History shows that those committing atrocities on the world stage don’t wake up one day and spontaneously end their crimes. As regular readers of Mondoweiss know, Israel won’t end Palestinian oppression on its own. Outside pressure is the only hope, and the most powerful vehicle to deliver that pressure, BDS, is building momentum. That is, boycott and divestment are, but sanctions are not yet a serious topic of discussion in U.S. political discourse. And they need to be.
The best hope for Palestinians is a change in American public opinion. Losing the support of Americans, including the largest Jewish population outside Israel, would mean losing American military support. At that point, Israel would be isolated on the world stage.
What will it take? When will a critical mass of Americans understand that Palestinians have been oppressed for 70 years? That it’s wrong for the U.S. to bankroll Israel’s military? And that our blind support of Israel is morally bankrupt? Despite encouraging signs of late, most Americans still believe Israel’s actions are justified—because like Israelis, their American supporters see Palestinians as sub-human.
The dehumanization of Palestinians underlies so many absurdities. One example: the endlessly repeated myth that Palestinians teach their children they must kill Israeli Jews. No sane parent would encourage a child to take an action that would ruin the child’s life. Or end it. The notion that it could become a societal norm in parenting is beyond absurd. Those who believe this myth can only do so under the premise that Palestinians are less than human.
Another example: the claim that insisting on the right of return for Palestinians is equivalent to demanding the destruction of Israel. As Rahim Darwish points out, this absurdity dehumanizes Palestinians by denying their feelings, aspirations and needs.
It doesn’t end there. Whether it’s the conflation of Hamas with ordinary Palestinians or blaming Palestinians themselves for the abysmal living conditions in Gaza, the function of the propaganda is the same: to deny the humanity of all Palestinians.
This answers the question above: what will it take? To end the atrocities, we must reverse the dehumanization.
Ultimately, Americans will see the injustice clearly only when they’ve unlearned the absurdities that cause them to ignore the humanity of Palestinians. If they see Palestinians as monsters who teach their kids to kill Israelis, they never will see Israel’s actions as the atrocities they are. Instead, they will rationalize away the brutality as somehow necessary. Even when snipers shoot unarmed Palestinians in cold blood, which we saw continue for months on end, American public opinion will be mixed, at best.
Which means those of us who support the Palestinian cause must place more emphasis on the humanity of Palestinians, rather than the actions of Israelis.
For example, many more eyes were opened last year by the abuse of young Ahed Tamimi by Israeli police. Why? The horrific nature of Israel’s actions in this case was in no way unique.
For me personally, the force of Ahed’s story was multiplied because months earlier, I’d read Ben Ehrenreich’s book The Way to the Spring¸ which provides vivid detail about the daily lives of the Tamimi family. I learned how welcoming they were to Ehrenreich, I got to know their personalities. I saw their everyday struggle. Through Ehrenreich, I even felt as if I shared meals with them. So when I read about Ahed’s arrest and imprisonment, it angered me more than usual.
Just as the dehumanization of Palestinians occurs in countless ways in multiple contexts by Israel and its American supporters, so too must the effort to re-humanize them. There are three areas that are the most promising, in my view (although undoubtedly there are many others worth our effort as well).
First, counterparts to Birthright—interfaith group missions and other organized trips that use travel to counter the pro-Israel position—must be strengthened and expanded. More American thought leaders need to visit the occupied territories, witness the oppression, and experience, first-hand, the humanity of Palestinians.
Second, far too few people in the United States have ever known a Palestinian or even have a friend or family member who knows one. It’s easy to harbor crazy thoughts about any group when you’ve never been in contact with them. We can change that dynamic.
The election of Rashida Tlaib to Congress likely will be a big step in that direction. A concerted effort by the entire Palestinian-American community to expand their everyday contact with other Americans could be a much bigger one. Believing that Palestinians teach their children to kill is impossible for a rational adult (and a challenge even for an irrational adult) if her friend is Palestinian.
And there’s a ripple effect, which means those of us who are not Palestinian-American have our part to play as well. When I’ve mentioned to others my personal relationships with Palestinians—and directly confronted the absurdity of what they’ve been told—it has an impact. It’s nowhere near as powerful as direct contact with Palestinians would be, but it helps.
Third, we need more people to hear and read stories that humanize Palestinians. We can all do more to expand the reach of Ben Ehrenreich and other works like his. Almost every day, Mondoweiss provides stories of Palestinians and their humanity—the daily routine that can be both mundane and miraculous, as well as the extraordinary moments of resistance to Israeli violence.
People don’t respond emotionally to numbers. Over one hundred Palestinians were killed by Israeli sniper fire in the Great March of Return—but American popular opinion didn’t change. Ditto for the horrific statistics from the 2014 Gaza massacre.
To be sure, many fantastic writers speaking out for Palestinians do so in terms more analytical than story-focused. But as brilliant as, say, Rashid Khalidi and Norman Finkelstein are, and as much as I am personally grateful for what they’ve taught me, I don’t know if they move American public opinion very much. It’s the personal stories, like the glimpses of the Tamimi family in The Way to the Spring, that move people.
Remember Tariq Abukhdeir, the young Palestinian-American who was brutally beaten by Israeli police in 2014? When he returned to America, still badly bruised, he spoke in Washington, DC, about his ordeal. Young Tariq was so compelling that Sen. Barbara Boxer went to the empty Senate to speak about no topic in particular, knowing that C-SPAN’s policy would force it to turn its coverage from Tariq to her. She feared the impact coverage Tariq would have on American public opinion.
