Many years ago, while taking a nap on the carpet of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and recovering from a long day of work, I saw someone walk in for whom such a visit had clearly been something he had waited a lifetime.
Beautiful peace Murtaza. I have followed you since your days of writing op Ed’s in Al Jazeera English while I was a teenager in Kuwait. Like you I was a hot headed youth estranged, but evolved due to the events of the past 15 years and having the privilege of meeting and interacting with the people on both sides. It seems after all slogans and myopias the only ones empowered are sad fantasists and chauvinists removed from the consequences of their rhetoric. There is no silver bullet. I can only think that we should have heed the words of Sultan Salahudeen
“Beware of shedding blood. For blood never sleeps.”
What an excellent comment I wish I could have included it in the text myself and I hope people read it. Knowing people from both sides and taking time to understand their perspective is a privilege you have clearly used well and I hope others do too.
And I should say Operation Cast Lead was my first serious introduction to the Israel Palestine conflict before I ever had a personal relationship with any Israeli or Palestinian. I agree this war will radicalize those first obtaining political awareness. It boggles my mind how she the desensitization has degraded us. That war killed 1400 Palestinians, most unseen, and most western media ran interference as stenographers of the IDF. Now 20,000 have died with their final moments broadcast on telegram and the attitude of indifference to undeniable atrocities (on both sides) have taken hold, showing how much our global order has changed. It is just tribal warfare and return t savagery with no pretence
Thank you so much for these thoughts. I am a Canadian Jew, on the If Not Now and JFREJ-ish “Jewish Left”, having been raised in Liberal Zionism but having had universalist and socialist principles overcome statist Zionism in my heart. I also have spent a good amount of time in Israel/Palestine, all over the land except for Gaza, and have so many Jewish and Palestinian friends there, so many of whom are grieving, shaken, and distraught. I dream of a long-term transformation for this land, a loving decolonization in which these two mirror peoples, whose fates are inextricably entangled, will build a truly shared society. That seems so so far now, farther than it ever has.
I honestly can’t tell you how important it is to hear someone from your position say what I have been struggling to understand why so many of those who support Palestinian national movements can’t or won’t say: the way that October 7 was conducted - the sheer brutality, the pre-meditated torture and rape - is not only a moral stain but a strategic disaster. I remember walking around like a zombie that day, and as more and more details emerged, not only was I and so many of my friends filled with immeasurable grief and anger, but absolute dread as to what this would unleash in Israel. Because we knew that day that tens of thousands of Gazans would die, were as good as dead already, and Israel would try, within the realistic political window that could maintain US support, to wipe Gaza off the map. It also made me so angry, because so many of us Jews on the left are dedicated to doing whatever we can to humanize Palestinians in the minds of our Zionist friends and families, to detail the psychological torture of the occupation, to show how Zionism created a magnificent Jewish Fortress for the cost of creating another oppressed wandering people in Exile. We try to show again and again how Israel nips non-violent means in the bud and only responds to violence, and needs to be forced by its “friends” to make concessions. But October 7 is the only justification our friends and family will ever need to justify denying Palestinians humanity and a human existence from now until the end of time. They will say “this is the true face of Palestinians. This is what they will do if they ever have even a modicum of power. The only answer is expulsion, death, or subjugation for them”. We now see where this strategy leads. It leads right back to October 7 and the Gaza massacre again and again.
So thank you again for doing what I have only really seen other Jews on the Left do: try to hold two thoughts in their head at the same time. And you do it very well.
Murtaza your opening is deeply moving, but with all due respect I believe you are wrong in attempting to make equivalent the situation of Israelis and Palestinians.
I knew absolutely nothing about the situation until about 25 years ago when I took an undergraduate course in US national security and another about the history of the Ottoman Empire. I began to wonder why, time after time, Israel was able to continue to take land and the Palestinians lose it, not only violating international law but with the full protection in the UN by the United States, veto after veto being used to stop any sanction of international law, the very law that the US has always claimed should be honored and in whose design the US was a full participant after WW2.
Being proud of the US claim to stand for liberty and justice for all, I could not believe the hypocrisy of mouthing mild criticisms of Israel, calling for a two state solution but in the end always going with what Israel wanted to do. A perfect example was when Joe Biden was VP under Obama. The US had recently told Israel that it did not want to see any further expansion of settlements. Biden was on a visit to Israel when that country announced the expansion of settlements. Biden was furious. But, as always, nothing came of it and the settlements expanded.
You speak of Israelis you know and of Palestinians you know and how you cannot come down on one side or the other, yet you mention in your opening the inability of most Palestinians to visit the mosque you visited easily. That gives great power to your account of the man enraptured to be in a place so revered by him. Though the mosque has no religious significance to Jews (or Christians), Israel has total control of the site and is the party determining who will and who will not go there, in fact, who will and will not go anywhere in the West Bank and who will and will not be able to go in or out of Gaza.
You appear to believe that the mass of Israelis and Palestinians are benign and that it is only a selection of each that engages in violence. But surely you know that humiliation of Palestinians by Israelis has been a daily occurrence for decades, be it the IDF entering Palestinian homes at 3AM to take a "census" of the occupants, or settlers beating Palestinian farmers and setting fire to their olive orchards in the West Bank, or the "Independence Day" annual march by Israeli Jews through Palestinian East Jerusalem, fully accompanied by Israeli police ready to pounce on any Palestinian who might not appreciate the march.
You mention violence being ineffective, yet violence won Zionists the initial State of Israel. Violence by Israeli settlers is routine and the settlements expand. Violence won Israel the occupied territory of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Right now violence is clearing out Gaza. The Israeli human rights NGO, B'Tselem (bet-SELL-um) stopped reporting violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank by Israelis because the process was always the same - report submitted - an investigation opened - investigation clears perpetrators or is dropped entirely. In other words, the process was pointless.
