Sunday, October 22, 2023

On Palestine

(Sun. Oct. 15)

 Dear Friends and Family,

Father Daniel Berrigan, SJ, speaking on the one-year anniversary of 9/11.

An anniversary like this induces—seems to me, induces silence rather than a lot of words, but I’ll try. A few minutes after this horrid event a year ago, the phone rang. I was working at something. And a friend from North Carolina said, “Something terrible is happening in New York City.” And I said, “What?” and so on and so forth. And my first reaction was, I guess, right out of the gut rather than the heart, and I blurted into the phone, “So it’s come home at last.” Sympathy and tears came later, but that was the beginning. And I had a sense that that came from a very deep immersion in what I might call a hyphenated reality of America-in-the-world, hyphen in-the-world.

I was under American bombs in Hanoi in '68. We spent almost every night, Howard Zinn and myself, in bomb shelters. It was quite an educated moment to cower under the bombs of your own country. There was a period of very intense reflection after that—that would be in February. Three months later, with my brother and seven others, I went to Catonsville, Maryland, and burned the draft files. I had seen what napalm did to children and the aged and anybody within the swath of fire in Hanoi. I had seen what happened to Jesuit priests who get in the way of America in Salvador. In ’84, I met with the Jesuits who were later murdered at the university there. I had tasted American courts and American prisons. I'm trying to explain my first reaction: So it’s come home at last.

Within a week or so, I opened the Hebrew Bible to the book called The Lamentations of Jeremiah. And I found there a very powerful antidote to the poison that was running deep in the veins of authority here. Evidently, this bystander of the destruction of the holy city was giving us permission to go through an enormously redemptive and healing labyrinth of emotions, emotions that one would think superficially the Bible would not allow for. But he allows the bystanders and the survivors to speak of enormous hatred of God, a spirit of revenge against the enemy, a guilt in view of one’s own crimes and inhumanity, a hatred of those who have wrought this upon us, etc., etc. These are all the tunnel, the very deep tunnel, of psychology and spirit that the Bible opens before us. I began to understand that unless we went through that, we would never come out to the light again, and that that would be true of myself, as well. I began to understand that the foreshortening of that lonely and difficult emotional trek was a clue to Mr. Bush and the war spirit, and that unless one were allowed the full gamut of human and inhuman emotions, one would come out armed and ready with another tat for tit.

I am no Daniel Berrigan, but last Saturday, like him, I initially thought from the gut and mind.  I should have thought first from the heart and mourned the loss of life.  All life is precious.  (Pause.)  
In the wake of 9/11, the war drums beat.  I was an idealist who thought that war was bad but could be part of the answer.  I felt uneasy, but I did not actively stop those drums.  In the navy, I played a small part in that "global war on terror."  22 years later, I see how those wars failed and only brought more war and destruction, more nihilism.  I see the same march toward endless war again and hear the drums beat.  Hence, this email.
To ask how we got here, I believe, is essential.  To ask that is not to justify crimes but to seek future crimes from happening.  Perhaps we don't share the same assumptions on how we got here, and that is fair.  But as Berrigan and Jeremiah warned, "unless one were allowed the full gamut of human and inhuman emotions, one would come out armed and ready with another tat for tit."
With that in mind, in real-time, I believe we are witnessing and acquiescing to punitive genocide.  Our government, our tax dollars.  This scholar of genocide agrees and so does Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International, and Oxfam, to name a few: https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide .  If you feel compelled, follow the Quaker lead and call your decision-makers: Friends Committee on National Legislation | The U.S. Must Act to De-Escalate the Violence in Israel and Palestine (quorum.us)
(I have no personal connections to the land, but it I hope it has been heart--rather than gut and mind--that animates my support for Palestine liberation.  I have copied and pasted my longer thoughts and resources below on that reasoning, if interested.  My response to a friend earlier in the week.  If not, I understand.) 
With deep love for all of you,
Terry
________________________________

