December
6, 2023
Standing
up against death and destruction in Gaza represents a tradition as long as
Zionism itself.
Many
years ago, I attended High Holidays services at Rodeph Shalom synagogue. It was
a special experience for me because my great-great grandfather Rabbi Henry
Berkowitz served as the second rabbi of this congregation, from 1892–1921. I
felt meaningful belonging when the rabbi explicitly stated that transgender
Jews are welcome. Sadly, the tone shifted when the rabbi spoke to one of her
largest audiences of the year about why she rejects the call for Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against the State of Israel, slandering this
nonviolent strategy (built on the success of the South African anti-apartheid
movement) as antisemitic. As a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and an
active supporter of the Palestinian civil society call for BDS, I learned that
I was not actually welcome in the congregation with my whole self, my full
ethical integrity.
This
memory came back to me suddenly when I learned that Rodeph Shalom was poised to
host a massive fundraising event for the Friends of the IDF (FIDF), with ticket
prices up to $36,000 at the “Major General” level, on November 30. I felt a
flood of shame that Rodeph Shalom would host this crass and cynical celebration
of militarism, while we all witness the devastating wreckage in Gaza, the
bombed hospitals, the soaring civilian death tolls, the dead babies, the people
told to flee with nowhere to escape, no water, no food, no fuel.
Do
the congregants support this? Most of them don’t even know their spiritual home
was used this way. The event was not listed on the Rodeph Shalom (RS) website,
not openly advertised to the membership. It was posted on the FIDF website with
no location acknowledged — apparently aware that a public event of this kind
would and should be protested. An invitee leaked the details, compelled to
speak out against this celebration of death and destruction. In reaching out to
members of the RS community, I spoke to many who were shocked and upset to
learn of the event, and agreed to share their concern with the leadership.
What
would Rabbi Berkowitz say? I don’t have to guess.
Members
of JVP, IfNotNow, and others in the Philadelphia Jewish community have been
mobilizing by the thousands almost daily to cry out for a ceasefire, to say NOT
IN MY NAME to Israel’s extremist right-wing government and our elected
officials in Pennsylvania and DC. In Philly, we held a vigil counter to the
FIDF gala on Thursday night. At the same time, a group of young Israelis
disrupted an FIDF event in Manhattan.
What
would Rabbi Berkowitz say? I don’t have to guess. He was among the loudest
voices of anti-Zionism in the early days of Zionist mobilization, and a member
of the National Committee of Rabbis Opposed to Zionism. In 1899, he published
the essay “Why I Oppose Zionism” in the Central Conference of American Rabbis
Journal, touring the country to speak out on this theme.
In
1919, Rabbi Berkowitz co-organized a petition signed by three hundred prominent
U.S. Jews which was published in the New York Times and delivered to the Paris
Peace Conference. The 1919 statement, addressed to President Woodrow Wilson,
made prescient points in opposition to the Zionist movement, including warnings
that Zionists underestimated Muslim and Christian Palestinians’ allegiance to
the land, that Zionism’s assurance of respect for other communities under
Jewish dominance were incompatible with real equality, democracy, or the safety
of the global Jewish community.
Like
my rabbinic ancestor, I’m a longtime anti-Zionist. JVP Philadelphia’s inbox
overflows with Jews and other allies reaching out to join in calls for peace,
and for an end to the occupation and the unjust conditions that can only yield
more violence.
Rodeph
Shalom is generally a progressive synagogue with active commitments to racial
and economic justice and LGBTQ+ inclusion. Shame on the RS administration for
hosting this private mega-fundraiser for the Israeli military — even more
absurd given that the IDF already receives over $3 billion a year from the U.S.
Government, with an additional $14.3 billion recently proposed by the Biden
administration.
Why journalists must
speak out about Gaza
Attacks on journalism and media are
dangerous to us all.
As journalists and media workers, we
know that silencing a free press is a key tactic of authoritarian governments.
We are horrified that the Israeli military has now murdered an unprecedented
number of journalists and media workers in Gaza—at least 75 people as of
December 4. Since October 7, Israeli forces have also killed three journalists
in Lebanon, and targeted journalists in the West Bank and Jerusalem, arresting
44 journalists as of November 28, according to the Palestinian Journalists
Syndicate. And, Israel’s forced power and communications outages in Gaza have
made even the simplest communications mostly impossible, slowing the
on-the-ground news out of Gaza to a trickle. The situation has gotten so dire
that journalists and media workers are no longer wearing press vests to prevent
further targeting by the Israeli military.
These attacks on media workers are
not new. They are part of a long-running regime of occupation, apartheid, and
extermination that dates back to before the 1948 Nakba. Still, the Palestinian
Journalists Syndicate describes October 2023 as “the worst October in the
history of world journalism.” After seven weeks of constant bombardments, a
temporary week-long humanitarian pause went into effect on Nov. 24, giving
Palestinian journalists in Gaza a moment of respite from covering daily
atrocities. But immediately after it ended, it was business as usual and
Israeli forces resumed bombing and shelling all across the Gaza Strip. Even
during the pause, journalists and media workers were threatened and assaulted.
Without a permanent ceasefire and an end to the violent occupation, Palestinian
lives remain in constant, direct danger—and journalists in particular have an
additional target on their backs.
We are raising our voices to honor
the dead and fight for the living; not because media workers’ lives are more
valuable than others, but because attacks on journalism carry extreme dangers
to us all. In early November, the Palestinian Youth Movement called for media
workers to “use their considerable public platforms in video, print, audio, and
social media to publish stories about Gaza, speak truth to power, challenge
misinformation, reject anti-Palestinian racism, and condemn the targeting and
killing of Palestinian journalists and their families.” As the death toll in
Gaza mounts, we as journalists and media workers will continue to make noise,
joining Writers Against the War on Gaza and the Protect Journalists open letter
insisting on a new paradigm for coverage of these atrocities.
In these times of increasingly
militarized policing and global consolidation of capitalist power, Palestine is
a bellwether. Israel’s repression of Palestinian journalism shows us what is
possible under the guise of “democracy.” It also validates violence around the
world, in other regimes where U.S. and/or Western imperialism and intervention
has protected authoritarian governments, from Haiti to the Philippines.
Our “democracies” do not protect us.
Truth and freedom of speech are being increasingly criminalized all over the
globe–especially when the speakers are Indigenous, Black, and Brown people.
Journalism that functions as a mouthpiece for the state hinders our fight for
collective liberation. People’s movements need movement media now more than
ever.
On U.S. soil, journalists and media
makers are being fired or pushed out of the profession for their advocacy.
Jewish journalist Emily Wilder was fired from the Associated Press (AP) in 2021
after conservative activists targeted her for pro-Palestinian social media
posts written prior to her employment with the AP. In 2022, The New York Times
fired Palestinian journalist Hosam Salem in Gaza, citing his personal Facebook
page that he used to speak out against the occupation he lives under. Multiple
journalists have also resigned or canceled contracts with the New York Times in
part because of its Gaza coverage, and in late October, Artforum fired
editor-in-chief David Velasco for his participation in an open letter
supporting Palestinian liberation. eLife editor-in-chief Michael Eisen was
fired in October 2023 for retweeting an article from the satirical paper The
Onion. These acts go hand-in-hand with the recent cancellation of campus groups
at Brandeis University and Columbia University who are critical of the Israeli
occupation and siege in Gaza. We urge the public to consider how these efforts
occur in tandem with the wave of state laws that ban discussions of racism and
gender in schools. These are all signs of just how precarious our “democracy”
is. How much silencing will we collectively allow?
The media workers whose lives have
been taken by the Israeli military are not mere symbols of threats to our own
freedoms. They are people who had dreams for the future and memories of the
past, Instagram accounts and favorite foods, first loves and families, homes
and daily routines as well as places they would have loved to visit. We mourn
and honor them. We remember them without “objectivity” or neutrality, but with
the intrinsic understanding that their lives mattered and are interdependent
with our own.
We remember Issam Abdallah, age 37,
a Lebanese video journalist for Reuters who was killed by the Israeli army on
October 13, 2023 in southern Lebanon in what was likely a targeted attack on a
van of media workers. “It is unlikely that the journalists were mistaken for
combatants,” said Reporters Without Borders (RSF) following an investigation.
Six other journalists were injured in the attack.
