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Quote of the Week: The Exceptionalization of the Suffering of the Jews

The exceptionalization of the suffering of the Jews was not a Jewish discursive project but a Western one, part of the exceptionalization of the genocidal violence of the Nazis. In the grand narrative of Western triumph over this ultimate force of evil, the State of Israel became an emblem of Western fortitude and marked the endurance of the Euro-American imperial project. Within this grand narrative, Jews were forced to transform from traumatized survivors into perpetrators. Jews from all over the world were sent to win a demographic battle, without which the Israeli regime could not last. The second and third generations born to this project were born with no histories or memories of their anti-Zionist or non-Zionist ancestors, let alone memories of the other worlds of which their ancestors were part. What’s more, they were totally dissociated from the history of what Palestine used to be and from its destruction. Thus, they were easy prey for a nation-state marketed by the Zionists and Euro-American powers as the culmination of Jewish liberation.

The Nakba, in this sense, was not only a genocidal campaign against Palestinians but also, at the same time, one against Jews, upon whom Europe forced another “solution” after the final one. Without the massive imperial powers’ funding and arms, the mass killing in Gaza would have ceased after a short while, and the Israelis would have to ask themselves what they were doing, how they arrived to this point, and would be forced to reckon with October 7 and ask themselves why it happened and how to achieve a sustainable life for everyone between the river and the sea.

— Ariella Aïsha Azoulay 

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