The Inconvenient Truth of Palestine

I debated whether to even participate in this discussion, given the current climate. I know in the past I have been particularly engaged on this topic but I realize this ends up in a pissing contest that goes nowhere (especially with posters I have come to like and agree with on many other things, such as duchen and many others, etc.), I’m just going to write this up to give representation to those who are not represented. It's long, and my apologies for that.

A little background. While I was born and raised in the US, my ancestry is Palestinian. My ancestors lived in Palestine for centuries and prior to their eviction in 1948, came from a village called Saris, now known as Shoresh. (If interested, there is a documentary called Searching for Saris that talks about the area)

In 1948, as with many villages in the area, the threat of Zionist militia’s brought fear among the indigenous Palestinian population, most of whom were unarmed due to the British and therefore could not defend themselves. Zionist militia’s such as the Haganah, massacred civilians at villages like Balad al-Sheikh and Deir Yassin among others, causing civilians like those in Saris, to flee in fear. My grandfather was a teenager at the time, but one of his uncles was killed while my great-grandfather lost his eye from being beaten by Zionist soldiers.

As with other villages, they fled and ended up in a refugee camp near Ramallah. My mother was born here and this is also where my grandfather was trained to become a woodworker due to the UN Refugee Vocational Program. As with all Palestinians, our family longed to return to our ancestral homeland.

Flash forward to the horrific events of this past weekend. The world awoke to the tragedy that unfolded, and continues to unfold. You have all seen the images and videos. You have also seen almost every news outlet portraying all Palestinians as terrorists, inciters who attacked a defenseless Israel. Since then, every article, image, and headline focused entirely on the tragedy within Israel. Every government appeared to unite in support of Israel. Every celebrity, influencer, liberal or conservative unified in this stance. Heck, even our congressional representatives, who can never unify on anything for the sake of American citizens were unified in their condemnation.

The response was unanimously in favor and support of Israel. All Palestinians were labeled as terrorists, animals and sub-humans that needed to be extinguished. Cancel culture was in full bloom, anyone who spoke in support of Palestinian civilians was labeled a terrorist sympathizer. Anyone who gave anything but 100% unconditional support to the Israelis was labeled a bigot, an antisemitic, and were vilified in every forum.

As a result, Israel was given the green light to do as they feel was necessary to enforce justice and enact revenge on their defenseless country. The US immediately sent whatever arms that were at their disposal. These bombs and missiles were then used to raze entire blocks of Gaza, killing thousand plus civilians, of which the majority were women and children. Save for a few, the world continues to turn a blind eye.

The propaganda machine also took shape. Every media outlet shared the voice of the Israelis, not even bothering to give the Palestinians, one voice or any representation. The first 48 hours, not one Palestinians voice was given on CNN, a supposedly leftist outlet. Our President, Biden, even added fuel to the fire by saying he witnessed dead Israeli babies that were beheaded in a press conference. Later, it was found out to be a lie. He also said women were being raped, yet no evidence to this point of any of that happening (either by Israeli authorities or HR groups). Funny how propaganda works. We also said Iraq had wmd’s, Kuwait said Iraqi’s were throwing babies out of incubators on the floor, all founds to be untrue. Note: Count how many times our officials, from the President to Senators/Reps stumbled over themselves to show their solidarity with Israel while completely ignoring any civilian deaths in Palestine.

The combination of images, videos, and sensationalized media pieces in conjunction with every pseudo celeb and government official depicted Palestinians as heinous monsters and Israelis as victims. CNN, BBC, Skynews, etc., only brought in a Palestinian expert to ask one question: ‘Do you condemn what Hamas is doing?’ Why would you ask that question? As if all Palestinians would support that, or if all Palestinians are Hamas, or if all Palestinians should bear the load of extremists.

Yet, this same world also turned a blind eye to the atrocities, bigotry, and human rights violations that continue to affect Palestinians leading up to last week’s events. Just this year, more than 250 Palestinians, including more than 50 children, were murdered by Israel in the West Bank. The world sat quiet. These don’t go reported by mainstream media. As it has been for every year for the past 56 years, the world couldn’t bother to even recognize their pain. The media never bothered to consider the plight of the Palestinians. As a side note, unlike the rest of the western world’s media outlets, Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, was one of the few who had the integrity and honesty to identify the true culprit of these events:

The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.