Abdallah covered conflicts in Syria,
Russia, and Ukraine. In 2020, he was nominated as Reuters Video Journalist of
the Year for coverage of the Beirut port blast. After reporting for Reuters in
Ukraine last year, Abdallah wrote, “I have learned through all the years of
covering conflicts and wars…that the picture is not only front lines and smoke,
but the untold human stories which touch us all inside.”
His last Instagram post on October 7
was a picture of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was murdered by
Israeli forces in 2022.
We honor Shireen Abu Akleh, age 51,
the Al Jazeera journalist and TV correspondent killed by the Israeli military
forces on May 11, 2022. Abu Akleh joined the network in 1997 and started as one
of Al Jazeera’s first field correspondents. She was a beloved Palestinian
journalist. On May 11, 2022, Akleh was covering an Israeli military raid on the
Jenin Refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. She was shot in the head by the
Israeli military while wearing a helmet and a vest that was clearly marked
“press.” The Israeli military denied responsibility for her death despite clear
evidence. This is just one very notable example of how what preceded October 7
was not “peace” for Palestinians.
After ongoing calls from Abu Akleh’s
family and colleagues for thorough international investigations into the
circumstances of her death, the UN Independent International Commission of
Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory released a report on October 16,
2023, concluding “on reasonable grounds that Israeli forces used lethal force
without justification under international human rights law.” The Israeli army
eventually conceded a “high possibility” of her death by an Israeli soldier,
but did not publicly apologize until a full year later.
Abu Akleh’s killing sent shockwaves
through the world. Meanwhile, U.S. democratic leadership remained silent
despite the fact that she was an American citizen. Although, as Mohammed
El-Kurd and others have pointed out, “American”-ness is sometimes held up in a
way that reinforces the dehumanization of Palestinians in Palestine, as if she
or others are more human due to holding U.S. passports. Her funeral procession
was one of the longest in Palestinian history; tens of thousands participated
over the course of three days. In turn, Israeli police used batons to attack
mourners who carried her coffin, kicking and hitting them, ripping Palestinian
flags from their hands, causing pallbearers to briefly drop the casket. A
friend who attended her funeral told Al Jazeera, “Shireen was a symbol for
Palestinian women and Palestinians. She was the voice for the vulnerable, the
underprivileged, the voice for Palestinians and the Palestinian struggle.”
We remember Mohammad Abu Hasira,
correspondent for Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA), who was killed
by Israeli occupation forces alongside 42 members of his family during a
targeted bombing of his home in Gaza City during an overnight Israeli strike in
early November 2023. On November 7, the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported
that Abu Hasira, his children, and brothers were all killed in the attack.
We mourn Doaa Sharaf, Program
Presenter at Al Aqsa Radio, killed October 26, 2023, along with her young child
in an Israeli airstrike in the Al-Zawaida neighborhood in central Gaza. Her
husband is investigative journalist Mahmoud Haniyah.
We grieve the loss of Salam Mema,
leader of the Women Journalists Committee within the Palestinian Media
Assembly. On October 9, 2023, Salam Mema and her family were trapped under
rubble following an Israeli airstrike on their home in Jabalia refugee camp in
northern Gaza. Mema and her eldest son’s bodies were pulled out from under the
rubble on October 13, according to Coalition For Women in Journalism.
Ibrahim Lafi, age 21, Palestinian
photojournalist for Ain Media Foundation, was shot and killed at Gaza Strip’s
Erez Crossing on October 7, 2023 – seven days before his 22nd birthday. In an
article in the LA Times, fellow Palestinian journalist and friend Yara Eid
wrote: “He promised me that we would report on every war together. He would be
the cameraman, and I, the television reporter. Our friendship made Gaza, the
biggest open-air prison in the world, vast and full of possibilities. But now
he has become the news that I must report on … When Ibrahim was killed, he was
wearing his vest and helmet labeled ‘Press.’ My colleagues who were on the
ground reporting with Ibrahim emphasized to me that he was not caught in
clashes between Palestinian fighters and Israeli soldiers, but was actually
targeted by heavy bombardment, when two missiles fell on the street he was in
at the Erez border crossing. I feel compelled to establish him as a ‘perfect
victim’ to convince the callous world of his humanity. But that doesn’t matter.
Whether you are resisting the occupation or burrowing your head in the sand, no
one in Gaza is safe.”
