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As a first generation, post-Holocaust Jew, I believe it critical to put current events in Palestine/Israel into historical context. Oppression is the root cause of the rising violence, and it must be addressed if any hope remains for a just peace.
Israel will shortly launch an invasion of Gaza that will result in a civilian bloodbath, including children, as it hunts for Hamas militants. Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu perversely said that Israel will turn Gaza into a “deserted island” and urged Palestinians to get out now.
But they cannot — because Israel imposed a military blockade of Gaza in 2007. Nothing goes in and nothing comes out without their permission. Gaza is an open-air prison, and defenseless Palestinians are trapped.
The blockade caused the Gaza economy to collapse, with widespread poverty, contaminated water, limited electricity, people dying of treatable medical conditions while awaiting a travel permit and dependence on international humanitarian aid. The total siege that Israel has announced, cutting off all food, fuel, energy and medicine will create a humanitarian disaster.
Most of the Palestinians living in Gaza are refugees and the descendants of refugees from the violent ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians in 1947-48, which produced a Jewish majority in Israel. A core demand of Palestinian society has been the right of return — a right guaranteed under the Geneva Convention. Israel has refused to comply.
Since its beginning, Israel has been a settler colonial state, stealing land from the Indigenous Palestinian people, and settling that land with Israeli citizens and Jews immigrating from other countries. There are now over 650,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. That theft continues, displacing Palestinians from their homes and land where they and their families have lived for generations.
The right-wing, racist government now in power has encouraged violent settler attacks on defenseless Palestinian villages. Settlers have burned property, destroyed ancient olive trees of cultural and economic importance, stolen land, killed livestock and physically harmed farmers and villagers. Israeli soldiers have either protected the settlers or actively assisted these pogroms.
For 75 years, the Israeli government has maintained a military occupation over Palestinians, which many international nonprofits, including Amnesty International, have characterized as “apartheid.” The current and former (Desmond Tutu) archbishops of the Anglican Church in South Africa agree.
During the recent Jewish holidays, Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli police. Following calls by ultranationalist Jewish groups, thousands more carried out provocative tours of the mosque, desecrating one of the holiest of Muslim sites.
Provocative flag-waving and openly racist Israeli-Jewish marches through Palestinian neighborhoods have been intensifying. These marches have called for “death to Arabs,” triggering vandalism and violence against the Palestinians living there.
Palestinians are subjected to checkpoints, unannounced road closures, personal questioning and humiliating physical searches.
Israeli security forces killed a record number of Palestinians (244) this year. They hold over 5,000 Palestinian prisoners in inhumane conditions including torture, plus 1,200 administrative detainees who have not been charged.
Reporters covering Israeli military operations are frequently targeted, including the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, an internationally respected Palestinian-American, by an Israeli sniper. This killing was verified by numerous western news organizations, but no Israeli soldiers or military commanders were charged.
Palestinian children are routinely dragged at gunpoint from their beds in predawn raids by Israeli soldiers, held in detention in Israeli military prisons with no family members or attorneys present, sometimes abused and scared into confessing — often for nothing more than throwing rocks at Israeli tanks.
When the level of oppression and state violence becomes intolerable, when young people lose hope for a stable, safe and productive future, there will be resistance, and resistance may take many forms, both nonviolent and violent.
Palestinian civil society has called for nonviolent protest, international boycotts, sanctions and divestment to pressure Israel to end the occupation, provide equal rights for Palestinians and comply with the right of return.
I believe that in addition to Israel, primary responsibility for the current cycle of violence rests with the U.S., which provides $3.8 billion of military aid annually, making it complicit in Israel’s systematic and widespread forms of oppression.
Bob Goonin lives in Minneapolis.
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