What I am saying to you Murtaza is something I am sure you must know. Life has been hellish for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and filled with violence at the hands of Israelis, all of whom may carry arms (Palestinians may not) and with the only "justice" in the West Bank coming from Israeli military courts with a 98% conviction rate.
How have Israelis been living all the while? As most Americans do...decent homes, full civil rights, travel anywhere at any time in or out of the country, start up companies if they wish (it is "start-up nation") and here is the ultimate: if one is a Jew and an American, one can enjoy dual citizenship, having full rights in both the US and Israel plus, if wished, one can move to Palestinian land and make it one's own (Israel provides a financial incentive) retaining all the rights of an Israeli...of course there will be Palestinians nearby with no rights at all, but they are under tight control and the developed settlements are gated communities. Enjoy!
Not at all a balance.
Here is what convinced me that Palestinians might have a case for violence. In a poll held in Israel within the last two years, Israelis were asked about the future. What did they see as optimal? The answer was overwhelming, continue on in the same way. Why not? A lid was on the Palestinians, settlements were expanding, life was quite decent. What might a poll of Palestinians have revealed about an indefinite continuation of the status quo, particularly in the prison of Gaza?
In the 19th century in America, it was not Zionism, but Manifest Destiny that was taking the land from the natives. One of these "Indians" by the name of Red Cloud said, "They (the white man) made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it".
The "two state solution" was never a meaningful thing, never more than an empty phrase for politicians in DC to mouth. Netanyahu has now proudly stated that he alone has kept two states from coming to pass, but anyone who looks at a map of the West Bank can see that it is so filled with Israeli settlements, military zones, etc. that there is no contiguous Palestinian area for a state and this was in fact a goal of the settlements, to make two states impossible. Done!
Those 19th century American Indians had a choice. Remain peaceful and watch the land get taken, or turn to violence, make a stand, hopeless though it might be, but die fighting for the beloved land. Americans now look upon the Indians who fought as heroic. Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Cochise and many other turned to violence and now the very people who took their land look back in remorse at the relentless ethnic cleansing that swept a civilization away. And remember, Indian attacks on white settlers were vicious. They scalped, they burned people alive, they disemboweled and were called animals, savages, barbarians, snakes. Sound familiar? They were the HAMAS of their time.
But HAMAS is different in that the Palestinians are not a tiny group of people. Though Israel is now actively exterminating Palestinians in Gaza, this is not 1870. The Palestinians were, before Oct. 7, regularly suffering and dying and Israelis were saying, as I just noted above, no problem with that, keep it up. According to UN statistics, since the lawn mowing in Gaza began in 2008-9, the ratio of Israeli deaths to Palestinian deaths has been 1:20 and the world was ignoring it. Operation Cast Lead and Operation Protective Edge each killed Palestinians in a number similar to the Israelis who died on Oct 7. Did anyone notice? Now, after Oct. 7, that ratio of 1:20 is being approached and will likely be exceeded. At last the job of 1948 can be completed. A very recent poll of Jewish Israelis (80% of Israelis) indicates they don't think the IDF is doing enough in Gaza.
It just might have occurred to HAMAS that since death and suffering were to be the future, why not launch the Oct. 7 attack? Some Israelis would die and the resulting slaughter, a spasm of destruction, would open the eyes of the world to what Israel is about, what it has always been about from the early days of Zionism, to clear the land of the natives and take it for the exclusive use of Jews, a token 20% Arab Israeli population tolerated, but only just. For all the hell the American Indians took, what remains of that people are full American citizens. Israel wants no Palestinians as Israeli citizens and no Palestinians on the land. Everyone out.
To this extent, HAMAS has been successful. The world is appalled, the mask has been ripped from the face of Israel so that no hasbara can hope to cover the carnage. The most obtuse American is now aware of the slaughter. American Jews are rising up against Zionism in multitudes of the young who are closing highways and bridges, making a fuss that won't stop. Even mainstream media anchors cannot hold their revulsion when hearing nonsense coming from Israeli spokespeople about so much effort being made to avoid civilian casualties. Now Israel is on the spot as are US politicians who once had no firmer ground to stand on than support of Israel but are now sounding maniacal (Nikki Haley: FINISH THEM!)
I have not been reading an Israeli newspaper for decades, I have not been reading every book I can find on Israel/Palestine, I have not been attending Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) meetings for nothing.
I never thought I would be ashamed to be an American, but I am right now as my President does all he can to supply the genocide with all it needs, the zenith of the support in money, weapons and diplomatic cover the US has provided to Israel, essentially turning it into a superpower and by doing so inviting it to become the monster we now see in operation, eagerly destroying a people that it sees as less than human.
Liberty and Justice for All - NOT ethnic cleansing and apartheid. The blind are now beginning to see. The entire world is in opposition to a community of two, the US and Israel. The tail wags the dog with ease as Netanyahu is given all the time he needs to kill without limit, but it now is all in the open for all to see. No longer will Israel be able to (shamefully) use the millions who died in the holocaust as a protective shield to cover its own wholesale destruction of a people no less human than any Israeli.
I think your sentiments particularly in the wake of Israel's self-defeating slaughter in Gaza are probably common among Americans now. But if it ends with Israel being a pariah but controlling the entire territory they will probably take that trade.
I think you are right, Murtaza. Zionism is in the bone and inculcated in the Israeli educational system. The big question is how much will America stick with Israel now that the cat is out of the bag for all to see. Israel as a topic will not retreat into the shadows. It drew great strength in the past from the indifference of the American public while AIPAC worked its lobbying magic on Congress.
