A Morning With Einat Wilf
Palestinianism and a moment of Peril for Jews in Canada, the US, the UK and France
Palestinianism
Today I had the great privilege of meeting and hearing remarks by Einat Wilf at an event in Ottawa organized by the McDonald-Laurier Institute (MLI). Einat Wilf is the author, along with Adi Schwartz, of “The War of Return”, which brought the truth about the history of UNRWA and the weaponization of Palestinian refugee status to a broad audience. I’ve mentioned her book before in these pages. The subtitle of the book sums up its message succinctly: “How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream has Obstructed the Path to Peace.”
Image: Former MK, Author, and Intellectual Einat Wilf Source: Wilf.org
Einat Wilf is a former Member of Knesset (MK) who was part of the governments of Shimon Peres, and Ehud Barak. Peres and Barak were both elected by Israelis on a platform calling for territorial compromise and peace with the Palestinians (land for peace). She was also involved in the government of Ariel Sharon which unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving the territory in the hands of the Palestinian Authority with no Israeli presence.
Einat Wilf is on a speaking tour to warn us that we are facing a moment of great peril, not just for Israel, which has been under attack for almost a year, but also for the principal Jewish communities in the rest of the world.
Her message is two-fold. The first point is that peace with the Palestinians based on territorial compromise has turned out to be impossible. As she put it in her remarks, “the hypothesis was tested”. Israel yielded territory as a result of the Oslo agreements, in which the Palestinians promised in return to renounce violence and settle remaining differences at the negotiating table. Rather than peace, Israel got the second intifada. Israel tried giving away territory again in 2005 by withdrawing completely from Gaza. The ultimate fruit of this policy was the Hamas invasion of October 7. Israel tried offering land for peace but in return for land got violence of the most grotesque kind imaginable. She says that this is because land is not at the heart of what Palestinians want.
So what do Palestinians want? Einat Wilf says that they have told us repeatedly what they want. We just didn’t listen to them. If we had listened we would have known that Oslo wouldn’t work and that the disengagement from Gaza wouldn’t work. She recalled that in February, 1947, the British Foreign Secretary explained that Britain was giving up the mandate for Palestine due to irreconcilable differences between the aspirations of the Jewish and Arab communities.
As Einat Wilf explained it, the key Jewish aspiration, in 1947 as now, was Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. That is why whenever that was offered, the Jews repeatedly said “yes”, even when the land on which sovereignty was offered was much less than had originally been promised. On the other hand, she explains, the key Arab aspiration was always that there would be no Jewish state in any part of Palestine. That is why, when offered a state in part of the land they have always said “no”. This was the heart of the problem in 1947 and, she argues, it is the heart of the problem today.
The movement to oppose the creation of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine has been the number one priority of Palestinians since the beginning of the British mandate over 100 years ago. Einat Wilf calls this movement “Palestinianism”, defined as, “The complete rejection of Jewish sovereignty in any part of the land of Israel.”
When you recognize that this is the core aspiration of the Palestinians, the behaviour of Hamas over the years leading up to October 7 makes sense. The euphoria among Palestinian supporters in the wake of the October 7 massacres makes sense. The fact that the atrocities were filmed and uploaded to social media makes sense.
The events of October 7 made the possibility of getting rid of Israel seem achievable. The scope of the violence was designed to puncture Israel’s sense of invulnerability, cause rage and division within Israel and to damage Israeli morale, all of which it succeeded in doing. For the Palestinians, it also served to give substance to the core objective of Palestinianism, that Israel should cease to exist; to make it seem like more than a dream.
Normalization of Antizionism
The second point of Einat Wilf’s remarks is that in the countries which are home to most of the Jews who are not in Israel, there is a dramatic surge of support for Palestinianism or, as it is called in the rest of the world, antizionism. The four places which are home to the great majority of Jews outside Israel are the United States, Canada, France and the United Kingdom. Antizionism is a growing political force in all of four of these countries.
She warned that wherever antizionism becomes the established ideology of those in charge, life for Jews eventually becomes impossible. Jews cease to enjoy the rights accorded to other people and are subject to various forms of discrimination and harassment. In every case, most of the Jews eventually leave.
Antizionism is also bad for the host societies. It is associated with diminishing rights for other members of the society, the rise of authoritarian regimes and a disruption of economic as well as political freedom. Antizionism is bad for every society that has adopted it, without exception, she said. It is consistently a tool of militaristic and anti-democratic regimes. From Yemen to Morocco and throughout the Soviet block, Jews were marginalized, menaced and eventually driven out.
Reviewing the history of antizionism, she notes the collaboration of the Palestinian leader Amin Husseini with the Nazis. In the 1950’s it became the rallying cry of the pan-Arabists, led by Egypt’s dictator, Gamal Nasser, in close collaboration with the Soviets. She points out that the Russians literally wrote the book on antizionism. This refers to the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which was created by the Russian secret police, to vilify the Jews. The book was supposed to document an evil Jewish plot hatched at the first World Zionist Congress in 1897.
The Soviets took antizionism global, corrupting the UN and other international bodies and disseminating the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Arab world. Today the chief global champion of antizionism is the Islamic Republic of Iran. In all cases the campaign against Zionism provides a useful diversion of popular anger away from the faults of existing authorities and toward Jews who are unfortunate enough to live in such places.
In North America, Britain, and France the increasing respectability of antizionism is reflected in what she calls the “Placard Strategy”. The placards are simple slogans, which we have all seen for decades, which equate a star of David or Israel with something despicable. For a long time that thing on the other side of the equation was racism or Apartheid (for some it has always been Nazism). In the wake of the current war, the language has escalated. Now Israel equals genocide.
