One of the fundamental forms of Zionist violence is the Zionists refusal to accept the Arab reality and history in Palestine, assuming that the Zionist and Jewish identity is the center of this reality and its sole reference. Consequently, Zionists exclude the essential (non-Jewish) elements that form the reality and history of Palestine from their consciousness, vision, and cognitive map. Zionist terrorism is merely an attempt to impose a reductionist Zionist view on a complex reality. Therefore, one could argue that terrorism is the manifestation of armed violence (as opposed to cognitive violence).
Theoretical and cognitive violence is a general feature of comprehensive secular imperialist thought, which transforms the world (viewing it as a mere tool and seeing it as mere utilitarian material). Zionism does not represent an exception to this rule, as it emerged in the soil of imperialist Europe, dominated by Nietzschean and Darwinian philosophies and an imperialist epistemology that transcends good and evil, turning the world and people into mere tools to be used.
Yet, Zionist violence has unique roots that grant it certain distinctive characteristics:
- Zionism was not only a colonial movement but also a settler-colonial movement with the idea of an “empty land without people.” This means that the land where the Zionist project would be implemented had to be emptied of its indigenous inhabitants, which could only be achieved through the highest degrees of theoretical violence and actual terrorism.
- A central feature of comprehensive secular ideologies with organic immanentism elements is that they contain their center or reference point (or absolute) within themselves. Therefore, they form a closed system revolving around itself, sanctifying the self and making it the locus of divine presence, thus separating it from others (who fall outside the circle of sanctity), denying their rights, and exterminating them because they are not part of the divine presence.
Zionism, inheriting the legacy of the Jewish immanentism sect (within the Jewish geological structure), is a secular Immanentism belief that views the Jews as an organic people with a unique organic relationship to the land (Eretz Yisrael), i.e., Palestine. This relationship grants them absolute rights to the land, which means the expulsion of the indigenous inhabitants who do not share the same organic immanentistic bond with the land.
Zionism transformed the Old Testament into folklore for the Jewish people, a book filled with accounts of many wars fought by the Israelites or Hebrews against the Canaanites and other people, expelling some and exterminating others. The Israelites are believed to be inhabited by god, who reveals to them what they should do and blesses their hands in killing and looting. All the actions of the people are blessed and sacred because their god resides within them.
- Zionism inherited the legacy of the Jewish functional group, with its sharp division between the holy people and the goys (non-Jewish), characterized by a double standard that makes the other entirely permissible and makes the use of violence against them acceptable.
For all these reasons, violence became one of the basic categories of Zionist perception of reality and history. Zionists rewrote what they call “Jewish history,” resurrecting the immanentistic pagan elements and emphasizing its violent aspects. They portrayed the Jewish nation at its inception as a warlike group of pagan raiders. For example, Micah Josef Berdichevsky (1865-1921), a Zionist thinker and Russian Jew, looked back to the days when Jewish banners were raised and to the warrior heroes (the early Jews). He also discovered a military stream in Jewish tradition. Rabbi Eliezer stated that the sword and bow are the adornments of man, and it is permissible for a Jew to appear with them on the Sabbath. This view of history is reflected in Vladimir Jabotinsky's (1880-1940) call, the leader of the Revisionist movement, for Jews to learn to slaughter from the goys. In a speech to Jewish students in Vienna, he advised them to keep the sword, as fighting with the sword is not a German invention but belongs to (our early ancestors... Torah and sword were both given to us from heaven). The sword almost becomes absolute, the origin of the universe, and all phenomena. Therefore, Jabotinsky did not hesitate to reject Jewish history dominated by rabbis and Jewish thinkers.
It seems that this sacred sword (a symbol of masculinity, power, and violence) was admired by all Zionists, who often expressed their admiration for and fascination with Prussian militarism (this, of course, was before this Prussian sword fell on Jewish necks at Auschwitz). The writings of Theodor Herzl are filled with expressions of admiration for this sword. In his diaries, he praised Bismarck, who forced the Germans to wage several wars, one after the other, thus imposing unity on them and beginning their modern history as a unified state. Military violence is the true engine of history (our people were asleep during peacetime, but they welcomed unity joyfully during wartime). While Herzl was looking out the window of a German official's office, he saw groups of German officers marching in military formation. He expressed his admiration for them in his diaries, seeing them as the makers of Germany's history (the future officers of invincible Germany), and they may also be the makers of Zionist history itself, as Herzl pointed to that (the state that wants to place us under its protection).
The Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann (1894-1980) also praised this Prussian military spirit in his youth: “Germany embodies the principle of progress, and we find it confident of victory. Germany will triumph, and the military spirit will rule the world. Anyone who wants to regret this fact and express sorrow is free to do so, but trying to resist this fact is sheer stubbornness and a crime against the genius of history, which is driven by swords and the clatter of weapons.”
Menachem Begin (founder of the Herut party, later Likud, and former Prime Minister of Israel) followed his mentor Jabotinsky and all previous Zionists in emphasizing the importance of the sword as the engine of history, saying: “The force driving progress in world history is not peace but the sword.”
Needless to say, Zionist cognitive violence reaches its peak in its perception of Arabs and Arab history. Due to their genocidal and replacement project, Zionists try to remain completely silent about it, avoiding mentioning it altogether or mumbling with liberal voices that hide the maximum violence. When one of the Zionist leaders at the First Zionist Congress (1897) discovered that Palestine was not an “empty land” as claimed, he rushed to Herzl and informed him of his discovery. Herzl reassured him, saying the matter would be settled later, fully aware of how such matters were settled in the imperialist way. We know how it was settled in Palestine. In any case, the continuous Zionist talk about the sword as the engine of history is not an expression of a fondness for a particular sport but rather an expression of a specific program to change reality.
This cognitive violence is a fundamental building block in the Zionist perception of self, reality, history, and the other. Violence may express itself directly or indirectly through dozens of laws and institutions. The Israeli “Law of Return” is but a translation of this violence, giving any Jew in the world the right to “return” to “Israel” at any time while denying this right to millions of Palestinians who have been expelled from Palestine since 1948, even though Jews worldwide are not eager to immigrate to “Israel” while Palestinians are knocking on its doors. But it is the secular imperialist epistemology that transforms all humans (Arabs and Jews), time (the history of Jewish communities and the history of Palestine), and place (Palestine). The relentless Zionist terrorism is merely an expression of the Zionists' view of attempting to reach the end of history: the end of the history of Jewish communities worldwide and the end of Arab history in Palestine.
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Taken from the book: “Zionism and Violence from the Beginning of Settlement to the Al Aqsa Intifada.”
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