Palestine, mon amour! (13)

Naomi Klein

(https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/24/zionism-seder-protest-new-york-gaza-israel)

This Passover, we don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name

But there is a less literal way of understanding this story. It is about false idols. About the human tendency to worship the profane and shiny, to look to the small and material rather than the large and transcendent.

What I want to say to you tonight at this revolutionary and historic Seder in the Streets is that too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again. They are enraptured by it. Drunk on it. Profaned by it.

That false idol is called Zionism.

Zionism is a false idol that has taken the idea of the promised land and turned it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate

It is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery – the story of Passover itself – and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

It is a false idol that has taken the transcendent idea of the promised land – a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe – and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.

Political Zionism’s version of liberation is itself profane. From the start, it required the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands in the Nakba.

From the start it has been at war with dreams of liberation. At a Seder it is worth remembering that this includes the dreams of liberation and self-determination of the Egyptian people. This false idol of Zionism equates Israeli safety with Egyptian dictatorship and client states.

From the start it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings but as demographic threats – much as the pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites, and thus ordered the death of their sons.

Zionism has brought us to our present moment of cataclysm and it is time that we said clearly: it has always been leading us here.

It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments: thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet.

We, in these streets for months and months, are the exodus. The exodus from Zionism

It is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children.

Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed every Jewish value, including the value we place on questioning – a practice embedded in the Seder with its four questions asked by the youngest child.

Including the love we have as a people for text and for education.

Today, this false idol justifies the bombing of every university in Gaza; the destruction of countless schools, of archives, of printing presses; the killing of hundreds of academics, of journalists, of poets – this is what Palestinians call scholasticide, the killing of the means of education.

Meanwhile, in this city, the universities call in the NYPD and barricade themselves against the grave threat posed by their own students daring to ask them basic questions, such as: how can you claim to believe in anything at all, least of all us, while you enable, invest in and collaborate with this genocide?

The false idol of Zionism has been allowed to grow unchecked for far too long.

So tonight we say: it ends here.

Our Judaism cannot be contained by an ethnostate, for our Judaism is internationalist by nature.

Our Judaism cannot be protected by the rampaging military of that state, for all that military does is sow sorrow and reap hatred – including against us as Jews.

Our Judaism is not threatened by people raising their voices in solidarity with Palestine across lines of race, ethnicity, physical ability, gender identity and generations.

Our Judaism is one of those voices and knows that in that chorus lies both our safety and our collective liberation.

Our Judaism is the Judaism of the Passover Seder: the gathering in ceremony to share food and wine with loved ones and strangers alike, the ritual that is inherently portable, light enough to carry on our backs, in need of nothing but each other: no walls, no temple, no rabbi, a role for everyone, even – especially – the smallest child. The Seder is a diaspora technology if ever there was one, made for collective grieving, contemplation, questioning, remembering and reviving the revolutionary spirt.

So look around. This, here, is our Judaism. As waters rise and forests burn and nothing is certain, we pray at the altar of solidarity and mutual aid, no matter the cost.

We don’t need or want the false idol of Zionism. We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name. Freedom from an ideology that has no plan for peace other than deals with murderous theocratic petrostates next door, while selling the technologies of robo-assassinations to the world.

We seek to liberate Judaism from an ethnostate that wants Jews to be perennially afraid, that wants our children to be afraid, that wants us to believe the world is against us so that we go running to its fortress and beneath its iron dome, or at least keep the weapons and donations flowing.

That is the false idol.

And it’s not just Netanyahu, it’s the world he made and that made him – it’s Zionism.

What are we? We, in these streets for months and months, are the exodus. The exodus from Zionism.

And to the Chuck Schumers of this world, we do not say: “Let our people go.”

We say: “We have already gone. And your kids? They’re with us now.”

• Naomi Klein is a Guardian US columnist and contributing writer. She is the professor of climate justice and co-director of the Centre for Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia. Her latest book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, was published in September
• This is a transcript of a speech delivered at the Emergency Seder in the Streets in New York City

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Bideoa: https://youtu.be/

Transkripzioa:

0:00

as many as 300 protesters were arrested

0:03

in Brooklyn on Tuesday night where

0:05

thousands of mostly Jewish New Yorkers

0:08

gathered for a Seder in the streets to

0:10

stop arming Israel they said this on the

0:13

second night of passover the

0:15

demonstration was held at Grand Army

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Plaza one block away from the home of

0:20

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer it

0:23

came just hours before the Senate

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overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion

0:27

foreign aid package that includes some

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$14 billion and arms and security

