Palestinian human rights: The historical task of the Righteous Among the Jews

Today, and since their Nakba in 1948, Palestinians are suffering severe deprivations of basic human rights by the state of Israel, deprivations which amounts to the level of crimes against humanity. In my opinion, ending this tragedy will require the concurrence of multiple struggles. The first and foremost is the struggle of Palestinians themselves, in an organised way, free of existing rotten political parties (OLP/Hamas) together with their dead-end ideologies (nationalism/islamism), and unified across the many dividing frontiers created by Israel. Basically it's a struggle inspired by the first Intifada before it got sold out by the Palestinian leadership during Oslo accords. The second is the struggle of human rights organisations on the international scene, by using all possible means to share and defend the Palestinian narrative in front of the hegemonic Israeli narrative. The third is the struggle of Jews in general, and especially in Israel, to stop the crimes that are perpetrated in their names. In this article, I would like to discuss the latter, which I call the struggle of the Righteous Among the Jews. It's a reference to "Righteous Among the Nations', an honorific term used to describe non-Jews who had the courage to save Jews from Nazi extermination during World War II. 

I strongly believe that you, the Righteous Among the Jews, have a historical role to play today to end the Palestinian tragedy on one hand, and save the Jewish communities on the other hand from the dangerous repercussions of the Zionist enterprise on them. I think that every human being, including Jews, would act as Righteous when the reality of injustice is understood. This article is a call for the rise of Righteous consciousness.

The first step of Righteous consciousness is to be curious about the other reality, the reality beyond the dominant Israeli narrative presented in mainstream media. In the last decades, this narrative focuses on the "terrorist security threat of the islamist Hamas, from which Israel has the right to defend itself", because it resonates with the western public, a public currently almost won to extreme right ideas. 

A great starting point to learn about the other reality is the very recent report by Human Rights Watch, which describes the apartheid and persecution of Palestinians in Israel. The following short video is showcased in the report.

In a nutshell, Palestinians are divided by force into separate and isolated communities:

• Palestinian refugees that were expelled by Zionist militias during the Nakba, and have never been able to come back to their confiscated homes and lands. In general, this population live in overcrowded camps, spread across hosting countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, where they are treated in inhuman way, and live in poverty. For example, in Lebanon, Palestinians in refugee camps do not hold citizenship Lebanese, and therefore they are not entitled to government services, such as health and education. Initially, the Palestinian exodus in 48 touched 700 000 persons, who became around 5 millions today with their descendants. They do not have the right to move to Israel, or the Occupied territories. Compare it to Jews born anywhere in the world, they can visit the aforementioned territories any time, and become Israeli citizens.
• 1.6 Millions Palestinians living in Israel, and holding its citizenship. Although they represent almost 20% of Israel population, however they are concentrated in 3% of land because of systematic discrimination against them. For example, Israeli law permits small towns to exclude prospective residents based on their incompatibility with the town’s “social-cultural fabric”. This law results in more than 900 small Jewish towns that can restrict who lives there, and none of them have any Palestinians living among them. Even-though they are a second class citizen, Israeli-Palestinians suffer the least compared to the other Palestinian groups.
• 2.1 Millions Palestinians living in Gaza, an open prison because of the blockade imposed by Israel, restricting the movement of people and goods. For example, only a minority of projects aimed at vital services in Gaza have been approved by the Israeli authorities, and implementation of approved projects is impeded by the limited capacity at the single crossing for goods. This translates for example to over 90% of water in Gaza being undrinkable, and 90% among Palestinian children and adolescents having experienced personal trauma. 
• 2.7 Millions Palestinians living in the West Bank, which is divided in 3 Zones (A, B and C according to Oslo Accords), and mostly are governed under Israeli military law, except for Israeli settlers who are governed under civil laws. Palestinians rarely get any permits to build houses, or leave the West Bank, where Israeli settlers enjoy exclusive road networks, often built on expropriated Palestinian lands.
• 400 000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, with residency being subject to revocability by Israeli authorities, like already the case of 15 000 Palestinians since 1967. With no construction permits delivered to Palestinians compared to Jews, and an active home demolition policy, more than 1,434 structures were demolished in East Jerusalem by Israeli authorities between 2009 and 2020.

To grasp the level of these oppressive policies, try the mental exercise of replacing, in any of the above paragraphs, Israel with Germany, Jews with Christians and Palestinians with Jews. Those would be just unimaginable situations in Europe no matter what is the excuse or the explanation. For example, If towns in Germany refuses to accept Jews in it to preserve its “social-cultural fabric”.

With these mind blowing facts, the second step of the Righteous consciousness is to ask why? Well, in my opinion, the root caue lies in the Zionist ideology, a nationalist settler colonial endeavour, that originally had a minor influence within Jews, but grew rapidly after the Nazi holocaust. Zionism quickly built alliances with western imperialist powers such as Britain historically, and currently the United States of America, to maintain its existence.

