It’s not ‘complicated’: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine is fueled by ‘colonial racism’

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Mac Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us once again. My guest today is Dr. Aviva Chomsky. She’s an American historian, author and activist. She’s a professor of history and the coordinator of Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. And recently she’s been speaking out and doing a lot of writing about the slaughter of the tens of thousands of Gazen and the obliteration of Gaza, the hands of Israel, and she joins us today for a deep dive into that reality. So welcome, Aviva. Good to have you with us again.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Thank you. It’s great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

Marc Steiner:

I was really interested in the piece that you wrote. I think many people, especially in the Jewish world who are questioning what’s going on in Gaza, are wrestling with this question of where’s the line of antisemitism and criticism of Israel and what’s happening in Gaza? And is Gaza a genocide, is a slaughter. I think people are really trying to wrap their hands around this, and I think you kind of took a deep dive in your article about this. So let’s just start there with this battle over what is antisemitism and what isn’t antisemitism when it comes to criticizing what Israel is doing in Gaza?

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

So a couple of things that to me personally, and I am Jewish, just to establish that from the beginning, and I have also been involved in Palestine rights activism for many decades.

Marc Steiner:

Me too.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

For me, it hasn’t been a complicated question at all. And I think there are different kinds and different layers of criticism of Israel. I think that for many in the Jewish community, it’s possible to criticize what Israel is doing in Gaza to criticize Netanyahu’s government, but within a framework of larger commitment to the idea of a Jewish state. And then there are those, and I count myself among those who are not committed to the idea of a Jewish state, in fact, who are quite dubious about the idea of a Jewish state. And I have always felt, in theory, I have nothing against Jewish people joining together to form any kind of Jewish organization. And there are many Jewish organizations in this country that are places where Jewish people gather in community of Jewish people. And I have been to synagogues, I had a bat mitzvah and I enjoyed, it’s not part of my life currently, but it certainly has been part of my life, this feeling of being part of a Jewish community.

So in theory, perhaps a Jewish state that is a state of buy and for Jews, if it had no population that wasn’t Jewish, could in theory be an okay idea. In the case of Israel itself, like the actual historical example of Israel, this is fundamental contradiction that it’s not just founding a Jewish state, it’s founding a Jewish state in Palestine. And that from the very start, the Zionist project, or at least those elements of the Zionist project that became the predominant elements and became what is Zionism today of founding a Jewish state in Palestine. There’s no way that could happen without grave injustice. So the existing population in Palestine and that those grave injustices continue to shape things. So I think that there are many in the Jewish community who don’t want to criticize Israel at all. There are many who are quite willing to criticize Israel in terms of its current government and its actions in Gaza, but who are still committed to the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. And then there are those who are really anti-Zionist and who feel that the entire project of a Jewish state in Palestine has to be fundamentally

Marc Steiner:

Revised. One of the things that I wrote about a long time ago in the early seventies was about the formation of Israel itself. And part of that, I posited that if there had not been a Holocaust, if wouldn’t be in Israel, a, and people forget historically that the reason that so many Jews fled Europe after World War II and out of the DP camps into Israel is because we wouldn’t let them here. America would not open the doors. The only place they go is Palestine. They wanted Jews to go to Palestine so they could colonize Palestine and be used that way as pawns in the game. And I think that’s part of the story that gets lost and people don’t remember or don’t even know.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

I would also just mention as a Latin Americanist, that many Jews in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and even after World War II, went to Latin America, which had more open doors than the

Marc Steiner:

United States did. I have cousins in Uruguay? I have cousins in Mexico City. They went from Poland to Latin America.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

So I think when right wing Jewish organizations or right wing pro-Israel organizations, maybe I should say right wing Zionist organizations, many of which also identify themselves as Jewish organizations. And I’m thinking here about apac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the A DL, the Anti-Defamation League, they kind of try to square the circle between saying any criticism of Israel is illegitimate and antisemitic or kind of overlaying that with, well, criticism of Israel is okay, but not criticism of the Zionist project of Israel, not criticism of Jewish ethnonationalism. That is not acceptable, that is antisemitic. So it’s okay to criticize Netanyahu, but I just wanted to pick up on something you said before we even started, which is that antisemitism has deep roots. And on one hand that is completely true, although it’s really true of every kind of racism and other sexism and all of those things have deep roots, but that understanding of deep roots is often really flattened and trivialized in the case of antisemitism by pro-Israel organizations to sort of essentialize antisemitism to say that antisemitism is a historical, permanent phenomenon that has always existed and will always exist.

