[WSMDiscuss] Passover massacre: Israeli's repressive violence is news, but it's not new

[Brian K Murphy]

~ apologies for cross-postings ~ 

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/gaza-passover-massacre-180401075721153.html <https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/gaza-passover-massacre-180401075721153.html?utm_source=Al+Jazeera+English+Newsletter+|+Weekly&utm_campaign=033b491786-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_08_13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e427298a68-033b491786-223096377>
> Gaza's Passover massacre
> 
> The Passover massacre in Gaza was by no means an exception in the long history of Palestinian resistance.
> 
by Neve Gordon, April 2, 2018  | Al Jazeera 


> For decades Zionists have blamed the Palestinians for Israel's ongoing colonial project. "If only the Palestinians had a Mahatma Gandhi," many Israeli liberals have exclaimed, "then the occupation would end."
> But if one truly wished to find Palestinian Mahatma Gandhis all one needed to do is look at the images of protesters on Friday night's news broadcasts. An estimated 30,000 Palestinians joined the nonviolent March of Return <https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/gaza-refugees-call-return-mass-protests-180330154419077.html>, which aimed to set up a few camps several hundred meters from the militarised fence surrounding the Gaza Strip <https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/city/gaza.html>. Their goal was to protest their incarceration in the world's largest open-air prison <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2010/03/201032214210263604.html> as well as the massive confiscation of their ancestral land - after all, 70 percent of Gaza's population <https://www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/gaza-strip> are 1948 refugees whose families had owned land in what became Israel. 
> 
> As Gaza's residents marched towards the militarised fence, I sat with my family, reciting the Haggadah for the Passover holiday, which tells us that "In every generation, it is one's duty to regard oneself as though he or she personally had gone out of Egypt". In other words, while the soldiers shot live bullets at the peaceful demonstrators, these soldiers' parents were being asked to imagine what it means to live in Gaza and what it would take to liberate oneself from such captivity.  And as my family went on to sing, "No more shall they in bondage toil, let my people go," news sites reported that the number of Palestinians killed had reached 17, while several hundred had been wounded.
> 
> The accusation that Palestinians have failed to adopt non-violent methods of resistance, and therefore share responsibility for Israel's ongoing subjugation and dispossession, not only completely disavows the vast asymmetry in power relations between the coloniser and colonised, but, just as importantly, fails to consider the political history of anti-colonial struggles, not least the Palestinian one itself.  Indeed, it completely ignores the fact that Israel's colonial project has been upheld through attritional, protracted and widespread violence, and, despite what certain Western media outlets might present, the Palestinians have developed a robust and long-standing tradition of non-violent resistance. Moreover, the demand to adopt a non-violent ideology completely elides the history of other liberation struggles: from Algiers to Vietnam and all the way back to South Africa. 
> 
> Palestinian non-violence
> 
> Friday's nonviolent March of Return and Israel's response to it are by no means an exception in the long history of Palestinian resistance. The march was organised to coincide with the anniversary of Land Day <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/land-day-palestinians-protesting-expropriation-land-180330092353543.html>, which itself commemorates that tragic day in 1976 when Israeli security forces responded to a general strike and mass protest organised by Palestinian citizens of Israel whose land had been confiscated. In that peaceful protest, six Palestinians were killed and a hundred more wounded by the Israeli military. 
> 
> In the West Bank <https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/subjects/occupied-west-bank.html> and Gaza Strip, matters have always been much worse, since all forms of nonviolent Palestinian resistance were banned right after the 1967 War. Political meetings, raising flags or other national symbols, publishing or distributing articles or pictures with political connotations, or even singing or listening to nationalist songs - not to mention organising strikes and demonstrations - were illegal until 1993 (and some are still illegal in Area C). Any attempt to protest in one of these ways was inevitably met with violence.  
