The War on Palestine…

Since the start of war on Gaza, I agonized over writing a piece about the current situation in Palestine and the war on Gaza. I did not know where to start. Then, the eureka moment came when I read Chuck Schumer’s opinion in the New York Times “What American Jews Fear Most.” I decided to use it as a template for mine with the belief that what I will be sharing is rooted in reality and truth.

I start with the title “What American Jews Fear Most.” This was a little confusing to me. Should I relate to myself as an American Muslim, Arab American or just an American. Was Mr. Schumer’s support for Israel come from his religious background, so as Mr. Blinken’s, the US Secretary of State, who declared, upon landing in Israel, that he came as a Jew! How fitting. He did not go there as an American rather as a religious zealot. However, I believe in “truth shall set you free” mantra so I am going to write this as an American, pure and simple.

“Fifty-three days ago, citizens of Israel suffered a horrendous attack orchestrated and executed by Hamas,” the article starts. This is the absurdity of such a narrative that insults everyone’s intelligence. This start shows a moral flexibility of picking and choosing what to mention and what to ignore. The whole “story” started 106 years ago, on November 2, 1917, when Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary, wrote to Lord Rothchild, a leader of the British Jewish community, giving his promise for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Thirty years later, a collective of “terrorists” militia groups, mainly the Irgun, Lehi, Palmach, and Haganah organized bombing campaigns and terror attacks against Arabs, and many committed massacres, that drove Arabs of their land. Menachem Begin, the celebrated Israeli prime minister, was called a terrorist by Albert Einstein and 27 other Jewish intellectuals in a letter to the New York Times, which was published on December 4, 1948 for his central role in the Deir Yassin massacre. The many massacres where not done as hoc, as some wanted us to believe, rather, it was planned at the highest level to drive Palestinian out of their land, in what is considered ethnic cleansing. And that is how the State of Israel was created.

I dare to say Israel’s legacy is dead men, women, children and the sick as well as the mass displacement of humans from every corner of Palestine. Violence, ethnic cleansing, chaos, uprooting olive trees of over 2000-year-old, collective punishment of those who have not committed any crime, administrative detention, a term used for taking thousands of Palestinian hostages with no defined crime, and committing massacres at every turn are what the world sees as the long legacy of Israel’s mission.

Bombing the world’s third oldest Church, which has traditionally served as a sanctuary for both Christians and Muslims during Israel’s periodic wars against Gaza is incomprehensible. Netanyahu’s recent biblical reference to Amalek, as Mother Jones reported, “… as Israeli forces launched their ground invasion in Gaza, are among its most violent — and have a long history of being used by Jews on the far right to justify killing Palestinians.” As such, Netanyahu was invoking how “God commands King Saul in the first Book of Samuel to kill every person in Amalek,” referencing Palestinians.

Israeli Defense Minister described these atrocities his army is committing as war against human animals. Calling for using nuclear bomb against this tiny strip of land, affirming that all Palestinians are responsible as Israeli President Herzog said, burning the historical archives of Gaza, and emulating a Nazi-era experiences by Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security of Israel, personally directing the torture of Palestinian prisoners are prime examples of the lawlessness that Israeli state has reached and what triggered Pope Francis to call Israel’s acts as terrorism. Similar acts have happened back in 1948 but nowadays, we are seeing them in real-time. Claiming that the narrative has changed is an understatement. There is a tsunami that has made the whole world see Israel at its best, a colonial power which has been treated as above the law and nothing applies to it.

Israel has become a destructive force for humanity and human interaction, and it is an obstacle for human achievements.

These current atrocities showed the true face, that Israel and the US have tried so hard to mask, being the only democracy in a sea of autocratic regimes in the region. This “only democracy” just showed its ugly face massacring over 15,500, almost half of them are children and over 30% are women, at the time of this writing. Add to this more than 7,500 are still under rubble and over 41,500 injured. Such atrocities, by so many scholars are considered genocide. Claiming that the good Senator does not understand the reasoning is truly insulting to everyone’s intelligence. Please save us the crocodile tears, to borrow the words of the American Jewish philosopher Norman Finkelstein, the son of holocaust survivors.

Equating criticizing Israel with antisemitism is sickening. Yes, antisemitism and Islamophobia should have no place in our society. However, arguments against Israel must not be conflated with antisemitism. Moreover, boycotting those who support Israel’s apartheid and current atrocities against the people of Palestine should be commended, after all, we did the same thing to Apartheid South Africa.

The irony is that as a US citizen, I can criticize the President of the United States, which I have done, debate the policies of the US, and as much as I am against it, even burning the United States flag is considered expression when it is done to communicate a point of view. However, when someone critiques Israel or calls for boycott, they can be persecuted in 37 states. We should be fearful of how Israel and the “fifth column” supporting its colonial policies have become.

Mr. Schumer leaps to state that “today, too many Americans are exploiting arguments against Israel and leaping toward a virulent antisemitism.” I beg to differ. The dehumanizing of Palestinians, and by extension Arabs and Muslims, have sawn the seeds of hate that caused the stabbing of Wadea al-Fayoume of Chicago 26 times by someone whom he considered like a grandpa. The continuous dehumanizing of the “other” is what emboldened this Vermont man to shoot three young men, two of them are still in critical conduction, for the sole reason that they wore the Kufiyah, the scarf that became the symbol for Palestinian resistance.

I will do everything in my power, as a United States citizen, as an American Muslim and as an Arab American, as a citizen of a free society, and as a human being to make sure that justice will prevail.

As the Old Testament says, “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice.” (Deuteronomy 27:19). I leave it to you to decide who the Lord is referring to.