I don't believe any other major military power would step in if the US started putting the brakes on weapons/ammo to Israel. No longer will support be automatic. Biden will be harmed in the coming election by his standing by Israel regardless of what it has done in Gaza. The status of the US has been greatly damaged.
I have a friend in Israel who is 80, full of the insight one would expect at that age, a harsh critic of the move to the right there and the settlement project. She responds to my questioning her remaining there (she has dual citizenship) by saying that she remains because there are still some, though few, that share her views and she can't abandon ship. That is admirable, but it hard to see any change in direction. A bunker mentality will result from Oct 7, hearts already hardened to the Palestinians will now turn to stone and the US must take care not to go to the wall with that hardening, though it is difficult to see how much lower it can go from the present disaster.
I read the text of Red Cloud's message given after the slaughter at Wounded Knee (1890) in which women and children were killed without hesitation by the US Cavalry. A paragraph that resonates with Gaza even before Oct 7 follows...
"You who eat three times a day and see your children happy around you cannot understand what a starving Indian feels! We were faint with hunger and maddened by despair. We held our dying children and felt their little bodies tremble and their soul went out and left only a dead weight in our hands...There was no hope on earth. God seemed to have forgotten".
"For all the hell the American Indians took, what remains of that people are full American citizens." - they had to stop the scalpings for that to happen though. If the Comanche and Apache were still determined to scalp every Paleface they got their hands on, their reservations would have long since been turned into open-air prisons.
Of all the many bad decisions the Palestinian leadership has made over the years (and it's a LONG list), walking out of the Camp David peace talks and launching the 2nd Intifada was probably the dumbest. Israelis prefer the 2008-2022 status quo because from their perspective, they've tried peace negotiations but the Palestinians refused to engage with any peace process, so the best Israel can hope for is "keeping a lid" on the Palestinian militants and "mowing the grass" as needed.
Miles, you are not accurate in writing that the Palestinians "refused to engage with any peace process". Norman Finkelstein relates the truth of the matter in an interview he gave to Krystal Ball where he decisively refutes a comment by Bill Maher making essentially the same false statement you have made. The following link will put you right on the spot where Finkelstein begins to address the issue. The interview is an hour and a half long and I'd recommend everyone listen to the entire thing. The in point is 9:30 if this link fails to put you there.
I'm talking specifically about the early 2000s, when the Palestinians walked out of the Camp David peace talks, launched the Second Intifada, and elected Hamas in Gaza, all in the span of a few years. Those choices on the Palestinian side convinced a generation of Israelis that peace talks were a waste of time.
Hence polling data saying many Israelis prefer the 2008-2020 status quo over making any attempts at a more permanent resolution. They see no reason why any future peace talks would be any more productive than Camp David.
So yes, I am accurate in writing that the LAST time Israel attempted peace talks, the Palestinians refused to engage (the Palestinians boycotted Camp David and launched an intifada instead).
Miles, you prevaricate. I am certain you did not listen to the Finkelstein interview because 1) you have not had the time to do so since I posted the link and 2) he goes on to deal with the intifadas. Please hear the facts he relates and then comment on them.
If you have to post a link to an hourlong youtube video to argue your point, then you don't have a point.
The Palestinians chose to walk out of Camp David to launch the 2nd intifada, and they're still paying for that mistake 23 years later, because all they accomplished was persuading Israelis of the futility of peace talks.
Governments act blindly. We need to put people first . Money really is the root of all evil and power corrupts! Some sayings apply to everything. Praying for Peace!
"The wholesale destruction of Gaza City...bears little difference to Russian actions in places like Aleppo and Mariupol."
So basically Israel is not doing anything different from what Assad or Russians or Americans have done. And since Hamas are even more inhumane than the three above, its very likely they would have destroyed Tel Aviv in much the same manner.
So why has Israel been demonized so much all over the world by muslims and liberals while many among them are divided about Assad and Russians?
I keep hearing this claim that Muslims were divided about Assad where in reality tens of thousands of people went to die trying to overthrow him or otherwise organize refugee aid convoys at risk of life. Meanwhile in context of Israel all that is happening are mean tweets and people protesting in front of Zara.
I don't recall the Houthis giving a shit about Assad, or what Putin did to Chechnya/Dagestan, or what's happening to Muslims in Xinjiang. No Syrian/Russian/Chinese embassies were ever targeted the way Israeli embassies have been, like recently in India.
Not sure how much familiarity you have with the Middle East, but the Houthis are an Iranian proxy so would probably be on the side of Assad in his conflict. Likewise, the government of Chechnya and Dagestan is under Russian control and part of the anti-Israel bloc.
But that's my point; the Houthis aren't attackings ships in the Red Sea because their fellow Muslims are suffering in Gaza; they're doing it because they're part of a loose coalition of Iran affiliates that also includes Hamas. Because of how the factional lines are drawn, Muslims suffering at the hands of Assad doesn't exactly tug at the heartstrings of the Houthis.
"Muslim suffering" doesn't really explain unanimous ummah antipathy towards Israel, because Muslim suffering never really led to an equivalent level of unanimous antipathy towards Assad, or Putin (for brutally repressing Chechen/Dagestani independence movements), or Xi (for throwing the Uighurs into concentration camps).
Kurds are another example of Muslims suffering on par with what Palestinians have gone through, which the Islamic world has by and large shrugged off. Nobody is protesting outside Zara to free Kurdistan (or Dagestan or Chechnya or Xinjiang). So yes, the Islamic world does tend to be divided and/or indifferent to Muslim suffering except for when Israel is involved.
That doesn't seem to be true because many other people did actually do a lot when the conflict in Syria took place. In fact, Syria was kicked out of the Arab League for over a decade. It seems like Israel just does not want to be subject to similar criticism from any quarter when it acts similarly. And of course there are divisions among Muslims this a broad category of 1.7bn people they do not all agree about everything.
