حرية لفلسطين
Freedom for Palestine
Loading...
USA
Dr. Ivan Bassov is a Russian-American-Israeli writer and computer scientist who uses The Times of Israel, Substack, and other platforms to promote Zionist narratives, redefine “Palestinian” as an Israeli identity, challenge the conventional Nakba narrative, and attack BDS.
Dr. Ivan Bassov's writing treats Palestinian identity, the Nakba, BDS, UNRWA, and anti-Zionism as narrative problems to be defeated through linguistic and historical redefinition, including his campaign to reclaim “Palestine” for Israel.
Journalism
Block this person on their socials:
Dr. Ivan Bassov is a Russian-American-Israeli writer and computer scientist whose political writing focuses heavily on Israel, Zionism, Palestinian identity, the history and meaning of the term “Palestine,” the Nakba, BDS, UNRWA, and what he calls “Ziophobia.”
Bassov publishes extensively through The Times of Israel, Substack, Medium, and other platforms. His writing is characterized by an explicit effort to challenge prevailing terminology and narratives surrounding Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A central theme of Bassov’s recent writing is his campaign to reclaim the name “Palestine” for Israel.
In Palestine, That Is Israel, Bassov argues that Israel and Palestine should not necessarily be understood as mutually exclusive political entities. He proposes that Israel adopt “Palestine” as an official exonym while retaining “Israel” as its Hebrew endonym. His formulation is explicit: “Palestine is Israel.”
In Hands Off My Palestine, Bassov develops the argument further, describing the struggle over Palestine as fundamentally a struggle over who has the authority to define the name and its meaning. He argues that the word “Palestine” should not be treated as the exclusive property of the anti-Israel movement.
This campaign is presented by Bassov as a project of linguistic and historical reclamation rather than merely a dispute over terminology.
Bassov extends the same argument from geography to personal identity.
He describes himself as a “Russian-American-Israeli Palestinian”, explicitly explaining the designation through his proposition that Palestine is Israel. His writings argue that Israelis—including Jewish and non-Jewish citizens—can and should reclaim the designation “Palestinian.”
Bassov objects strongly to the contemporary use of “Palestinian” as an exclusive designation for non-Israeli Arab populations. In The Clientele, he explicitly advocates replacing that usage with “UNRWA Clientele” or “the Clientele.”
His broader argument is that terminology itself has become a political instrument: whoever controls the names controls the conceptual framework through which history, geography, and political legitimacy are understood.
Bassov has developed these ideas through a series of essays and projects collectively centered on what he calls the Palestinian Identity Manifesto and the Palestine Project.
His writing argues that the contemporary political meaning of “Palestinian” should not be treated as an ancient or self-evident historical fact. He disputes narratives that present the modern Palestinian identity as a timeless national identity extending unchanged into antiquity.
His Palestine Project and related essays repeatedly return to the proposition that Israel and Palestine can be understood as two names for the same country, rather than necessarily representing two competing national entities.
The Nakba is another recurring subject in Bassov’s writing.
Rather than accepting the conventional presentation of the Nakba as a foundational Palestinian national narrative without qualification, Bassov seeks to replace its dominant focus on the 1948 displacement of Arabs with a broader narrative centered on the displacement and flight of Jewish communities from Arab countries. In “Nakba”: You Keep Using That Word…, he challenges the terminology and historical framing surrounding the term “Nakba.”
His writing on the subject includes arguments concerning the creation and perpetuation of refugee identities, the role of UNRWA, and what he describes as the transformation of displacement into a permanent political and institutional framework.
Bassov has also written about Jewish refugees and displaced communities from Arab countries, emphasizing their history as a counterpoint to narratives that focus exclusively on Arab displacement in 1948. In November 30 — Nakba Day: The Jewish Expulsion and Flight from Arab Lands, he focuses specifically on the displacement and flight of Jewish communities from Arab countries.
Bassov is particularly critical of UNRWA and of the terminology surrounding Palestinian refugees.
He argues that the international system surrounding Palestinian refugees has contributed to the preservation of a distinct political identity based on refugee status across generations. His preferred term, “the Clientele,” is deliberately provocative and is intended to challenge the conventional terminology used by governments, international organizations, and media.
His criticism therefore extends beyond UNRWA itself to the broader vocabulary used to describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Bassov is an outspoken opponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In essays including Investing in Hypocrisy: The BDS Index Fund and The BDS Index Fund, Revisited, he treats BDS as a political and ideological campaign against Israel and examines the organizations, companies, and institutions associated with boycott activity.
His writing presents opposition to BDS as part of a broader effort to challenge what he regards as exceptional or discriminatory treatment of Israel.
Bassov has developed his own terminology for describing hostility toward Israel and Zionism.
He uses “Ziophobia” to refer to what he characterizes as hostility, prejudice, or obsessive double standards directed at Israel, Zionism, or Zionists. He presents the term as an analogue to antisemitism and argues that some contemporary anti-Israel rhetoric represents a modern form of hostility toward Jewish sovereignty.
In The Enemy Is Ziophobia and Antisemitism Without a Name, Bassov develops this argument into a broader theory of what he considers a contemporary ideological campaign against Israel.
