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UU Support for Palestine, from staff and students. 

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UU Support for Palestine, from staff and students. 

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For decades, Palestinians have lived through daily Israeli military and colonial violence. Yet this brutality only makes European headlines when an event of spectacular severity occurs, either because of its intensity, or simply because it has unfolded in front of a key witness. In February 2023, Pulitzer Prize winner and journalist Lawrence Wright was conducting a live interview with Issa Amro in Hebron when an Israeli soldier assaulted the Palestinian activist, knocking him to the ground despite the journalist's documentation, an attack that quickly became viral.

This was far from the first time that Issa has been the target of Israeli military force: his body bears the score of countless past assaults. But despite being the subject of armed provocation, Issa has opted for nonviolent resistance as his strategy of struggle; a method inherent to the rich history of Palestinian protest.
Elisa Fuenzalida: It seems that violence as spectacle continues to dominate the Western media narrative of Israel-Palestine. Among the various tactics that Palestine has used in the face of apartheid and military occupation, how do Palestinian activists distance themselves from a narrative of victimhood in order to find recognition?
Issa Amro: A few years ago, we initiated the Youth Against Settlements project. The goal of this collective is to encourage Palestinian teenagers, women, and families to tell stories through the strategic use of recording devices, like cameras. Another successful project we've used to diversify the narrative promoted by Europe and North America is called Humans of Hebron . In it, the inhabitants of the city document their own lives beyond the occupation. Both projects are focused on creating and exploring holistic narratives, rather than one-line accounts or testimonies that can be taken out of context. We want to go beyond the testimony of violence and capture our dreams, sufferings, desires, circumstances, and life stories in the way that observe and narrate them. In that sense, social media has been instrumental in diversifying the type of stories that receive attention.
How do these initiatives come to terms with the history of the Palestinian struggle or other instances of nonviolent resistance in the territory?
I.A.: I am inspired by the nonviolent Palestinian civil disobedience initiatives of the 1980s and the people in my community who participated in them: neighbors, everyday people, and women leaders who remain unknown to the mass media. One of my heroines is the American-Palestinian-Israeli activist Huwaida Arraf, who has been practicing nonviolent resistance for over twenty years. She was one of the initiators of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. There was also a civil disobedience movement in Beit Sahour, a town not far from Bethlehem. Local Christian and Muslim families burned their IDs, refused to buy Israeli milk, and resisted by raising cows themselves. And yet, what the popular European and American narratives highlight and report is violent clashes between Palestinian and Israeli soldiers and settlers, thus creating a stigma that does not represent the strategic way in which we have been disobedient in the face of the brutality of the occupation for a long time.
What is your relationship with other struggles in the Middle East, such as the Kurdish resistance?
I.A.: I fully support the Kurdish objectives and those of any nation that is oppressed and fighting for its emancipation. I know for a fact that the majority of the Kurdish people are against both the Israeli occupation of Palestine and any relationship with Israel. So far, we have not had the opportunity to receive their delegations and, of course, it is not easy for me to travel to those territories, so I do my best to meet with Kurdish representatives every time I leave Palestine, like very recently, when we had the opportunity to meet at the UN at the Human Rights Council.
What are the points of convergence with other anti-colonial struggles, such as the Mapuche or the Zapatista?
I.A.: It goes beyond ideals. Whenever you see a conflict in India [1] or Latin America [2], you will find Israeli presence through military training, weapons, or surveillance companies. There are similar elements of land-grabbing, militias, and dictatorship between Latin American and Palestinian colonial processes. I am well aware that Israel is exporting our oppression to other dictatorships. But it's worth bearing in mind that the relationship between Latin Americans and Palestinians is historical, and their support of us is quite explicit in their voting pattern in the UN. For me, the only barrier to creating intersectional bonds is the language. But other than that, I am very interested in rebuilding the grassroots relationship that the communities had in the '80s and '90s.
Speaking of the UN, during your recent visit in March of this year, you pointed out that Israeli authorities have labeled you as an "anarchist." Needless to say, this moniker is illogical given your commitment to the struggle for Palestinian statehood. What forms of governance do you see in the future of a self-determined Palestine?
I.A: Anarchism is a very respectable ideology, but it is not mine. In fact, I have many anarchist friends with whom we often discuss models of government and self-governance. The problem is that Israel's use of the term is far removed from its actual political value. Far too often, the "anarchist" label is used to dehumanize us. My interest in future of a self-determined Palestine is both very simple and very difficult-a democratic and secular state based on the votes of the people and their right to freedom of belief, expression, and movement. We want to end the occupation, build a democracy, and decide our models of governance ourselves.
What is your opinion on a potential collectivization of leadership as opposed to the single leader model, which has characterized Palestine over the past decades?
I.A: I don't agree with the single leader model. The Palestinian Legislative Council should be able to vote, and our organizations should have a steering committee with equal rights and equal power for many people, not just one. Sadly, we are not there yet. Israel and many other countries are forcing us to accept Mahmoud Abbas as the leader of the Palestinian National Authority. But since he is not enabling elections or any type of reforms, what we have is a form of governance that is controlled by corruption, dictatorship, and human rights violations. Because we are prevented from creating our own NGOs and political parties [3], the Palestinian National Authority has become a contractor of the Israeli state.
What do you think would be the role of agriculture in an autonomous Palestinian state?
I.A: Agriculture means autonomy and independence from the Israeli market. Unfortunately, we don't have access to the land. In October 2022, we had an olive harvest campaign-one of the most important occasions of the year, uniting Palestinian families from different backgrounds. The olive tree represents the our legitimacy to the territory. As we began to harvest the olive trees, we were repeatedly attacked by Israeli settlers, and received no protection from either Israeli soldiers or police.
How do you face the challenges of climate change from a territory in a state of colonial occupation?
I.A: We have no access to information about how climate change affects us, control over our resources, or an independent say in how we relate to nature. Israel controls everything. To give you an example, Israel is outsourcing its plastic factories to our borders. Palestinian farmers don't have water because Israel has simply decided not to provide them with it [4]. Climate change is one more challenge on top of what we face under occupation.

What does the word "peace" mean from a position of resistance like yours?

I.A: Peace is freedom, justice and self-determination without any kind of concession. That is, not to be treated like animals that are granted shelter, food, or little financial support, but as a nation, with full human and political rights.

FOOTNOTES

Issa Amro is a prominent human rights defender and founding member of many non-violent organizations in Hebron who work peacefully against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including the Hebron branch of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the Arab Non-Violence Network, and the Hebron Defenders. Issa is involved in monitoring the application of international human rights and humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

[1] Anat Bernstein-Reich, "Why Does Israel Sell India So Many Weapons?" Haaretz , December 11, 2022. < https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2022-12-11/ty-article/.premium/why-does-israel-sell-india-so-many-weapons/00000184-f247-d887-a98c-f3c731150000 > accessed April 20, 2023.

[2] Gabriel Schivone, "Israel arms industry's 'great leap' in Central America." The Electronic Intifada, March 15, 2019. < https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-arms-industrys-great-leap-central-america/26881> accessed April 20, 2023.

[3] Omar Shakir, "Palestinian Authority Blocks Registration of Rights Group." Human Rights Watch, April 13, 2023. < https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/13/palestinian-authority-blocks-registration-rights-group> accessed April 20, 2023.

[4] Amnesty International, "The Occuptaion of Water." November 29, 2017. < https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/> accessed April 20, 2023.

IMAGE CREDITS

Issa Amro. Hebron (2023) Courtesy Issa Amro.

Elisa Fuenzalida

is a researcher and cultural worker. She has directed research projects such as El futuro era tu cuerpo, Ensamblajes del Cuidado and Afectos en Re-existencia. She is coordinator and co-curator of the Cátedra Decolonial Anibal Quijano at the Museo Reina Sofía, co-editor of the journal Arts of the Working Class and mediator in the citizen laboratory platform Redes por el Clima.

Arts of the Working Class #26

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For decades, Palestinians have lived through daily Israeli military and colonial violence. Yet this brutality only makes European headlines when an event of spectacular severity occurs, either because of its intensity, or simply because it has unfolded in front of a key witness.

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DSP Statement: Palestine. A letter of solidarity; a call for action.

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DSP Statement: Palestine. A letter of solidarity; a call for action.

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Notes on pairing virality with follow through, resisting hopelessness, and The Gaza Resolution.

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Callings & Roles for Collective Liberation

This framework for participation in Collective Liberation has been developed by Slow Factory and used internationally to educate and inspire in political, leadership, higher education, and community contexts.

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Slow Factory's Roles for Collective Liberation

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Callings & Roles for Collective Liberation This framework for participation in Collective Liberation has been developed by Slow Factory and used internationally to educate and inspire in political, leadership, higher education, and community contexts.