Not sure why you're talking about the Syrian civil war in the past tense; it's still ongoing today. Can't imagine Israel will be welcome in the Arab League anytime soon the way Assad was welcomed back.
Riddle me this: if over 70 percent of Gazans support Hamas, why don't we describe the US protest as pro-Hamas? That is more accurate than pro-Palestinian?
I am still thinking about this piece. More than anything else I’ve read it has at the very least led me to pause and consider the motivations of the other side with some more empathy. While I remain steadfastly sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians and the suffering they have endured, I can at least see the merits in more empathy and also as you say considering how the way one wages struggle might determine the world you will move towards.
If they attacked military targets those targets would have fought back.
If they attack civilians, they can't.
It's really that simple.
The Palestinians can't win militarily. They have therefore decided on a terror campaign strategy, aping de-colonization movements that were able to terrorize Europeans into leaving for the metropol.
However, the Jews have nowhere to go. I suppose in some grand sense they could abandon Israel and become a minority in some western country, but it's not quite the same as some French person moving back to France. And besides, I think Israel is a valuable society worth fighting for.
The best solution would be to just push the Palestinians into Egypt or Jordan. If Egypt and Jordan won't take them I guess they die where they stand. This is going to end with one people from the river to the sea. Rip the band aid off and get it over with.
Who's going to stop them? The Arabs gained up on Israel plenty and lost every time. Israel is even more powerful now.
They did attack military targets though, they just chimped out afterwards and attacked the villages and concert beyond the border. I agree with you they view it as akin to the FLN’s war in Algeria but the comparison doesn’t work since most Israelis consider themselves native to the land and not citizens of elsewhere. If Israel is going to enact a final solution to the conflict as you describe the time to do it is during the current conflict while U.S. support is still high and there is still general fluidity in the situation. I am skeptical they have the political capital required however.
I don't think Israel will implement the final solution in the Gaza Strip, but I think they should. They will likely kill a bunch of people but leave most people still there, and it will all go on again one day. I think such an outcome is inevitable, and to solve it now is a mercy.
If the Arab world wants to prevent a genocide they could easily relocated the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but I don't think the Arab world gives a shit about them outside of something they can use. I get that Palestinians have caused trouble everywhere they have gone, but if you really gave a damn about the people rather then their land claim you could distribute them across the Muslim world in a way people could handle. I don't think there is much Arab solidarity though, just solidarity in hating Jews.
In general I think the problem is that Arabs can't build states. All the Arab states are shit tier and all they really do is pump oil out of the grand and pay the west to do things for them. The Palestinians don't have any oil, so any state they are going to have is going to be a failure. They will blame Jews for that failure.
I think this is based on false perception common among Zionists that Arabs and/or Muslims are essentially fungible so placing one in another place makes no difference. In reality people tend to feel very rooted to particular localities, most of which have cultural and linguistic distinctions (this is particularly the case with Arabic which is as difference as the Romance languages now in practice vis a vis their former unity in Latin). It is true there are many internal challenges in Arab countries but they also did not have a history of statehood since they were ruled as part of foreign empires since the end of the Abbasid period. The Middle East, including Israel, should be provinces of a larger empire.
I don't think they are "fungible". I entirely get that there is little love between Palestinians and their Arab neighbors. That is part of why the fact that they care a lot about the Palestinians when it lines up with hating Jews and not much when it lines up with sacrificing their own interests makes it seem like its really just about the Jews and not the Palestinians. They are a political football to be used for some other objective.
As to empire throughout the Middle East I guess that's a nice alternate history. The Jews would have been better off settling somewhere else. However, the Jews are where they are. They won several wars against multi-arab state coalitions, so the area between the river and the sea is theirs by right of conquest. I see the long period after 1973 as a futile effort to ignore this basic fact and move on. The Jews aren't going anywhere. They can't really integrate that many Palestinians into their country as full citizens, and Palestinian attempts at state building generally fail. It's just going to be intafada after intifada until they are gone.
P.S. You could say the Israel is part of a larger empire (the US), but the relationship is a bit circular. America supports Israel more than Israel supports America. Jews are very powerful in the states and so gaining their allegiance is very important to American politicians for domestic reasons.
One could even say that some of the Arab states are our de facto client states as well.
Your post is a paradox. On one hand, you support a non-violent solution to the conflict. On the other hand, you are trying to put constraints on the side that is trying to curb the murderous and genocidal jihadist organization Hamas. In other words, it's actually a wink. True, on paper I talk about a non-violent solution, but in practice, I will do everything in my power to ensure that the violent jihadist forces survive and that their brilliant patent, to use the civilians of Gaza as human shields, will succeed beautifully.
The current iteration of Israel has proven itself too incompetent to destroy Hamas, either through political means (where it actually has been propping it up as a form of offshore balancing for three decades) or militarily where it has succeeded in killing huge numbers of civilians while failing to dismantle Hamas operational capacity. As a result I predict they may be forced to negotiate a solution with them in the end however little they want to do that. U.S. pressure will be helpful.
Beautiful peace Murtaza. I have followed you since your days of writing op Ed’s in Al Jazeera English while I was a teenager in Kuwait. Like you I was a hot headed youth estranged, but evolved due to the events of the past 15 years and having the privilege of meeting and interacting with the people on both sides. It seems after all slogans and myopias the only ones empowered are sad fantasists and chauvinists removed from the consequences of their rhetoric. There is no silver bullet. I can only think that we should have heed the words of Sultan Salahudeen
“Beware of shedding blood. For blood never sleeps.”
What an excellent comment I wish I could have included it in the text myself and I hope people read it. Knowing people from both sides and taking time to understand their perspective is a privilege you have clearly used well and I hope others do too.