Dear ______.  
 Thanks for reaching out.  I've broken this up into 4 sections: 1. semi-concise thoughts on the immediate, 2. resources for regular following-ish, 3. One-off summative pieces, 4.  quick-ish overview of Zionism

Semi-concise thoughts on the immediate
1. There is nothing that justifies the slaughter of innocent people.  Even though the Palestinians are oppressed, and even though they have the right under international law to resist, I can't condone Hamas' targeting of civilians.  That is a war crime  I currently hold two seemingly contradictory positions: a. Palestinians are an oppressed indigenous people that have the right to resist, and b. Killing innocent people is wrong.
a. I view Hamas in the way that I view the IRA, or its earlier precursors in the early 1900s in Ireland.  I don't like what they do.  But, I also understand where they arise from.  (I also note that Israel used to fund/build up Hamas in the 80s because at the time it was thought they would be more apolitical than the more secular and also Marxist groups at the time: Blowback: How Israel Went From Helping Create Hamas to Bombing It (theintercept.com).  Not unlike the US funding the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 70s and 80s, some of whom would evolve into the Taliban and al Qaeda).  I agree with the larger cause they're proximate to or that they are a slice of--Palestinian liberation--but not their violent methods.
b. Or a similar historical analogy might be a Lakota raid on a (US/white) settlement village in the 1800s on the prairie.  I don't want babies to die, AND I understand why Lakota resist.  Or when the ANC used violent tactics (alongside nonviolent ones) to push against apartheid South Africa. (Nelson  Mandela was on the US terrorist list until 2008)  Or I just did Powhatan's war in the 1600s in New England.  They raided/killed a village of 400 setllers, in the larger context of being erased.
c.  I should also note that while some Palestinians have taken up violence in their struggle, many Palestinians have practiced nonviolent methods.  
i. One such current method is the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which is modeled on the Boycott South Africa campaign.  BDS has been criminalized in both red and blue states in the US.  
ii. In the first intifada in the 1980s, Palestinians carried out over 100 different methods of nonviolent resistance.  5 Broken Cameras and Naila and the Uprising are two excellent films covering Palestinian nonviolence.  
iii. In the 2010s, activists tried several times nonviolently sailing from Turkey to Gaza to bring attention to the siege (in place since 2006).  Their boats were attacked by Israel.
iv. In 2018, in the "Great March of Return," Palestinians nonviolently marched toward the border to protest the siege, but Israeli soldiers shot and killed 223 Palestinians and injured thousands more.  
v.  I bring these up not to justify last Saturday's violence and civilian hostage-taking but to show that Palestinians have been practicing nonviolent tactics for decades.   
2. Even if you disagree with the analysis thus far, I hope you read on for a pre-last-weekend background.  Many people who are sympathetic with Palestine don't share that analysis of this weekend, and that is fair.   
3. While I had sympathy for Palestinians for a while, I still used to be a both-sideser, "damn both are oppressed peoples, can't we get along type, Michigan-Ohio state old rivalries die hard."  Then I visited the country in 2009, and that changed everything.  There is complete power asymmetry, with Palestinians at the mercy of the all-powerful Israeli state.  I saw settlements, extreme poverty, refugee camps, stood at checkpoints, and walked down streets where Palestinians were harassed by soldiers and settlers.  Now, It's not about me and my tears, as I was able to move through spaces easily as a tourist with my US passport, but that was a formative experience.  (Many people who visit do their tours through Christian pilgrimage companies or Birthright purposefully do not see all this)

Resources: News and groups  (skip over this part for now, if you don't want to get overwhelmed in too many resources)
News/analysis
A.  Some good anti-Zionist* Jewish perspectives 
1. Jewish Currents
2. Mondoweiss
3. +972 Magazine
B. Groups (Jewish, both non-Israeli and Israeli):
1. Jewish Voice for Peace: Home - JVP (jewishvoiceforpeace.org)
2. If Not Now: IfNotNowMovement
5. Breaking the Silence  (This group is really good...former Israeli soldiers speaking out): Breaking the Silence
6. Combatants for Peace.
C. Some good Christian perspectives:
1. FOSNA: A (Palestinian) Christian Voice for Palestine: Friends of Sabeel North America (fosna.org)
D. Palestinian sources/groups  (I should probably list more here than I have)
1. Palestine Legal: Palestine Legal
3. Eye on Palestine
4.  Let's talk Palestine

