A Response to Bret Stephens
My initial reaction to "The Anti-Israel Left Needs to Take a Hard Look at Itself."
Hello,
I can’t speak for “the left” but I can speak as someone who identifies as a person of the left.
I’m not confused about Israel. I think that is a place to start: It is totally clear, the case for Zionism, or a Jewish nation-state. I am also not confused about the history of the region via the world and international relations. I’m not confused about the plight of the Palestinians either. These are the indigenous people (“of people inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists.”) who live and lived in Palestine for generations upon generations by the time the first Zionist settlers moved to the area in the 1880s. You can easily make a moral case or justification for a Jewish or Zionist state. You can also easily justify a state of Palestinians now. However, even though it’s quite hard for us to do, we can make distinctions between ideas and implementation. And we must always try to include as many variables as necessary to adequately analyze the situation and its place in time: history of antisemitism and Judeophobia, European colonization, the Ottoman Empire, WWI, WW2, the Mandate system, and Great Britain’s involvement in both supporting Zionism and also trying to reign it in before leaving the situation to be figured out by the UN in 1948. We can keep going: you can’t understand who supports who without understanding the Cold War: This is where you really start to get to see the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the repression of Arab nationalism (almost all nationalist movements during the Cold War were seen as “communistic” by the U.S.), etc., and even the abandonment of the Palestinians by Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and so on. The failures of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, failing both Jews in Israel and failing the Palestinian people themselves has been well-documented.
I’m not confused about both diasporas.
Let’s see. What else.
I’m not confused about Hamas and what they stand for either. Though, I think we’re all probably a little confused about that, but all we can do is read, listen, learn, and understand. I’m also not confused about refugee camps existing within open-air prisons. Jabalia is the name of the largest refugee camp in Palestinian history – no surprise that Hamas has a lot of supporters there, and considering Israeli airstrikes just hit it again (they also reportedly hit an UNWRA school killing 15 Palestinians in the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict) killing 50 people including children, you can see why Hamas might continue to, let’s see, poll well.
The siege has been so normalized that Stephens doesn’t mention it even though it’s fundamental to understanding Gaza, Hamas, and Palestine. The dehumanization of the Palestinians has been normalized and justified, over and over, for the past 75 years. So, yes, normalizing and justifying terrorism is what happens with partisans. Has Stephens ever discussed Breaking the Silence, the Israeli NGO comprised of former IDF soldiers whose goal is to educate fellow Israeli’s about how their military campaigns and counter-terrorism campaigns are also ran on the ground? Not sure.
~
Tuesday in The New York Times, Bret Stephens challenges the left, “The Anti-Israel Left Needs to Take a Hard Look at Itself.” Stephens highlights that when he visited a Palestinian rally, he heard some awful stuff about Jews. I have no doubt he did. In fact, try to go anywhere with any significant number of Americans in the same room for only a few hours and I have no doubt you might easily run into awful comments about Jews. Arabs, too, though. “Kill ‘em all” is something I’ve heard regarding Iraqis in the U.S. war of aggression that contributed to the deaths of approximately 300,000 Iraqis and helped spawn ISIS. I’ve heard many Islamophobic (and I’m no fan of Islam or any religion for that matter) and racist comments about Arabs and Muslims in person many times. But, also, and I’d really want to ask Stephens if he knew this, but considering his “beat,” he kind of should, it has been remarked upon about how Israeli’s have been reported to sit on Kobi Hill watching Israeli missile strikes on Gaza, eating popcorn and watching the “fireworks” (Baconi 2018, xv).
The more I read Stephen’s piece, the angrier I feel towards it. It’s bottom of the barrel kind of stuff. It is supposed to be read as simple and clear but it’s not simple or clear enough, in my opinion. It dodges, obfuscates, and just really could have been so much better than what it was. I have no doubt that the majority of people who are deeply invested in this issue probably hold some views about all of this that I would find abhorrent. On all sides. I also know that most people can be way more nuanced and thoughtful, and, yes, simple in a good way, about the situation than Bret Stephens.
We need a revived and democratic Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). We need so much to change about how Israeli citizens understand themselves, too, and the lifestyles and lives of Palestinians. Half of the population of Gaza are under 18 and all they’ve known is occuption, blockade, Hamas, Israel etc. And they have no future.