In the article, Eid mentions her
colleagues Nidal Alwaheidi, a producer with Al-Najah TV, and Haitham
Abdelwahed, of Ain Media Foundation, who are still missing.
Murdering and disappearing
journalists is a manifestation of the roots of occupation and imperialism:
social, political, psychological, and physical control and domination.
Apartheid, military occupation, and genocide are incompatible with a free
press. If our governments continue to fund, support, and legitimize attacks on
journalists in Palestine, it chips away at freedom and self-determination
globally. It is well-documented that Israel’s surveillance tools, technology
and military tactics set a precedent for authoritarian governments across the
world. This includes cities and states across the U.S. where police officers
train with the Israeli military.
We also acknowledge the less formal
but equally important role of community-based media makers, content creators,
and organizers functioning as reporters, those using social media to document
and publish in real time moments of crisis and violence. Their work is
invaluable, especially in the face of corporatized and state narratives. We
mourn them when they are targeted and killed. Even when memorializing the dead,
it is reporters with more formal ties to mainstream outlets who have received
more visibility.
We are U.S. journalists and media
makers calling for a permanent ceasefire, freedom for all Palestinian political
prisoners including journalists, and a complete end to the military occupation
of Palestine and the system of apartheid in Israel. We are joining these
efforts in also calling for direct action to demand more from U.S. media, which
has for decades failed to provide historical context and balanced coverage of
the occupation. Media coverage that defends and obscures Israel’s violence
continuously upholds the propaganda of the powerful, in turn excusing the
violence of Zionism as well as police departments, the military, and the
Christian right wing.
Action is at our fingertips. Follow
the calls from the Palestinian Youth Movement and Palestinian Journalists’
Syndicate for media workers in this moment. Organize strikes, resignations,
protests, or other acts of disruption to demand fair coverage and honest
reporting on Palestine. Become or work with whistleblowers to expose the
systems and persons complicit in manufacturing consent for genocide and ethnic
cleansing in Gaza. Use your platforms in video, print, audio, and social media
to speak the truth, challenge misinformation, reject anti-Palestinian racism,
and condemn the targeting and killing of Palestinian journalists and their
families. Demand that newsrooms insist their foreign correspondents be let into
Gaza and trust the expertise of Palestinian journalists in Gaza. Demand an end
to all recrimination against media workers. And finally, publish the names of
Palestinian victims.This is a defining political moment of our lives. We must
mourn the dead, learn from their stories, and reject the assumption that
journalism can ever be neutral. As we continue to build an internationalist
movement for collective liberation, one that rejects all acts of repression and
genocide, no one who cares about freedom can afford to see themselves as safe.
As James Baldwin wrote to Angela Davis during her imprisonment in 1970, “If
they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.”
‘Anti-Zionism is antisemitism,’ US House asserts in ‘dangerous’
resolution
Washington,
DC – Palestinian rights advocates are denouncing a congressional resolution
that equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, calling it a “dangerous” measure
that aims to curb free speech and distract from the war in Gaza.
The
Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the measure on Tuesday in
a 311-14 vote, with 92 Democratic members abstaining by voting “present”.
The
symbolic resolution was framed as an effort to reject the “drastic rise of
anti-Semitism in the United States and around the world”.
But
it contained language saying that the House “clearly and firmly states that
anti-Zionism is antisemitism”. It also condemned the slogan “From the River to
the Sea”, which rights advocates understand to be an aspirational call for
equality in historic Palestine.
Instead,
the resolution described it as a “rallying cry for the eradication of the State
of Israel and the Jewish people”. It also characterised demonstrators who
gathered in Washington, DC, last month to demand a ceasefire as “rioters”. They
“spewed hateful and vile language amplifying antisemitic themes”, the
resolution alleges.
Husam
Marajda, an organiser with the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), said
the resolution is an effort to “cancel” Palestinian rights advocates by
accusing them of bigotry and labelling their criticism of Israeli policies as
hate speech.
“It’s
super dangerous. It sets a really, really bad precedent. It’s aiming to
criminalise our liberation struggle and our call for justice and peace and
equality,” Marajda told Al Jazeera.
What
is Zionism?
