I want to look at three statements that I consider true. If the continuation of majority status for about 5 million Jews in a state in Palestine requires the starvation of 1.5 million people, mostly children, in Gaza, then maybe there should not be a Jewish state. If a Jewish majority state requires 100 million people to live in pro-US colonial dictatorships, then maybe there shouldn't be a Jewish state. If a Jewish majority state requires policies that enrage the region so much that the US must occupy two nations two occupations are necessary to prevent retaliatory attacks on Western targets, then maybe there should not be a Jewish state.
The three statements share the same conclusion "maybe there should not be a Jewish state". Supporters of Zionism, essentially by definition, ultimately assert that there is no precedent, the three I presented or any other, for which that conclusion is true. A person who accepts the world-view that there must, at any cost, be a majority state for the 5 million Jewish people in Palestine has a drastically different view of the region than someone who does not accept that world view.
The Zionist moral system includes that there must be a Jewish state at any cost as a premise. The prevailing US Christian moral system, whose fundamental premise is that the Christian bible is unerringly true holds that the bible asserts that there will be Jewish rule of Palestine. We do have to be careful in not overstating the importance of the US Christian moral system in US politics. That abortion should be illegal, that homosexuality should be punished, that evolution is false and should not be taught to children are all propositions more central to the US Christian moral system than that the US should support Israel. In each case secular considerations easily override the US Christian moral system in US politics.
The currently prevailing Western moral system, that I've read described as humanistic individualism, is not compatible with the idea that great sacrifices or any sacrifices should be made to ensure a political majority for a particular ethnic group on a particular territory. The contradiction between humanistic individualism and the Zionist moral system is often resolved in the West, to the detriment of Western interests and especially contrary to the interests of the non-Jewish people of the region, by ethnic identification by Jewish Westerners and a kind of intimidation of discussion in which non-Jewish people in the West are threatened with false accusations of anti-Semitism.
If one accepts as a fundamental premise that there must be a Jewish state, then Hamas' refusal to accept a Jewish state renders Israel's policy of holding the population of Gaza on the brink of starvation reasonable. Zionists accept that premise. Westerners, including, for example, Barack Obama, too often accept that premise without consideration. Unfortunately generally they have come to feel uncomfortable examining the premise because of a steady and unchallenged presentation of the unreasonable idea, in many forms, that to examine the premise is anti-Semitic.
A weak Saudi Arabia is necessary in order to prevent its larger population and larger amount of resources that can be devoted to its military from giving the Saudis an option to render Israel as a majority state for 5 million Jewish people non-viable. A weak Saudi Arabia requires a contained Iraq. If the containment of Iraq requires sanctions that kill over 500,000 Iraqis, mostly children and the elderly then for someone who accepts the Zionist premise, it is worth it.
For someone who accepts that premise, any blame should be assigned to Saddam Hussein who did not go along with the Israeli need, transmitted through the United States and European countries, that Iraq be weak. For a person who does not accept that premise, who does not hold the Zionist moral system - whether instead the person holds the pre-emininent Western individualist moral system, or the Islamic value system - the blame should be applied on the parties that directly imposed the sanctions, knowing what their impact would be.
A person who accepts the premise that there must be a Jewish majority state, even if that person does not know he has accepted the premise, sometimes will not even understand the perception of the region of a person who has not accepted the premise.
Westerners often see non-Jewish people of the Middle East as evil. Or see US puppets as moderate. Most non-Jewish people who do not accept a Jewish state are not evil, they just do not accept a basic premise of US policy. A premise that actually contradicts Western values as much as it contradicts there. Non-Jewish people of the Middle East perceive the US as going out of its way to impose hardship on their people. This perception is accurate, but the motive is not hatred of them or of Islam, Western decision-makers often cannot see past the premise that there must be a secure majority state for the 5 million Jewish people in Palestine regardless of the impact of that proposition on non-Jewish people in the region.
