The Democrats are in an awkward position. The apparent party of young people and minorities has found itself between a rock and a hard place. On one hand you have Adolf Yiddler aka Benjamin Netanyahu, perpetually pleading for more funding to kill young people who also happen to be minorities in the Gaza Strip. Not dissimilar from the Las Vegas Strip in the sense that the Jews are making a killing. Ba Dum Tish…
All jokes aside, the attack on October 7th and Israel’s genocidal overreaction are no laughing matter. I’m not pro-Hamas nor would I ever excuse the IDF’s horrific slaughter of civilians. The problem I have is that many Americans on both ends of the political spectrum treat Palestinian history as if it started on Oct. 7th.
And that is far from the case.
Before I get into this, I’m going to present you with a disclaimer: I am not an expert on Middle Eastern history, but, to be fair, most of the people who claim to be experts on anything embraced in the mainstream media are propagandist hacks.
In order to understand the history of Israel, you have to understand the tragedy of antisemitism that plagued Europe for several centuries. In the late 1800s, and well into the early 1900s, Tzarist Russia regularly practiced something that is now known as the Pogroms.
The Pogroms essentially boiled down to this: Something bad (real or imagined) happened in Russia. The locals decided to blame Jews and went to Jewish villages to rape, pillage and murder the local population. As this barbaric practice continued to happen, a man named Theodor Herzl came to the conclusion that Jews could not safely live in Europe any longer and that it was time for them to return to their biblical homeland of Israel. This concept was called Zionism.
There was just one problem - the biblical homeland of the Jewish people also happened to be the contemporary homeland of another group of people: the Palestinian people.
Zionism wasn’t widely embraced by Ashkenazi (European) Jews initially. While some did migrate to Palestine prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, it was largely a fringe ideology. Most Ashkenazi Jews didn’t want to leave their communities in Europe. Even under the constant threat of European Antisemitism, oppression, violence and discrimination; many Jews built businesses, families and an overall sense of community in places like Russia, Germany, and Poland.
Despite these pillars of stability, Jews were always treated like a problem to be solved. Terms like “the Jewish question” became normalized among Europe’s political class. This deplorable dehumanization of Jews along with inspiration from the American Eugenics movement that had a foothold in elite colleges like Stanford University, inspired what would be known as the “final solution” to the “Jewish question.”
We all know what the “final solution” entailed: the death of 6 million Jews. This atrocity fueled what once was fringe - the establishment of a Jewish state in the Middle East and cemented Zionism as a mainstream ideology, not only in Jewish communities, but in the entire Western World.
With the 1948 founding of Israel, the “Jewish question” was effectively answered. And a new question - the “Palestinian question” was born. While many Jewish refugees from Europe were celebrating what they perceived as a return to their indigenous lands, Palestinians had little to celebrate as they simultaneously experienced the Nakba which in Arabic roughly translates to “the catastrophe.”
And, for them, it was catastrophic.
Palestinian history shares a deep similarity to Jewish history in the sense that their lives were always in the hands of others. From the early 1500s until 1918 with a small period of Egyptian occupation in the 1800s, Palestine was occupied by the Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey). And then, after World War 1, Palestine was then transferred over to, and occupied by the British. Palestinian history is a history of occupation with varying degrees of brutality. No matter the level of violence the Palestinians endured, their right to self determination has always been rejected by outsiders.
While previous invaders simply wanted to occupy and exploit the Palestinian people and their territory, the Zionists wanted them removed by any means they deemed necessary. The first phase of this, as previously mentioned, was the Nakba, which ended with the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians, and an additional 15,000 killed.
This is why they resist. Because their lives depend on it.
When the Palestinian people resist their Zionist occupiers, no matter how just the reasoning or how intense the provocation, they are labeled terrorists by Israel and by extension, the Western world.
But terrorism is a subjective word, and in and of itself, is overall meaningless. If we are to trust the dictionary definition of the word in the broadest of senses, terrorism is: “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
If that definition is to be believed, then both the IDF and Hamas are terrorist organizations. The only difference is that one is well-funded, while the other isn’t. Does the American Dollar act as a deciding factor between a terrorist and a hero? In terms of media portrayal and treatment of the perpetrators, no matter how heinous the actions, the answer seems to be yes.
