A tale of two narratives

Last month the UN held its Conference on Racism (Otherwise known as Durban II) in Geneva, Switzerland. The US, Israel and several other western countries such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia boycotted the conference from the beginning on the grounds that it would likely be too critical of Israel.
Following a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in which he described Israel as a “totally racist regime” who had “made a whole nation homeless”, 23 other European nations walked out of the conference. The other nations who remained behind applauded Ahmadinejad’s remarks and after the speech not only defended his right to make them, but said that they thought he was right.
The nations that remained at the conference were largely African nations and members of the Organization of Islamic Conference. Clearly the worldview of these countries differs substantially from that of the European countries and their largely white Eurocentric former colonies. The experience of the largely brown former colonies differs substantially from that of their former imperial colonialist masters. This difference is reflected in their view of Israel.
The current and former colonial powers see Israel a “homeland for oppressed Jews” which was founded to assuage Zionist political pressure and guilt felt for allowing Nazism to arise in their midst. From the viewpoint of the former colonies, Israel is a racist colonial outpost planted in their midst by the imperial powers in order exercise control of the region and its resources.
It is not surprising that these countries should feel this way as the Zionist project has never tried to “hide its light under a bushel” in framing the issue as the fulfillment of the “white man’s burden” to bring civilization to a backward society.
In 1969 Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took there country away from them. They did not exist.”
More recently, in 2003, Alan Dershowitz wrote in his book The Case for Israel that the Jews, being European, provided superior health services and sanitation, and generally were a boon to the miserable ingrates that they found.
Everyone involved in the founding of the Jewish state of Israel recognized, whether they acknowledged it publicly or not, knew that redemption for the Jews meant expropriation of Arab lands by European settlers.
Unless the two sides of this conflict can recognize and understand the others narrative, they will continue to talk past each other and we will have more unhelpful debates like the one in Geneva.