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In May 2021, Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, began protesting against Israel's plan to forcibly evict them from their homes to make way for Jewish settlers. Many of the families are refugees, who settled in Sheikh Jarrah after being forcibly displaced around the time of Israel's establishment as a state in 1948. Since Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank in 1967, Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah have been continuously targeted by Israeli authorities, who use discriminatory laws to systematically dispossess Palestinians of their land and homes for the benefit of Jewish Israelis.

In response to the demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah, thousands of Palestinians across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) held their own protests in support of the families, and against their shared experience of fragmentation, dispossession, and segregation. These were met with excessive and deadly force by Israeli authorities with thousands injured, arrested and detained.

The events of May 2021 were emblematic of the oppression which Palestinians have faced every day, for decades. The discrimination, the dispossession, the repression of dissent, the killings and injuries - all are part of a system which is designed to privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians.

This is apartheid.

Amnesty International's new investigation shows that Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the OPT, and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.

Laws, policies and practices which are intended to maintain a cruel system of control over Palestinians, have left them fragmented geographically and politically, frequently impoverished, and in a constant state of fear and insecurity.

WHAT IS APARTHEID?

Apartheid is a violation of public international law, a grave violation of internationally protected human rights, and a crime against humanity under international criminal law.

The term "apartheid" was originally used to refer to a political system in South Africa which explicitly enforced racial segregation, and the domination and oppression of one racial group by another. It has since been adopted by the international community to condemn and criminalize such systems and practices wherever they occur in the world.

The crime against humanity of apartheid under the Apartheid Convention, the Rome Statute and customary international law is committed when any inhuman or inhumane act (essentially a serious human rights violation) is perpetrated in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another, with the intention to maintain that system.

Apartheid can best be understood as a system of prolonged and cruel discriminatory treatment by one racial group of members of another with the intention to control the second racial group.

Amnesty International has created a free 90-minute course called "Deconstructing Israel's Apartheid Against Palestinians". To learn more about the crime of apartheid in international law, what apartheid looks like in Israel/OPT, and how it affects Palestinians' lives, sign up to our course on Amnesty International's human rights education academy.

WHY IS AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGNING AGAINST APARTHEID?

I do not know why the entire world is watching what is happening and letting Israel get away with it? It is time the world stopped spoiling Israel
Nabil el-Kurd, one of the residents under threat of forced eviction in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah

Apartheid is not acceptable anywhere in the world. So why has the world accepted it against Palestinians?

Human rights have long been side-lined by the international community when dealing with the decades-long struggle and suffering of Palestinians. Palestinians facing the brutality of Israel's repression have been calling for an understanding of Israel's rule as apartheid for over two decades. Over time, a broader international recognition of Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid has begun to take shape.

Yet, governments with the responsibility and power to do something have refused to take any meaningful action to hold Israel accountable. Instead, they have been hiding behind a moribund peace process at the expense of human rights and accountability. Unfortunately, the situation today is one of no progress towards a just solution and worsening human rights for Palestinians.

Amnesty is calling for Israel to end the international wrong, and crime, of apartheid, by dismantling measures of fragmentation, segregation, discrimination, and deprivation, currently in place against the Palestinian population.

The Palestinian experience of being denied a home is at the heart of Israel's apartheid system. That's why, as a first step towards dismantling this system, we are calling on Israel to end the practice of home demolitions.

Palestinian families need people to stand with them against injustice and discrimination, by taking action to help them protect their homes.

Israel is not a state of all its citizens... [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them
Israel's then prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu (message posted online in March 2019)

ISRAEL'S SYSTEM OF OPPRESSION AND DOMINATION OF PALESTINIANS

Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, successive governments have created and maintained a system of laws, policies, and practices designed to oppress and dominate Palestinians. This system plays out in different ways across the different areas where Israel exercises control over Palestinians' rights, but the intent is always the same: to privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians.

Israeli authorities have done this through four main strategies:

FRAGMENTATION INTO DOMAINS OF CONTROL

In the course of establishing Israel as a Jewish state in 1948, Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages, in what amounted to ethnic cleansing.

Since then, successive governments have designed laws and policies to ensure the continued fragmentation of the Palestinian population. Palestinians are confined to enclaves in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the refugee communities, where they are subject to different legal and administrative regimes. This has had the effect of undermining family, social and political ties between Palestinian communities and suppressing sustained dissent against the apartheid system; it also helps to maximise Jewish Israeli control over land and maintain a Jewish demographic majority.

Millions of Palestinians remain displaced as refugees and continue to be physically isolated from those residing in Israel and the OPT through Israel's continuous denial of their right to return to their homes, towns and villages.

DISPOSSESSION OF LAND AND PROPERTY

Since 1948, Israel has enforced massive and cruel land seizures to dispossess Palestinians of their land and homes. Although Palestinians in Israel and the OPT are subjected to different legal and administrative regimes, Israel has used similar land expropriation measures across all areas - for example, since 1948, Israel has expropriated land in areas of strategic importance that include significant Palestinian populations such as the Galilee and the Negev/Naqab, and used similar measures in the OPT following Israel's military occupation in 1967. In order to maximize Jewish Israeli control over land and minimize the Palestinian presence, Palestinians have been confined to separate, densely populated enclaves. While Israeli policies have allowed for the discriminatory allocation of state land to be used almost exclusively to benefit Jewish Israelis both inside of Israel and in the OPT.

SEGREGATION AND CONTROL

Successive Israeli governments have pursued a strategy of establishing domination through discriminatory laws and policies which segregate Palestinians into enclaves, based on their legal status and residence.

Israel denies Palestinian citizens their rights to equal nationality and status, while Palestinians in the OPT face severe restrictions on freedom of movement. Israel also restricts Palestinians' rights to family unification in a profoundly discriminatory manner: for example, Palestinians from the OPT cannot gain residency or citizenship through marriage, which Jewish Israelis can.

Israel also places severe limitations on Palestinians' civil and political rights, to suppress dissent and maintain the system of oppression and domination. For example, millions of Palestinians in the West Bank remain subject to Israel's military rule and draconian military orders adopted since 1967.

DEPRIVATION OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS

These measures have left Palestinians marginalized, impoverished and economically disadvantaged across Israel and the OPT.

Decades of discriminatory allocation of resources by Israeli authorities, for the benefit of Jewish Israeli citizens in Israel and Israeli settlers in the OPT, compound these inequalities. For example, millions of Palestinians inside of Israel and East Jerusalem live in densely populated areas that are generally underdeveloped and lack adequate essential services such as garbage collection, electricity, public transportation and water and sanitation infrastructure.

Palestinians across all areas under Israel's control have fewer opportunities to earn a living and engage in business than Jewish Israelis. They experience discriminatory limitations on access to and use of farmland, water, gas and oil amongst other natural resources, as well as restrictions on the provision of health, education and basic services.

In addition, Israeli authorities have appropriated the vast majority of Palestinians' natural resources in the OPT for the economic benefit of Jewish citizens in Israel and in the illegal settlements.

LIFE UNDER APARTHEID

DENIED A HOME: DEMOLITIONS AND FORCED EVICTIONS

Palestinians are systematically subjected to home demolitions and forced evictions, and live in constant fear of losing their homes.

For more than 73 years, Israel has been forcibly displacing entire Palestinian communities. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians' homes have been demolished, causing terrible trauma & suffering. More than 6 million Palestinians remain refugees, the vast majority of whom live in refugee camps including outside of Israel/OPT. There are over 100,000 Palestinians in the OPT and another 68,000 inside of Israel at imminent risk of losing their homes, many for the second or third time.

Palestinians are caught in a Catch-22 situation. Israel requires them to obtain a permit to build or even erect a structure such as a tent, but - unlike Jewish Israeli applicants - rarely issues them a permit. Many Palestinians are forced to build without permits. Israel then demolishes Palestinian homes on the basis that they were built "illegally". Israel uses these discriminatory planning and zoning policies to create unbearable living conditions to force Palestinians to leave their homes to allow for the expansion of Jewish settlement.

Mohammed Al-Rajabi, a resident of Al-Bustan area in Silwan, whose home was demolished by Israeli authorities on 23 June 2020 on the basis that it was built "illegally", described to Amnesty International the devastating impact on his family:

This is extremely hard to deal with. It might be difficult to put into words... and I sensed that it was harder on my kids than on us. They were really excited for us to have this new home. I'm going to keep the photos from that day and show them to my children when they grow up, so they do not forget what happened to us. I will tell them, 'you see what kind of memories I have to pass on to you?' My plan was for them to have a warm family home close to their loved ones and family members. Now I'm passing on the memories of their first childhood home being destroyed
Mohammed Al-Rajabi, a resident of Al-Bustan area in Silwan

FRAGMENTED LOVE: SEPARATION OF PALESTINIAN FAMILIES

Israel has enacted discriminatory laws and policies that disrupt family life for Palestinians. Since 2002, Israel has adopted a policy of prohibiting Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza from gaining status in Israel or East Jerusalem through marriage, thus preventing family unification.