> 
> Just three months after the 1967 War, the Palestinians successfully launched a widespread school strike in the West Bank; teachers refused to show up for work, children took to the streets to protest the occupation, and many shopkeepers did not open their stores. In response to these acts of civil disobedience, Israel enforced severe police-style measures, ranging from nightly curfews and other restrictions of movement to cutting off telephone lines, detaining leaders, and increasing the harassment of the population. This, in many ways, became Israel's modus operandi when dealing with Palestinian continued nonviolent resistance.
> 
> Indeed, it seems that there is widespread social amnesia regarding Israel's reaction to Gandhi-style tactics. When Palestinians launched commercial strikes in the West Bank, the military government shut down dozens of shops "until further notice." When they tried to emulate Martin Luther King's transportation strike, the security forces completely immobilised the local fleet of buses. Moreover, during the first Intifada, the Palestinians adopted massive civil disobedience strategies, including merchant strikes, boycotting Israeli goods, a tax revolt, and daily protests against the occupying forces. Israel responded by imposing curfews, restricting freedom of movement and mass incarcerations (to name only some of the violent measures). Between 1987 and 1994, for example, the secret services interrogated <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4RX7t4X8_RMC&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=the+secret+services+interrogated+more+than+twenty-three+thousand+Palestinians&source=bl&ots=gSRrZxtQhb&sig=wojUpHjGuWJ2EjCWkD8kOq_1y28&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW0ZmvgpfaAhWMhqYKHVAsCqUQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q&f=false> more than 23,000 Palestinians, one out of every 100 people living in the West Bank and Gaza. We now know that many of them were tortured.
> 
> Thus, the tragedy is that Gaza's Passover massacre simply joins this long list of nonviolent resistance that has, historically, been met with violence and repression by Israel. 
> 
> 'Riots are the language of the unheard'
> 
> Let's imagine for a moment what it means to live in an open-air prison, year after year. Let's imagine that we are the prisoners and the warden has the power to decide what food we can eat, when we have electricity, when we can receive specialised medical treatment and whether we can have enough water to drink. Let's also imagine that any time we walk near the fence, we become targets for the guards. What acts of nonviolent resistance are actually open to us? Would you walk peacefully towards the fence? Thousands of Palestinians courageously did, and many paid the ultimate price.
> 
> Even though Gaza is, in many respects, unique, indigenous people have, historically, found themselves in similar situations. This was recognised by the United Nations, when it affirmed <https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/C867EE1DBF29A6E5852568C6006B2F0C> "the legitimacy of the peoples' struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle." Gandhi himself <http://www.mkgandhi.org/nonviolence/Doctrine%20of%20the%20sword.htm> thought that in certain instances violence was an adequate strategic choice. "I do believe," he wrote, "that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence ... Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour." 
> 
> One may wish it was otherwise - and I most certainly do - but not a single colonial project has ended without the colonised resorting to violence against their oppressors. Requesting for or even angrily demanding liberation has never done the job. 
> 
> Ironically, this is also one of the key messages of the Passover Seder. The story of Exodus recounts how Moses approached Pharaoh several times, asking him to liberate the children of Israel from bondage. Yet, again and again, Pharaoh refused. It was only after horrific violence was deployed against the Egyptians that the Israelites were set free.
> 
> This, to be sure, is not something we should ever wish for, but when one looks at Israel's response to the nonviolent Palestinian march, what is clear is that we must urgently find a way to turn the Zionists' question on its head in order to prevent future bloodshed. Rather than asking when the Palestinians will produce a Mahatma Gandhi, we need to ask when Israel will produce a leader that does not support the subjugation of the Palestinians through the employment of lethal violence? When, in other words, will Israel finally rid itself of its Pharaonic ethos and realise that Palestinians have a right to freedom.
> 
> Neve Gordon is a Marie Curie Fellow and Professor of International Law at Queen Mary University of London. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
> 
> *************
> 
> https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/west-praising-malala-ignoring-ahed-171227194606359.html <https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/west-praising-malala-ignoring-ahed-171227194606359.html>
> Why is the West praising Malala, but ignoring Ahed?
> 
> Is an empowered Palestinian girl not worthy of Western feminist admiration?
