The Palestine Plight

By Ariel Ky, May 29, 2018

The world’s media is condemning Israeli soldiers who killed unarmed Palestinians on April 20, 2018 in the Great March of Return in Gaza. This action coincides with the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

The uproar in the international community has only begun, as the plight of the Palestinians, who live in a de facto prison run by Israel, has come into sharp focus with these actions, and social media has put the conflict under a magnifying lens.

In Brussels, 4497 pairs of shoes (representing Palestinians killed by Israelis in the last decade.) were laid out on the square outside the EU Foreign Affairs Council as ministers are meeting to discuss their response to the recent massacre of unarmed Palestinian protestors.

In a video posted in The Irish Post, May 25, Irish shoppers quickly acted to remove Israeli products from shelves in a boycott action.

However, Israel continues unabated in its persecution of Palestinians. On May 27, as reported in B’Tselem, an entire Palestinian community of 32 families, Kan Al-Ahmar, is being forcibly transferred from their West Bank homes.

It was in defense of such a Palestinian neighborhood that American Rachel Corrie (a 23-year-old peace activist with the International Solidarity Movement, was killed on March 16, 2003, by an Israeli soldier operating a bulldozer to demolish the home of a Palestinian pharmacist. She had courageously stood in front of the home to stop the bulldozer, but lost her life instead.

 “These deaths are preventable. They are us. We are them,” Rachel Corrie said in a speech as a young girl.

(Demolishing civilian homes violates Articles 2 and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 33, 53, and 54 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions.)

For the most part, the international community has shamefully ignored the plight of Palestinians, and the ongoing genocidal war of Israel against them. It only came out 14 years later after Arafat’s death in 2004, that he had been assassinated, poisoned with polonium (probably by the Mossad). The United States has supported Israel with financial aid and military aid. International businesses have profited from the occupation of Palestinians.

The United Nations Human Rights Council is considering a report, “Who Else Profits” which blacklists Israel and the international businesses that have played a crucial role supporting occupation and settlement, deeming it a criminal business activity violating human rights.

In March of this year, Trump cut off humanitarian aid (more than half of $65,000,000 pledged for aid to Palestinian refugees through the United Nations Relief and Welfare Agency (UNRWA). He demanded that the Palestinians stop sending payments to Palestinians in Israeli prisons, and to the families of those who had died.

The U.S. Congress is split on passing a law against antisemitism, a law which would jail Americans for 20 years for the crime of criticizing Israel. Anyone criticizing Israel’s war against Palestine gets accused of antisemitism, which I consider a red herring to deflect accountability for murder. Just because Jews have been persecuted, doesn’t make their persecution of Palestinians acceptable. Persecution is persecution. It’s always wrong.

If the U.S. Congress passes such a law, it should be immediately struck down as being unconstitutional, as it is a huge move against freedom of speech.

Today, May 29, 2018 the Israeli Navy stopped a Palestinian flotilla attempting to sail from Gaza to Cypress. 22 Palestinians were arrested, including Palestinian patients and students. This was an act of desperation as some Palestinians do not have access to needed medical care.

Not everyone in the international community has looked the other way. Two previous freedom flotillas were launched to assist the Palestinians. On May 31, 2010 a flotilla of international peace activists sailed from Turkey for the Gaza strip. Israeli’s navy troops intercepted the six ships, five of which surrendered without incident, but nine of the activists on the sixth ship were killed when they were boarded. At the time, Turkey branded Israel a terrorist state.

A second flotilla was intercepted October 5, 2016, 35 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza. International women activists, including Nobel Peace prize winner Mairead Maguir of Northern Ireland, were arrested.

The Israelis launched Operation Protective Edge against the Gaza Strip in 2014, killing over 2,000 Palestinians, including over 50 children. That Israel suffered little or no consequences to these actions has given Palestinians a sense that Israeli soldiers act with impunity.

Following are excerpts from Noam Chomsky’s 2005 book, Middle East Illusions, as he describes the history of the conflict, and possible outcomes.

“The participants in the Palestine tragedy of the past half century perceive it as a national conflict: Jews against Arabs.”

“Sooner or later, at some moment the international situation will be unfavorable. That moment, if it arrives, will be the end of Israel, though the catastrophe will be far greater in scale.”

“The Palestinians have suffered a severe historical injustice in that they have been deprived of a substantial part of their traditional home.”

Chomsky explains how this impasse cannot be resolved through the use of force (see Chapter 2, “A Radical Perspective”. He set forth two alternatives, “The first is the continuation of the national struggle between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, both sides locked into the losing strategy that I have already discussed. This will lead either to the physical destruction of the Palestinians, or to a much wider—probably nuclear—war, with unpredictable consequences… 

The only other alternative… is the establishment of a Palestinian state in the currently occupied areas. He adds, “I suspect that only extreme pressure from the great powers could lead Israel to accept a truly independent Palestinian state.”

Chomsky describes a third way, one which embraces social change brought about by local forces in both societies, a movement in which people no longer identified themselves as Jews or Arabs, but people committed in a common effort to achieve social justice, freedom, and brotherhood.

I would add that women must play a key role in the peace process, and that brotherhood is an archaic word that does not include women. This social justice and freedom must include women, and perhaps good will for the human family is a better term than brotherhood.

A long-range process of transition to a peaceful society requires an armistice and agreement to no longer use violence to achieve their goals. What is required is the grace that comes from women’s involvement in changing to a way of life that allows everyone involved (Israelis and Palestinians) to thrive.