Israel and Palestine really isn't that complicated
What we are seeing is an inevitable response to an illegal occupation
I saw a post on social media today that irritated me because it was one of those comments from someone who likes to wallow in their ignorance. Someone who thinks not understanding an issue is somehow a virtue. Someone who believes those who care enough to speak out are being know-it-alls.
I’m not going to quote that social media user because they’re probably not a bad person, and I don’t want to pile on them, but they were whining that everyone on Twitter has suddenly declared themselves experts on Israel/Palestine.
The implication was the only sensible response is to fall silent, but if we do that, we are letting politicians and the media have the only say. We are allowing propaganda to go unchallenged.
While the Israel/Palestine issue is complex in that there’s lots of information to digest, and it’s hard to have a perfect answer every time you’re challenged, the underlying issue really isn’t complicated. When people pretend it’s too complicated for you to understand, they’re encouraging your silence at best and manipulating you at worst.
It’s not hard to understand the state of Israel was founded on the ethnic cleansing of over 700,000 Palestinians who were forced from their homes in what is known as the Nakba or “catastrophe”. It’s not hard to grasp this is a very legitimate grievance that Palestinians hold to this day.
It’s not hard to grasp that since the borders were drawn between Israel and Palestine in 1947, Palestine has dramatically shrunk while Israel has grown. It’s irrelevant to say Israel has demolished this or that illegal settlement when it controls so much Palestinian land.
It’s not hard to understand Palestinians are trapped under what is recognised as apartheid by the United Nations and human rights groups across the world, including B’Tselem in Israel and Amnesty International.
“Our report reveals the true extent of Israel’s apartheid regime. Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights. We found that Israel’s cruel policies of segregation, dispossession and exclusion across all territories under its control clearly amount to apartheid. The international community has an obligation to act.”
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General
What is also not hard to understand is that this “conflict” is asymmetric with a disproportionate death toll on one side and advanced weaponry on the other. Often the conflict is rocks against tanks. Today it was parachutes against jets.
In Israel, you have a country that was built through a process of ethnic cleansing which now controls the borders of its neighbour and runs a brutal apartheid system.
Now you can complain all you like about Palestinian violence, and for the record I hate all of the violence, but if your criticism starts and ends with the behaviour of Palestinians after everything they’ve gone through, I’m going to assume your concerns are nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with maintaining apartheid.
This year alone we’ve seen Israel kill over 247 Palestinians, including 37 children (prior to today when the figure went much higher). We’ve seen other acts of violence, including Israeli troops shooting the ankles of peaceful protesters, causing amputations.
Common occurrences include: raids on the homes of innocent families in the middle of the night; random acts of harassment and violence by Israeli soldiers; the imprisonment of young children; missile strikes on residential buildings; the killings of journalists, aid workers and peaceful protesters. I could go on.
I assume you would not accept Russians doing this to Ukrainians, yet when I, or anyone else, makes this point on Twitter, we are accused of being “Putin apologists” as though criticising both illegal occupations somehow means you support one of them.
The latest violence is deeply worrying because it could escalate into something truly horrific. It has already been shocking in terms of the successes of “Operation Al-Aqsa flood”.
In a surprise attack, Palestinian paragliders breached Israeli territory and rockets rained down on Tel Aviv. Barbed-wire fences around Gaza were met with bulldozers; Israeli soldiers were dragged from their tanks; and personnel carriers, and even an IDF major-general, were captured. An unknown number of civilians were also captured.
In retaliation, Israel sent its jets to bombard Gaza with missiles in what it called “Operation Iron Swords”.
None of this is cause for celebration: it’s horrific to see civilians taken hostage and yet it was pretty much inevitable. In a situation where Palestinians have little or no chance of fighting conventionally against a powerful foe armed with state of the art US weaponry, less conventional means of fighting are going to happen. Palestinians cannot vote their way out of apartheid.
When Palestinians protest peacefully, they get shot. When we call for boycott, divestment and sanctions, our government moves to make BDS illegal. When moderate Palestinian politicians call for peace, they get assassinated.
Meanwhile, Palestinian homes are demolished, mosques are raided, farmland is stolen, orchards are destroyed, water supplies are poisoned, and life is made near-impossible. Palestinians must resort to extreme measures or accept a boot on their face forever.
From the Palestinian perspective, every Israeli participates in the military, including women (apart from those who refuse the draft and go to jail) and therefore all civilians become valid targets in their eyes. I don’t like it and I want all hostages to be released unharmed, but that’s the unfortunate reality.