While such placards were once confined to the fringes of society, they are now increasingly visible and respectable. People repeating these slogans as fact have been frequent guests on our national news broadcasts. As we reported in this publication, Ottawa Pride bought peace by committing to discuss Israeli genocide at all of their major events.
What these slogans all have in common is that they identify Israel with something evil. “What do you do with evil?” she asked. “Do you negotiate with it? No, you eradicate it.” Another slogan she has seen recently makes the goal even clearer. “Keep the world clean.” The chilling message is that a beautiful world is possible, if only Israel can be eliminated. This is the preamble to genocide.
Questions and Discussion
The morning continued with Einat Wilf in conversation with McDonald Laurier senior fellow Casey Babb. Casey asked her if the October 7 events had revealed things she hadn’t understood before.
She said that in her book, she is on record as saying that we know from many decades of history that if you send money to organizations that support the Palestinian movement, that money will be spent on the cause of destroying Israel. What October 7 revealed is that Palestinians are very capable people. The attacks of October 7 required long and careful planning.
It is important to recognize that “Palestinians are Adults.” Pouring billions of dollars into Gaza enabled Hamas to advance the project of Palestinianism in a devastating way, but there is no doubt that they demonstrated patience, intelligence and skill in pursuing that goal. The goal is horrific, but Palestinians are not helpless or hapless victims.
On this point, Einat Wilf has a sharp criticism of the Israeli government: that it accepted the premise piously stated by the US Administration and the whole western world, that Hamas is an evil terrorist organization that does not represent the aspirations of the Palestinians. In fact, she points out, everything we know about the history of the conflict indicates that Hamas expresses the aspirations of the Palestinians very well. The ideology of Palestinianism is widely supported in Gaza and in Judaea and Samaria, and until that changes the conflict will be intractable.
Casey Babb asked whether it was possible that the events of October 7 have helped to create conditions where Palestinians might finally say “yes”.
In response to this, Einat Wilf said that the Jews have said “yes” because we are small, not because we are better. If anyone is irrational, it’s us, not the Palestinians. In the best case, we are destined to be a small people living surrounded by other peoples that are much more numerous. When the Palestinians look at the situation, with five hundred million Arabs and two billion Muslims, it is not unreasonable to think that they can get what they want. October 7 has in fact increased the sense that the goal of eliminating Israel is closer than it was.
She quoted another Israeli Author, Matti Friedman. Friedman wrote that Hamas did not miscalculate the consequences of the October 7 attacks. In fact they judged the global mood better than Israel did. She described a Palestinian protest that passed by her hotel in Ottawa. Although the protest was peaceful, she perceived a “palpable sense of menace.” The global mood is receptive to the slogan “Keep the World Clean”.
Protesters may have a sense that they are fighting injustice and supporting a good cause. They get to feel good about themselves, but they are participating in something more dangerous than they know.
Taking questions from the floor, she was asked, how can we protect Canadian Jews and turn Canada away from the dangerous path to a society that has normalized antizionism?
This was the hardest question. She mentioned that when Jeremy Corbyn was defeated, she thought that antizionism had been defeated, but was now unsure of whether the battle has been won there. It depends in the end on what the majority in the four main countries of the diaspora decide to do.
It’s also the case that when this happens matters for the Jews. The Arab countries that have begun to turn away from antizionism have done so long after the Jews left. Similarly, in the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Some are friendly to Israel, but their Jewish populations are mostly gone.
On the second part of the question, she said the key is to imagine a future in which Israel’s Palestinian neighbours embrace Zionism, which is to say that they recognize that Jews belong in the land, and are not foreign invaders that have to be expelled. The right policies will flow from this.
Don’t fund those who oppose Zionism, first and foremost UNRWA. People funding UNRWA get what they pay for.
Support people in the Arab world who accept Israel’s right to exist.
Another participant asked, “Why Should we all be Zionists?”
She answered that Zionism embodies good values
Taking charge of your own fate
Zionists built something in the wake of the disaster inflicted on the Jews. Instead of looking back and whining about what happened to them, they imagined a better future and built it.
Zionism represents a grown up attitude to life
Arab countries turning away from antizionism are the ones that are prospering and building a better future
A Powerful Advocate for Israel and the Justice of the Zionist Cause
Having heard her speak, I can report that Einat Wilf is a compelling and effective speaker as well as a very good writer. She explains the daunting challenges we face clearly and doesn’t try to sugar coat the message or create false hope.
Most of all, her message is a clarion call to action. For those who feel that the problems we face will blow over, she warns that what is happening here has led to bad outcomes elsewhere. There is an urgent need for those who don’t want to end up with those outcomes, to stand up to the disturbing trends in our society and try to steer it onto a different course.
This is not going to be easy, nor is there any guarantee of success. But if those who are alarmed by what is happening don’t act, we can expect things to get worse. The good news is that today’s meeting drew an audience of concerned people who want to work for that change.
In an attempt to address some of these questions, the McDonald Laurier Institute has published a collection of articles entitled “The Promised Land: The Israel-Hamas war and the future of the Jewish Community in Canada.” I encourage readers to follow the link and check it out.
Canadian Zionist Forum is dedicated to promoting honest discussion and clear understanding of issues affecting the Jewish people and the Jewish State, in Canada, and around the world. We publish two or three times weekly. We thank you for dedicating some of your time to reading what we have to say. If you value our work, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription, to support our efforts. If you are a paid subscriber you can leave a comment.
Thank you for reading Canadian Zionist Forum.
Wilf is wonderful. So glad you got to hear her in person.
Here in the United States we have an entire political party which has learned NOTHING from the events of the past 3 decades and rejects any facts that would undermine the basic narrative that the Palestinians have decent and just aspirations. However the other party has rejected this and understands the reality. That is why however much I dislike the latter party it still has my support.