Why has Jersey’s Government Never Shown Solidarity With The Palestinian People?
Despite Jersey’s history of occupation, its government continues to ignore those living under the longest military occupation in modern history
The five-year occupation Jersey suffered at the hands of German troops will be forever etched into our collective consciousness. Bunkers that formed part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall remain scattered around our coastline. Some 300 German buildings endure to this day. Public references to our liberation from occupation are ubiquitous too. Our local bus service is named in honour of liberty. We have Liberation Square. Liberation Ale brewed by the Liberation Group. The prominent St. Helier office building Liberation House stands adjacent to Liberation Station and just around the corner from Liberty Wharf. And of course on 9th May we all celebrate Liberation Day.
We rightfully place huge significance in remembering those who suffered during those five years as well as celebrating our freedom from oppression. It is and will always remain a huge part of our collective identity.
But what if our occupation hadn’t ended after those five years, but continued for decades until this very day? What if in their search for lebensraum — or living space — the Germans chose to settle here, forcing at gunpoint terrified locals to flee their homes, farms and land to set up refugee camps around the island, while others scrambled to find shelter in a tiny coastal enclave?
What if 75 years later the occupation of Jersey not only continued but had gradually mutated into an overarching system of subjugation and apartheid, with completely different legal systems existing depending on ethnicity? While German settlers would enjoy the basic human rights we all share today, such as the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, locals could face the prospect of arbitrary and indefinite detention, languishing in prison cells for years without charge or even access to lawyers. If those locals did ever get their day in court, it wouldn’t be a civilian court they would face but a military court with a 99% conviction rate. Children as young as 12 would also face prosecution this way. These would be the only children in the world to do so. The legal system set up to entrench Jersey people’s position as second-class citizens in their own land would deem acts of rebellion as innocuous as throwing stones toward occupation soldiers as terrorism.
Perhaps the German authorities might have considered necessary the construction of giant walls and fences across the island, ostensibly to ensure their settlements remained safe from those locals they had purged, while arming settlers with rifles and turning a blind eye to their ransacking of local homes and schools to claim even more of the land they coveted as inhabitants fled for safety.
What if German forces perpetually bombed those refugee camps in that now fenced-off tiny coastal enclave that had gradually over time become a makeshift home to locals and their descendants, before choosing to restrict access to the building materials necessary to recover as well as any medical supplies needed to treat the injured? The occupation authorities might have blockaded their sea and airspace too, limiting who and what could enter or leave while shooting at fishermen who dared to venture too far out to sea.
Maltreatment from these foreign occupiers would perhaps inevitably become commonplace. Locals who managed to find work along with children on their way to school would face lengthy and dehumanizing transits through multiple checkpoints each day. Assuming the checkpoints were not closed on a whim. Those children might not have even made it to school if an occupying soldier decided to arbitrarily shoot them en route.
Even in death, the victims could be stripped of any remaining dignity. Grieving families expecting the body of their loved one to be released can be made to wait, often indefinitely. For the occupying forces develop a penchant for permanently retaining the corpses of their victims and stealing their organs for use in medical research and transplants, without the approval or knowledge of the deceased’s families. This would be the only place on earth where such practices systematically occur.
There are no prizes for guessing what my analogy might be alluding to here. This is nothing more than a mere snippet of what the Palestinians have endured and continue to endure over the last seven decades at the hands of successive far-right Israeli governments. And yet while we might expect an island with first-hand experience of foreign military occupation to show empathy and solidarity with those experiencing similar hardships and injustice, our Government has had remarkably little to say about Israel’s occupation and entrenched system of apartheid in the Palestinian territories.
Over 24,000 people have been killed during Israel’s current barbaric onslaught in Gaza. 10,000 of them children. I do not doubt these numbers will continue to grow. In response, we have seen millions march in protest around the world. On 12th December 153 countries came together and voted at the United Nations General Assembly calling for an immediate ceasefire. Only 10 countries defied the will of the global community, the United States and Israel being among them. As the United States holds a veto, the proposal failed. Four days prior another vote took place in the UN Security Council, on this occasion demanding both an immediate ceasefire as well as the unconditional release of all hostages. Once again the United States vetoed this proposal, and on both occasions the United Kingdom shamefully abstained. On 19th December the UN General Assembly voted to affirm the “Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory over their natural resources”. 158 countries voted in favour, with just 6 voting against. It will be no surprise to you to learn the United States and Israel were among those isolated few.
We like to think of ourselves and our cousins across the pond as bastions of virtue and enlightenment. We congratulate ourselves on our natural position as champions of freedom. Defenders of civility. The last ten weeks have left this veneer of credibility in ruins.
But where does this leave Jersey? While our Government did release a ‘Unity Statement’ alongside numerous local religious leaders making vague calls for “a swift end to the violence”, it included absolutely no mention of the ongoing occupation, apartheid, or subjugation of the Palestinians perpetuated by Israel. Neither did it even call for a ceasefire.
While it is of course true that our foreign policy is determined by London, historical precedent shows we are very much able and willing to publicly state our opposition to the UK’s position on international affairs when we consider it morally necessary to do so. In 2003 the States of Jersey debated and approved proposition P12/2003, which agreed that the Assembly would oppose the then imminent invasion of Iraq by the British and American armed forces, and required the Bailiff to transmit this view to the UK government.
We have seen the Government of Scotland call for a ceasefire in Gaza despite not having direct control over foreign policy. The Mayors of London and Manchester as well as Bradford Council have done the same. It is simply incorrect to suggest — as members of our government have done — that it is not Jersey’s place to publicly state opposition to the UK position on foreign policy.
For those who see no relevance in what an island our size has to say on these matters, it is important to recognise that change to the status quo typically only occurs through gradual yet relentless external pressure. We might be a small cog in the slow-moving wheel of change, but we can have a part to play in that process regardless. Being on the right side of history would also be something upon which we can all be proud.
It is beyond time for our current Government to finally demonstrate the moral leadership so utterly lacking in Westminster and add our voices to the tens of millions around the world demanding the genocide in Gaza is brought to an end. Not only this, we must also call for an end to the illegal occupation of all Palestinian territories and an end to apartheid.
As Nelson Mandela famously stated in 1997 having fought against apartheid in South Africa, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”. Here in Jersey, we must surely be asking ourselves why we aren’t similarly minded.
Rather than simply celebrating our own liberation, a fitting legacy to those who suffered under occupation and fought for our freedom would be to show solidarity with those suffering under occupation today.