Today, the Israeli response has killed roughly 200 Palestinians (including children) and injured 2,000 at the time of writing (expect these figures to rapidly increase). A Palestinian residential building containing 100 apartments was blown up while an Al Jazeera reporter was live on air.
Israel is saying it will cut all power to Gaza, which would surely cost lives, especially in hospitals, unless they have enough backup power. Let’s not forget collective punishment is a war crime. Many social media users are calling for an all out attack on Gaza and even for the extermination of Palestinians who they describe as subhuman.
As Rivkah Brown put it on Twitter:
“Hospital ventilators, heart rate monitors, dialysis machines – thousands of people will die as a result of this power cut. Tell me how this is any different to Palestinians murdering Israeli civilians.”
Just read the replies to Brown’s tweet from Israelis and ask yourself if it sounds like they’re calling for genocide…
Some social media users are speculating that Israel intentionally let its usually impregnable iron dome fail; that it seems too strange that its normally red-hot intelligence services did not see a huge attack coming; that the far-right Israeli government wanted an excuse to cleanse the land of Gaza. I’ve no idea if this is true, but I do know some Israeli politicians openly express their desire for genocide, such as Ayelet Shaked who once said:
“Behind every terrorist stands dozens of men and women without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.
“They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists.
“They are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists.”
When our politicians side with the Israeli government, this is the far-right mindset they’re siding with.
One of the few British politicians who has called for a ceasefire - Jeremy Corbyn - has been savaged for not giving the green light for an Israeli massacre - and let’s be clear, this is what every politician who says “Israel has a right to defend herself” is doing. I’m looking at you, Sir Keir Starmer.
Why is no one saying Palestine has a right to defend herself from an illegal occupation? Where is Palestine’s iron dome? Why aren’t the people with Ukraine flags in their Twitter bios doing the same for Palestine? (Apologies to the few who are.)
I can tell you why: our politicians never gave a shit about Ukrainian or Palestinian lives, but they do their utmost to program you into caring / not caring based on what is politically convenient. This was never about protecting civilians and always about geopolitical concerns: both Israel and Ukraine are strategic outposts.
In other words, your concerns might come from a genuine place, but theirs don’t. You only have to look at the conflict zones around the world to see how little they care about human life when they have nothing to gain. Don’t let these dishonest people tell you what to think or feel.
Every argument you can make in defence of Ukraine, you can make in defence of Palestine, and every criticism you can make against Palestine, you can make against Ukraine. Both countries are illegally occupied. Both populations are facing unimaginable horror. Both have fighters who’ve gone too far, killed civilians and committed war crimes.
You get this in every war (just look at the war crimes committed by US soldiers in Iraq) and it’s always wrong, but we don’t place our emphasis on the wrongdoing of Ukrainians because it’s outweighed by the fact they are illegally occupied by a powerful foe.
Criticising Palestinians is not how you solve this problem; calling out apartheid and demanding peace is. Let’s not forget South Africans resorted to violence to end apartheid, but we do not focus our blame on the ANC. We recognise that desperate people will do desperate things and this is what’s happening in Palestine.
However, the way Palestine and Ukraine are discussed by our media is vastly different: with Ukraine there is enormous sympathy and with Palestine there is none. With Ukraine, they show examples of their fighters at their best, and with Palestine, they show them at their worst.
This is why you probably never saw the media mention Ukrainians lying captured Russians on the ground and shooting them in the knees, or Palestinians ensuring that Israeli women with children would come to no harm (both of which I’ve seen video examples of).
You are supposed to love the Ukrainian and hate the Palestinian, and in both cases, you’re supposed to cheer for continued violence and vilify those who call for peace.
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I am an anti-zionist Jew, and I thank you for what you have written. I am so disheartened by how consistently calls for Israel to own up to it's oppressive violence against Palestinians are met with accusations of anti-semitism.
I was sickened today, watching President Biden adamantly insist that Israel has a right to defend itself, without any acknowledgement as to who is most in need of defending (Palestinians).
I agree wholeheartedly with your assertion that anyone who agrees that Israel has the right to "defend itself" is not interested in ending the apartheid that Israel enforces.
It horrifies me that almost every politician here and in the EU and US has effectively given Israel carte blanche to carry out a massacre. I'm afraid for the world right now. Nothing makes sense.