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Israel Exists to Help West Loot, Dominate Middle East – Analyst

© AP Photo / Jack GuezIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right and his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Kvirikashvili look at a bust of Theodor Herzl during a press conference at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem, Monday, July 24, 2017. (Jack Guez, Pool via AP)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right and his Georgian counterpart Giorgi Kvirikashvili look at a bust of Theodor Herzl during a press conference  at the prime minister's office in Jerusalem, Monday, July 24, 2017. (Jack Guez, Pool via AP) - Sputnik International, 1920, 13.09.2024
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Although modern defenders of Israel justify its existence under the pretense of “Jewish self-determination” or “decolonization,” the state’s ideological forebears clearly articulated Zionism as a colonial project.
Issued by the British government in 1917, the Balfour Declaration is often considered to mark the beginning of Western support for the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
The pronouncement, notorious among Palestinians and their supporters, committed the United Kingdom to the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in the Levant. Some Zionists viewed the creation of Israel as a progressive act necessary to combat rising prejudice in Europe, but historians have pointed out the nakedly antisemitic motivations of Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, who sought to appease a British public wary of rising Jewish immigration to the UK.
Although the West has cloaked its support for Israel in the decades since in the language of liberal antiracism its motivations are far from altruistic, argues political activist Joti Brar. The vice chair of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Marxist Leninist joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Thursday to discuss the United States’ ironclad backing of the country as it continues its deadly military operation in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In this video grab, residential buildings destroyed by a rocket attack from Israel, as the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in Gaza, Palestine - Sputnik International, 1920, 26.01.2024
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“We see the desperation, despite the fact that this genocide is going on in the full glare of public scrutiny,” said Brar. “The balance of power has totally shifted away from them… And therefore, if they want to survive, they've got to find another way forward.”
“But the truth is, another way forward can't be found because as far as the truth about Israel is concerned, Israel is an outpost of Anglo-American imperialism in the Middle East to control the region's resources,” she continued. “They need that there. It's their armed base in the middle of the Arab world to control the Arab world and to be able to keep the loot flowing.”
Although modern defenders of Israel justify its existence under the pretense of “Jewish self-determination” or “decolonization,” the state’s ideological forebears clearly articulated Zionism as a colonial project.
“You are being invited to help make history,” wrote the ideology’s founder Theodor Herzl in a 1902 letter to Cecil Rhodes, the notorious namesake of the white supremacist African republic of Rhodesia. “It doesn’t involve Africa, but a piece of Asia Minor; not Englishmen but Jews… How, then, do I happen to turn to you since this is an out-of-the-way matter for you? How indeed? Because it is something colonial.”
Map of Ottoman Palestine in 1851, from the The Illustrated Atlas, And Modern History Of The World Geographical, Political, Commercial & Statistical, Edited By R. Montgomery Martin - Sputnik International, 1920, 28.03.2024
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Jewish migration to Palestine rose sharply after the Balfour Declaration was issued, with violent paramilitary gangs arising from within the transplanted population. Terrorist groups such as Lehi and Irgun attacked the country’s indigenous Palestinian population, forming the basis of the Israel Defense [sic] Forces after the establishment of the ethno-supremacist state in 1948. Israel has pushed the territory’s non-Jewish inhabitants to the margins since then, presiding over what numerous international organizations have classified as an apartheid state.
“Oil remains the single most important commodity in the world today,” noted Brar. “It is the most important source of energy for the world, for industry and for war and it is the most geopolitically significant asset for that reason. And without controlling the oil and being able to loot it at rock bottom prices in the way that they do because of their colonial position in the region, then imperialism would be in massive trouble. What's left of their economies would be collapsing.”
“And so you see this really existential identification of Western imperialism with Israel, which to a lot of people seems to make no sense. They can't see why they don't just let Israel fight its own battles and fight and die or live and die according to its own abilities. Why are they all jumping in? Why is Zionism so important to the West?”
“The reason is it's their tool for controlling the region and the region's resources,” Brar explained. “Without those resources they're going to be in really, really big trouble.”
Palestinians and foreigners march towards Israel's controversial separation wall between the West Bank village of Bilin near Ramallah and the Israeli settlement of Modiin Ilit during a demonstration against settlements in the area, on February 17, 2017 - Sputnik International, 1920, 22.02.2017
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