Israel has long used discriminatory laws and policies to separate Palestinians from their families. For example, Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza cannot gain legal status in Israel or occupied East Jerusalem through marriage, denying their rights to family unification. This policy has forced thousands of Palestinians to live apart from their loved ones; others are forced to go abroad, or live in constant fear of being arrested, expelled or deported.

These measures explicitly target Palestinians, and not Jewish Israelis, and are primarily guided by demographic considerations that aim to minimize Palestinian presence inside Israel/OPT.

Sumaia, was born and raised in Lod in central Israel. She married her husband, who is from the Gaza Strip, in 1998 and he moved to live with her in Lod. In 2000, Sumaia and her husband began the process of applying for family unification, so they could live together legally. The family unification process took 18 years, during which the couple lived in fear and anxiety. Sumaia told Amnesty International:

The government is controlling every detail of our lives, they are in our bedroom, in our homes. One of the most extreme cases was when they arrested my husband in 2004 while I was giving birth to one of my daughters...while I was in the delivery room they arrested him
Sumaia

UNDER SIEGE

Over the past 14 years, more than 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been living under Israel's illegal blockade. Along with four major military offensives, the blockade has had catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza.

The blockade is a form of collective punishment. It forces Gaza's population - the majority of whom are refugees or their descendants who fled in 1948 - to live in increasingly dire conditions. There are severe shortages of housing, drinking water, electricity, essential medicines and medical care, food, educational equipment and building materials. In 2020, Gaza had the world's highest unemployment rate, and more than half of its population was living below the poverty line.

On 30 March 2018, Palestinians in Gaza launched the Great March of Return, a series of weekly mass demonstrations along the fence between Gaza and Israel.

They were demanding their right to return to their villages and towns in what is now Israel, as well as an end to Israel's blockade on Gaza. The response was brutal: by the end of 2019, Israeli forces had killed 214 civilians, including 46 children, and injured more than 8,000 others with live ammunition. A total of 156 of those injured had to have limbs amputated. More than 1,200 patients require long-term, complex and expensive therapy and rehabilitation, and tens of thousands more require psycho-social support -none of which are widely available in Gaza.

The blockade prevents Palestinians from accessing adequate healthcare, in particular life-saving and other emergency medical treatment only available outside Gaza. The Israeli authorities often delay these permits and sometimes fail to provide them at all.

Adham Al-Hajjar, 36, is a freelance journalist and lives in Gaza City. On 6 April 2018, while he was covering the Great March of Return demonstrations, Israeli snipers positioned along the fence separating Gaza from Israel shot him. He is unable to get the medical help he needs in Gaza because of the debilitated health services there.

The bullet that entered my leg did not just enter and leave my body. It entered and stopped everything; it stopped my life. Just because a soldier pulled the trigger without thinking of how it would devastate my life. Did he or she ever think about what this would cause? I am walking around as a dead man, everything in my life froze from the moment that bullet entered my leg
Adham Al-Hajjar

CRIMINAL PATTERNS

Israel has been systematically committing serious human rights violations against Palestinians for decades. Violations such as forcible transfer, administrative detention, torture, unlawful killings and serious injuries, and the denial of basic rights and freedoms have been well documented by Amnesty and others. It is clear that Israel's apartheid system is being maintained through committing these abuses-which have been perpetrated with almost total impunity.

They form part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian population, carried out within the context of Israel's institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination over Palestinians, and therefore constitute crimes against humanity of apartheid.

DISMANTLING THE SYSTEM

There is no place for apartheid in our world. It is a crime against humanity, and it has to end.

Israeli authorities have enjoyed impunity for too long. The international failure to hold Israel to account means Palestinians are still suffering every single day. It's time to speak up, to stand with Palestinians and tell Israel that we will not tolerate apartheid.

For decades, Palestinians have been calling for an end to the oppression they live under. All too often, they pay a terrible price for standing up for their rights, and they have long been calling for others around the world to help them.

Let this be the beginning of an end to Israel's system of apartheid against Palestinians.

Join us in the fight for justice, freedom, and equality for all.

The Palestinian experience of being denied a home is at the heart of Israel's apartheid system. That's why, as a first step towards dismantling this system, we are calling on Israel to end the practice of home demolitions.

Palestinian families need people to stand with them against injustice and discrimination, by taking action to help them protect their homes.

Further Reading

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Palestinians are systematically subjected to home demolitions and forced evictions, and live in constant fear of losing their homes. For more than 73 years, Israel has been forcibly displacing entire Palestinian communities. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians' homes have been demolished, causing terrible trauma & suffering.

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Rashid Khalidi - The Hundred Year War in Palestine, SOAS University of London

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Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani held an emergency teach-in session yesterday regarding recent events in Gaza. This is the recording of that session as well as a rush transcript. There are some blips in the video here and there which we hope the audience will forgive as we've tried to put this out quickly in response to a rapidly changing situation.
Rush Transcript:
(PDF available here for off-site reading)

Component number one was that in accordance with the principle laid out in the preamble to U.N. Resolution 242 that it is inadmissible to a conquered territory by war, Israel was obliged under international law to withdraw from the territories it conquered in the course of the war, during the June 1967 War, they being, to repeat myself, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, and the Egyptian Sinai.

Now, at that point, at that point in 1971, when Israel refused to abide by international law, and refused to abide by U.N. Resolution 242 in particular, the Secretary General of The U.N. -- his name was U Thant. He was from Burma and he was a remarkably decent human being -- probably in my opinion for what it's worth -- the only decent Secretary General the U.N. ever had. He was a very modest person, he was a Buddhist, but he was also remarkably so in his position, he was remarkably honest. He said right after the rejection by Israel of those terms for ending the conflict, he said, "there can be little doubt that if the present impasse in the search for a peaceful settlement persists, new fighting will break out sooner or later."So, given Israel's recalcitrance, its refusal to abide by international law, as U Thant pointed out, a war then became inevitable. New fighting will break out sooner or later.

Israel proceeded after its refusal to accept the terms of a settlement, Israel then proceeded to expand its settlements in, at that point, it was in the Sinai Peninsula, which was Egyptian territory. It became clear that Israel was never going to relinquish control of the Sinai, the Egyptian Sinai. And at that point, Egypt kept saying, or the head of state of Egypt at the time, Anwar El-Sadat, kept saying "we're going to attack. You're not giving us any option. You refuse to relinquish the territory you conquered. You're ignoring international law, you're not giving us any option except to wage a war."

As I wrote in a book published decades ago now, I said, because this October war, as most of you know, came to be called "a surprise." Israel was shocked. And in fact, as I wrote, "no war in history has been launched with as much advanced publicity as the surprise attack in October 1973. [1]" You might ask yourself the question, "Why did Israel ignore these warnings by Anwar Sadat that he was going to attack?" And there you have to sort of get into the mindset of the present Israeli leadership and the present population. The view among the Israelis, and this was pervasive, was that war is not an Arab game, that the Arabs had no military option. That being, after the humiliating defeat that the Arabs suffered in June 1967, what's sometimes called the Six-Day War, the idea became entrenched in the Israeli leadership but also the people themselves, that Arabs were incapable of fighting. So the foreign minister at the time in Israel, General Moshe Dayan, who was famous back in the day, I don't know how many of you will know him for the pirate's patch in one of his eyes, and as the hero of the June '67 war, he said, "the weakness of the Arabs arises from factors so deeply rooted that they cannot, in my view, be easily overcome." The moral, the technical, and the educational backwardness of their soldiers. Yitzhak Rabin, another formidable figure in Israeli military history, but also in Israeli political history, said at the time, "there is no need to mobilize our forces whenever we hear Arab threats," meaning the threats by Sadat. "The arabs have little capacity for coordinating their military and political action." The foreign minister at the time, Abba Eben, commented in his memoir that the atmosphere of manifest destiny, which regards the neighboring people as lesser breeds, has begun to spread in the national discourse. And a military historian, an Israeli military historian, he commented that the nickname that was given to Egyptian soldiers was they were called "monkeys."

Half the population of Gaza is currently unemployed. I was looking back at a book I wrote a few years ago, which goes through the history, that figure has stayed constant. About half the population has been unemployed since about, at least since 2010, but probably longer. 60% of the youth are unemployed. About half the population is classified by relief agencies as suffering from severe food insecurity. Barring the rarest of exceptions, no one can go in Gaza and no one can go out of Gaza. So, if you imagine a society on a starvation diet confined in an area that's among the most densely populated in the world, and in which half the population is below the age of 18, that is classified as children, then you won't be surprised when you hear that the former conservative British Prime Minister, David Cameron, he described Gaza as an "open-air prison." You might not like to hear it, but Baruch Kimmerling, who was one of Israel's leading sociologists before he prematurely passed, he described Gaza as far back as 2003 -- now bear in mind, that's before Israel ratcheted up the blockade of Gaza, to which I'll get -- in 2003, he described Gaza as "the largest concentration camp ever to exist." That's Gaza.

