January 23, 2024
No lasting progress is made when
guns and tanks, missiles, and bombs undermine and displace diplomacy. All of
humanity suffers. And no peace will be possible without the promise of a safe
and secure home for all the people of Palestine.
The virtual obliteration of Gaza and
Palestinians by Israeli military forces threatens to provoke a broad regional
war. In addition to Israel's present leveling of Gaza to dismantle Hamas,
Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, Iran's Revolutionary Guard and the
United States and Britain have all launched missile attacks against targets
across much of the Middle East. A ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israel's
military campaign are the essential keys to avoiding a potential regional
conflagration, but the swift conclusion to the war and the immediate withdrawal
of Israeli troops must also be accompanied by massive humanitarian assistance
and movement toward an independent Palestinian state.
Even U.S. president Biden has
indicated the need for a two-state solution throughout the course of Israel's
bombing and artillery campaign in Gaza. His words have been severely
compromised, however, by his steadfast military and political support for Israel's
war objectives. Now, with Saudi Arabia offering to normalize relations with
Israel if it agrees to a ceasefire and a path toward a Palestinian state, the
idea has gained some tentative footing. The economic benefits for Israel in
establishing constructive ties with Saudi Arabia could be enormous. Still,
Israeli prime minister Netanyahu vehemently opposes a Palestinian state, but it
is clear that inflicting so much death and suffering destabilizes the entire
region and radicalizes future generations of Palestinians. His stated goals of
dismantling Hamas, freeing hostages and achieving future security for Israelis
founder on these realities. The pathway to a Palestinian state, even with
enormous hurdles to overcome, is absolutely needed and may achieve the first
steps toward peaceful relations between the two peoples.
After Israel ceases its ruinous
military assault on Gaza and withdraws its troops, Palestinians will need broad
international support to achieve their independence from Israel and build a
state. The considerable humanitarian assistance already underway will need to
be dramatically increased. They will need significant financial investment and
technical assistance in the monumental task of reconstruction in Gaza, at least
$15 billion according to the Palestine Investment Fund. Just as importantly,
the international community will need to hold leaders on both sides accountable
for the unprecedented violence of the last four months. Untold crimes against
humanity have been committed. In its horrific attack on October 7 of last year
Hamas terrorists committed unspeakable crimes. According to Israeli
authorities, 1200 were slaughtered, tortured and raped. Another 400 or more
were kidnapped and taken into Gaza. Since then, the Israeli military has
committed atrocities beyond imagination, relentlessly pounding Gaza with bombs
and artillery, killing more than 25,000, two-thirds of them women and children,
and leaving 85 percent of the Gaza population displaced and homeless. More than
a quarter of the 2 million people residing in Gaza now faces “catastrophic
hunger,” according to the World Food Programme.
The Biden administration has come to
Israel's defense time and again, repeatedly affirming Israel's right to defend
itself. All people have a right to defend themselves against war crimes. The
Palestinians, as well as the Israelis, have this right. But that right stops at
self-defense. It does not extend to wanton disregard for human life. The
Preamble to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court
(ICC) explicitly states that genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and
crimes of aggression are “most serious crimes of concern to the international
community as a whole...[and]...must not go unpunished.” Hamas' attack on
civilians on October 7, 2023 is a war crime at the very least, but it does not
justify the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians. South Africa has
accused Israel of genocide, and while Israel adamantly denies it, South Africa
has presented a persuasive case before the International Court of Justice
(ICJ), asserting that Israel's military campaign in Gaza violates the 1948
Genocide Convention.
The viability of a Palestinian state
is weakened if the leadership on both sides of the current Israeli-Palestinian
conflict do not appear before an international tribunal. The ICC was
established to try individuals for such war crimes. The language each side uses
to justify its position starkly illustrates the need for international legal
intervention. They have framed their intentions in apocalyptic terms. The
international community must condemn such dreadful visions and compel
individuals to stand trial for such provocative and dangerous rhetoric. Many
nations will oppose this course of action, including the U.S. which does not
recognize the authority of the ICC and has withdrawn its support for the ICJ.
