Palestine

This has taken a long time to write, a long time to shelve my emotions and carefully consider; search for "truth", such as it may be. I lack clinical eloquence and sparkling clarity of thought, that scintillating certainty of a Christopher Hitchens. I ponder, doubt, uncertain of my ideas, swayed by the passing winds; and slowly, form a tentative, hazy opinion. This has taken time, and in that time I've found a certain sense of voice and a need to express that voice; but also the resolve to unpack those emotions once carefully shelved.

To stay silent is to be complicit, to participate with my silence.

I abhor and condemn the violence perpetrated by Hamas on innocent Israeli civilians on Oct 7 2023. I also abhor and condemn the heinous war crimes being perpetrated by Israel against the innocent civilians of Palestine.

I believe this latest escalation in violence to be a result of the inhumane occupation of Palestine by Israel.

It’s astonishing how polarising that statement is. Many people can see the distinct thread of history that links terrorism to the violent occupation, the birth and rage of Hamas as an almost inevitable consequence of the subjugation of the Palestinian people and the political meddling of Israel; and yet, many do not. I'm liberal, left-leaning on most topics and in many conversations I can find common ground, a way to traverse our differing viewpoints and understand why we stand on different sides. This topic though, it is poisonous, so rife with angst and fury, stifling discourse, for fear of ostracism, for fear of offending, for fear of hurting dear loved ones, for fear of being labelled, tarnished as an anti-semite. It is also the issue pains me most, the one where I am most disappointed by people I otherwise admire and respect, whose views have shaped my understanding of the world. On this topic, they are aggressive, angry, toxic in gung-ho masculinity, in wrath, in the willingness to punish indiscriminately.

In the conflict of Israel and Palestine, the lines are drawn firm, and I feel the searing hot distinction between "us" and "them", the frustration of standing at the precipice, screaming our lungs out into a vast empty chasm of silence. It feels deliberate, a calculated, cold indifference, an insistent refusal to not hear "us", to not understand. Could they do to me what they're doing to Palestine? Callously destroy my life, my family, my loved ones, my friends, my country, my people, my traditions, my hopes, and never bat an eye about the incalculable human loss, simply because the humanity snuffed out is "us", not "them"?

The history here is both clear in some ways, and murky in others. To untangle and really understand the present we need to understand the past.

• 1885: The term “Zionism” is first coined by the Viennese writer, Nathan Birnbaum.
• 1896:  Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement, calls for “restoration of the Jewish State”.
• 1915:  British cabinet member Herbert Samuel calls for the British annexation of Palestine in “The Future of Palestine”.
  • The language here signals clear intent - the “dream of a Jewish State, prosperous, progressive, and the home of a brilliant civilisation.” But the subtext is spelled out too - Palestine would “add a luster even to the British Crown” and "fulfil in yet another sphere her historic part of civilizer of the backward countries.”
• 1917:  The Balfour Declaration in sympathy with the Jewish Zionist aspirations promises a “national home for the Jewish people in Palestine”.
• 1936-1939:  Palestinian rebellion against the British Mandate and Jewish immigration.
  • From 1933 to 1936, more than 130,000 Jews arrived in Palestine. Meanwhile the United States and Britain were placing stricter limits on Jewish immigration due to national security concerns, and the majority of the populace in these countries did not want to see an increase in immigration.
• 1942:  US Zionists meet in NY and adopt the “Biltmore Programme“, calling for establishment of Palestine as a Jewish Commonwealth and for unlimited immigration.
• 1947:  In February, UK proposes to relinquish its mandatory role and places the question of Palestine before the UN.
  • In September, the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) issues a report to the General Assembly with plans for partition or a federal state in Palestine.
  • In November, the UN General Assembly adopts resolution 181(II) which called to divide Palestine into an un-named “Jewish State” and an un-named “Arab State” with Jerusalem under UN trusteeship.
• April 1948: Deir Yassin massacre: Zionist paramilitary groups kill hundreds of Palestinian Arabs in Deir Yassin, a village near Jerusalem.
• May 1948:  Israel declares independence on 15 May. The first large-scale displacement of Palestine refugees and 15 May becomes an official day to mark the Palestinian Nakba (“catastrophe”).
  • The scale of this catastrophe is harrowing. Zionist forces attacked major Palestinian cities and destroyed more than 530 Palestinian villages. Approximately 13,000 Palestinians were killed and more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes, becoming refugees.
  • The first Arab-Israeli War broke out when five Arab nations – Egypt, Transjordan (Jordan), Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon – invaded firstly the areas in southern and eastern Palestine not apportioned to the Jewish State by the UN partition of Palestine, and later, East Jerusalem.
  • Count Folke Bernadotte was appointed as the UN Mediator in Palestine by the UN General Assembly, and is shortly assassinated four months later by a Zionist militant group.
• 1950:  Israel moves its capital from Tel Aviv to the western part of Jerusalem, in defiance of UN resolutions, and the West Bank is brought formally under Jordanian control.
• 1964: Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is founded in Cairo.
• 1967: Six-day war:
  • Prior to the start of the war, attacks conducted against Israel by fledgling Palestinian guerrilla groups based in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan had increased, leading to costly Israeli reprisals.
  • In response to the mobilisation of its Arab neighbours, early on the morning of June 5, Israel staged a sudden preemptive air assault that destroyed more than 90 percent of Egypt’s air force on the tarmac.
  • Israel occupies West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, Golan Heights, and Sinai Peninsula.
  • The conflict created hundreds of thousands of refugees and brought more than one million Palestinians in the occupied territories under Israeli rule.

