Tag Archives: Palestinians

Political Rants

Knocking down the big lies (and little ones).

Leave a comment

It’s not typical for me to blog about the same topic two weeks in a row, but it’s a little hard for me to turn my attention away from the bloodletting in Gaza. As someone who has been following this conflict from a comfortable distance for five decades, it has always been a prominent issue for discussion and disagreement. (I can recall arguing with my friends in Junior High about it, probably on the occasion of the 1973 war or shortly thereafter.)

As most conflicts, it is fueled largely with lies – a category that includes distortions, misleading tropes, and outright falsehoods. You’ve heard the really big lies on basically any news channel you watch or listen to. Most of the pro-war voices you’ll hear read off of the same lies / talking points used by the Israeli government and military. Let’s look at some of these points:

Big Lie #1: Israel has a right to defend itself like any other nation

This is a handy one, as it sets out a pretty simple principle that’s hard for most people to counter, all things being equal. But all things are not equal. Some nations are strong, others not so much. Israel, for instance, has one of the most powerful militaries in the world; it also has the active support of the planet’s last remaining superpower (spoiler alert: it’s the United States).

That means states like Israel have both the right and the ability to defend themselves. On the other hand, weak societies, including stateless peoples like the Palestinians, have the same right but far less ability. So while the statement is, on its face, almost obviously true, it is meaningless in the context of this lopsided conflict.

Big Lie #2: Hamas uses the Palestinian people as “human shields”

This one usually comes in the form of criticizing Hamas for having offices in populated areas. First of all, Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth, so there’s no strategic depth for Hamas. Second, Hamas is the government of Gaza, so naturally they have an official presence in neighborhoods throughout the territory’s urban zones. Third, what does the IDF think? That Hamas is going to stand out in the middle of a field with targets on their backs, waiting for Israel’s U.S. supplied munitions to blow them to bits? Not a realistic expectation, frankly.

In any case, I’m sure the Israeli government and military have offices all over Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other population centers, so this point is blatantly hypocritical.

Big Lie #3: The IDF is the world’s most humane military

This one is frankly infuriating. Sure, the Israeli military sometimes calls the owner of a building before they blow it up. But they also just blow things up in the middle of the night. If they’re so obsessed with minimizing civilian casualties, why do they use high explosives in densely populated areas? It’s quite predictable that people are going to die in large numbers if you do that. If the IDF’s intent is truly not to kill civilians, then they’re either completely disingenuous or the worst shots anyone has ever seen.

My own feeling is that they seek to cause pain and misery for the population in Gaza with this military campaign because that is what they do in the non-military context all the time. They are still punishing the Palestinians for voting for Hamas in 2006. They want them to turn on Hamas out of anger and frustration and overthrow their administration. Where’s the humanity in that?

I could go on, but that’s probably enough. There’s a lot more to say about all of these issues, and I will try to address some of that in other contexts, on Strange Sound, on Twitter, and elsewhere. This killing is unacceptable, and Americans need to use our leverage to stop it now.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

When brute strength gets construed as virtue.

Leave a comment

We’re witnessing another paroxysm of killing in the occupied territories of what was once mandate Palestine, the Israelis using their first-world military capabilities against a captive populations with at best pathetic means of self-defense. Much has been written, broadcast, etc., about the proximate cause of this latest bloodbath. I am somewhat persuaded by the argument that it may be a function of Netanyahu’s inability to form a coalition government for the umpteenth time. The best way to get the religious bigot and neo-fascist blocks on your team is to start blowing Palestinians to bits.

Whatever the specific heinous sequence of events, this is just Israel “mowing the lawn” once again, dropping bombs on one of the most densely populated regions on earth, rampaging through Al Aqsa mosque, beating the living hell out of young Palestinians and killing as many as they can manage. (See my posts on the 2014 edition of this story.) You have no doubt heard endless condemnations of rockets being fired into Israel from the open-air prison that is Gaza, but make no mistake: these are toys compared to what’s being dropped on Gazans every day and every night. The power differential between the two sides is absolute.

Rights to exist.

There is no question but that Israel is legitimately a country. It has a highly problematic origin story and was founded on massive violence and displacement, like every other country, including and especially the United States. So within the pre-1967 borders, it has rights and responsibilities. Beyond those borders, in East Jerusalem, in the West Bank, in Gaza, in the Golan, it has only responsibilities, no rights. Our international order is less than ideal, but to the extent that there is a law of nations, that principle is at the center of it.

Palestinians have national rights, even though they don’t currently have a nation state. But because of their forced separation from their homeland, they are not seen by our foreign policy establishment as having the right to self-defense, to a decent living, to be free from the hand of oppressors, and so on. It is therefore up to us to ensure that their right to exist as a people is duly recognized.

Cracks in the apartheid wall.

