Ali Abunimah

Abunimah is one of the founders of The Electronic Intifada website, a non-profit online publication which covers the Israeli–Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian perspective, which was established in 2001.[6]

In 2009, Abunimah wrote an article entitled, "Israeli Jews and the one-state solution," covering some of the same arguments as he raised in his book, One Country. Abunimah's position is that the two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has "no chance of being implemented" and has been superseded by a "de facto binational state" under Israeli control. He supports the creation of a single democratic state, based on the equality of citizens and taking into account the legitimate concerns of Israel's Jewish population.

Naomi Zeveloff has described Abunimah as "the leading American proponent of a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which calls for a shared democratic state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. It is a state, in Abunimah's view, in which all residents of Israel and the territories it now occupies would enjoy equal rights and obligations. But in the eyes of his detractors, Abunimah's idea is tantamount to the destruction of the State of Israel, a proposal that would obliterate the Jewish character of the country in favor of majority Arab rule."[1]

Abunimah opposes Zionism, which he describes as "a dying project, in retreat and failing to find new recruits." He argues that Zionism's promotion of Jewish self-determination in Israel and Palestine's "intermixed population" has the effect of maintaining "a status quo in which Israeli Jews exercise power in perpetuity." Abunimah's position is that Palestinians should pursue coercive measures against Israel such as the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (B.D.S.) movement.[7] "Ultimately, I believe," he wrote in January 2012, "the logic and inevitability of a single state will be accepted. As in South Africa and Northern Ireland, any just solution will involve a difficult and lengthy process of renegotiating political, economic and cultural relationships. But that is where the debate, unstoppably, is shifting."[8]

In a post on Electronic Intifada in January 2009, headlined "Why Israel Won't Survive," Abunimah wrote that Israel was created by "the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s non-Jewish majority Arab population," and "has been maintained in existence only through Western support and constant use of violence to prevent the surviving indigenous population from exercising political rights within the country, or returning from forced exile." Abunimah expressed his belief that the intention of the peace process was to normalize Israel as a Jewish state and gain Palestinian blessing for their own subjugation. He compared Israel to apartheid South Africa, saying Israel makes "South Africa's apartheid leaders look wise, restrained and humane by comparison."

In addition, he also approvingly cites comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany made by Gerald Kaufman,[9] and has reportedly made them himself.[10] In 2010, he tweeted that "Supporting Zionism is not atonement for the Holocaust, but its continuation in spirit" and has also said "Zionism is one of the worst forms of anti-Semitism in existence today".[11][10] In his opinion, the Israeli press is comparable to Der Stürmer and IDF statements are the word "of a Nazi" and Gaza is a "ghetto for surplus non-Jews".[12]

He has acknowledged the potential for anti-Jewish violence in Israel should a one-state solution be realized, stating in a Q&A at a 2009 conference at Hampshire College: "You can never have an absolute guarantee about what the future will be like. ... You cannot guarantee that if there was a one-state solution it wouldn't, it would be…the best scenario is if it's more in the direction of South Africa and Northern Ireland than Zimbabwe. But we couldn't rule out, you know, some disastrous situation, like Zimbabwe."[13][14]

Abunimah has given two theories about the strong relationship between the U.S. and Israel: first, he said Israel plays an important role in U.S. imperialism by allowing it to control the Middle East and their resources; second, he believes "there are powerful organizations and networks that consider support for Israel very important and they influence the politics of the United States through elections and contributions to political campaigns to make candidates adopt to Israel's position."[15]

"The Arab-Zionist conflict did not begin in 1948 but rather long before it," Abunimah maintained in a 2009 lecture. It began, he said, "when the Zionists came to Palestine in the beginning of the last century, and was exacerbated with the appearance of the refugee problem." He made the following argument: "If for example the Jews returned to their original countries, those countries would be shocked, and those are their countries who exported them to Palestine. So how can these countries, most of which sing the praises of democracy and human rights, be silent about the right of return of the Palestinian people, the people and owners of the land, to their villages and cities?" He also claimed that "Zionism is strong, but it has not been renewed or rooted in the land of Palestine, and the Palestinians hold their land and identities dearly and are on their way to a majority."[16]

In an Electronic Intifada posting dated May 13, 2012, Abunimah praised the documentary film The Great Book Robbery, which "tells the story of the systematic looting in 1948 of tens of thousands of Palestinian books in a joint operation by the Haganah – what became the Israeli army – and the Israeli national library. ... Using eyewitness interviews, secretly shot footage, and historic images, and shots of the books themselves, The Great Book Robbery tells the story of the books and their owners, despite ongoing Israeli official denial.[17]

Abunimah believed that Gilad Shalit – an Israeli soldier captured in 2006 via cross-border Hamas raid into the Israeli town of Kerem Shalom, released in a prisoner exchange in 2011 – should not have been considered a captive but rather a prisoner of war (POW). As such, he does not believe that Shalit would necessarily be entitled to an ICRC visit or contact with his family – both of which Hamas routinely denied.[18]

Abunimah said that if he were to be considered a POW, his status would fall under the guidelines set forth at the Third Geneva Convention. Under these guidelines, the right of the ICRC to visit prisoners of war is never unconditional, and the ICRC never claims an unconditional right. Abunimah noted that such visits are subject to the measure which the detaining powers consider essential to their security – which is the justification given by Hamas for denying visitation. Allowing visits presents the risk of revealing the location of the Israeli POW, and would run the risk of an Israeli military attack. Hamas would not have been obligated to release any POW until the end of hostilities or until the POW is severely injured or in critical condition.[18]

In an August 2012 article for Al Jazeera headlined "What's gone wrong at The Guardian?", Abunimah criticized the British newspaper's hiring of Joshua Treviño as a political correspondent, calling Treviño "a Republican party operative, paid political consultant and ideologue for hire" with a "propensity to call for violence." His reference was to a June 2011 tweet by Treviño about the Gaza flotilla: "Dear IDF: If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla – well, most Americans are cool with that. Including me."[19] Responding to this and several other articles and posts by Abunimah about Treviño's hiring, the CiF Watch website cited Abunimah's tweet calling for a "third intifada" as evidence of "selective outrage" and "double standards."[20] The Guardian dropped Treviño shortly thereafter.[21]

"For years," wrote Abunimah in a December 2012 article for Al Jazeera, "the PA has been equipped and trained under US supervision to act as an auxiliary for Israeli occupation forces to suppress any and all forms of Palestinian resistance, to beat and suppress Palestinians expressing their views and to arrest and harass journalists who dare to criticise it. ... The Abbas PA's record of collaboration with Israel, against the interests of the Palestinian people is long, shameful and well documented. It includes plotting secretly with Israel, the US and the former Mubarak regime in Egypt to overthrow the elected Hamas-led Palestinian Authority after 2006, colluding with Israel to bury the Goldstone report into Israel's war crimes in Gaza in 2008–2009, begging Israel not to release Palestinian prisoners so as not to give credit to Hamas, and more recently Abbas' public renunciation of the Palestinian right of return, a reflection of his longstanding position in negotiations."[22]

Debating Jonathan Tobin of Commentary on Democracy Now! in July 2012 about the legality of West Bank settlements, Abunimah argued that Israel's "violent settler colonial enterprise in the West Bank has no international legitimacy" and is "maintained through violence and a system of military tyranny and apartheid." He called the settlements "war crimes," described the IDF as "Israel's Jewish sectarian militia," and spoke of "the Jim Crow-like racism at the core of this Zionist ideology." In answer to Tobin's argument that a necessary first step toward agreement on settlements is Palestinian recognition of Israel's right to exist, Abunimah said: "How can Palestinians ever possibly recognize or give legitimacy to an entity that views their mere reproduction as human beings as a mortal threat?"[23]

Abunimah has publicly supported the idea of a third intifada. On January 20, 2012, he posted on Twitter: "Isn't it the time for a popular Palestinian revolution in the form of a third intifada?"[24] He also supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, writing in the New Statesman in July 2012 that "Increasingly among Palestinians, the focus is shifting away from statehood towards a discourse on rights. Nowhere is this embodied more succinctly than in the 2005 Palestinian civil society call for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel. Without stipulating one state or two, this call demands the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967; recognition of the fundamental rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and that any outcome respect, protect and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return home."[8]

Abunimah played a key role in the Gaza Freedom March in 2009, a joint effort with Codepink to bring humanitarian relief to Gaza via the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.[25][26] Though he did not join the later Freedom Flotilla I voyage and was not part of the Free Gaza movement boat projects, Abunimah asserted that the participants in the flotilla had acted peaceably and that they did not intend to kill the IDF soldiers who boarded the ship. Brian Stelter of The New York Times commented in an article on June 1, 2010, that video evidence appeared to contradict Abunimah's account of events on the Mavi Marmara.[27] Among the evidence were two videos which were uploaded by the North American Desk of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson’s Office on May 31, 2010, and which show flotilla activists on the Mavi Marmara attacking Israeli soldiers attempting to board the ship.[28][29] However, most of the video footage from passengers had been confiscated by the IDF. Footage that was smuggled out later clearly showed the commandos attacking the passengers.[30]

Abunimah accused Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League in August 2011 of having influenced the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik: "After Norway, Foxman may fear that the Islamophobic genie he helped unleash is out of control, and is a dangerous liability for him and for Israel."[31]

In March 2012, Abunimah was among those Palestinian activists who signed a statement criticizing the views of Gilad Atzmon as racist and antisemitic. The signatories to the statement called for "the disavowal of Atzmon by fellow Palestinian organizers, as well as Palestine solidarity activists, and allies of the Palestinian people".[32][33][34][35]

Abunimah visited the headquarters of the Popular Committee for Refugees in the Maghazi camp in the Gaza Strip in May 2013. He "expressed his overwhelming joy at being in the camp," saying that the experience "reinforced his spirit of resistance."[36]