I began a thought experiment, to determine what sort of narrative must be running through an anti-Israel protester’s head to be able to distill such complex history and politics into a sign like this. The narrative below is, to an extent, a reductio ad absurdum. But then again, for many, it’ll be a fairly benign and relatively truthful explanation of their problems with Israel. For the hard of thinking, the below doesn’t represent the truth, nor the sane views of any individual, but surely encapsulates some of the insane miasma that inspires people to beat up Tesco employees because they “work for Jews/Israel”:

Before the First World War, the Democratic Republic of Palestine was peopled by a peaceful nation of Muslims and Christians, living together in harmony, as they had done there for thousands of years. A verdant proto-Socialist oasis in the Middle East, its capital Jerusalem was a beacon of architectural brilliance and societal tolerance that the war-mongering West could only envy, an envy turned bloodily real in the many attempted Crusades against it. As the most holy city of Islam and Christianity, it remained the cool, calm centre of contemplation for both religions, and welcomed pilgrims from all nations. Islam, meaning “peace”, could never have imagined the evil intents of the new generation of Crusaders who were just around the corner and, worse, the alien agents who would come in their wake to wreak vengeful devastation on this ancient utopia.

At the turn of the 20th Century, the rapacious West, particularly the newly energised United States, could not bear to think of the Democratic Republic of Palestine’s continued existence, a shining challenge to the venal mercantile colonialism so desired by the West and its Banker controllers.

So, after the 1st World War, the United States and the Great Britain took their moment to begin the flaying of the Democratic Republic of Palestine. Britain invaded the country and immediately deposed its democratically elected leaders, imposing a brutal colonial regime upon the unsuspecting populace. But this was not just any old ordinary colonial venture – there was a sting in the Imperial Tale by the name of Balfour.

Lord Balfour, a British war-mongerer, had been desperate to develop new weapons of mass destruction so better to quell the natives in Britain’s repressed colonies. To get them, he needed funding from The Jewish Bankers, and technical help from The Jewish Scientists. So, he payed for this assistance with the blood-money of a promise: that these Jewish interests might devour the British Colony of Palestine.

Now, why should The Jewish Establishment have desired Palestine? After all, Palestine was about as Jewish as a bacon sandwich, and contained none of the precious metals and minerals which historically attract Jewish interest. In fact, their interest was based on some vague “promises” in their bible about the territory, combined with a new form of ultra-right-wing racist supremacist nationalism, which had been born as a brother to fascism: Zionism. Zionism proclaimed that the Jews were, indeed the Chosen People, and thus needed to build a temporal empire from which they could extend their already-significant control. They perceived one significant threat to this: the increasing popularity of the ever-peaceful Islam, which banned usury as part of its proto-Socialist ideals. So where better for Zionists arbitrarily to seek subjugation than in the place where Muslims and Christians lived in such content equality: The Democratic Republic of Palestine! And thus, Zionism had begun its dark ascent, given demonic momentum by Lord Balfour and his declaration that Great Britain would agree to the Zionists’ plundering the Democratic Republic of Palestine under Great Britain’s benign watch.

And so, throughout the 20s and 30s, Jews started swarming, for the first time in history, to the Democratic Republic of Palestine (under British Occupation). Lord Rothschild and others provided the swarm with cash to buy up houses and farms below market rate by making the historical occupants an “offer they couldn’t refuse”. The citizens of the Democratic Republic of Palestine barely had time to recognise what had hit them. For the first time in the Middle East, peaceful Islam and turn-the-other-cheek Christianity had to contend with alien occupants, with alien, Old Testament notions of “An Eye for an Eye” and vengeful smiting. It began to seem as if these notions would infect the whole country – a new disease against which the native aboriginal inhabitants, as ever, had not previously had any exposure, and thus had no immunity.

Then came the West’s next Imperial adventure: the Second World War. The Jews in Germany had been envied for their evident control of the media, politics and the economy, and the Nazis exploited this unease and killed many Jews, along with many Gypsies, Catholics, Muslims and Gay people, in what has come to be termed “the Holocaust”.