And I should say Operation Cast Lead was my first serious introduction to the Israel Palestine conflict before I ever had a personal relationship with any Israeli or Palestinian. I agree this war will radicalize those first obtaining political awareness. It boggles my mind how she the desensitization has degraded us. That war killed 1400 Palestinians, most unseen, and most western media ran interference as stenographers of the IDF. Now 20,000 have died with their final moments broadcast on telegram and the attitude of indifference to undeniable atrocities (on both sides) have taken hold, showing how much our global order has changed. It is just tribal warfare and return t savagery with no pretence
Thank you so much for these thoughts. I am a Canadian Jew, on the If Not Now and JFREJ-ish “Jewish Left”, having been raised in Liberal Zionism but having had universalist and socialist principles overcome statist Zionism in my heart. I also have spent a good amount of time in Israel/Palestine, all over the land except for Gaza, and have so many Jewish and Palestinian friends there, so many of whom are grieving, shaken, and distraught. I dream of a long-term transformation for this land, a loving decolonization in which these two mirror peoples, whose fates are inextricably entangled, will build a truly shared society. That seems so so far now, farther than it ever has.
I honestly can’t tell you how important it is to hear someone from your position say what I have been struggling to understand why so many of those who support Palestinian national movements can’t or won’t say: the way that October 7 was conducted - the sheer brutality, the pre-meditated torture and rape - is not only a moral stain but a strategic disaster. I remember walking around like a zombie that day, and as more and more details emerged, not only was I and so many of my friends filled with immeasurable grief and anger, but absolute dread as to what this would unleash in Israel. Because we knew that day that tens of thousands of Gazans would die, were as good as dead already, and Israel would try, within the realistic political window that could maintain US support, to wipe Gaza off the map. It also made me so angry, because so many of us Jews on the left are dedicated to doing whatever we can to humanize Palestinians in the minds of our Zionist friends and families, to detail the psychological torture of the occupation, to show how Zionism created a magnificent Jewish Fortress for the cost of creating another oppressed wandering people in Exile. We try to show again and again how Israel nips non-violent means in the bud and only responds to violence, and needs to be forced by its “friends” to make concessions. But October 7 is the only justification our friends and family will ever need to justify denying Palestinians humanity and a human existence from now until the end of time. They will say “this is the true face of Palestinians. This is what they will do if they ever have even a modicum of power. The only answer is expulsion, death, or subjugation for them”. We now see where this strategy leads. It leads right back to October 7 and the Gaza massacre again and again.
So thank you again for doing what I have only really seen other Jews on the Left do: try to hold two thoughts in their head at the same time. And you do it very well.
Thank you Benjamin. I was thinking of my Jewish friends on that day who had done so much to help shift the perception of Palestinians.
Murtaza your opening is deeply moving, but with all due respect I believe you are wrong in attempting to make equivalent the situation of Israelis and Palestinians.
I knew absolutely nothing about the situation until about 25 years ago when I took an undergraduate course in US national security and another about the history of the Ottoman Empire. I began to wonder why, time after time, Israel was able to continue to take land and the Palestinians lose it, not only violating international law but with the full protection in the UN by the United States, veto after veto being used to stop any sanction of international law, the very law that the US has always claimed should be honored and in whose design the US was a full participant after WW2.
Being proud of the US claim to stand for liberty and justice for all, I could not believe the hypocrisy of mouthing mild criticisms of Israel, calling for a two state solution but in the end always going with what Israel wanted to do. A perfect example was when Joe Biden was VP under Obama. The US had recently told Israel that it did not want to see any further expansion of settlements. Biden was on a visit to Israel when that country announced the expansion of settlements. Biden was furious. But, as always, nothing came of it and the settlements expanded.
You speak of Israelis you know and of Palestinians you know and how you cannot come down on one side or the other, yet you mention in your opening the inability of most Palestinians to visit the mosque you visited easily. That gives great power to your account of the man enraptured to be in a place so revered by him. Though the mosque has no religious significance to Jews (or Christians), Israel has total control of the site and is the party determining who will and who will not go there, in fact, who will and will not go anywhere in the West Bank and who will and will not be able to go in or out of Gaza.
You appear to believe that the mass of Israelis and Palestinians are benign and that it is only a selection of each that engages in violence. But surely you know that humiliation of Palestinians by Israelis has been a daily occurrence for decades, be it the IDF entering Palestinian homes at 3AM to take a "census" of the occupants, or settlers beating Palestinian farmers and setting fire to their olive orchards in the West Bank, or the "Independence Day" annual march by Israeli Jews through Palestinian East Jerusalem, fully accompanied by Israeli police ready to pounce on any Palestinian who might not appreciate the march.
You mention violence being ineffective, yet violence won Zionists the initial State of Israel. Violence by Israeli settlers is routine and the settlements expand. Violence won Israel the occupied territory of the West Bank and Jerusalem. Right now violence is clearing out Gaza. The Israeli human rights NGO, B'Tselem (bet-SELL-um) stopped reporting violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank by Israelis because the process was always the same - report submitted - an investigation opened - investigation clears perpetrators or is dropped entirely. In other words, the process was pointless.
What I am saying to you Murtaza is something I am sure you must know. Life has been hellish for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and filled with violence at the hands of Israelis, all of whom may carry arms (Palestinians may not) and with the only "justice" in the West Bank coming from Israeli military courts with a 98% conviction rate.