Zionism
is a nationalist ideology that helped establish the state of Israel in 1948. It
contends that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in historic
Palestine, which Zionists view as their ancestral homeland.
The
rise of Zionism in the late 1800s was partly in response to anti-Semitism in
Europe.
But
many Palestinians reject Zionism as a driver of the settler colonialism that
dispossessed them during the founding of Israel. Israel’s establishment
coincided with the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who
were forcibly driven from their homes in what is known as the Nakba, the Arabic
word for “catastrophe”.
While
Palestinians view themselves as the native people of the land, Zionists say
Jewish people have historic and biblical claims to what is today Israel.
Some
hardline Zionists, including members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s government, argue that the present-day Palestinian territories —
the West Bank and Gaza — also belong to Israel.
At
a United Nations General Assembly speech in November, Netanyahu held up a map
of Israel that showed the country stretching from the Jordan River to the
Mediterranean Sea, encompassing the West Bank, Gaza and Syria’s Golan Heights.
Some
Palestinians also blame Zionism for Israeli abuses against them, which amount
to apartheid, according to leading human rights groups like Amnesty
International.
In
the US, Palestinian rights supporters have long rejected conflations of Zionism
with Judaism, noting that many Jewish Americans identify as anti-Zionist.
“Opposing
the policies of the government of Israel and Netanyahu’s extremism is not
antisemitic. Speaking up for human rights and a ceasefire to save lives should
never be condemned,” Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said in a
social media post on Tuesday, explaining her vote against the resolution.
‘Extremely
dangerous’
Marajda
stressed that Palestinians have a right to oppose Zionism, a position he said
has nothing to do with prejudice.
“This
resolution is saying that if you’re critical of this Israeli government,
essentially you hate Jewish people,” he said. “I didn’t choose — the
Palestinians didn’t choose — their occupiers.”
The
resolution is one of several pro-Israel motions approved by Congress since
October 7. Most US legislators have expressed unwavering support for Israel
amid its offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 16,000 Palestinians.
Yasmine
Taeb, the legislative and political director at MPower Change, a Muslim
American advocacy group, called the resolution “extremely dangerous”.
“It
unequivocally equates any criticism of the Israeli government with
anti-Semitism. Essentially it smears millions and millions of people
demonstrating globally in support of a lasting ceasefire, including
Jewish-American organisations,” Taeb told Al Jazeera.
The
advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was also quick to denounce the
congressional measure.
“Falsely
stating that anti-Zionism is antisemitism conflates all Jews with the Israeli
state and endangers our communities. It fuels deadly violence and censorship
campaigns against Palestinians,” JVP Action said in a social media post.
All
House Republicans but one — Congressman Thomas Massie — voted in favour of the
resolution. But Democrats were split on the measure: 13 voted against it and 95
for it, on top of the 92 who abstained with a “present” vote.
Jerrold
Nadler, a key Jewish House Democrat, had decried the resolution on Monday,
noting that some Jewish communities oppose Zionism for religious reasons and
should not be branded as anti-Semitic.
“While
most anti-Zionism is indeed anti-Semitic, the authors, if they were at all
familiar with Jewish history and culture, should know about Jewish anti-Zionism
that was, and is, expressly not anti-Semitic,” he said.
Democrats
divided
Nadler
accused Republicans of using support for Israel to advance “partisan wedging at
the expense of the Jewish community”. Still, he did not vote against the
resolution on Tuesday. He opted for “present”.
The
vote highlighted the divisions among the Democrats over Israel’s military
campaign in Gaza. While the party’s progressive wing has pressed for a
ceasefire, President Joe Biden and the majority of congressional Democrats have
avoided such calls.
But
that could signal a disconnect from the party base. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in
November indicated 62 percent of Democratic voters considered Israel’s response
“excessive”. Two in three survey respondents backed a ceasefire.
Republicans,
meanwhile, have led motions that critics say are designed to bring the
Democratic schism to the fore. Last month, for instance, they moved to censure
Congresswoman Tlaib, the only Palestinian in the House, over her comments on
the Gaza war.
Conservatives
have accused Democrats who vote against such measures of being anti-Israel, if
not anti-Semitic.
That
creates a political dilemma for Democratic lawmakers. If they support the
bills, they risk upsetting large segments of their base, but if they oppose
them, they open themselves to Republican attacks.