At the same time, if the international community countenances these nihilistic
declarations, the prospects of peaceful co-existence between Israel and a
nascent Palestinian state are dim.
On the Israeli side, prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu has invoked dark biblical injunctions in his projection of
all-out war against Hamas. At the end of October, in the early days of Israel's
invasion, he turned to religious scripture to justify the bombardment of
densely populated Gaza. “The Bible says that 'There is a time for peace and a
time for war.' This is a time for war.” A few days later, referring to Hamas,
Netanyahu said that Israelis “are committed to completely eliminating this evil
from the world.” He continued, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you,
says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.” With the use of 2000-pound bombs in
Palestinian neighborhoods in Gaza, his reference to Amalek is nakedly
foreboding. In the Old Testament, or in the Jewish Tanakh, God (Elohim in
Hebrew) commands the Israelites to “attack the Amalekites and totally destroy
all things that belong to them. Do not spare them, put to death men and women,
children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”
Hamas considers Israel a “settler
colony,” an occupying force that denies Palestinians' self-determination.
Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories (West Bank, Gaza and East
Jerusalem) is illegal under international law and the right to Palestinian
resistance by armed conflict is protected under international law. But Hamas'
leaders assert in the Hamas Doctrine that “[r]esisting the occupation with all
means and methods is a legitimate right....” International humanitarian law ,
however, prohibits indiscriminately targeting and killing civilians who are not
directly involved in military conflict. Hamas' bombing of crowded public buses
in Israeli cities at the end of the 20th century and the massacre that occurred
on October 7 are clearly acts in violation of international law. The taking of
hostages is another violation of international rules of military engagement.
Hamas' leaders, though,
characterized the events of October 7 in glorious acclamations. Political
leader Ismail Haniyeh said that “we shall crown it [Oct. 7 massacre], with the
grace of God, with a crushing defeat that will expel it [Israel] from our lands...”
He went on to say that “This is the goal that is worthy of this battle, worthy
of this heroism, worthy of this courage...,” calling it a “grand and blessed
incursion” and an “epic presence of men who write history with their blood and
their guns.” A year earlier Yahya Sinwar , the reputed mastermind of the
October 7 assault, proclaimed in a speech, "We will come to you, God
willing, in a roaring flood. We will come to you with endless rockets, we will
come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers, we will come to you with millions
of our people, like the repeating tide.”
Such stark, frightening language and
vision from the combatant's leadership give rise to the nihilism that
characterizes October 7 and the succeeding four months of war in Gaza. In their
own words since October, the leadership of both sides are blinded by their
mutual indifference to human suffering. Nevertheless, a ceasefire and movement
toward a Palestinian state may be gaining a little more traction. In addition
to Saudi Arabia's conditional overture, Israeli, Arab and U.S. officials are
now considering further arrangements to free the hostages. Though officials
warn that no deal is imminent, diplomatic efforts may achieve progress,
especially since some Israeli military commanders reportedly believe that
Israel cannot defeat Hamas and free the hostages through continued war. A split
in the Israeli Defense Forces, coupled with growing desire among Israelis to
free the hostages through diplomacy, could advance an end to the war.
At this juncture in history, it is
also critically important to recognize that Palestinians everywhere see the
present war in Gaza as another Israeli military campaign to deny their right to
exist on their own land in an independent state. From this perspective it seems
apparent that Israel is committed to driving Palestinians from their homes and
lands, especially when they stand in the way of Israel's expansionist designs.
While Hamas has declared that it wishes to “drive Israel into the sea,” Netanyahu
recently claimed that “In the future, Israel has to control all of the entire
territory west of the river [Jordan] to the sea.” In the context of decades of
Israel's illegal annexation and occupation of Palestinian territories,
Palestinians see no alternative to continued armed resistance and civilian
protest actions.