Every year, hundreds of Palestinians are murdered by the IDF and/or settlers. The world turned a blind eye. Every year, thousands are wrongfully imprisoned under their administration law. The world turned a blind eye. Every year, Israel continues to build settlements on occupied land, forcefully removing Palestinians from their homes. The world turns a blind eye. Journalists and first aid providers are routinely shot at. 52 journalists have been killed, some of whom have been American. The world turns a blind eye. This the height of dehumanization.

The way the media and our government officials portray it, if the Haitian revolution occurred today, France would be deemed the victim and the Haitians the oppressors.

Gaza​

Palestinians in Gaza live in an open-air prison. Due to blockades, they have little access to water, food, and electricity. The children in Gaza are severely malnourished as a result. The situation is dire and has been for decades, but the world sat quiet. No news covered their plight. No media outlet dared give them a voice. No media outlet dared to humanize these people, of which 50% of the population are children. Israel routinely bombs Gaza, murdering entire families and the world never hears about it.

Gaza is a literal camp created by Israel to put all the leftover Palestinians in after they ethnically-cleansed the region. Many of the inhabitants in Gaza are not even from there. This man-made camp is completely controlled by Israel, as you can see from the blockade on food, water, and electricity. It is a camp inside a country, it is not a neighboring country. It is a literal ghetto created for Palestinians by Israel.

So with that in mind, how do you think the conditions are inside a camp of two million people that is only three miles wide? As we recently celebrated Indigenous day this week, the irony isn’t lost on me that just like Native Americans in this country, we placed the indigenous Palestinians in their form of a reservation.

Hamas​

Hamas was assisted in its formation by Israel as a counterweight to the leftist secular Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Fatah Party. Brig. General Yitzhak Segev told a NY Times report that he was given a budget by the Israeli government to form this counterweight, a type of divide-and-rule of the Occupied Territories.

Flash forward to 2006, they were democratically elected to represent Gaza, effectively pushing out the former dominant party, Fatah. Hamas was elected primarily because of the continued Israeli occupation of the west bank, the perceived weakness of both Fatah and PLO in providing a strong voice, and the corruption within the PLO.

The question that comes up often is that the civilians in Gaza voted for Hamas and therefore deserves punishment as a result of Hamas’s actions. By that same token, the same question should also be asked of Israelis, who continue to reelect Netanyahu, who is known for his corruption and extremism, even among Israelis.

Hamas, while extremely conservative and radical, and unlike the other parties, also did not recognize Israel, were seen as an alternative voice because of the unmet socioeconomic needs of the population. They filled the void that western (and Israeli) endorsed PLO and Fatah could not, providing food, Jobs, financial security, and healthcare. However, the cost of this democratic vote led to an immediate blockade of Gaza, both from Egypt from the southwest, and Israel from the remaining areas. The local population was effectively shut off from the world exacerbating the tension and extremism that followed.

The attacks that occurred this past Saturday, while tragic, is a direct result of the continuation of the longest occupation in modern history. Fifty-six years of occupation has turned this area into the worst form of apartheid, which the late Nelson Mandela had noted. The upheaval from continuous settler attacks on Palestinians in West Bank, eviction of more than twenty Palestinian communities within the past year, attacks on both Muslim Palestinian and Christian Palestinian holy sites, including daily attacks on worshippers at Aqsa during Ramadan, provocation by soldiers at these holy sites, as well a recent declaration by Netanyahu and key administrative officials of liquidating Palestinian rights.

Just recently, Netanyahu dared to go before the United Nation and carried a map of Israel, which in this depiction included the whole of the West Bank, all of Gaza, all of Jerusalem, as well as the Golan Heights. He declared the annexation of the entirety of the occupied territories as an extreme provocation. His finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a self-described ‘fascist homophobe’ who is also a settler, earlier this year even increased the rhetoric by advocating for the erasure of a Palestinian village Hawara by Israel. He also said the Palestinians have one of three options: either to emigrate, accept a life of subjugation to Israelis, or die.