And I think that that understanding of antisemitism is really crucial to the Zionist project and this idea that Jews need a nation state because antisemitism is so a historical, and I want to both acknowledge that antisemitism has certain types of deep roots and insists that antisemitism is a historical phenomenon, just like every other kind of racism, sexism, et cetera, are historical phenomena. So that when we look at the history of the formation of European nation states, the rise of the nation state in Europe and European nationalism, when we look at particularly Christian antisemitism, these are historical phenomena just as anti-black racism is a historical phenomenon that we can trace the way it has evolved in 500 years of European colonialism. We can also trace, if we are historians, we need to look at historical contingency, historical events and understand why antisemitism is not always the same and exist in every time and place, just like anti-black racism. It may be pervasive, especially in certain historical periods and certain times and places, but it is not an essential character of the human race. Neither of those is an essential characteristic of the human race

Marc Steiner:

When it comes to separating antisemitism from being against what Israel’s doing. In many ways, that’s a hard thing to untie, not just for Jews, I mean as a whole part of the Christian world that also supports Israel for their own reasons. But you have to kind of parse that out and change it. The question is you’re beginning to make the argument, I think the argument is important to make about how to separate antisemitism from opposing what Israel’s doing inside Gaza and within the West Bank and within Israel itself,

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Which moves into anti-Zionism.

Marc Steiner:

Right.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Which I also think, which I also partake of anti-Zionism, that is I would very firmly reject the idea that anti-Zionism is antisemitic. But you mentioned among non-Jews, and I think it’s really important to distinguish between the Christian, which I don’t think cares one wit about antisemitism and which in fact I think is probably the main source of antisemitism in the United States today, is the Christian right and the liberal Christ. So their support for Israel has nothing to do with caring about Jews or caring about antisemitism. It’s purely a evangelical religious and strategic political confluence of ideas about the importance of Israel. And I would say in some ways even motivated by the same kind of antisemitism that led to the founding of Israel to begin with. We don’t want the Jews here, let’s get rid of them, send them to Israel, that’s where they belong.

And then more liberal Christian fears about antisemitism that come more out of the experiences of the 20th century of the United States of understanding Jews as being victims of discrimination in the 20th century in the United States, especially in earlier parts of the 20th century. And that identify with progressive Jewish strands of the second half of the 20th century, Jewish involvement in civil rights movements, anti-war movements, intellectual movements. So that I would say that in liberal Christian communities, there is a sense that Jews have been discriminated against, Jews have been oppressed not only in Europe, but also in the United States, and that Jews represent a progressive cosmopolitan force in the United States. And I think that especially in liberal Christian communities, this right wing pro-Israel argument, that criticism of Israel is tantamount to antisemitism, holds a lot of weight, recognizing it as a right wing political ploy and thinking of it in terms of, oh yeah, we support people who are discriminated against because we’re liberal. And so we support Jews in this kind of vague lack of understanding of what’s really going on with this argument.

Marc Steiner:

So as we wrestle with this question here in the United States politically, what you just described, where do you think those contradictions take us? I mean, at this moment we have this right wing neofascist government in Israel, and we have this right wing neofascist government in the United States, and that’s a dangerous confluence, I think. And I’m wondering where you think that takes the struggle for change given those two forces and where it takes it without falling into antisemitism. They’re saying Jews control America. Jews control the money is the Jews that are doing this, which is also a mindset that exists. So I’m saying I think we are weaving our way through and living in a minefield at the moment.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

So I would begin by pointing out that I was talking about the sort of liberal Christian support for Israel and hand in hand with that association of criticism of Israel or lack of support of Israel with antisemitism that look at Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, I am a Zionist. We will say we’re going to be with Israel no matter what. He’s kind of a liberal Democrat, right? Kamala Harris who, oh, my heart breaks for the children of Gaza, but I’m not going to mention who’s killing them because that would be antisemitic. So I have to show my pros Semitic credentials here by refusing to criticize Israel or even acknowledge what Israel is doing. So when Trump, both in the first Trump administration and in the second Trump administration, one small ray of hope, I saw during those times