The continuous oppression of
Israel's government is seared into the collective memory of l.5 million
Palestinians in 58 refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, West Bank, Gaza and
East Jerusalem. (In all, the UN estimates that 5.9 million Palestinian refugees
around the world are descendants of scores of thousands who were forced from
their ancestral land in Palestine in 1948.) They comprise the largest stateless
community in the world. Palestinians still commemorate al-Nakba, “the
catastrophe” as they call it, when 750,000 of their people were driven from
their homes and towns at the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Some
15,000 Palestinians were killed, some 70 massacres carried out and over 500
villages destroyed. The refugees have never been allowed to return to their
land. As a result of 1948 and numerous conflicts since then, Israel exercises
military control over the West Bank and Gaza as well as East Jerusalem. It has
imposed a suffocating blockade of Gaza for three decades and long encouraged
the settlement of Jews in Palestinian territory, both in violation of
international law.
From dispossession of land and
property to the fragmentation of Palestinian territory (i.e. West Bank, Gaza
and East Jerusalem) to the denial of social and economic rights, Israel has
prevented Palestinians from forming a state of their own. Daily, ordinary
Palestinians in the West Bank must negotiate a reported 565 “movement
obstacles” obstructing their free travel, according to a 2023 report of the UN
Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance. These obstacles included
checkpoints, roadblocks, earth mounds, road gates, earth walls, road barriers
and trenches. In addition, 450,000 Jewish settlers live in 144 West Bank
settlements and another 220,000 in East Jerusalem. Since 1967 when Israel
annexed the West Bank (along with Gaza and East Jerusalem), as many as 700,000
Jewish citizens have settled in the West Bank. All are considered illegal under
international law since no state is allowed to resettle its own nationals in
occupied territories under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The forced migration of more than a
million Palestinians since 1948 and Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian
territories since 1967 continue to engender grave insecurity and profound
emotional and psychological distress. Additionally, Palestinians have suffered
enormous economic losses over generations. Recognizing these realities, a 2023
United Nations (UN) study delineated the many causes of the pain and losses and
called for “Full and commensurate reparations...[to]...Palestinian individuals,
corporations and entities for the generational harm caused by Israel’s land and
property appropriations, house demolitions, pillage of natural resources,
denial of return, and other war crimes and crimes against humanity orchestrated
for the colonialist, annexationist aims of an illegal occupant.” Just
reparations will restore lost wealth and provide a grassroots economic
foundation for building a healthy and peaceful society.
If Israel refuses to accept the
creation of a Palestinian state, then the cycle of violence will undoubtedly
continue. Its standing in the world and, quite frankly, the standing of the
U.S. - its closest ally – diminish daily. And, with the armed factions and
powerful nations already drawn into the present conflict, the prodigious
bloodshed and destruction unfolding each day that Israel pursues the war in
Gaza will continue to escalate, risking a disastrous regional war. Its
simmering confrontation with Iran, the nation in the region it fears most, will
spiral downward more rapidly. As difficult as it may be for Israelis, if they
genuinely seek security they must acknowledge the glaringly apparent inequities
and disparities endured by Palestinian in the occupied territories. Only then
will they have a realistic opportunity to actually secure their society and
state, to prosper next to Arab nations who no longer need to placate their many
citizens who support Palestinian self-determination.. As for the Palestinians
themselves, they will have finally achieved the self-governing state for which
they have sacrificed so much. Under these fresh circumstances, negotiations
between and among states offers a real chance to dampen further hostilities and
move toward greater regional stability.
No lasting progress is made when
guns and tanks, missiles, and bombs undermine and displace diplomacy. All of
humanity suffers. A genuinely independent and economically healthy Palestinian
state will bring new possibilities of negotiation and diplomacy between
Israelis and Palestinians. It is a difficult path and there will be numerous
obstacles to overcome and setbacks to be endured. But it is a just and
constructive alternative to endless war and thousands more dead and suffering,
displaced, homeless and hungry.
How Israel got Stuck
in Orwell’s ‘1984’
As state paranoia rises in Israel,
civil liberties including freedom of the press have taken a huge hit. Indeed
freedom of thought is under siege for Israeli Jews, not to mention the
nightmare faced by Israeli Arabs, and those in the West Bank.* Israel has
recently abused and imprisoned more journalists in the past two months than all
but six, notorious right-wing dictatorships.