But Intifadas and October 7ths don’t happen out of nowhere. And Hamas didn’t develop out of thin air. Independent of Western perception, these uprisings and militias were created by conditions perpetuated by Israeli policy.
And if anyone understands this, it would be the Jews.
Warsaw is the largest city and capital of Poland. It is home to nearly 2 million residents. It is also home to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
In 1940, Nazi Germany established the largest of the Jewish Ghettos in Poland — the Warsaw Ghetto. The mostly Polish-Jewish population suffered random attacks, starvation and mass shootings at the hands of the Nazi Occupiers. The ghetto, at its peak, was home to 450,000 Jews. These ghettos acted as holding areas to house Jews prior to scheduled deportations to concentration camps. But in 1943, in response to the threat of deportation, two resistance groups: the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Military Union joined forces to confront the Nazis.
The Jewish militia fought the Nazis in a series of surprise attacks. They utilized a collection of stolen and handmade firearms, grenades, and hid in a network of underground bunkers and tunnels. The Nazis were not expecting any sort of resistance, and after taking casualties, they responded by indiscriminately bombing the Warsaw Ghetto, killing resistance fighters and civilians alike.
Sound familiar?
There are some differences between the Warsaw Uprising and the October 7th attack. That is undeniable. However, while yes, Hamas killed civilians at a music festival, it is common knowledge that everyone upon entering adulthood in Israel has to join the IDF.
From Hamas’ point of view, they likely viewed the music festival as an event attended by off-duty IDF soldiers. Soft targets.
And even if they weren’t in the military, the IDF has killed and abducted scores of Palestinians. There are nearly 3,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails without charge under a practice called “administrative detention.”
That’s not a justification, but context. If you were living in an open air prison, and you were constantly under the threat of death, injury or arrest by an occupying army, would you give a fuck about the people that army was purported to protect? Or would you resent them for taking the things you and your people have dreamt of having for over 75 years: basic human rights and equal treatment under the law?
Revenge is an impulse, and people are impulsive. This may be hard to remember, but Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his actions, is still a person. A notoriously unreasonable person. One has to wonder, what drives his general disagreeableness? Could it be the death of his brother, Yonatan Netanyahu? Did a bullet in a military skirmish fired by a resistance fighter dehumanize Palestinians past the point of him recognizing their fundamental right to life itself?
It appears that way.
Genocides never yield positive political results, and Israel’s actions in Gaza are damaging Israel’s standing in the world. After watching multiple interviews with Netanyahu, it is immediately clear that he’s smart. His fascist coalition, the Likud Party, is destroying Israel from the inside out. Once again, he’s not a stupid man. His actions don’t appear to be in Israel’s best interest, so his goal must be something else. Netanyahu regularly argues for Israel’s “right to exist," but turning Israel into a rogue pariah state, threatens its ability to. It also threatens every single person with any ounce of identifiable Jewish ancestry simply by association. Why? Because the world is filled with people… vengeful people just like Netanyahu.
Zionism has been a disaster. It’s long been awful for Palestinians and neighboring Arab nations. And it’s slowly becoming a disaster for Jews too. The key argument for Israel’s existence is based upon a fallacy — that it has a right to. But rights don’t exist. All rights are simply privileges misunderstood by those entitled enough to believe their privileges can’t be taken away. And privileges have to be earned, the best way to earn a privilege is by providing a solution. Not a final solution, but a solution that is final.
And the only true solution is a one-state solution where both Arab and Jew alike are treated equally under the law. While I understand the idealism the propels the concept of a two state solution forward, it will just lead to war in the future.
These scars can’t be healed with a wall and armed guards protecting contested borders. They can only be healed by an uncomfortable confrontation with history, and an acknowledgement that for once, in this particular scenario, the Jews aren’t the victims, they’re the ones with the power of an empire on their side even if the fear that inspired the violence was fueled by the pains of past victimization.
From the river to the sea, I imagine a holy land where everyone is free.
I mean...a one state solution would, I believe, have Jews outnumbered so we'd have to confront the reality that the other side would do pretty much the same damned thing in perhaps a slightly different way if they had the power on their side. That's a key issue in this conflict
Thank you for explaining this so well, it really helped me understand more!