Sympathy for Palestinian misery – Chronicles

The question was valid: “How can you, a conservative and a gentleman, be for? they?”

The questioner is a long-standing acquaintance, also a gentleman, so I bothered to explain. “Because I've been there and seen what happens up close.”

It goes without saying that we are talking about the Middle East, and my sympathy is more for the Palestinians than for little Israel, surrounded as it is by hostile Arab nations. I was based in Amman from 1969 and through the “black september” a year later, when King Hussein destroyed the PLO's effort to take over his country. I had visited the Palestinian refugee camps, occupied by those displaced during the founding of Israel in 1948. I then covered the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and since then have visited many more such camps in Lebanon. All I can say is that once you've seen the misery of life in these camps, it would take a heart of stone not to feel something for the Palestinians.

But don't take my word for it. Israel is operating “a regime of state terror whose reason to be is the theft of Palestinian land and, whenever possible, the expulsion of its Palestinian owners.” wrote David Schulman in the October issue of The New York Review of Books. “I've seen this system in action for the last twenty years,” said Schulman, who is a Jewish professor at Israel's Hebrew University.

Pro-Israelis might immediately think of Schulman, “There's another self-hating Jew.” I don't know the professor, but I have met many Israelis who not only agree with him, but are adamant that Israel under Netanyahu has become an occupying power bent on capturing the entire West Bank. One thing is for sure, state violence against Palestinians living under occupation has increased dramatically.

It is hard for me to describe what I have seen with my own eyes when Jewish settlers come face to face with Palestinians. These settlers are religious fanatics, mostly young men and women, who are imbued with a burning racist hatred of the Palestinians. When disputes between these two groups occur, the Israeli army and police, although supposedly neutral, invariably side with the settlers. Thus, another Arab village is emptied and Israeli religious fanatics take up residence. The plan is simple and openly embraced by government officials: make life unbearable for the Palestinians so they leave for Jordan or Saudi Arabia—or anywhere else. and eventually all of the West Bank will be Jewish.

Well, it's a dream, because there is 5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza who are not exactly wanted by other Arab countries. Netanyahu's plan, expressed in 2019 on Israeli army radio, was to annex all West Bank settlements and historic sites linked to Israel. But then October 7th came and we know the rest.

Or do we know the whole story? There is a long-standing pattern in this disputed land: Netanyahu was first pushed to the prime minister's office for the public reaction against Palestinian suicide bombings. Since then, he and his hard-liners have encouraged the growth of extremist Palestinian groups, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, because the threat they pose helps keep Netanyahu and the Likud Party in power.

The horrific attacks on October 7 have been followed by the massacre of innocent Palestinians in Gaza, with more than 3,000 children killed there in the past three weeks, which is more than in all global conflicts combined over the past year. according to the non-profit charity Save the Children.

Israel for many years has practiced relentless violence against the Palestinians as an occupying power. Palestinian extremist groups, for their part, often exceed Israelis in violence. And then the deadly pattern begins again. I mean were the October 7th attacks justified? Of course not, but it is clear that in its reaction Israel is losing the PR battle, which is in line with Hamas' plans.

Back in America, the conflict in the Middle East has turned American universities into battlefields. Unfortunately, this means that my Palestinian sympathies are shared with left-wing students who want to write off Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and other great Americans. These students are often blinded by their simplistic ideology, except in this case it is undeniably true when they say that the Palestinians are a people oppressed by a colonizing regional superpower.

If he had ever visited and lived among the oppressed and the oppressors, he would certainly be on the side of the Israelis. Look at what they have done to their land compared to what the Palestinians have achieved: zero. And yet I have lived there and seen what happens with my own eyes and I cannot ignore what I have seen. I first wrote a variation of these words more than 40 years ago, and they still apply: A Palestinian mother cries as bitterly as an Israeli mother does after losing a child, so something must be done. ◆