Such rich and in-depth coverage of the
harrowing and heart-wrenching anecdotes of the survivors and victims of the
Hamas attack brings the events to life and makes the gravity of loss in the
Kibbutz deeply palpable. But it is difficult to ignore the apparent demarcation
between how the situations unfolding in Israel and Palestine are being reported
by the Western media. What is disheartening is that all nuance has been lost in
examining the root cause, history, politics, and mechanism of terror, oppression,
and occupation. This incident is not a surprise attack or result of a state's
failure to act. It is quite the opposite.
The attack in southern Israel and the ensuing
retaliatory war in Gaza are unprecedented as people from all over the world –
from Nepal to France to the United States – have lost their lives, and many
immigrant communities in southern Israel and refugee communities in Gaza have
been terrorized.
While there are gruesome acts from both sides, this
is not a war between equals. The cover of international law has not befitted
the Palestinian cause for justice. The meticulous choice of words in
international reporting tells of the one-sided, ahistorical narrative that
elite media in the West is choosing to amplify. Netizens have taken to social
media to bicker about right and wrong, and usually, there is less hope for
constructive dialogues on these vacuous mediums. One will hear what they want
to hear, and see what they want to see. Student groups on college campuses are
being targeted and individuals are being doxxed for solidarity activism.
Harvard professors like Alan Dershowitz are demanding a public release of
information on students who condone violence. Universities are touted as
left-wing indoctrination camps by right-wing media, and any dialogue is quashed
by terming students and scholars critical of the occupation as
"anti-Semitic." Spaces for prayer are needing to be guarded by police
officers on US college campuses to prevent violence. The scope for critical
discourse is slim due to mass polarization and selective exposure to
information.
The big blanket allegation that if someone supports
justice for Palestinians, they also support terrorism and are anti-Semitic,
needs to be taken seriously and questioned. Does this also mean that someone
who grieves the loss of lives in southern Israel supports the oppressive
dehumanizing tactics of the occupation? There might be some on the fringes who
support violence, but they are outliers. Rather than addressing the root cause
of the attack, we are wrangling over outliers. Islamophobia and anti-Semitism
become more accepted and visible to varying degrees as political inclinations
become more pronounced through group politics and biased reporting. Using
religion simplifies complex politics and makes it easier to bifurcate and
galvanize people into group- and identity-based politics.
This tension is fuelled by callous journalism that
perpetually fails to take into account the protracted emergency and the
systemic oppression that has made Gaza into an "open-air prison" and
mass graveyard, depriving its economy and residents of basic necessities to the
extent that donkeys have become critical for mobility. This dire situation has
persisted for decades. It is unfathomable how international state actors could
think of patching up the Middle East without addressing the continuous trauma
inflicted by the apartheid regime.
The constant flurry of reporting fails to
contextualize the occupation when it calls the Hamas attack a surprise attack
and a failure of Israeli intelligence. Israel's border with Gaza has
experienced attacks before. There should not be any residential settlement on a
border that is so fraught with a history of contention. Communities cannot serve
as human shields to protect borders. Houses on Israel's southern Kibbutz need
to have safe rooms to withstand attacks from mortars and rockets. Israel's
articulation of state power and settler colonialism through forced expansion
has pushed its citizens to the edges of precarious living.
The failure of such a strong
state like Israel to act should be questioned further. Not only is it one of
the biggest exporters of surveillance technologies, but its state security
apparatuses (such as Shin Bet and Mossad) also bolster their special brand of
military-industrial complex with billions of dollars of investment into
intelligence infrastructure. The success of these surveillance tools is proven,
as they are tried and tested on Palestinians – providing an experimental lab
for intelligence institutions and defense contractors. With such top-notch
military and intelligence apparatuses and intel from Egyptian intelligence
on an impending attack, why was the rescue operation delayed? This is a
question that Israel needs to answer for itself.
Israel's cunning occupation
tactics, which have resulted in the loss of thousands of lives over decades,
have been justified through the doctrine of double effect, where the loss of
civilian lives is an unintended double effect or collateral damage as the
Israeli state operates to mitigate the terror inflicted by Hamas. Hamas, on the
other hand, directly targets civilians. The terror mechanism from both sides
should be condemned. As Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian mission to
the UK, aptly puts it, "International law must be applied equally."
Terrorism and occupation
share a symbiotic relationship of justifying each other. While the US is
sending arms to Israel, aid has stopped flowing to Gaza where families and
children are in desperate need. Creating further imbalance would only lead to
escalations, and loss of human lives, and also delay any possibility of reaching a
comprehensive solution.
Ahistorical reporting is harmful
as it barely skims over the decades of resistance, ethnic cleansing, emergency
situations, and injustice orchestrated by the occupation. While it is important
to humanize suffering on both sides, it is critical to note that the status of
the occupier and the occupied in this crisis are not the same.
As we speak, downtown Gaza is
being indiscriminately bombarded, while hospitals are turning into morgues and
neighborhoods into mass graveyards. Billions of dollars of hard-earned
taxpayers' money are being channeled into funding this war on terror, which
only results in subsequent cycles of wars and creates vacuums for political
forces that are harder to tame.
