What We Must Do to Help Bring Peace to Palestine & Israel
For those of us in the international community watching the devastating carnage in Palestine, the powerlessness is nauseating, but there is something we can and must do to help bring peace to the region. With more than 1,400 Israelis brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists who crossed the apparently impregnable Gaza border, the Israeli response has been unprecedented. Entire neighborhoods raised to the ground, approximately one million people displaced, 12,000 injured and over 4,000 killed: including 750 children. The obvious response to the Hamas killings is one of repugnance. Murdering civilians should never be accepted, no matter the circumstances. If murdering 1,400 innocent civilians is repugnant, what of the indiscriminate mass murder of over 4,000 innocent civilians, the bombing of a hospital which resulted in 500 deaths and the forced displacement of an entire city? And this is just the beginning of the response. With the United States, the U.K., and the E.U. all giving Israel the greenlight to respond as it wishes, the number of dead is sure to rise astronomically. For the most part, the western media is also showing its full support for the Israeli response, and this is having deadly impacts.
Bill Maher defended Israel on his show Realtime saying Israel has always had the moral high ground and that the Gaza strip had been free from Israeli interference since 2005. While it is true that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and 21 illegal settlements were removed from the strip, Israel continued to guard the border and control the skies and maritime space; essentially meaning they control what goes in and what goes out. Israel continues to control the water, electricity, telecommunications, currency, ID issuance and entry permits. It also controls the Palestinian Population Registry and refuses to add people to it. As we are now seeing, it also reserves the right to enter Gaza at any time and prevent civilians from accessing food and water. This all sounds like interference on a draconian level, so much so that the U.N., U.S., U.K. and human rights organizations all reject Israel’s assertion that the Gazan occupation ended in 2005. Surely Bill Maher must know all this?
In referring to the baseless allegation of children being beheaded by Hamas — an allegation boosted by President Biden, both Maher and Alan Dershowitz, in a heated disagreement with U.S. Presidential hopeful Cornel West — made false claims that Israel never intentionally kills children. Again, surely, they must know the truth. Just a quick Google search and you will find details of children aged 17-years-old, 15-years-old and 14-years-old shot in the head by Israeli snipers. During a peaceful protest in 2022, a 9-year-old boy was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper who originally claimed the bullet was rubber. A British forensic team concluded the bullet was definitely not rubber, with more than 100 fragments of bullet lodged in his brain.
In total, 53 Palestinian children were killed in 2022. For those who doubt such claims, the tape-recording of an IDF officer responsible for murdering unarmed 13-year-old girl Iman al-Hams should be enough to discredit the claims that Israel holds the moral ground. A tape-recording of the soldiers clearly proves that Iman was no threat and was actually walking away from the army post towards the refugee camp when she was gunned down. Soldiers identified her as a scared girl around 10-years-old. This didn’t stop an officer pursuing her and shooting her in the leg before moving in to finish the job. “The captain shot Iman twice in the head, walked away, turned back and fired a stream of bullets into her body. Doctors at Rafah’s hospital said she had been shot at least 17 times.” When questioned about the killing, the commander said “This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over.” To reiterate, surely both Maher and Dershowitz must be aware of these killings.
In the debate between Dershowitz and West and on Realtime, the Harvard students who declared that Israel brought this on themselves were attacked with audience members as well as Maher whooping with delight that the students would now not be able to gain employment because of their actions. Apparently, they were antisemitic. Yet, with the same logic, isn’t it Islamophobic to suggest that the Palestinians brought this on themselves as they were clearly saying? Actually, the students were correct. Israeli policies aimed at dividing the Palestinians by separating control of the West Bank and Gaza between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority respectively did help lead to the Hamas attacks. The only reason Hamas were in power in Gaza at all was due to Benjamin Netanyahu propping them up financially with the sole objective of ensuring that a Palestinian state never becomes a reality. In a classic case of divide and rule, he knowingly worked with a group considered to be terrorists rather than allow the Palestinian Authority to control both Gaza and the West Bank; all to ensure that the Palestinians never have a homeland of their own.
Bill Maher also took the opportunity to claim that the Palestinian cause just needed peaceful protests to lead Palestinians towards their own homeland. We have already seen that the Israeli government — led by the far-right Netanyahu — is not interested in Palestinians living with dignity, but let’s imagine for a second they were. Is Bill Maher correct to suggest all Palestinians support violence? In 2018, during the “the Great March of Return”, thousands of peaceful Palestinians protested at the Gaza border with Israel and IDF snipers shot 6,106 unarmed civilians and killed 189 between 30th March and 31st December. Thirty-five of these unarmed civilians were children, three were clearly marked paramedics and two were clearly marked journalists. Among those killed, were a double amputee in a wheelchair and a man on crutches. The U.N. Human Rights Council stated those “killed and injured civilians who were neither directly participating in hostilities nor posing an imminent threat.” In other words, they were peaceful protestors. It doesn’t seem that peaceful protests are going to achieve anything other than hundreds of murders which constitute war crimes that go unpunished.
Just as peaceful protests against systemic police racism in the United States achieve little, and protestors peacefully objecting to the destruction of our planet are ignored, so it is with peaceful Palestinian demonstrations. The status quo remains unaffected. The only way to catch media attention is to use destructive and inconvenient tactics. If Israel had worked together with the Palestinian Authority the past 20 years to work towards a two-state solution, the Hamas attacks would likely never have happened.
When you remove all agency from an entire people, and kill them indiscriminately, it is likely to lead to bloodshed, not peace.
The situation in Palestine is unlikely to improve for the indigenous Palestinian people. In fact, with a U.S. and U.K. backed IDF invasion about to happen, it is likely that tens of thousands will either be killed by IDF violence or thirst and hunger as Israel turns off Gazan life support systems. So, for those of us concerned global citizens, what can we do to help bring about peace? The answer is not violence, but to hit Israel where it hurts: financially and psychologically. During the apartheid system in South Africa, the international response was to boycott South African products, ban sporting tours to the country and remove legitimacy from the apartheid state. A system of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) helped end apartheid in South Africa and it is likely to help end the apartheid state in Palestine too. Americans need to pressure the Biden government to remove the $4 billion in unconditional aid it provides Israel who then use it to build illegal settlements and maintain apartheid. Sports fans can put pressure on FIFA and the IOC to ban Israel from tournaments, just as Russia has been. We can pressure our banks, churches, pension funds and universities to divest from Israeli companies and the state of Israel. Just as happened after Russia invaded Ukraine. Finally, as individuals, we can choose to boycott any Israeli products and services such as Jaffa oranges, Wix.com, Fiverr.com and Monday.com. The U.N. has also created a list of foreign companies who operate in illegal Israeli settlements. Taken together, BDS could have a huge impact on Israel and be the pressure it needs to finally start moving towards an effective two-state solution that allows both Palestinians and Israelis to live in dignity. What we can be sure of is that simply sitting at home and watching our TVs will have zero impact and many more innocent civilians will die in front of our very eyes. The world is watching. We must play our part to bring about peace.
