M. Mücahid Sağman
In his autobiographical work Suyu Arayan Adam (The Man Searching for Water), Şevket Süreyya Aydemir recounts his childhood in Edirne and notes that the greatest source of disappointment among the people was not the ruin of the city itself, but the fact that it had once been a capital and had now turned into an abandoned border town. How did this city, once home to the palaces of sultans, become a neglected frontier town and a refuge for those arriving from the Balkans? Aydemir even relays the words of a woman who once visited their home: “First it was Damascus, and now it is Damascus!” In other words, as people witnessed the loss of lands, they believed that their retreat would extend all the way to Damascus, their place of origin. Loss and exile are among the key forces that shape a collective memory among peoples and play a pivotal role in reconstructing their identity. With the onset of modernity, most of the peoples inhabiting what is referred to as the East have, in one way or another, experienced exile—and these experiences of displacement have created a compelling and consistent drive to preserve their cultural and political achievements.
The Palestinian people have been living in exile for nearly a century, primarily in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, but also across the world. The occupation plan carried out under the name of “national expansionism” by the Zionist population—whose own exile arguably began around the same time—became a source of motivation for Palestinians in the diaspora to organise both politically and socially. However, the political and economic power wielded by the lobbies supporting Zionism continues to force the Palestinian people into a state of exile, even within exile. Anyone who speaks out about the genocide taking place in Gaza is subjected to bullying and attempts to cut them off from both their professional and academic lives; and if you are the child of a people in the diaspora, you are threatened with a new form of exile and subjected to intimidation.
The word diaspora literally means to be separated from the homeland. Naturally, the concept itself carries an inherent emphasis on centrality. It is expected that a people in diaspora would develop a political discourse centred on the awareness of their homeland and the notion of return. This discourse of “return” and the cultural fabric it produces never truly allows for the construction of lasting happiness in the lands where one currently resides. In other words, both life and the things one builds are held only in trust. Because the imagined “return”—someday—is what underpins the entire political and cultural framework. For the Palestinian people, the centre of this return narrative is Jerusalem and the ancient cities that shape its surroundings. For Palestinians—and for the Syrian people, dispersed first by the Hama massacre and later by the civil war that erupted in 2011—return is not merely a desire. The social, economic, and political constraints of perpetually remaining second-class citizens are also powerful reasons that render return an absolute necessity.
Jews in the Diaspora!
Can similar statements be made about the Jewish people who began settling in Palestine from the 1930s onwards? While nearly all exiled peoples around the world yearn to return to their homeland due to the spiritual sentiments and cultural memory created by the traces left by their ancestors or grandparents, for the Jewish community, the notion of return is more of a theological commandment or a religious ritual. As we see in all examples, the desire and turmoil generated by the effort to fulfil a religious obligation tend to trigger fundamentalism in relations with others.
It is well known that a significant portion of today’s Israeli population consists of Jews who came from Poland, Germany, and the United States. Later, beginning in 1948, Jewish populations from Arab lands, Russia, Ethiopia, and other regions began settling in Jerusalem and its surroundings by occupying the homes and lands of the Palestinian people. Especially when considering the economic and political power they had already established in those countries, it becomes evident that they are far removed from the discourse of return typical of a classically exiled community. Even today, the fact that the United States of America carries out a genocide and occupation plan with its approval and endorsement reveals that the true centre is not the Middle East, but the United States. No other diaspora narrative involves such deep emotional, commercial, and political ties to a place outside their supposed homeland. Therefore, it may be necessary here to focus on a fictional historical narrative—one that resembles the discourse of victimhood produced by Zionist propaganda regarding World War II.