In the West Bank, Palestinians are paralyzed by more than 560 military checkpoints for the past thirty years and is divided into 224 smaller ghettos. Each ghetto is further separated by settlements where extremist settlers continually violently harass and attack Palestinian civilians, even encouraged to do so. If you ever find yourself in the area, go to Hebron, you will find huge nets and grates above all the shops. Tourists wonder why they are there. They are there to protect civilians and shopkeepers from settlers on the upper floors from throwing trash, feces, and other disgusting items on them.

There are more than 5300 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, of which 1260 are in jail without knowing why under the so-called administrative detention law. This law allows them to indefinitely detain without explanation. Children are routinely kidnapped by the Israeli army and placed in jail for months, even years.

Palestinians have lived their entire life under occupation. The world blames Palestinians for Hamas. Hamas wasn’t there before the 1980’s and yet, the PLO was also called a terrorist organization. Any Palestinian who has struggled for his rights, his human rights, his dignity has been described by the world as a terrorist. Do we not have the right to struggle for freedom? Do we not have the right to have normalcy in our lives, without fear of being killed, imprisoned, or tortured?

If we struggle in a military way, we’re called terrorist. If we struggle in a non-violent way, we’re still called terrorists and the world approves of protestors being shot at. If we resist with words we are called provocateurs. If you support Palestinian human rights as a foreigner, you are called an antisemite or a terrorist sympathizer. And if you are a Jewish person who supports Palestinians, of which there are quite a few, you are called a self-hating Jew.

The Palestinians live every day with a boot on their neck. Every day they wake up to Israeli violence in their communities. This past weekend the world only saw the horrors from one side, not understanding what the Palestinians deal with daily. Just today, eleven United Nation employees were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.

Gaza is now out of fuel. Whatever is left of their hospital system is about to collapse. 1500 plus dead to date, hundreds being children, no treatment or aid for the wounded, and being shut off from the world in all directions. Limbs of children are found in different places due to the blasts. If you saw the videos/images I have seen that are not shown on mainstream media, your heart will be crushed. No electricity, no internet, and therefore, no one to report on the tragedy. Eventually the water will dry up and already 338k civilians have been displaced. The world continues to cheer this destruction. War crimes be damned. Collective punishment, use of white phosphorous, none of those clear human rights violations matter to the world now, they want their blood.

Palestinian casualties are always footnotes. The daily humiliation of occupation ignored. The aggression by settlers and soldiers alike on holy sites. The annihilation of entire families that follows. The devastation of whatever remains in the open air prison called Gaza. It is unsustainable and inhumane.

For the sudden interest in the region by celebrities and your average person who couldn’t find any of those countries on a map now speaking as regional experts, I request that you dig a bit deeper than the past week or so and try to read beyond the headlines of the media that has been dehumanizing us for decades. I always wondered how the world rationalizes the endless amount of financial and military support for Ukraine fighting what they call an occupation while here they are supporting the occupier who continues to occupy us. The difference in power dynamics is not even remotely on the same level, but Goliath has the entirety of the world in support.

What would the world like the Palestinians to do? What is the endgame here? For Israel to take everything, to force the equivalent of ethnic cleansing? Palestinians want their freedom. We will never give that up. The two-state solution is dead, despite the pleas from idealists who think that is a reality. Israel has trampled enough and settled on enough occupied land that a two-state solution, the way it is currently configured, in untenable. Israel has not met with any Palestinian authorities since 2014, they have no interest in peace negotiations, honest peace negotiations. (Earlier this year, Netanyahu said people get “hung up” on peace negotiations with the Palestinians, saying he has opted for a different approach. “I went around them (Palestinians), I went directly to the Arab states and forged with a new concept of peace…”

The current situation is also untenable. A highly charged disenfranchised and young population that have been dehumanized for decades is a recipe for disaster. Israelis won’t be safe. And obviously the Palestinians are never safe.

Something must change. Palestinians and Israelis must be treated as equals by the world. Palestinians lives matter just as much as Israelis.

I realize this is long, but I don’t care. Had to get it off my chest. I’m sure I’ll get a ton of ‘come on mans’, a few ad hominem attacks, maybe some ‘tldr’, but I’m really not here to debate. It's a contentious issue. I get that. As a human, the hypocrisy is frustrating; As a Palestinian American, even moreso.

I also recommend you please watch the video below from noted Physician and Holocaust survivor Dr. Gabor Mate.