> 
> by Shenila Khoja-Moolji  28 Dec 2018  Al Jazeera 
> 
> Ahed Tamimi, a 16-year-old Palestinian girl, was recently arrested <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/palestinian-ahed-tamimi-arrested-israeli-forces-171219174834758.html> in a night-time raid on her home. The Israeli authorities accuse her of "assaulting" an Israeli soldier and an officer. A day earlier she had confronted <https://www.facebook.com/ShehabAgency.MainPage/videos/2240962579279483/?hc_location=ufi> Israeli soldiers who had entered her family's backyard. The incident happened shortly after a soldier shot her 14-year-old cousin in the head <https://www.facebook.com/Ramallah.Mix1/videos/1893565537343378/> with a rubber bullet, and fired tear-gas <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/palestinian-ahed-tamimi-arrested-israeli-forces-171219174834758.html> canisters directly at their home, breaking windows.
> 
> Her mother and cousin were arrested later as well. All three remain in detention.
> 
> There has been a curious lack of support for Ahed from Western feminist groups, human rights advocates and state officials who otherwise present themselves as the purveyors of human rights and champions of girls' empowerment.
> 
> Their campaigns on empowering girls in the global South are innumerable: Girl Up, Girl Rising, G(irls)20 Summit, Because I am a Girl, Let Girls Learn, Girl Declaration.
> 
> When 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai was shot <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/10/20121015152449682226.html> in the head by a member of Tehrik-e-Taliban, the reaction was starkly different. Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, issued a petition entitled "I am Malala." The UNESCO launched "Stand Up For Malala."
> 
> Malala was invited to meet then President Barack Obama, as well as the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and addressed the UN General Assembly. She received numerous accolades from being named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine and Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine to being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, and again in 2014 when she won.
> 
> State representatives such as Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard as well as prominent journalists such as Nicholas Kristof spoke up in support of her. There is even a Malala Day!
> 
> But we see no #IamAhed or #StandUpForAhed campaigns making headlines. None of the usual feminist and rights groups or political figures has issued statements supporting her or reprimanding the Israeli state. No one has declared an Ahed Day. In fact, the US in the past has even denied <http://mondoweiss.net/2016/12/tamimi-denied-speaking/> her a visa for a speaking tour.
> 
> Ahed, like Malala, has a substantial history of standing up against injustices. She has been protesting the theft of land and water by Israeli settlers. She has endured personal sacrifice, having lost an uncle and a cousin to the occupation. Her parents and brother have been arrested time and again. Her mother has been shot in the leg. Two years ago, another video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=485&v=mg1-_oIfjqc> featuring her went viral - this time she was trying to protect her little brother from being taken by a soldier.
> 
> Why isn't Ahed a beneficiary of the same international outcry as Malala? Why has the reaction to Ahed been so different?
> 
> There are multiple reasons for this deafening silence. First among them is the widespread acceptance of state-sanctioned violence as legitimate. Whereas hostile actions of non-state actors such as the Taliban or Boko Haram fighters are viewed as unlawful, similar aggression by the state is often deemed appropriate.
> 
> This not only includes overt forms of violence such as drone attacks, unlawful arrests, and police brutality, but also less obvious assaults such as the allocation of resources, including land and water. The state justifies these actions by presenting the victims of its injustices as a threat to the functioning of the state.
> 
> Once declared a threat, the individual is easily reduced to bare life - a life without political value. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has described <http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=2003> this as a time/place sanctioned by sovereign power where laws can be suspended; this individual can therefore now be made a target of sovereign violence. Terrorists often fall within this category. Thus, the execution of suspected terrorists through drone attacks without due judicial process ensues without much public uproar.
> 
> The Israeli police have deployed a similar strategy here. They have argued for extending <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/ahed-nariman-tamimi-detentions-extended-171225212559689.html>Ahed's detention because she "poses a danger" to soldiers (state representatives) and could obstruct the functioning of the state (the investigation).
