing more than a colonial movement with an aggressive, expansionist, and settler-colonial tendency.

It is based on a strategy of eliminating the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine through killing and displacement, and settling Zionists in their place.

Avi Shlaim is one of the Israeli historians in what is known as the “New Historians” group, who re-examined and studied the history of the Zionist movement and put its arguments under the microscope of serious scientific research.

These arguments mostly revolved around Jewish history and the extent of the Zionist narrative’s truthfulness about it, as well as Zionist history up to the Zionists’ takeover of Palestine and the massacres they committed against the Palestinians at that time.

They then discovered that Zionism had radically falsified the facts and invented a fabricated history in an attempt to justify its arguments.

These historians have dismantled many of the historical narratives upon which the Zionist entity was founded, thus offering a completely different interpretation of the Zionist movement s claims.

Avi Shlaim, born in Baghdad to a Jewish family in 1945, now lives outside Israel.

He is a professor of international relations at Oxford University, and his most important work is "The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World".

Shlaim s critique is primarily -dir-ected at the myths that Zionism has entrenched in Jewish and even global consciousness to promote its colonialist ideology.

He is one of the signatories of a statement condemning the massacres against Palestinians in Gaza during the 2009 offensive, a statement signed by more than 300 academics and published in The Guardian in January 2009.

Shlaim tells us about the extent of the deception he was subjected to in his youth due to Zionist propaganda.

He believed in the purity of Israeli weapons and that Israel was always the victim, while the Palestinian narrative about the widespread crimes committed was false.

However, rigorous scientific research confirmed for him the falsity of all these Zionist claims.
After the outbreak of the so-called Arab Spring revolutions, Avi Shlaim criticized Israeli governments for preventing the establishment of democratic rule in the region, contrary to Ben-Gurion s claims that Israel came to spread democratic values in the Middle East.

In October 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Haj Amin al-Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, claiming that he incited Nazi leader Hitler to exterminate the Jews.

Netanyahu stated, "Hitler told al-Husseini that he wanted to expel all the Jews from the European continent, and al-Husseini replied, They will move to Palestine,´-or-rather, burn them ".

Many Jews criticized Netanyahu, asserting that his claim was baseless, as historical documents refute it, and the Holocaust had already begun long before this alleged meeting.

Avi Shlaim intervened in defense of Haj Amin al-Husseini, stating, "Al-Husseini had no sympathy whatsoever for the ideology of Nazi Germany.

His alliance with them during the war was a pragmatic act in the best interests of his people.
The Zionists were the enemy, and Germany was the enemy of the Jews.

There is a saying that goes, The enemy of my enemy is my friend. "

Shlaim asserts that what the Zionists committed against the Palestinians constitutes ethnic cleansing by all standards, and that more than 700,000 Palestinians—equivalent to half the Arab population—became refugees as a result of these criminal practices.

This was carried out within the framework of what is known as Plan Dalet, a criminal plan devised by Zionist gangs in Palestine during the events of 1948.

Under this plan, Palestinians were expelled from their land through destruction, murder, and massacres, forcing them to flee their villages, abandoning their homes and land.

This paved the way for a new reality in which Jews would seize control of the land, a reality then recognized by the international community, which is always biased towards Israel.

Shlaim also condemned the repeated Zionist attacks on Gaza, deeming them barbaric.
He argued that Sharon embodied the criminal, settler-colonial ideology inherent in Zionist thought, describing him as Israel s bloodthirsty general.

He further asserted that Palestine was a form of "compensation," offered by Europe to the Jews as atonement for the Holocaust.

Shlaim believes that Israel is the last colonial entity on earth, and has even turned into a rogue state that threatens world peace, ruled by a criminal gang of inhuman and conscienceless people.

He also affirmed that the 1987 Palestinian uprising was a genuine Palestinian war of independence to achieve the people s right to self-determination and establish an independent Palestinian state.

He added that the escalating Palestinian resistance led Israel to believe that military force would not resolve the issue, and that while an army could defeat another army, it could never subdue a people demanding their right to self-determination.

Shlaim argues that Israel is heading in the wrong -dir-ection and that one day Israelis will realize that their state s security will not be achieved through excessive force and brutal practices, but rather through a just peace.

He emphasizes that Israel s aggressive policies have prevented and thwarted any opportunity for achieving genuine peace with its Arab neighbors.

Shlaim acknowledges that Jews have a long history of pain and suffering throughout the ages, but what happened in 1948 was that they assumed the role of the executioner, acting with excessive brutality against innocent Palestinians.

Their position shifted from victim to perpetrator. Here, Shlaim expressed his profound admiration for Edward Said s statement that "the Palestinians are the victims of the victims."

Shlaim announced his support for the Arab Peace Initiative, which stipulates full Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from the Arab territories occupied in 1967 and the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Avi Shlaim rejected Britain s unconditional support for Israel, attributing it to the British Conservatives support for Zionists.

He even called for the prosecution of the Zionist politician Benny Gantz as a war criminal, holding him primarily responsible for the 2014 aggression against Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of over 2,250 Palestinians, including more than 550 children
.
He also sent a letter to US President Joe Biden urging him to restrict American support for Israel to compel it to engage in a genuine peace process.

He argued that the US s complete bias towards Israel is one of the reasons for the failure of the peace process, as Israel cannot continue its policies without the unwavering support of a superpower.

Shlaim believes that the policy of displacement (transfer) and replacement (expelling Palestinians and replacing them with Zionists) which the Zionist entity systematically follows is not new, but rather a policy inherent in Zionist thought since Theodor Herzl.

Here is Chaim Weizmann, who proposed the idea of transferring Palestinians more than once to the British side. David Ben-Gurion saw that the idea of transfer was the best way to end the conflict.

Likewise, Golda Meir believed that in order to establish a Jewish state, it was necessary to get rid of the Palestinians and there was no other option. She repeated her false statement, “There is no Palestinian people.”

She also justified the massacres against the Palestinians by saying, “The Arabs were forcing the Israelis to kill them.”
Avi Shlaim praised the Oslo Accords but held the Zionist entity responsible for their failure due to Israel s expansionist policies.

These policies involve seizing more land and then building new settlements to create a reality on the ground that is difficult to change.

Thus, Israel is deliberately killing the two-state solution through this heinous act.

Ultimately, these are Professor Avi Shlaim s arguments, which refute the false Zionist narrative of the Arab-Zionist conflict.

They also reinforce the Palestinian narrative, which requires us Arabs to deepen its presence in global public consciousness through comprehensive intellectual and media efforts to counter the false Zionist propaganda.

We have fallen far short in this area, as the Palestinian cause remains the most just cause in the hands of the most inept advocate, according to Avi Shlaim himself.

(Dr. Muhammad Amara Taqi al-Din: Egyptian academic specializing in political sociology and the Arab-Zionist conflict)

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