Now, how did Gaza become Gaza? From a denotation on a map to an object of ceaseless death and destruction. So, allow me to repeat myself, 1967, U.N. Resolution 242, full Israeli withdrawal in exchange for agreement to let Israel exist at peace with its neighbors. Beginning in the early 1970s, the representative Palestinian organization at the time, the Palestine Liberation Organization, it acquiesced in those terms for resolving the conflict, what came to be called the two-state settlement. The P.L.O. accepted it. For Israel, this was a source of panic, because if the Palestinians accepted a resolution of the conflict in accordance with 242, then Israel was going to be put on the spot. "Why don't you agree to the terms of international law?" So Israel, in a panic, did what it always does: It tried to provoke the Palestine Liberation Organization in order to elicit from it some sort of military action. Then Israel comes in with the intent of trying to destroy the P.L.O.. Why did Israel want to destroy the P.L.O.? Well, a very good Israeli historian named Avner Yaniv, he said because Israel had to stop the Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to do that, it launched an attack on Lebanon in June 1982. At the time, the P.L.O. was headquartered in Lebanon, and in the course of that war, Israel killed, the estimates are between 15,000 and 20,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, overwhelmingly civilians. After the -- Mouin, are you still with us? - [ Mouin: Yes, I am.] Okay, do you realize we can't see you? [ Mouin: Oh, sorry. I was just getting a glass of water.] Okay, just want to make sure you're there because I'm here this particular history Is actually a living history for quite a number of us is Sana Kassem here?

Well, in 1987, the Palestinians in the occupied territories, seeing that they were getting no support from abroad, decided to take their fate into their own hands. And they launched what came to be called the Intifada, an overwhelmingly nonviolent civil revolt against the Israeli occupation of those territories. I did spend quite a lot of time there in the summers during that civil revolt. And for those of you who don't remember it, I can only say it was a deeply inspiring uprising by the masses of the Palestinian people, the most ordinary Palestinian people from ages, literally from ages, I would say from ages three to ninety. You saw infant kids and you saw grandmothers who in their own way were participants in that non-violent civil revolt. The Israelis launched a very brutal repression of that revolt, it was famously compressed in the slogan of, at the time, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin when he said "we're going to inflict force, might, and beatings" on the Palestinian civilians to get them to surrender.

For various reasons, not worth going into now, that first Palestinian Intifada or the Palestinian Revolt, the civil revolt, was in-fact defeated. And the climax of that defeat came in 1993, what's called the Oslo Accord. And that anniversary was just, so-to-speak, celebrated. It was 30 years ago. It was September 13, 1993, so it was 30 years ago this past month. And actually, Mouin Rabbani wrote something quite, I thought, insightful on what happened at Oslo. The bottom line of Oslo is very simple: It was, as Edward Said, the professor and spokesperson for the Palestinians, put it just at the time, he said it was a "Palestinian surrender." Israel decided to rationalize its occupation, and rationalizing the occupation meant, why should we do the dirty work and look bad before international cameras? Let's hire some Palestinians to do the dirty work for us. And the P.L.O. at that time was desperate and also was already very corrupt. And so the P.L.O. basically, to put it crudely, but I think accurately, it switched sides. It now became Israel's subcontractor to maintain the Israeli occupation, as it were, by remote control. And we have to say, Israel was remarkably successful. It was for the Israelis an experiment: Can we create a class of collaborators who will do all of our dirty work, if in exchange we give them some of the perquisites of power?

Now back then, I remember, many people doubted that the Israelis would ever serve, excuse me, the Palestinians would ever serve as willing accomplices of the Israeli government. And though that doubt has by now been dispelled, what's called the "Palestinian Authority," which is in effect the descendant of the Palestine Liberation Organization, is a willing collaborator with Israel. Then there was another attempt under President Clinton to seal an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. That attempt came in Camp David in 2000. I don't want to go into the intricacies of Camp David. I will simply present the essence of it. The essence of it came to be called the Clinton, named after our President Bill Clinton, "the Clinton parameters" for resolving the conflict. The Clinton parameters, to speak candidly, they were not awful, they were not terrific, but they were, you might say, a basis to achieve a settlement. The Palestinians and the Israelis accepted the parameters with -- both sides basically used the same expression -- with reservations. However, after when there was an agreement, when the negotiations were resumed in this area called Taba, which is part of Egypt, at some point the current prime minister at the time Ehud Barak cut off the negotiations and the attempt to achieve a settlement proved abortive. Soon after that, the Palestinians again, Mouin, correct me, it's the second Intifada begins what month, September 2000?

So, as Human Rights Watch reported, whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed along its periphery, it remains in control. To this day, Israel is still the occupying power in Gaza. Now, I'll have some things to say about that in the course of the conversation, because in my opinion, it is not accurate any longer to speak of Israel as an occupying power. Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, they have all been incorporated as part of Israel. What is happening now is not a war in the sense of a conflict between two states. It's internal. And it can best be regarded, in my opinion, you have to figure out the right language and no language is ever perfect, but it should be regarded, either a slave rebellion reminiscent of the slave rebellions in my own country, the United States, or it should be regarded as Israel has established a Gulag archipelago. For those of you who know that reference, the Gulag archipelago the slave labor camps that were established under the Soviet Union in the Stalin-era, Israel has established a Gulag archipelago, but within its own country. It's not a war -- as is now being said -- between Israel and a foreign state. At minimum, at minimum, Israel remains an occupying power, but in my opinion, for reasons I can get to later, it's in-fact no longer an occupying power, it's dealing with a civil revolt from a slave population.

Now, immediately as Hamas came into power, its position on recognizing Israel was going through an evolution. Up until then, it refused to recognize Israel's existence. But as one of the UN leading figures in Gaza at the time said, after the election, Hamas was evolving and could evolve still more. And one of the leading experts on Gaza, he wrote later, that a political solution was within reach on the Hamas side, but only if the active interference of the United States, and the passivity of the European Union had not sabotaged this experiment in government. There were real possibilities on the Palestinian side, and in particular the Hamas side, to achieve a settlement on the basis of international law. Israel, the U.S., and the E.U. sabotaged them. That's not all that happened. Israel then instituted its blockade of Gaza. Now it annoys me to no end when people keep referring to the blockade as having begun 16 years ago, in 2007. It began when Israel was dissatisfied with the results of that Palestinian election. That's when the blockade began, or as the UN representative at the time put it, economic activity in Gaza came to a standstill, moving into survival mode. That's when the troubles began that climaxed in the events of the past week, when the people were told, instructed, commanded, exhorted, to carry out an election, they did, but because the results were not what the U.S., Israel, and Israel and the E.U. wanted, they were punished by the infliction of that blockade.

In 2007, the U.S., the EU, and Israel attempted a coup to overthrow the government in Gaza, the Hamas government. Hamas foiled the coup, and at that point, Israel and the U.S. and E.U. ratcheted up the blockade. Beginning in December 26 th, 2008, Israel launched, not the first, not the second -- there were so many it's very hard to count -- launched its murderous assaults on Gaza. This one, to which I'm now going to refer, Operation Cast Lead, was the best known, and it was, as compared to previous Israeli assaults on beside what happened in Lebanon in 1982, Israel launched what Amnesty International called "the 22 Days of Death and Destruction."

Why did Israel launch Operation Cast Lead? Was it something the Gazans did? Was it a provocation? The people of Gaza instigated? No. It was very clear at the time, and it's still clear today. Israel had suffered a dramatic military defeat in 2006 in Lebanon when to war with the Hezbollah and the Hezbollah inflicted a massive defeat on Israel. What the head of Hezbollah, Sayyed Nasrallah called "the divine victory." And Israel now was concerned -- I'm not sure if "terrified" is the right word, but concerned that what it calls its "deterrence capacity" had been undermined. That is to say, after the victory by Hezbollah, the Arabs would no longer fear Israel. And so Israel wanted to restore its deterrence capacity and launched a murderous assault on Gaza. In the course of the assault -- let me just get the numbers right -- 1,400 Gazans were killed. Up to four-fifths of them were civilians. 350 Gazan children were killed. On the Israeli side, ten combatants were killed, and three children were killed. Israel also massively targeted the infrastructure of Gaza and flattened 6,000 homes in Gaza.