A recent Haaretz editorial begins,
“War and emergencies provide fertile ground for curbing individual rights, even
to the point of disposing of them while expanding the state’s rights to surveil
and control its citizens, ostensibly for reasons of ‘state security.’ As in
Iran and Russia, Israel is “putting a chokehold on dissent.” A companion threat
arises from Communications Minister Shlomo Khari, who has proposed dissolving
the Cable and Satellite Council as well as the Second Authority of Television and
Radio, and consolidating all that media power into his hands with Bibi’s
approval and supervision. As Bibi faces criminal indictments on three fronts,
he’s desperately using any state mechanisms available to shut out information
that reveals the depth of his crimes, as he prosecutes greater war crimes to
stoke the state of emergency and remain in power.
*Since October 7, civil liberties
for Israeli Arabs living in Israel and the West Bank have been destroyed: Young
men and women who voiced support for their families enduring the siege of Gaza
have lost jobs, been kicked out of schools, and had their lives and livelihoods
destroyed by the Shin Bet. Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Belezel Smotrich have
given unconditional approval for far-right Israeli settlers to carry out
violent attacks on law-abiding Palestinians, in an effort to drive them out.
Bibi’s goals in Gaza and Israel is to make Palestinian lives so miserable, they
will willingly go anywhere else, though they have no place to go.
Meanwhile Bibi is betraying the
Israeli hostages in Gaza, and appears to be willingly sacrificing them for his
war effort to remain in power. By doubling down on his demands, Bibi is
knowingly squeezing the lives of the hostages and non-combatants in Gaza. For
Bibi, destroying Palestinian lives is more important than saving Israeli ones.
To the callous and insensitive mindset of Bibi’s Zionism, this Faustian bargain
is not a “moral quandary,” but rather a “strategic bind,” as characterized by
the NYT.
As a Jew, I grieve over the fate of
the Israeli hostages, and the 10’s of 1000’s of Palestinian victims of Bibi’s
war crime massacres. The hostages have all suffered horrible fates, and we
can’t know how many are still alive. I especially grieve over the fates of the
innocent Israeli women subjected to the most horrible sex crimes imaginable,
the innocent children whose lives have been reduced to war pawn status, the
elderly and disabled who likely perished without the intensive care and
medication they need, and all the innocent people on both sides who suffered
horrible deaths as non-combatants. We can’t know if there are living hostages
to be bargained for. Regardless, their lives don’t matter to Bibi; he’s already
shown he’s willing to sacrifice them, leaving him free to prosecute further war
crimes against the Palestinians. Then consider that the goal of wiping out
Hamas will bring an opportunity cost of even more Israeli lives.
Thoughtful war-tested Israeli
generals do not believe the hostages can be rescued by military operations;
that leaves diplomacy and hard bargaining-sacrifices as the only option. A
tragic dialectic is occurring in Israel with, “Right-wing politicians … urging
the military to act more aggressively in Gaza, even while Israel is contending
with outrage across the globe over the carnage and decimation of so much of the
territory. At the same time, the families of hostages are urging concessions to
secure their return.”
As badly as Bibi disrespected
President Barack Obama with his address to Congress in 2016 after he refused
the President’s White House invitation, Bibi’s disrespect is becoming even more
costly to President Joe Biden. Biden is sacrificing great political capital, in
a futile effort to be a good ally to Israel. The US de facto position now is
that there MUST be an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, governed
by moderate forces of the Palestinian Authority. Bibi made his own deathly
Faustian bargain when he shunned a willing negotiating partner in the PA,
leaving Hamas with all the power, but a fatal intent to destroy Israel. The PA
was willing to bargain acceptance of Israel’s existence. Hamas won’t negotiate
anything, and neither will Bibi. That’s a recipe for protracted war, which has
already lit fuses along the Lebanese border, the Red Sea, Yemen and now the
Irani-Pakistani border. Without a change in Israeli leadership, we are on the
path to WWIII (G-d forbid).
Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, has clearly said
that, “Only a deal with Hamas would secure the release of the hostages,” he
said, adding that Israel had so far failed in its stated aim of destroying
Hamas. This keen recognition fuels the movement to oust Bibi, which had been
gaining momentum until October 7, and is again gaining force. Bibi’s
self-serving, dysfunctional leadership has brought more fractures to Israeli
society from within, while stoking greater external threats at the same time.
Joe Biden needs to get forceful to demanding Bibi’s resignation. Secretary of
State Anthony Blinken needs to get make good on threats to withhold aid to the
Israeli war crimes machine. Not doing so could cost Biden the 2024 Election.
How the Gaza War Can
Be Big News and Invisible at the Same Time
Zen wisdom tells us that the finger
pointing at the moon is not the moon. Yet it’s easy to fall into the illusion
that when we see news about the Gaza war, we’re really seeing the war.
We are not.
What we do routinely see is
reporting that’s as different from the actual war as a pointed finger is from
the moon.
The media words and images reach us
light years away from what it’s actually like to be in a war zone. The
experience of consuming news from afar could hardly be more different. And
beliefs or unconscious notions that media outlets convey war’s realities end up
obscuring those realities all the more.
Inherent limitations on what
journalism can convey are compounded by media biases. In-depth content analysis
by The Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times,
Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against
Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized
Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the
killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”
What is most profoundly important
about war in Gaza – what actually happens to people being terrorized,
massacred, maimed and traumatized – has remained close to invisible for the
U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly
normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news
media. And yet, what’s going on now in Gaza is “the most transparent genocide
in human history.”
With enormous help from U.S. media
and political power structures, the ongoing mass murder – by any other name –
has become normalized, mainly reduced to standard buzz phrases, weaselly
diplomat-speak and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly
what the top leadership of Israel’s government wants.
Extraordinary determination to keep
killing civilians and destroying what little is left of Palestinian
infrastructure in Gaza has caused extremes of hunger, displacement, destruction
of medical facilities, and expanding outbreaks of lethal diseases, all
obviously calculated and sought by Israeli leaders. Thinly reported by U.S.
media outlets while cravenly dodged by President Biden and the overwhelming
majority of Congress, the calamity for 2.2 million Palestinian people worsens
by the day.
“Gazans now make up 80 per cent of
all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an
unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued
bombardment and siege,” the United Nations declared this week. The UN statement
quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a
quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and
drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”
Israel is waging a war toward
extermination. But for the vast majority of Americans, no matter how much
mainstream media they consume, the war that actually exists – in contrast to
the war reporting by news outlets – remains virtually invisible.
Of course, Hamas’s Oct. 7 murderous
attack on civilians and its taking of hostages should be unequivocally
condemned as crimes against humanity. Such condemnation is fully appropriate,
and easy in the United States.
“Deploring the crimes of others
often gives us a nice warm feeling: we are good people, so different from those
bad people,” Noam Chomsky has observed. “That is particularly true when there
is nothing much we can do about the crimes of others, so that we can strike
impressive poses without cost to ourselves. Looking at our own crimes is much
harder, and for those willing to do it, often carries costs.”
With the U.S.-backed war on Gaza now
in its fourth month, “looking at our own crimes” can lead to clearly depicting
and challenging the role of the U.S. government in the ongoing huge crimes
against humanity in Gaza. But such depicting and challenging is distinctly
unpopular if not taboo in the halls of government power – even though, and
especially because, the U.S. role of massively arming and supporting Israel is
pivotal for the war.
“For the narcissist, everything that
happens to them is a huge deal, while nothing that happens to you matters,”
scholar Sophia McClennen wrote last week. “When that logic translates to
geopolitics, the disproportionate damage only magnifies. This is why Israel is
not held to any standards, while those who question that logic are told to shut
up. And if they don’t shut up, they are punished or threatened.”
Further normalizing the slaughter
are the actions and inaction of Congress. On Tuesday evening, only 11 senators
voted to support a resolution that would have required the Biden administration
to report on Israel’s human-rights record in the Gaza war. The sinking of that
measure reflects just how depraved the executive and legislative branches are
as enablers of Israel.