Taeb
said the lawmakers who voted “present” did not want to go on the record as
equating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, but at the same time, they wanted to
be seen as countering anti-Semitism.
“It’s
just politics,” she told Al Jazeera.
Tuesday’s
resolution was co-sponsored by Congressman Max Miller, who has faced outrage in
recent weeks for saying, “We’re going to turn [Palestine] into a parking lot.”
Taeb
said the fact that lawmakers who have promoted anti-Palestinian hate are
championing such resolutions shows that Tuesday’s measure is not about
combating prejudice.
“The
intent of these members is to smear and silence peace activists calling to end
the massacre of Palestinian children and families.”
History of Gaza: On
Conquerors, Resurgence, and Rebirth
Those unfamiliar with Gaza and its
history are likely to always associate Gaza with destruction, rubble and
Israeli genocide.
And they can hardly be blamed. On
November 3, the UN Development Program and the UN Economic and Social
Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) announced that 45 percent of Gaza’s housing
units have been destroyed or damaged since the beginning of the Latest Israeli
aggression on Gaza.
But the history of Gaza is also a
history of great civilizations, as well as a history of revival, rebirth.
Shortly before the war, specifically
September 23, archaeologists in Gaza announced that four Roman-era tombs had
been unearthed in Gaza City. They include “two lead coffins, one delicately
carved with harvest motifs and the other with dolphins gliding through water,”
ARTNews reported.
According to Palestinian and French
archaeologists, these are Roman-era tombs dating back 2,000 years.
The finding was preceded, two months
earlier, in July, by something even more astonishing: a major archaeological
discovery, of at least 125 tombs, most with skeletons still largely intact,
along with two extremely rare lead sarcophaguses.
In case you assume that the great
archaeological finds were isolated events, think again.
Indeed, Gaza has existed not only
hundreds of years, but even thousands of years before the destruction of the
modern Palestinian homeland during the Nakba, the subsequent wars and all the
headline news that associate Gaza with nothing but violence.
I grew up in the Nuseirat refugee
camp located in central Gaza. As a child, I knew that something great had taken
place in Nuseirat without fully appreciating its grandeur and deep historical
roots.
For years, I climbed the Tell
el-Ajjul – The Calves Hill – located to the north-east of Nuseirat, tucked
between the beach and the Gaza Valley – to look for Sahatit, a term we used in
reference to any ancient currency.
We would collect the rusty and often
scratched pieces of metal and take them home, knowing little about the value of
these peculiar finds. I always gifted my treasures to my Mom, who kept them in
a small wooden drawer built within her Singer sewing machine.
I still think about that treasure
that must have been tossed away following my mother’s untimely death. Only now
do I realize that they were Hyksos, Roman and Byzantine currencies.
Once Mom would diligently scrub the
Sahatit with lemon juice and vinegar, the mysterious Latin and other writings
and symbols would appear, along with the crowned heads of the great kings of
the past. I knew that these old pieces were used by our people who dwelled upon
this land since time immemorial.
The region upon which Nuseirat was
built was inhabited by ancient Canaanites, whose presence can be felt through
the numerous archeological discoveries throughout historic Palestine.
What made Nuseirat particularly
unique was its geographical centrality in the Gaza region, its strategic
position by the Gaza coast, and its unique topography. The relatively hilly
areas west of Nuseirat and the fact that it encompasses the Gaza Valley have
made Nuseirat inhabitable since ancient times to the present.
Evidence of Hyksos, Roman,
Byzantine, Islamic and other civilizations which dwelled in that region for
thousands of years, is a testimony to the historical significance of the area.
When the Hyksos ruled over Palestine
during the Middle Bronze Age II period (ca. 2000-1500 BC), they built a great
civilization, which extended from Egypt to Syria.
So powerful was the Hyksos Dynasty
that they extended their jurisdiction into Ancient Egypt, remaining there until
they were driven out by the Sea Peoples. Though the Hyksos were eventually
defeated, they left behind palaces, temples, defense trenches and various
monuments, the largest of which can be found in the central Gaza region,
specifically at the starting point of the Gaza Valley.
Like the Calves Hill, Tell Umm
el-’Amr – or Umm el-’Amr’s Hill – was the location of an ancient Christian
town, with a large monastery complex, containing five churches, homes, baths,
geometric mosaics, a large crypt and more.
