Zionism is incompatible with life.
A joint statement by Ad’iyah Collective, MSJI, Nisaba and Doulas Decolonising.
Introduction
Nearly two years into the Euro-American holocaust of Gaza, we’re seeing a resurgence of liberal Zionists trying to redefine Zionism in our organising spaces. Let us be clear: Zionism is a violent, settler-colonial project. It cannot be separated from the material realities of occupation, violent erasure, and genocide inflicted upon the Palestinian people. Zionism is aligned with imperialism and capitalism, and therefore aligned with death and destruction for all in its path.
We draw a firm line: Zionism has no place in our Reproductive Justice work. This genocidal project is fundamentally incompatible with our values of liberation and justice, and Zionists are not welcome in our spaces.
Zionism = Elimination of the Native
Zionism has never been, as it is often and falsely framed, a simple quest for a ‘safe Jewish homeland’. The creation of the Zionist Entity was, and remains, a project of settler colonialism: the expulsion of Palestinians from their land to make way for a European settler-colonial state built atop their erasure.
As Ramisha writes for The Decolonial Centre, the occupation of Palestine and the holocaust in Gaza are not isolated atrocities. We are witnessing an escalated campaign to eliminate the natives of the land. Settler colonialism, Ramisha reminds us, must be understood as a structural determinant of health; where the occupying power reshapes the political, social, and environmental conditions in order to maintain the settler population and erase the Indigenous one.
Zionism and Reproductive Violence
Reproductive Justice involves the human right to:
Maintain personal bodily autonomy;
Have children;
Not have children;
Parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities
Zionism, as a settler-colonial project, fundamentally violates these principles. It relies on controlling Palestinian bodies through industrialised maiming, medical abuse, imprisonment and population control. Palestinians are denied access to healthcare, forced to give birth under bombardment and siege, and prevented from parenting safely as every instituiton of life is destroyed.
There is no compatibility between Zionism and Reproductive Justice.
Call to Action
To say that Reproductive Justice means a Free Palestine is not enough, nor has it ever been. Reproductive Justice means the end of White Supremacy and, by default, the end of Zionism.
As organisers in the Global North, the bare minimum we can do is to ensure that Zionism is a hard and unwavering red line in our work. Collaborating with Zionists in any shape or form – whether that be through funders and collaborative work, or the people we allow into our spaces – is an active contribution to the erasure and death of Palestinian people.
Enough is enough. Zionism is not welcome in Reproductive Justice work.