The Zionists, ever to find gold in a mire, took advantage of this misfortune and began to encourage Jews from all over the world to descend upon the Democratic Republic of Palestine (under British Occupation). The British, finally realising their folly in allowing Balfour his tawdry deal, tried to repel them, but the waves of Zionists simply continued. Zionist terrorists began to slaughter the native occupants of the land, along with British soldiers and, eventually, used their influence to force the United Nations into ceding the Democratic Republic of Palestine to them, lock, stock and barrel. The world stood by, having been convinced by the wily Zionists to remain quiet out of shame for “the Holocaust”. The Zionists now had attained their wildest dreams, and wildly indeed would they wreak.

The Arab countries immediately made an offer of peaceful coexistence, as was their wont, but the Zionists rejected peace out of hand, flailing out in 1948 to try and annexe even more territory beyond the borders of the Democratic Republic of Palestine. The Arab countries whom the Zionists attacked had been used to living peacefully with their neighbours, and so had not the experience to repel these new invaders. Thus the Zionist, imbued in Old Testament aggression, won the day. They were free to pillage their way through their conquered dominion in a frenzy of ethnic cleansing, slaughtering anyone who did not flee from their newly captured country. The world looked on and said nothing.

The Zionists renamed their conquered territory as “Israel”, which means “The warmongers of God” in their language. They turned the secular proto-socialist democracy into a military theocracy, where only Jews would be allowed to live and work as citizens. Anyone else allowed into the country would, effectively, be a slave without rights.

Thus “Israel” remained an ever-spreading cancer upon the Middle East for the following decades, and the remaining survivors of the Democratic Republic of Palestine had been corralled into concentration camps along its borders, where they were treated like animals primed for slaughter. And slaughtered they often were. Their Arab brothers tried to help them and give them sustenance, but every time this was attempted “Israel” reacted violently and annexed even more land, as happened in 1967 (when the Zionists finally completed their pillage of Jerusalem) and 1973, when they stole Egyptian land.

By this time, even the most craven of Western nations began to realise the true perfidy of the Zionist project, and the UN put out resolution after resolution against the tyranny; but all were cowed into submission by the United States of America, whose strong Jewish Lobby forced the nation into supporting the “Israel” adventure, no matter what harm this support brought to America. And thus did the United States begin to provide billions of dollars and thousands of weapons to the Theocracy of Israel, turning the formerly peaceful Middle East into a seething tinderbox.

As the Jewish/Israel Lobby grew ever stronger (as documented by Mearsheimer and Walt), United States policy became utterly perverted to the will of its supposedly client state. Any powerful countermeasure to Zionist power needed to eradicated, at any cost. Thus, Afghanistan and Iraq were attacked, after fabricating any number of justifications. Afghanistan, because it contained freedom fighters opposed to US/Zionist hegemony, and Iraq because it contained a leader opposed to US/Zionist hegemony – and who happened to have an oil-rich state to boot. And thus, the West began its war against peaceful Islam, always at the behest of the cackling “Israel”, delighted to have such ostensibly powerful lackeys.

Meanwhile, the remnants of the Democratic Republic of Palestine, shoved into the West Bank and Gaza, began to regain consciousness after their brutal beating. And, a Gandhi-like figure emerged: Yasser Arafat. A citizen born of the Democratic Republic of Palestine, he exuded a calm love of peace that nevertheless belied a strength of purpose and a determination that his people might one day be freed of Zionist oppression, to return to their homes, their farms and their peaceful life of productive coexistence. For decades, he battled to liberate his nation, but the Zionists threw everything at him that they could. He would constantly make generous offers of coexistence, and even to split the Democratic Republic into two, so that the Zionists could remain, even though illegitimate and alien to these lands. And the Zionists rejected every offer, no matter how generous. In the end, Arafat, for all his best efforts, died under suspicious circumstances. But even the most reactionary of Zionist-controlled news media realised that here was a passing of someone, like Nelson Mandela, who might be termed a worldly saint. For example, Barbara Plett of the BBC could not help but admit: “When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry”. Even the strongest of Zionist brain-washing couldn’t hide the truth to her, and to millions of others, who started to campaign for the Palestinians throughout the world.