The discoveries of Tell Umm el-’Amr
were recent. According to the World’s Monuments Fund (WMF), this Christian town
was abandoned after a major earthquake struck the region sometime in the
seventh century. The excavation process began in 1999, and a more serious
preservation campaign began in earnest in 2010.
In 2018, the restoration of the
monastery itself started. The discovery of the St. Hilarion Monastery is one of
the most precious archeological finds, not only in Gaza’s southern coastal
region, but in the entire Middle East in recent years.
There is also the Shobani Graveyard,
tucked by the sea and located near the western entrance of Nuseirat, the Tell
Abu-Hussein in the north-west part of the camp, also close to the sea, along
with other sites, which are of great significance to Nuseirat’s past.
A Gaza historian told me that it is
almost certain that Tell Abu Hussein was of some connection to Sultan Salah
ad-Din al-Ayyubi’s military campaign in Palestine, which ultimately defeated
and expelled the Crusaders from the region in 1187.
The history of my old refugee camp
is essentially the history of all of Gaza, a place that played a significant
role in shaping ancient and modern history, its geopolitics as well as its
tragic and triumphant moments.
What is taking place in Gaza now is
but an episode, a traumatic and a defining one, but nonetheless, a mere chapter
in the history of a people who proved to be as durable and resilient as history
itself.
The Moral Consequences of the War on Gaza
Orono,
Maine (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The moral high ground, has been
lost by Israel in the Gaza onslaught while it attempts to avenge the Hamas
attacks on Oct 7. The leaders of the Knesset seem convinced that the slaughter
of 15,000 civilians is justified and that there will be no moral consequences.
Does this attitude rest on an ancient Biblical story concerning the Amalek
people who became the enemy of Israel. “God then commands Saul to destroy the
Amalekites by killing man, woman, infant and suckling” This kind of revenge is
primitive in the extreme but Netanyahu has been quoted as saying Israel needs
an Amalek response, Whether this is metaphorical or not, the bombing of Gaza is
a brutal act of wanton destruction on a scale reminiscent of WWII.
For
Americans a question that should be asked is why Israel is receiving $3.8
billion annually from the U.S. in military aid with another $14 million being
promised by the Biden administration. This is taking place while one million
Americans are homeless and many more are living near the poverty line? Under such circumstances why is America
enabling the destruction of Gaza, the forced homelessness of tens of thousands,
and on the West Bank the continued expropriation of Palestinian land by Israeli
settlers. America is making itself a moral spectacle to the world as it becomes
an accomplice to the deliberate destruction of an indigenous people.
In
her book “ And Then your Soul is Gone” Kelly Denton -Borhaug describes “moral
injury and war culture”. She writes: “U.S. citizens don’t really want to know
what has gone on in our name, with our money and with the tacit permission…of
U.S. violence around the world”….we distance ourselves from the suffering
caused by war yet “moral injury results from participation in the moral
distortion of the world that is created by war”. The writer quotes Hannah
Arendt concerning the “banality of evil” when Arendt notes how [moral injury]
becomes most pernicious when it is “routinized and normalized”.
What
is taking place in Gaza is the most transparent of age-old motives: to
dispossess the indigenous people of their land by any means possible. The truth
is that dispossession of indigenous land worldwide has a long sordid history,
often dressed up in religious language such that, as Borhaug notes: “to present
a divinized portrayal of war and militarism as a sacred enterprise”.
The
recent display of overwhelming military power by Israel is also intended to
cast fear into “enemies” nearby, but in this war against the Palestinians it is
achieving the opposite. Arab countries are not in awe nor are they made more
fearful, even as American navy sits at anchor ready to intervene. Large
segments of the population of Arab countries are disgusted and are taking
action by boycotting businesses and products coming from America and Israel. We
may see that small actions, carried out by large numbers of people, can result
in powerful consequences.
The
Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy, in a talk on the Israel Lobby some years ago
in Washington, D.C., spoke of three principles believed in by Israelis that
make them inflexible regarding their conflict with the Palestinians: 1st is the
belief that Israelis are the chosen people”; 2nd is the belief that Israelis
are always the victim; 3rd is the belief that Palestinians are less than human,
compared to Israelis.
