When a society loses its capacity for pity, it loses its way, and there were two stories this week that were filled with that sense of hopelessness. One was the killing of a homeless person with mental issues on a New York subway by a vigilante with military training. The fact that many in New York justify the killing is itself devastating.
The second story has gotten much less attention in the United States, but is just as crushing. Khader Adnan, a political prisoner in an Israeli jail, died after 86 days of hunger strike. And the clear evidence is that the 45-year-old’s death was hastened/enabled by cruel Israeli actions and inactions: please read Mariam Barghouti and Yumna Patel’s investigative report that cites the findings of human rights groups Addameer, Al-Haq, Physicians for Human Rights and Amnesty International.
Again, the mighty exhibit an absence of pity for a highly vulnerable individual.
I remember when the political prisoner Bobby Sands of the Provisional Irish Republican Army died in 1981 after a hunger strike. Sands’s death galvanized American sympathy for the republican movement and helped pave the way to a peace agreement 17 years later.
Adnan’s death was a lead story in the BBC this week, but sadly, it has not moved the American establishment.
Even as Adnan’s condition worsened, dozens of members of Congress went on trips to Israel last week celebrating its 75th birthday as a supposed “democracy.” One was led by Democratic leader Hakeem (“Israel today, Israel tomorrow, Israel forever”) Jeffries. Another was led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and was bipartisan– teeming with Democrats, like freshman Rob Menendez who gushed over his first trip to Israel.
Both delegations met joyfully with Benjamin Netanyahu. But the polling reminds us that Netanyahu is persona non grata for Democrats. Only 17 percent of Democrats have any confidence in Netanyahu, 56 percent do not, Pew reported in April.
Those Democrats are Menendez’s constituents in Newark/Jersey City (and many of his father Senator Bob Menendez’s too) but he doesn’t care — surely because of the role of the Israel lobby in campaign funding and in media too. Our establishment is still rigidly pro-Israel. As Democratic Majority for Israel reminded us this week, it’s a long tradition.
We must find hope where we can, and this week, 17 Congresspeople signed on to Betty McCollum’s courageous legislation that would cut U.S. aid that serves Israeli detention of Palestinian children and thefts of their land. (That’s up from 13 Congress members who signed a letter last month, urging Biden to shift his policy on Israel in light of its “systemic violence against Palestinians.”)
The establishment is pitiless. But those who understand Palestinian persecution, and are willing to act on it, are growing in number by the day.
Thanks for reading,
Phil Weiss