I will leave with a good chunk of what Peter Beinart, who is a Jewish-American who used to be a Zionist, said today in a phone call with his paid supporters of his newsletter The Beinart Notebook because it’s a proper response to Bret Stephens itself:
“And I feel like at this moment, it’s so hard for Jews to hear anything other than what is gonna keep us safe? And I think that is because of this powerful metaphor of family that has been reinforced by a real trauma that is kind of often in the deep recesses of people, but then comes to the surface at moments like this when you see Jews being killed, being kidnapped, and horrific, horrific things. I have no patience for people who justify those things. I have no patience for them. I really don’t wanna be in conversation with those folks right now. It’s too painful for me. But I also cannot try to prove to people that I, and people like me, that we genuinely love other Jews and genuinely feel for other Jews by endorsing a set of reactions that put aside the horror that they bring to Palestinians. Put aside the horror of cutting off Gaza from electricity and water and food. Put aside the horror. This does not keep Jews safe. If it kept Jews safe, what happened on Saturday morning would never have happened because Israel has blockaded Gaza for more than 15 years now. Israel has pummeled Gaza, bombarded Gaza again and again and again. G-d knows if beating up on Palestinians, if brutalizing Palestinians kept Jews safe, Jews in Israel would have been safe a long time ago, starting with the Nakba when most of the people who live in Gaza were forced into Gaza. If this was the way to keep Jews safe, this would never have happened. This logic in other contexts, if it were not us, we would understand it so simply. The logic is for every Hamas member that you kill, for every bunch of weapons that you destroy, you are producing more trauma, and more hatred, and more rage, and more people, and they will join Hamas. And if Hamas doesn’t exist because the Palestinians have been fighting against Zionism in Israel long before Hamas started, some other organization will exist. And if you get rid of this set of guns, people are ingenious and creative. They will find more guns. They will make more guns and you will be where we were today again.
And this is not true just for Israel. This is true for when Britain was dealing with the IRA. And when apartheid South Africa was dealing with ANC. And for that matter when the United States was dealing with its kind of neocolonial conflicts. You have to deal with the root of the problem, which is that you are cheek by jowl two peoples in a very close proximity to one another. And in the long term—maybe not even the long term—if those people who live right next door to you, if they are not safe, if they are not free, if they don’t have a basic, decent life, sooner or later they’re going to fuck with you, and they’re gonna mean that you can’t have that either. That the lives of Israeli Jews and the lives of Palestinians are inextricably intertwined. This is what Martin Luther King tried to tell white Americans about their relationship with Black Americans: that our fates were intertwined. And just because white Americans were on top at this moment, they were sitting on top of a volcano because the misery they were inflicting on Black Americans would come and reach them some form or another sooner or later. And it and it came in the most horrifying, horrifying way on Saturday.
And so, I know I’m not gonna move anybody who I would want to try to move in the Jewish community in a moment like this by talking about international law and human rights and morality as precious as those things are. So, I would simply say to them: is this the way to keep us safe? Israel goes into Gaza on the ground for days and days and days. God knows how many people die. Then what? Then what? Hamas is still gonna be there. And if Hamas weren’t there, some other group would resist, because you know what? The people who launched violent attacks at Israel in the 1950s and the 1960s and the 1970s and the 1980s, they weren’t Hamas because Hamas didn’t even exist. It’s not about Hamas. It’s about a struggle with the Palestinian people that can only be resolved when both peoples have the basic freedoms that all people deserve.”
Do you think people are going to live under military occupation forever?
I hope for peace, freedom, and equality for all peoples,
Patrick M. Foran
Thanks for the reaction. I didn't read the Stephens article, but I probably read a lot of comments on social media from people who did. I'm wondering how you think things were going prior to this attack, and what should have been happening to support Palestinians from the left. Many of us were at least moderately engaged with BDS actions, general support, etc. but it kind of fell off the radar when we were fighting to keep basic human rights in the United States, along with the cracking down on Palestinian support by conservatives in many states.
I had been reading a lot of "We stand with Israel" comments and seeing a lot of misunderstanding of the position of people on the left, like me. Much of the time, it's straight to antisemitism. If not, it's "insensitivity" towards innocent people. So, what I've been commenting (thinking out loud, just to see if people can help me better understand) is:
We want to "#freepalestine" because that will lead to less innocent people being killed (if you do also consider Palestinians people). BDS and Free Palestine rallies aren't to harm Jewish people, but to help ensure their safety. The current government of Israel regularly commits acts of terror on already oppressed people. This ensures that Israel will be the target of attacks on innocent lives, as we saw again. When you oppress people to this degree, and they have nothing to lose, you should not be surprised that some of them will want revenge. Essentially, "the people you put in power killed my family. I don't have access to them, but I have access to a group of innocent potential supporters of yours, just living their lives, not unlike my family." It seems to me that Israel has, decades ago, realized they can try to ensure safety through this oppression, and now, more recently, they're realizing it must come through genocide. They, obviously, put the safety of their citizens above basic human rights - to say the least. That's like the US solving our current problems with more police... oh wait.
I have been seeing a lot of people who consider themselves leftists/communists, essentially, celebrating the deaths of these Israelis - even the misreported beheadings and rapes. There are a lot of issues on the left, as we've seen exposed way too much the last few years. One thing that stands out, but seems innocuous is, "if they end the occupation, this will all stop." I don't think that's true either. It's like abolishing the police: I don't think that's gonna be a quick fix and solve crime, etc. I think it's a start; a step toward healing that's going to be disastrous at the beginning - like any major change to a system. If occupation ended today, you will still have hurt, desperate, angry people, many of whom will still want revenge and plot around peaceful negotiations and healing. But you have to start the process, otherwise we're going to get more of the same, only heightened like we're seeing now. And in doing so, try to plan the best you can to solve issues you expect to arise.
I hope the ideas I'm supporting help protect the people of Israel and Palestine who want peace, safety, and dignity. If I'm not, I want to know what does. Or what can.
Take Care