thomas leverett weblog

Pro-Palestinian

In recent days news agencies have been using the term "Pro-Palestinian" to describe certian people: important donors to Biden, students, prominent actors, etc. There was a time when I would have called myself that, but there are many reasons I hesitate.

First, does that mean you're ok with the invasion of Israel, the killing of 1,200 (forgive me if I am not exact on numbers), the taking of hostages, the hiding of them in hospitals and schools, etc.? Some might say, that was Hamas. But the Palestinians elected Hamas, and would probably do it again if they had a chance.

The Palestinian people are starving, being killed in huge numbers, being crowded into little corners of Gaza where they wait for relief supplies that may or may not arrive. I am pro-Palestinian people, regardless of how they vote, because they are people and they don't deserve to be suffering like this. And it's clear that Hamas doesn't care if they die in the course of the war, as long as it meets their objectives: to get the world involved, to change the situation as it was, to move forward on the ultimate elimination of Israel as a country. Hamas was hoping Iran, and maybe Russia, would join in, and is only brought to the table because they didn't. I have a number of questions about this, and maybe someone could help answer them. First, how many hostages are we really talking about here? Are we maintaining that Hamas itself is still holding a certain number of them in some certain place in Gaza? And second, so Israel succeeds in eliminating Hamas. Isn't it inevitable that Palestinians elect another government just like them? Or that the Palestinian Authority (that rules the West Bank) becomes just as radical?

I am pro-peace, not pro-Hamas, and that means I'm not really pro-Israel either, although I feel that peace would be best for both Israel and the Palestinian people. Only peace will repair the work that has been done to build friendships between Palestinian and Israeli people; we forget that there are a lot of these, damaged almost beyond repair by the war, and that people can get along and live together; it has been done and can be done again.

My hope is that the involvement of the students will change something; it already has. Although students are not known historically for thinking through issues (remember Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh?, they at least take the side of the most oppressed, downtrodden victims in the situation, and make a lot of noise about the injustice of it. There is a lot of injustice here, namely that it is American bombs and military hardware that is making sure that it's Palestinians who are starving and not Jews. It is the support of the US and the West that is funding this war, so protesting in the US and to US powers is an appropriate action. And demanding divestment, though it may not work, is at least demanding a legitimate response to a nation's aggressive apartheid tactics. When South Africa maintained its apartheid, that's what the world did, and that's what the world should do to China's Xinxiang and Tibet. What else can we do? We can't declare war on Israel because we don't agree with their stealing of land or colonizing more of the West Bank. The invasion of their country has given them the excuse to do all that and more, and since many of my relatives are Jewish hippies and Jewish people who also have the right to live normal, safe lives, I understand their position that the only acceptable outcome is the elimination of Hamas.

Working toward peace is working toward solutions that are sustainable and manageable in the long term. After a war like this it is probably not sustainable to have a Gaza right up against Israel's borders where tunnels can go underneath and be used for another invasion. The same will probably hold for the West Bank and Jerusalem, where it will still be possible for radicalized and very angry people to attack the Israeli nation. There's a parallel here to prisons: what looked a lot like a prison break happened mostly because the situation was like a prison. And in a prison break, one loses track of morality, since prisoners commit violence out of desperation. One can argue for a more secure prison, a lockdown situation where escape isn't possible, but the real solution will require people, the innocent and law-abiding of them, to have options: to eat, to leave the area for other places, to carry on normal relations with the world, to come and go as they please. Palestinians should not have to beg Israel for these basic rights.

The reason a two-state solution has never caught on is that both Israelis and Palestinians have become so bitterly antagonistic that the majority of both are opposed to it. It's the rest of us, the world watching this horror show, that has to step up and demand a sustainable peace. I'm hoping the students can help with this. When American students demanded peace in Vietnam, they eventually got it, and it wasn't pretty: years later, people are still angry at the perceived betrayal of American soldiers who had gone over there to serve their country and fight for freedom, so to speak. Sometimes peace means not fighting or killing over an issue where you feel you have the right to fight and kill. I can say that regardless of the right to fight and kill, what is best here is a sustainable peace. It's best for both people. It's best for the world. It's best that it happen as soon as possible. Blame, for what happened, or for the way things were, or for how it played out, is no longer helpful or appropriate. In that regard it's somewhat like a schoolyard fight, where the adults separate the combatants, brush them off, send them back into the world, keep them away from each other for a while, and hope everyone can just forget the whole thing.

posted by tom @ 4:37 AM