How have Israelis been living all the while? As most Americans do...decent homes, full civil rights, travel anywhere at any time in or out of the country, start up companies if they wish (it is "start-up nation") and here is the ultimate: if one is a Jew and an American, one can enjoy dual citizenship, having full rights in both the US and Israel plus, if wished, one can move to Palestinian land and make it one's own (Israel provides a financial incentive) retaining all the rights of an Israeli...of course there will be Palestinians nearby with no rights at all, but they are under tight control and the developed settlements are gated communities. Enjoy!
Not at all a balance.
Here is what convinced me that Palestinians might have a case for violence. In a poll held in Israel within the last two years, Israelis were asked about the future. What did they see as optimal? The answer was overwhelming, continue on in the same way. Why not? A lid was on the Palestinians, settlements were expanding, life was quite decent. What might a poll of Palestinians have revealed about an indefinite continuation of the status quo, particularly in the prison of Gaza?
In the 19th century in America, it was not Zionism, but Manifest Destiny that was taking the land from the natives. One of these "Indians" by the name of Red Cloud said, "They (the white man) made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it".
The "two state solution" was never a meaningful thing, never more than an empty phrase for politicians in DC to mouth. Netanyahu has now proudly stated that he alone has kept two states from coming to pass, but anyone who looks at a map of the West Bank can see that it is so filled with Israeli settlements, military zones, etc. that there is no contiguous Palestinian area for a state and this was in fact a goal of the settlements, to make two states impossible. Done!
Those 19th century American Indians had a choice. Remain peaceful and watch the land get taken, or turn to violence, make a stand, hopeless though it might be, but die fighting for the beloved land. Americans now look upon the Indians who fought as heroic. Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Cochise and many other turned to violence and now the very people who took their land look back in remorse at the relentless ethnic cleansing that swept a civilization away. And remember, Indian attacks on white settlers were vicious. They scalped, they burned people alive, they disemboweled and were called animals, savages, barbarians, snakes. Sound familiar? They were the HAMAS of their time.
But HAMAS is different in that the Palestinians are not a tiny group of people. Though Israel is now actively exterminating Palestinians in Gaza, this is not 1870. The Palestinians were, before Oct. 7, regularly suffering and dying and Israelis were saying, as I just noted above, no problem with that, keep it up. According to UN statistics, since the lawn mowing in Gaza began in 2008-9, the ratio of Israeli deaths to Palestinian deaths has been 1:20 and the world was ignoring it. Operation Cast Lead and Operation Protective Edge each killed Palestinians in a number similar to the Israelis who died on Oct 7. Did anyone notice? Now, after Oct. 7, that ratio of 1:20 is being approached and will likely be exceeded. At last the job of 1948 can be completed. A very recent poll of Jewish Israelis (80% of Israelis) indicates they don't think the IDF is doing enough in Gaza.
It just might have occurred to HAMAS that since death and suffering were to be the future, why not launch the Oct. 7 attack? Some Israelis would die and the resulting slaughter, a spasm of destruction, would open the eyes of the world to what Israel is about, what it has always been about from the early days of Zionism, to clear the land of the natives and take it for the exclusive use of Jews, a token 20% Arab Israeli population tolerated, but only just. For all the hell the American Indians took, what remains of that people are full American citizens. Israel wants no Palestinians as Israeli citizens and no Palestinians on the land. Everyone out.
To this extent, HAMAS has been successful. The world is appalled, the mask has been ripped from the face of Israel so that no hasbara can hope to cover the carnage. The most obtuse American is now aware of the slaughter. American Jews are rising up against Zionism in multitudes of the young who are closing highways and bridges, making a fuss that won't stop. Even mainstream media anchors cannot hold their revulsion when hearing nonsense coming from Israeli spokespeople about so much effort being made to avoid civilian casualties. Now Israel is on the spot as are US politicians who once had no firmer ground to stand on than support of Israel but are now sounding maniacal (Nikki Haley: FINISH THEM!)
I have not been reading an Israeli newspaper for decades, I have not been reading every book I can find on Israel/Palestine, I have not been attending Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) meetings for nothing.
I never thought I would be ashamed to be an American, but I am right now as my President does all he can to supply the genocide with all it needs, the zenith of the support in money, weapons and diplomatic cover the US has provided to Israel, essentially turning it into a superpower and by doing so inviting it to become the monster we now see in operation, eagerly destroying a people that it sees as less than human.
Liberty and Justice for All - NOT ethnic cleansing and apartheid. The blind are now beginning to see. The entire world is in opposition to a community of two, the US and Israel. The tail wags the dog with ease as Netanyahu is given all the time he needs to kill without limit, but it now is all in the open for all to see. No longer will Israel be able to (shamefully) use the millions who died in the holocaust as a protective shield to cover its own wholesale destruction of a people no less human than any Israeli.
Please people, Americans in particular, wake up.
I think your sentiments particularly in the wake of Israel's self-defeating slaughter in Gaza are probably common among Americans now. But if it ends with Israel being a pariah but controlling the entire territory they will probably take that trade.
I think you are right, Murtaza. Zionism is in the bone and inculcated in the Israeli educational system. The big question is how much will America stick with Israel now that the cat is out of the bag for all to see. Israel as a topic will not retreat into the shadows. It drew great strength in the past from the indifference of the American public while AIPAC worked its lobbying magic on Congress.
I don't believe any other major military power would step in if the US started putting the brakes on weapons/ammo to Israel. No longer will support be automatic. Biden will be harmed in the coming election by his standing by Israel regardless of what it has done in Gaza. The status of the US has been greatly damaged.
I have a friend in Israel who is 80, full of the insight one would expect at that age, a harsh critic of the move to the right there and the settlement project. She responds to my questioning her remaining there (she has dual citizenship) by saying that she remains because there are still some, though few, that share her views and she can't abandon ship. That is admirable, but it hard to see any change in direction. A bunker mentality will result from Oct 7, hearts already hardened to the Palestinians will now turn to stone and the US must take care not to go to the wall with that hardening, though it is difficult to see how much lower it can go from the present disaster.