0:31

funding to Israel a series of speakers

0:35

address the rally including journalist

0:38

author Naomi kleene Palestinian activist

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Linda sarur and several Jewish students

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suspended from Columbia University where

0:46

students have held a Gaza solidarity

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encampment these are some of the voices

0:51

of the demonstrators yesterday speaking

0:54

at the Seder in the

0:56

streets tonight’s uh Sader in the

0:58

streets which will be happening on the

1:00

second night of passover which is a

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holiday we observe every year that is

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all about Liberation and how our

1:05

liberations are intertwined with one

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another is coming just hours ahead of a

1:09

likely Senate vote on4 billion doar in

1:12

military funding and weapons to Israel

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so we’re here to tell Senator Schumer

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that this is enough and we need to end

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us complicity in Israel’s genocide

1:20

against Palestinians and at the core of

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the Passover story is that we cannot be

1:25

free until all people are free and right

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now what we’re seeing is that the

1:29

Israeli government and the United States

1:31

government are carrying out a genocide

1:34

of Palestinians in Gaza over 34,000

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people killed in 6 months in the name of

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Jewish safety in the false name of

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Jewish

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Freedom today the most meaningful way we

1:53

can possibly celebrate a holiday for

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Jewish Liberation um is in the streets

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protesting this genci because our

2:00

Liberation is tied together with

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Palestinian Liberation and honestly I

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I’m more moved than I have been in

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months watching young Jews get arrested

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alongside Jewish Elders saying not in

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our name as we have been for six months

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um and the Senate is still about to pass

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this massive funding

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package pass over pal

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[Music]

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all the same and now we are hundreds in

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the streets people are taking arrest

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saying business as usual not go on we

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are here at the doorstep of Senator

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Senator Chuck Schumer to the people in

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Palestine we love you we are with you we

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are going to stop this us funding so

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that you can fight for your own

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Liberation if you do not move you will

3:00

be arrested some of the voices at the

3:02

Seder in the streets to stop arming

3:04

Israel that was held at Grand Army Plaza

3:07

on Tuesday in the second night of

3:09

passover among those who addressed the

3:11

crowd during the Seder was award-winning

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author and activist Naomi kleene this is

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some of what she had to

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say my friends I’ve been thinking about

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Moses and his rage when he came down

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from the mount to find the Israelites

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worshiping a golden calf

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the Eco feminist in me has always been

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uneasy about this

3:35

story what kind of God is jealous of

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animals what kind of God wants to hoard

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all the sacredness of the Earth for

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himself but there is of course a less

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literal way of understanding this story

3:52

it is a lesson about false

3:54

Idols about the human tendency to

3:57

worship the profane and

4:00

shiny to look to the small and material

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rather than the large and

4:07

Transcendent what I want to say to you

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this evening at this revolutionary and

4:12

historic Seder in the streets is that

4:15

too many of our people are worshiping a

4:18

false idol once again they are

4:21

enraptured by it they are drunk on it

4:25

they are profaned by it and that false

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idol is is called

4:33

Zionism it is a false idol that takes

4:37

our most profound biblical stories of

4:40

justice and emancipation From Slavery

4:43

the story of Passover itself and turns

4:46

them into brutalist weapons of colonial

4:50

land theft road maps for ethnic

4:53

cleansing and

4:58

genocide it is a false idol that has

5:02

taken the Transcendent idea of the

5:04

promised land a metaphor for human

5:07

Liberation that has traveled across

5:09

faiths to every corner of this globe and

5:13

dared to turn it into a deed of sale for

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a militarist

5:19

ethnostate political zionism’s version

5:22

of Liberation is itself profane from the

5:26

start it required the mass expulsion of

5:29

pales Ians from their homes and

5:31

ancestral lands in the nakba from the

5:34

start it has been at war with Collective

5:38

dreams of Liberation at a ster it is

5:41

worth remembering that this includes the

5:43

dreams of Liberation and

5:45

self-determination of the Egyptian

5:47

people this false idol of Zionism has

5:51

long equated Israeli safety with

5:53

Egyptian

5:55

dictatorship and unfreedom and client

5:59

state

6:00

from the start it has produced an ugly

6:03

kind of Freedom that saw Palestinian

6:06

children not as human beings but as

6:10

demographic threats much as the Pharaoh

6:14

in the book of Exodus feared the growing

6:17

population of Israelites and thus

6:19

ordered the death of their sons and as

6:22

we know Moses was saved from that by

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being put in a basket and adopted by an

6:29

Egyptian woman

6:31

Zionism has brought us to our present

6:33

moment of cataclysm and it is time that

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we say clearly it has always been