He also uses related terminology such as “Zionistish” and “Ziophobish” to describe positions along a spectrum between support for and opposition to Israel.
Another strand of Bassov’s writing concerns what he calls supersessionism: the idea that a later religious or political identity can replace, inherit, or supersede the Jewish people’s historical identity, covenant, or connection to the Land of Israel.
In When Theft Calls Itself Revelation and related essays, Bassov connects supersessionist ideas to what he describes as modern anti-Zionist narratives.
His argument is that disputes over Israel are not solely territorial or political but also involve competing claims about historical continuity, identity, and ownership of collective narratives.
Across these subjects, Bassov consistently treats language as a central component of political conflict.
His essays argue that terms such as “Palestine,” “Palestinian,” “refugee,” “Nakba,” “occupation,” “colonialism,” and “Zionism” do more than describe political reality: they establish conceptual frameworks within which political arguments are subsequently made.
His writing therefore frequently attempts to redefine, reclaim, or replace established terminology.
This approach is summarized in his recurring concept of “the Alef-Bet of Meaning”—the proposition that political struggles can begin with control over words, names, categories, and definitions before they become struggles over territory or institutions.
Bassov's work is not limited to a single article or political controversy. His publications form a sustained body of commentary addressing Israel, Zionism, Jewish identity, Palestinian identity, UNRWA, BDS, the Nakba, antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and the politics of historical memory.
His recent essays include Names and Narratives, The Battle for “Palestine”, The Clientele, Palestine Is to Israel What Persia Is to Iran, Palestine, That Is Israel, and Hands Off My Palestine, alongside his writings on Ziophobia, supersessionism, BDS, and the Nakba.
Taken together, these writings present a consistent project: challenge the prevailing vocabulary surrounding Israel and Palestine, reclaim disputed terminology, and replace what Bassov regards as an anti-Israel narrative framework with one centered on Israeli sovereignty, Jewish historical continuity, and the identification of Palestine with Israel.
blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒blogs.timesofisrael.com
🔒israele.net
🔒trhaber.com
🔒BDS Boycott:
The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement is a global campaign which follows the worldwide boycott movement that led to the successful dismantling of apartheid in South Africa and therefore advocates for various sustained forms of boycott against Israel until it complies with international law.
Founded as a response to the rampant, ongoing and systemic dispossession, displacement, and disenfranchisement endured by generations of Palestinians, the BDS movement is in direct response to the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements, the imposition of discriminatory laws and the denial of basic rights to millions living under occupation, apartheid or in exile with no right of return.
Central to the ethos of BDS is the belief that every purchase and action carries a weighty moral responsibility. To buy goods from or actively support companies or organizations on the BDS list is to cast a vote in favor of perpetuating injustice, a tacit endorsement of the status quo of occupation and discrimination. It’s a direct violation of the collective conscience, a betrayal of the fundamental principles of human rights and dignity.
By pressuring Israel and its supporters by withdrawing support and capital, humanity aims to bring awareness to — and ultimately — end the occupation of Palestine, grant equal rights to all Palestinians and recognize the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. This pressure also extends to any individuals and entities found to be complicit in the normalization, funding or support of Israel’s brutal occupation and 75+ years of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Nakba Denial:
Denying the reality of the Nakba as a well-documented and verifiable ethnic cleansing and instead framing it as a consequence of a war lost by Palestinians is not only a gross distortion of history but also a deliberate attempt to absolve Israel of its responsibility for the atrocities committed against Palestinians.
The Nakba, which translates to “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the systematic expulsion and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
This revisionist narrative seeks to sanitize Israel’s actions and downplay the deliberate policies of expulsion and dispossession that were enacted against the Palestinian population and serves only to perpetuate a narrative of Israeli victimhood while erasing the suffering and trauma endured by Palestinians for generations.
In fact, this perpetuation and echoing of Zionist lies works to systematically invalidate the Palestinian lived experience and diminishing the atrocious loss of land, homes, culture, livelihoods and statehood experienced by generations of Palestinians at the hands of the state of Israel. By normalizing the complete eradication of Palestine and its Palestinian inhabitants, this revisionist lens reinforces the notion that the dispossession and marginalization of Palestinians (in violation of international law) is acceptable and justified when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
Genocide Denial:
Anyone rejecting the reality of the very real and active genocide in Palestine is not only denying decades of dehumanization and erasure of Palestinians but also turning a blind eye to the blatant systemic oppression documented by reputable institutions.
The Institute of Genocide Studies, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, genocide survivors and even international bodies like the World Court have all recognized credible evidence of genocide — with their statements only corroborated by multiple reputable organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Save the Children, Al-Haq and Euro-Med Watch.