Mouin Rabbani

Thank you very much, Norm, and as always, for your very detailed and insightful synopsis of the relevant history. I - actually -- my article was published while you were giving your introduction, which is why I was at times looking away, and I put a link to it in the chat function, if anyone wants to look it up. [2] So, what I'd like to do is to take a few minutes to help explain why we are now in the midst of the crisis we're experiencing. As Norm explained, Hamas won the 2006 elections that were held among Palestinians residing in the occupied territories and they were effectively blocked from governing by a combination of the Palestinian Authority and the Western powers. This led to growing conflict at the conclusion of which, Hamas in 2007 seized power in the West Bank. I'm not going to repeat any of the history that Norm has already provided us, except to say that if you were to look at the situation from the perspective of those who launched what is called "Operation Desert Flood" or "Desert Storm" yesterday, they would see the following. Hamas has been ruling the Gaza Strip since 2007, and it had reached the point where it was no longer being taken seriously -- particularly by Israel. And what I mean by that is that Israel had reached the conclusion that really the only thing Hamas cares about is maintaining and perpetuating its rule over the territory of the Gaza Strip and its people, and all the statements it makes about the Al-Aqsa Mosque, about deepening settlement in the West Bank, about all these other issues, are just rhetoric that it uses to legitimize itself and issues that can be safely ignored. And at the same time the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip was not really being significantly relaxed.

In addition to that, the government of Qatar, which had been providing monthly cash infusions into the Gaza Strip in co-ordination with Israel has in recent months reduced its support to the Gaza Strip, and had basically imperiously told Hamas that it needs to find more sustainable solutions to its financial crisis. Turkey, which had hosted prominent Hamas leaders, had exiled a number of them during the past year. And so Hamas saw where it was being treated as an irrelevance by Israel. It saw escalation by Israel, particularly under the current government and its predecessor, as having been transformed into an Israeli strategy. And we saw this, for example, with the almost daily settler raids assisted by the army into West Bank villages that even senior Israeli military commanders have come to describe as pogroms. It saw the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and of course it saw the growing number of incursions into the Haram al-Sharif, the compound in the old city of Jerusalem that contains the Al-Aqsa Mosque by prominent Israeli politicians and settler groups, and essentially I think Hamas concluded that Israel has simply gone too far for too long and that something needed to be done about it. Now the scale and scope and sophistication of what we saw yesterday cannot be explained as a response to something that happened yesterday or last week or last month. This was obviously many many months in preparation and I think Hamas' comparison was to look at what happened in 2021.

You know all these previous conflicts -- if I can just use that word -- between Hamas and Israel had been initiated by Israel and had been about issues concerning the Gaza Strip. What happened in 2021 is that not only was the armed confrontation for the first time initiated by Hamas rather than by Israel, but it was also initiated by Hamas for issues that were not directly related to the Gaza Strip but rather had to do with growing Israeli assaults on the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan and intensifying settlement activity in East Jerusalem. Long story short, a ceasefire was reached, promises were made, and you fast-forward to this year and last year, and the situation was essentially unchanged. There was no significant relaxation of the blockade of the Gaza Strip and so on. And so clearly Hamas came to the conclusion that it needed to do something genuinely spectacular spectacular with the objective of making the status quo obsolete.

And I think essentially that is what we saw yesterday. A sophisticated military operation, if you look at it purely in those terms, and I should add I'm not a military analyst, but it's being compared to the joint Egyptian-Israeli surprise attack of October 6, 1973 -- half a century ago, almost to the day -- that launched the October 1973 war. But there's an important difference. The first is that in 1973, although Egypt and Syria made considerable efforts to conceal their intentions and preparations, Israel did arguably have sufficient warning of the impending Arab offensive, but chose to ignore it for reasons that Norm has already explained. Yesterday, I think it's fair to say, Israel was virtually completely in the dark about what was about to happen. Not only that, the Gaza Strip is the most intensively surveyed territory and population on the entire planet and nevertheless Hamas was able to do this and was able for the first time since 1948 to enter into territory within Israel's internationally recognized boundaries to seize military facilities and population centers and to hold a number of them are not are not only still going on but there are also reports that additional Palestinian fighters are still entering Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip and i think it was an Israeli analyst whose whose name is case before the moment that essentially what happened is that Israel has spent the last several years preparing for an armed infiltration on its northern borders conducted by Hezbollah, but what but this has now taken place from the Gaza Strip conducted by Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- a development that I think is all the more astonishing when takes into account that this is has also been a blockaded territory very modest resources, very resourceful people I may add, and it's still ongoing.

Now without really getting into too much analysis of the military aspects --which again is something I know very little about and am not particularly interested in -- let's look at the wider context, which is what is Hamas hoping to achieve? I think, number one, it insists on being taken seriously. It insists that when it puts demands on the negotiating table, these are seriously negotiated, and that in contrast to previous agreements, that when agreements are reached, these are also implemented in practice. Its second objective is, I think, to impose a large-scale exchange of prisoners with Israel. There are thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails Some of them have been there for decades and Hamas is very much hoping to basically empty Israeli prisons of Palestinian political prisoners. The third one is it also wants to place -- at least restraints -- on Israeli conduct by the army, by its settler auxiliaries in the West Bank to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley which is virtually complete, to stop these daily violent raids into West Bank villages and so on. And third of all, there has been growing international complacency about the question of Palestine, people global capitols have kind of reached the conclusion that "well, you know, we have Libya we have Syria we have Iraq we have I.S.I.S. These are real crises that need to be dealt with." By contrast the question of Palestine has been there since the late 1940s, the sky has yet to fall in from their perspective, so it can safely be ignored while we deal with Syria, while we deal with Ukraine, while we deal with the migration crisis and what-not. And Hamas wanted to send a very clear message: that you ignore us, and you ignore the Palestine question at your peril, because we are not only capable of disrupting business as usual, but we are capable of disrupting it in a very unpleasant way for you.

A lot of people have spoken about an impending peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia and that a main objective of Hamas was to render this in -- what do you call it -- ineffective. I don't buy that. The first reason is that I don't think a Saudi-Israeli deal is really on the cards. If you look at how it's being discussed, a Saudi-Israeli deal would include American commitments towards Saudi Arabia that would never get through the U.S. Congress, and it would include Israeli relatively minor concessions so-to-speak, to the Palestinians, that despite their largely cosmetic nature would never get through Israel's governing coalition. For these and a number of other factors, I believe that an Israeli-Saudi agreement is really not on the table. But if for the sake of argument, there was going to be such an agreement, I see no reason to conclude that a mound of Palestinian bodies or a successful Palestinian offensive against Israel is going to change Saudi Arabia's mind about entering into such an agreement. I mean, at best, they can integrate a decent interval until they consummate such an agreement. And you know, no other Arab state has ever been deterred from reaching agreements with Israel because the Palestine question remains unresolved.

So I really don't think that's a significant issue. I do think embarrassing Arab governments who have formal or informal links with Israel is kind of an added benefit from Hamas' point of view. And so those I think are the main objectives. Now many people would look at what has happened in the last few days. Many hundreds of Israelis died. I don't think, although it may be premature to state this, but it appears that the main purpose of this attack was to send a shock through the Israeli military and security establishment, rather than to simply kill massive numbers of Israeli civilians, although there are reports that need to be investigated and I may be wrong on this score. Either way, people say "well, it's clear there' going to be massive Israeli response", and indeed there already has been. This is something that Hamas will have prepared for but I think Hamas will also look at the experience of previous Israeli assaults on the Gaza Strip and deposed its Hamas rulers, but has chosen not to. It has chosen not to do so because, on the one hand, it is very hesitant about re-establishing a permanent presence within the Gaza Strip for a prolonged period of time. It would be subject to daily attacks from within very densely populated population centers and so on. And another reason is that as hostile as Israel may be to Hamas, from a strategic perspective, a priority for Israel is promoting the fragmentation and the political fragmentation of the Palestinians. It therefore prefers a West Bank and Gaza Strip that are separated not only territorially but by a political schism between the rulers, than a West Bank and Gaza Strip that are reunited under a single Palestinian authority, even if it is one that is in effect an Israeli deputy. So I think that Hamas' calculations are that Israel will launch massive incursions into the Gaza Strip, try to crush these movements, cause massive damage --presumably mass casualties as well -- but after a certain period of time, will withdraw. And again, you know, we have no idea what Hamas was capable of yesterday. And we also don't know what Hamas may have lying in wait for the Israeli armed forces if and when they do launch such a ground invasion.

And then there's one last point I'd like to make, and this is that Hamas is a card-carrying member, if you will, or is once again of the self-styled axis of resistance, which includes Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, the Houthis in Yemen and others. And I think there's an unanswered question to be asked about the degree to which there is coordination between Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon in particular. I mean it's quite clear that Hamas compared to its previous performance has benefited very significantly from Hezbollah's expertise but I'm referring more specifically about whether Hezbollah is potentially part of a broader campaign in terms of what we're seeing now.