I will not dive into the ideology of Zionism, but you can read famous Jew scholars, like Noam Chomsky, Thomas Suarez and Norman Finkelstein, who asked the Why question, and then became very critical of Israel. Moreover, following the shock of the First Palestinian uprising (Intifada), and the declassification of Israeli government papers dating to the founding of the state in 48, a new generation of Israeli historians emerged in the 90s to question the hegemonic Israeli narrative. They are called the New Historians, and I personally read works of Ilan Pappé and Shlomo Sand. They deconstructed the myths on which the Israeli nationalist narrative is built, just like any other nationalist narrative of other countries. For example, in Lebanon, my country of origin, one of the nationalist narratives goes like this: We are a millennial nation, descendants of Phoenicians; our land is mentioned in the bible many times; we got the trade in our blood, and always victims of others wars on our land; etc... Of course, this is complete bullshit, and the worst, the narrative is mostly invoked to discriminate others.

The Zionist narrative goes like this: Jews around the world form a single nation, a chosen nation by God, who promised the land of Israel. They were forced out of Israel by evil Egyptians a couple of thousands years ago, and ever since they are persecuted across the world. Zionism, which is the political equivalent of Judaism, came to save Jews and return them to their original Land, an empty land for a people without a land. When they arrived, the Arab tribes voluntarily left and sold their deserted lands to them, then Jews worked the land and made it flourish. Ever since then, Arabs try to destroy Israel and throw them to the sea. Arabs made an alliance with Hitler, and keep refusing all peace opportunities with Israel, which don't leave Israel with any other choice but going to David against Goliath wars. However, during wars, Israel aims only at protecting its citizens from terrorists, by exclusively conducting chirurgical military operations, because it has the most moral defense army in the world. However, the arab terrorist do not have any morals, and they use Palestinians as human shields which cause lots of collateral damage. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and any criticism towards Israel and Zionism is a hidden anti-semitism. Gladly, all of these myths were debunked by research of Israeli New Historians.

The Third step of the Righteous consciousness is to understand the consequences of Zionism on Jewish communities, since the consequences on Palestinians is obvious by now. I can think of four main consequences:

• Zionism is rooted in religious and colonial ideology, and this inevitably lead to shifting Israel towards the extreme right in the political space. The founders of Israel belonged to leftists labour parties, and now the extreme right in Israel is dominating the political scene. Extreme right ideas is a prosperous ground to the rise of fascists to power, which has extremely dangerous impact on the Israeli society on the long term. There can't be democracy, freedom and equality together with Fascism and extreme right.
• After decades of successful attempts to collapse Zionism and Judaism into a single thing, the criminal politics of Israeli state is damaging the image of Judaism globally, and thus fuelling Anti-semitic feelings and ideas.
• Unless Israel is able to completely wipe out Palestinian population, Palestinian will keep resisting for their dignity, including with the usage of violence, which won't provide the security Israeli citizens are looking for. Every round of war in Gaza is proving this. 
• Finally, the Israeli society has become very militarised, living in constant fear for survival and a Paranoia of the other. The military complex is sucking a major part of Israel resources, which are no more available to be employed to satisfy human needs in terms of education, health and so on.

Israel has enjoyed since the 67 war a full support of the United States on many levels: Financial, Military and political. For example, over the past five decades, the United States has vetoed at least 53 UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel. The US support of Israel had and still have strong geopolitical ground thanks to the imperialist role Israel has offered to play in the region. However, the geopolitical alliances are not set in stone, and they might evolve according to the interests of US foreign policy, and the internal dynamics in the US. We can already feel a wind of change, with dissident voices raising in the Democrat camp raised by progressist congress men and women such as Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.

Now it's time for the forth and last step of the Righteous consciousness, the time for action. During World War II, no one told the Righteous Among the Nations how to act, they did what seemed to be right. I am asking you, Righteous Among the Jews to do the same. Here are some action possibilities:

• Be curious, dive into history, outside of the usual Israeli narrative. Follow Israeli new Historians, read reports from human rights organisations and consider the perspective of Palestinians by checking their websites, or watching their films.
• Share the Palestinian narrative with your surroundings, your friends, your family. Fight against dehumanisation of Palestinians, because this was always the first step to Genocides, and European Jews know this very well.
• Raise the voice on any international platform to show that Zionism is not Judaism, and Israel is not the exclusive representative of Jews. 
• Refuse to be part of, and deal with Israeli military organisations.
• Refuse to consume goods and services produced on confiscated lands in the Palestinian occupied territories in an illegal manner according to international laws.

You might risk being called a Self Hating Jew, and being in the difficult situation of a dissident, but that's nothing compared to what the history would tell about you if you stay silent. 

Update: A couple of days after I wrote this blog, I stumbled upon a wonderful interview with Gabor Maté, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, one of these "Righteous Among the Jews" according to me, or probably a self hating Jew according to Zionists.