”The Lemkin Institute believes that the annihilation of approximately 1% of the total population of the Gaza Strip, which stands at 2.3 million people, including entire generations of Palestinians, and the infliction of “severe bodily” and “mental harm” upon the Palestinian population at large, which will result in the majority suffering life-changing injuries and psychological trauma, taken together with the persistent and pervasive genocidal rhetoric as manifested by Israeli officials, particularly within decision making circles, as well as by segments of Israeli society at large, against the Palestinian group “as such,” amounts to the commission of genocide, as outlined in Article II (a) and (b) of the UNGC and Article 6 (a) and (b) of the Rome Statute.” - The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention
”By analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met. One of the key findings is that Israel's executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted jus in bello principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.” - Francesca Albanese, Human Rights Council, 2024
“I am going to bed tonight in full certainty that as I sleep, Israel, a member state of the UN, abetted, armed, and egged on by the US and the other G-7 countries that rule the world, is committing genocide in Gaza” - Jeff Halper, ICAHD, 2023
”The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Al Mezan, and Al-Haq, vehemently denounce the initiation of the ground invasion by the Israeli military into eastern Rafah. This egregious act stands as a stark testament to the failure of the international community to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as per their legal obligations, and compel Israel to adhere to the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).” - PCHR, Al Mezan, Al-Haq
”The ICJ in its provisional measures order ruled that some of Israel's actions constitute a “plausible claim of genocidal acts”. The international community continues to be bound by their obligations under international humanitarian law, and the ICJ ruling, to ensure Palestinians are protected. Whenever we learn lessons from the past, we resolve to never again let “atrocity crimes” unfold. The test is now right in front of us. Children are being starved while trucks of food are denied access and continued fighting prevent delivery of the little aid coming into Gaza. We are failing that test.” - Save the Children
“After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention.” - University Network For Human Rights
Additional evidence, statements of incitement and information can also be found at:
Apartheid Denial:
Denying the existence of apartheid in Palestine not only disregards decades of overwhelming evidence but also minimizes, perpetuates and attempts to erase the injustice and suffering faced by Palestinians.
The reality of apartheid in Palestine has been extensively documented by reputable organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, Save the Children, Al-Haq, and Euro-Med Watch. These organizations have highlighted discriminatory laws, policies, and practices that systematically oppress Palestinians, depriving them of basic rights and freedoms.
In fact, the apartheid regime in Palestine is characterized by segregated infrastructure, unequal access to resources and institutionalized discrimination reminiscent of the apartheid era in South Africa. This has only further been consolidated by statements from renowned specialists and institutions, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the United Nations, who have both condemned Israel’s policies as apartheid.
Archbishop Tutu, a renowned anti-apartheid activist, has drawn parallels between the oppression faced by Palestinians and the apartheid regime in South Africa; while the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has expressed concern over Israel’s discriminatory practices and called for an end to apartheid policies like the construction of the apartheid wall for years.
“Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole. Aware of the seriousness of this allegation, the authors of the report conclude that available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law.” - UNESCWA, March 2017
“Israeli authorities have deprived millions of people of their basic rights by virtue of their identity as Palestinians. These longstanding policies and systematic practices box in, dispossess, forcibly separate, marginalize, and otherwise inflict suffering on Palestinians. In the OPT, movement restrictions, land expropriation, forcible transfer, denial of residency and nationality, and the mass suspension of civil rights constitute “inhuman[e] acts” set out under the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute. Under both legal standards, inhumane acts when carried out amid systematic oppression and with the intent to maintain domination make up the crime against humanity of apartheid.” - HRW, 2021
“This is apartheid. Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the OPT, and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law. Laws, policies and practices which are intended to maintain a cruel system of control over Palestinians, have left them fragmented geographically and politically, frequently impoverished, and in a constant state of fear and insecurity.” - Amnesty International, 2022
“The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) strongly condemns Israel’s laws, policies and practices of racial segregation, persecution and apartheid against the indigenous Palestinian population in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and against Palestinian refugees.” - ICJ, 2022
“Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid” - OHCHR, 2022
“The conclusion of this legal opinion is that the crime against humanity of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank. The perpetrators are Israelis, and the victims are Palestinians.” - Yesh Din, June 2020
“The law's distinct apartheid characteristics guarantee Israel’s ethnic-religious character as exclusively Jewish, while anchoring discrimination and racism against Palestinian citizens.” - Adalah, 2020
“This is apartheid.” - ICAHD, 2023
Dehumanization of Palestinians:
The systematic erasure of Palestinian history and culture is a well-documented effort that has been ongoing since the early 1900s. This erasure has taken many forms, including the destruction of physical records and infrastructure, the suppression of Palestinian voices and narratives, the appropriation of Palestinian cultural heritage and most visibly, the dehumanization of the Palestinian populace.
From the late 19th century to the mid-20th century, Palestinian records, literature, and cultural heritage faced deliberate and concerted efforts to obliterate their existence and narrative. This deliberate "archival silencing" has made reconstructing this period in Palestinian history incredibly challenging, yet the truths that remain paint a horrifying picture of the deliberate erasure and destruction of an entire population and its culture.
The dehumanization of Palestinians has been a deliberate policy, perpetuated through military operations, discriminatory laws, Israeli education and a pervasive culture that fosters prejudice. Dehumanising rhetoric, portraying Palestinians as "roaches" and "rats," lays the foundation for atrocities by stripping away their humanity in the eyes of the oppressor.
Widespread media narratives also project institutional biases ranging from depicting Palestinians solely as militants or desperate victims and erasing their normal daily life to embedding language biases around land, protests and resistance tactics. These patterns collectively indicate how public discourse within segments of Israeli society systematically dehumanize Palestinians while entrenching prejudices against them.