> 
> Casting unarmed Palestinians like Ahed - who was simply exercising her right to protect her family's wellbeing with all the might of her 16-year-old hand <https://www.facebook.com/ShehabAgency.MainPage/videos/2240962579279483/?hc_location=ufi> - in the same light as a terrorist is unfathomable. Such framings open the way for authorising excessive torture - Israel's education minister Naftali Bennett, for instance, wants <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/palestinian-ahed-tamimi-arrested-israeli-forces-171219174834758.html> Ahed and her family to "finish their lives in prison."
> 
> Ahed's suffering also exposes the West's selective humanitarianism, whereby only particular bodies and causes are deemed worthy of intervention.
> 
> Anthropologist Miriam Ticktin argues <https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520269057> that while the language of morality to alleviate bodily suffering has become dominant in humanitarian agencies today, only particular kinds of suffering bodies are read as worthy of this care.This includes the exceptionally violated female body and the pathologically diseased body.
> 
> Such a notion of suffering normalises labouring and exploited bodies: "these are not the exception, but the rule, and hence are disqualified."
> 
> Issues of unemployment, hunger, threat of violence, police brutality, and denigration of cultures are thus often not considered deserving of humanitarian intervention. Such forms of suffering are seen as necessary and even inevitable. Ahed, therefore, does not fit the ideal victim-subject for transnational advocacy.
> 
> Relatedly, girls like Ahed who critique settler colonialism and articulate visions of communal care are not the empowered femininity that the West wants to valourise. She seeks justice against oppression, rather than empowerment that benefits only herself.
> 
> Her feminism is political, rather than one centred on commodities and sex. Her girl power threatens to reveal the ugly face of settler-colonialism, and hence is marked as "dangerous". Her courage and fearlessness vividly render all that is wrong with this occupation.
> 
> Ahed's plight should prompt us to interrogate our selective humanitarianism. Individuals who are victims of state violence, whose activism unveils the viciousness of power, or whose rights advocacy centres communal care, deserve to be included in our vision of justice.
> 
> Even if we don't launch campaigns for Ahed, it is impossible for us to escape her call to witness the mass debilitation, displacement and dispossession of her people. As Nelson Mandela said, "We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."
> 
> 
> Shenila Khoja-Moolji is a scholar of gender, Islam, and youth studies. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
> 
***********

SEE ALSO:
> https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/ahed-tamimi-months-prison-plea-deal-180321201412587.html <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/ahed-tamimi-months-prison-plea-deal-180321201412587.html>
> Ahed Tamimi gets eight months in prison after plea deal
> 
> Palestinian teen activist was arrested after a video of her slapping and hitting two Israeli soldiers went viral.
> 
> Jaclynn Ashly <applewebdata://0FEDEB0B-513B-419D-A5DA-5532297C402F/profile/jaclynn-ashly.html>22 Mar 2018
> Bethlehem, occupied West Bank - Imprisoned Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi <https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2018/03/ahed-tamimi-story-multiple-narratives-180303101517310.html> has reached a plea bargain with Israeli army prosecutors that will see her serve eight months in jail.
> 
> The 17-year-old was arrested in December 2017 after a video of her slapping and hitting two Israeli soldiers outside of her house in the village of Nabi Saleh went viral.
> 
> The sentence, announced during a closed-door hearing on Wednesday at Israel's Ofer military court near Ramallah, brought to an end a case that attracted worldwide attention.
> 
> Tamimi accepted the deal in exchange for pleading guilty to four out of the 12 charges initially brought against her, according to Gaby Lasky, the lawyer of the teen.
> 
> The other eight charges against Tamimi, including those referencing instances of stone throwing and "incitement to terror and stabbings", were dropped by the prosecution, Lasky told Al Jazeera.
> 
> "There is no justice under the occupation and this court is illegal," the teen said, addressing the courtroom after the plea deal was presented to the judge, according to her father, Bassem Tamimi.
> 
READ STORY HERE: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/ahed-tamimi-months-prison-plea-deal-180321201412587.html <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/03/ahed-tamimi-months-prison-plea-deal-180321201412587.html>


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