I think it's an unanswered question. My suspicion is that as we saw on Israel's northern borders today. Hezbollah is engaging in kind of minor skirmishes simply to remind The Israelis that they may want to think twice between committing the full weight of their armed forces to the Gaza Strip, and it may also well be the case that between these two organizations there is an agreement that if Israel crosses certain red lines that Hezbollah and perhaps others as well will then engage more significantly in the conflict that's currently ongoing. So those are kind of my preliminary marks. I think it's very important also not to lose sight of the human dimension of everything that's going on now because I do think it's a fair assumption that it is going to get significantly worse in the days and perhaps even weeks ahead. Today there is a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. It's of course not going to call for a ceasefire because that would require American acquiescence. The Americans have made clear that Israel has a green light from Washington to continue with this campaign. And looking at past experiences, Norm mentioned 2006, the war with Lebanon, for example, the way these things typically work is when Israel launches an attack, the U.S. blocks each and every attempt at either a cessation of hostilities or even de-escalation. Eventually, Israel gets stuck and wants to stop, but can't do so itself for fear of losing face as they say, and then all of a sudden Washington becomes a great peacemaker and rams a ceasefire resolution through the UN Security Council. I suspect something similar will play out this time. So those are my introductory comments.

END INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS FOR BOTH NORMAN F. AND MOUIN R.

Was it a justified initiative or a foolish foolish one, I think the only conclusion that we can reach is that only time will tell. I think we can already conclude that the human cost is going to be very substantial and that's certainly true. At the same time, others would respond by saying "yes, but the alternative is to have children dying of cancer without medications and mass unemployment, mass poverty, because no significant initiative is being taken to break the blockade and end the siege." So I think it's a very difficult question to answer with clarity, and I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that. I think time will tell. I will say I can fully understand the rationale that believed something significant needed to be done to break the logjam and to impose on Israel, on the region, on the world, that you ignore us at your own peril. I can also understand the perspective that says the price is going to be so enormous that you may have wanted to think a hundred times before you embarked on this. Regarding your second question, yes, there are reports which appear to be increasingly substantiated that there was a mass casualty event at a rave that was being held in the Negev Desert. Was that part of the planning does that help explain the timing of the operation? I really don't know. I would also say given -- as you would know better than anyone -- given the nature of Israeli and pro-Israeli propaganda that I would like to withhold confirmation and judgment until the facts are out. But if there was indeed a deliberate attack on a civilian gathering with the explicit purpose of causing mass casualties, I would have two observations: A. That's a despicable thing, and B. Palestinians would be entirely justified in treating any condemnations coming from people who have no record of condemning the crimes perpetrated against them, of treating those condemnations with utter contempt.

Enter Sana Kassem

Norman Finkelstein
I'll just make a couple of comments on what's just been said. And then we'll open it up for questions. Number one, my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto up until the uprising in April 1943. The uprising in the ghetto is normally regarded as a heroic chapter, or the only heroic chapter during the Nazi extermination. And when the anniversary came around, probably around 20 or 30 years ago, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, she interviewed my mother about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And my mother was very - let's just put it this way - she was very skeptical of all the praise that was being heaped on it. She said, number one, we were all destined to die, so there's no great heroism in trying to resist when there was no other option available, we were going to be deported and exterminated. Number two, she said that the resistance was vastly exaggerated, which in fact was true. It was a very minuscule resistance to the Nazi occupation of Warsaw at the time. And so I saw that Amy Goodman, her face began to drop because my mother was diminishing what was supposed to be a heroic chapter or the only heroic chapter during that horrific sequence of events. So my mother said, excuse me, Amy asked her, "was there anything positive from what happened?" And I remember my mother commenting, first she talked about the ingenuity, the ingenuity of the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto. And she described how they had no implements. They developed this very complex catacombs - what were called "bunkers" in the ghetto - using their bare hands. And I remember her use of that word ingenuity. And then when I saw or witnessed or read about the ingenuity of the people of Hamas, the most surveilled place on God's earth. Every nook and cranny of Gaza is under 10,000 different Israeli surveillance technologies. And yet they managed, amidst all this, to block all of the surveillance and conduct this operation -- I pay tribute to that ingenuity! I pay tribute to the resistance of a people with literally, or almost literally, their having figured out a way to resist this concentration camp imposed on them or overcome it.

I remember during the war in Vietnam, that horrific chapter in our history, which unfortunately has been completely forgotten by the new generations. I remember there was this left-wing historian and writer, I.F. Stone. And he said, if anything redemptive can be read out of this experience, he said it was the power of the Vietnamese to resist for thirty years, three decades, this relentless bombardment of their country. The U.S. was dropping the equivalent of two atomic bombs in Vietnam every month. And I remember I asked once Professor Chomsky, "how do you think they did that?" "I don't know. I don't know." And it's the same sense of wonderment when I got up in the morning, and I think it was Sana who sent me an email, "check out the news." And the same wonderment - I am still totally baffled - that Hamas figured out a way to tribute the human ingenuity and that spirit of resistance, and all the powers that each individual can summon forth in that struggle for resistance to defeat a very formidable or impose a defeat, even if it turns out not to be longstanding, to impose a momentary defeat on those racist supremacists and Untermenschen who just don't believe the Arabs are clever enough, smart enough, have enough ingenuity to prevail.

Karl Marx defended it. He defended it. He said "it was a matter of... They were being treated with such contempt, the Communards." The Communards were begging for a way to peacefully resolve this. They asked for one of their leaders, Blanqui, to be returned to them, and the government wouldn't. You know, John Brown, he didn't have a clean record. When he was in a battle in Kansas over a place called Osawatome, he killed hostages. He did. And when he was hung, it was very hard to find a person to defend him. Actually, I recently learned from reading something by Cornel West, one of the few people who spoke on his behalf was Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, which I wasn't aware of. But he killed hostages, and he was hung and very few rose to his defense, but before you knew it, the Civil War came along. And, one of the marching songs in the Civil War was "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave." History's judgment can be very different than the momentary judgment. And the third thing I would want to say is, it is so appalling, it's not just the despiriting, it's so appalling, the reaction of all of these cowards and careerists and scum who use their microphones called Twitter to just denounce the Hamas attack. And I think to myself, I've been recently reading books on Eugene Debs - the great American socialist at the turn of the 20th century - and I'm reading it because I want to plunge into Dr. Cornel West's candidacy, and I feel I need to read about past radical candidacies which had a substantial amount of success.

And Eugene Debs, he went to prison. I hope God's honor will hear this. Now this is at the turn of the century, it's 1918. He goes to prison at age 63. Now bear in mind, 63 back then would be about 83 now. People died of natural deaths at 63. He's only about 83 now. He went to prison because he opposed World War I and because of his advocacy of the rights, his radical advocacy of the rights of working people. He walked in, fearless although it's now clear from letters that he was deeply depressed and despondent. He got a 10-year sentence. When he got out of prison, he got out after three years. When he got out, the prison warden opened all the cells in the prison and all of the inmates poured out of the cells in order to say goodbye to Eugene Debbs. And that to me, that's the great tradition of the left. When I see the AOCs, the Ilhan Omars, the Bernie Sanders, when they "condemn" the revolt of the inmates in the concentration camp. "Israel has the right to defend itself when the inmates breach the walls of the camp." I spit on them. They nauseate me.

The statement today by Cornel West, it was good. Wasn't perfect, but he's running for president. It was good. He redeemed himself. Gideon Levy. He wrote an excellent column today in Haaretz. He redeemed himself. But unfortunately, you can count on the fingers of one hand - and even less than the fingers in one hand - the number of people who showed any heart, any soul, any compassion for the God-forsaken people of Gaza.

QUESTIONS

But they wait and wait and wait before they go in because it's proven for them. Remember, Israel has a very low threshold of tolerance for military casualties. It's been built up over the years because they're used to deluxe wars where Israeli soldiers don't get killed. And in the last major assault, Operation Defensive Shield, a significant number of Israeli soldiers were killed. That's considered a disaster in Israeli society. In Israeli society, it's a Spartan-like society, they value the death of a soldier much more than the death of a civilian. It's the reverse of what you might call normal societies. And so they have a very low threshold of tolerance for civilian deaths. And so the government always holds back from that ground invasion, but the main purpose of those projectiles is to goad -- goad -- lure Israel into launching the ground invasion.

Nonviolence : A viable tactic?