Supporting the IDF:
The IOF has never been a moral army, let alone the ‘most moral.’ In fact, they originate from larger terrorist groups that reigned terror in Palestine and murdered hundreds and thousands of innocent men, women and children — and continue to do so to this day.
The insidious claim that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) represent the "most moral army in the world" is a blatant affront to the Palestinian people and an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses, war crimes and the brutal suppression of Palestinian nationalism and identity.
This propagandistic myth constitutes an act of violent erasure against the immense suffering and resilience of the Palestinian people in the face of the colonial Zionist project to dispossess and displace them from their ancestral homeland. In reality, the factual record makes a mockery of this "moral army" fallacy.
The IDF and its predecessors have perpetrated horrific massacres against defenseless Palestinian villages like Deir Yassin and Al Dawayima, where women and children were raped, disembowels and burned alive. They have also repeatedly used Palestinian civilians, including children, as human shields; despite claiming it’s Hamas who do this.
Furthermore, the IOF have illegally abducted thousands of Palestinian children from their homes, tortured them and then subjected to sham military tribunals - with systemic practices of child abuse, both physical and sexual, carried out by the so-called "most moral army." Any attempt to lionize the IDF as a virtuous force is an abhorrent denial of the lived reality for Palestinians under its military occupation and colonial subjugation. It erases the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of villages in the Nakba, the wanton targeting of civilian areas under the Dahiya Doctrine, the extrajudicial executions of hostages and the myriad other well-documented atrocities and violations of international law committed by Israeli forces over decades.
Those who unquestioningly regurgitate this fallacy align themselves with the historical bloc of colonial powers who have sought to dominate, subjugate, and erase the national and human rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. They engage in the same rhetoric once used to justify settler-colonial projects like the Indian Removal Act, the wars of extermination against Native Americans, and other campaigns of ethnic cleansing and land theft prosecuted in the name of racial superiority and "civilizing" missions.
The enduring resilience, struggle, and activism of the Palestinian people against these criminal dehumanizing forces represent the highest moral ground. To condemn them while sanctifying their oppressors is a perverse obfuscation that can only be rooted in ideological discrimination. Any honest examination of the Israeli occupation's practices can only lead to the conclusion that the IDF's conduct has been a moral abomination, a stain upon human conscience that must be unanimously repudiated.
To perpetuate the odious lie of the "most moral army" mythology or to show the IOF support is to align oneself against the hard-won dignity and heroic resistance of the Palestinian people in word and deed. It is to abet injustice, turn a willfully blind eye to atrocity and act as an apologist for a ruthless and unrelenting campaign of ethnic persecution and dispossession in the name of racial supremacy.
It is, in essence, an egregious act of complicity in crimes against humanity and should be condemned as false propaganda at every turn.
Falsely Equating 'Intifada' with Terrorism:
The malicious characterisation of the Palestinian Intifadas as acts of "terrorism" and "genocide" represents an insidious attempt to delegitimise and demonise the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and liberation from Israeli occupation. The Intifadas represented grassroots Palestinian rebellion against decades of Israeli occupation and were characterised by nonviolent demonstrations and civil disobedience centred around boycotts, tax strikes, protests, and other measures focused against the occupation.
It was only after intense oppression from Israeli forces that resulted in the brutal massacre of approximately 1,100 innocent Palestinians, many of them women and children, that protestors adopted more violent tactics, still limiting themselves to throwing stones and molotov cocktails in the face of intense military aggression and force. Similarly, 3,350 Palestinians would also later be slaughtered by Israelis during the second intifada, with tens of thousands more gravely injured, once again showing the violent and oppressive response innocent Palestinian civilians faced when protesting for their basic human rights and liberties.
It is important, however, to remember that according to the UN charter of 1948, UN General Assembly Resolution 2625 from 1970, Protocol 1, an amendment to the 1949 Geneva Convention, UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43 from 1982, and UN General Assembly Resolution 38/17 from 1983, the people of Palestine have the legal right to resist apartheid, occupation, and genocide using any and all means at their disposal, including violent armed resistance. Under the same laws and statutes, Israel has no legal right to "self-defence."
Therefore, the malicious characterisation of the Palestinian Intifadas as acts of "terrorism" and "genocide" represents an insidious attempt to delegitimise and demonise the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and liberation from Israeli occupation. To equate these cries for emancipation with "terrorism" or “genocide” is a purposeful act of dehumanisation that seeks to disparage and silence the Palestinian cause and render the victims of occupation and institutionalised racism as the aggressors, whilst sanctifying and absolving the state that has systematically stripped them of their homeland, rights and dignity through unrelenting violence, subjugation and displacement.
This documented pattern of falsely equating the Intifada with terrorism sustains the structures of settler-colonialism by inverting the roles of oppressor and oppressed and manufacturing consent for the ongoing genocide across Palestine.
Distorting 'From the River to the Sea':
The purposeful distortion of the phrase "from the river to the sea" as a call for terrorism, genocide, and the expulsion of Jewish people constitutes a malicious act of disinformation designed to diminish the Palestinian struggle for human rights and self-determination. This inflammatory misrepresentation willfully misconstrues the fundamental meaning behind the expression as a vision of comprehensive freedom and dignity for all people living between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.
