Galina, what can you say about Israel and Palestine?
In the UK there is a pervasive opinion that the situation unfolding in Palestine over the past 75 years is too complicated for the average person to understand. Historically this has obfuscated the matter, keeping the majority of regular people from engaging in meaningful discussion about it for fear of saying the wrong thing out of ignorance. Inevitably this allows people to push their views with the caveat that, if someone disagrees, they simply haven’t taken the time to understand such a complex political situation.
I will not claim to be an expert on this and am still learning. But whilst it is complicated politically, it is not complicated morally. It is my understanding that the Israeli government are a colonial operation using religion as a Trojan horse through which to settle on land which belongs to multiple peoples. This is not about Judaism, it’s about colonial power over land and over the native people. The UK have been politically involved in allowing (or even encouraging) this problem since the start of the 20th century.
I believe it is possible to criticise Israel’s occupation of Palestine whilst simultaneously not allowing this criticism to lean into the antisemitic. I would like to be clear about this. We can also interrogate and dismantle the ways we might perpetuate discrimination against Jewish people whilst supporting the human rights of those in Palestine.
As usual I feel uncomfortable listing things I’ve done as a self-congratulatory public exercise but here are some things to do:
Use the Palestine Campaign’s University Complicity Database to find out how much your university has invested in unethical companies
Write to your university asking them to divest and commit to BDS
Sign the petition requesting that the UK Government impose sanctions on Israel
Write to your local MP to let them know you’ve signed the petition and ask for their support when this is debated in the House of Commons
Write to the Foreign Office asking them to take action in support of the Jerusalemite families at imminent risk of forced eviction from their homes
Encourage your workplace, university or community to interrogate their spending and to support the BDS movement
Be vocal in your support for human rights across the board, with family, friends, colleagues; be interrogative and wary of misinformation online
Check in with your Jewish pals as antisemitism is also rife under the false pretences of being anti-oppression
Edward Said, The Question of Palestine
Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, Shilton Ha Chok
Joe Sacco, Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza
Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappé, On Palestine
Ilan Pappé, Ten Myths About Israel
Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Force Made a Nation (May 2020 – currently free as an e-book, and blog post from the author with up to date commentary)
Audrea Lim, The Case for Sanctions Against Israel
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