The horrors in Gaza are being
propelled by the U.S. war machine. But you wouldn’t know it from the standard
U.S. media, pointing to the moon and scarcely hinting at the utter coldness of
its dark side.
The Historical Roots
of Israel’s Purge and Purify Strategy
The Historical Incentive To Purge
In the 16th century, the Catholic
Church claimed to be the one true form of Christianity. Centered in Rome, it
had ideologically created a largely unified Europe—in accordance with the
belief that for a state to be stable, the citizens must follow the same
religion (or ideology). And indeed, the Catholic Church was organized like a
state, owned about one-third of the land of central and Western Europe,
collected taxes throughout this area, and had grown exceedingly rich. The
Church bureaucracy, empowered and well-to-do, claimed to represent God’s will
on Earth and they usually had sufficient authority to enforce that claim.
However, as is so common in history,
wealth and power led to corruption. Poor leaders among the Popes and local
bishops came as often as the adequate ones, and so weakness crept into the
affairs of state. This, in turn, raised doubts about the divine nature of
Church doctrine. In the years following the1520 CE, rebellion in the form of
the Protestant Reformation set in. This rebellion fragmented Christendom and
created divergent Christian sects, most allied to secular noble authorities.
Each sect sought to lay claim to being the true Christian faith.
During the chaos that followed, both
the Catholic Church and the Protestant sects waged war after war. Christianity,
in its now numerous forms, became a faith rationalizing fratricidal slaughter.
One hundred years later, in 1618, they were still at it. It was then that the
worst of these wars, known as the Thirty Years War (for it lasted till 1648),
occurred. This war ravaged central Europe and killed at least 4 million people.
A singular lesson to be drawn from this prolonged bloodbath was, and still is,
that religion tied to state power can breed a murderous ideological impulse.
In 2015 Nicholas Terpstra of the
University of Toronto published a book entitled Religious Refugees in the Early
Modern World (Cambridge University Press). This work, which is set against the
background of the above history, has several themes: 1) Involuntary mass
expulsion is an ancient practice. 2) By the end of the 15th century this
practice took on a “national scope.” It did so with King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella’s 1492 decree ordering the expulsion of Jews from their Spanish
kingdom. 3) By the 1600s “the forced migration of religious minorities became a
normal … feature of popular public policy”— a policy designed to build stronger
homogenous communities. 4) The victims
of expulsion, refugees and “transplanted exiles,” often do not learn the
importance of tolerance from their experience. Indeed, such exiles can become
“the most hard-line advocates of religious intolerance and purification”
wherever they resettle. 5) By the twentieth century “radicalized nationalism”
became the prevailing political religion. “The drive to purge various impure
groups” from the true tribal community remains “as strong as ever.”
The Zionist Response
The average citizen in the West
knows none of this history and therefore cannot be expected to draw lessons
from the multiple tragedies which ensued. On the other hand, some Americans
know the historical reasons the founders of the nation chose to constitutionally
separate church and state. But even here, given the selective nature and
uncertainties in teaching U.S. history the numbers might be few.
However, there is one group of
people who claim to have a long and relevant memory of the consequences of this
Church-State arrangement. A prevailing memory of expulsion going back as far as
Catholicism’s universal sway. This is the Jews. In fact, being the victims of
the historical drive to create homogenous societies based on religious (or some
other kind of ideological) belief, race or ethnicity is the major theme of
European Jewish history.
Yet, keep in mind Nicholas
Terpstra’s point 4. It is one of recent history’s saddest turn of events that
nationalistic Jews, that is Zionists, seem to have concluded that their best
defense against future suffering is to mimic their historical persecutors in
terms of intolerance and the strategy of purge and purification.
It should be understood that
Zionists are but a subset of world Jewry, though one of great influence in the
decades following World War II. However, as time has gone by, their penchant
for intolerance and group purity has produced a split in the Jewish world
between those for and those against Zionist strategy and tactics.
