Israel and the State of the Art in Oppression

In one sense the conflict over Palestine is fairly simple and can be summarized in terms of dispossession, colonialism and occupation. The people living there were pushed off so some other people could live there who claimed a moral and historical right to the land. In simple terms, then, this dispossession etc., has been and is an egregious injustice in need of being righted because the moral/historical rights claimed are invalid.

In another sense, the conflict over Palestine is complicated because the dispossessors, colonialists, occupiers have for century’s regarded themselves as victims (and indeed, have been victimized). Further, by many accounts - despite Jewish-Israeli actions in Palestine - many (but by no means all) have not yet grasped to what extent past memories of victim-hood have lost their emotive thus persuasive force, given decades long practices of oppression. The victims are now victimizers. The oppressed are now oppressors. Yet, the perception of being a victim rather than an oppressor - this perception being centuries long and indeed a fundamental aspect of how Jewish identity is constructed - is not easily challenged. When ones whole identity is tied up in remembering, for all time, that one is part of an oppressed people, it may not be so easy as it seems to then expect self-defined victims to redefine themselves despite all evidence to the contrary.

What is is, however. The simplicity of the conflict and the complexity of the conflict both need to be understood but in the end, it doesn’t change the (in)justice of the matter nor to what depths that injustice has sunk.

In that light, my personal inquiry into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while not addressing much of the complexity or all of the key events nonetheless hits onto much within this conflict that is simple. Dispossession, occupation and oppression are rather simple to discern in this conflict.

Read the rest of this entry »