This Is The Most Blistering Takedown Of Zionism You Will Ever Hear
The Oxford Union debate over Israel hosted the most standout takedown of Israel and Zionism you will have ever heard. It is brilliant.
Right, so sometimes you come across a piece of writing or an oratory so profound and so exacting that it literally stops you in your tracks. That is how this particular speech I’ve come across today has left me and I make no apologies for this video being a little longer than usual as a result. It was breathtaking. To be able to write a speech that is so quietly and calmly eviscerating, I think is more powerful than a 100 news articles or political commentaries covering atrocity and I absolutely had to share this with you, shared on social media as it was today by Electronic Intifada’s Asa Winstanley.
This has come from Palestinian author and human rights activist Susan Abulhawa, the author of Mornings in Jenin, a story of life set in the aftermath of the 1967 6 day war and a book I now plan on getting as a matter of essential reading. This speech was made at the recent Oxford Union debate, a debate which actually descended into chaos as many students sought to leave the moment they became aware that a former IDF spy was present to speak on behalf of Israel in a debate where the motion presented was ‘This House believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide’ Zionists were apoplectic with rage when the vote came through, passing by 278 to 59 in favour and despite many people speaking in favour of the motion eloquently, emotionally and forcefully, Abulhawa’s contribution is one everyone has to hear.
Right, so Susan Abulhawa’s speech to the Oxford Union, speaking in favour of their motion which passed by 278 votes to 59 in favour of believing Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide I think is probably the most powerful statement I’ve ever read in response not just to the events of the last 15 months but long before that too. The daughter of Palestinians expelled by Israel following the 1967 war, this is her history, her heritage and is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an NGO that builds playgrounds for children in Palestine, as well as UN refugee camps in Lebanon. She was invited to speak in this debate at the Oxford Union and she absolutely did just that and frankly after hearing this only the hardest hearted of Zionists could possibly have voted against the motion.
‘Addressing the challenge of what to do about the indigenous inhabitants of the land Chaim Weizman, a Russian Jew, said to the World Zionist Congress in 1921 that Palestinians were akin to “the rocks of Judea, obstacles that had to be cleared on a difficult path." David Gruen, a Polish Jew, who changed his name to David Ben Gurion to sound relevant to the region, said. "We must expel Arabs and take their places” There are thousands of such conversations among the early zionists who plotted and implemented the violent colonization of Palestine and the annihilation of her native people. But they were only partially successful, murdering or ethnically cleansing 80% of Palestinians, which meant that 20% of us remained, an enduring obstacle to their colonial fantasies, which became the subject of their obsessions in the decades that followed, especially after conquering what remained of Palestine in 1967.
Video continues from here: https://youtu.be/m4snHu0SOm0?t=186
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