One-off summative recommendations
5. A beautiful novel (of sorts) that encapsulates much of this tragedy is Colum McCann's Apeirogon. I happen to know the brother of the young Israeli girl who was murdered by the suicide bomber.  He and his father are dedicated Palestinian sympathizers, not despite but because of the loss of their beloved.  Because they see the root of the violence.  (He's active on the former IDF vets for peace type stuff)
6.  Film, free docs:
a. Naila and the uprising: wonderful film on the nonviolent resistance in the first intifada.
b.  Peace propaganda, and the promised land: very good analysis on how the conflict is talked about in US media.  Made in 2004 or so, but it explains a lot of how the mainstream narrative (let alone Fox) shapes the discourse.   
7.  Boycott, on how nonviolent boycott tactics are being outlawed in the US.
8.  A bunch of other films, with discussions afterwards: Online Film Salons | Voices from the Holy Land - film series
9. Miko Peled, author of The General's Son: Miko Peled On Israel's GENOCIDAL War On Gaza - YouTube

Parsing out Zionism from Judaism and Anti-Zionism from Anti-semitism
1. Zionism is a nationalist movement started in the late 1800s, which advocated a return of Jewish people back to "Zion"/"Israel" in what was then Ottoman ruled Palestine.  One of its mottos was a "land without a people for a people without a land."  It was in part motivated by anti-Semitism in Europe at the time.  At the same time, if you read Theodor Herzl and the other early ZIonists, including later the first PM of Israel David Ben-Gurion, they speak the language of colonialism. Actually, Herzl was a colonialist – Mondoweiss
a. early Zionists were not religious.  
b. not all Jews are Zionists.  (Some, both on the liberal/secular side and on the orthodox side, argue against Zionism)
c. not all Zionists are Jews  (Some major US protestant evangelical contingent here are "Christian Zionist"...and then some of them are actually anti-Semitic.  That is, They support Israel, but only because they see it as the place of rapture for Christians at the end of time).  
2. There is a vigorous debate within Jewish communities over Zionism.  The Jewish sources I named above are mostly anti-Zionist.  
3. Ironically, to assume that all Jews are Zionist can be a form of anti-Semitism.  There is a long anti-Semitic trope that assumes Jews have "double loyalty."  That is, that they are not loyal to the country they live in.  It's a more subtle form of anti-semitistm, but when Trump for example was speaking to a group of American Jews and assumed they all supported Israel or assumed that they all would move there if they could, that actually was a form of anti-Semitism.  But that might be a tangential distraction here.
4.  The protests of the past year in Israel seemed to be a battle within Zionism.  Liberal Zionists were rightly claiming that Netanyahu is an extremist and that his policies were entrenching extremism.  Bernie Sanders would be a well known example of a liberal Zionist.  Or Barack Obama and most of the Democratic party.  They blamed right wing zionism.  But what a lot of observers were saying was, especially Palestinians, "right wing zionism isn't the problem.  Zionism is."
a. Zionism by definition seeks an ethno-nationalist state which excludes, primarily, the indigenous population.  That is what Palestinians and the 3rd world said when the UN general assembly passed its "Zionism is racism" resolution a couple decades ago.  I would have thought that that view was extreme, still some years ago, but now, I agree with that position.  It is telling that, when you look up which countries recognize Palestine as a state, only the European and US/Australia/etc do not.  (Inside baseball on Zionism, if you wish, pretty good interview, centered on the protests this past year in Israel: The Dig: Zionism’s Civil War w/ Edo Konrad & Joshua Leifer on Apple Podcasts)
i. for what it's worth, I think the answer is a one-state solution, with full equality between all peoples, Palestinian Arab, Jewish, whomever.  One person, one vote.  No favoritism for any ethnicity/religion. The Palestinian refugees would have the right to return (as refugees do, under international law.  Many will choose not to, but they have that right).  The Jewish population would have the right to stay (as we white settlers have stayed here on indigenous land in US, although not equitably).  Many will choose to stay.  Some may choose not to.  But freedom and equality for all peoples.  An imperfect solution.  (Hamas, like the IRA, needs to be brought in politically, which might be difficult, of course).  I do believe Jews have historic, cultural, and religious ties to the land, of course.  