That a lot of the liberal center, which was loathed to criticize President Obama or President Biden and would’ve been loathed to criticize a President Harris, had she been elected, who were all, let’s gather around our candidate here because he is so liberal. We’re more open to speaking honestly about what the Trump administration is doing than they were about speaking honestly about what the Biden administration or even Obama administration is doing. And even if you just look at the responses to immigration, nobody wanted to criticize Biden on immigration. Nobody wanted to criticize. But then there’s under Trump administration, nobody wants to talk about what the government is doing wrong when it’s a Democrat, but this liberal center is much more willing to talk about what the government is doing wrong. And the opposition to Trump’s immigration policies is one example where it was really hard to mobilize people against biden’s terrible immigration policies, but it’s not as hard to mobilize people against Trump’s. So that particular historical conjuncture, I think gives us array of hope that the liberal center could come to its senses and open its eyes about what Israel is and what Israel is doing. But on the other hand, I’m not really seeing it happening. And if you take the New York Times as a exemplar of that liberal center,

It has barely moved a fraction of an inch on its support for Israel. And one of the things that always makes me laugh is when you read these sort of mandatory background things that they say in every article about Gaza, about Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7th that killed 1200 people. And then in the same paragraph goes on to say, according to the Hamas controlled health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and armed factions, Israel has killed. And of course it goes up every day, 60,000 or whatever it’s at now, Palestinians. Well, that figure of 1200 people killed that Hamas killed on October 7th. Also doesn’t distinguish between and military, but you don’t say that. You only say it and you always say it when referring to Palestinian figures. And you also don’t attribute that number to anybody. You just say that’s a fact that they killed 12. So just like this differential way of like, Israel is trustworthy, Israel is our ally, Hamas is evil. That just underlies every piece of reporting of the New York Times

Marc Steiner:

In the time we have left together. Today. I’d like to explore something here is a question that I’ve been writing about and wrestling with that has to do with Israel is how the oppressed become the oppressor.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Well, certainly not the first time this has happened in history,

Marc Steiner:

Right? Oh no, absolutely not. No, absolutely not. No. And we look at our own history, United States and other places. Absolutely. But I’d like to talk a bit about that with you, just how that process happens. I mean, it’s Jews fleeing to Israel because they weren’t allowed here. Jews fleeing to Israel because of their own oppression, and I grew up with people with numbers in their arms. The kibbutz scene that were attacked is where part of my family lived and were killed. But the process of colonizing and taking over Palestine has turned people who fought for liberation into oppressors. And I’m curious your analysis of that and how that happens.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Well, so a couple of things. So first of all, when we tried to define a people as a people as if they all think the same,

Marc Steiner:

Which we do not obviously,

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

And that’s always in mistake, right?

Marc Steiner:

Yes. Right, right.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

And that’s part of what nationalism tries to do. Benedict Anderson’s idea of the imagined community that you share certain ideas with people you don’t know because you belong to the same community. That’s part of the basis of nationalism. And nationalism is also a historical phenomenon,

Speaker 3:

Which

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Anderson’s classic book and many others show so clearly that this idea of belonging being part of a nation that includes people, not just the people in your village that you’re part of, who you may fight with and dispute with and disagree with a lot, but you’re also part of this larger political community that somehow holds your loyalty. And looking at how nationalism worked in Europe and then say in Africa and in Latin America, one thing that nationalism does is it provides a rationale for mobilizing people to go out and kill other people who don’t belong to the same nation. And I’m thinking here about all quiet on the Western front. One of my favorite scenes from the book is when the German soldiers are in the trenches and discussing, why are we even here? Oh, because those people, the French are our enemy. Why are they our enemy? Well, because our government said so,

Marc Steiner:

But

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

They’re probably cobblers and tailors and farmers just like we have more in common with them than we do with the priests and the officials and the generals who sent us here. Why don’t we join with them against the people who are really oppressing us? But that’s part of what nationalism does. It creates this imagined community and this imperative for loyalty to people who don’t have your best interests at heart and you don’t really share anything with who are just using you. And we see that happening right now in the United States and always in the United States. In every war that the United States has been involved in, there have been really good reasons why people should not have gone to fight in those wars. And yet it’s always a small minority who is able to stop and say, wait a minute, I’m not going to fight in that war. I have no desire to go out and kill those people. And the vast majority go out and do it. And if you read about what’s going on in Israeli society right now, it’s really practically a psychotic mass delusion. If you look at the polls and the things that people are saying, like huge majorities of people, 80% will say, oh, there’s no starvation in Gaza. We know that because our government told us.