Contrary to these slanderous accusations, the invocation of "from the river to the sea" represents an emancipatory ideal - the aspiration that all inhabitants of historic Palestine, regardless of ethnicity or faith, may one day live in peace, justice and equality. It articulates the hope that oppression, discrimination, and subjugation will be dismantled, giving way to a society where neither colonial dispossession nor segregation determine the fates and rights of any of its peoples.
To falsely conflate this uplifting prospect with genocide is an unconscionable act of propaganda that seeks to demonize the perfectly justifiable demands of the Palestinian people. It paints their yearning to overcome Israel's racist apartheid laws, draconian military occupation, and systemic oppression as somehow tantamount to the very injustices they continue to resist after decades of dehumanizing persecution.
Those crying "genocide" at this call for universal liberties are engaging in a cynical form of projection, perhaps of their own heinous beliefs and views as evidenced in the Likud party’s charter, where they claim ‘from the river to the sea, there will only be Israeli sovereignty’ - accusing their vulnerable victims of desiring the very atrocities that have been perpetrated against them.
Under Zionist occupation, it is the Palestinian people who have endured ethnic cleansing, massacres, land confiscation, and institutionalized discrimination under Israel's regime of supremacy. Their invocations of freedom "from the river to the sea" represent an end to such crimes against humanity, not their perpetration.
This wilful smear is an act of complicity in the continued denial of Palestinian humanity, identity, and rights. It is a shameless tactic to discredit the justness and beauty of their anti-colonial and anti-racist strivings by painting a venerable cause as something untenable and malevolent. In reality, it is those perpetuating occupation, apartheid, and displacement of the indigenous Palestinian people who are advancing the true forces of oppression and ethnic supremacy in the region.
To insist that this emancipatory vision equates to the expulsion of Jewish citizens is also a vicious deception that reinforces a paradigm of segregation and discrimination. The river to the sea idiom seeks the liberation of all peoples within historic Palestine - liberation that is fundamentally incompatible with any form of ethnic expulsion or supremacy.
Instead, it imagines a society where one's ethno-religious identity neither precludes their equality nor human and civil rights, regardless of whether they are Palestinians, Israelis, Jews, Muslims, Christians or any other component of the diverse populace.
At its core, the river to the sea idiom gives a powerful voice to the universal yearning to dismantle all forms of racist oppression, institutionalized discrimination and denial of inalienable human rights.
To brand this righteous civic ideal as genocidal or an affront to Jewish existence is a crass attempt to invert reality and defame those demanding justice, freedom and pluralistic coexistence for all the people of the land. It is a bad-faith rhetorical strategy designed to perpetuate a status quo of subjugation and ethnic domination by falsely portraying the victims as aggressors and oppressors.
Conflating Zionism with Judaism:
While the Jewish faith and cultural identity not only long predate and but have no inherent connection to the racist political ideology of Zionism, the modern Israeli regime has deliberately pursued an ethnic supremacist agenda rooted in Jewish ethno-religious identity — yet built upon the demolition of Palestinian homes, the theft of Palestinian lands and the generational uprooting, displacement and dehumanization of the Palestinian people at large.
The harrowing cost of human suffering, loss of life and deprivation of the most basic liberties and security has been unconscionable and now, Zionism represents an utterly deplorable ethnic supremacist ideology that has enabled unconscionable acts of violence, displacement and subjugation against the Palestinian people for almost a century.
Its real-world impacts have been nothing short of a calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure and apartheid racism - a horrific legacy that cannot be decoupled from Zionism's founding vision of creating an exclusionary Jewish ethno-state through the denial of Palestinian self-determination and indigeneity.
The forced expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes and villages during the Nakba, rendering millions stateless and exiled as refugees, was an act of premeditated ethnic purging. With the willful destruction of Palestinian property, demolition of homes, uprooting of ancient olive groves, and obliteration of cultural resources further demonstrating a systematic effort to erase Palestinian identity, history and any enduring claims to the land.
Subsequent decades have seen this brutal ethnic persecution, land confiscation and denial of human rights institutionalized through severely discriminatory policies, illegal settlements, violence by occupying forces, arbitrary detentions, torture, and most notably, systemic oppression under Israel's racist apartheid regime.
These are not mere "realities" for Palestinians who remain, but grave crimes against humanity perpetrated through Zionism's new brand of unrelenting, institutionalized cruelty. This utterly shameful legacy of calculated ethnic cleansing, apartheid governance and flagrant violations of international law is inextricably intertwined with how Zionism's racist, supremacist and anti-democratic ideology has been implemented on the ground by Israel.
Any attempt to decouple or whitewash these egregious atrocities from Zionism itself is a form of explicit denialism and complicity in oppression of the highest order. No ethnic, religious or any other group deserves an ethno-supremacist theocratic state constructed through the forcible subjugation of indigenous populations as second-class citizens stripped of all rights, dignity and humanity.
Such an abhorrent exclusionary system based on racial hierarchy is fundamentally incompatible with even the barest notion of true democracy, self-determination or universal human rights regardless of ethnicity or faith.