An aside on Israeli settlements or colonies.

Since the occupation in 1967, Israel civilian communities have been built by Israel in the occupied territories, almost exclusively by people of Jewish identity or ethnicity. These settlements are illegal according to international law. In fact, the Fourth Geneva Convention describes the transfer by an occupying power of its civilian population into the territory it is occupying as a war crime. The expansion of settlements includes the confiscation of Palestinian land and resources; displacing entire Palestinian communities. The settlements continue to grow, even in the midst of the latest war. We'll get to what drives the settlements later, but it is important to keep this constant expansion and casual expulsion of Palestinian communities in mind.

• 1974:  The UN General Assembly and the Arab League recognise the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. General Assembly reaffirms inalienable rights of Palestinian people to self-determination, independence and sovereignty, and refugee return (resolution 3236).
• 1978:  Following two weeks of secret negotiations at Camp David (USA), the Egyptian President and the Israeli Prime Minister agree on a Framework for Peace in the Middle East.
• 1982:  Israel invades Lebanon with the intention of eliminating the PLO - yes, the very same recognised by the UN as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. After a ceasefire, PLO forces withdraw to neighbouring countries. Despite guarantees of safety for Palestine refugees left behind, there are massacres at Sabra and Shatila camps.
  • 2,000 - 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, already refugees from the Nakba, massacred over the course of 43 hours. Testimonies from the mass killing describe horrific acts of slaughter, mutilation, rape and mass graves.
• 1987:  First “Intifada” begins in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip.
  • The Palestinian uprising was characterised by protests, civil disobedience, and violence. Take a look at that date, 1987 - it has now been 20 years of occupation and Israeli illegal settlement expansion.
  • Israel deployed some 80,000 soldiers in response. Israeli countermeasures initially included the use of live rounds in cases of riots. The Human Rights Watch labelled these as disproportionate, in addition to Israel's excessive use of lethal force. During the whole six-year intifada, the Israeli army killed at least 1,087 Palestinians, of which 240 were children.
• 2000:  In July, the US President Clinton convenes a Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David which concludes without agreement. This lack of progress, coupled with Ariel Sharon’s al-Haram al-Sharif visit in September 2000 triggers the Second Palestinian Intifada.
  • Israeli security forces engaged in gunfights, targeted killings, tank attacks, and airstrikes; Palestinians engaged in gunfights, suicide bombings (the first of which occurred in March 2001), stone-throwing, and rocket attacks.

The suicide bombings in the Second Intifada are notable, a severe escalation in violence targeting Israeli civilians. Unacceptable, horrifying violence. It has taken 33 years of occupation, of brutal humiliation before a people turned to killing themselves and innocent civilians in desperate, impotent rage. I don't condone it, it’s horrific, but I do understand it.

Israel was born out of Zionism, but also a shameful unwillingness by the West to allow Jewish refugees into their own countries, and a deeply rooted colonial project where the Arab lands and people were callously ignored in favour of the Zionist dream. And to make this dream a reality, an ethnic cleansing took place, slaughter and terror visited upon a people, occupied, shamed, their lands, homes and future stolen.

So, why Israel, what exactly is the Jewish claim to the land there? According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the claim is based on four premises:

1. God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham.
2. The Jewish people settled and developed the land.
3. The international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people.
4. The territory was captured in defensive wars.

Look, I'm not about to call for Israel to disappear; piling catastrophe on top of catastrophe is no way forward. Israel has a rich cultural heritage, a history and community there. There is much to learn from their progress, much to admire, so much to celebrate. But so too do the Palestinian people. There too lies a rich, textured, valuable cultural heritage, a vibrant community. I think a two state solution is the only viable way forward. But this belief, this messianic religious ideology that Israel is owed those lands because "God promised the land to Abraham", this dogmatic fantasy is religious zealotry at its very worst. A poor foundation to build trust and work towards peace.

Israel has a right to exist, but it does not have a right to the illegally occupied lands. It does not have the right to expand those settlements, to occupy and humiliate a people. Israel's politics and policies, steered by fervent religious doctrine, have architected profound humiliation, unbearable shame, and appalling terror upon the Palestinian people.

