Gazan Gandhis: Gaza Bleeds Alone as 'Liberals' and 'Progressives' Go Mute
11 May 2018By
Ramzy Baroud
Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of
thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the
Gaza-Israel border.
Yet as the casualty count keeps climbing - nearly 45 dead and over 5,500
wounded - the deafening silence also continues. Tellingly, many of those who
long chastised Palestinians for using armed resistance against the Israeli
occupation are nowhere to be found, while children, journalists, women, and
men are all targeted by hundreds of Israeli snipers who dot the Gaza border.
Israeli officials are adamant. The likes of Defense Minister, Avigdor
Lieberman, perceives his war against the unarmed protesters as a war on
terrorists. He believes that "there are no innocents in Gaza." While the
Israeli mindset is not in the least surprising, it is emboldened by the lack
of meaningful action or outright international silence to the atrocities
taking place at the border.
The International Criminal Court (ICC), aside from frequent statements laced
with ambiguous legal jargon, has been quite useless thus far. Its Chief
Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, derided Israel's killings in a recent statement,
but also distorted facts in her attempt at 'even-handed language', to the
delight of Israeli media.
"Violence against civilians - in a situation such as the one prevailing in
Gaza - could constitute crimes under the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court … as could the use of civilian presence for the purpose of
shielding military activities," she said.
Encouraged by Bensouda's statement, Israel is exploiting the opportunity to
deflect from its own crimes. On April 25, an Israeli law group, Shurat Hadin,
is seeking to indict three Hamas leaders at the ICC, accusing Hamas of using
children as human shields at the border protests.
It is tragic that many still find it difficult to grasp the notion that the
Palestinian people are capable of mobilizing, resisting and making decisions
independent from Palestinian factions.
Indeed, for the nearly decade-long Hamas-Fatah feud, the Israeli siege on Gaza
and throughout the various destructive wars, Gazans have been sidelined, often
seen as hapless victims of war and factionalism, and lacking any human agency.
Shurat Hadin, like Bensouda, is all feeding into that dehumanizing discourse.
By insisting that Palestinians are not capable of operating outside the
confines of political factions, few feel the sense of political responsibility
or moral accountability to come to the aid of the Palestinians.
This is reminiscent of former US President Barack Obama's unsolicited lecture
to Palestinians during his Cairo speech to the Muslim world in 2009.
"Palestinians must abandon violence," he said. "Resistance through violence
and killing is wrong and does not succeed."
He then offered his own questionable version of history of how all nations,
including 'black people in America', the nations of South Africa, South East
Asia, Eastern Europe and Indonesia fought and won their freedom by peaceful
means only.
This demeaning approach - of comparing supposed Palestinian failures to
others' successes - is always meant to highlight that Palestinians are
different, lesser beings who are incapable of being like the rest of humanity.
Interestingly, this is very much the core of the Zionist narrative about the
Palestinians.
That very notion is often presented in the question "where is the Palestinian
Gandhi?" The inquiry, often asked by so-called liberals and progressives, is
not an inquiry at all, but is a judgement - and an unfair one at that.
Addressing the question soon after the last Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, Jeff
Stein wrote in Newsweek, "The answer has been blown away in the smoke and
rubble of Gaza, where the idea of non-violent protest seems as quaint as
Peter, Paul and Mary. The Palestinians who preached non-violence and led
peaceful marches, boycotts, mass sit-downs and the like are mostly dead, in
jail, marginalized or in exile."
Yet, astonishingly, it is being resurrected again, despite the numerous odds,
the unfathomable anger, and unrelenting pain.
Tens of thousands of protesters, raising Palestinian flags continue to hold
their massive rallies across the Gaza border. Despite the high death toll and
the thousands maimed, they return every day with the same commitment to
popular resistance that is predicated on collective unity, beyond factionalism
and politics.
But why are they still being largely ignored?
Why isn't Obama tweeting in solidarity with Gazans? Why isn't Hillary Clinton
taking the podium to address the unremitting Israeli violence?
It is politically convenient to criticize Palestinians as a matter of course,
and utterly inconvenient to credit them, even when they display such courage,
prowess and commitment to peaceful change.
The likes of famed author, J.K. Rowling, had much to stay in criticism of the
peaceful Palestinian boycott movement, which aims at holding Israel
accountable for its military occupation and violations of human rights. But
she became mute when Israeli snipers killed children in Gaza while cheering
whenever a child falls.
The singer Bono of the band U2 dedicated a song to the late Israeli President
Shimon Peres, accused of numerous war crimes, but his voice seems to have
grown hoarse as the Gaza boy, Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub, 15 was shot by an
Israeli sniper while protesting peacefully at the border.
However, there is a lesson in all of this. The Palestinian people should have
no expectations of those who have constantly failed them. Chastising
Palestinians for failing at this or that is an old habit, meant to simply hold
Palestinians responsible for their own suffering, and to absolve Israel from
any wrongdoing. Not even Israel's 'incremental genocide' in Gaza will change
that paradigm.
Instead, Palestinians must continue to count on themselves; to stay focused on
formulating a proper strategy that will serve their own interests in the long
run, the kind of strategy that transcends factionalism and offer all
Palestinians a true roadmap to the coveted freedom.
The popular resistance in Gaza is just the beginning; it must serve as a
foundation for a new outlook, a vision that will ensure that the blood of
Mohammed Ibrahim Ayoub is not spilled in vain.
- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle.
His latest book is 'The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story' (Pluto Press, London,
2018). Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter
and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International
Studies, University of California Santa Barbara. His website is
www.ramzybaroud.net
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