Speaker 3:

Right?

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Yes. The entire world is against us. The United Nations amnesty International Doctors without borders, they’re all just antisemitic. That’s why they’re criticizing us. But so your question was specifically is how do the oppressed become oppressors? And I guess I would say that first of all, even in situations of great oppression, there’s always collaborators with the oppressors

Marc Steiner:

Always.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

There’s very few things historically that I would say are always the case,

Marc Steiner:

The caps in the camps

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

That oppressors can find collaborators among the oppressed. Absolutely. And when we study the history of slavery in the United States, we must both recognize that it was a European project, that it was a white racial project, African enslavement of Africans, and that Africans in Africa and African-Americans collaborated in the project. There were African free black people in the United States who owned slaves. So that being oppressed doesn’t suddenly make you a moral person who opposes all oppression, and you don’t necessarily identify as a cohesive Who do you identify as Your people is not necessarily based on race or religion or nation, but that nationalism encourages you. And capitalism encourages you to put yourself first, and everybody has to survive in the world that they’re born into. And we all collaborate in things that we think are immoral. Like I fly in planes and drive a car. Those things are completely immoral and unjustifiable, and yet I somehow continue to do them. So we all live with these contradictions, I think, of being oppressed and oppressors at the same time. But there’s also, of course, degrees and of collaboration, and I think it’s within every individual, how much am I willing to collaborate and where am I going to draw the line?

Marc Steiner:

And I just so much, you said again, we can say another hour, but at least, but the question of what fuels Israel and other places like that, the nationalism, nationalism can be born out of oppression and it can be born out of the oppressor. It’s both can fuel a nationalist feeling. There wouldn’t be the power in the black community in America of the nation of Islam and other nationalist forces because people are tired of racism and want out and fuels nationalism. The same thing with Jews. It fuels nationalism. Let me have my own country. I’m done with this. I’m out of here. It’s a complexity that has to be used to change that, to turn that around.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Okay. But is there any national liberation movement that you can point to that has not gone on to oppress people?

Marc Steiner:

That’s a good question. That’s a really good question. I have to think about that. I mean,

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Some of my favorite contemporary English language literature out of Africa deals with precisely that issue that African liberation movements encompass many different tendencies. Yet over the course of the second half of the 20th century came to identify and act in the world in ways that oppressed ethnic minorities in their own countries. It’s just not okay to oppress anybody. It doesn’t matter whether they’re our people or somebody else’s people and how we define what our people are. But I’ll recommend one of my favorite recent books, New York, my Village.

Speaker 3:

I’ll look for

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

It, which is in part about the Biafra War in Nigeria and how the IBO government in Biafra oppressed non Ebo people in Biafra as part of their liberation movement. But I mean, there’s very few things that I would say are historical universals, but our capacity to oppress people and to rationalize, I think are pretty deeply embedded in human beings.

Marc Steiner:

So I don’t,

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

So we need institutions that don’t allow people

Marc Steiner:

To, that I was about to say, okay, yes,

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

An institution of the nation state is not one of those institutions. The institution of the nation state is an institution, and the institution of capitalism are institutions that encourage people’s worst instincts. We need institutions that allow space for people to develop their best instincts, not just their worst instincts.

Marc Steiner:

I’m glad you said that because I didn’t want to end this on a note that we’re lost. We’re not lost because the struggle is against capitalism. The struggle is to build a different world, and people have to be the voices, lights and movements to do that in this country and across the globe, which you’ve written about so well. So I really enjoy always speaking with you, Avi, thanks so much for taking your time today with us, and we will have another conversation and we’ll do some in-depth exploring about Latin America and more when we talk next.

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

Okay, sounds great.

Marc Steiner:

Thank

Dr. Aviva Chomsky:

You.

Marc Steiner:

Thank you for today, thanks to Cameron Grino for running the program today, audio editor Stephen Frank for working his magic Roset Ali for putting it with me and producing the Mark Steiner show and the tireless Keller Avara for making it all work behind the scenes and everyone here through news making this show possible. So please let me know what you thought about, what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at [email protected] and I’ll get right back to you. So stay involved, keep listening, and take care.