Number two, I'm not saying it proudly, but I have to say it honestly. The Palestinians had lost me. I gave up. I thought the cause was hopeless and I moved on in 2020. They lost me, but unfortunately for them, they were still alive. I could move on. I had that option. I wasn't happy and I wasn't proud. And to some extent, I was ashamed to have moved on. And I know Sana was not happy because she frequently wrote me, why aren't you writing anything about the Palestinians? Why aren't you posting anything about the Palestinians on their website? And of course I felt guilty about that. But I couldn't see a way out. And I've studied it for 40 years. I couldn't see a way out. So, if there were an option, I would be the first one to advocate it, a nonviolent option. But I didn't see any. And you're never going to convince me, it's never going to happen, that you're going to convince me that the Palestinians have an obligation to just lay down and die in a concentration camp. You're barking up the wrong tree if you think you'll ever convince me of that.

Now, how far are they allowed to go in order to break out of that camp? How far are they allowed to go? I think that's a legitimate question. But here I'll give you an example. In 1996, the International Court of Justice was asked to deliver what's called an advisory opinion. The question put to the court was this, is the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal under international law? Is the use or the threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal under international law? Now, as all of you know, the fundamental principle of the laws of war is the distinction between civilians and combatants, between civilian sites, a military base, and so forth. So insofar as nuclear weapons by their inherent nature are unable to distinguish between civilians and combatants, civilian sites and military sites, insofar as they inherently can't do that, the question obviously arises, are they legal under international law?

So there was a huge Supreme Court I.C.J. deliberation on this question, and their conclusion was that under almost all circumstances, the use of nuclear weapons was illegal under international law for the reasons just stated. However, the court said there's one area where we can't decide. And the area where we can't decide, the court said, was what if the survival of a state was at stake? Namely, what if a country faced the prospect that an attack would come at the price of the disintegration of the state? And the I.C.J. said, well, maybe if a state, its survival was at stake, maybe the use of nuclear weapons might be justified. Now bear in mind, the I.C.J. did not deliberate on the survival of a people. It deliberated on the survival of a state. And so I say, if the International Court of Justice - the highest judicial body in the world - couldn't decide whether you have the right to use nuclear weapons to defend the survival of your state, then I would say you clearly have the right to use armed force in order to protect the survival of your people. So, by current international law standards, I find it very hard to condemn the Palestinians, whatever they did. I find it very hard.

I know what the law says. I know what I'm legally obliged to say. I know what as a scholar or reported scholar I'm supposed to say. But, are you going to convince me a person who grew up in a concentration camp and wants to breathe free air, is - to use the language of international law - a legitimate target, I can't do it. I cannot. Now, people are going to say, "you're a hypocrite, you say you uphold international law, you know the fundamental principle of international law is the principle of distinction. Now you're contradicting yourself." Yeah, I'll admit it. I don't think legal formulas can capture every situation. And I don't believe a child who was born into a concentration camp is a legitimate target. If he, in this case, it is he, if he wants to be free. I can't see it.

Carrington Morris

Norman Finkelstein

Yeah. Carrington's an old friend.

Carrington Morris:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. It seems like people are already lining up. I was surprised to see a letter from Saudi Arabia and from Qatar saying that they thought Israel should take a look at their own behavior. It wasn't the usual response, although there's plenty of usual response coming from Europe. I am curious about what you all think, what could happen to this in the broader region.

Norman Finkelstein
And so I'll look forward to seeing you in the future. As I said, Operation Cast Lead lasted 22 days. Operation Defensive Shield lasted ... [Mouin: Protective Edge.] Would I say? No, Cast Lead lasted 22 days. Protective Edge, yeah, you're correct. Yes, Protective Edge, Defensive Shield was in 2003 with you too. Protective Edge lasted 51 days. So it's going to be judging by that, as always, the United States is going to give Israel enough time to wipe out Gaza. And if Israel is at some point forced to launch the ground invasion then the question will be how much resistance the Palestinians are able to summon forth, how many Israeli casualties result, combatant casualties, and then whether Israel will be forced as it has in the past, to end the destruction. It's going to be a long haul.
So I think we'll do our best. Thank you.
Okay. Bye-bye.

[1] See, Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom originally published in January of 2018

[2] Refers to article published in Global Herald, can be found here: https://theglobalherald.com/news/gaza-israel-war-deadly-aftermath-of-israeli-air-strikes-on-gaza/
A Statement by Norman Finkelstein: I am determined not to monetize my social media. However, I am dependent on a three-person technical crew. Your contributions to support their vital work will be greatly appreciated. All proceeds will go to the technical crew.

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Video recording and Transcript: Special Emergency Podcast on Gaza, October 8th 2023

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Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani held an emergency teach-in session yesterday regarding recent events in Gaza. This is the recording of that session as well as a rush transcript. There are some blips in the video here and there which we hope the audience will forgive as we've tried to put this out quickly in response to a rapidly changing situation.

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Eqbal Ahmad Terrorism Ours vs. Theirs 12, 1998

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Opinion | The U.S. Should Think Twice About Israel’s Plans for Gaza

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Invading and depopulating Gaza would be inhumane and a potential violation of international law. The United States must do what it can to halt such actions.

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Rashid Khalidi on Biden's "Israel-First Approach" & Growing Outrage over Gaza Across the Middle East

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No country has the right to commit war crimes and break international law, even in the name of “defense”.

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Het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict komt regelmatig in het nieuws. Op 7 oktober 2023 vuurde de Palestijnse terroristische organisatie Hamas honderden raketten af vanuit de Gazastrook op verschillende doelen in Israël. Ook openden Hamasleden een aanval op festivalgangers in het zuiden van Israël, executeerden ze Israëlische burgers en ontvoerden ze tientallen vrouwen en kinderen. De Israëlische premier Benjamin Netanyahu noemde dit 'een oorlog tegen Israël' en kondigde de oorlogstoestand af. Israël reageerde met honderden luchtaanvallen en aanvallen met grondtroepen op de Gazastrook. De aanval van Hamas en de reactie van Israël daarop kan bij leerlingen hele verschillende reacties oproepen en tot spanning leiden in de klas. Daarom is het verstandig vooraf goed te bedenken hoe je het onderwerp gaat bespreken. In deze lesbrief doen we een aantal aanbevelingen die moeten worden gezien als hulpmiddelen. Het is uiteindelijk de docent die het beste de situatie in de klas kan inschatten.

Het is al decennia erg onrustig in de regio en het conflict laait dan ook met regelmaat op. Daarbij zit het conflict al tijden in wat experts noemen een 'onhoudbare patstelling': er is zoveel onenigheid over zelfs de basisvoorwaarden voor een oplossing, dat vredesbesprekingen hopeloos lijken. Voor veel Israëliërs en Palestijnen geldt dat ze elkaar als de aanstichter zien van het geweld. Dit maakt dat de partijen niet snel tot een oplossing zullen komen. Het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict ligt zeer gevoelig en kan leiden tot heftige reacties op sociale media en ook in de klas. In deze lesbrief noemen wij een aantal overwegingen bij het bespreken van dit conflict.

Het conflict kan heftige reacties oproepen

De discussies die er spelen over het conflict zijn erg gepolariseerd: aan de ene kant zijn er mensen die de Israëlische bezetting van de Palestijnse gebieden en het geweld gericht op Palestijnse burgers goedkeuren. Elke kritiek op Israël of begrip voor de Palestijnen wordt dan als ondersteuning van terrorisme of als antisemitisme afgedaan. Anderzijds zijn er mensen die sympathiseren met de Palestijnse bevolking. Onder deze groep kunnen ook antisemitische en antizionistische sentimenten aanwezig zijn. Soms zullen ze geweld tegen (Israëlische) Joden vergoelijken en de vernietiging van de staat Israël bepleiten. Dit zijn de uiterste polen in de discussie rondom het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict. Scholieren kunnen de gehele bandbreedte van meningen laten zien.

Is het raadzaam om het conflict te bespreken?

Wanneer een conflict doorlopend in de media aanwezig is, is het heel moeilijk om het niet te bespreken of te benoemen. Maar hoe ga je te werk als je dit wil bespreken in de klas?

1. Als eerste stap kun je zo kort en zo feitelijk mogelijk benoemen wat er aan de hand is. TerInfo raadt aan daarvoor expliciet aan te sluiten bij officiële standpunten van de internationale gemeenschap, de VN, de EU en de Nederlandse regering, en deze ook als zodanig te benoemen. Die standpunten vormen immers het speelveld. Niet wij, of de leerlingen, maar de officiële gemeenschap (van nationale en internationale overheden) bepaalt wat juridisch gezien terrorisme of oorlog is.

2. De tweede stap is om aan te geven dat dit weliswaar de officiële standpunten zijn, maar dat er daarnaast uiteenlopende meningen, gevoelens en inschattingen van de context denkbaar zijn, en dat de zaken altijd kunnen veranderen. Deze twee stappen zijn belangrijk, want het is zaak dat leerlingen gewezen worden op de rechtsstatelijke context en dat we leerlingen niet onbewust in een grens- of wetsoverschrijdend discours alleen laten.

