So this is probably a manifestation of temporary insanity, but I suddenly feel an inexplicable urge to use Facebook as the political-soapbox-with-no-real-accountability-or-actual-effectiveness that it is, and bloviate about my centerist opinion on Israel/Gaza. I think the epic scope of IDF operations in a small, densely populated territory with weak infrastructure is nightmarish and might actually constitute a war crime (though I am not a lawyer so my notion is meaningless). I think Israeli elected officials and IDF leadership should halt or dramatically downscale activities in Gaza because so many Palestinian civilians are dead, even if it means leaving some of Hamass rockets and tunnels in place. At the same time, I disagree with some of my leftist comrades (I am a leftist) that Hamas is a legitimate army of the Palestinian people, that they represent the interests of Palestinians, or that they even have much worth saying anymore. The case may have been different in 2006, when Hamas fielded moderate Gazan doctors, social workers, and academics for election. Now, however, Hamas leadership is as bad as Israels hawkish factions. They are not organizing to protect Gazan civilians when they can and should be doing so. They hold less responsibility than the IDF for civilian deaths, but they hold some. And that some is no more forgivable than what the IDF is doing. Meanwhile, I worry about reports from Israel that dissent against IDF operations is being discouraged or outright censored, in the media, in politicians rhetoric, and even in casual conversations between individuals. If this is true (and Ill learn more when I go to Tel Aviv next week), it seems like more evidence of a growing strain of jingoism and dehumanization of the other in Israels public sphere discourse. Ive noticed this mostly in the course of my fieldwork with African refugees in Tel Aviv, but its not limited to this arena. Important to note: there IS a deep and wide streak of humanitarianism, pluralism, cultural progressivism, and openness running through Israels history and contemporary society. (I insist that Euro-American lefties who cant acknowledge this are either ignorant of facts; or are targeting Israel as a convenient symbol for everything that is wrong, worldwide, with the entity of nation state itself; or are just dickheads.) While the international left is busy slamming Israel from a comfortable remove, 7,000 Israeli people took an _actual_ risk (of censure, of police retaliation, of alienation within their own society) when they gathered to publicly protest the war in Gaza. Thousands of others have participated in the ongoing project of protesting, monitoring, and sitting-in at IDF checkpoints in and around the West Bank and Gaza. I hope that we angry Facebookers, grandly proclaiming that we are done with Israel (as if we ever did anything with Israel in the first place), dont throw away the baby with the bathwater. Despite the persistence of some progressive dissent in Israel, I get the alarming sense that large numbers of Israeli people are slowly letting go of their humanitarian cultural heritage, giving in to top-down fear mongering and sloganeering that is about as nuanced as The Dalek robotically chanting EXTERMINATE. This is a terrible shame and a grave danger. And it wont be helped if the international left ignores or abandons what remains of the Israeli left -- which is going to be the only real effect of these academic and celebrity boycotts of Israel. I assure you, IDF leadership and Ministers of Knesset dont give a shit if the Pixies cancel their Tel Aviv concert or Judith Butler signs a boycott statement. The Israelis who DO care are the cultural producers who seek transnational alliance-building in service of progress. The death and destruction happening in Gaza right now is up to its perpetrators to stop. In order, these perpetrators are the Israeli cabinet, IDF leadership, IDF soldiers, Hamas (and their arms suppliers), the Arab governments (putting no pressure on Netanyahu), Obama and Kerry, and the whole mess of Western governments. The victims of the Gaza war are, overwhelmingly and tragically, its inhabitants, as well as the much smaller number of Israeli dead. In the long run, Israeli progressivism might be a casualty as well. Let the international left not speed its demise.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 22:39:40 +0000
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