[News] How Israeli rights groups prevent Palestinians from framing their own reality

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel--palestine-rights-groups-prevent-palestinians-framing-their-own-reality
How
Israeli rights groups prevent Palestinians from framing their own reality
Haneen Maikey , Lana Tatour - March 31, 2021
------------------------------

In recent years, people of colour working in the human rights and
international development sector have called
<https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/10/medecins-sans-frontieres-institutionally-racist-medical-charity-colonialism-white-supremacy-msf>
on NGOs and agencies to examine institutional racism, and to look at how
their structures, discourses and programmes reinforce colonialism and white
supremacy.

Last year, 1,000 former and current staff of Doctors Without Borders called
for an independent investigation to dismantle "decades of power and
paternalism
<https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/10/medecins-sans-frontieres-institutionally-racist-medical-charity-colonialism-white-supremacy-msf>".
A year earlier, a report by an independent commission determined that Oxfam
International was plagued by "racism, colonial behaviour and bullying
behaviours
<https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/oxfam-sexual-misconduct-scandal-report-haiti-racism-bullying-colonial-behaviours-a8731831.html>
".

But this emerging global conversation appears to have skipped over Israeli
human rights organisations, still praised for their courageous fight
against Israel’s occupation and their advocacy of Palestinian rights.
The recent
report
<https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid>
from B’Tselem, which declared Israel to be an apartheid state, offers an
opportunity to speak about the racial politics of Israeli human rights
work.
Racial hierarchy

Some Israeli rights organisations are not only imbued in the
settler-colonial system and benefit from it, but they also embody and
reproduce in their institutional structures and operations, racial colonial
power relations. Put more bluntly, the Israeli human rights sector has an
Ashkenazi Jewish-Israeli supremacy problem.

A close look at the staffing structures of such organisations reveals a
striking picture of racial hierarchy between Israeli Jews, ’48 Palestinians
(also referred to as Palestinian “citizens” of Israel), and Palestinians
from the occupied West Bank and Gaza (also referred to as ’67 Palestinians)
- the same hierarchy upon which the Israeli racial settler-colonial project
rests.

Palestinians are designated specific roles ... yet, even though they are
the backbone of these organisations, they are barred from top-level
positions

Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank have two main roles in
Israeli human rights organisations. They are the field researchers tasked
with documenting violations of human rights, collecting data and taking
testimonies. They are also the “clients” and “beneficiaries” who appeal to
these organisations to help them secure their health, education, residence
and movement rights vis-a-vis Israeli authorities.

Then there are the ’48 Palestinians, who occupy positions that demand a
good command of both Arabic and Hebrew. Their role is to mediate between
’67 Palestinians and Israeli staff. They are the data and intake
coordinators who manage fieldworkers, process information and coordinate
the programmes that require direct communication with ‘67 Palestinians.

Finally, positions such as chief executives, spokespersons, international
advocacy coordinators, resource development staff, and researchers who
write public policy reports - the public faces of the organisations - are
Israeli and Jewish American, almost exclusively Ashkenazi.
Colonial fragmentation

This is by no means a critique of Palestinian staff and their agency within
Israeli human rights groups. Palestinian activists have long negotiated
questions of livelihood and resistance while living under colonial
conditions.

As in Israel’s racialised labour market, Israeli human rights organisations
have their own glass ceiling. Palestinians are designated specific roles,
without which the Israeli Jewish human rights groups cannot operate - yet,
even though they are the backbone of these organisations, they are barred
from top-level positions, which are mostly reserved for Ashkenazi Jews.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-calling-israel-apartheid-state-not-enough>

Why calling Israel an apartheid state is not enough

The division between the labour of ’48 and ’67 Palestinians also plays into
and deepens the colonial fragmentation of Palestinians. It risks triggering
internal power dynamics and a hierarchy between ’48 Palestinians, who serve
as mediators, and ’67 Palestinians, who seek assistance or share their
testimonies.

The deep-seated racism - and racism does not have to be conscious or
intentional - that underpins this staffing culture also underscores
questions of knowledge production and representation. In these
organisations, Palestinians and their experiences of settler-colonial
violence are instrumental for Israeli knowledge production. They are the
source of information, and their lived experiences are the raw dataset.

It is the Israelis who decide what to do with this information, how to
interpret and frame it, and how to communicate it to the world.
Arbiters of Palestinian agency

In a 2016 interview
<https://brownpoliticalreview.org/2016/03/hagai_el_ad/?fbclid=IwAR3qpijZf-ZnWVIJ70WeHlFGaKLBOTuSIG9R4PTtJLMM0foDLHSX0zIbY-w>,
B’Tselem’s executive director, Hagai El-Ad, was asked: “How do you give
Palestinians voice and agency in your work?” His reply was telling:

“That’s a very important question, which we think about all of the time.
One of the main ways is through our video project, which is a leading
global example for self-empowered citizen journalism. Palestinian
volunteers, more than 200 of them all over the West Bank, have video
cameras, and are empowered to document life under the occupation. Of
course, the footage later released is the original footage the way it was
shot by Palestinians.”

The question, in itself, displays some of the harm these human rights
organisations do by playing the role of mediators of the Palestinian
experience - the givers of agency and voice. By assuming the authority to
shape international perspectives of Palestinians, they act as the arbiters
of Palestinian agency.

[image: B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad attends a media conference in Tel
Aviv in 2016 (AFP)]
B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad attends a media conference in Tel Aviv in
2016 (AFP)

At the same time, El-Ad’s answer suggests that the most the natives can do
is document their reality. The Israeli human rights sector appears
incapable of envisioning Palestinians as knowledge producers, or framers of
their lived reality. The empowerment of which El-Ad speaks is a classic
case of liberal empowerment <https://www.jstor.org/stable/25548253?seq=1>
devoid of power - one that sits well with the white saviour mindset.

An important aspect of this exploitative, racialised relationship is the
emotional and psychological labour expended by Palestinians in collecting
the information and testimonies necessary for the existence of these
organisations.

While Palestinians are tasked with documenting and processing the
horrifying settler-colonial violence to which they are subjected, Israeli
staff receive processed and “clean” information to use in their reports,
international advocacy work and public campaigns.
Cycle of violence

While this dynamic traps Palestinians in a cycle of violence that leaves
them emotionally and politically exhausted and (re)traumatised, it shields
the occupier from any direct involvement. Israeli staff receive the
testimonies filtered and mediated, adding a further layer of disconnect
between the occupier and the consequences of the occupation and colonial
violence.

The racist structure that puts Palestinians in the back seat in these
organisations also informs the politics of representation, which views
Israelis as the natural representers and framers of Palestinians’ lived
reality. This is joined by a sense of self-righteousness. In an interview
with the New Yorker, El-Ad explained
<https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-an-israeli-human-rights-organization-decided-to-call-israel-an-apartheid-regime>
why B’Tselem decided to call Israel an apartheid state: “We want to change
the discourse on what is happening between the river and the sea. The
discourse has been untethered from reality, and this undermines the
possibility of change.”

Our lived realities and knowledge should not be footnotes in the reports of
white, Israeli, settler-colonial organisations

What B’Tselem and El-Ad ignore is that their own discourse has been
untethered from reality. Had they listened to Palestinians, they would know
that Palestinians have been saying for decades
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-calling-israel-apartheid-state-not-enough>
that they live a reality of apartheid, racial segregation and racial
domination. This erasure is the result of a condescending approach that
insists the settler knows better than the native.

Yet, within the racialised international scene, Palestinian activists,
lawyers and human rights groups - such as Al-Haq, Al Mezan, Adalah or
Addameer - do not receive the same international attention as B’Tselem
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/opinion/israel-election.html> or
Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard of Yesh Din
<https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/0517/Interview-Michael-Sfard-the-Israeli-lawyer-battling-illegal-settlements>,
with dozens of interviews and coverage
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/israel-is-a-non-democratic-apartheid-regime-says-rights-group>
in leading international outlets, and access to decision-makers.
Centring Palestinians

Israeli human rights organisations, activists and lawyers do not merely
“use their privilege” to “help” Palestinians - a claim white people often
make when they centre themselves. They speak of apartheid, but they do not
work to undermine the politics that privilege them. Instead, they
capitalise on and benefit from the politics that render Israeli voices as
more valuable and legitimate - and they do so while exploiting Palestinian
knowledge and labour.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/binding-human-rights-treaty-would-be-crucial-tool-palestinians>

Binding human rights treaty would be a crucial tool for Palestinians

This racial dynamic also influences the types of knowledge and discourse
that are produced. Israeli human rights organisations assume the
authoritative voice on Palestinian issues internationally. B’Tselem is now
the go-to group on Israeli apartheid, Gisha on Gaza, Yesh Din on Israeli
settlements in the West Bank, Physicians for Human Rights on health, and
HaMoked on questions of status.

The result is a settler reading of the Palestinian experience. With the
insistence of Israelis to define the Palestine question, the framing they
offer and the knowledge they produce tends to undercut Palestinians and the
radical anti-colonial agenda that centres liberation.

For example, while Palestinian radical politics sees in Israel an apartheid
settler-colonial state and argues that Zionism is racism, B’Tselem advances
an understanding of Israeli apartheid that ignores settler-colonialism
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/why-calling-israel-apartheid-state-not-enough>
and
denies the racial underpinnings of the Zionist movement.

Palestinians know how to frame their own reality; they have been doing so
for decades. Our concern is less with how to make Israeli organisations and
activists less racist or more accommodating of Palestinians. We are more
concerned with how we, as Palestinian activists, human rights organisations
and solidarity groups, should respond to this racial dynamic.

Our lived realities and knowledge should not be footnotes in the reports of
white, Israeli, settler-colonial organisations. A way forward is to centre
Palestinian knowledge and the liberationist anti-colonial agenda.

*The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.*
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