Max Blumenthal on "Liberal Zionism"

Interesting and disturbing:

Blumenthal said that he wanted to challenge the myths of liberal Zionism because he believes that these misconceptions are responsible for worsening the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis. He centered the crux of his argument on his belief that a two-state solution will not bring about peace.

“I think liberal Zionism has lost much of its political influence in Israel, but it remains very culturally influential and has an enormous currency in the United States among liberal Americans, especially American Jews, in perpetuating and preserving the fallacy that the two-state solution will deliver peace or a viable Palestinian state,” he said.
Blumenthal addressed the perception that liberal Zionists are pro-peace. According to him, the liberal Zionist idea of peace differs from the Western liberal definition. “[The liberal Zionist peace] is not defined by an opposition to war or militarism; it’s an embrace of militarism,” he said.

Blumenthal also confronted the belief that liberal Zionists are politically liberal. “This is the biggest deception: One of the key things about liberal Zionists and what distinguishes them from liberals in the United States is that unlike American liberals who believe in civil rights, [they] are committed to the engineering of an ethnic democratic majority, which puts them as the most right-wing figures we can think of in American society,” he said.

According to Blumenthal, discrimination against Palestinians is evident today through Israeli attitude. Citing a personal experience, Blumenthal spoke of an incident during which he watched drunken Israeli youths stab a Palestinian, an issue that was left unacknowledged by officials.

 (snip)

Arguing that Israel’s current ideologies are fundamentally apartheid, Blumenthal proposed that the ideal solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be a compromise allowing Israeli Jews to stay within their communities, while simultaneously devoting increasing energy toward reconciliation.

“Reconciliation means that settler colonialist leaders need to admit what they have done, and concede power,” he said. Blumenthal believes we should prepare the groundwork for a single state instead of prolonging what he sees as the slow process of ethnic cleansing.
“If you look at polls of Israeli attitude, Israeli youth are increasingly racist and eliminationist toward Arabs and other non-Jews, and it’s a reflection of an indoctrination process that begins at [a young] age,” Blumenthal said.

(snip)

Arguing for a movement toward a narrative of equal rights, Blumenthal said that making the idea of apartheid mainstream in Israel will bring to light the struggle of the Palestinians.

“It’s a one-state reality,” Blumenthal said. “The question is whether it will be a single apartheid state or some version of a single state like a confederation with equal rights for everyone.”