I think there is a pervasive belief that this current government in Israel are bad eggs, but once the job of defeating Hamas is over, then there will be elections and a new, secular Israeli government can shape a future for a peaceful Middle East. It is no secret that the current government under Benjamin Netenyahu is opposed to a two state solution and views Palestinians as sub-human, as only worthy of wholesale destruction. In late October, as the ground offensive swung into action, Netanyahu cited the Bible in a televised address:

“You must remember what Amalek has done to you.”

Amalekites were persecutors of the biblical Israelites, and a biblical commandment demands they be destroyed. He's literally calling for the genocide of a people in a televised address. This is not some two-bit fascist thug on a random street corner, but a Head of State, the leader of Israel. Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers were filmed gleefully chanting this, claiming it as their purpose during the ground offensive.

It is also a view echoed by other Israeli leaders:

• Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was “fighting human animals,” in announcing a complete siege on Gaza.
• Deputy Knesset speaker Nissim Vaturi from the ruling Likud party wrote that Israelis had one common goal, “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”
• Israeli Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu suggested that Israel drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza and said there were “no uninvolved civilians” in the territory.

This is a foundational pillar of South Africa's case of genocide against Israel at the Hague.

This idea that there are no innocent people in Gaza, that the people there are not people; worthy of compassion or dignity, of any shred of humanity; this dark tainting of an entire populace, a people, as sub-human, is racist, religious bullshit. But it’s not just the current government; this dehumanising of Palestinians, rendering them unworthy of "their" care, concern, even mere human consideration, is a decades long staple of Israeli leadership.

• In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “Palestinians do not exist.”
• Prime Minister Levi Eschol said, “What are Palestinians? When I came here (to Palestine), there were 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and Bedouins. It was a desert, more than underdeveloped. Nothing.”
• Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians “two-legged beasts”.
• Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them “grasshoppers” who could be crushed.

Again, Heads of State, leaders.

Israel has much work to do politically, internally, before they can engage in a peace process in good faith.

When you listen or read commentary on the Israel Palestine conflict, there are a myriad opinions, often unsupported by any evidence. In my meandering journey to this text, I've come across a few worth examining. One that holds a certain charm is nonviolent protest, why haven’t the Palestinians tried nonviolent protest to the occupation?

It is a lovely idea, it worked for the Indians, surely extended nonviolent protest will move the international community in support of the Palestinian people towards a two state solution. They've tried, nobody gave a fuck.

• Nonviolent protests and demonstrations in the 1930s were brutally shut down by the British mandatory government. The iconic image of Palestinian leader Musa Kazim al-Husseini being beaten down during a protest in 1933 by mounted British soldiers is typical of the time.
• Further revolt with nonviolent resistance in the form of more strikes and protests, and the economy ground to a halt for six months when Palestinian leaders called for a work stoppage. This was put down harshly by the mandatory government, including the bombing of more than 200 buildings in Jaffa on June 16, 1936.
• In the first intifada of the late 1980s, after 20 years of the international community ignoring the Palestinians, they tried various nonviolent tactics, from mass demonstrations to strikes to protests. Even the violence employed was mostly symbolic stone-throwing. The Israeli response to the uprising was brutal. In the words of Yitzhak Rabin, then the Israeli defence minister, the policy was "might, power, and beatings" — what became known as the "break the bones" strategy.

Nonviolence only works if the oppressed have a voice, if the violence done to nonviolent protestors is condemned, and the international community punishes the violent. Israel gets away with violence against Palestinians with utter disregard of international law; and Palestinian nonviolent protest is met with violent reprisal.

I imagine life as a Palestinian. Decades of subjugation, an international community that is fastidiously silent and the ongoing slaughter and humiliation of my family, loved ones, my people. Any attempts to protest have been met with violent assault. Our land keeps getting stolen, our homes taken. "Their" leaders openly talk about how we are not even people, barely even beasts. How would I feel in that situation? Can I honestly say that I would not erupt into violence, into desperate anger and rage rather than live in perpetual subjugation?

A far more insidious idea, is that Hamas are like the Nazis; and the democratic, secular, Western powers of good have to do anything they can to destroy such rampant evil - exactly as they did with the Nazis. This is a particularly distressing idea for me, because it is the view espoused by Sam Harris in many of his podcasts and public appearances. I enjoy listening to Sam, often finding his podcasts a way to understand the nuance of an idea, examining multiple facets of it. His podcasts are balanced, enriching, wonderfully educational. He’s shaped my thinking, my adulthood, my atheism, my critical thinking, my philosophy; he’s a hero of mine. And yet, on this topic, I find our thoughts irreconcilably divergent; and I judge his views, find them lacking nuance or subtlety, lacking basic human compassion.

