From Racist Colonialism to Palestinian issue: The Persistence of Racism in West
The prevalence of racism is not uniform everywhere and varies in degrees. Western governments are at the forefront of the list of racist nations in the world.
Although Westerners outwardly advocate for human equality and have launched various movements with similar titles, such as the so-called equality movement "gender equality," deep down in the Western mindset, there is a sense of racial superiority that leads to their cohesion, solidarity and sympathy with each other.
Race is so important to Westerners that they believe everyone in the world is equally prejudiced about race. This is why they perceive the Palestine-Israel issue as a matter of Jews and Arabs. Race is something they understand well and they view many major issues through that lens. Even among Western races such as Anglo-Saxon, Slavic, German, and Baltic, there have been and still are numerous conflicts related to race throughout history.
Zionist settler colonial movement is possibly one of the clearest and most concise descriptions of racism. Racism is not an acquired trait of the Zionist settler-state. Nor is it an accidental, passing feature of the Israeli scene. It is congenial, essential and permanent. For it is inherent in the very ideology of Zionism and in the basic motivation for Zionist colonization and statehood.1
Westerners not only benefit strategically from the existence of Israel, but also fundamentally benefit from it. If Westerners admit that what Zionists are doing is a crime, if they say that what Israel is doing is occupation, apartheid, and genocide, then a spark will be ignited in the minds of other people.
This will challenge the legitimacy of some Western countries because many of these countries were also founded on the same principles on which Israel was established. For example, countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States were established by Anglo-Saxon immigrants on the lands of indigenous inhabitants. The original inhabitants were either massacred or displaced and forcibly relocated to other parts, and they were largely erased from the map and even from world history. The nations that were more fortunate during the colonization process were mostly plundered and underwent identity transformation but were not completely eliminated from the scene.
If Israel is condemned for occupying Palestinian lands and erasing them from history, should these countries also be subject to reconsideration? Therefore, Westerners prefer to defend the legitimacy of Israel to ensure the legitimacy of their own actions.
As a result, racism in the West has led them to support Israel, a support that is not only based on strategic reasons but also on more fundamental ones.
By Jalaleddin Fanaei
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of International Quran News Agency.
References:
1) Sayegh, F. (2012). Zionist Colonialism in Palestine (1965), Settler Colonial Studies, 2:1, 206-225, p. 214.