ii.  I used to be a two-stater, which is the standard US liberal reply.  But the current two-states rhetoric and practice leaves Palestine with nothing (the maps in the al Jazeera link above are useful).  The Oslo process was a sham but standard US telling of them or the 2000 Camp David accords portray the Palestinians as "never accepting"  ( Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land, named above, or Edward Said's 1993 piece predicted this: Edward Said · The Morning After · LRB 21 October 1993)  There currently is a one-state apartheid system right now.  I support one-state for both (all) peoples, in sort of the way that post-apartheid South Africa resolved or Northern Ireland resolved.  Those examples are admittedly tenuous, especially with racialized inequalities generated under capitalism.
iii.  Ultimately, I think Palestine nationalism is incomplete, too, like Black nationalism and all nationalisms, including Zionism.  I understand Palestine nationalism and support it in the larger cause of justice.  But ultimately, what I believe in is worldwide socialism, open borders, multi-national and multi-ethnic states, not nationalism.  (That of course is a long way off, but I also believe that is the only way our species survives impending climate catastrophe).  I tend to support indigenous rights, yes, but that is not my end motivating factor.  Indigenous peoples can, philosophically, be oppressors too.
Ok, why all this parsing out? and what are the lessons of the Holocaust?
1. I stated up top: there is no justification for the targeted killing of innocents.  That is a war crime, yes located within a war of indigenous resistance, but a war crime.  Even the oppressed can (by definition, although not "should") commit atrocities.  The Ukrainians, who are fighting a defensive war against Russian aggression, have committed some war crimes.  
2.  So are/were Jews being killed on/since Saturday and other times in Israel?  Yes, they were.   Last Saturday was horrific.  Were they being killed because they were Jewish?  I think that is only part of the answer.  They were Jewish and living next door to an open air prison.  That does not change the trauma or the mourning, but I think it's important to historicize (not justify it).  Why?
i. Anti-semitism exists and is an evil.  It has existed for 2000 years plus, probably more.  Our beloved Catholic Church is much to blame for this.  Does anti-semitism exist in Muslim corners and in Palestine solidarity corners and in some anti-Zionism corners?  Yes, it does.  That is bad and needs to be stamped out.  But I don't believe anti-Zionism is by definition anti-Semitism.  A great interview (with audio option) on the intentional historical shift--when anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism actually became conflated some decades ago: Israel and Its Supporters Have Redefined Antisemitism to Stifle Solidarity With Palestine (jacobin.com).  There is a difference, in my opinion, between saying "Israel is a racist state.  We need to end this arrangement.  Resist Israel." and "death to the jews."  The latter of course is anti-Semitic.  (For what it's worth, I think it is ultimately more pressing to resist the US, the largest imperial state, than to resist Israel, but that's a longer conversation)  I've been to a number of Palestine solidarity events over the years and I've never heard the latter "death to the Jews," but it is possible that it is uttered in some corners. If so, that is wrong.  I taught a (white Catholic) kid in a college class 10 years ago who was very sympathetic to Palestinians but for absolutely the wrong reasons.  He was a rabid anti-Semite and kept conflating Israel with "the Jews."  (he was influenced by a vile Catholic theologian with vile ideas and bad history/theology, and one time in a paper against abortion wrote "It is well known that abortion comes from the Jews," which was wild)
ii.  So, I believe the attacks on the Pittsburgh synagogue some years ago, for example, and on Israel this past weekend are different.  Both are horrible, but in Pittsburgh, they were targeted because they were Jews.  In Israel, they were targeted for various reasons, one of which was their position as Jewish settlers.  That probably doesn't make a difference to those mourning or those triggered by the violence, but I believe politically, it is different.