Statehood, sovereignty and self-determination can never legitimately emerge from such systematic violence, discrimination, forced displacement and ethnic persecution as political Zionism has perpetrated against the Palestinian population.
If a state were to arise organically through democratic processes that enshrine equality, safety and liberty for all citizens regardless of ethnicity or faith, it would have legitimacy. But any racist system of ethnic domination erected through brute force subjugation and calculated ethnic supremacy, as Zionism has done, is an egregious affront to justice and human rights that requires being dismantled - not enshrined - with a new equitable path forward established.
Amplified Zionist Lies:
This individual has used their voice and platform to echo and amplify egregious Zionist lies but also perpetuate the subjugation, torture, brutalisation and murder inflicted by the Israeli-occupation of Palestinian and its attempts to erase Palestinian identity, culture, heritage and statehood. [1] [2] [3] [4]
These egregious and dangerous lies MAY include but are not limited to: [5]
Spreading misinformation and hateful propaganda against Palestinians is a deplorable act of dehumanization that directly enables human rights abuses, ethnic cleansing and violence against the Palestinian people. [35] [36] [37] [38]
By employing such malicious tactics to deny Palestinian realities and whitewash war crimes, home demolitions and the systematic deprivation of human rights under military occupation, this individual has provided racist cover for 75+ years of subjugation. [39] [[40]] (https://www.un.org/unispal/document/human-rights-situation-in-opt-unohchr-23feb-2024/)
This misinformation doesn't just distort the truth, it actively endangers Palestinian lives and inflames hatred, justifies atrocities like the active genocide and obstructs any path to justice through the wilful erasure of the Palestinian lived experience. [41] [42] [43]
For more information about amplified Zionist lies, please visit:
Visited Israel or Supported 'Birthright' Trips:
By visiting Israel, individuals actively endorse and support a regime built on systemic oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians through settler colonial terrorism. These visitors are complicit in legitimizing and normalizing a brutal apartheid system recognized and condemned by numerous international bodies, including the United Nations, the ICJ, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. [1] [2] [3]
Visitors to Israel tacitly approve severe restrictions on Palestinian movement, land confiscations, home demolitions, and the devastating blockade on Gaza, which has created catastrophic humanitarian conditions. These are not mere allegations but documented realities. The apartheid system privileges Israeli settlers while subjecting Palestinians to systemic discrimination and violence, with segregated roads, military checkpoints, and a separation barrier that fragments Palestinian communities and restricts their freedom. [4] [5] [6]
Tourism economically supports the state, indirectly funding the military occupation and the infrastructure of apartheid, including illegal settlements and state violence. Without acknowledging or engaging with the Palestinian experience, visitors normalize and legitimize these oppressive practices. [7] The financial impact of tourism cannot be understated. [8] Visitors who spend money in Israel bolster the systems of oppression that deny Palestinians their basic human rights. This financial support funds the Israeli military and infrastructure supporting illegal settlements. [9]
Programs like Birthright trips further legitimize the subjugation of Palestinians by promoting a one-sided narrative that erases the realities of occupation and apartheid, falsely presenting Israel as a safe and welcoming homeland for Jews while ignoring Palestinian suffering and dispossession. [10] [11] [12]
Visitors to Israel without a critical perspective are complicit in the violence and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. They lend credibility to a regime widely condemned for its discriminatory practices and human rights violations. By choosing to visit Israel, these individuals endorse a state that systematically violates international law and human rights, contributing to the ongoing suffering and dispossession of the Palestinian people.
Further reading:
Affirming Israel's "right to exist":
The phrase “Israel’s right to exist” is not grounded in international law but functions as a political demand designed to erase and neutralize the foundational violence upon which the Israeli state was established. No country has an enshrined “right to exist” under international law; what is codified, instead, is the right of peoples to self-determination. Yet Palestinians — an indigenous population subject to forced displacement, occupation, and apartheid — are uniquely coerced to affirm not just Israel’s existence, but its existence as a Jewish ethnostate. The demand to recognise an illegal state built on the erasure of Palestinians serves a clear colonial function: to reframe a settler-colonial project as a matter of mutual recognition, while masking the dispossession and ongoing subjugation of the native population.
Reaffirming this “right” without condition is not neutral — it is a weaponized narrative that forces the oppressed to validate the conditions of their own oppression. It silences the Nakba, the mass expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948; it ignores the demolition of over 500 villages; it legitimizes the denial of the right of return, a right Palestinians hold under UN Resolution 194. In reality, this dog-whistle turns a settler-colonial enterprise into a moral imperative, requiring Palestinians to grant legitimacy to a state that continues to colonize their land, suffocate Gaza, fragment the West Bank, and implement apartheid policies across all territories it controls.
This language operates as a form of colonial gaslighting by shifting the global discourse from justice, land, and liberation to “recognition,” painting Palestinians as irrational or hostile if they refuse to validate a system structured on their displacement. It allows Israel to demand unconditional acceptance while giving nothing in return — not rights, not reparations, not even a meaningful recognition of the Palestinian people as equals. Internationally, it upholds a model where settler-colonialism is not only protected but sanctified, positioning Israel as eternally under threat while Palestinians are cast as aggressors for simply insisting they too have a right to exist with dignity on their ancestral land.