I read the text of Red Cloud's message given after the slaughter at Wounded Knee (1890) in which women and children were killed without hesitation by the US Cavalry. A paragraph that resonates with Gaza even before Oct 7 follows...
"You who eat three times a day and see your children happy around you cannot understand what a starving Indian feels! We were faint with hunger and maddened by despair. We held our dying children and felt their little bodies tremble and their soul went out and left only a dead weight in our hands...There was no hope on earth. God seemed to have forgotten".
"For all the hell the American Indians took, what remains of that people are full American citizens." - they had to stop the scalpings for that to happen though. If the Comanche and Apache were still determined to scalp every Paleface they got their hands on, their reservations would have long since been turned into open-air prisons.
Of all the many bad decisions the Palestinian leadership has made over the years (and it's a LONG list), walking out of the Camp David peace talks and launching the 2nd Intifada was probably the dumbest. Israelis prefer the 2008-2022 status quo because from their perspective, they've tried peace negotiations but the Palestinians refused to engage with any peace process, so the best Israel can hope for is "keeping a lid" on the Palestinian militants and "mowing the grass" as needed.
Miles, you are not accurate in writing that the Palestinians "refused to engage with any peace process". Norman Finkelstein relates the truth of the matter in an interview he gave to Krystal Ball where he decisively refutes a comment by Bill Maher making essentially the same false statement you have made. The following link will put you right on the spot where Finkelstein begins to address the issue. The interview is an hour and a half long and I'd recommend everyone listen to the entire thing. The in point is 9:30 if this link fails to put you there.
https://youtu.be/7tI595leq4U?si=gRKkC7WJwWcyjhaV&t=556
I'm talking specifically about the early 2000s, when the Palestinians walked out of the Camp David peace talks, launched the Second Intifada, and elected Hamas in Gaza, all in the span of a few years. Those choices on the Palestinian side convinced a generation of Israelis that peace talks were a waste of time.
Hence polling data saying many Israelis prefer the 2008-2020 status quo over making any attempts at a more permanent resolution. They see no reason why any future peace talks would be any more productive than Camp David.
So yes, I am accurate in writing that the LAST time Israel attempted peace talks, the Palestinians refused to engage (the Palestinians boycotted Camp David and launched an intifada instead).
Miles, you prevaricate. I am certain you did not listen to the Finkelstein interview because 1) you have not had the time to do so since I posted the link and 2) he goes on to deal with the intifadas. Please hear the facts he relates and then comment on them.
If you have to post a link to an hourlong youtube video to argue your point, then you don't have a point.
The Palestinians chose to walk out of Camp David to launch the 2nd intifada, and they're still paying for that mistake 23 years later, because all they accomplished was persuading Israelis of the futility of peace talks.
I don't particularly need to post this link, because I can argue my own point independently, but feel free to give this a read. https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel-zionism/2023/11/ecstasy-and-amnesia-in-the-gaza-strip/
Characteristically thoughtful, measured, and well-reasoned, Murtaza.
Thank you for writing this, which has put so succinctly much of what I have felt but could not find the words to say.
Great article!
Beautifully put. Your thoughts encompass mine. Wish I could write this clearly and eloquently.
Governments act blindly. We need to put people first . Money really is the root of all evil and power corrupts! Some sayings apply to everything. Praying for Peace!
I had been hoping you'd share your thoughts, Murtaza.
Thank you.
Your word picture of the man in the mosque was beautiful.
I have been mystified by the conflicts between these ancient peoples, Jews and Palestinians, since the 1967 war.
Since then, layer upon layer of new grievance has been added to the pile.
There are so many generations who have since grown up with hatred in their hearts.
I grieve for the world and see little hope for the near-term in Palestine.
"The wholesale destruction of Gaza City...bears little difference to Russian actions in places like Aleppo and Mariupol."
So basically Israel is not doing anything different from what Assad or Russians or Americans have done. And since Hamas are even more inhumane than the three above, its very likely they would have destroyed Tel Aviv in much the same manner.
So why has Israel been demonized so much all over the world by muslims and liberals while many among them are divided about Assad and Russians?
I keep hearing this claim that Muslims were divided about Assad where in reality tens of thousands of people went to die trying to overthrow him or otherwise organize refugee aid convoys at risk of life. Meanwhile in context of Israel all that is happening are mean tweets and people protesting in front of Zara.
I don't recall the Houthis giving a shit about Assad, or what Putin did to Chechnya/Dagestan, or what's happening to Muslims in Xinjiang. No Syrian/Russian/Chinese embassies were ever targeted the way Israeli embassies have been, like recently in India.
Not sure how much familiarity you have with the Middle East, but the Houthis are an Iranian proxy so would probably be on the side of Assad in his conflict. Likewise, the government of Chechnya and Dagestan is under Russian control and part of the anti-Israel bloc.
But that's my point; the Houthis aren't attackings ships in the Red Sea because their fellow Muslims are suffering in Gaza; they're doing it because they're part of a loose coalition of Iran affiliates that also includes Hamas. Because of how the factional lines are drawn, Muslims suffering at the hands of Assad doesn't exactly tug at the heartstrings of the Houthis.
"Muslim suffering" doesn't really explain unanimous ummah antipathy towards Israel, because Muslim suffering never really led to an equivalent level of unanimous antipathy towards Assad, or Putin (for brutally repressing Chechen/Dagestani independence movements), or Xi (for throwing the Uighurs into concentration camps).
Kurds are another example of Muslims suffering on par with what Palestinians have gone through, which the Islamic world has by and large shrugged off. Nobody is protesting outside Zara to free Kurdistan (or Dagestan or Chechnya or Xinjiang). So yes, the Islamic world does tend to be divided and/or indifferent to Muslim suffering except for when Israel is involved.