But, after Arafat, the Palestinians began to realise, with much sorrow, that turning the other cheek as they had done until now would not work against such a vicious opponent. And, with much regret, they began to fight back with the only things they had: stones, some primitive fireworks and their very bodies. The humiliation of the ghetto, of occupation and of such abject subjugation meant that they could only live to be martyrs, trying to dislodge the enemy by blowing up their very bodies as a cry of rage against their circumstance. Politicians around the world recognised the pathos of this, of freedom fighters who prepared to lose their life in the cause of freedom, but few were prepared to go on the record. The few who did, like Britain’s Jenny Tonge, were vilified as somehow “anti-semitic’.

Indeed, the Zionist had the accusation of “anti-semitism” as one of their most powerful weapons (other than their illegally produced nuclear arms, of course). They would lob this epithet at the most gentle of questioners about the ethics behind Zionism’s genocidal rampages. When “Israel” arbitrarily decided to destroy the Palestinian ghetto of Jenin, for example, an Italian cartoon that responded showing Jews re-crucifying Jesus with a girl asking “mama, why are they doing it to him again and again” was decried as somehow “anti-semitic”. A cartoon of the Prime Minister of Israel eating a Palestinian baby was also, somehow, construed as “anti-semitic”. The cover of a British magazine with a Star of David piercing the British flag with the headline “Kosher Conspiracy” was also determined, arbitrarily, “anti-semitic”. As with any currency, however, it became increasingly worthless by inflation. Soon, even the most sympathetic Zionist-appeasers were to tire of this meaningless term’s constant abuse. It was clear that “anti-semitism” did not exist. What did exist was Islamophobia, a phenomenon the Zionist media refused to report.

In Gaza, one of the Democratic Republic of Palestine ghettos, a group had formed called “Hamas”. This group combined progressive Socialism with the peace-loving attributes of Islam and vowed to regain the nation. Unlike “Israel”, the remnants of Palestine remained stubbornly democratic, and voted for Hamas, who quickly began providing collectivised services to Palestine and fighting back against “Israeli” aggression as best it could. The Zionists responded by building huge walls around the ghetto, and refused to allow any supplies or people through the checkpoints in these walls without substantial harassment, particularly of old women and young children. This frustration in trade brought the ghettos to an ever worse state of decrepitude, which seemed to suit the Zionists fine, because they were preparing for their Final Solution against the Gazan inhabitants – to wipe them and their freedom-fighting Hamas representatives out in one fell genocidal swoop.

In Operation Cast Lead, the “Israelis” began their genocidal attack, in accordance with the brutal Old Testament principles in their bible. They firebombed the ghetto, killed children, smashed schools and hospitals and reduced Gaza to mere rubble, all for the gleeful entertainment of the “Israeli” electorate, whose candidates vied with each other in proclaiming how bloody their further rampage would be, just as they had done years before in their invasion of the Socialist Republic of Lebanon, another thorn in their side for representing Christian/Muslim harmony so close to home.

So we are brought up to date: “Israel”, the most fascist, brutish, dangerous pseudo-state ever to have come into existence proves to be key to every single conflict and conflagration on the planet, be it the collapsed economies of the world (America’s having spent all its money in hoc to protecting the Zionists and refunding the Zionist bankers), global warming and environmentalism (“Israel” has massively distorted water ecology in the Middle East, as well as manufacturing any number of carbon-emitting electronica) and the Disillusion of Muslim Youth (who have no faith in Western Democracy when they see the West’s continuing to kowtow to the genocidal Zionists who slaughter their brothers).

A few brave souls are fighting back: the United Nations, despite its hampering from the US, continues to try to reveal the true extent of Zionist perfidy; leftist organisations like the Socialist Workers’ Party and the University and College Union in alliance with David Duke, the US politician; fearless and selfless politicians in RESPECT and its descendant parties; diplomats who dare speak their minds like Rowan Laxton; and an increasing number of brave protesters who, despite Zionist efforts, have begun to realise the nuanced history of the Middle East and the horror that the “Israel” project has brought forth.