And more recently, coverage of Razan al-Najjar, the young Palestinian medic killed last year by Israeli sniper fire, reached beyond the bubble of those already concerned with human rights in Palestine.
The personal story of every oppressed Palestinian should be told, even if it’s just in a blog post or video that only a dozen Americans read or see. Those stories add up. They make it so much harder to buy in to the absurdities, and so much easier to reject them.
The task for every one of us is to use every channel we can to awaken an American public that swallows the absurd claims labeling Palestinians as less than human. Shame on them for being taken in. Shame on us if we fail to bring them back to reality.
It should start in Congress and the media. Once they are able to undo the shackles that bind them to the zionists, have no fear of zionist wrath, exercise their right to free speech,and are able to reject AIPAC and it’s influence in what they do and say, only then will the tide turn. To dream the impossible dream……
A good and important article, Robert Lord. You’ve captured the key to changing the mindset of ordinary Americans regarding the plight of the Palestinian people, personalizing or humanizing Palestinians with personal examples of the trauma they experience in their everyday life. Ehrenreich’s book on the Tamimi family is a perfect example of the effect of personalization.
I think you’ve overlooked perhaps the most effective way of personalization, the use of art, specifically fiction and drama in humanizing a people and convincing broad audiences of the validity of a peoples’ claim. Leon Uris’ novel, Exodus and the later movie of the same name had an enormous effect on US public opinion and literally put Israel and Israelis on the map in the minds and hearts of most Americans. He did so by creating compelling characters who told the classic story of a beseiged but heroic David (Israel) confronted by hordes of savage Arab Goliaths who are ultimately vanquished by the Israeli Davids led by none other than Paul Newman. It was myth creation at its very best and it worked.
I decided, a few years back, to create my own, more accurate version of the modern Exodus story by writing my own novel (The Exodus Betrayal: A President Confronts Israel) which I recently published on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Betrayal-President-Confronts-Israel-ebook/dp/B07RW61X5V) and have been advertising here on Mondoweiss. It’s sold over 120 copies to readers on this site so I’m pleased there has been strong interest in it.
Phil Weiss, the founder and editor of Mondoweiss was kind enough to interview me at length about my novel. The interview, (“Imagine A US President Taking Iran’s Side in a Conflict with Israel and you get Maguire’s Thriller, Exodus Betrayal”) can be found at https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2019/06/president-conflict-betrayal/
My hope is that my novel can create enough buzz and interest in the negative effects of Israel and its US lobby on US interests and on the plight of the oppressed Palestinian people that US public opinion can be changed from unquestioning support of Israel to something more balanced in favor of US interests and justice for an oppressed people. I know it’s a long shot but, as you point out in your article, we need to awaken the American people by personalizing the plight of the Palestinians.
I hope you’ll read the interview and perhaps my novel as well. I look forward to your comments.
” Whether it’s the conflation of Hamas with ordinary Palestinians ”
What are you conflating Hamas with?
Are not Hamas ordinary Palestinians?
Are they the bad Palestinians we must kill to save the good ones? just like SyriaIraqLibya ?
you know apart from the utter dereliction of not bothering to examine Hamas beyond the demon status ascribed to it, the murdering irrational natives so much beloved of European culture not bothering to study their positions and context (context in particular) in depth and what is even more depressing is that this just a rerun of the endless litany of names from primitive, marauders to terrorists to militants now Hamas, why not address them, study them, question them and always keeping in mind that no one, however much you may choose to ignorantly loathe them can be colonized and dispossessed and confined or slaughtered without the commission of many crimes of which it is traditional in cultivated circles not to blame our victims and ascribe their oppression to their “religious conservatism” or barbarity or corruption (which we have been instrumental in instituting) wrongheadedness or whatever.
America by its duplicitousness and its 50 year subversion of Palestinian resistance made a Hamas of one kind or another not only inevitable but also morally necessary America destroyed the PLO and betrayed the puny PA, Palestine will save itself in its own way.
Tell you what let’s try a thought experiment why not take 2 million say a cross section of American society dump them in Gaza for 70 years in precisely the same circumstances and persecution as the Palestinians have endured, what do you think it would be like now? Palestine survives in impossible conditions a little respect rather than this raving and callous condescension would be welcome. show a little respect to the denizens of this latest western abomination.
Settler-colonial Canada stifles criticism of the Zionist entity:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/canada-joins-campaign-stifle-criticism-israel/5683337
Thank you Robert Lord for emphasizing the role of public opinion in the politics of America and in tolerating oppression. In addition, to the perception that Palestinians condone even reward “terrorism”, there is also a perception the bad things that happen, are brought upon themselves. These perceptions arise from the intensively cultivated and controlling narrative, that Israel is the victim and has the right to defend itself, even preemptively.
This victim narrative is the most powerful weapon in Israel’s bag of manipulations and so long as the narrative stands, oppression will almost certainly continue.
Resistance that focuses on equality or independence, while refusing lone wolf violence, would empower Palestinian activism, build a stronger bridge to Israeli humanists and American Jews. Those who can alter Judaism’s course and create safe political ground for American politicians to move onto….. changing everything.
Those dedicated to armed resistance would do well to consider which path is more likely to bring a future of peace and positive neighborly relations. Of course its a problem that goal is not universal and can continue seemingly endless wars in the Middle East.