That doesn't seem to be true because many other people did actually do a lot when the conflict in Syria took place. In fact, Syria was kicked out of the Arab League for over a decade. It seems like Israel just does not want to be subject to similar criticism from any quarter when it acts similarly. And of course there are divisions among Muslims this a broad category of 1.7bn people they do not all agree about everything.
Not sure why you're talking about the Syrian civil war in the past tense; it's still ongoing today. Can't imagine Israel will be welcome in the Arab League anytime soon the way Assad was welcomed back.
Wonderful piece. Balanced and thoughtful
Thank you Leonard
Riddle me this: if over 70 percent of Gazans support Hamas, why don't we describe the US protest as pro-Hamas? That is more accurate than pro-Palestinian?
https://shorturl.at/vJQ45
I am still thinking about this piece. More than anything else I’ve read it has at the very least led me to pause and consider the motivations of the other side with some more empathy. While I remain steadfastly sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians and the suffering they have endured, I can at least see the merits in more empathy and also as you say considering how the way one wages struggle might determine the world you will move towards.
dude, you’re just a crybaby zionist. Get over yourself
I’m a proud Zionist forever.
"As of this writing, upwards of 20,000 Palestinians" proof?
If they attacked military targets those targets would have fought back.
If they attack civilians, they can't.
It's really that simple.
The Palestinians can't win militarily. They have therefore decided on a terror campaign strategy, aping de-colonization movements that were able to terrorize Europeans into leaving for the metropol.
However, the Jews have nowhere to go. I suppose in some grand sense they could abandon Israel and become a minority in some western country, but it's not quite the same as some French person moving back to France. And besides, I think Israel is a valuable society worth fighting for.
The best solution would be to just push the Palestinians into Egypt or Jordan. If Egypt and Jordan won't take them I guess they die where they stand. This is going to end with one people from the river to the sea. Rip the band aid off and get it over with.
Who's going to stop them? The Arabs gained up on Israel plenty and lost every time. Israel is even more powerful now.
They did attack military targets though, they just chimped out afterwards and attacked the villages and concert beyond the border. I agree with you they view it as akin to the FLN’s war in Algeria but the comparison doesn’t work since most Israelis consider themselves native to the land and not citizens of elsewhere. If Israel is going to enact a final solution to the conflict as you describe the time to do it is during the current conflict while U.S. support is still high and there is still general fluidity in the situation. I am skeptical they have the political capital required however.
I don't think Israel will implement the final solution in the Gaza Strip, but I think they should. They will likely kill a bunch of people but leave most people still there, and it will all go on again one day. I think such an outcome is inevitable, and to solve it now is a mercy.
If the Arab world wants to prevent a genocide they could easily relocated the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but I don't think the Arab world gives a shit about them outside of something they can use. I get that Palestinians have caused trouble everywhere they have gone, but if you really gave a damn about the people rather then their land claim you could distribute them across the Muslim world in a way people could handle. I don't think there is much Arab solidarity though, just solidarity in hating Jews.
In general I think the problem is that Arabs can't build states. All the Arab states are shit tier and all they really do is pump oil out of the grand and pay the west to do things for them. The Palestinians don't have any oil, so any state they are going to have is going to be a failure. They will blame Jews for that failure.
I think this is based on false perception common among Zionists that Arabs and/or Muslims are essentially fungible so placing one in another place makes no difference. In reality people tend to feel very rooted to particular localities, most of which have cultural and linguistic distinctions (this is particularly the case with Arabic which is as difference as the Romance languages now in practice vis a vis their former unity in Latin). It is true there are many internal challenges in Arab countries but they also did not have a history of statehood since they were ruled as part of foreign empires since the end of the Abbasid period. The Middle East, including Israel, should be provinces of a larger empire.
I don't think they are "fungible". I entirely get that there is little love between Palestinians and their Arab neighbors. That is part of why the fact that they care a lot about the Palestinians when it lines up with hating Jews and not much when it lines up with sacrificing their own interests makes it seem like its really just about the Jews and not the Palestinians. They are a political football to be used for some other objective.
As to empire throughout the Middle East I guess that's a nice alternate history. The Jews would have been better off settling somewhere else. However, the Jews are where they are. They won several wars against multi-arab state coalitions, so the area between the river and the sea is theirs by right of conquest. I see the long period after 1973 as a futile effort to ignore this basic fact and move on. The Jews aren't going anywhere. They can't really integrate that many Palestinians into their country as full citizens, and Palestinian attempts at state building generally fail. It's just going to be intafada after intifada until they are gone.
P.S. You could say the Israel is part of a larger empire (the US), but the relationship is a bit circular. America supports Israel more than Israel supports America. Jews are very powerful in the states and so gaining their allegiance is very important to American politicians for domestic reasons.
One could even say that some of the Arab states are our de facto client states as well.
Your post is a paradox. On one hand, you support a non-violent solution to the conflict. On the other hand, you are trying to put constraints on the side that is trying to curb the murderous and genocidal jihadist organization Hamas. In other words, it's actually a wink. True, on paper I talk about a non-violent solution, but in practice, I will do everything in my power to ensure that the violent jihadist forces survive and that their brilliant patent, to use the civilians of Gaza as human shields, will succeed beautifully.
The current iteration of Israel has proven itself too incompetent to destroy Hamas, either through political means (where it actually has been propping it up as a form of offshore balancing for three decades) or militarily where it has succeeded in killing huge numbers of civilians while failing to dismantle Hamas operational capacity. As a result I predict they may be forced to negotiate a solution with them in the end however little they want to do that. U.S. pressure will be helpful.