I have never publicly commented on the Palestinian Israeli
catastrophe, though many people I know have strong opinions and do not
hesitate to take sides, usually for the Palestinians, but sometimes for the
State of Israel. One Facebook 'friend' has posted a sloganeering poster for the
Israeli armed forces which has left me feeling sick at heart. When I listen to
Israelis who passionately defend Israel and condemn the Palestinians and
surrounding Arab nations, they sound disturbingly like the many South Africans
I used to know who defended apartheid. The language and
justifications are almost identical.
Nevertheless, we Europeans have forfeited our right to play
judge and jury in any situation involving the Jewish people, even as we might
feel profound revulsion at the disproportionate violence of Israel towards the
Palestinians in retaliation for attacks by Hamas. Where was our moral outrage
in the Holocaust, when nation after nation turned Jewish refugees away and sent
them back to die? We should remember that the Second World War was not fought
because Hitler had set out to eliminate the Jewish people, and Britain
carpet-bombed Dresden but it never bombed the railway line to Auschwitz. Brave
and necessary though that war was, it was not a war to protect the Jews.
Britain’s all too recent history of anti-Semitism should make us wary of
speaking out as if we are in no way implicated, as if that recent history has nothing to do with us. On the other side, supporting
the Palestinians does nothing to take away the fact that the vast majority of British
secular liberals are also deeply Islamophobic – even though most of them don’t
know any Muslims.
Our moral judgements are
highly selective, and our outrage against injustice is more vociferously
targeted at others than at ourselves. It is easy to start a heated debate on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict because nearly everybody feels qualified to take a
stance. Educated liberals are often more careful about nuance, context and
complexity when discussing Britain’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to
mention our government’s ongoing support for and sometimes participation in
America’s illegal execution by drone warfare of vast numbers of people believed
to be potential terrorists – and any innocent bystanders who happen to get in
the way. Our moral high ground is really nothing but an empty soapbox.
This is not to deny that Israel is today waging war against the displaced
people of Gaza because of the botched kidnapping and murder of three teenagers by two individuals apparently acting alone.
Appalling though this was, it was murder, not terrorism nor an act of war. Uri Avnery’s story about the
revenge killing of a Palestinian youth who was burned to death by a gang of
Israelis makes awful reading. From a different perspective, David
Grossman writes movingly of the despair that now drives this senseless war.
An eye for an eye? How many lives does it take to avenge a murder?
How many deaths are necessary to cure the incurable wounds of bereavement, to fill the unfillable gap left by the loved ones who were
killed? Here in New York I’m tempted to do a comparison. I haven’t yet been to
the World Trade Centre memorial, though I intend to brave the reputedly daunting
security procedures to make that sombre pilgrimage. Yet in retaliation for the
murder of 3,000 Americans, America and its British allies unleashed such deadly violence that a whole region has been plunged into anarchy and war. It is impossible to calculate how many people have lost their
lives so far in this ongoing spiral of vengeance. The British and Americans did
not count how many they were killing in Iraq so we will never know for
sure, and still the violence goes on. Compare that with the attempt to gather and identify every fragment of
bone from the ruins of the Twin Towers. Israel has much to learn
from its powerful American allies if it wants to justify killing hundreds or
thousands of Palestinians for every Israeli death. A glance at the Wikipedia page for the ‘War
on Terror’ includes a list that even George Orwell could not have invented.
Under the chapter heading ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’, one finds the
following:
4.2.1 Operation Enduring Freedom –
Afghanistan
4.2.2 Operation Enduring Freedom –
Philippines
4.2.3 Operation Enduring Freedom –
Horn of Africa
4.2.4 Operation Enduring Freedom –
Trans Sahara
You really couldn’t make this up – the second part of
‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ in the Philippines was called ‘Operation Smiles’.
I find myself asking how different recent history might have
been if the Americans had treated those murderers of 9/11 as just that –
technologically-competent thugs who should have been put on trial the way any
other common criminal would have been put on trial, including those
all-American citizens who regularly go on shooting sprees. Instead, the suicide
pilots of 9/11 and their Al-Qaeda affiliates have been darkly glamorised, becoming icons and role models for
thousands of disaffected Muslim youth as gradually the savagery of that
September day has spread through the poisoned channels of American
and British militarism pouring fuel on the already simmering passions of Middle
Eastern politics. If the deaths of 3,000 Americans had to be avenged by so much
senseless slaughter, how can we condemn the Israelis for doing the same? Of
course America is Israel’s friend. They speak the same political language, and
Britain, nostalgic for imperial power, can only lurk simpering and fawning and cheering on the bullies in
the shadows of violence.
Weep for Israel. Weep for Palestine. Weep most for
democracy’s shattered dreams and broken promises. Weep for a world blinded by vengeance.
