Philosopher Omri Boehm has questioned whether the crimes committed by the State of Israel are inherent to Zionism and how Zionism should be redefined to provide a place for Palestinians and a future for Israel. Three years after the 7 October 2023 attacks, a broad consensus has formed that Israel's actions in Gaza equated to large-scale war crimes, crimes against humanity, and possibly even genocide. This debate has entered a new phase, with the question no longer being whether Israel is engaged in systematic destruction of Palestinian society, but rather determining what form political accountability should take.
The destruction of Gaza has been described by B'Tselem, the largest Israeli human rights organization, as genocide, alongside personalities such as David Grossman. Some who raised genocide accusations early on were probably seeking to delegitimize Israel, while others refused to name these crimes out of fear of contributing to this delegitimization. The question of whether states have a "right" to exist has been raised, with the argument that states do have a right to exist, including Israel and Palestine, as established by the 1947 UN partition resolution.
Affirming the right of a state to exist does not equate to preserving its governmental structure or constitutional form. The crisis facing Israeli Zionists and Jewish communities that identify with them lies in the fact that recognizing the scale of the crimes seems to require such a transformation. The destruction of Gaza is not the result of the rise to power of extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, but rather the result of a program supporting the unconditional axiom of Jewish sovereignty.
The problem with the two-state solution is not that it is not fair, but that it cannot bring peace. An offer is made to Palestinians that they can hardly accept, and if they reject it, they are presented as the responsible party. The destruction of Palestine is not only immoral and illegal; it is also politically untenable. The destruction of Palestine is synonymous with the destruction of Israel: of its democratic institutions, its liberal society, the legitimacy of its flourishing academic, artistic and cultural life.
The collapse of such institutional frameworks clearly shows that this questioning touches the constitutional foundations of Israel. The Israeli Supreme Court has adopted a legal doctrine according to which Gaza and the West Bank are not occupied territories, but "disputed" territories. Israel has thus been granted the sovereignty to accept or reject the very idea of dividing Palestine - and thereby, the sovereignty over the fate and existence of the Palestinian people.
The Israeli Declaration of Independence derived its legitimacy, among other things, from the UN partition resolution, which provided for the existence of a Palestinian state and delineated clear borders. Presenting the Declaration of Independence as an "Archimedean point" transforms Israel's right to exist into something quite different: an unconditional right that makes the right of Palestinians to exist conditional. The task is to find an alternative "Archimedean point," that is, to define the minimal principles without which no constitutional project in the region - whether a two-state model, a single state or a confederation - can be legitimate.
Israel's Gaza Campaign and the Debate Over Zionism and Genocide Accusations
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