3. De derde stap is dat je moet bedenken hoe je in het licht van bovenstaande kaders, die nu gelden en er zijn, met leerlingen in gesprek komt. Als het bekend is dat (een aantal) leerlingen sterke meningen hebben over het conflict, is het belangrijk om te overwegen of het conflict überhaupt wel in de klas moet worden besproken. Dit hangt vooral af van de vraag of het mogelijk is om een veilige sfeer te creëren in de klas, waarin leerlingen hun meningen kunnen delen zonder dat dit al te heftige reacties oproept bij andere leerlingen. De leerlingen hoeven het niet met elkaar eens te zijn over het conflict, maar ze moeten wel respect hebben voor elkaars meningen en anderen niet beledigen of discrimineren. Wees je als docent ook bewust van de grenzen van multiperspectiviteit in een rechtsstaat. Het steunen van een terroristische organisatie (werven, rekruteren, trainen, financieren, aanzetten tot haat of geweld) kan in sommige gevallen zelfs strafrechtelijke gevolgen hebben voor de jongere (zie dit voorbeeld en deze uitspraak uit 2017). Maar ook buiten het strafrechtelijke domein kunnen radicale uitspraken tot schorsing leiden. Het is dan ook belangrijk dat docenten hier leerlingen van bewust maken.

Soms is het verstandig het conflict eerst iets te laten 'afkoelen' voor dat je het bespreekt in de klas. Als je onzeker voelt als docent, kun je de les eerst met een andere docent bespreken of schoolbreed afstemmen welke docenten de aanval bespreken en hiervoor de meeste expertise in huis hebben.

Mocht je het conflict gaan bespreken, dan raden wij je aan om rekening te houden met onze Do's & Don'ts bij het bespreken van controversiële onderwerpen. Sommige leerlingen zullen sterk emotioneel betrokken zijn bij het onderwerp. Het is belangrijk daar ruimte voor te geven, zonder dat het ten koste gaat van anderen. Emoties kunnen sterk iemands opvattingen sturen en kunnen daardoor bovenstaande stap 1 en 2 bemoeilijken. Ook raden we je deze blog aan, met strategieën voor het bespreken van polariserende onderwerpen en het omgaan met heftige uitspraken. Het kwadrant wat in de blog beschreven wordt kun je gebruiken om vooraf al na te denken over hoe je mogelijk wilt reageren op extreme uitspraken in de klas. Een aantal van onze tips zijn hieronder uitgewerkt.

1. Wees realistisch, en let op je woordkeuze

Wees realistisch. Begin altijd door heel kort te wijzen op wat officieel de standpunten zijn. Leerlingen moeten dat weten, want dat zijn de rechtsstatelijke en internationaalrechtelijke kaders en die scheppen feiten, of we dat willen of niet. Als leiders als Netanyahu of Biden zeggen dat er sprake is van een oorlog, dan heeft dat betekenis volgens het internationaal recht en schept dat nieuwe regels. Onder die regels is er bijvoorbeeld ruimte om te mogen bombarderen. Leerlingen moeten begrijpen dat dat de realiteit is en dat dit geen kwestie is van meningen. Maar daarna moet er vrijwel meteen ruimte zijn voor verdere reflectie op de situatie, en voor het formuleren van eigen standpunten en meningen.

De woorden die je gebruikt zeggen indirect al veel over je eigen standpunt in het conflict. Dit is bijvoorbeeld het geval bij het gebruik van ofwel 'Palestijnse gebieden' of 'Palestina'. Daarom is het van belang dat je je bewust wordt van je eigen standpunt en het mogelijk effect van je woordkeuze voordat je het conflict bespreekt. Bij TerInfo houden wij de duidingen van Nederland en de Europese Unie aan. De EU spreekt over 'Palestijnse gebieden' of 'Palestijnse Autoriteit', erkent Israël als staat en ziet Hamas als terroristische organisatie. Nederland ziet de militaire acties van Israël niet als (staats)terreur. Wel beschouwt Nederland de Israëlische nederzettingen in de Palestijnse gebieden als illegaal.

2. Heb feitenkennis paraat

Het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict is een enorm complex geheel en lastig om in één les samen te vatten. Belangrijk is dat dit conflict niet wordt versimpeld. Zo zijn bijvoorbeeld niet alle Palestijnen en Arabieren moslim en niet alle Israëliërs joods.

En ook is het niet altijd oorlog, maar zijn er ook diverse periodes van tijdelijke vrede geweest, en van tijdelijk succesvolle vredesonderhandelingen. Wijs ook op dit soort hoopvolle en feitelijke gebeurtenissen.

Deze video's van NOS op 3 en het NOS Jeugdjournaal leggen beknopt uit hoe het geweld gelinkt is aan de geschiedenis van de regio. Onze lesplannen kunnen gebruikt worden om in een volledige les stil te staan bij dit conflict. Bekijk ook ons dossier over Israël-Palestijnse gebieden.
Meer lezen over de achtergrond van het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict? Lees het hier in onze kennisbank.
3. Benoem tegengeluiden

Hoewel de situatie weinig hoopgevend is, is het belangrijk om te benadrukken dat er een verschil is tussen Palestijnse en Israëlische leiders en burgers. Hoewel er naarmate dit conflict voortduurt meer burgers aan beide kanten zijn die het geweld van hun leiders steunen of goedpraten, zitten veel mensen niet te wachten op dit geweld. Er bestaan ook actiegroepen die zich inzetten voor vrede, zoals deze vredeswandeling van meer dan 5000 Israëlische en Palestijnse vrouwen georganiseerd door Women Wage Peace (zie statement op X), en organisaties die oproepen tot vredig samenleven, zoals Standing Together.

Hoe om te gaan met sociale media en heftige beelden?

Op diverse sociale mediakanalen zijn veel beelden te zien en te vinden van de gebeurtenissen in Israël en Gaza. Soms zien leerlingen (heftige) beelden die hun docenten niet zien. Hoe kun je daar als docent op reageren? Je kunt terugvallen op een aantal vragen om de leerlingen te laten reflecteren op media- en brongebruik. Bijvoorbeeld: 'Wie heeft de bron gemaakt of geschreven?', of: 'Waar heb je dit beeld gezien, op welk platform?' en: 'Wat voor soort bron is het?'

Maar we willen ook benadrukken - en maak het vooral bespreekbaar in de klas - dat je die heftige beelden soms beter niet kunt kijken. Hoewel je vaak niet zelf bepaalt welke beelden er langskomen op je tijdlijn of overzichtspagina, kun je wel iets doen om heftige beelden (tijdelijk) te beperken (zie kader).

Daarnaast is het belangrijk om leerlingen erop te wijzen dat ze die heftige beelden niet verder moeten verspreiden op sociale media. Zo kunnen ze actief een bijdrage leveren aan de-escalatie. Want de beelden kunnen leiden tot spanningen en angst. Daarnaast is het raadzaam om als de docent ook uit te leggen dat je door het delen van filmpjes van organisaties die Nederland als terroristisch kwalificeert zelf ook strafrechtelijk in de problemen kunt komen. Vaak zijn leerlingen zich hier niet van bewust. Ten slotte voelen leerlingen zich vaak machteloos na zo'n heftige gebeurtenis. Door met leerlingen te bespreken hoe ze zelf kunnen bijdragen aan een vreedzame en eerlijke samenleving, krijgen ze weer meer een gevoel van controle, waardoor hun angst wellicht afneemt. Het niet delen van filmpjes is hierin een belangrijke stap.

Werkvormen

We ontwikkelden een viertal werkvormen waarmee je op verschillende manieren aandacht kunt besteden aan de gebeurtenissen van dit weekend. De werkvormen zijn geschikt voor diverse niveaus en leeftijdsgroepen en kunnen helpen bij het reguleren van emoties, bij het in kaart brengen van de gebeurtenissen en het boven tafel krijgen van de perspectieven die er leven, of helpen om de situatie te de-escaleren. Let op: om deze werkvormen te bekijken, heb je een account nodig. Die kun je als docent gratis aanvragen.

Meer zien?

Credits thumbnail

RJA1988 (Pixabay), https://pixabay.com/nl/service/license/

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Lesbrief: Hoe bespreek je het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict? - Ter-info

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Het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict komt regelmatig in het nieuws. Op 7 oktober 2023 vuurde de Palestijnse terroristische organisatie Hamas honderden raketten af vanuit de Gazastrook op verschillende doelen in Israël. Ook openden Hamasleden een aanval op festivalgangers in het zuiden van Israël, executeerden ze Israëlische burgers en ontvoerden ze tientallen vrouwen en kinderen.

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Rutgers Center for Security, Race & Rights