In this way, the assertion that “Israel has a right to exist” functions not as a principle of peace, but as a discursive tool of imperial domination, maintaining asymmetry and preventing justice. To challenge it is not to deny Jewish safety or personhood — it is to refuse the erasure of a people whose lives, land, and future have been systematically stripped under the banner of legitimacy. True peace cannot be built on the demand that the colonized affirm the righteousness of their own dispossession.
Liberal Zionism:
Liberal Zionism masquerades as a "moderate" or "progressive" strain of Zionism, blending Jewish nationalism with cherry-picked liberal values like democracy and human rights as a means to justify the existence of the illegal settler colonial ethnostate known as “Israel” [1].
And Liberal Zionism is one of the greatest threats because of its political camouflage [2]. By co-opting progressive language, Liberal Zionism inoculates Zionism against true anti-colonial solidarity, dividing the left and derailing BDS movements [3]. It ensures the ongoing Nakba – from Gaza's ruins to Hebron's checkpoints – persists under a democratic veneer, making decolonization seem radical rather than just [4] [5].
Emerging from early 20th-century Labor Zionism — the very movement that orchestrated the 1948 Nakba which ethnically cleansed over 750,000 Palestinians through mass expulsions and village destructions — liberal Zionism has always served as the velvet glove over the iron fist of settler-colonialism [6] [7].
Despite claiming it merely seeks a "Jewish and democratic state," this rhetoric is actually code for an ethnostate where Jewish supremacy trumps Palestinian equality, enshrined in laws like the 2018 Nation-State Law that demotes Arabic and prioritizes Jewish settlement [8] [9].
At its core, liberal Zionism rejects the colonial origins of Israel and instead attempts to frame the Zionist project as a "return" or "liberation" rather than a European settler invasion that erased indigenous Palestinian society [10].
As a political movement, liberal Zionism emerged as a response to antisemitism and the Holocaust but quickly pivoted to justifying land theft under the guise of "self-determination," ignoring how Zionism fits classic colonial patterns: displacement of natives, resource extraction, and demographic engineering to maintain a Jewish majority [11].
As of 2025, amid the Gaza genocide and West Bank annexation pushes, it clings to a fading two-state illusion, providing diplomatic and financial cover for Israel's crimes while silencing Palestinian voices as "antisemitic" [12].
“Zionism is a colonialism, not a simple radical nationalism: even in its left-wing version, it is a colonialist nationalism." – Zeev Sternhell, liberal Zionist historian exposing his own ideology's flaws [13].
Supporting the Jewish National Fund (JNF):
The Jewish National Fund (JNF) functions as a key Zionist entity advancing settler-colonialism in Palestine, actively facilitating the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of Palestinians under the cover of environmental initiatives that obscure land grabs and the erasure of Indigenous communities. Through its "green colonialism," the JNF employs tree-planting and forestation as tools to confiscate Palestinian land, disrupt native ecosystems, and bar Palestinians from their hereditary territories, thereby entrenching Israel's occupation and apartheid regime. This practice is egregious because it masquerades ecological efforts as benevolent while directly supporting the displacement of Palestinians, contributing to ongoing ethnic cleansing by rendering stolen land inaccessible and altering its demographic character to favor Jewish settlers, as seen in the destruction of Bedouin farmlands in the Naqab to plant non-native trees. [1]
Israel designates these JNF-managed areas as national parks, forests, and reserves to justify the forced removal of Palestinians, solidify apartheid structures, and prevent the return of those displaced during the 1948 Nakba and subsequent occupations. The JNF oversees approximately 13% of land taken from Palestinians, overlaying demolished villages with pine forests to hide evidence of destruction and impose a contrived Israeli landscape, which destroys Palestinian olive orchards, undermines agricultural sustainability, and intensifies water shortages by redirecting supplies to illegal Jewish settlements — all while portraying itself as an eco-friendly organization. Such actions are profoundly harmful as they perpetuate genocide through environmental manipulation, erasing cultural heritage and livelihoods, and bolstering settler expansion that displaces Indigenous populations, exemplified by the uprooting of over 160,000 Palestinian olive trees to accommodate JNF forests, an act of ecocide that supports the occupation by economically strangling Palestinian communities. [2] [3]
The JNF's operations sustain settler violence and genocide by financing and enabling the growth of unlawful settlements in the occupied West Bank and other areas. For example, it has demolished Bedouin agricultural lands in the Naqab (Negev) for tree-planting projects, evicting Indigenous groups under the pretext of environmental enhancement, mirroring tactics used during the 1948 Nakba where the JNF aided Israeli forces in destroying over 370 Palestinian villages and reallocating the land solely for Jewish settlement. This is egregious because it directly aids ethnic cleansing by collaborating in the expulsion and prevention of return for Palestinians, reinforcing settler colonialism through exclusionary land policies that marginalize and erase Palestinian presence, as articulated by JNF figure Joseph Weitz in 1940, who called for the "transfer" of Palestinians to establish Zionist control, embedding terrorist practices into the organization's framework. [4] [5]