Because of the degree to which the Israeli military relies on direct aid from us, popular opinion on Israel-Palestine in the United States is crucial. Up until recent years, the only voices you would hear on the mainstream media were those of Israeli PR flacks. But as the Intercept has reported, this is changing the same way public perception of police violence in the U.S. is changing – largely due to the fact that smart phone cameras make millions of people amateur photo journalists and documentary filmmakers.

Now raw footage of Israeli troops abusing Palestinians, marauding through their places of worship, their schools, etc., is available to compete with the carefully crafted video being generated by the IDF. Beyond that, a broader range of voices can now be heard on corporate media, such that actual substantive criticism of Israeli policy makes its way onto the airwaves to a greater extent than it did just a few years ago. That’s a remarkable shift that reflects shifting sentiments around the nation.

This is not the first atrocity committed against Palestinians and it won’t be the last. As Americans, we need to do what we can to move our government closer to a reasonable position on this conflict. Right now, their heads are in the 1980s – we need to snap them out of it.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Another term.

Leave a comment

As you can see, Netanyahu (I won’t call him “Bibi”, as cute nicknames seem kind of inappropriate for mass murderers – like calling Suharto “Susu”, etc.) won re-election again. Predictions of his political demise were somewhat premature. As Ali Abunimah pointed out, he basically pulled the same tactic he used in 1996: wait until the last days of the election, then make a big push for the bigot vote, crying alarms about the Arabs “voting in droves” and how the Israeli center-left is a bunch of surrender monkeys. Works every time, apparently. Likud pulled down 30 seats in the Knesset, considerably more than was predicted and against most of the polling (including exit polls).

And THIS is the night before the election.What’s ugly about this is that the man who ordered the killing of more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza last year, including many children, and destroyed much of what was left of Gaza’s already distressed infrastructure, that man has been rewarded by the voters in Israel. A government whose Foreign Minister has advocated beheading Israeli Arabs, expelling them, etc. – that government appears to be sailing back into power, triumphant. It’s hard to argue that Israelis, in general, are not fully in favor of what was done last summer – terror bombing UN schools, destroying neighborhoods, hitting hospitals with high explosives, and so on. That’s pretty ugly, and disappointing, as the few Israelis I know are not supporters of blowing people up at random.

But the suggestion being circulated in the U.S. press that this outcome is somehow worse for the so-called “peace process” is frankly laughable. Israel’s center-left has no more commitment to permitting some reasonable form of Palestinian nationhood than Likud has. Settlement activity in the West Bank and the outward expansion of Israeli-held East Jerusalem has continued under both groupings. The stalemate and steady dispossession of Palestinians is settled policy in Israel; it would take a major sea-change in Israeli society to depart from it, even if many Israelis grumble about the cost of supporting West Bank settlements (a considerable drain on a society which offers little opportunity for affordable housing and a decent standard of living for its young people).

So, here comes the old boss, same as the new boss. No difference to be had here. The only thing we can do is continue to pressure our own government towards a more equitable policy with respect to Israel/Palestine. Two states, based on the pre-June 1967 borders; right of refugee return (to the Palestinian state, at least); confidence building measures, etc. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, but it’s a steep climb, and it will never happen without a change on this side of the ocean.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Kids’ crusade.

Leave a comment

The Israeli war machine is cranking at nearly full bore now, with something approaching 100 Palestinians killed in several days of air strikes, a ground invasion and re-occupation of Gaza threatened, and I’m sure quite a bit else that doesn’t rise to the level of mainstream reportage here in the United States. This is being characterized as a “war”, albeit an “asymmetric” one, but I don’t know how you call something a war when only one side has an actual military … that is, the fourth or fifth most powerful military in the world. The other side has very primitive rockets that they obviously can’t hit the broad side of a barn with.

Targeted.I’ll be clear, for what it’s worth: firing rockets into southern and central Israel is not only wrong, it’s strategically idiotic. But this nearly uncontrolled act of violence is a response to the ongoing assault against Palestinians, from the massive crackdown in the West Bank on the pretext of the 3 Israelis being kidnapped and murdered, to the continual expansion of settlements and other occupation infrastructure, to the steady incarceration, wounding, and yes, killing of Palestinians, young and old, in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

This assault on Gaza is just the latest chapter of the Israeli government’s practice of demonstrating their willingness to kill Palestinians in large numbers. Netanyahu has built his entire career on this, catering to some of the worst tendencies of his electorate.  More than 1,500 children under the age of 18 have been killed by the IDF since 2001. Several more have died in the last few days. Netanyahu blames Hamas, but it is he who drops bombs on one of the most densely populated place on Earth. You should expect to be held responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions. All Bibi’s government talks about is self-defense, but this is a very one-sided “war”. Must you survive by murder?

Netanyahu is a lot like Assad: He only knows one thing, and that thing is violence. This is not an intractable problem. It can be solved if the Israeli government acts responsibly, and abandons its claim to the 22% of historic Palestine that is not Israel.

luv u,

jp