Yesterday I did a post on Jewish identity saying that American Jews are by and large in denial of the horrifying scale of the occupation. A friend wrote to me:
(1) The sad, resigned permissiveness toward suffering that “my people” inflict, brings out the deep immorality of tribalism. Only through tribal morality am I relieved of responsibility for suffering I cause or condone at the present time. My people suffered too, and suffered even more, it is said, and it is right to weigh those past irremediable sufferings in the scale against these present ones. But moral right is about the things I do or fail to do–not about what was done to my parents or grandparents in earlier times. Conscience is not a respecter of “stories”; tribal consciousness knows nothing higher than its own story.
(2) The occupation is no longer an occupation. It needs another name. I don’t have a word or a phrase, but an accurate description of the policy now in force would be: “expulsion by attrition and gradually compelled transfer of population.” Every day, the parallels grow more pronounced with what the U.S. did to American Indians over the course of the 19th century.
The Jewish prison
Apartheid
There is another name-it has been used for the last 100 years, in case you’ve missed it.
It is called national conflict or civil war. Two nations are fighting for the same spot of land by all means available to them-one side is winning, another one is losing. Re-branding the nature of the conflict wouldn’t help-understanding of the REALITY will certainly do. You may call Israel any names you want-it will go on, the question what would be left of the Palestinians and how their tormented society will grow.
How about ethnic cleansing, genocide, a permanent pogrom?
Yousef Munayyer just wrote a column on trying to find a more apt term than “Occupation.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/13/levy-is-right.html He suggests “Zionist Apartheid”: