[News] From Victim to Colonial Settler - Shifting the Paradigm on Israel
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Jul 29 12:05:53 EDT 2014
July 29, 2014
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/
*From Victim to Colonial Settler*
Shifting the Paradigm on Israel
by AJAMU BARAKA
"... To be committed to justice we must believe that ethics matter,
that it is vital to have a system of shared morality."
- bell hooks
"Out of nowhere many soldiers jumped out and ambushed Samir. They
shot him first in the leg, yet he managed to run away towards the
village. But how far can an injured child run? Twenty, maybe 30,
meters? They could have easily arrested him, especially when he was
injured, but instead they shot him in the back with live
ammunition... To me this is premeditated murder."[i]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/#_edn1>
Palestinian life is cheap -- something Samir already understood from his
short 16 years of living under occupation. For the friends and family of
Samir and the thousands of other Samirs murdered by the Israeli military
and settlers over the last four decades, Palestinian life will still be
cheap when the shooting stops, the Israeli military withdraws its ground
forces from Gaza, and daily life under occupation returns to the norm of
low-intensity systematic state terror.
The killings, breaking of bones, firing of tear gas canisters into
enclosed spaces, and the daily humiliation of checkpoints, separate
roads and separating walls will continue and will continue to be daily
reminders to Palestinians that they are different; lesser; expendable.
From these experiences, Palestinians understand -- like many of us on
the receiving end of the Western world's "civilizing mission" -- that
the West's claim to moral superiority by championing universal human
rights and the rule of law is a grotesque lie.
Over the years, Palestinians have seen how they can be murdered in the
hundreds and thousands with impunity and in the full glare of the mass
media. And while most of the non-Western world is stunned by the
indiscriminate viciousness of the Israeli attack, headlines in Western
media outlets proclaim "Hamas lays siege on Israel" and "Hamas
terrorizes Israel"---as though the over one thousand lives of murdered
Palestinians are completely irrelevant and devoid of value.
The devaluing of Palestinian life is in stark contrast to the concern
for the dignity of the remains of the victims of Malaysia Airlines
flight M17, recently shot down over Ukraine. It is also reflected in the
arguments of the Israeli propagandists, who imply that Western news
media should stop covering the deaths of Palestinian civilians because
it satisfies the strategic objective of the "Hamas terrorists."
The scenes of carnage -- Palestinian bodies littering the streets of
Shujaiya; whole families packed into cars, desperately trying to flee
the onslaught of Israeli rockets and naval bombardments; and a vicious
scorched-earth ground operation in which whole communities are free-fire
zones for Israelis, have still not been enough to generate much empathy
for the lives of Palestinians for many in the U.S. A recent Gallop poll
of opinion in the U.S. suggests that 71% of the respondents who claim to
follow the Israeli-Palestinian conflict closely say that Israeli actions
in Gaza are justified. [ii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/#_edn2>
And in Western capitals, the defenders of "universal" human rights
proudly proclaim their unwavering support for Israel's right of
"defense" against a captured and largely defenseless people who are
supposed to have special protections under international law.
The moral positions taken by many people in the West, especially in the
U.S., confirms the existence of an ethical double-standard -- one in
which the actions of the Israeli state are framed as legitimate,
reasonable and deserving of support, and one in which all acts of
resistance on the part of the captured and oppressed Palestinians are
seen as criminal, immoral and terroristic. [iii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/#_edn3>
The ethical double-standards for non-Europeans versus Europeans -- or
those who are associated with white power and European civilization,
like the Israeli state -- are grounded in a generalized acceptance of
the civilizational superiority of the West and the division of humanity
between those "like us" and "others" who have different standards of
human behavior.
This division has always been a fundamental component of white
supremacist thought that justified the conquest, pillage and
exploitation of most of the non-Western world. The violence of slavery,
genocide of Native Americans and colonialism found its defenders among
liberals and within the contradictory framework of Eurocentric,
male-centered liberalism that divided humanity between those eligible
for the full enjoyment of human rights -- European male, capitalist
property owners and eventually most people categorized as "white"
irrespective of class and gender -- and everyone else.
The "white man's burden" "manifest destiny," the "doctrine of
discovery," "American exceptionalism" -- and their 21^st century
expression in humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to
protect -- these are all expressions of the arrogant pathology of the
white supremacist worldview.
It is this sublimated framework that Israeli propagandists skillfully
appeal to, in order to generate the continued moral and political
support for their policies with large segments of the populations of
Europe and especially within the white supremacist settler-state of the U.S.
Constructed as an uncivilized, barbarous, terrorist organization, Hamas
has been effectively de-humanized -- along with all of the Palestinian
people of Gaza, since they voted for Hamas in the elections of 2006. In
contrast, Israel is juxtaposed as innocent, civilized and humane.
Projecting itself as a superior civilization, Israel attempts to
immunize itself from human rights charges, since as a "civilized" (read
"Western"), humane and rational society, Israel by definition cannot be
accused of engaging in massive human rights violations?
Instead it is the actions of the Palestinian resistance fighters that
are highlighted, because that resistance provides a convenient weapon in
the narrative created by Israel of Palestinian "otherness" where their
legitimate resistance is instead twisted into being further evidence of
their sub-human status.
According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natahuyu, the value of
human life is different for Palestinians and their leadership who want
more dead Palestinians so that they can use "telegenically dead
Palestinians"[iv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/#_edn4>
for their cause. The logical corollary to this position is that it is
perfectly understandable and justifiable that Israel is forced to kill
hundreds of "them" in order to ensure Israeli security from these
"barbarous" people who have a natural propensity towards violence, if
they are not contained and periodically terrorized into submission.
For activists in solidarity with Palestinian desires for national
self-determination, undermining the hegemony of the "innocent settler"
narrative is imperative in order to counter the propaganda that
justifies Israeli state and settler violence. To do so means centering
colonialism and white supremacy as the grounding analytical categories
and conceptual framework.
This is not necessarily a new argument or one that has not been embraced
by some, but for various reasons, including bogus charges of
anti-Semitism, many in the U.S. progressive and radical communities have
eschewed this approach over the years.
The other challenge is that the "white supremacist" term has been
domesticated and reduced to a crude and relatively simple notion of
"racism." In this context, white supremacists and white supremacy is
represented by easy targets like Donald Sterling and Tea Party members,
while racialized imperialism is overlooked.
In order to re-position Israel in the public imagination, activists must
overcome both of these issues if movements for solidarity and justice
such as the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement
have any chance of being effective solidarity mechanisms.
Liberated from the racist bias of the colonial/imperialist lens that
casts Israelis as victims, Israeli state actions and policies in Gaza
are then stripped of the obfuscating claims of self-defense and concerns
for Palestinian civilians. And ending ethical double standards by
applying one standard informed by the principles of human equality and
the rejection of all forms of dehumanizing oppression would clearly
identify the real victims in the ongoing drama of the Israel/Palestinian
conflict -- and it would not be the state of Israel.
/*Ajamu Baraka* is a human rights activist, organizer and geo-political
analyst. His latest publications include contributions to two recently
published books "Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA" and "Claim No Easy
Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral." He can be reached at
info.abaraka at gmail.com <mailto:info.abaraka at gmail.com> and
www.AjamuBaraka.com <http://www.AjamuBaraka.com>/
Notes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/#_ednref1>
Malek Murrar, 16, interviewed on 20 September 2013 at the site where he
had witnessed his friend Samir Awad being murdered by Israeli security
forces, see Trigger-Happy: Israel's use of Excessive force in the West
Bank"
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/002/2014/en/349188ef-e14a-418f-ac20-6c9e5c8d9f88/mde150022014en.pdf
[ii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/#_ednref2>
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/24/5934837/gallup-israel-gaza-americans
[iii]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/#_ednref3>
The analysis here and what follows was greatly influence by the work of
Cyra A. Choudhury, see "Comprehending "our" Violence: Reflections on the
Liberal Universalist Tradition, National Identity and the War in Iraq,"
Muslim World Journal of Human Rights, volume 3,Issue 1, 2006.
[iv]
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/29/shifting-the-paradigm-on-israel/#_ednref4>
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israelgaza-conflict-the-myth-of-hamass-human-shield-9619810.html
--
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