The Jewish community, which constructed the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 70 AD as a narrative of “statelessness,” considers this event a major turning point in their historical trajectory.[1] Although they blend their exile stories with theology and produce a history steeped in emotional agitation, this constructed narrative makes little room for the opportunities and openings extended to them throughout history. For instance, Cyrus the Great, leader of the Persian Empire (Achaemenid Empire), allowed them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. In the Old Testament, they declared Cyrus to be a “messiah” or prophet “anointed with holy oil.”[2]
Jewish intellectuals, who played a significant role in shaping European thought at the time, were also instrumental in the construction of a Eurocentric historical narrative. This narrative was based on the assumption that the civilisation that made up the “East” in the modern world was not a subject in the history of ideas, and indeed was entirely excluded from political history. Naturally, in such a thesis, there was no place for Cyrus; hence, Zulkarneyn—mentioned in the holy scriptures—was equated with Alexander. In fact, even the possibility that Zulkarneyn could have been Macedonian was rejected, and efforts were made to portray him as an ancestor of the Greeks—another claim of the Eurocentric historical construction. Even though Cyrus’s geographic path shows far more substantial parallels with the story of Zulkarneyn, he is excluded from the historical narrative because his inclusion would undermine the drama-laden storyline of victimhood.
However, the historical narrative built upon “statelessness” eventually evolved into the framework of a political theory, emerging as Zionism in the late 1800s. The self-positioning of Jews as the sole “victimised and honourable” people of World War II—particularly in fields such as cinema and literature—intersects directly with the aforementioned historical narrative. According to this view, the idea of a people who have suffered more than any other in world history, and who have matured through the migrations and exiles that caused this suffering, began to manifest across all domains.
Israel—declared through the occupation of Palestinian lands but later becoming the military and ideological outpost of colonial powers—emerged as the grand achievement at the end of these victimhood narratives. And this achievement has not been described solely as a success of the theorists of Zionism. As we have seen in examples following October 7, particularly in Turkey, the image of Israel as “the only democratic and modern state in the Middle East” is constantly portrayed in the media as a triumph of humanity and has become etched into the public consciousness.
Accordingly, the occupation of Palestine and the ongoing genocide are presented as arguments of civilisation against barbarism. In fact, Netanyahu himself invoked the “darkness–light” dichotomy—a conceptual framework that played a pioneering role in constructing the Eurocentric perception of history since the 1600s—in an attempt to rally the global public to side with Israel against Palestine.
Is Netanyahu the Only One to Blame?
Political figures—particularly in countries like Türkiye—tend to target the Israeli government for the ongoing genocide, rather than addressing the system that created and empowered the Israeli state itself. It is well known that since the 1970s, Israel has been governed by right-wing administrations supported by a fanatical base. However, the expulsion policies implemented since the 1930s and the numerous massacres committed after the establishment of the state demonstrate that the practices that gave rise to the Israeli state are independent of the identities of those in power.
Indeed, in 1992, Yitzhak Rabin, who became the head of the Labor Party, defeated the Likud Party, which had long been led by fanatics with notorious histories of genocide—such as Netanyahu, Sharon, and Begin. Rabin took several steps towards a resolution, only to be assassinated by radical Jews. Therefore, the notion that Netanyahu is a scapegoat and that a more peaceful Israel could exist in the region in his absence has been disproven by history time and time again.
The frequently mentioned two-state solution, popular in today’s discourse, is unrealistic due to the imbalance of power and the fact that Israeli civilians are portrayed as such while actually playing military roles in the settlement policy. Proposing a two-state solution in a region where Israel holds the power and continuously usurps the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people—with or without justification—disregards collective memory and thus fails to offer a realistic path forward.
Instead, a more viable solution appears to lie in the establishment of an inclusive Palestinian state based on a “community of citizens,” in which Jews who do not support genocide or Zionism would enjoy equal rights alongside the rest of the population. Such a model holds greater potential for eliminating the possibility of conflict.
[1] Güngör, Muhammed. “The Journey of Jewish Immigration to America at Turning Points.” Milel ve Nihal 21/2 (2024), 349–372.
[2] Ball, W. (2018). The Shaping of Asia and the West in Europe, Volume 2: Towards a Single World, Ancient Iran and the West. Trans. Aybars Çağlayan. Ayrıntı Yayınları.