As with virtually every Palestinian "thinker," Barghouti defines Zionism as a movement to destroy Palestinians rather than a movement to recreate a nation-state for the Jewish people. Early Zionists had no intention of expelling non-Jews, on the contrary they felt that they would bring great economic and social benefits to the non-Jewish population. And they did. (Compare the infant mortality rates and life expectancy of Arabs under Israeli rule to those of neighboring Arab countries.Compare the number of universities built in the territories under "occupation" with zero built under Arab rule.)
But Barghouti instead builds a straw man:
The Zionist movement did not triumph but is living its worst crisis because it was founded on realising two objectives. The first was seizing the land, and this was carried out through criminal violence, waging wars and occupation. The second was displacing the Palestinian people and ethnically cleansing the land of Palestine, in which it failed. Despite the forcible displacement that took place in 1948, the Palestinian people learned from their experiences and stood fast on their land and today their numbers on the historic land of Palestine exceed that of Israeli Jews.No one even blinks at these lies any more.
Part of the lie is simple psychological projection. Because, indeed, Palestinian nationalism is not built on the desire for an independent nation state for the "Palestinian people." That goal could have been accomplished a half dozen times since 1947. Palestinian nationalism is centered around the destruction of the Jewish state by any and all means possible.
So naturally Palestinians see Zionism as a projection of what they themselves want. A goal that Palestinians freely admit in surveys.
Barghouti unwittingly admits this. Later on in this essay he says "the Zionist project has awakened Palestinian nationalism."
Exactly. There would be no Palestinian nationalism if it wasn't for Zionism. They would be part of a greater Jordan or Greater Syria or Greater Egypt - there never would be any interest in an independent Palestinian state if Israel never existed.
All of the insistence that Palestinians are a historic people is a fiction that was created ex post facto to support the nationalist claims. One could just as easily prove that residents of the Hauran area of Syria or the Northern Sinai are a "people" since they may have customs distinct from others even in the same nation.
Beyond that, of course, Barghouti's main thesis - that Zionism has failed - is a bit absurd as Israel is about to celebrate its 70th birthday, and the Palestinian project to destroy Israel is no longer of interest even to their fellow Arabs.