I don't think it's difficult at all to claim that there is a genocide occurring in Israel at present. I'll point out just a few hallmarks:
Perception of threat in a subject people. Israel and its IDF completely restrict movement, trade, speech, housing, and living conditions in the occupied territories where Palestinians are allowed to live. Yet the rhetoric espoused by the Israeli government nearly always describes Palestinians as a threat, with the implication that if they were not kept occupied and imprisoned, they would seek the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people—even as a people who has no means to do so.
Expulsion of an ethnic group from an area. In 1948, by British colonial authorship, 750,000 Arabs were expelled from the mandate of Palestine in order to make room for the burgeoning Zionist project based mostly in America and Great Britain. Since then, measures to discourage Muslims from living in Israel have pushed more and more Arabs out of the borders of Israel proper. Such measures include a requirement for all Arabs to have a race-based ID on hand at all times, racial marriage restriction laws, race-based property rights, and restricted travel. Within the Palestinian occupied territories these restrictions are exacerbated.
Racial imprisonment. Over four million Palestinians are held in prison by the without charge or possibility of trial.
Policy puts subject people in harm's way. In the occupied territories there are around 800 violent deaths each year and annual avoidable under-five child deaths total around 2,500. This includes children who are born at checkpoints when their mothers are delayed or detained and cannot reach a hospital or doctor.
This is in no way a survey of the situation in Palestine, which is as multipartite as any of the situations we have looked at in this class. But to ignore the aspects of the occupation which we would certainly label genocidal in almost any other circumstance is an oversight equal to any lack of delicacy in my opinions. The situation in Israel is one confounded by a huge number of factors, certainly not least the legacy of victimhood left on European Jews (one of the main founding constituents of the original Israeli Jewish population) by the after-effects of the Holocaust—an event without which we might never have seen the creation of the state of Israel. I think these things lead to a media presence and governmental stance in the U.S. which downplays the plight of Palestinians at the hand of a racist, malicious occupier. Is this genocide? If we think of the case of the racist policies in British Australia against the aboriginal peoples of the continent and call that action genocide or at least ethnic cleansing, then I think no assessment of facts about Israel and occupied Palestine could reasonably be excluded from the category.
Your post makes me think specifically about the situation in Gaza. Over the summer, I was able to attend a lecture and discussion with the director of ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid) about the situation in the Gaza strip. Gaza is a virtual prison - there are three main entry points into Gaza, one is only used for cargo and the others can be closed at the discretion of Israel (in the case of the Erez crossing in the North) or Egypt (in the case of the Rafah crossing in the South). Israel also restricts the movement of goods into Gaza, which prevents the alleviation of the huge humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Water in Gaza is toxic and they lack functioning sewage systems. Israel restricts the entrance of goods that can conceivably be used as weapons, such as metal pipes, which means that Gazans cannot create a functioning sewage system. This not only has disastrous effects on the health of Gazans, but also creates a more international crisis as raw sewage is expelled into the Mediterranean. Gaza also has an extremely high level of food insecurity, and once again relief efforts are complicated by the necessity of going through the Israeli government.
ReplyDeleteTwo anecdotes from the talk stuck with me that really exemplify the sufferings of Gazans. One of the things ANERA does is attempt to procure pharmaceuticals to donate to hospitals in Gaza. When asking hospital administrators about what medicines they wanted ANERA to procure, the administrators requested a nasal spray to chemically inhibit children from bedwetting. The children of Gaza are in a frequent state of anxiety over their living conditions and weekly air raids that bedwetting is a phenomenon across Gaza. Also, I was told about a survey conducted among Gazan youth about what they want for their future. The number one thing youth wanted was to leave Gaza. Failing that, they wanted to die. They saw no future for themselves inside Gaza and felt that death was preferable than remaining there.
The humanitarian crisis occurring in Gaza is perpetuated by Israel's policies, including limiting international aid and relief. Israel's policies towards the Gaza strip amount to the infliction of "conditions of life" upon the people of Gaza that should not be ignored in discussions of modern genocides.
Word!
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