There are multiple historical
backstories to this tragedy: 1) The long history of European anti-Semitism that
involved violent pogroms as well as expulsions. 2) The decision by the Zionist
subgroup of Western Jews to end this history by following a colonialist path
(backed by Western Imperial powers) so as to create a Jewish nation state
(Israel) in Palestine.* 3) The inevitable resistance, both violent and
non-violent, of the indigenous population of Palestine. 4) The Israeli attempts
to subdue Palestinian resistance which simultaneously turned the Palestinians
into a conscious national group and Israel into an apartheid state. And
finally, 5) the present effort on the part of Israel to violently expel the
Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. This includes their genocidal
destruction of Gaza.
All of these backstories can be tied
together into one calamitous drama ending in the present tragic state of
affairs. For the Palestinians it has been a long story of oppression,
involuntary exile, and now genocidal slaughter. For the Jews it has been an
object lesson in the fact given above—that religion tied to state power can
breed a murderous ideological impulse. That impulse is in the process of
tearing Jewish communities apart and has shaped the Zionists into a harrowing
caricature of their own historical persecutors.**
A sense of the Jewish part of this
tragedy can be had by considering an essay recently published by Amanda
Gelender, writer and mental health advocate, in the Middle East Eye. Here
Gelender laments the fact that “Israel’s use of religious symbols” in its
ongoing slaughter in Gaza “has robbed Jews of a faith practice divorced from
nationalist barbarism … .After Palestinians, Zionism’s next victim is the
Jewish faith.”
Indeed, the whole Zionist argument
that Judaism and Zionism are the same thing links religion to political power,
just as Catholicism was bound to a Papal state in the 16th century, and the
various Protestant sects to secular states in the 17th. It also resurrects as
present policy the most inhuman aspects of the Old Testament wherein God
commands the Israelites to “attack the Amalekites and completely destroy
everything they have.” Just to be sure the divine order is not misunderstood,
God itemizes the targets: “Kill men, women, infants and nursing babies, oxen
and sheep, camels and donkeys.” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has referred
to the Palestinians as Amalekites, and so in Gaza, his government seems to be
reenacting the biblical conquest of Canaan. Today, as Gelender points out,
“Israel has murdered more than 20,000 Palestinians and counting. It has
displaced almost two million people and intentionally destroyed homes, the
ecosystem and infrastructure to render Gaza uninhabitable for those who manage
to survive starvation, dehydration and carpet bombing.”
All of this has energized Amanda
Gelender’s opposition to the connection between Judaism and the Israeli state.
She accurately points out that, “so long as Zionist nationalism has existed, so
have anti-Zionist Jews” and concludes that it is now the mission of such Jews
to “Disentangle Zionism from Judaism.” In fact, this is a life and death
struggle for world Jewry.
Conclusion
Today, a growing number of
Americans, about one-third of both Jews and non-Jews, disapprove of Israeli
aggression in Gaza as well as President Biden’s military and political support
of it. This will not be enough to save either the Jews or the Palestinians from
the horrors of a religion tied to state power—a state that claims Palestinian
land on the basis of biblical mythology and colonial sanction rather than
enduring residence. One-third is, however, a start. Just a few decades ago the
number of Americans critical of Israel would have been noticeably lower. And,
thanks to Israel’s built in (actually educated in) myopic worldview we can rely
on that state to continue its barbaric ways even if it manages to get rid of
its present set of fascistic leaders.
So the numbers of those alienated
from Zionism will grow, and do so throughout the West. There will, at some
point, come a day of reckoning. The real question is how many dead and maimed
Palestinians will it take to get there and how many Jews will have lost their
ethical souls in the process.
+++
*The World Zionist Organization
presented a map detailing their territorial claims to the League of Nations in
1919. In the north it included what is now Lebanon up to the southern spur of
the Litani River, to the east it ran right up to the outskirts of Amman, Jordan
to the west it included a slice of the Sinai, and to the south the map
encompassed the Red Sea port of Aqaba.
**Gaza under Israeli attack brings
to mind Picasso’s image of Guernica–the Spanish town bombed to rubble by the
Nazis in 1937. Today, the Israelis even use Gaza as a testing ground for their
weaponry, as the Nazis used Guernica.