iii.  The case of Western Sahara vis a vis Morocco might be helpful (or not).  Morocco is illegally occupying Western Sahara.  The Saharis in the name of resistance have committed some atrocities over the years.  Their victims have been Moroccan, predominantly Muslim.  They weren't killed because they were Muslim (Saharis are also Muslim).  They were killed (wrongly) because of their situation as occupiers.  If ii. and iii. are unhelpful here or sound like justification, then ignore them.
3.  Anti-semitism is on the rise in the US/Europe and the western world..  It is mostly on the rise in right wing circles. 
4.  I think you could argue that the Holocaust was the single greatest crime in history, in its intensity and direct intentionality.  Jews, obviously, were its primary victims.  The world (including the US government) did too little too late (and after WW2, we secretly put Nazis to work in the CIA in Operation Paperclip, but that's for another day).  The Nazis picked up on a latent thousands-years old anti-Semitism.  The Dreyfuss affair is a well known saga in the late 1800s/early 1900s France which sadly illustrates this anti-semitism and where it might have been headed.
a.  What is the lesson of the Holocaust?  "Never again"?  Or "Never again for the Jews"?  
b.  I obviously was not in any way affected by it, but as a dispassionate observer, I think it should be the former: "never again."  In the short piece from Chris Hedges above, he highlights a Warsaw Ghetto and Holocaust survivor who models that.  For some animated discussion on this, check out Norman Finkelstein's writing/speaking.  Finkelstein is a crank.  
c.  Generational trauma is real, and I don't want to deny that this event is triggering for many Jews.
d. Jews, like any group, are a historicized, constructed group.  That is not to say that they are unreal.  But, that is to say they exist within history, not outside of it.  The same goes for African Americans or the Irish or Tibetan Buddhists or the Philadelphia Phillies.  For all of those groups, history could have turned out differently, if different decisions and actions occurred at different conjunctures.  History and the future is all contingent.  So, the Jews are unique in their history, yes, but they do not exist as eternal victims outside of history.  (I think part of that latter vantage point comes from a particular reading of the Bible/Exodus we Christians get, which gets lumped together with the Holocaust and then Israel's portrayal in the US media.  I know that was the hegemonic view I grew up with and carried.)  Now, that is not to deny their unique historical victimhood.  But, Jews, like any groups (such as African Americans) are philosophically capable of committing atrocities themselves. (If the power and capabilities and capacities were aligned in a particular way.  It's very hard to imagine right now African Americans oppressing white Americans, but it is philosophically possible.).
e.  What is happening to Palestinians is genocidal in my opinion, if you follow the numbers.  That is not to say it's the same as the Holocaust.  And that is not to say it's committed solely by Zionists.  The UK and US government, for two, have been major abetters.  But genocide, like apartheid, are definitions, not analogies.  
f.  And so, that is why I speak up for Palestinians.
5.  There was much mass Jewish migration to Palestine during/after the Holocaust.  That is not to be denied.  Refugees should be given asylum.  The US and European and Australians' records on this front prior to and during WW2 is shameful.  But once landed, what will the power sharing system be?  Will the indigenous people be replaced?  That is why I believe in the above-stated one-state solution, equality and liberation for all peoples.  

Ok, I hope that was somewhat helpful in explaining and not just my blabbering.  I think it important to recognize anti-Semitism and acknowledge the unique crime of the Holocaust, but I also think it important to parse out "Israeli nation state" from "the Jews."  Even if you don't agree with my earlier analysis of the immediate at the beginning OR the historical analysis of Zionism at the end and even if you/one remains a liberal Zionist (which is what I was for a long time), I hope the Palestinian perspectives shared above are helpful.
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