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An Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza is the Only Humane Path Forward [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-11-01

I have read DailyKos for years, never officially registering or joining discussions. I always saw it as a resource, somewhere to go to understand politics from talented writers who could break down what’s happening politically and culturally with much more local knowledge than I have, and a place where I felt at home—on matters of race, gender and sexuality, and issues of class and economics.

Until the past few weeks. Ironically, this prompted me to create an account and to post my thoughts on what is happening in Gaza. I usually don’t put myself out there like this, so the anonymity is somehow reassuring, though posting a diary makes me nervous, but here goes:

I am of Lebanese heritage. My grandparents came to the US in the 1950s. My father worked for GM and I grew up outside Detroit, along with hundreds of thousands of other Arab immigrants to the US. I have always taken a keen interest in what happens in the Middle East and began traveling to Lebanon regularly in the 1990s after the Lebanese civil war ended. I have read voraciously on the region—from the Lebanese Civil War, to the reasons for the wars the US waged on Iraq, to the Israel/Palestine conflict. I have many Palestinian friends. My Arabic is not perfect but it’s fluent enough for me to read basic texts, to understand the news, and to speak with my family.

I have been reading diaries and comments on the current Israeli/Palestine war with some surprise and dismay. I have no interest in any angry confrontation with anyone here. I was horrified and disgusted by the atrocities committed by Hamas. I condemn them without reservation. They do not represent what I believe—that all life is precious. That Jewish Israelis deserve to live in peace and security, just as my family in Lebanon do. And just as Palestinians do. That is what we must aspire to. And we have to be able to elevate our ability to understand each other, to have fact-based discussions, and to act as though the person on the opposing end of a discussion, especially here, is operating in good faith.

Unfortunately, based on what I’ve read on dkos in the past week, I do not believe that many here agree with me that Palestinians deserve to live in peace and security. Let me reiterate: I condemn Hamas. Their ideology is violent and anti-Semitic. I would be betraying the Jewish friends I grew up with to rationalize the horror of what they did by talking about the Israeli occupation as a cause. Hamas’s actions weaken Palestinian claims and I wish more Arabs and supporters of Palestine would recognize this. I am keenly aware of the reverberations such a massacre has had on Jews all over the world—recalling a history of persecution, pogroms, and the Holocaust. And I am aware, as many here have argued, that Hamas did what it did knowing that Israel would respond with overwhelming force. This is all the more reason to oppose Hamas—they cavalierly murdered Israelis--both Jewish and Arab, as Arab Bedouin were also killed in the massacre of Oct. 7— and forced Israel to respond with overwhelming military force. I acknowledge all of this and see it as a horrible tragedy for everyone involved. In my view—and this is where I know many will disagree with me—this does not justify giving Netanyahu a green light to commit atrocities against the people of Gaza.

Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is being carpet bombed. Israel has already used white phosphorus and has cut water and electricity to the entire population. Half of Gaza’s population has been forced to flee to “safety” where they are still being bombed. These are war crimes. If war crimes are bad when Hamas commits them, they are bad when Israel commits them, even if, as many claim, Israel is acting in self-defense. The death toll in Gaza and the West Bank will only be fully known after Israel decides to end the war, but it will be high and it will be largely civilian, with a disproportionate number of children murdered.

It is also highly unlikely that decimating Gaza, committing war crimes, and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians will make Israelis safer. It may bring a temporary period of calm that lasts a year or two or five. But eventually, Hamas will reconstitute in a more extreme form after this onslaught of violence. The only way to delegitimize groups like Hamas in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict is to engage in good faith efforts to establish a real Palestinian state, something Netanyahu has openly opposed and worked to undermine, empowering fascist settlers and completely neutering Mahmoud Abbas and the PA. Sadly, this policy of making the PA irrelevant is one championed by Trump and maintained by Biden. It was a disastrous policy to think the Palestinian problem would just go away if we marginalize it and allow the far right in the Israeli government to enact their dream of settling all the West Bank . It used to be that official American policy was to support a two-state solution, to criticize the settlements, and to try to establish dialogue between Israel and Palestinians. Why did we allow that to disappear?

I want to also say the following from an Arab-American perspective: The Palestinian story is bigger than Hamas. It is a story of love for their land and their ancestors, a story of tragic displacement and ethnic cleansing, a story of resistance, at times violent, but also non-violent that is always met with Israeli brutality. Why have non-violent forms of resistance to oppression been met with violence and delegitimization? Do Palestinians have any right to resist? Can you please let us know what they should do if peaceful protest is met with violence and nobody pays attention? We Arabs want to know if Palestinians are required only to be passive victims.

Despite living under occupation for decades under an Israeli system of rule that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’tselem, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu all have termed apartheid, Palestinians persist. Despite having their children held hostage in Israeli prisons without trial (there are 170 Palestinian children held captive in Israeli prisons), Palestinian mothers persist. Despite the violence against them day in and day out, despite the humiliations and the racism directed at them day in and day out, they persist. If we should rightfully be aware of anti-semitism, we should also be aware of anti-Arab racism, both in official Israeli government policy and in the way the mass media reports on this war.

From Arab eyes, and hopefully the eyes of many progressives, what is happening to Gaza right now is the collective punishment and dehumanization of a civilian population. I will always oppose attacks on civilians, whether committed by Hamas or by Israel. The only way forward in this conflict is through real, substantive negotiations. This begins with an immediate ceasefire. In the past weeks, I have felt that to call for peace through an immediate ceasefire is somehow controversial. Are we not able to mourn Israelis and Palestinians simultaneously? And if not, why not? Hostages must be exchanged. If we are horrified that Hamas has taken hostages, we should be equally horrified that Israel takes hostages. Gazans must have access to clean water, medical care, and they must be able to rebuild. The embargo on Gaza must be lifted. Israel’s policy appears to be to make Gaza uninhabitable. If this is the case, Israel will be guilty of genocide. This is a difficult word to use, but it is one my community is using to describe what Israel is doing, and Arab American voices matter too. End this war. End the collective punishment of Palestinians. End the occupation. Pressure the American government to act as a truly fair and honest broker that recognizes the humanity of Palestinians and their legitimate aspirations to statehood. I fear we have already crossed a precipice and the longer the collective punishment of Gaza goes on, the more difficult it will be to turn back. This diary may be controversial and may not be welcome here, but it is coming from one corner of the Democratic Party that is not being listened to.

Peace/Salam/Shalom.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/1/2202958/-An-Immediate-Ceasefire-in-Gaza-is-the-Only-Humane-Path-Forward?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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