At
another talk Gideon Levy noted that “Israeli rage and desire for revenge are
not justified…you have to completely ignore the last 100 years in order to
believe that Israel is entitled to revenge. They have far more to answer for
than the Palestinians. The only way all this can possibly end well is if the
U.S. intervenes. I don’t see Israel coming to its senses and developing a
conscience without pressure from the outside”.
He
also noted,that “ethnic cleansing” by the settlers in the West Bank is
supposedly “illegal” but the Israel military protects the settlers. These are
Jewish terrorists…burning down houses and fields of Palestinians…under the
smokescreen of the Gazan war, There is encouragement of the government…the
suffering of Arabs in East Jerusalem…still to some extent, Jerusalem has been
annexed by Israel, so these neighborhoods have been invaded by settlers with
the help of the police…”
This
dehumanization of Palestinians is not a new phenomenon, but is typical of
colonial governments. When the British General Dyer massacred 500 nonviolent
protestors in Amritsar, India in 1919 he was not reprimanded by the British
hierarchy. This flagrant injustice ignited all of India against British rule
while Gandhi, who at one time admired the British, became extremely critical of
the “evil” that British leaders had succumbed to. Despite being jailed by the
British he spent two decades dedicated to expelling Britain from India.
Coincidentally,
Britain, during the same period placed tens of thousands of troops in Palestine
and assigned a High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel who was supportive of
Jewish immigration. Following him were eleven other High Commissioners who held
authority over Palestine until 1948. The British withdrew from India and
Palestine in 1947 and 1948, within a year of each other. Violence was rife in
both withdrawals. Some parties were aggrieved for differing reasons. In India
it was a partition between a Muslim and Hindu territory and British withdrawal
in August, 1947. In Palestine the Zionist leadership attacked both the British
and the Palestinians but withdrawal did not take place until May,1948. Gandhi
did not live to see the formal withdrawal due to his assassination by a Hindu
nationalist in January, 1948 who was convinced that Gandhi was too supportive
of Muslims.
The
Gandhian phrase: “an eye for an eye makes everyone blind” was quoted by Ofer
Cassif, a now-suspended member of the Israeli Knesset, in an interview. We are, he said “in a vicious cycle”. Most
of the people of Israel have to rid themselves of their rage” He said: “the
government includes psychopaths and bigots who are happiest when they are
destroying the opposition. Such people “don’t even care for Israeli people,
they believe in the greater Israel, “Eretz Israel” [the largest expanse of
biblical Israel] “Obviously the intention is to drive the Palestinians out of
Gaza…to expel the Gazans…it is not a secret….they believe it..there are
thousands who oppose this but the majority
will only be able to change their minds when it is too late. The
fascists in the Knesset do not want to see any opposition. [They now demand]
that the police totally forbid any demonstrations against the present war
against Gaza. One Knesset member wants to give M16 rifles to the west bank
settlers. “Americans must understand that these fascists in the Knesset may use
their power eventually against us…the regular people of Israel.”
Ofer
has been struggling for peace and reconciliation with the Palestinians and
their right of return to their homeland. He predicts that “Israel is dooming
itself not only by committing genocide against the Palestinians and shocking
the entire world, but by arming its own citizens to the teeth. Civil war is
around the corner as society grows ever more extremist while its democratic
institutions are being dismantled. Unless there is rapid change, Israel will
self-destruct from the inside.”
In
the case of the bombing of Gaza, a recent poll notes that a majority of
Israelis support it despite its lethal consequences, As a result, they become
complicit in the sin of a conflagration visited on another people, and in a
vast moral universe of pain and suffering; all this from anger and vengeance
and dispossession. When is enough not enough? How long will people suffer the
traumas of injury after the death of friends and relatives? There are always
consequences to violence, especially on a scale of what is now taking place,
whether it is due to Hamas or Israel or America. The bigger the sin perpetrated
against others (in this case the Palestinians) the more consequential the long-
term psychological suffering, not only to the victims, but inevitably, to the
aggressors as well. Moral injury is deep-seated and involves a long difficult
process of healing and atonement. Such a process demands acknowledgement of the
pain and suffering inflicted, and a willingness to face one’s complicity in the
consequences of collective decision making.
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