In the occupied territories, the JNF collaborates with the Israeli government to seize natural resources, including water, for settler advantage while depriving Palestinians of fundamental rights. This partnership exacerbates apartheid by enforcing discriminatory land allocation that subordinates Palestinian development to settler priorities, as outlined in human rights documentation. The JNF's charitable image, including building playgrounds and parks on seized land, launders its involvement in violence, such as supporting projects in West Bank settlement blocs like Gush Etzion, which expand occupation and facilitate further dispossession. These efforts are appalling as they normalize genocide by presenting land theft as philanthropy, contributing to settler colonialism by maintaining Jewish demographic dominance and blocking Palestinian self-determination. [6]
Historically, the JNF has been instrumental in the Zionist project since its founding in 1901, acquiring land in Ottoman Palestine to promote Jewish settlement while excluding Palestinians, leading to the control of over 2.5 million dunams today through laws that institutionalize discrimination. In places like Silwan in East Jerusalem and Umm al-Hiran in the Naqab, the JNF and its subsidiaries like Himnuta have facilitated property transfers and evictions to establish Jewish-only communities, fragmenting Palestinian territories and enforcing separation. This supports ethnic cleansing by using legal mechanisms to dispossess families and expand settlements, perpetuating a system of domination that amounts to crimes against humanity. [7] [8]
The JNF's greenwashing extends to solar projects in the Naqab, marketed as sustainable but used to displace Palestinians while powering settlements, denying electricity to Bedouin villages. Such hypocrisy underscores how the organization weaponizes environmentalism to advance apartheid, destroying Indigenous ties to the land and enabling ongoing genocide through resource exploitation and forced displacement. By prioritizing Jewish exclusivity, the JNF upholds a colonial order that has displaced millions since 1948, ensuring no room for Palestinian return or equality, as evidenced by its role in expropriating 4.2–6.6 million dunams via discriminatory laws. This sustained campaign is egregious, as it not only erases Palestinian history but actively contributes to the occupation by entrenching territorial control and demographic engineering, demanding accountability for its complicity in settler terrorism. [9] [10]
Normalization:
Israel enforces normalization as a fundamental tactic of its settler-colonial regime and apartheid system, compelling the depiction of its occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide as everyday realities while suppressing Palestinian resistance and rights to justice, return, and liberation. Normalization portrays Israel's domination as a legitimate state worthy of standard diplomatic, economic, cultural, and academic engagements, ignoring demands for dismantling oppression and reinforcing Jewish supremacy over Indigenous Palestinian land and people. This strategy is egregious because it whitewashes the continuous Nakba, land expropriation, and systemic violence, isolating Palestinians and bolstering settler colonialism by undermining international solidarity and legitimizing illegal expansions that perpetuate genocide. [1]
Through diplomatic channels, Israel advances normalization via agreements like the 2020 Abraham Accords with the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, forging full relations without mandating an end to occupation or apartheid. These pacts favor economic and security benefits for authoritarian leaders while forsaking Palestinian self-determination, directly sustaining settler violence by allowing unchecked settlement growth, home demolitions, and refugee denial amid increasing trade and tourism. Such normalization is harmful as it fragments Palestinian society, deepens territorial apartheid, and obstructs land returns, contributing to ethnic cleansing by normalizing the oppressor-oppressed dynamic without addressing root injustices. [2] [3]
Culturally and environmentally, Israel promotes "eco-normalization" through entities like the JNF, using tree-planting over razed villages to frame dispossession as advancement. Academically and artistically, collaborative projects often impose false equivalence between occupier and occupied, disregarding underlying oppression. This is egregious because it colonizes minds by presenting apartheid as inevitable, supporting occupation through deceptive coexistence narratives that erode resistance and enable further genocide, as seen in events that cover up root causes without pursuing justice. [4] [5]
The Palestinian-led BDS movement rejects normalization as complicity in oppression, mandating that joint activities with Israelis recognize Palestinian rights and focus on co-resistance against occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid. Normalization activities, such as festivals or conferences portraying symmetry, are boycottable for being morally reprehensible and intellectually dishonest, perpetuating false premises of equal responsibility. By isolating Palestinians and validating Israel's actions, normalization sustains settler-colonial violence, allowing expansion of illegal settlements and denial of basic rights while fragmenting global opposition. [6]
Normalization undermines the Palestinian struggle by treating Israel's regime as normal, countering anti-colonial efforts like BDS that draw from South African anti-apartheid precedents. It decolonizes minds from hegemonic attempts to accept colonialism, emphasizing that genuine relations require dismantling structures of domination first. This tactic is appalling as it reinforces genocide by whitewashing oppression under slogans of peace, contributing to ethnic cleansing through economic ties that fund military occupation and displace communities. [7] [8]
Human rights analyses confirm that such international engagements maintain apartheid by failing to address crimes like dispossession and persecution, allowing Israel to evade accountability. Normalization isolates the oppressed, portraying resistance as abnormal while entrenching settler privileges, as evidenced in Arab-Israeli projects that ignore Palestinian rights. Ultimately, it perpetuates a colonial order where occupation becomes routine, demanding rejection to achieve liberation and end the ongoing Nakba. [10]
Tell us why Ivan Bassov should be removed by emailing us at [email protected]