In the context of Palestine, abolition hinges on the understanding that a reform of the Zionist state cannot possibly solve the problems created by Zionism, it only helps maintain them. Seeking to reform the Zionist state assumes that Zionism’s initial impulse—which is premised on settler colonialism and necessitates land theft, dispossession, displacement, human and cultural genocide—is acceptable, but that something went wrong, somewhere down the line. For instance, a reform limited to the West Bank and Gaza implies that al-Nakba— Palestine’s catastrophe—did not start around 1948, but in 1967. Ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would not dismantle Jewish supremacy in those parts of the Palestinian homeland first occupied in 1948; nor would it address the Right of Return of Palestinians displaced from those cities and villages occupied in 1948, without which the Zionist dream would not have materialized. Indeed, the “peace process,” with its endless round of futile talks, is an illustration of the attempt at “reform,” rather than abolition. What that process has led to is an entrenchment of dispossession, now subcontracted to the Palestinian Authority. Instead, one must ask: “When was Zionism not a supremacist ideology privileging some people over others, based on perceived ethnicity? When did Zionism not necessitate the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people? Was there ever one brief moment, from its inception to the present day, when Zionism was not violent?” Zionism cannot be reformed; it must be abolished.
Nada Elia, Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/nationalism, and Palestine