The Palestine Exception, Racialization and Invisibilization: From Israel (Palestine) to North America (Turtle Island)

Abstract

This paper contends that the Zionist policies implemented by Israel had and continue to have a grave impact not only on the Palestinians in historic Palestine alone but also follows them in the diaspora, where some Palestinians have taken refuge. This article argues that Israel’s apartheid regime, exposed by various international Human Rights Organizations, is not a recent discovery. Apartheid, the exclusion of the natives, and their racialization have accompanied the Zionist movement since its inception. Crucial questions raised in this paper include how Palestine and the Palestinians are conceived by Zionism, in and outside of Israel, and how they are perceived by the West, especially within the Canadian context. This paper pays special attention to comparing the experience of Palestinians with that of North America’s Indigenous population, specifically concerning Israel’s and Canada’s colonial policies towards the Indigenous peoples. It also discusses the impact of Israel’s policies of silencing and vilification that doggedly follow Palestinians into the diaspora: vilifications and silencing enacted by the Israel lobby through its various Zionist (Jewish) branches, whose primary role is to silence and vilify the Palestinians and curb criticism of Israel and Zionism. This policy, it is argued, is strongly supported by Canada, structurally, institutionally and through media propaganda.

Contaminating National Identity Through Intercultural Intimacy: (Im)purity and the Pandemic

“…Regardless, virtually all scholars recognize that Israel has deeply institutionalized ethnic hierarchies, where the titular Jewish majority is systemically advantaged over other groups, chiefly Palestinians, including citizens of Israel and non-citizens under its control within the Occupied Territories (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). In line with a longstanding trend within Palestinian scholarship, as well as an unfortunately recent trend within the general literature on the region, we go a step further and emphasize Israel's fundamentally settlercolonial regime characteristics (Abdo, 2022;Abu El-Haj, 2001;Barghouti, 2021;Degani, 2017;Jamal, 2017;Khalidi, 2020;Sayegh, 1965). We see Zionism as both a settler-colonial project and as Israel's guiding, hegemonic national ideology; it is easily distinguishable as such, since Zionism is widely accepted by Jewish Israelis, codified into law, and professed by virtually all predominantly Jewish political parties (Masri, 2018b).…”

“…We see Zionism as both a settler-colonial project and as Israel's guiding, hegemonic national ideology; it is easily distinguishable as such, since Zionism is widely accepted by Jewish Israelis, codified into law, and professed by virtually all predominantly Jewish political parties (Masri, 2018b). While Zionism is not a monolith, its fundamentally exclusivist, ethnic-hierarchical, and settler-colonial features are well-understood (Abdo, 2022;Ram, 2011;Yiftachel, 2006).…”

Critical consciousness from a Palestinian feminist, decolonial perspective: A collective exploratory inquiry

“…As delineated in the interviews, the Israeli colonial regime precedes, produces, and feeds multiple forms of oppression; weakens institutions; and suffocates the economy, leading to unemployment and illegal work. Moreover, it adversely affects the legal apparatus, often at the expense of women (Abdo, 2022;Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2009). Thus, participants' voices stressed how women's practices of existence and resistance cannot be explored without including concerns related to the intersections between Israeli violence and other sources of oppression.…”

“…Like other experiences of settler-colonialism, the Israeli colonial regime is a persistent social and political structure (Arvin et al, 2013), and constitutes a daily experience of denial of health and well-being for Palestinians. Racial discrimination is spatial, economic, political, and legal, forcing Palestinians to live in precarious, socially and physically isolated places lacking economic, spatial, and social stability (Abdo, 2022;Amira, 2021). Colonial practices include labour exploitation, land fragmentation, settlement activities, displacements, restrictions on the movement of people, and ongoing political harassment and military intervention, making the lives of the native population uncertain and intolerable (Makkawi, 2017).…”

“…Even in contemporary feminist literature, Eurocentric and essentialist analyses dominate, replicating colonialist and racist ideologies, delineating an image of women in the Global South that is eroticized, Orientalist, or as passive victims (Ali-Faisal, 2020;Mohanty, 1984). Concerning the Palestinian context, much of the literature exploring women's experiences is often imprisoned within analyses of internal patriarchy, where women are represented exclusively as objects: silent, submissive, and lacking agency (Abdo, 2022;Richter-Devroe, 2018).…”