He's shared this comparison of Hamas to Nazis in several podcasts, the most illustrative of which is perhaps Sam Harris | #362 - Six Months of War.

I don't consider Sam an Islamophobe, though popular media has labelled him that way. I've been following his work for a very long time, and he has valid (in my opinion) concerns about Jihadism, the rise of fundamentalism and the impact it has on culture. This comparison of Hamas with Nazi Germany doesn't hold any water though. Nazi Germany was a military powerhouse, a state with a standing army of 13.6 million soldiers, the most technologically advanced military in all of Europe. Nazi Germany used this terrifying power to grab territory and systematically eradicate the Jewish people. It took the combined might of the Allied forces, through an extended, brutal war, to defeat the Axis powers in World War 2. Comparing this sophisticated and awesome military might to a ragtag, oppressed people who in sheer desperation, after decades of suffering, have turned to terrorism; it just doesn't ring true. Terror bombings on the civilian populations of Germany pose moral quandaries discussed to this day, even when it was to defeat such an immensely powerful military force. To use the same logic to slaughter 34,000 Palestinian civilians, 70% of whom are women and children. Its despicable. Do better.

And what of the time before Hamas? If Hamas is the root of evil here, then why was there not a massive rallying cry in support of the Palestinian people during the reign of the PLO? Where was the stinging criticism and fiery rage against the Israeli attacks then? Against their attempts to delegitimise and even destroy the PLO? Hamas came to power in 2006, partly due to Israel's policy of stoking fundamentalist fires to destabilise the secular Palestinian resistance. Israel has rejected multiple offers of peace from Hamas, long before this latest escalation in violence. Hamas is a symptom, not the problem. Destroy Hamas and what would happen next? Nothing like Hamas will rise again from the devastation wrought on Palestinians? People will simply forget that their land and homes have been taken, continue to be taken, that their families are murdered daily, held in prisons indefinitely? Destroy Hamas and I'll wager there is a new Hamas taking their place in no time, not because "we" are so broken, but because "they" continue to inflict such wilful harm.

How can "they" not consider that Israeli leadership thinks of Palestinians as sub-human? The anger and rhetoric denigrating Palestinians for decades now? The blatant attempts to sow dissent and uplift Hamas? How can "they" not consider the callous expansion of settlements with no consideration of the families and communities who are displaced? How could "they" not consider the genocidal rhetoric from the very leaders of Israel? How can "they" not consider their messianic religious fervour, their core belief that this land is God's gift to them? How can "they" possibly believe that these very same leaders, who are in power in Israel, are now "righteously hunting the evil Hamas; with some unavoidable collateral damage to a few innocent civilians"?! I don't know if this is just what "they" have to tell themselves to sleep at night, but you have to be a special kind of stupid to truly believe it. I get the concern about Jihadism, but I'm far more worried about the genocidal death cult rampaging through Palestine right now in the thrall of messianic conviction that the land is theirs, that they should destroy all Palestinians as the biblical commandment to destroy Amalekites.

Hamas has done some despicable things, they are a terrorist organisation undeserving of sympathy. There is propaganda to the reports on atrocities though, lies being told to dehumanise Palestinians further, paint them as rabid beasts driven by inhuman urges. It is a very difficult watch, but watch it anyway, this forensic investigation into the atrocities committed. Much of what has been popularised by the media, by the IDF reports are provably false.

There is also the narrative that Palestinian people are human shields, a popular narrative by the IDF to explain the Palestinian civilian slaughter. Amnesty International and The Human Rights Watch have both investigated these claims and found no evidence to verify them.

• Israel/Gaza conflict: Questions and Answers - Amnesty International
• Rockets from Gaza: Harm to Civilians from Palestinian Armed Groups’ Rocket Attacks | HRW

I'm weary, tired, just thinking about these things makes me mourn our future as a species. I cannot even imagine what it means to be Palestinian, Lebanese or Arab right now, the sense of futility and despair you must feel. My heart goes out to you. My words, though heartfelt, ultimately will do nothing to change anything. This is a selfish exercise in making myself feel better, venting frustration by ranting about it. International sentiment seems to be changing, the death of aid workers in Palestine finally got a rise out of the US, a public criticism of Israel; tepid, performative criticism though, which ultimately amounts to nothing.

Meanwhile, weapons continue to flow from the US to Israel, and the indiscriminate slaughter and starvation continues unabated. Where is actual accountability? It is just noise, senseless noise with no change, no political pressure, no real care or concern. People are dying. Men, women, children. A culture is being irrevocably and cynically battered into submission, a culture that has a profound connection to and deep reverence for their land, that loves, laughs, a beautiful, welcoming, warm, generous culture. Palestinians continue to die, daily, and sadly I suspect, for decades to come.

“Our" lives just weigh less than "their" lives. Palestinian lives weigh nothing.

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”

– Arundhati Roy