CiF contributor Ali Abunimah’s crusade against the existence of Israel (a love story)

(Link to above photo)

Ali Abunimah’s hatred for Israel is legion.  Abunimah is the co-founder of the anti-Israel propaganda site, Electronic Intifada (EI) – a site which doesn’t simply criticize Israel for its policies.  Rather, it is a propaganda offensive aimed at portraying Israel as a monstrous state.  Abunimah strongly supports the dissolution, and radical reconstitution, of Israel into the 51st majority Muslim state – a position, let’s remember, which squarely falls within the European Union working definition of ant-Semitism.  He also has flirted with, and seemingly justified, comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany – also anti-Semitic within the EU definition.

Heres’s the text from the EU document:

“Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include”:

• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming the the existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavor
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis

He’s also a contributor – along with Noam Chomsky, Philip Weiss, Glenn Greenwald, Sara Roy, Omar Barghouti, Kevin Ovenden, Ilan Pappé, Ken O’Keefe, and Adam Shapiro – to the pro-IHH book about the flotilla incident, called “Midnight on the Mavi Marmara”.  An excerpt from the book, notes:

“Midnight on the Mavi Marmara reveals why the attack on Gaza Freedom Flotilla may just turn out to be Israel’s Selma, Alabama: the beginning of the end for an apartheid Palestine.“

Here are some of Abunimah’s greatest hits:

Abunimah writing for Electronic Intifada

Israel-Nazi Comparison

“Gaza will likely be seen as the turning point when Israeli propaganda lost its power to mystify, silence and intimidate as it has for so long. Even the Nazi Holocaust, long deployed by Zionists to silence Israel’s critics, is becoming a liability; once unimaginable comparisons are now routinely heard. Jewish and Palestinian academics likened Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Nazi massacre in the Warsaw Ghetto. A Vatican cardinal referred to Gaza as a “giant concentration camp.” UK Member of Parliament Gerald Kaufman, once a staunch Zionist, told the House of Commons, “My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow, [Poland]. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.” Kaufman continued, “my grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.” He denounced the Israeli military spokesperson’s justifications as the words “of a Nazi.” – Why Israel wont’ survive, Jan. 19, 2009

Israel justifies the starvation, dehumanization, and murder of Palestinians with a sense of their own righteousness

“Rather, these borders [of Gaza] mark the beginning of a zone where the human beings inside have been completely dehumanized, where they can be starved and killed with impunity and even a sense of righteous justification [by Israelis]…”  – Israel’s Auschwitz Borders, Dec. 8, 2008

Zionism is inherently incompatible with human rights

“The post-two-state solution era compels us to recognize the fundamental incompatibility of Zionism with universal human rights.” – Beyond the make-believe of negotiations June 4, 2008

Rationalizing violence by Hamas and Hezbollah:

“The much condemned use of violence by Hamas and Hizballah — particularly suicide bombings — had more in common with other nationalist movements facing foreign occupation, than deriving from any “Islamist” ideology, as University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape demonstrated in his book Dying to Win. Hizballah has focused its military strategy on countering Israeli military might, retaliating against Israeli civilian areas only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians (as we saw in the July 2006 war). Hamas unilaterally suspended its notorious campaign of suicide attacks on Israeli civilians more than two years ago, again following the pattern of other groups like the IRA that sought to enter a political process. Hamas maintains this suspension despite escalating Israeli attacks and collective punishment against Palestinian civilians.” Engaging Hamas and Hizballah October 29, 2007

Israel kills children daily:

We can reflect that Israel’s dehumanization of Palestinians and other Arabs, its near daily killing of children, destruction of communities and racist apartheid against millions of people has been so normalized that if those massacres occurred today Israel would not need to go through the elaborate exercise of denying its culpability. Indeed, the “international community” might barely notice.” Dehumanizing the Palestinians September 21, 2007

Accuses rabbis of advocating genocide

“It seems there are no moral restraints left in Israel. It is right and proper that such a regime be isolated with boycott, divestment and sanctions until it desists from its racist — and potentially genocidal — practices…As Israel’s house of horror grows, so does the movement to confront it. In that there is great hope.” Top Israeli rabbis advocate genocide May 31, 2007

Abunimah writing in Comment is Free:

Israel lurching towards fascism

“But Israel today is lurching into open fascism. It is utterly disingenuous to continue to pretend – as so many do – that its failed leaders hold the key to getting out of the morass. Instead of waiting for them to form a coalition, we must escalate the international civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to force Israelis to choose a saner path.” There is no peace for Israel as it lurches into fascism February 12, 2009

More recently, CiF Watch has been battling with Abunimah on Twitter over his frequent anti-Israel vitriol.  Here are screenshots of two of his charges:

Thanks for the recommendation to post your quote, Ali.  Much appreciated.  Perhaps you want to expand on this practically incoherent invective?

Oh, I see, Israel, the national homeland of the Jewish people is anti-Semitic in that it “corrals” Jews into a “ghetto“.  Boy, and I used to think that our 62 year foray into freedom was a good thing.  I used to entertain crazy notions that a people – who, for centuries, have been 2nd class citizens in Europe and the Arab world – being released from their bondage was quite consistent with human rights.  How blind of me not to realize how anti-Semitic it was of Zionism to, after thousands of years of homelessness, dispossession, and oppression, release Jews from their bondage by re-establishing a national homeland ghetto which grants them the right to worship and live how they wish – in a nation which has not only survived the continuing efforts by its enemies to destroy it, but outdoes its Arab neighbors in nearly every quantifiable economic, social, and political measurement. You got to admit, Ali, “Ghetto” economies, political systems, and social dynamics are clearly underrated.

Thanks Ali!  Your philo-Semitism has finally allowed me to see the light.  Freedom is Slavery. Your passionate opposition to anti-Semitism is so clear to see.  Yes, I get it now, Israel is a scourge for Jews.  We can only be rescued by destroying it.  We must burn the village to save it. How silly of me not to see it all along.