6:41

leading us

6:43

here

6:45

yes it is a false idol that has led far

6:48

too many of our own people down a deeply

6:51

immoral path that now has them

6:54

justifying the shredding of core

6:57

Commandments Thou shalt not k

7:00

Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not

7:03

covet the Commandments brought down from

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the M it is a false idol that equates

7:10

Jewish Freedom with cluster bombs that

7:13

kill and maim Palestinian children

7:16

Zionism is a false idol that has

7:18

betrayed every Jewish value including

7:22

the value that we place on questioning a

7:25

practice embedded in the Seder itself

7:28

with its four questions asked by the

7:30

youngest

7:31

child it also betrays the love that we

7:34

have as a people for text and for

7:38

Education today this false idol dares to

7:41

justify the bombing of every single

7:44

University in Gaza the destruction of

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countless schools of archives of

7:50

printing presses the killing of hundreds

7:52

of academics Scholars journalists poets

7:57

essayists this is what pal Ians call

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scolastici the killing of the

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infrastructure and the means of

8:05

Education meanwhile in this city the

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universities call the NYPD and barricade

8:13

themselves against the grave threat

8:16

posed by their own students asking

8:22

them students embodying the spirit of

8:26

the Seder asking the most basic question

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asking questions like how can you claim

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to believe in anything at all least of

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all us while you enable invest in and

8:40

collaborate with this

8:42

genocide that’s

8:45

[Applause]

8:46

right the false idol of Zionism has been

8:49

allowed to grow unchecked for far too

8:54

long so tonight we say it ends here

8:59

[Music]

9:02

our Judaism cannot be contained by an

9:05

ethn state for our Judaism is

9:08

internationalist by its very

9:12

nature our Judaism cannot be protected

9:15

by the rampaging military of that ethn

9:18

state for all that military does is so

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sorrow and reap hatred including hatred

9:26

against us as Jews

9:30

our Judaism is not threatened by people

9:32

raising their voices in solidarity with

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Palestine across lines of race ethnicity

9:38

physical ability gender identity and

9:41

generations our Judaism is one of those

9:44

voices and knows that in this chorus

9:48

lies both our safety and our Collective

9:55

Liberation our Judaism is the Passover

9:58

is the Juda ISM of the Passover seder

10:02

the Gathering in ceremony to share food

10:05

and wine with loved ones and strangers

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alike this ritual light enough to carry

10:12

on our backs in need of nothing but one

10:15

another even uh with we don’t need walls

10:19

we need no Temple no Rabbi and there is

10:22

a role for everyone including especially

10:25

the smallest child the Seder is portable

10:30

a diaspora technology if ever there was

10:36

one it is made to hold our Collective

10:40

grieving our contemplation our

10:43

questioning our remembering and our

10:45

Reviving and rekindling of the

10:48

Revolutionary spirit so

10:54

tonight so look

10:56

around this here

10:59

is our

11:02

[Applause]

11:06

Judaism as Waters

11:09

rise and forests burn and nothing is

11:13

certain we pray at the altar of

11:15

solidarity and mutual Aid no matter the

11:19

cost we don’t need or want the false

11:23

idol of Zionism we want freedom from the

11:27

project that commits genocide in our

11:32

name we want freedom from the ideology

11:36

that has no plan for peace except for

11:39

deals with murderous Theocratic Petro

11:41

States next door while selling the

11:43

Technologies of Robo assassinations to

11:46

the

11:47

world we seek to liberate Judaism from

11:50

an ethn state that wants Jews to be

11:52

perennially afraid that wants our

11:54

children afraid that wants us to believe

11:57

that the world is against us so that we

11:59

go running to its Fortress or at least

12:02

keep sending the weapons and the

12:05

donations that is a false idol and it’s

12:09

not just

12:10

Netanyahu it’s the world he made and the

12:13

world that made him it’s Zionism that’s

12:19

right what are

12:22

we we in these streets for months and

12:27

months we are The Exodus The Exodus from

12:36

[Applause]

12:38

Zionism

12:40

so to the sh Chuck Schumer of this world

12:45

we do not say let our people go we say

12:50

we have already gone and your kids

12:54

they’re with us

12:56

now award-winning journalist and Naomi

12:59

kleene speaking of what was called the

13:02

Sader in the streets to stop arming

13:04

Israel on Tuesday at Grand Army Plaza in

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Brookland a block from Senate Majority

13:08

Leader Chuck Schumer’s home special

13:11

thanks to Hanah elas Eric Halverson and

13:13

ishmail daro of democracy Now

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GOGORATZEKOA

Ni neu exilioan bizi naiz, nik neuk aukeratutakoa

“Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your

homeland, in your own house, in a room.”

Mahmoud Darwish