As Palestine takes center stage and as we continue to gain ground on the international solidarity front, with BDS and by other means, more punitive measures to silence and disrupt the justice for Palestine camp is to be expected. Case in point, is the recent passing of the bipartisan resolution in the House of Foreign Affairs Committee, entitled, “Words Have Consequences: Palestinian Authority Incitement to Violence.” Once again, the US government demonstrates its appalling hypocrisy on Israel/Palestine.
In the meantime, Israelis would like to see more incitement from their government. According to political analyst Yousef Munnayer, opinion polls overwhelmingly show that Israelis think that Netanyahu is too soft on Palestinians. This week’s ‘most-read’ article in the Washington Post by Israeli novelist Assaf Gavron similarly sounds the alarm bells. He warns: “We Israelis are in a fast and alarming downward swirl into a savage, unrepairable society.”
To magnify the urgency of the present situation, the writer, who served in the Israeli army, throws the Palestinians under the bus and whitewashes the first intifada. Those were “the good old days”, the writer reminisces. The words crafted to sound whimsical, almost endearing, with ‘a boys will be boys’ sentiment, fell heavily on my ears.
Those were not good days for the Palestinian people under Israeli military occupation. Thousands were imprisoned. Collective punishment in the form of curfews was imposed on whole villages and towns for weeks on end. Schools and universities were closed by military order, so education became illegal; classes were held underground and at homes, if at all. Olive trees and other crops; mainstay of Palestinian agricultural economy were destroyed. Homes were arbitrarily and routinely demolished. And the late defense Minister Rabin’s infamous ‘strategy of might and force’ through breaking bones, torture and mass imprisonment is well documented.
Belittling Palestinian suffering is commonplace in Israeli society – as his article would attest; therein lies the irony – even among the so-called ‘enlightened’, it seems.
Moving forward, the writer is clear that today, he wants to see an end to the occupation, but to save the Israeli soul, albeit, he does acknowledge Palestinian suffering [under occupation]. Nevertheless, Gavron sites ample evidence of Israeli incitement and violence, admitting, “the internal discussion in Israel is more militant, threatening and intolerant than it has ever been.” On social media, “any sentiment not aligned with the supposed consensus is met with a barrage of racist vitriol.”
The irony is that some of the most extreme cases of racist incitement to violence in Israel have collapsed binaries as viciously as they had been constructed. Most people who inhabit that spot of land are largely indistinguishable and Arab and Jew are not mutually exclusive categories. From his platform in Washington, among friends and allies, Gavron’s plea for the ‘soul of a nation’ falls on deaf ears.
One must wonder then, to what extent is the enabling of Israeli society, on the part of some ‘friends’ and ‘allies’, rooted in anti-Semitism? A bi-national Israel/Palestine could potentially be a viable solution for both people[s]; some believe it is already in the making.
Aida Qasim writes: “And the late defense Minister Rabin’s infamous ‘strategy of might and force’ through breaking bones, torture and mass imprisonment is well documented.”
Well, that’s the problem. Americans, broadly speaking, do not know these things. They do not see the documentation you refer to. If an Israeli fells a tree in a forest onto the head of a Palestinian and nobody reads the AI report, was anyone actually injured?
The Palestinian movement needs two tracks of its own propaganda — not false propaganda but the truth. Speaking truth to power, in fact. And the target audience is the people, everywhere in the world they can be reached. Governments have shown themselves to be (willing) prisoners of Zion.
First track is a comprehensive history, perhaps from 1947, of Israel’s human rights violations, of Palestinian suffering, of the world’s abstention from its duties (as some see it) to intervene. Updated monthly. Chanted as a perpetual dirge, but an informative dirge. Maybe with little time-line-setting bells and whistles referring to “peace process” and “Oslo” and so forth.
Second track is the objectives, perhaps the objectives of the BDS movement, set in a historical matrix showing how the very opposite of these objectives has been visited upon Palestinians by Israel and, through refusal to act, by most governments.
If the propaganda is propounded loudly and widely enough, perhaps it will become true that Israel’s horrible policies will become well and widely known.
Here’s how I see it: there is no binational state in the works and it’s dangerous to imagine or delude oneself that such a plan exists. I’m not saying it’s not possible but our society needs to work very hard to make that possible and unfortunately our society is moving backwards as our own rights are being diminished and we are doing very little or nothing to reverse this trend.
Zionists are way too greedy for land and power to want to share any of this with Palestinians, unless it is forced on them by a society that recognizes that there is no other option except maybe for moving all the settlers out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the interest of real justice.
What is happening here is very serious: our rights are now inextricably linked to Palestinian rights. In order for Zionism which is inherently unjust to be implemented our self-expression and our right to support the Palestinian movement for justice must be condemned and subsequently sabotaged by our leaders and legislative representatives who already refuse to represent us on this issue and are starting to take this further with Zionist influence and pressure.
The problem is that we see this happening and we’re doing absolutely nothing about it. We must flood our representatives with emails and let them know that our freedom of expression is sacred and non-negotiable and that we will use it to condemn injustice wherever and whenever we witness it, even in Israel!
There is only one way that Zionism can be permanently implemented and that is if the occupation and therefore Apartheid in Israel are legitimized in some way. This is why Israel is moving to incitement of violent resistance by Palestinians, because Zionists need to prove to the world that there is no other way to secure Zionism except through Apartheid and military occupation and they need our legislators to shut down all societal opposition to this plan.
We must not let this happen; we must not allow our right to condemn what is really in the works to be suppressed through resolutions and legislation that sanctions our efforts to seek justice and limits our ability to derail this injustice. This is what is happening behind the scenes; our rights are in peril alongside Palestinian rights, and we must fight for them before it’s too late.
If our own rights are diminished then the Palestinians don’t stand a chance. If sites that are raising awareness, movements that are trying to enforce justice and words that are condemning Zionist injustice are shut down then Zionists will have achieved the ultimate goal.
Our rights and Palestinians’ rights have both become a threat to Zionism. Zionism cannot survive without injustice and without suppressing our right to condemn that injustice and this is where we are really heading. A binational state is not in the works unless we stop what is really in the works.
RE: “We Israelis are in a fast and alarming downward swirl into a savage, unrepairable society.” ~ Aida Qasim
MY COMMENT:
Down, down, down we [the U.S.] go into the deep, dark abyss; hand in hand with Israel.
So who’s gonna do that on cable TV News & Infotainment shows? On public TV, on regular network TV? In the major newspapers like NYT & WaPo? And regularly yet? Six mega corporations own & control 90% of all the news accessible to Americans. So far, they are pretty much straight hasbara, everyday.
The insitement claim has become the new “trojan horse” of LAWFARE !!
The French government has made it “official” policy….
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/27/criminalization-of-anti-israel-activism-escalates-this-time-in-the-land-of-the-charlie-hebdo-free-speech-march/
Will the United States follow suite????
http://ccrjustice.org/the-palestine-exception
Thankfully there are some exceding knowledgable and “sane” voices in America that are taking up the gauntlet in an intelligent manner…
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=14999