Ellis Sharp explains why recognising Israel’s right to exist is not as simple as all that:
Now of course in one obvious sense Israel exists. But as anti-Zionist bloggers have repeatedly asked: which Israel is to be recognised? The Israel defined by the United Nations in 1948, which handed over land held by a majority Arab population to European Jews? The Israel of 1949, when the first major phase of ethnic cleansing had been completed, and Palestinians had not only been driven out of the U.N.’s defined Jewish state but a huge area of land on top of that? Or should it be Israel in 1967, when within Israel yet more ethnic cleansing had been surreptitiously carried out, and when the rest of historic Palestine was occupied? Or Israel in 2006, which has flouted innumerable UN resolutions and grabbed even more occupied land from the Palestinians? Israel 2006, presumably.
The Israeli writer Yizchak Laor once observed that as an ideology Zionism has always been closer to racism and fascism than to liberalism. But, historically, it has always succeeded in co-opting liberals to its cause, right back to the days of George Eliot and Daniel Deronda. The British Labour movement throughout its history appears (as far as I can tell) to have always been strongly pro-Israel.
To succeed in getting even Harold Pinter to demand “recognition of Israel” and to have the GMB passing blatantly Zionist motions is, to my mind, quite remarkable. Recognition of Israel’s right to exist requires beaten-up victims to recognise that thieves have a right to stolen property. But that’s not what recognition is really about. Recognition is about accepting Israel’s right to exist as a sectarian state which defines citizenship by religion and comprehensively discriminates against citizens who do not belong to the master religion. Israel has no general anti-discrimination legislation and no commitment to equality. Israel accords second-class status to non-Jews.
Decent people cannot recognise Israel as a state with a right to exist until it stops being an Apartheid state, like decent people could not support South Africa’s right to exist as an Apartheid state either. Now it may seem today that this will never happen, but it seemed that way with South Africa in the eighties as well, with its Black population herded into bantustans and only let out to serve as cheap labour, almost slave labour, the South African army rampaging across the Frontline states at will, Mandela and other resistance leaders locked up or killed and no negotiation with the ANC possible. Yet a few years later the system was broken down, South Africa made peace with its neighbours and Mandela became president. Israel could do the same, but will not do it voluntarily. Therefore, we need toboycott Israel like South Africa was boycotted.