SEIU becomes
largest US union to demand Gaza cease-fire
With over 25,000 Palestinians
killed so far in the U.S.-backed Israeli assault of the Gaza Strip, the Service
Employees International Union on Monday became the largest union in North
America to join a growing coalition of labor groups calling for a cease-fire.
“SEIU’s almost 2 million members
believe that wherever violence, fear, and hatred thrive, working people
cannot,” said Mary Kay Henry, the union’s president, in a statement. “We
condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, and hate in all its forms around
the world. Our union includes many members and their families—Palestinian and
Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian—who have been impacted by the recent
violence.”
“As a union family strongly
committed to justice and democracy, we believe all people across the globe
deserve to live safely and free of fear, with dignity and respect for their
human rights, as well as access to food, water, shelter, medicine, and other
necessities,” she continued. “SEIU members understand that working people often
feel the impact of war most deeply and bear the brunt of its terrible
consequences.”
“We call for an immediate cease-fire, the release of all hostages, and the
delivery of lifesaving food, water, medicine, and other resources to the people
of Gaza.”
The SEIU leader condemned the
October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, as well as the Israeli military’s
response, which has included “widespread attacks on innocent civilians,
including the bombardment of neighborhoods, healthcare facilities, and refugee
camps.”
In addition to killing and
wounding tens of thousands of Palestinians, the war has displaced the vast
majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, who are facing starvation and
disease. Henry said that “we call for an immediate cease-fire, the release of
all hostages, and the delivery of lifesaving food, water, medicine, and other
resources to the people of Gaza.”
“Our call for a cease-fire is a
call for peace, rooted in the pain that SEIU members are feeling, from the
Jewish member concerned for her son’s safety in Tel Aviv, to the Muslim member
who immigrated to this country from the Middle East to escape war and violence,
to the hundreds of thousands of SEIU healthcare workers who see themselves in
the healthcare workers in Gaza who have been killed trying to save lives,” said
Henry, a U.S. labor leader whose union also represents Canadians.
“We call on elected leaders to
come together to bring an end to the violence and demand a peaceful resolution
that ensures both lasting security for the Israeli people and a sustained end
to decades of occupation, blockades, and lack of freedom endured by the
Palestinian people,” Henry added. “This war must end, as it is expanding into a
regional conflict. It is time for long-term solutions that will bring safety,
peace, democracy, and justice to all in the region.”
The Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in the
United States, welcomed the cease-fire demand from SEIU, which followed similar
calls from the United Auto Workers; American Postal Workers Union; United
Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America; and various other unions.
“We thank SEIU officials for
taking a principled stand and demanding an end to the Israeli government’s
genocidal campaign in Gaza,” said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad.
“Every day, more people in our nation and around the world are waking up to the
reality of the Israeli government’s crimes against humanity. It is time that
our government does the same.”
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—who
spearheaded a cease-fire resolution with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only
Palestinian American in Congress—declared that “every day, our pro-peace,
pro-humanity movement grows larger and stronger. Thank you SEIU for standing up
for humanity.”
Mondoweiss noted Monday that
“across the country rank-and-file union members are also pushing for their
leadership to take action on the issue. Members of the National Education
Association (NEA) want the organization to rescind its endorsement of President
Joe Biden until the administration supports a cease-fire and stops sending
weapons to Israel.”
Advocates, scholars, and world
leaders have increasingly accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, leading to an
emergency hearing before the International Court of Justice earlier this month.
The U.S. government has also faced mounting criticism. The United States gives
Israel at least $ 3.8 billion in annual military aid, and Biden responded to
the October 7 attack by asking Congress for a new $14.3 billion package while
also bypassing congressional oversight to arm Israeli forces.
Although Biden last month called
out Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” and said that “I want them to be focused
on how to save civilian lives,” progressive critics still argue that he is
enabling Israeli forces’ ongoing violence against civilians in Gaza. The
president is also under fire for stoking fears of a wider war with U.S.
airstrikes on Yemen that lack approval from Congress.
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